Act of Mercy

by Mandy M. Roth

  “I can’t leave you here. And what about the others they have locked up?” she asked, her thoughts running to those she’d not been able to get to in time. “I can’t walk away from all of you.”

  “Woman,” he said, taking in a big, shaky breath. “The men coming won’t play games. They won’t stop to ask if you’re friendly. They will end you to get to me. Without the safe word I told you to use, you’re just another face in the crowd of fucked up around here.”

  She gasped. If he was right, she’d painted another target on herself.

  “Go. Get as far from here as you can,” he said, hope lost in his gaze. He’d been through so much. She couldn’t let him go through any more alone.

  She shook her head. She was already up against the Corporation. What was one more group that was deadly and possibly gunning for her? “I can’t leave you all. Brad and Vic are counting on me as well.”

  Brad and Victor were test subjects who had been housed within the facility during her time there. They’d been with the Corporation longer than the current test subject. And she’d already failed them. She’d not gotten them out before they’d been transferred. She had to find their new location. They couldn’t continue being subjected to the torture the scientists were putting them through. Not to mention the bizarre training.

  She still wasn’t sure what that had all been about. She just knew it couldn’t be good. It was as if they were being groomed to be fighting machines for the Corporation.

  The injured man before her put his head on the floor. “You can’t stay. I can smell the Fae on you. The higher ups here have to know the truth too. If not, one of the other shifters here will eventually tell them. I’ve got a bit of Fae in me so I smell it quicker than others. It won’t take the shifters here much longer to figure out something is different with you. To save themselves, they might give you up. If my men don’t kill you by mistake, these monsters will grab you and experiment on you too.”

  Mercy nearly ran but forced herself to stay in place. He was delirious and not making any sense. She didn’t have any Fae on her, whatever that was. “I tested myself.”

  He looked at her. “And?”

  “The tests didn’t make sense.”

  He nodded, sadness edging the corners of his eyes. It was as though he pitied her. He was locked up by madmen but felt bad for her. “I know.”

  She held tight to the tears wanting to come. She knew the bind she’d gotten herself into. And she realized getting out of it would more than likely cost her life. But it was a small price to pay in the face of all she’d been an unwitting participant in. “Your wounds need tending to. I’m staying. That is that.”

  “You are a damned fool. That or you want to die. Have you given up on life so young, Mercy?” He looked tired as he said it but there was something else there, surprise maybe. He expected her to abandon him. As if he’d been let down by others many times before.

  She understood what it was like to be let down by people close to you. She’d been a child of the system ever since she could remember, bouncing from foster home to foster home. She’d buried herself in schoolwork, and no matter what had been thrown at her she kept going, kept focusing on her dream to one day make a difference in the world. Though, this wasn’t the difference she had in mind. “I’ve been called worse.”

  “Jimmy,” he said softly, confusing her as to why he’d call her that.

  “What?”

  “My name is Jimmy and you need to listen to me closely,” he said, his hand moving to her thigh. His touch was comforting. Strangely, he managed to give off a protective vibe when he was the one who obviously required protection. She’d never had anyone be protective of her before. It was strange and nice all in one. “Get out of here. Go to a safe location. Not your home. They’ll look there first. Don’t use any credit cards. Cash only. Go and stay gone. I’ll find you once I’m free. You’ve my word. Just stay alive, little doctor.”

  “You’re not in any condition to do anything,” she said, checking him over to see just how bad his injuries were. While she appreciated his concern, she couldn’t do what he asked—even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. The Corporation kept close watch on her. They’d told her that they had eyes on her apartment building—whatever that meant. And they seemed to know things they shouldn’t, like where she’d go for lunch or if she left the city limits at any point. She’d never be able to outrun them on her own and if Jimmy’s people had it in for her too, she was extra screwed. No point in running.

  He caught her wrist, his eyes pleading. “Go, Doc. Just go.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “You’re a good person. I don’t want you hurt.”

  “Well, that goes both ways, buddy.” Standing, she glanced at the cameras, hoping her bug in the system was doing what it was designed to do. She left Jimmy’s side and went to the medicine holding area. There, she was able to find something for the pain. She took a vial of it and a syringe. When she returned it was to find Jimmy trying again to sit up.

  It didn’t work.

  She bent and administered the morphine. She understood his genetic makeup now. She knew why he seemed able to endure more than a human ever could. Mercy knew he had animal DNA in him along with something she’d never seen before. She also knew his body would go through the morphine quickly. That was why she gave him much more than one ever would a human.

  He stopped moving around and blinked up at her. “Thank you.”

  She nodded and touched his forehead lightly, wanting to give comfort. “Anyone else would be out cold right now.”

  “I’m hardy stock,” he said with a tiny laugh.

  “How long will you take to heal?” she asked. “Assuming they aren’t able to injure you again.”

  He rolled onto his back and the action looked like it wasn’t comfortable, even with the morphine in his system. “A week, possibly longer. They are using weapons specific for my genetic makeup against me. That always takes longer to heal than most other things. If I was given a transfusion from another of my kind that would certainly speed the process.”

  His words only served to make her hate the Corporation more. “They’re animals.”

  “No,” he said, glancing at her. “I’m an animal and we’d never do this to someone.”

  She had to laugh softly at his words. He was right. He did carry animal in him and his heart was obviously big. “You’re right. They’re just monsters.”

  A slight nod was all he added.

  “Last time we were able to talk you were telling me about your brothers,” she said, knowing she should go before someone caught her there, but she knew he needed to take his mind off the pain. “You never gave me names before. Of course, you let me call you Test Subject 87P too.”

  He snorted and then coughed, touching his ribs lightly. “You like the stories about the one who seems to hate everything.”

  She smiled. She did enjoy the stories about that one. “He doesn’t really hate everything, does he? He doesn’t really curse laptops and think all technology is the devil, does he?”

  “No to the first, yes to the second.” Jimmy looked her over. “Something deep in me tells me he’d not hate you. Far from it. Hell, I’ve got a feeling that five minutes near you and he’ll finally find something he loves.”

  She touched Jimmy’s hand. “Is he one of the people who will come for you?”

  “Probably, yes, but he hates France so he might just send someone else. That or show up and bitch me for being stupid enough to get caught in the first place. That would be a very him thing to do.”

  She laughed.

  “What are you doing in here?” asked, Dr. Bertrand, surprising Mercy with his presence.

  She stood and wiped her bloody hands on her lab coat. “I came to double check a malfunction in the ultrasonic wave generator. Aren’t you who reported the problem?”

  She knew it had a problem. She was the one who’d sabot
aged it. Mercy knew she might require a cover story for being in the building. And she knew one of Dr. Bertrand’s favorite torture devices came in the form of ultrasonic sound. The pain and damage it caused the test subjects with animal DNA in them was well known throughout the Corporation.

  The man, tall, slim and disturbingly pale, leered at her through beady eyes. She couldn’t miss the way he stared with glee at Jimmy. The German doctor was good friends with another scientist. One who had made frequent stops at the Corporation.

  Gisbert Krauss.

  Prior to getting to know him, Krauss had been somewhat of a hero in Mercy’s mind. His advancements into human DNA and his theories on splicing it had kept her riveted to his journal publications.

  That was before.

  Before she knew the truth about him.

  Before she understood the past monsters he’d modeled himself after and the lengths he’d gone to in order to gain his innovative ideas.

  He deserved to be punished—to the full extent of the law—or fed to the guys who could shift into animals. Seemed fitting.

  Krauss looked harmless enough but she knew the truth. He had a dark heart and an evil soul. He’d brought Brad and Victor to the facility. They’d arrived in cages, like they were animals, and all the while Krauss had smiled, as if it were part of his crowning glory.

  Bastard.

  He’d been grooming Bertrand in his image. She’d seen firsthand what he would in the name of science. Bile rose just thinking about it.

  She also knew what Dr. Bertrand was capable of. She’d retrieved footage of his cruelties.

  “What are you doing in this cell?” he demanded.

  “I thought he was dead,” she said, keeping her distance yet placing herself between Dr. Bertrand and Jimmy. He wouldn’t survive another round of torture. He needed time to heal. If she had to sacrifice herself to give him that time, she would. “And I know how much you value your test subjects.”

  He paused, looking her over as a man would a woman he wanted. She fought the need to shiver. If he dared to touch her she’d do something violent. She wasn’t exactly sure what, because she wasn’t violent by nature, but she knew it would be something big.

  He reached for her and Jimmy reacted, trying to stop him. Jimmy was in no shape to help anyone, let alone her. He simply fell onto his side, crying out in pain, breaking Mercy’s heart more.

  Bertrand watched the actions of them both with a look that said he was onto them. She held her head high. “Do you want your damn wave generator fixed or not?”

  “I do,” he said. “Come.”

  Nodding, she followed him out of the cell and turned, keying in the code to lock Jimmy’s cell door. She added a few extra orders to the door. It would take the Corporation at least twenty-four hours to find a way to get the door to open again. That would allow Jimmy at least some time to heal.

  Bertrand grabbed her roughly by the arm. “Come. Fix the generator.”

  She had to fight to keep her lip from curling at his touch. He dragged her to the end of the cellblock, to an office used by the doctors who frequented the area. The generator was on the edge of the desk.

  Mercy jerked her arm free from Bertrand and shot him a nasty look, surprising herself with her bravery. “Try saying please. An ounce of polite goes a long way.”

  Chapter Three

  Somewhere Over the Atlantic Ocean…

  Duke sat on the plane, his fingers digging into the beige-colored leather armrests of his seat. The plane was PSI property—one of their many toys. This one was made to accommodate a team of six to eight men. Since they weren’t exactly small men, that said something. The entire interior was decked out with high-end fixtures and furnishings. Swanky was how he’d refer to it. All he wanted was a parachute. He didn’t really give a shit about anything else. Private and expensive did not equal safe. At least not in his mind.

  He was a wolf.

  Wolves didn’t fly.

  They ran fast and killed things. Sometimes they did it with a group of other wolves. Other times, they acted alone.

  Flying wasn’t part of the gig.

  When he’d first been recruited into the agency, planes weren’t a reality. Flying wasn’t expected of him. He’d been brought on because he could track just about anything through anywhere and he had a hell of an aim. Not to mention, he could shape-shift into a wolf and do damage that way. He’d not been brought on for his love of modern inventions. Much had changed in his two hundred and fifty plus years on this earth.

  The other PSI-Ops on board had no issues with flying. Boomer was relaxing with his feet propped up as he watched a movie. The plane had reclining seats that folded out into beds, as well as a back area with sleeping quarters for each team member. Boomer had turned on a movie to watch on one of the many viewing screens and had not budged since take off. He’d been nodding off and snoring most of the flight. The fact he made any noise at all attested to how safe Boomer felt. None of the men were predisposed to snoring during normal sleep—they’d been trained to make no noise or risk alerting the enemy.

  If it wasn’t for James, Duke would have been clawing at the seat, pitching a fit about being forced to defy gravity. James was a brother-in-arms and you didn’t leave a man behind.

  Period.

  All the men had seen combat before becoming a PSI operative. War had been going on since the dawn of time and there was no shortage of battles or warriors to fight in them. Duke had been in many wars. The earliest being the American Revolution. He’d been just a boy, barely in his teens back then. Didn’t matter. He was fighting for what he believed in, plus it wasn’t as though he and his countrymen had a ton of choices. They had to stand against England. He’d felt it was his duty to protect the land he’d been born to. Much had changed over the centuries. For one, he no longer used a musket—thank the gods. What a tedious weapon that had been. Stop. Shoot. Reload. Reload some more. Hope it didn’t misfire. Repeat the steps. England was no longer an enemy but rather an ally, and the wars tended to happen on other countries’ soil. Well, that was what everyone kept telling him anyways.

  Though, he, like many, could still vividly recall where he was the day the towers came down. That was an act of war on American soil. No one could tell him different.

  Yes, there was much that had changed since he’d been barely in his teens and taken up arms against Britain. He and his cousins had done so. Six Marlow boys went off to war. Three men returned.

  Hiding what they were amongst the carnage was hard. Duke had been going through puberty and already had enough hormonal changes to deal with, but couple in the wolf he carried going through its own sets of changes and he was a temperamental nightmare. He and his cousins would sneak away from their regiment on some nights, shift forms and run as wolves. It was how they kept control of Duke—and kept him from eating other soldiers. Well, their side at least. They didn’t really give a shit if he ate the bad guys.

  He liked to give Corbin a hard time because the man was British and in a position of authority. Plus, he drank a lot of tea and ate crumpets. What kind of self-respecting alpha male shifter ate something called a crumpet? It was engrained in Duke to be defiant to him.

  In the end, they had each other’s backs.

  As an operative always did. They’d been through a lot together. Not all of it was good. War had a way of making a man out of you. It also had a way of changing you—sometimes for the worse. It left you always on guard, always ready for an attack. And it made it hard to let that guard down. Vietnam had done a number on Duke. He’d thought that had been his worst war to date. Iraq wasn’t a ton better. An IED encased in an animal carcass, made to look like harmless road kill, had taken out several PSI-Ops. They’d been Duke’s friends and he’d been close when it happened.

  War fucking sucked.

  The plane hit turbulence and Duke held tighter to the arm rests.

  Planes fucking sucked.

  The only good he’d seen come from war had been the bond
he’d forged with other soldiers. There was a trust that ran too deep for words between them. A brotherhood born from violence. It’s part of why Boomer could nod off on the plane into a deep sleep but not do so anywhere else.

  Trust.

  Hard earned for sure.

  Corbin pushed files across the table at Duke. “Want to take a look at these now?”

  In order to see them, Duke would have to stand. He didn’t want to move. In his mind, if he did, the damn plane could tip and they could all plummet into the ocean to their deaths.

  Irrational.

  He knew.

  And he didn’t give a shit.

  Wolves weren’t meant to fly.

  “I’m good.” He remained in place.

  “Pussy,” said Striker. “Captain, I think Duke is beggin’ for a mission that leaves us parachuting in. Face your fears. Live dangerously. Be a man. Okay, be a wolf-man.”

  “I will end you,” Duke warned, growling.

  Striker ignored him and leaned, taking the files from Corbin. He leafed through them. “She’s a bonnie lass.”

  Duke simply arched a brow in Striker’s direction. You could take the man out of Scotland but you couldn’t get Scotland out of the man. At least Striker had stopped referring to Corbin as a Bloody-English-Bastard-Out-to-Steal-His-Country. Progress was found in the strangest of places.

  Corbin laughed. “She is good looking, but don’t let that fool you. From all the information we’ve been able to recover, she’s a heavy hitter with this group from what we can tell.”

  “Funny, sounded to me like the analysts can’t tell shit,” Duke added through gritted teeth, still clutching the armrests. Dammit, the flight was going to take forever and the turbulence just got worse. “Encryption they can’t even fully crack. Nice. Maybe we should track down who leaked the intel and hire ’em on. If they’re capable of keeping our eggheads from deciphering the information, they must be good.”

  Corbin didn’t seem amused. He looked to Striker. “The target is linked to James somehow. We believe she knows where he is.”