by J. D. Light
And, up until our saviors came, I still hadn't known if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"Why?"
"We're rejects," Malik said simply, as we caught up with him at the door. "He's broken and I'm ugly." He ran his fingertips over the burn scars traveling up his neck and on to the side of his face where they distorted the outer crease of one eye, his nostril on that side and caused the corner of his mouth to turn down. His usually golden brown hair––dirty at that moment, so not near as shiny and pretty as it was right after a shower––hung over it now, but I knew he was missing an ear.
"You're not ugly," I bitched at him, and I meant it. "You're a reject, because you're mean." Another truth I believed wholeheartedly.
"That too," he said, the non-distorted side of his mouth ticking up in a proud smirk. "They were talking the other day about how we've already cost them more than we were worth to keep. I think they were going to put us down."
I sighed, lifting my head again and growing increasingly unhappy about the fact that I couldn't just leave it on Meyers' shoulder as we made our way down the hall and into the huge media room-turned-runway, where I'd seen other chosen being forced to walk up and down the catwalk when they first brought me in weeks, possibly months ago.
Time had kinda become non-existent, except for the fact that it seemed to tick on for ever and ever.
"They weren't going to put us down," I said, glaring at my friend. I didn't think.
"What else would they do with us?" he asked, shrugging. "You think they were just going to let us go?"
I shrugged, not pretending to know what was going on in the heads of the men who'd been holding us. Killing us would probably have been the easiest, but it wasn't like we knew anything about the place we were staying, or even the names of any of the men. It wouldn't be much of a liability to leave us alive.
"You’re not broken," Meyers growled, breaking up our conversation and surprising me with how mad he sounded.
Again, I felt like that should have been a warning, or at least I should be a bit more concerned with how quickly he seemed to get angry, but he didn't scare me. His anger was on my behalf, which was odd, but not unwelcome. It had been a long time since someone had been angry on my behalf.
Malik did to a point, but a lot of his anger stemmed from the situation we were both in.
I leaned up to give him a small smile. He was trying to watch where we were going as we finally made it to the front door and out onto the porch where Recker was waiting, eyes alert, but Meyers glanced at me quickly, his lovely hazel eyes raking over my face before he too was looking around.
"Well, I'm also not really what anyone would consider good stock either," I said with a shrug as I laid my head back down on his shoulder. "And I told them I was born this way, so they thought it could be genetic."
Recker chuckled, giving me an approving smile. "That was smart."
"Not my first time being kidnapped for this mark." I lifted my shirt, showing off the mark high on my ribcage. "As soon as I get to a place where I feel safe, I'm having it tattooed over," I grumbled, shaking my head.
Meyers' eyes were trained on the skin showing beneath where I'd raised my shirt and I felt my stomach flip interestingly.
"Of all the things that fucking fire burned, it didn't make it low enough to burn my damn mark," Malik said dryly, drawing my attention away from the way Meyers licked his lips. "Maybe we should get matching tattoos."
"Deal," I choked out, lowering my shirt slowly.
Had Meyers been checking me out? I mean, I had a pretty nice body, even if I was maybe looked at as less desirable by a lot of people, because of my leg, and even with the glasses on I was decently handsome, but if the glaring before when I was holding Malik's hand was anything to go by, he was a bit on the homophobic side, even if he hadn't said anything about it. That kind of made it a bit unlikely that he would be checking me out, didn't it?
Meyers cleared his throat as we made our way out into the yard and started down the driveway. "Do you have a chair or something here that we need to get?"
"I had a cane, but I don't think it is still of any use," I said. He probably wanted to put me down. "Am I getting too heavy? I can walk. I just go a little slower."
I was nearly two hundred pounds. Definitely not the size of a person who should be being carried around like a bride over the threshold.
Meyers snorted, shaking his head. Did that mean that was a stupid question, because there really wasn't much choice but to carry me, or because carrying me was nothing to him? I was pretty sure I'd interpreted the stupid question part right, whatever the cause.
"I broke it," Malik said, as we rounded a large curve in the driveway and a black SUV came into view.
That had to be theirs. Black SUVs screamed FBI, didn't they?
"You broke his cane?" Meyers asked, narrowing his eyes at the guy.
Malik shrugged, almost like he was daring Meyers with something, and then nodded. That little idiot was going to get himself killed one day by constantly trying to piss people off.
I sighed, rolling my eyes. "He bent it over one of the guards' head."
Meyers grunted, possibly in approval, possibly in pain, as I was sure his back was going to be sore.
Malik's restless energy, probably from the prospect of finally being out of that place, was so at odds with the way my body seemed to be intent on shutting down. He spun to walk backwards, then spun again to walk forwards before jumping to swat at a low hanging branch.
"So where are we going?" he asked, spinning again to address all of us, walking backwards again.
"Back to Crossville," Meyers grumbled, and I lifted my head again to look at him.
"Is that place safe?" I asked softly, glancing at Malik as the man spun again, but not before I caught a glimpse of the worry, or possibly anger on his face. "That's where the tigers are."
"The tigers and other shifters that were holding you are gone now," Recker said calmly. "The streak that lives there would never hurt you."
Malik glared over his shoulder at Recker, curling his lip. "Well, you'll have to excuse us if the only experiences we've ever had with shifters have been bad ones."
"Not all," I said pointedly, raising my eyebrows at Malik when he sent me a look that spoke volumes about what he thought of my intellect.
Stopping dead in his tracks, not far from the SUV, Malik glared back and forth between Recker and Meyers. "Wait. What kind of shifters are you guys?"
"I'm a rhino and Recker is a wolf," Meyers said, passing right by the man and up to the SUV where he managed to open the door while holding me.
"A rhino?" I asked in awe, wishing I could see it.
I wonder if he’ll show me. He'd have to get naked to do it. Would I be able to keep it together long enough for that?
Meyers nodded, his mouth curling slightly. He was probably laughing at me. I was pretty sure I probably sounded like an awestruck child.
I rolled my eyes at myself and prayed I didn't do or say anything completely stupid in front of the man.
"You take the front seat, Malik." Meyers said, when Malik opened the rear door on the other side of the SUV. "I'll sit in the back with Braden."
"Why?" my friend asked slowly, and I didn’t even have to look to know that his eyes were narrowed.
Meyer's paused. "Uh… "
"It's probably so they know we aren't going to attack them, Mal," I said on a sigh. "They have to be just as leery of us as we are of them, or things could get bad."
"Okay, but you have to sit behind the driver so I can keep an eye on you," he said to the man holding me, and I almost laughed.
What on earth did he think he was going to be able to do if Meyers decided to kill us both, no matter where anyone sat in the vehicle? The chances of even the two of us together overpowering either one of those men was laughable.
Meyers gave another grunt that could have been humor, or acknowledgement, or even a fuck you, easily lowering me into the seat, the
n sliding me toward the middle, so he could easily climb in behind me.
When I immediately started trying to get my leg comfortable, which was always hard no matter the situation, Meyers reached over, trying to help and ended up turning me slightly, so I could lean back against him and prop my leg up slightly on the bench seat beside me.
"Is that okay?" he asked quietly, surprising me with how soft his voice could get. "Are you comfortable?"
"Yeah," I answered, biting my lip and giving him a small smile.
"You're overdoing it, big guy," Recker said, as he climbed in the front seat, and I mentally disagreed.
I'd never been taken care of to that degree in my whole entire life. The feeling was foreign, sure, but I found that I really, really liked it. And sure, if it was anyone else, I'd probably tell them I was fine doing most stuff on my own and if I needed help I'd let them know, but I was really enjoying how attentive and sweet this big gruff man was being with me.
Meyers cringed before shutting the door, sending me an apologetic look. "I haven't spent a great deal of time around humans. I was raised in a shifter community and did online college courses." He shrugged, his face pretty close to a constant cringe at that point. "I even work around shifters and other immortals." He looked down at my leg, his hand reaching out like he was going to touch it––which I probably would have had a spontaneous orgasm if he had––before his eyes widened and he pulled his hand back, placing his palms on his own thighs and rubbing up and down the tensed muscle. "Add to that your… uh… situation, I don't really know what's too much and what's too little."
Feeling bad for the guy who was trying really hard to not offend me and had been almost from the beginning, I reached out and gripped his forearm, giving it a squeeze. "I don't think it would matter even if you had. Everyone has different levels of independence whether they are disabled or not. And everyone is different on how they take things that are said to them, or asked, and everyone is offended or not by different things. I feel like as long as it is coming from a place of kindness and is meant well instead of patronizing, there isn't a reason to be offended. If I start to feel like you're doing too much or making me feel bad for what I can't do, I'll let you know."
He watched my face for a long moment, his eyes moving over my features again and again, before giving a small nod and an even smaller smile.
"Is anyone hungry?" Recker asked, as he started the vehicle.
Chapter Two
My poor mate had been through some things in his life, but from what I could tell, he honestly wasn't bitter at all. He was kind and understanding, and though Malik said he was the one who was usually skeptical, he sure seemed pretty trusting.
The ride back had been a bit of a long one with two more bladders in the car, but I spent half of it with my mate either dozing off against me, or with his head in my lap completely.
The look on his face when he woke up with his ear pressed against my thigh had been fucking priceless. He'd gasped and his eyes had widened before he very, very slowly raised his rich, toffee-colored eyes to mine, finding me watching him.
"I'm so sorry," he'd whispered, trying to sit up, but I'd liked having him right where he was, so I threaded my fingers through his hair, pressing his head back to my thigh.
He'd been clearly shocked, which for some reason tickled a laugh out of me. It was a somewhat foreign feeling. I wasn't an unhappy person, and I hadn't really had any horrible experiences that would make me a cranky asshole. I was just naturally a serious person.
My mother always told the story of when I came into the world. He didn't make a sound, just came out glaring at the doctor. If he'd been able to cross his arms, he would have, and I swear he eyeballed those scissors the nurse gave his father like he was going to take them away and stab someone.
I still thought about stabbing people on a daily basis, depending on what idiots were pissing me off.
Recker had questions, so while he took them to the safe house and got them settled before getting all the information he could, I went to where they'd been holding the three men who had been caught with lists, only to find Rowe in the process of finishing up the last report from the interrogations he'd apparently finished in my absence.
"Is everything okay?" he asked, when I just stood over him, blinking down at the very detailed information.
"How did you get him to talk?" I asked incredulously.
One look at the monitors to the cameras in all three rooms, and I could clearly see they weren't any worse off than they had been when I left, making me wonder if Rowe had some kind of special mind reading ability.
"You did all the hard work," he said, with a crooked smile. "I had them all three put in a room together. They didn't really say anything in the beginning, but they also knew there were cameras around." He shrugged his massive shoulders, a blush rising on his cheeks. "All I really had to do was walk in there and not say a word. The wolf shifter pissed his pants almost immediately, and started spilling his guts, and then they started yelling at each other about all the things they thought the others did wrong, and how it wasn't so-and-so's idea, it was what's-his-face's idea. Eventually, they all admitted they got the list from a man in the FBI, but they didn't know his name. They were more than willing, however, to look through pictures of everyone who had access. I didn’t have to say a word."
His face was getting redder by the minute and I couldn't help but huff out a laugh. The guy was always so damn shy and modest. Looking at the huge man who was stacked with muscle as much, or even more muscle than me, and listening to the deep rumble of his voice, one would think he would have a kick-ass attitude to go with it.
Nope. Though I knew he could kick ass like no other, the man was shy when it came to talking to others, had an enormous heart and blushed like crazy.
"Your size saved our asses again," I said, smirking when his face blazed even further.
"There are some advantages to being big," he grumbled, looking back down at the paper. "But I think it was whatever you did to him before I got in there."
Rowe hunched his shoulders and went back to writing his report. It wasn't the first time I noticed that he did that. It always seemed like the man was trying to make himself smaller than he actually was, trying to blend in.
Rowe was a rhino too. Only, he was much bigger in rhino form than I was, but that was only natural since he was a white rhino and outweighed me when shifted by an actual ton.
"Did you find anything else out about the lists?"
He looked up again, blinking. "Just that there is an actual sign up on a website, and each person gets dibs on one of the chosen on the list for a set amount of time. If they don't make it in the amount of time, they no longer get paid if they get them. Unfortunately, that's when they start going rogue. One of the guys in there captured two in one night when he only had dibs on one and ended trying to sell the other behind the coordinator's back. He's safer in here right now—even with your tactics—than he is on the street."
"Was it the one with the hair?" I growled.
"No," Rowe said dryly. "Apparently, he only does things on the up and up."
"As up and up as you can be when you're kidnapping people. Kidnapping my mate."
The big guy nodded. "He didn't seem to have much remorse about any of it, except the fact that it was your mate and you went ballistic when you found the hair on his necklace." He reached out, spinning a paperclip on the desk. "Other than that, he seems to think it's okay. Sometimes I wonder how people get like that. Like what experiences in their life made them not even care who they hurt to better themselves? Why are they better than those poor men they took?"
Those were the types of questions I'd been asking myself since I learned I had a special talent for extracting information from people who hurt others. "And why does someone like me, who clearly doesn't have a problem torturing someone until they talk using just about any means necessary, end up working for the FBI ,while these heartless men end up here facing all kin
ds of consequences."
Rowe frowned, blinking up at me. "Don't compare yourself with them Meyers. I know we haven't been partners for long, and I don't know if you'll ever convince me they didn't put us together just because we're both rhinos… though that would be like putting leopards and cheetahs together and saying you’re both cats…" he paused, blinking. "But I know the kind of person you are. You don't prey on people. You would never take someone's rights or their lives away just to make life a little better for you. You interrogate people… and yes, it can be fucking disturbing, but you do it to catch the people who would do that shit to these precious people who can seriously bless our species. You are a good man."
"Wow," I said, blinking down at the man who hardly ever said much at all, my chest actually pinching at the sweetness of his words.
His face burned bright red and he looked back down at the paperclip, spinning it a little too hard, and sending it flying off of his desk. "Sorry," he mumbled quietly, not meeting my eyes. "I just don't think you're the same."
"Thanks, Rowe." I reached out and squeezed his shoulder, giving it a little shake. His big body barely moved.
He shrugged, the blush still bright on his face.
"Do not step on that," he growled suddenly, glaring off in the direction of a couple of agents standing to the side of the old warehouse turned temporary FBI headquarters.
The place had been put together out of necessity with all that was happening with the chosen in Crossville.
Both men jumped, but immediately froze, almost looking terrified as the usually quiet man stomped his way over to them. "What?"
"Do not kill that spider."
"Uh," the one who'd been about to make the fatal blow to the arachnid said, slowly lowering his foot to the ground beside his other. "It's a fucking spider."
Rowe grabbed two pieces of paper off of the closest desk. I thought they might actually be kind of important, but I'd be damned if I was going to stop him right then. I knew exactly how crazy he could get when he was worried about an animal… or bug.
