A knock and the door opened. Van stuck his head in.
Irene frowned, tried not to panic. “They didn’t find—”
“No, no. But we have another problem. They got Stevie.” He stepped into the room, studying Miki. “How much time?”
Miki shook her head. “I’m shocked Stevie’s little device could actually make workable copies from those hard drives. The problem is that they have thirty-five-digit passwords and layers on top of layers of encryption.” She looked at Irene. “You didn’t tell me they were this paranoid.”
“We need to do something, Miki,” Van insisted. “We do not have time to—”
“I’m doing my best but these aren’t house husbands hiding their porn or their latest girlfriends. These are incredibly brilliant scientists who know how to set up a system and keep people out of it. And you pressuring me with your annoying wolf barking is not helping.”
“I’m not barking. Trust me, you’ll know when I’m barking!”
“Stop. Stop,” Irene ordered, her mind analyzing the current situation. “You are forgetting something.”
“What?”
“Stevie MacKilligan’s sisters.”
“I have not forgotten about them. They’re under the watchful eyes and ready chains of a full tactical unit. All my best people except Cella and Dee-Ann.”
“You misunderstand me.” Irene raised her forefinger. “I don’t want you to hold them back. I want you to unleash them.”
“Have you lost your mind? You love my skin!” he reminded her.
She waved that forefinger. “No, no. They’re not thinking about you anymore. They’ll track their sister down quicker than we will hacking into these drives.” She pointed at Miki. “But I still need you to get in and find their research.”
Van blinked. “Why?”
“He or they took her because they think they’re ready to use this . . . project, for lack of a better word, on her. Otherwise, they wouldn’t bother. I need to know what’s in those files so I can . . . counteract, I guess, whatever they do to her.”
“They don’t want to just kill her,” Van said, giving a little shudder.
“No. They’re going to use her as their pièce de résistance. The proof that their experimentation and murders were worth it. But I’d prefer not to let it get that far. And if we let Stevie’s sisters go . . .”
Van pulled out his cell phone, speed-dialing his team as he walked out of the room.
“Are you sure about this?” Miki asked. “I’ve heard about Stevie MacKilligan from my friends at CERN. I especially heard about her sisters. They will leave a trail of bodies behind in their search for her.”
Irene shrugged. “Then the Wells Pride would be wise to give them the information they’re looking for.”
“What if they don’t have it to give?”
“Then their night will be very, very sad.”
chapter TWENTY-NINE
Her head throbbing, Stevie forced herself to sit up. It wasn’t until the extreme nausea passed that she realized someone was touching her shoulder.
Stevie jerked but Blayne immediately threw up her hands, palms out. “It’s me! It’s me! Please don’t eat me!”
Chuckling a little, Stevie said, “It’s okay. I just didn’t know it was you.” She pressed her hand to her head. “What the fuck did they give me anyway?”
“A bat to the back of the head.”
That came from Gwen. She was on the other side of the room, sitting on the floor. She had her knees raised, one arm resting across them.
“Bats?” That was new.
“Yeah,” Blayne said. “It’s all very tacky.”
Her eyesight becoming clear, Stevie gazed at the bright silver bracelets on Blayne and Gwen’s wrists. And then her own. Except they didn’t look decorative.
“What are—”
Blayne held up her wrists. “We were told that these are titanium. If we try to shift, the titanium will cut into our flesh and eventually . . . there go our paws.”
“Oh, my God,” Stevie said, disgusted; she was appalled anyone would go this far, but especially a fellow shifter.
“Where’s Bo?” Stevie asked.
“Next door. They didn’t want to put us in the same titanium-lined room because they didn’t want us to think about making more—and I’m quoting here—‘freak babies.’”
“Stop, stop.” Stevie couldn’t hear any more. Instead, she struggled to her feet with Blayne’s help.
Once she stood, Stevie waited another minute for a new wave of nausea to settle down. Although she didn’t appreciate getting banged in the back of the head, she understood why it had been done. Because with hybrids it was impossible to know what amount of knock-out drug to administer. Too little and you had a struggling and angry freak of nature ripping apart your van. Too much and you ended up dropping hybrid bodies on the side of the road and lost out on any experimentation you may have wanted to try.
Stevie pointed at the giant TV on one of the bright-steel walls. Or was that titanium, too? “What’s that for? Cartoons?”
“We don’t know,” Gwen replied. “It hasn’t been on since we got here.”
Stevie let her gaze roam around the room, looking for any weakness. Anything she could exploit.
The hermetically sealed doors opened and James Wells walked in. He wore a suit and tie under his long white lab coat. Four guards were with him. All of them heavily armed shifters in gray body armor.
Staring at Stevie, James pointed at Gwen. The men grabbed her, yanking her off the floor. Blayne was on them in seconds, fighting to protect her friend. One of the guards threw her to the ground, aimed a nonlethal but pain-inducing weapon at her.
Stevie stepped between them and focused on James.
“So it’s not really ready,” she said to him. She would only speak to him. The guards were following his orders, whether for money or out of loyalty, she didn’t know. She didn’t care.
“What?”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? So you can show me how what you’re working on is fabulous and ready to change me forever. But it’s not ready. That’s why you’re starting with them.”
“You think I’m like my brother? You think you can manipulate me with a few words and—”
“If your great experiment works . . . show me.”
Big hands grabbed Stevie and pulled her out of the room.
* * *
Shen wasn’t surprised when one of the Group’s tactical units surrounded them, keeping them trapped in room 20B. He wasn’t surprised when the Dunn triplets began to growl and huff in warning. He wasn’t even surprised when the MacKilligan cousins who were still hanging out with Charlie and Max for some reason, didn’t leave or cause any problems. It was as if they were just waiting to see what would happen next.
Oh, he also wasn’t surprised when Max came within inches of snapping off an agent’s face. Inches. But that seemed pretty expected by nearly everyone in the room except for the guy who nearly lost his face.
But what did surprise Shen was that Charlie wasn’t saying anything. Or doing anything. She wouldn’t talk to Berg. She wouldn’t talk to Shen! To tell him he didn’t need to worry. Where the fuck was soothing-Charlie? Why wasn’t she trying to make him feel better?
Instead, she was just sitting . . . and staring. And everyone in the room knew that was not good.
But then one of the agents got a call and, suddenly, all of them left. Just walked out. Without a word. And that’s when Charlie moved. Went out the door, Max right behind her.
“This is going to be bad,” Britta noted, but the triplets followed. The cousins followed. And so did Shen. Because he needed Stevie back. Safe and all of her just like she was. If that meant doing things he wouldn’t be proud of, he was ready.
They got back into the armored van that was waiting for them right outside the Sports Center, but this time Max drove and Charlie sat in the passenger’s seat. No one spoke. No one moved. They all just waited.
After they drove for a little while, Max double-parked the van in front of a Park Avenue apartment building.
Shen knew where they were. And Britta had been right. This was going to be bad.
* * *
Matt sat in his Pride’s living room, listening to his mother roar at him—she was using words, but all Matt could hear was angry roaring—about how stupid he was. How he didn’t think of others. How he was an embarrassment to the family. To the Pride. Why couldn’t he just be normal?
But how was he supposed to know that the person he’d been talking to about the awfulness of the artwork was the actual artist? How was he responsible for that? And how was he supposed to know that the artist was the one with the family trust fund that gave huge amounts of grant money to important medical and science research.
How was he supposed to know? And why wouldn’t his mother stop roaring at him?
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and stood.
“Where do you think you’re going?” his mother demanded, following him.
“I’m going to my room! And you’re not allowed to come with me!”
He’d just entered the hallway—his aunts, sisters, and cousins laughing at him as they liked to do—when the front door was kicked open.
The very secure, thick, metal door on a secure apartment in a building with a twenty-four-hour doorman. Where the fuck was the doorman?
He watched Charlie MacKilligan storm into his home; her smaller, psychotic sister right beside her. Then there were bears and a panda. That panda! But when the group of honey badgers charged in, hissing and running at the She-lions, forcing them away from Matt, he knew he was in real trouble.
He tried to stand his ground and be brave. He was six four, two hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and a lion! But then that hybrid’s hand wrapped around his throat and she pinned him to the wall.
“Hi, Matt,” Charlie said softly, Max grinning behind her.
* * *
They wanted to strap her down onto some table but Stevie shook her head.
“Not necessary. Just do it.”
Stevie knew that Charlie would lose her mind about this. That she was sacrificing herself. But it just seemed right, didn’t it? For years, she’d been talking about fucking with her genes so she could stop shifting. Her sister had forbidden it each time, but she knew it would save a lot of people. Did she want to do this now? No. She’d wanted to try it on her own terms, with her own work. But she wasn’t going to let her prey . . . er . . . Blayne—and her friend go through this. No way. And the thing was, she knew she just had to delay Wells. Because her sisters would come. They would come for her and the others, and no matter what James did to her, it wouldn’t matter because the others would be safe.
Stevie sat at a table and one of James’s assistants pulled her left arm out and prepared it for injection.
James sat down catty-corner from her, smiled.
“Is all this because I dumped your brother?” she asked.
“I know why you broke it off with him. He’s an idiot. You had no choice really.”
“Then what is it? Because you seem a little obsessed.”
“I saw you once,” he said, gazing at her. She could see the fanatical light in his eyes.
“Saw me?”
“Change. Into that thing.”
It felt like her heart dropped, but she didn’t let those feelings show on her face.
“It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t right.”
“I don’t know about right or wrong,” she said, feeling a needle slip into her skin but refusing to react to the pain, “but it’s definitely not normal. But Blayne and Gwen are normal. Blayne’s a wolf-dog. Gwen’s a tigon. Both are found in nature.”
“Those things aren’t found in nature. They’re found in foreign zoos. And Novikov? You going to tell me he’s found in nature?”
“Yeah, I can’t really say that about him.”
“You, all of you, are a danger to our society. But instead of wiping you out as some would like to do, I’ve created something that will allow you to become more like us.”
“But not too much like you,” she said with a teasing smirk, pointing her finger.
“Think about it. You’ll be able to keep that brilliant mind of yours but you’ll no longer be ashamed of what you are. Won’t that be a relief?”
A week ago she would have said yes, but now . . .
“So how long does this process take?” she asked.
“Well, for your safety and the safety of my guards and assistants, we’ll put you back in your room for the changing process. But you’ll be able to watch what happens to your DNA on the monitor we have set up in there. Exciting, right?”
Stevie forced a smile. “Absolutely.”
* * *
“Where’s your brother?” Charlie asked again.
“I don’t know!”
“Where’s his lab?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You’re lying.”
“Unlike you, I don’t obsessively watch where my brother goes and what he does. And he won’t tell me anything because he thinks I’m going to steal his precious research. Like I give a shit.”
“Hey!” a young, nonrelated male lion barked from the doorway. Berg and Dag started to move, ready to challenge him, but Britta knew her brothers would just get in the way. She grabbed their arms, held them back.
“What the fuck is going on?” the male roared.
Her eyes still locked on Wells, Charlie softly said, “Max.”
The blade was out of Max’s hand, across the hall, and buried in the male lion’s chest before he could move. He fell back into another male lion’s arms.
“Don’t pull it out,” Max warned the second male. “He’ll bleed out and that’ll be the end of him. You may want to carry him to an emergency room, hon.”
“Go,” one of the She-lions urged, and the males were gone as fast they’d come in.
“I don’t think he’s lying,” Max said about Wells.
“You sure?” Charlie asked, leaning in, staring intently into his face.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“The thing is . . . based on what Stevie has told us, your brother is not going to do anything on his own. Because, like you, he’s a momma’s boy.”
Slowly, Charlie’s head turned, her cold—suddenly gold—wolf gaze locking on the head of the Pride. Jennifer Wells.
“Mommy,” Charlie said, her voice low, “where’s your boy?”
“Go to hell.”
Charlie’s body spun away from Wells and she faced the She-lion, her .380 now in her hand, aimed at the older woman. She stalked across the hall toward the lioness, the gun raised. The other females attempted to attack, but the MacKilligan cousins got in the way, fighting the women and mostly getting their asses kicked. But they were all honey badgers, so they just kept fighting, seemingly tireless, keeping the females at bay.
Charlie pressed the barrel of the gun against the She-lion’s head.
“Where’s his lab?”
But she wouldn’t reply. She just smirked. It was like she was daring Charlie to kill her.
“You know me,” Charlie said. “You know what I’ll do.”
“Then do it. Pull the trigger.”
Charlie shrugged. “Okay.” She pointed the weapon back at Matt Wells and shot him in the leg.
Roaring, the lion male dropped to the ground, his hands wrapped around the bleeding wound.
“Now,” Charlie explained, “you’re gonna lose a son tonight. The question is . . . do you wanna lose two? Because what you need to understand about me, lady, is that I. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. I will wipe out every last one of these bitches and leave you the last cat standing, and won’t lose a bit of sleep. So think carefully before you answer me.”
“Jersey,” the She-lion spit out. “His lab is in Jersey.”
Charlie walked away, saying softly over her shoulder, “Max.”
M
ax charged at the lioness, launched herself into the air, and caged her in by putting her legs and arms on the wall behind the She-lion, claws dug into the marble keeping her aloft. Then Max, sounding awfully perky, asked, “Can I have the address please? Or the coordinates. Whichever.”
* * *
“Is it weird,” Blayne asked, “to be able to look inside yourself?”
“Nah. But I am curious how he’s able to do this. He must have injected me with something other than just the genetic material.”
The three of them sat on the floor, staring up at the giant monitor. They were into the second hour, waiting for the injection to start to work. To change her.
To make Stevie “normal.”
“Hey,” Gwen pointed out. “Something’s happening.”
She was right. On the monitor, something was definitely happening.
“That’s your DNA?” she asked.
“Yes. My shifter DNA.”
“And that’s . . .”
“What Wells created. It’s remaking my DNA now.”
“Do you feel anything?” Blayne leaned in. “Are you in pain?”
“No. It’s supposed to be a relatively painless process.”
“That’s something, I guess.”
Once the process was completed, Stevie could see that her DNA was now that of a normal—
Gwen reared back. “What the fuck was that?”
Stevie wasn’t really sure. “I . . . I don’t know. I’ve never seen that before.”
The replaced DNA had suddenly been attacked by . . . something and just like that, her original DNA had returned.
“Is that supposed to happen?”
“I doubt it.”
“Wait . . . it’s starting again.”
Gwen was right. The process repeated itself, ripping apart her shifter DNA and replacing it with—
“Oh, shit!” all three of them exclaimed.
“Your shifter DNA ate that shit.” Blayne grinned. “That was awesome!”
“No, it wasn’t.” Stevie looked at the two women on either side of her. “He’s not going to like this.”
“What do you think he’s going to do?”
“Nothing good.”
In a Badger Way Page 38