by Sarah Noffke
“You should let me know if you have questions. I’m much nicer than Adelaide,” Rox said, tucking her chin into her chest and batting her long eyelashes at him. Are those fake eyelashes? he wondered. They were impossibly long and distracting. Why would she put an obvious disadvantage on her face, something that could easily obstruct her vision? Weren’t they on a mission? Girls like her were the Great Pyramid to him. He didn’t know how they were made or why someone would go to so much effort.
“Adelaide seems to know more than you,” he said, realizing that would immediately get under Rox’s skin and not caring.
“I’m letting her think so,” Rox said, turning her attention back on the window. Then she took her finger and placed it on the glass, tracing something.
Zephyr eyed her suspiciously. “And Adelaide didn’t jump me in a dark alley, so excuse me for not bestowing a ton of trust on you right away. I think I’d rather go to her for answers.”
“Yeah, but that’s because I’m not the boring type. I like to have fun, no matter what the mission is,” Rox said, now retracing the same path with her finger. What was she tracing? Zephyr wondered, narrowing his eyes in the darkened submarine compartment.
“You sound reckless,” Zephyr said.
Rox picked up her finger and drew a circle. Two dots inside it. A line. It was a face, he realized. “And you sound like a stick in the mud,” she said and then added a canine on either side of the face’s mouth.
He laughed at the picture which was now illuminated by a dusting of condensation on the window, probably a product of their breath and the temperature. “Did you just say an expression used by ninety-year-old women?” he said.
“I might have, but I assure you that I’m not an old lady,” Rox said, and then beside the dog’s face she drew a cyclone.
“Quit showing off. It’s annoying,” Zephyr said.
“So, did you love her?” Rox said, wiping the side of her palm on the window, erasing the dog face being attacked by a tornado.
“I wish I was in werewolf form right now,” he said, his eyes on his own window in front of him. This compartment was lined with backless seats, each positioned in front of a round window.
“But we’ve already established that you probably can’t hurt me,” Rox said, now angling her knees in Zephyr’s direction and facing him directly.
“I’d like to try,” he said.
“So back to the girl. You’re not the fall in love kind of type, I’m guessing. You’re the type who is married to your work. Who has time for dumb girls who just want to make you fat and steal your free time with expensive dinners and boring conversation, am I right?” Rox said.
He turned his gaze on her and to his surprise the smoky look on her face made him pause. She was playing with him, but she was also correct in her assessment. “Can we keep the conversation relevant to my purpose working with you and the Lucidites?”
Rox pursed the side of her mouth. “Absolutely. I’m always working. It’s your own fault if you’ve misconstrued this as a personal conversation. I can’t help you, protect you, or fix you unless I know as much about you as possible. Even seemingly small details might give me an insight into how you work and as the alpha that’s going to tell me how you can find these other mutts loose in the world. They’ll be attracted to you. They’ll follow you. And your shortcomings will be theirs. Your strengths will dictate the pack’s path. And if you have any hang-ups about girls, preserving your heart for a broad, then you’re going to be distracted when the time comes. Your heart can’t belong to anyone anymore. Only the pack. You didn’t sign up for this role, but you’re going to have to embrace it. The lives of eleven men and the people they can potentially maim rests in your hands.” Rox paused, watching Zephyr as he assimilated this information. “So if you loved her, then do us both a favor and forget her. Forget everything but what happened to you after the change. You’re a werewolf and you better start acting like the alpha or I’m going to be forced to lock you up in the pound and find the man second in command.”
Zephyr had really thought she was flirting with him. Now he felt stupid. These people, Rox and Adelaide, the Lucidites, they didn’t act like anyone he had ever met. And he’d had the privilege to work with the very best. “I didn’t love her,” he said, finally, and then stood and walked to the far side of the submarine compartment, away from Rox and her judging eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“All men can be made better through science.”
- Olento Research Employee Manual
Adelaide hadn’t liked the look on Rox’s face when she trotted off the docks, her three-inch heels clanking on the pavement. The blonde bimbo looked like she’d learned an especially delicious secret while on the submarine. But then Adelaide had caught sight of Zephyr’s face and the jealously passed. His gray eyes narrowed at the sun, his mouth forming a hard line. Nothing about his demeanor communicated happiness. Actually he looked fairly agitated, even more so than before. Rox must have that effect on people.
To Adelaide’s relief, Zephyr was able to retrace his way back to the lab location, giving the directions to the driver from the front seat. He had gotten turned around a few times at first, but once in the vicinity, his memory of the escape had come back, causing him to speak faster and point the driver down the right streets.
“You have a pretty impressive memory of Los Angeles for not being from here,” Rox had said.
Before Zephyr could reply Adelaide said, “He knows the layout of the ten major cities in the US.”
Zephyr turned his head, regarding the redhead in the backseat with surprise. “That’s true. How do you know that, though?”
The easy answer would be that she had studied his file and knew that he’d been expected to understand city planning by studying major places like New York and Los Angeles. A Special Forces captain needed to be able to lead missions through cities in some cases and the best way to do that was to understand how they were set up. However, she wasn’t about to disclose this so she said, “I know everything. I’m a fucking Lucidite.”
“You keep throwing around that term, but I still don’t know what that means except that you have an underwater base and work with irritating FBI agents for seemingly no reason at all,” Zephyr said, indicating Rox who was filing her nails on the other side of the seat from Adelaide.
“Oh, well maybe you’re more of an astute observer than I previously thought,” Adelaide said, eyeing Rox. Did she bring a handbag on the mission? Is that where she stashed a bloody file? Who brings a handbag on a reconnaissance mission? Usually Adelaide only brought her bad attitude.
Zephyr peered at the window of the seemingly innocuous building on the mostly deserted street. Something used to be there, but the building looked abandoned now, based on the covered front window and the discolored awning. A sign used to sit on the top of the awning but had since been removed.
“So you never came back to the lab?” Rox asked Zephyr.
“Why would I want to? Why would I have chanced that?” Zephyr snapped, his shoulders suddenly much more tense than a few moments before. Returning wasn’t something he wanted to do, Adelaide realized, but he also knew that the answers to how and why he was a werewolf were probably somewhere inside that building.
“Okay, Cranky, let’s go before you get yourself worked up and start barking uncontrollably,” Rox said, putting her file away casually.
“Stay here, Reginald,” Adelaide said, patting the back of the seat where the driver sat, pretending not to be listening.
“Actually my name is—”
“Don’t care,” Adelaide said, opening her door, but in a flash Zephyr was out of the car and in front of her.
“You can’t go in that building. What if the scientists are still in there?” he said, his gray eyes crazy with panic.
“Then I’ll make them stab themselves with a scalpel,” she said, like it would be as easy as kicking a can across the road.
He shook his head, not co
mpletely understanding what the girl meant. “I don’t think you understand. These people are dangerous. They have vast resources. Weapons, drugs, evil scientists who will lock you up,” he said.
Rox had stomped around the vehicle to stand with her arms crossed next to Adelaide, an amused look on her face as she watched Zephyr cycle through various worries.
“My guess is that building is empty,” Adelaide said, pointing at the navy blue structure that stretched down half the block. “But how about we get closer and you use your x-ray voodoo to tell us if you spy anyone inside. If not, then I’m going in. If so, then I’m knocking and FBI slut over here will flash her badge. Then we’ll make up something about having a search warrant.”
Zephyr shook his head, but conceded. “Fine,” he said with a sigh. “But this isn’t a game. We don’t know anything about this lab or who runs it.”
Adelaide didn’t give Zephyr another look before setting off across the road, Rox by her side.
“It’s not a game, it’s better. It’s real life. And we’re here to find out who these mystery people are,” Rox said, turning around and walking backwards as she spoke to Zephyr, who looked glued to his spot next to the car.
“Come on, X-Ray. I don’t have all bloody day,” Adelaide said.
As Adelaide had suspected, the lab was empty. It wasn’t just empty, but destroyed. The front office area looked like it had quickly been vacated, with file drawers open and blank printer paper scattered across the floor. There wasn’t any evidence left behind that told her who ran this place. In contrast to the office, the lab on the other side of an unlocked reinforced metal door could only be categorized as wrecked.
“What in the bloody hell did you all do here?” Adelaide said, standing beside the door, taking in the exam rooms on the far side and the lab area in the middle of the open space. Lining the other walls in a U shape were barred cells, their doors ripped off and lying in various places. A large hole stood in the closest wall, which was how the werewolves had actually escaped, Adelaide suspected. She shivered at the thought that one of the werewolves, Rio, according to Zephyr’s description, was strong enough to plow through concrete with his fist.
“We fought for our freedom,” Zephyr said in a low voice, his eyes trained on the area by the cabinets. The concrete was stained red and the expression in his eyes spoke of being suddenly haunted.
Rox strolled forward. “So whoever was running this operation feared you’d come back or tell the authorities and so they tucked tail and ran,” she said, picking up a syringe that was now mostly empty and inspecting the remnants of its contents.
“Your jokes are never appreciated,” Zephyr said, his eyes running over the space in front of him.
“What do you remember about being here? Any notable figures?” Adelaide said, striding to the nearest cage and peering into it. She couldn’t believe that men had been kept here, experimented on after being abducted. However, she knew that she needed to digest this reality especially quickly. Her father told her that bad, no, horrible things, happened on this planet, and if she was doing her job then most people wouldn’t find out about them.
“The main scientist was a man with a white beard. He was German,” Zephyr said, still having not moved from his place. Every now and again his eyes skirted to the bloody stain, as if transfixed by it.
“Alexander Drake,” Adelaide said, remembering the notes from the file.
“How do you know that’s his name?” Zephyr asked, daring to take a step toward the nearest cell, which Adelaide had just left to inspect more of the area.
“He’s the one that I told you about. The one who stole Lucidite research. My fath—my findings indicate that he might have been connected with the werewolf case,” she said, covering her blunder. The last thing she needed was for these two buffoons knowing who her father was or that he was a big deal; well, the biggest deal. Already everyone treated her differently because she was Ren Lewis’s daughter. Everyone expected big things from her.
“So can you run us through the process that they put you through to convert you?” Rox said, sifting through various supplies in the middle lab area. She held up an unmarked vial and frowned at it. “They didn’t leave behind any of the drugs or technology.”
Adelaide shook her head at the other girl as she kept striding by the cells, memorizing each one. They were all the same and all different in small ways. “Did you expect them to leave behind such evidence? How about a forwarding address? Do you think we should check with the receptionist at the front—oh, wait, that’s right. This place is deserted. And it’s deserted for a reason. These are people who don’t want to be found,” she said.
“People get sloppy, especially people abandoning a place in a hurry. A real detective looks for what got left behind,” Rox said, casting a smirk over her shoulder at Adelaide. “At least I’m looking for clues instead of taking the walking tour of this place.”
Adelaide ignored Rox. She halted abruptly in front of the cell she’d just come to. “The door…” she said under her breath.
“She’s talking to herself. Isn’t that cute?” Rox said in Zephyr’s direction. He had managed to move, but only a few feet. He appeared lost in thought, his eyes darting to various places in the lab.
“It’s still locked,” Adelaide observed of the cell in front of her. “Did one of the werewolves have the skill of teleportation?” she called to Zephyr over her shoulder. That seemed to wake him out of his daze and he strode over, each of his steps deliberate.
“Honestly, I only know what Rio’s gift was because it broke us out of this hell hole,” he said and paused only briefly before bolting forward. “There’s someone still in there!” he yelled.
“What?” Adelaide said, squinting through the dark of the lab, which was lit only by emergency lamps and light streaming through three small windows. All she could see was a cell cloaked in shadow. She took a step forward, feeling Rox at her back suddenly. And when she was three feet from the bars she saw it, saw what Zephyr could see with what she suspected was his enhanced vision, a gift from his wolf genes. There on the concrete floor of the cell lay a man. She guessed he was a man based on her knowledge of the case, but he appeared more like a rumple of limbs.
The banging on the bars stole her attention. “We left him behind,” Zephyr yelled, his fist connecting with the metal of the bars making a sound so loud it hurt Adelaide’s ears. The captain had gone from looking hollow to showing more emotion than she thought he was capable of. “We’ve got to get him out of there!”
Adelaide turned to Rox, who already had her mobile pressed to her face. “I’ll get Trent to send in reinforcements from the Lucidites.”
She was grateful that Rox had decided to call the Lucidites over her FBI buddies. This needed to remain confidential. Everything on this case needed to stay that way.
The cacophony of noise grew like a deranged train buckling off the tracks. Adelaide dared to step up close to Zephyr, who was beating his fists against the cage bars, which did nothing to rouse the man within. The one who apparently had been held prisoner without any help for all this time. He’s probably dead, Adelaide thought. She reached out to touch Zephyr’s shoulder but stopped a few inches away. “We’ll get him out. Help is on the way.”
Zephyr spun around, his face red and bulging with anger. “But help isn’t me. I left him behind to die. To starve to death!” he yelled, and it sounded like a howl at the same time.
Adelaide drew in a quick breath. “Then figure out how to get him out now,” she said, taking a quick glance at the unmoving body. “Think. Where are the keys?”
“I don’t know!” Zephyr said, throwing his head in his hands. “I looked before. They weren’t in the cabinet like how I’d seen the scientists retrieve them before.”
“Because…” Adelaide said, trying, hoping to draw something out of the man in front of her.
Zephyr’s eyes seemed to search without looking, darting back and forth. Then he darted in the opposi
te direction, turning into a quick blur. And when he returned a moment later he was brandishing a key between his fingers. “I had found this key before I escaped. A rent-a-cop knocked me in the face with his gun, though, and I dropped it over there,” he said, indicating a row of cabinets.
“No more story time,” Adelaide said, ushering him forward. “Unlock the gate.”
Zephyr had already turned around and slid the key into the lock. It didn’t fit right at first and took several attempts to find the right angle. But then with a jerk the key turned and the cell door swung open. And again Zephyr was a blur as he raced for the body, kneeling down next to it. His head flipped up, but Adelaide had already read the microexpressions on Zephyr’s face and knew what he was about to say.
“He’s still alive,” he said, touching his finger to the man’s neck. “But only barely.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“The laws of the Lucidite Institute must be upheld. It is for the benefit of the Lucidites, as well as the people on this planet who we serve.”
- Lucidite Employee Manual
A crashing sound echoed from the front of the building. Rox spun around to face the metal doors they’d come through. Zephyr ripped his head upward at the sound.
“Someone is coming,” he said in a rush, pulling the man’s limp body off the ground. Adelaide took hold of the unconscious man’s dangling arm, barely helping with the process of carrying him.
“How do you know?” she said, lugging the passed out man forward.
“I can hear their footsteps. I can smell them. They’re the men from the labs,” Zephyr said.
“Go through the hole,” Rox said, pointing to the plastic-sheathed hole where the werewolves had escaped through before. She ran for the brick wall and pulled the large tarp away with a swift movement, the sunlight on the back street shining through at once. Ducking her head through the hole, she determined at once that the space outside was clear. “Take him now! Get him to the car. Adelaide, call the driver and tell him to meet you back here,” she said, her voice suddenly authoritative.