Broken Moon

by Catherine Vale

  She was halfway back to the office when a black van pulled up sharply to the curve, sending a wave of water careening over the sidewalk and splashing all over her shoes. “Hey!” Jocelyne snapped, stopping as the side door to the van flew open. She stepped closer, intending to give the assholes inside a piece of her mind. “Watch where you’re – ”

  The man who sprang out of the vehicle quickly whipped some kind of sack over her face, then grabbed her around the waist and tossed her into the van. Fear rocketed through Jocelyne, sending a cold rush of adrenaline through her veins, as she kicked and screamed and shouted, but the door slammed closed behind them, cutting off her screams from the outside world, and as pain from a needle jab bloomed at the side of her neck, she knew she was in a world of trouble.

  The last thought she had before she went limp was of whether or not she was going to find out what the ‘tense situation’ was from her father tomorrow… or if she was finding out right here, right now, at the hands of these wickedly rough men.

  * * *

  Harley was quietly chipping away at the silver coating on the cell bars, angling his back so the cameras couldn’t pick up on his activities, when the door at the end of the hallway swung open. Cursing silently, he quickly swept up the pile of silver shavings on the floor, ignoring the way they burned his hand, then dove for his cot, burying the scalpel beneath the mattress as he had done for the past few days.

  “Where we putting her?” one of the guards asked as their boots clomped down the hall, and Harley’s heart rate picked up, a combination of fear and hope spiking his blood pressure. “In this cell here?”

  “No, in number twelve. Across from the beast.”

  Harley slit his eyes so he could watch while pretending to be asleep as the guards came up to the cell in question. There were three of them here rather than the usual six – the one who always held the keys, and then two more, one of which who had a woman slung over his shoulder. Harley couldn’t see much of her other than the fact that she wore a pencil skirt and heels – her long, hair hung down across the guard’s back, obscuring her face.

  But her scent told him all he needed to know, and it shocked the shit out of him.

  She was human.

  “What the hell does the boss lady want with this one?” One of the guards asked. His eyes slanted toward Harley, as though to check that he was still sleeping, and then back to the woman, and Harley didn’t miss the gleam off lust in the guard’s beady eyes. “She don’t seem like no beast to me.”

  “She isn’t,” the one with the keys snapped in response, as he drew the cell door open. “Just the daughter of some big wig in the army, I hear. The boss is probably planning on ransoming her or something.”

  “Then why isn’t she with the other hu- ”

  “Shut your mouth.” The guard with the keys slammed his co-worker up against the wall in a move so fast, Harley had to wonder if they guy didn’t have a drop of superhuman blood himself. “You don’t know who might be listening.” He looked pointedly at Harley, and then back at his buddy.

  “Okay. Yeah, sure, you’re right,” the guard sputtered. “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. Dumbass.” The other guard gave him one last shove, then released him, shaking his head in disgust. He then rounded on the other guard. “What the hell are you waiting for? Toss her back in there!”

  The man immediately complied, though rather than tossing the woman on the concrete floor, as had been done countless times with Harley, he placed her on the cot, then backed out of the room.

  “You sure we can’t stick around for a little while?” Guard number three asked, an undercurrent of dark excitement in his voice. Harley wanted to reach through the bars and rip the sick fucker’s throat out, but he stayed silent, hoping they would just leave her be.

  “Absolutely sure,” Guard number one said firmly. “Boss lady said we need to be on patrol tonight, in case General Fitsimmons tracked us here in pursuit of his daughter. Highly unlikely, since he doesn’t actually know she’s missing,” he muttered, and then in a louder voice continued, “But still. Orders are orders, and we stand for Justice, so we must follow them.”

  “For justice!” The other two guards immediately stood up straight and clapped their fists over their hearts. It wasn’t the first time Harley had seen this happen, and it made him wish he’d tossed protocol out the window for once and actually looked into the file that informant had given him. He had no doubt it had contained all kinds of information about Justice – this so-called righteous paramilitary group that the ice bitch led, from what he’d been able to gather from snippets of overheard conversation – and considering that he was in the hands of the enemy right now, he needed all the Intel he could get.

  And the fact that Justice had decided to capture General Fitsimmons’ daughter was very, very interesting.

  Harley waited for awhile after the guards had left before he stood up and went back to chipping away at the silver-coated bars again. As he did, he regarded the young woman who lay unconscious on the cot in the cell from across him, marveling at the fact that though he’d never seen the beauty before, he knew her name, and almost everything about her.

  She was, after all, General Lee Fitsimmons’s daughter. Or, as Harley and the other shifters knew him, Commander Lee Fitsimmons of the Order of Protection.

  Jocelyne Fitsimmons looked much like her father, Harley mused. Same brown hair, though his was buzzed short and hers flowed nearly to her waistline. Same Roman nose, though it looked stern and imposing on her father, as opposed to dainty and feminine as it did on her. Her jaw even had the same little cleft in it. But the cupid’s bow of her mouth was likely from her mother, Emma Fitsimmons, who had died in childbirth many years ago.

  There were often complications that occurred when giving birth to a half-shifter daughter, as Emma had unfortunately discovered, when she’d bled out in the delivery room. Thankfully, Jocelyne had grown up to be more human than anything else – a little stronger, a little faster, and reportedly she was a little sensitive to silver – but she did not change, not like some other half-shifters were able to do.

  In this particular instance, it was hard to tell whether or not that was a blessing or a curse for her.

  A soft moan escaped Jocelyne’s lips, a breathy, feminine sound that made Harley’s heart beat a little faster. He watched as her eyes flickered open – neither the green of her father nor the blue of her mother, but a startling lavender – and wandered dazedly around the small chamber as she tried to make sense of what was going on.

  “Where am I?” she asked in a shaky voice as she sat up. Harley had to give her props for not upchucking like he had on his first day, though admittedly she probably hadn’t been injected with silver-laced barbiturates the way he had.

  Harley held his breath, waiting for Amelia’s velvet voice to taunt Jocelyne through the speakers. When none came, he relaxed a little, knowing that though someone was probably watching them, the ice bitch wasn’t gazing down at them from the safety of a television monitor somewhere in the building.

  “You’re in hell,” he answered, and she screamed.

  “Oh my God!” Her hand flew to her chest as she caught sight of him staring at her through the bars of his cells. “I… I didn’t even see you there.”

  Harley gave her a sardonic smile. “No worries. I’ve been alone down here for so long I’ve half convinced myself I’m invisible.”

  “Oh.” Biting her lower lip, she rose to her feet and peered out through the bars, trying to get as best of a glimpse as she could of her surroundings outside the cell. “So… you’re saying we’re the only two here?”

  “Yep. Just you and me, sweetheart.”

  Her lavender eyes narrowed as she regarded him. “You’re military, aren’t you?”

  Harley’s shoulders straightened a little, and he felt a flicker of admiration in his chest. “How can you tell?”

  Jocelyne shrugged. “My father’s a General, and I’ve been aro
und military men all my life. So which branch are you? Army, Navy, Air Force?” She tilted her head to the side as she regarded him. “No… you strike me as something of a jack of all trades. Marines, then?”

  Harley shook his head, amazed. “Shouldn’t you be screaming and crying and asking me what the hell is going on here?”

  Jocelyne lifted her chin. “My father would be disappointed if I lost my head like that.” Tears briefly shimmered in her eyes, and Harley’s esteem for her rose as she blinked them away. “Who are you?” She paused. “My father told me just before I was kidnapped that something had happened, and I have a feeling you’ve a lot to do with it.”

  Smart girl. “I’m not a Marine,” he told her. “I’m one of your father’s men.”

  Jocelyne regarded him steadily. “You’re a shifter, aren’t you?”

  Harley was taken aback? “How do you know that?” Could she smell it on him? Sometimes half-shifters possessed heightened senses as well. Evolution had a very mixed bag to choose from when it came to half-breeds, so it was hard to know what kind of abilities one possessed.

  Jocelyne laughed. “Give me a break. I’m half-shifter and was raised by a shifter father, so it shouldn’t be that hard for me to spot one myself. But even if I couldn’t tell,” she added, sobering now, “I always suspected that he likely worked with a group of shifters. I can’t imagine that he’s been in the military for thirty years and hasn’t had his… talents, put to better use.” She scowled. “So, what kind of shifter are you?”

  “Werewolf.”

  “Huh.” She appeared to be thinking that over. “So… no flying abilities then.”

  Harley snorted. “Are you always this optimistic?”

  Jocelyne sat back, her lavender eyes surveying their surroundings again. “Just trying to be realistic. So what’s your plan for getting the hell out of here?”

  Harley lifted the scalpel in his hand so she could see it, careful to make sure it remained in the camera’s blind spot. “Trying to scrape some of the silver off these bars so I can break free of this cell.” He eyed Jocelyne’s cell with resignation. “Though I suppose I’m going to have to give you time to scrape your bars clean too, so I can rescue you.”

  “Well, that sounds like a good start.” Jocelyne bit her lip again. “Do you have any clue how we’re going to get out of this place once we break out of our cells?”

  Harley shrugged a shoulder as he returned to work. “I’ve little knowledge of the layout, unfortunately, but I’ve got a few ideas. Did you get to see any of the building when you were brought down here?”

  “Yes, actually,” Jocelyne surprised him by saying. “I managed to get the sack off my head for a few seconds as they were pulling me out of the van, and I saw the building. It’s a two story steel structure with very few windows… and the lot we were on was surrounded by barbed wire electrical fencing.”

  “Well that’s just lovely,” Harley grumbled as he scraped the last bit of shavings away. “And on top of it, everyone’s going to be on patrol tonight.” He sighed, looking down at the scalpel in his hand. “Maybe we should try another night for escape.”

  “Maybe.” Jocelyne’s eyes shimmered with anxiety. “Although I have to admit I’m a little scared to find out what’s going to happen to me if I’m still here tomorrow.”

  Harley’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly do you think is going to happen to you?”

  Jocelyne shrugged. “I don’t know. I heard some of the men talking about a ransom, an exchange for information maybe, so maybe they’ll be forced to treat me well.”

  The door at the end of the hall banged open then, and both Harley and Jocelyne dove for their cots, burying their bodies beneath their flimsy blankets. Harley’s heart pounded as his ears strained, wondering why anyone would be coming for him at this hour – they always waited at least half a day between sessions before they grabbed him again – but then he frowned as he realized there was only a single set of footsteps clomping down the hall.

  A deep sense of unease filled him as one of the three guards who’d delivered Jocelyne to her prison earlier stopped in front of her cell, especially when he lifted a set of keys. Anger rolled through Harley as he caught the ripe scent of lust pouring off the man in waves.

  “Why hello there, missy,” the guard sneered as he opened the cell door.

  “What – what are you doing here?” Jocelyne asked, her voice trembling as she gazed wide-eyed up at the guard as he shut the door behind her.

  “Oh, I’m on break,” the guard said nonchalantly as his hand went to his belt. “Just thought I’d make good use of my fifteen minutes while I have the chance.” He launched himself at Jocelyne, who attacked him with a shriek, her fists flying as she caught him in the jaw with a good right hook.

  “What the fuck!” Harley’s heart leapt into his throat as the two of them went down in a tangle of limbs, fighting for the upper hand. There was a flash of silver, followed by a metallic jangle Jocelyne somehow managed to get the keys and toss them through the cell doors. Snarling with rage, Harley gripped the bars he’d spent hours scraping the silver off of, and used his adrenaline-fueled strength to bend them wide enough to step through.

  Jocelyne cried out as the guard plowed his fist into her face, and Harley let out a roar of fury as blood spurted from her nose. Quick as a flash, he scooped the keys off the ground, and in the next moment, he had the cell door open, and the guard slammed up against the wall.

  “You’re mine, you filth,” he snarled, gazing into the man’s terrified face, his golden eyes blazing with fury as his fangs lengthened. Jocelyne screamed as he sank his teeth into the guard’s neck and sliced to the left, ripping his windpipe clear in two. Hot, salty blood gushed into his mouth, and he spat it out in disgust as he stepped back, letting the man crumple to the floor.

  “Grab the keys from the door,” Harley snapped as he dropped to his knees and searched the guard. “We don’t have much time.”

  Jocelyne did as he asked, and Harley lifted a key card, wallet and a .357 Magnum. “You know how to shoot this?” he asked, holding the firearm up to her.

  Jocelyne nodded. “Good.” He handed the weapon to her. “Keep the safety off. You’re going to need to use it.”

  Harley took a moment to change into the guard’s clothes and cap – which were a little loose in the waist and chest, and the pants were a little too short - then grabbed Jocelyne by the wrist and ran for the door. Punching in the key code that he’d memorized countless times while being dragged in and out of the prison, he held his breath, then let out a sigh of relief when the huge metal door swung open silently.

  “Stay behind me,” Harley ordered as he took two steps into the long, white corridor, then went through the door to his right. As expected, it opened onto a stairwell. “And out of sight of the cameras, if you can.”

  They managed to make it up the first flight of stairs before encountering a guard who was making his rounds. The man’s eyes widened, his meaty hand going for the radio at his wrist, but Harley slashed the guard’s throat with his claws before the he had time to call for help. Jocelyne swallowed as he stooped down to palm the guard’s wallet and firearm, but to her credit she remained quiet and in control.

  They made it to the second landing, and Harley paused outside the door as he heard footsteps heading for the door. “Brace yourself,” he warned as he crouched down to shift. “We’re about to be ambushed.”

  Pain rippled through his nerve endings as he forced himself through his third shift of the night, but the moon’s power was still flowing strongly through his veins, so the transformation went much faster than usual. He looked at Jocelyne, who was staring grimly ahead, both hands on her gun as she trained it at the door, then barked and looked at the door. She quickly sprang forward to open it, and then back as Harley charged through to face the enemy.

  “There he is!”

  Six guards were waiting for him, their guns trained firmly in his direction, enough menace rolling off them
to send a chill of dread through Harley. But his beast quickly shored up his emotions, refusing to allow him to back down, and he dodged the gunfire expertly, then leapt into the air and took the first man down. The guard went down with a blood-curdling shriek that made Harley sneer, and then howl in pain as a bullet ripped through his fur and passed straight through his shoulder.

  Thankfully, the lunar power in his veins sealed the wound up in seconds, and by the time he’d turned to tackle the man who’d shot him, it had already completely healed.

  He finished off the second man, and was jumping to the third when gunfire sounded behind him. The fourth man, who had been about to shoot Harley in the back, dropped like a stone as blood bloomed in the center of his chest, and icy fear blossomed in Harley’s heart as he realized Jocelyne had stepped into the open to cover his back.

  “You too!” the last guard, the one he wasn’t wresting with on the ground, shouted as he took another step forward. He fired on Jocelyne, who darted behind the cover of the open door, but Harley scented her blood in the air and knew she hadn’t been fast enough. Snarling in rage and fear, he locked his jaw around the guard’s throat beneath him and squeezed his lifeblood out with his teeth just as Jocelyne ducked around the side of the door and opened fire on the guard again.

  The two were trading gunfire when Harley jumped on the guard’s back, taking him down. Jocelyne screamed when one of her bullets hit Harley in the other shoulder, but Harley hardly noticed – the adrenaline and rage rushing through him was so great that all he could focus on was on taking the guard out beneath him.

  “Oh my God,” Jocelyne cried, rushing toward Harley after he’d broken the last guard’s neck. She dropped to her knees and reached for Harley’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

  Yes. Harley was relieved when Jocelyne heard his mental speech – he wasn’t sure if she would be able to hear him mind-to-mind. Now let’s go. More are coming.