“This is a mistake. The entire base will be after you if you try to escape. Tying me up isn’t going to stop that. It’s only going to make it worse.”
Susan reached around his head and put the socks in his mouth, stopping him from offering any other arguments. He held his composure even as he heard the distinct tearing sound of tape coming free from the roll. After a couple of pieces were placed over his mouth, Susan walked back to the bag and tossed the remainder of the roll inside. She zipped it up and held it out to Darien who shrugged into the straps.
“I’m sorry about this. But we need to leave, and we know that you won’t let us do that. I have no doubts that you’d follow your orders without hesitation. I understand. This is the only way.”
Darien took a few steps forward and reached out with his foot, nudging the soldier to the ground on his side. With the toe of his shoes, he forced the man to roll over so that he was facing away, looking at the back of the warehouse.
“Don’t turn around, or I will shoot.”
He had to hope that the man believed his bluff. Even if he was ready to kill the soldier, the gunshot would bring people running from all over the base and make escape nigh on impossible. As it was, he knew they were taking their chances. Speed was of the essence now. They needed to put as much distance between them and the base as possible.
Turning back to the fence, Darien handed the gun and backpack off to Susan. She stepped away, keeping the firearm trained on the soldier as Darien closed his eyes and focused. Again he was surprised at how easily the shifts were, given how few of them he had done in recent history. Within the space of a heartbeat, Darien the human disappeared and a rhinoceros appeared in his place. He took a few charging steps that shook the earth underneath him and then lowered his head toward the fence. The metal shrieked and snapped as it tore free and he carved a hole through the barrier. On the other side, he crashed through the underbrush, making branches snap before his heavy charge. Susan bolted after him, running to catch up.
Darien trundled through the forest for a few more steps, carving an obvious and easy trail until he was well under the tree cover. In midstride, he focused on shifting and took back his human persona. He stumbled, flailing his arms as he tried to slow his momentum, but otherwise managed the shift without any problems. His heart raced, and not just from the adrenaline of their escape. It felt good to shift again. It felt natural and some part of him wanted nothing more than to jump back into an animal’s skin. It was an intoxicating siren’s call, being something else and embracing that animal’s nature.
The thing that pulled him back was hearing Susan’s breathing just behind him as she caught up. It was like the snapping of a rubber band, bringing him back to their current situation. He needed to make sure that she was safe. Reaching back, he took the backpack from her, slinging it over one shoulder. Then he grabbed her hand as they ran through the woods, dodging around trees. If his memory served, the service road would only be about a hundred yards from the fence.
A furry figure dropped down in front of him and hissed, forcing him to slide to a stop so fast that Susan bumped into him from behind. A caracal hunched down in front of him, uttering a low growl that sounded like rocks tumbling over each other. Her back end crouched down and tensed to the point where he saw the muscles twitching underneath her fur. Darien froze, waiting to see what she would do and trying to figure out if her partner was nearby. He heard nothing over the sound of his and Susan’s breathing and the cat’s threat.
Susan edged her way around Darien, moving slowly and pointing the gun around his body to focus it on the animal. The motion caught the agent’s attention, and her eyes focused on Susan when she saw the barrel of the gun. Darien couldn’t tell if it was Callie or Amber, but whoever it was turned so that she was facing Susan rather than him. The growl paused only briefly as she took another breath before resuming the threat.
“Get out of our way. We’re leaving.”
Shortly after Susan uttered those words, a brown blur of fur and claws dropped down on her shoulders, slamming her to the ground. The handgun flew out in front of her to crash into the pine needles a few feet away. Susan rolled right away, tossing the weight off of her shoulders and freeing herself from the other caracal. She rolled to her knees, looking at her adversary while glancing around for the gun. Her rifle would be useless in close quarters.
The other cat kicked up dirt as she launched herself at Darien. He fell back, getting his hands up just in time to grab her shoulders and push her away before her teeth closed around his throat. He didn’t know if they were trying to kill him or just subdue him, but right now, he didn’t care. Her weight pinned him to the ground and he locked his elbows, trying to keep her away from his face. She raked with both front and back claws, scoring deep cuts on his arms and shredding his pants as well as the skin underneath.
Off to his side, Susan scrambled forward, trying to get to the handgun. The cat was faster, lunging at her and swatting at her forearm. Susan jerked her hand back and rolled away, coming to a stop on all fours and looking at her adversary. For a moment the two locked stares, the caracal twitching her tail back and forth as she eyed her opponent.
Blood splashed down from his arms into Darien’s face, forcing him to close his eyes and turn his head. The metallic scent combined with the cat’s foul breath to make an odor that made him want to gag. The cat on top of him took advantage of the distraction and shifted her weight, springing up to bring all her weight down on her front shoulders. Darien’s arms caved and the beast dropped at his face.
Before she connected with his body, Darien shifted into a mongoose. The cat’s mouth closed around dirt and a collection of pine needles. She shook her head and spat several times, trying to clear her throat. Darien scurried out from between her paws and jumped up on her back with lightning speed, running up her side to her spine where the back met the neck. He chomped down hard, sinking his sharp teeth in all the way up to his gums on either side of the vertebrae. Blood gushed into his mouth, but he resisted the urge to let go.
The caracal howled and hissed, twitching and spinning, trying to shake loose the smaller predator, but Darien held on tight, gripping with his front paws in her fur to keep from being thrown off. The ruckus caught the attention of the other cat, and she disengaged from Susan to come over and help. She swatted with her claws, but only managed to rake a cut down her partner’s side due to the wild twitching.
No longer stuck in a stare down, Susan scrambled to the gun and snatched it up, rolling onto her back as she brought it around to the melee. As she swung around, she saw the uninjured caracal leaping towards her. Susan brought the gun around with the handle first, clubbing the cat in the side of the head and dazing the animal. She collapsed into Susan, her limp body tumbling with Susan’s as the woman wrestled to get on top of the pile and used her gun as a club.
The other cat sprinted towards a thick tree and spun right before contact, trying to slam Darien against it and crush his body. Darien saw the blow coming and jumped free just before he made impact with the unyielding wood. Before his feet hit the ground and he was able to scurry away, a paw swiped at him in midair and sent him tumbling with deep gouges in his chest. The fire spread from his chest through his whole body as he rolled through the dirt, and every breath was a new burst of scorching heat.
From where he lay in the ground, he couldn’t see how Susan fared against the other caracal. He heard hissing, yowling, grunts, and screams, but it was impossible to tell what was going on as he tried to filter through the spots filling his vision. The only thing that he could see was one of the cats advancing on him, blood dripping down the side of her neck and drool pooling at the edges of her mouth. She opened her mouth wide in a big hiss, showing all her teeth as she advanced.
Her head jerked up to the side as Darien heard a tremendous crashing sound. A large brown bear tore through the woods like a train and slammed into the caracal, picking her up off the ground and carrying her several
feet until they both slammed into a tree with several crunches, some of wood and some of bone. The bear lifted up on its back legs and brought its front paws smashing down on the still-breathing cat, ending its life. For good measure, it reached down and tore out a chunk of flesh from the side of the creature’s neck, gulping it down.
Still winded, but recovered from his stun, Darien shifted back to human form and forced himself to sit up and look for Susan. His entire torso felt like he had taken a bath in Icy Hot. Susan stood a few feet away over the corpse of the other caracal, her hand dripping blood from where she had been using the gun as a club. The bear continued to tear of chunks of flesh and devour them, feasting on a fresh kill. Susan walked over and put her hand under Darien’s shoulder, helping to pick him up to his feet.
“Can you run? Good. Richard, let’s go! We need to get out of here, now!”
Chapter 18
Darien and Susan hustled down the trail that Richard had carved while tearing through the woods in his bear form. It made the route easy to follow. Within a few seconds they saw his black pickup waiting for them on the state road. The engine was still running and the entire vehicle vibrated from the force of the motor. Jerking open the door, Darien paused for a moment before crawling inside. The truck had a pine scent to it, rather than the dusty old leather odor he was used to. Maybe it was just the blood making him lightheaded, or maybe Richard finally cleaned out the truck. It was meticulously clutter-free. Darien tossed his backpack in and then crawled up into the backseat, lying on his back so as not to get blood on the cushions. Susan crawled in after him, stashing her rifle on the gun rack and then ripping open the backpack to look for the medical kit.
The gashes on his chest were not too deep, but they were wide enough that they were still bleeding. Darien felt them every time his chest rose with a breath. They stung, but the lancing fire he felt before was gone. Susan went to work quickly, cleaning out the wounds and tossing the used scrub pads out the door. There was no point in attempting to try and hide where they went. Speed was the critical component. By the time Richard crawled into the driver’s seat, Darien’s wounds were cleaned and bandaged, and he could sit up without fear of bleeding over the cab of the truck.
The tires kicked up a cloud of dirt as they spun in place before the truck lurched forward, pinning everyone to the seats for a moment. Susan packed up the medical supplies, tossing them into the bag just to get them off the floor and keep them from rolling around as they bumped down the unpaved road.
“Thanks for your help back there. You showed up at just the right time.”
“Not a problem, kid. I got into position and was letting the truck idle while I waited. When I heard the noise, I thought I’d come check it out. I figured it’d be better to go roaring in than take my time trying to sneak up on you.”
Darien crawled up over the seats so that he could be in the front next to Richard. Susan stayed in the back, cleaning off her hands and her gun. She searched through the backpack, looking for something as they drove down the road. Darien reached out and put his hand on Richard’s shoulder, patting it a couple of times.
“Good to see you.”
Richard grunted in acknowledgment and kept his remaining eye focused on the road ahead of him. He swerved back and forth, trying to avoid the worst of the bumps as he picked up speed. Darien was glad to be away from the military base. It felt like a huge weight was lifted from his shoulders. He turned to look out the window, watching the trees blur by as they made their escape.
Something poked him in the side and he resisted the urge to jump. Instead, he looked down and saw that Susan was holding her phone in her hand with the screen facing him so that he could see it. It was a text message to him, but she hadn’t sent it yet.
Doesn’t Richard shift into a black bear?
Darien’s breath caught and he tried to pass it off as a cough. Susan pulled the phone back and continued messing around with the backpack. Darien turned back to face Richard, but if the other man noticed anything unusual, he didn’t give any indication. Susan was right. Richard was a black bear shifter. How could he have missed that detail? He blamed it on his injuries. Unless Richard had a twin that he never said anything about, there was only one possible answer.
Bridget.
He thought she was dead or captured by the Arm after their last run-in where he left her shifting uncontrollably on the floor and told the Arm where to find her. Apparently, she’d regained control and managed to get away before they hunted her down. Then again, how in the world could you keep someone captive who could turn into anyone or anything? He needed to be careful. She’d already shown that she wouldn’t hesitate to kill Susan. She even tried to kill him the last time he refused to join up with her. Now he understood why Richard was much more proficient in the dream than Darien expected him to be.
For a while they continued to bump down the road in silence. Darien turned around to look at Susan behind him. She had the bag zipped up and held the handgun below the top of the seats, pointed in Bridget’s direction. She was ready.
“Did you get the truck cleaned? It’s about time considering how much of a dumpster it had become.”
Without any warning, Bridget reached out and grabbed Darien by the front of his jacket. She opened her door and dove out, yanking him with her, leaving Susan in the truck as it sped down the dirt road, now without an operator. The gun fired, but Darien had no idea what it hit, he just heard the echo of the gunshot before crashing into the dirt and rolling, tangled up with Bridget. When they came to a stop, he was on his back and Bridget stood over him, wearing the skin of a white wolf and pinning him to the ground with her front paws. She peeled back her lips and growled, but he understood the words.
“How long have you known?”
Darien tried to shove her off, but she repositioned herself and slammed him back to the ground, snapping with her jaws until it came close enough to his face that he could feel the hot air and smell the stench of her breath, still carrying the odor of her recent kill. He heard the crash of the truck as it slammed into a tree further up the road and tried to see what happened, but Bridget snapped at his face again, forcing him to get an arm up under her jaw.
“I’ve been following you for a while now. You know the disease is coming. That’s why you’ve given up on shifting. But even if you try to stay in your human form, it will still come for you. You can’t run away from it. The only way that you’re going to be free is if you join me. Together, we can both be free. You’ve done the same research I have. You know it requires both of us.”
With a heave, Darien brought his fist around, slamming it into the side of Bridget’s face. She stumbled, giving him the chance to scramble up and turn towards the truck. The front end of it was crumpled around a tree, and it was too far away for him to see if Susan was all right. Bridget jumped on him from behind with a snarl, shoving him to the ground once again.
Instinct took over and Darien shifted into an alligator, his hard scales not caring about the small claws of the wolf. He rolled over, trying to snap at something and get some type of leverage, but Bridget was too quick. She danced away, getting out of range before he had an opportunity to lock down on a limb. He completed his roll, turning to face her and hissing with an open mouth, frozen and waiting for her to move.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I need you, and you need me. Don’t make me force you. You don’t need to be a willing participant.”
“Leave us alone.”
“If I do, we’ll both go mad. Why can’t you see that?”
Bridget leapt forward and Darien tensed, ready to snap at her as she came down at him. In the middle of her arc, she shifted into an anaconda, growing several feet in length and wrapping the front end of her body around him so fast that he got dizzy as he tumbled in her coils. He strained against her, but felt her tightening around him as the scales along her side rippled. His ribs curved under the pressure and every breath made it feel like they would snap.
&nb
sp; With a sharp exhale, Darien relieved the pain enough to gain focus to shift, glad the effort no longer required the time it once did. The spider form that he took easily crawled out between the gaps in her coils, making her collapse in a jumble when she had nothing to grip. Darien jumped off of her body and scurried through the dirt, safe for the moment, but with no idea for how long. He couldn’t just hide from her. She’d go after Susan and put her at risk. It would take him far too long to reach the truck in this form.
Meanwhile, Bridget continued to slither back and forth, trying to catch sight of her quarry. Her tongue flicked the air as she tried to smell him and determine where he might have gone or what he had become. Darien waited until her head was turned away from him, then shifted into a falcon, taking a hop and launching into the air with a few powerful beats of his wings.
His attention was focused on the truck ahead of him and he didn’t dare try to turn and look back. About the time he closed half the distance, he heard a sharp whistling and felt two large talons close tight around his body, crushing him once again. He tried to screech and get air, but it was cut off as Bridget held him tight and swooped back up into the sky, carrying him with her. She banked her wings, carrying him over the trees and away from the road. Darien saw a flash of movement as the truck door opened far beneath them. Susan was alive.
The constant pain kept him from being able to shift, something Bridget probably knew better than he did. After all, she was an experienced Sheynan before he even knew that shifters existed. Darien tried to get a deep breath, just to get enough space to wiggle free or change his shape, but the more he struggled, the tighter she gripped. The tips of her talons dug into his skin, pricking him and making him bleed. She continued to fly over the forest, away from the road and the military base. Her shrill screech bit into his ears and made him wince even further.
The Torn Soul (The Sheynan Trilogy Book 3) Page 14