Durant was correct. It was empty.
Knowing that they were probably being watched, she lifted her chin, then strode out into the hall. The door next to them was sealed, and she quickly fried the lock. When she thrust open the door, she wasn’t sure who was more surprised—her or the young doctor who was barely old enough to practice medicine.
When Durant swore, her eyes flickered past the lab coat to see Felix literally pinned to the table like a human-sized bug collection. Straps held him immobile. Wounds decorated his body, some new, some hours old. He wasn’t healing fast enough, his wolf too weak to fight back.
“They took him because I healed him. They want to measure how long the healing effects I triggered in him would last.” Guilt threatened to take a bite out of her ass as she shoved the doctor with a foot-long needle in his hand away from Felix’s still form.
The human slammed into the wall with a resounding crack, and the two remaining techs in the room screeched in surprise. Durant growled until the two techs picked up the doctor and fled the room.
He moved to give chase, but paused when he spotted a small tablet on the floor. He stooped and picked it up while Raven rushed past him to tend to Felix.
She grabbed the first cuff from around the kid, the silver in the metal strong enough to weaken a shifter and keep them bound, which meant his wrists were scorched, the raw flesh underneath weeping blood and pus. The stench of decay and despair tainted the air, blocking everything else.
Felix hadn’t carried any extra weight on him before he was taken. After their testing, every ounce of energy had been burned away, leaving him all skin and bones and sharp elbows. Anger gave her the strength to rip the cuffs off him, the metal groaning in protest, growing brittle under the strain, before ultimately shattering.
Durant set the tablet down, then carefully began pulling the needles out from the kid’s arms and legs while Raven worked on removing the second cuff. Once finished, he helped Felix sit, the kid shaking so hard, he didn’t have the strength to do it himself. The damage to his body was so extensive, he must feel like he was one giant wound. She wasn’t sure how he remained conscious. “Will he be all right?”
Durant’s mouth tightened. “He should live.”
When Raven reached out to touch Felix, Durant caught her hand. “If you try to heal him, it will tax his body too much. It will knock him unconscious.”
She scowled at him, lifting her chin mutinously. “I won’t leave him behind.”
The kid staggered to his feet, weaving where he stood. He opened his mouth, then licked his lips. “Fine.”
His gravelly voice was raspy and broken, and her eyes widened. “You can speak?”
Durant ran a hand down his face. “When you healed him, you must have pulled enough of his human side forward to allow him to talk.”
“We need to get out of here.” The room was three times the size of the one they just left, more of a laboratory…albeit one created a hundred years ago. Grime dulled the surfaces, and blood and gore from previous patients encrusted the tables, the doctors clearly unconcerned about contamination.
Ten morgue tables were scattered around the room, an ominous body bag on one of them. She turned but halted, shivering when she swore she saw the thing move from the corner of her eye. Her skin practically crawled as she imagined bugs eating away the rotten flesh of the corpse. Unable to look away, Raven stared at the black bag, afraid that if she blinked, the zipper would slowly lower, and a rotting corpse would crawl out, dragging its decaying body across the floor to get to her. She swallowed twice before she could speak without fear clogging her throat. “Did that bag just move?”
Raven edged forward cautiously, not sure she wanted to see what was inside. She canted her head to the side, catching a faint heartbeat, the sound so sporadic she almost didn’t hear it.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for the zipper.
Durant grabbed her arm, stopping her, nearly making her jump out of her skin. “Are you sure you want to see this?”
She took a deep breath and shook out her hands, taking courage from his touch. “I need to know.”
Raven unzipped the bag, hesitated for a second, then peeled back the plastic. The air left her lungs in a rush. “Griffin!”
His face was nearly unrecognizable, literally beaten to a pulp. Both eyes were swollen shut, his lips were split, his eye-socket had clearly been broken. The pallor of his skin made his injuries stand out starkly. One of those cursed collars was strapped around his throat, barely disguising the necklace of bruises stamped from chin to collarbone, as if someone had tried to choke him to death. The only thing keeping him alive was the pure stubbornness of his wolf.
Durant used his claws, shredding the rest of the bag. The fingers on Griffin’s hands were swollen, clearly broken. The same for half a dozen of his ribs. When she went to probe them, Durant caught her wrist. “His lungs are punctured. He’s drowning in blood. His wolf is doing everything it can to heal him.”
But it’s not enough was left unspoken.
Fury burned along her nerve endings until she shook with it. “What the hell happened to him?”
“Charlie Team.” Felix limped closer, dragging his leg, leaving a small smear of blood trailing in his wake, his bloody clothes hanging on his frame.
Horror tore through her mind, stealing her thoughts, and she glanced at Griffin. The minor claw and fang marks had partially healed, disguising the source of the injuries, but if she searched hard enough, she could spot the signs. Raven clapped her hand over her mouth, fighting the need to vomit. “I didn’t even know he’d been taken.”
“This isn’t your fault. He came of his own accord.” Durant turned her to face him, forcing her to look away from Griffin’s ravaged body. “You didn’t do this.”
“Didn’t I?” Raven shrugged him off, not so easily convinced. “If I hadn’t stirred up so much trouble, I wouldn’t have drawn Griffin’s attention. He didn’t even believe in the labs…until too late.”
Durant snorted, completely disregarding her pity party. “You’re not the only one with a hero complex. Nothing you said would’ve convinced him to stay behind. He’s very much like you—he would never give up until he discovered the truth and fixed things.”
Raven was startled by the comparison, her attention dropping to Griffin once more, riveted by the severity of his injuries, then she ruthlessly shoved away her guilt and forced herself to be practical. “We can’t move him. It will kill him. The only way he’s getting out of here is if I heal him.”
Durant heaved a heavy sigh. “Fine, but hurry. They’re going to notice we’re missing soon.”
She shrugged, and blinked up at him innocently. “I noticed that the security cameras tend to have trouble functioning around me. Unless someone physically comes and checks on us, I doubt anyone knows we’re gone.”
Humor lightened his eyes to a soft gold, and he reluctantly gave into her demand. “Heal him if you insist, but you must hurry.”
Not willing to wait in case he changed his mind, Raven rested her hands on Griffin’s torso, and nearly jerked away in revulsion at the pulpy texture of where his bones should be. Swallowing the bile threatening to rise in her throat, Raven called the current to her fingertips. Electricity crackled across his torso, his back arching when the voltage slammed into him.
She wasn’t being gentle, but the sense of time growing short was like a weight pressing down on her. The fresh scent of cut wood sharpened as Griffin’s wolf surged forward with a snarl.
The wounds began to close, the swelling shrank, the bruises morphed through the colors of the rainbow, but underneath, bones crunched as they shifted and began to reshape. The muscles under her hands began to firm.
Griffin woke with a flash of fangs and claws, slashing at the source of his pain—her. Sharp talons sliced into the flesh of her arm, leaving behind a shallow line of blood, but she refused to retreat.
Infuriated by his failure to stop the pain, he hissed an
d lunged for her throat.
Nothing short of death would satisfy him.
Durant grabbed his shoulders and wrenched him backwards, flattening him against the table.
Recognition flashed in Griffin’s eyes, and his throat bobbed when he swallowed hard. He stopped struggling, staring at her as if she were an apparition. “Please tell me you’re real.”
Raven shoved Durant away, and he moved his bulk reluctantly, not retreating more than a foot. She touched Griffin’s face. “We’re here, but I think we’ve overstayed our welcome. What do you say we leave this joint?”
Griffin nodded repeatedly, swallowing several times, and he ducked his head as he struggled to sit.
“What happened to you?”
There was a hitch in his movements at her question, and he gave a bitter laugh. “Apparently they have enough rogues. I wasn’t worth studying.”
“Thank your lucky stars they’re incompetent fools. This is a field trip compared to what they would have done to you if they discovered your ability to function without an alpha.”
He laughed, then groaned, cupping his ribs as he painstakingly straightened, then gingerly eased his feet to the ground and stood. When he saw she wasn’t joking, he blanched. “Good to know.”
A commotion in the hall drew their attention. Griffin and Felix froze in fear, while Durant let loose some inventive cursing. “Do we fight our way out, then?”
Raven studied each of them, and knew the truth. “We would never make it.”
Durant snatched up the small tablet, quickly shoving it down the back of her pants, pulling her shirt over to hide it just as the door opened—revealing an army waiting for them. Frankenstein’s displeasure rolled off him like frost.
Even before he spoke, she knew he would separate her from her pack, and she couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Leave them alone, and I’ll cooperate.”
Durant bristled in denial, but she touched his arm to quiet him.
Frankenstein raised a brow, his attention dropping to where her hand rested. “You will anyway.”
Raven mimicked him and raised a brow. “Maybe, but not easily, and not without cost. You won’t get what you want without my cooperation.”
He studied her through narrowed eyes, then shrugged. “As you wish.”
His tone let her know she would regret her demand.
Chapter Twenty-four
“You little fool.” Durant whirled, grabbing her by the shoulders while he berated her, his arms shaking with the need to throttle her.
Bones creaked, his hold falling just short of brutal, and she gave a little squeak of protest. He immediately lightened his grip a fraction, but only enough for her to wheeze out an explanation. “It was the only way to keep you off the lab tables.”
Struck speechless, Durant very gently set her back onto her feet, as if too furious to be near her.
Griffin panted under the strain of remaining upright, saying nothing—a very loud nothing—but Raven knew she’d only spoken the truth. One way or another, getting out of there was going to come down to a fight. By the determined glint in his eyes, he knew it, too. He remained motionless, giving his wolf every spare ounce of energy to accelerate his healing.
Felix concerned her the most, his only expression was acceptance as he gingerly leaned against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor, his legs askew, staring blankly at nothing.
Raven crouched in front of him. “Just hang on a little bit longer.”
He gave a negligible shrug, like none of it mattered. “It’s okay.”
His raspy voice made her want to hug him. “Why don’t you tell us how they captured you?”
“They worked at one of the food shelters. When they find a kid they like, one they have observed for weeks, confirming they have no friends or family, they ask them to stay afterwards, offering them a job or food or whatever.” A silent snort escaped him, a bitter smile twisting his lips. “I thought it was safe. I traded my life for a piece of pie.”
Raven wanted to hunt the bastards down and rip out their spines. “What happened?”
“They drugged the pie. I was transported to one of their observation rooms with a dozen or so other boys. Some of them were in obviously bad shape. After living on the streets, I know when to keep my mouth shut, so they only beat me a few times when I messed up. The others weren’t so lucky.”
He fiddled with the seam of his pants, a sigh escaping him, and his shoulders heaved as if under great strain. “We entered one at a time in a room similar to this one, each of us strapped down. The fear was infectious. By the time all of us were present, the place was in chaos. The doctor gave a speech on how we were going to save the world.”
He bit the ragged nail of his thumb. “Some of us were stupid enough to believe him.”
“They injected you the serum.” Her voice was no more than a whisper, and he gave her a jerky nod.
“We were forced to watch while the other kids around us died horrible deaths, wondering if we would be next. They left me in there alone with fifteen bodies for days.” He flashed her a desperate, panicky look, and she grabbed his leg to steady him, ignoring the way he flinched, as if he no longer recognized kindness. “The smell eats away at you. If I closed my eyes, I can still see their decaying, bloated bodies dripping off the tables.”
The kid’s heart rate skyrocketed, his chest jerking as he greedily gulped air, wrestling with his animal to stay human enough to speak.
Something inside her broke at his wretched story, one probably shared with hundreds of others like him, most of whom didn’t survive. Determination to bring this place down burned through her like an inferno.
She wanted vengeance.
She wanted payback.
When the door opened, Raven pushed to her feet and whirled. Something in her expression froze everyone in the room. The lab technician practically quaked in his coat, repeatedly opening and closing his mouth, but nothing emerged but a low, wordless sound of fear. Durant very slowly eased in front of her, his broad back blocking her view.
Only then did the dragon ease back.
“Come this way.” The male lab tech nervously cleared his throat, then squeaked. “Please.”
Durant grabbed Griffin’s arm, slinging it around his shoulder, ignoring the wolf’s grimace of pain. They were moved across the compound to a large cavern that had been made into an observation room. Some twenty feet above the hard-packed ground was a small surveillance room, sealed behind more magical glass, giving the people an unobstructed view of the spectacle that would take place.
The smell of blood and rot had so permeated the room, there was no escaping it. The only other exit was a second sliding door on the opposite side of the room. The cavern was about thirty feet around, claw marks scored the stone where others had tried to escape.
Durant set Griffin on the ground, leaning him against the stone table in the center of the room, then rested his hip against it to watch her. Felix trailed after her, mimicking her as she took stock of their surroundings.
“Be ready to move. If things go bad, I’ll pull down the power grid with me.”
Durant calmly shook his head, but his eyes had bled to gold while he stared at her, as if relishing the upcoming opportunity to tear his opponents to shreds. “They would flood the room with guards within minutes. We’re in no condition to fight our way free.”
“Did you notice the route we took to get here?” She cocked her head at him, then smiled. “We’re at the heart of the labs.”
“And that’s a good thing?” The sarcasm in his voice smarted. His cat was practically twitching, waiting to pounce, and she knew he was hanging onto his control by the tips of his claws.
She couldn’t help admire the way his tightly wound body gleamed in the lights, struggling not to gawk. “Between us and the guards are dozens and dozens of rooms full of tortured shifters. When I take down the grid—”
“The doors will open, spilling the horror of what they creat
ed into the halls.” She shivered at the silky quality of his voice. “You risk the captives killing each other indiscriminately. If we get free, we could end up fighting both sides.”
“The Delta Team would help,” Felix piped up, his expression earnest.
“You’re forgetting one thing.” Griffin stretched his neck, bringing attention to the collar, and Raven resisted growling at the obscene choker. “You have a useless army.”
Felix stepped forward, hesitantly lifting his hand. “They can be destroyed.”
“What?” Hope surged through her anew. “How do you know?”
“It’s a machine. They tested different frequencies on a few of us to see what would be most effective.”
Raven hesitated to put the kid in any further danger by asking him to help after everything he’d been through.
“I’m no good at fighting, but I’m slippery and can be quiet. I’m also small, no threat to either side. They would ignore me in the chaos, and I can sneak into the room that has the machine without anyone noticing.” His yearning to be useful tore at her resolve. Even after everything that happened to him, he was willing to put himself in danger to help. As if sensing her wavering, he took another hesitant step toward her.
“Please.” His voice cracked. “Let me do this.”
Raven scowled, marching up to the kid. “If I agree, you will not do anything foolish. I will not have you sacrifice yourself, understand?”
He nodded repeatedly, and she silently vowed to do whatever she could to keep him safe. “How much time do you need?”
He scratched his chin, shuffling his feet, his eyes losing their focus for a moment, before he shook his head and looked at her again. “Ten minutes.”
“We will give you the distraction you need to get to the machine.” Knowing shifters craved touch, Raven gently placed her hands on his shoulders, ignoring the slight flinch, as if he expected to feel pain. “Be safe.”
The kid nodded, straightening his spine, puffing up with pride. “I’ll make myself invisible.”
He turned to shuffle away, but then glanced at her over his shoulder. “You have to act just like the others. If you pretend you don’t see me, then no one else will notice me either.”
Electric series- Raven Investigations BoxSet Page 52