by Zoe Chant
Outside the door, she saw Levi running forward; he looked back over his shoulder—and paused, almost stumbling to a halt.
Sutherland saw him too. He pushed her forward through the door, using her as a shield, and fired his gun at Levi.
Maria knew she screamed again because her throat was hurting, but she couldn’t hear it over the thunder of the gun right next to her ear.
The bullet hit Levi in the chest. So did the next one.
A vest, she reminded herself frantically, he’s wearing a vest, he’s not dead—
And as she watched, he started to shift.
Sutherland backed away hurriedly, his iron grip keeping her stumbling after him—she tried to throw herself forward toward Levi, but suddenly the hot muzzle of the gun was against her temple.
She froze. Levi froze too, now fully shifted, his bear form poised to attack.
And a car screeched to a stop next to them, its door flung open. Sutherland shoved her toward it, the gun never leaving her head.
She had to go with him. Even though every fiber of her body strained toward Levi, only a few yards away, ready to do anything to protect her.
But he couldn’t outrun a gun that was already touching her skin. Maria kept her eyes on him for as long as she could, but Sutherland shoved her into the car and slammed the door.
But they didn’t immediately drive away. The window rolled down a few inches and Sutherland lifted the gun from her head.
Maria knew what he was planning to do. “Levi, run!” she shrieked.
Sutherland hit her hard across the face, leaving her ears ringing, but when she got herself together enough to see what was going on again, Levi was running away while Sutherland fired a hail of bullets after him.
Maria strained to see if he’d been hit, but she couldn’t tell. How much could bullets hurt him, as a bear?
More than she’d like, she knew that.
After what seemed like an eternity, the gunfire stopped. Levi was nowhere to be seen, but Maria didn’t know if he’d gotten away unhurt, or if he was somewhere just out of sight, bleeding out into the street.
The car started. Sutherland turned to look at her with an ugly expression on his face.
“Maria,” he said, “I think you’re going to pay for that.”
* * *
Levi shifted back to human and ducked into a convenience store until the gunfire ceased; then he ran back outside to watch the car speeding away. He stared at the license plate number until it was burned into his brain.
Then he pulled out his phone and called the lieutenant.
“Moyer,” the lieutenant answered.
“Sir, where are you?” Levi asked. “Sutherland just kidnapped Maria, and nobody was here, and I don’t understand what—just—happened…”
Abruptly, he got it.
“Well.” The lieutenant’s voice was regretful. “That’s unfortunate. I’m afraid you weren’t supposed to survive.”
Slowly, feeling like he was in a dream, Levi ended the call.
Then he called Danny.
“Yo,” Danny answered. “Aren’t you supposed to be out in the field being a hero right now? You better not be late or the lieu will have your ass.”
“Danny—Danny! Stop.”
Danny immediately sobered up. “What is it? Did something go wrong with the op?”
“You could say that.” Levi stared down the street where the car had disappeared. “If you ditch your interviews, how fast can you get back here?”
* * *
“The lieu set you up?” Danny asked incredulously. “Why would he do that?”
They were in a park a mile or two from the Starbucks, hidden under a stand of trees in the twilight. Levi had ditched his car, which could be tracked, and Danny was half-paying attention to him and half-working on some kind of tech magic that would make his phone untraceable.
“Do you remember what you said when I joined the department?” Levi asked.
“I said so much shit to you when you started, man, I can’t remember half of it. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“You said that you’d always thought the lieutenant didn’t like shifters—like, really didn’t like them—but since he was treating me okay you must have been wrong.” Levi paced a few steps away, too agitated to stand still, and turned back.
Danny blinked. “Oh. Yeah. I always thought he was, I don’t know, politically against them or something. He said a few things before you got here, about how shifters were a public menace and a danger to the peace and whatever. I figured that seeing a stand-up guy like you on the force changed his mind.” He nudged Levi.
“I don’t think that’s what happened,” said Levi. “I think he was waiting until he had an opportunity to get rid of me. This must have looked perfect.”
“Huh.” Danny’s rare thoughtful look settled on his face. “Huh.”
“So?” Levi said impatiently, after a long pause. “Does that sound right to you?”
Danny’s expression turned sour. “I don’t want to think that about my own lieutenant, you know? But it makes sense. It makes bad, bad sense.”
Levi shook his head. “Hate to break it to you, but that’s the only kind we’ve got right now.”
* * *
The driver of the car was Michael Rivers. Maria recognized him from her research file.
A file which was doing her a hell of a lot of good right now. What did it matter if she knew who all of the HAS members were? They wouldn’t be giving her a quiz on their names before they killed her.
And she was pretty sure they were going to kill her. They hadn’t blindfolded her, for one thing, and as they went farther and farther out into the countryside, Maria became certain that they were taking her to their hideout.
She memorized the route, just in case. Maybe she’d get a chance to tell someone…something.
Sutherland wasn’t talking to her, thank God, so she just stared out the window and waited. And hoped Levi was okay.
Eventually, they arrived at the...base, or compound, or whatever it was. There was a long twisting drive off the road, and then a large building that stretched out into the night. Maria couldn’t tell how big it was, exactly, but it seemed enormous in the dark.
Sutherland grabbed her arm again, right where it was hurt. Maria bit her lip to keep from making any noise—she refused to give him the satisfaction. She scooted out of the car as much under her own power as she could. She was tired of being dragged.
She stumbled once on the steps up to the front door, and Sutherland jerked her upright. She couldn’t keep from making a little sound of pain at that, but she bit it off as soon as possible.
Inside, they went down a long, carpeted hallway, and Sutherland knocked on a door at the very end of it.
“Enter,” said a voice, and Sutherland pushed open the door and brought Maria inside.
Maria recognized the man seated at the desk at the far end of the enormous office. “George Lisle. Wow. I must be worth something for you to personally want to talk to me.”
George Lisle was the leader, spokesperson and bankroller of Humans Against Shifters; he was wealthy, well-spoken, and, as far as Maria had been able to tell when researching, totally lacking in any kind of moral compass.
"Hello, Ms. Hernandez.” He leaned forward in his chair and gave her an urbane smile. "I've been looking forward to your visit."
"I find that hard to believe," said Maria. "Considering that you tried to have me killed, I wouldn't have thought you'd want to sit down and talk to me anytime soon."
"I'm afraid that was something of a mistake," Lisle said smoothly. "Mr. Sutherland was only ordered to kill Laura Davis. Since you two were together, and your identity was known to him, he made a judgment call that you too should be a target. I have since instructed him that that is not a goal of ours, and that we would rather keep you alive."
"Why? What do you want from me?"
Maybe that was a bad question. She didn't want to convinc
e Lisle to kill her. But she couldn't figure out what she was doing here.
"You're a valuable asset, Ms. Hernandez," said Lisle. "A possible advantage for our cause. You worked closely with a shifter and advocated for shifters' rights. If you were to turn around and confess that you'd been under duress, that you'd witnessed certain things about how shifters conduct themselves, if you'd been forced to keep quiet..."
"I don't know what sort of brainwashing techniques you're planning on using," Maria snapped, "but I would never say anything like that about Laura."
"Oh, you don't have to be brainwashed, Ms. Hernandez. You just have to be suitably...persuaded to make an appropriate statement. It doesn't matter to us whether you personally believe it or not."
Maria felt chilled by Lisle's cool, calm manner. He was talking about threatening her, maybe torturing her, and he looked like he was ordering dinner. "I won't do it," she said, trying to keep up her anger. She couldn't let herself succumb to fear of whatever they were going to do. The consequences for Laura—and Levi, and all the rest of the shifters who needed acceptance—would be too much.
Levi.
"How did you get past the police like that?" Maria asked suddenly. "There was a whole operation set up, and then it was like it never even happened."
Lisle raised his eyebrows. "Was there a whole operation set up?"
Maria frowned. "The lieutenant said..." The lieutenant.
The lieutenant who hadn't believed her story at the beginning, who'd been careful to discuss the "operation" in his office with only Maria and Levi present, who'd personally replaced Levi's partner..."He was in on it, wasn't he.”
"Our members are many," Lisle said serenely, "and not all of their names are available simply by Googling us."
That was a dig at her research, Maria was sure. "You don't have any real leverage," she spat. "You're resorting to terrorist tactics because there's nothing else you can do! You didn't get elected to the state senate, Laura did, because the world is accepting shifters, enough to put them in office. And there's nothing you can do about that."
Lisle's cool expression faltered for a second, and then snapped back into place. "Take her away, Mr. Sutherland. Maybe several hours somewhere uncomfortable will make it clear to her that we're serious."
"Yes, sir," said Sutherland in Maria's ear, and she jumped. She'd been so focused on Lisle that she'd forgotten that Sutherland was there—even though his hand was still clamped around her arm.
Sutherland hauled her out the door. She was getting really sick of being hauled around.
She was taken to a tiny little room with no windows and dumped into a chair. She thought seriously about trying to kick Sutherland in the face as he tied her feet to the legs, but decided that it would be more trouble than it was worth—there was no way she could actually subdue him.
He tied her hands together, bound them to the back of the chair, and said, “Enjoy the next eight hours. Hope you don’t have to pee.” The door slammed behind him.
Great. Just great.
* * *
“I have to find her.” Levi paced back and forth under the trees. “I can’t believe that goddamn traitor Moyer was working with them! Who knows where she’s been taken?”
“Calm down, man.” Danny was watching him with wide eyes.
Levi whirled on him. “I cannot calm down! Maria is with those assholes, do you understand? Right now!”
“Whoa!” Danny held up his hands. “What’s wrong with you? I’ve never seen you like this.”
Levi almost roared at him—and then slumped back against the tree. “I promised to keep her safe,” he said softly.
"Levi, man, what's with this girl? Is there something going on here?"
"...yes.” Levi kept his eyes down.
"You?" Danny asked incredulously. "With a victim? I wouldn't have thought you'd ever—"
"She's my mate," Levi interrupted. It felt incredibly good to say the words out loud.
"Oh." Danny's brow furrowed. "That's some mystical shifter crap, right?"
Levi couldn't help a tired laugh. "Yes, Danny, it's mystical shifter crap. She's the one for me. I know it."
"Uh," Danny said. "Does she know it?"
"Not...yet."
"Huh."
Levi rubbed his eyes. "When I can hear you judging me for my romantic decisions, I know that I have seriously fucked up."
"Hey, I take offense to that...you know that this is something you really should've, like, mentioned to her by now, maybe? I mean, unless you're going to pine from afar or whatever, like in some old book—"
"Nope." Levi glanced over at Danny.
It took a second. "Whoa!" Danny exclaimed. "You already hit that!"
"Hey!" Levi came up off the tree and glared. "Don't talk about her like that."
Danny held up his hands in immediate surrender. "Sorry, sorry. But you—that is totally breaking the rules. One-hundred-percent rules broken, there."
"Considering the rules our boss just broke, I don't actually feel that bad."
"...Yeah," said Danny ruefully, "I guess I see your point there."
"But now I don't know what to do." Levi stared at the ground. "The only lead I have is the license plate."
"So let's call it in." Danny pulled out his phone.
"And hope that the lieutenant isn't alerted the second we do."
"Risk we gotta take." Danny dialed.
* * *
It took a solid hour to work one of her hand out of the ropes.
Sutherland had tied them tight, and Maria's wrists weren't as slender as she might have preferred in this situation. She had to twist and yank and stretch out the rope, slowly, bit by bit. It hurt a lot and it felt like it took an eternity.
When she finally got her hand free, her wrist was a burned and bleeding mess. "Worth it," she muttered, scrabbling in her cleavage for her pocketknife. Thank God she'd packed it—she wouldn't have to unpick the stretched and strained knots blind with one hand.
Cutting through the ropes without slicing up any of her fingers was a bit of a trick, but she managed it, and immediately bent down to get her feet free. Flexing her tingling extremities, she stood up cautiously.
No one immediately burst through the door to shout at her for escaping, so she figured that the room wasn't under any kind of surveillance. Great.
She checked her watch. 10:32 PM. She wondered what sort of night guard there was on this place. Could she sneak out? If so, how would she get away? They were in the middle of freaking nowhere and she didn't know anything about what was nearby. There were cars, but she didn't know how to hotwire a car or anything like that.
If she'd been confident that she wouldn't be chased, she would've just tried to find a window or door and sneak out, but the place was probably alarmed, and if she was caught, she didn't think she'd get a second chance. They'd make sure she wasn't getting away again.
So she needed a different plan.
There was a crack under the door. Maria lay flat down on the floor and peered under it. All she could see was the faint hallway illumination. She hadn't heard anyone moving around for at least half an hour or so, so there wasn't a guard pacing around out there.
There was no guarantee that he wasn't just leaning against a wall or sitting on the stairs, of course, but what else was she going to do?
She tried the door. It opened.
She was surprised at first, but in retrospect it wasn't that surprising—how many doors were there in a house that locked you in? They would've had to have a custom cell made, and she guessed Lisle hadn't gotten around to renovating that dramatically yet.
She eased herself out into the hallway. No guards. There was, however, a little glowing keypad by the front door. She'd been right about the security system, then, and given Lisle’s money, she bet it was as high-tech as they came. Leaving through a door or crawling out the window was straight out.
Lisle's office was at the end of the hall. Unable to resist the temptation, she tried the
door. Locked, of course.
If only she knew how to pick locks. There must be all sorts of evidence in there.
But that wasn't her goal. Her goal was—
—Levi.
She'd been thinking in terms of getting herself out, but that wasn't happening, was it? She couldn't do it. But she knew who could.
Assuming he was all right.
No. She had to trust that he was okay. He'd promised that he'd keep her safe, and despite all of the experience that told her that the only person who was entitled to take care of Maria was Maria, she trusted him to do that.
She didn't know why. They'd had sex once. They'd had a few conversations. What was it about this man that just stabbed through to the core of her like this? What did he have that resonated so strongly with her very being? Why did she know that he was coming for her?
She couldn't say. But she knew.
She turned to the other doors along the hallway. Which ones would be safest to try? She didn't want to open some insane paranoid militia-man's bedroom door and get herself shot.
Maybe the one closest to the front door. This place looked like a fancy mansion of some kind, so perhaps...
She eased the door open, and knew immediately that she was right. It opened into a big, echoing space—it was too dark to see anything clearly, but when she stepped inside, she almost immediately bumped against a spindly chair. Yes, it was a parlor or something like it.
Now, she had to depend on Lisle being the sort of pretentious asshole she thought he was...she felt around carefully in the darkness. She didn't dare turn on a light, so it took forever.
Spindly chair, spindly chair, curvy loveseat...end table!
Empty end table. She kept going. Curvy armchair, spindly chair, long open space...couch. And another end table.
This one had a phone on it.
It was old-fashioned and clearly ornate, from what she could feel. The sort of phone that was more of a decorative piece than an actual useful object, these days.
But when she picked it up, she heard a dial tone.
Now came the moment of truth. Did she actually remember Levi's number, from when she'd seen it on his card and dialed it earlier today? Or did she just think she did? Surely the numbers couldn't have burned themselves into her memory this quickly, but when she closed her eyes she could see them in front of her on the card as clear as day.