“Just being honest.”
“Noted.” I stared at the food on my plate with caution.
“What’s wrong? Think I’m going to poison you?” She took a bite of bacon. Xany never missed a trick. She seemed alert to nearly every gesture, slight change in expression, or shift in mood that I had.
“Nothing, nothing,” I answered too quickly, avoiding eye contact.
“Eesh,” she said and took a bite of her own omelet, then switched her dish with mine, looking to me with a risen brow. I held my breath for about five seconds before speaking.
“You’re an empath.”
“That would be cool.” She ate some of the omelet on the new plate.
“You are an empath, aren’t you?” I accused, leaning forward a bit.
Xany merely smiled and kept on eating.
“That’s why…that’s why you’ve been following me around and being so pushy and everything isn’t it?”
“I’m always pushy.” She put a few pieces of bacon onto my plate.
“That’s not fair. You can tell how I feel and what I think.”
“It’s not like I do it on purpose, Nee, and you know it,” she defended. “Just eat and don’t be rude.”
“No, I’m not going to eat. You’ve been following me around because I’m some sort of empath magnet with a shit history and scars to go along with it.” I thumped my hand down on the table.
Xany frowned. “And what if I wasn’t an empath? What would you say then?”
“I… I don’t know.” I was so intent on being angry with her for hiding her empathy that the idea she might not be an empath made me hesitate a moment.
“I’m not an empath, Nee, at least not officially. Is it so hard to believe that someone can actually care without having to have some sort of gift or hidden agenda?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to accuse you. Yes, it’s hard to believe.”
“Well, shame on you. I can just tell. It doesn’t take an empath to notice when someone is scared,” she said.
I took a small bite of bacon and smiled when I tasted the salty crispness melt in my mouth. “Can’t remember the last time I had bacon.”
“You probably had it yesterday.” She giggled.
“Xany!” I laughed and tossed a piece at her. “Probably right though.”
She grinned at me and dodged it. “Mhmm. See. I learn quickly.”
I experienced a surge of affection toward her, followed by a sudden glumness as I took a bite of omelet. “When are you leaving?”
“On Friday. Caden bought a truck, and they’re driving out to pick up some of my stuff.”
“Friday?” I tried to hide my frown by taking a sip of juice. Was I really upset that Xany was going to be leaving? A few weeks ago I wished she would disappear and leave me alone, and now I wished she wouldn’t.
“Mhmm.” She paused and served herself a bit more omelet. “You can still come you know.”
“I… I can’t… With work,” I stammered. “And Vanessa won’t be able to live close being surrounded by wolves.” I knew it was a lame excuse.
“Vanessa can bend, she can go anywhere she wants. And they have hospitals in Utah, probably bigger ones too.” She watched me over her juice glass.
I tried to keep my expression as blank as possible and ate slowly. “I just can’t.”
“Okay. Just offering you a choice. Mal and Caden aren’t like typical dominants. Caden is really laid back and protective, and Mal just likes being in the woods. Other than me, he doesn’t boss people around. That’s why they both left Caden’s dad’s pack in California. That pack is so bossy and strict.”
There was that word again: choice. “Why did you leave the pack?” I asked. I’d finished my breakfast and was attempting to turn the conversation around back to Xany.
“I never joined.” She giggled. “My parents were part of a small pack around Cheyenne when I was growing up, and then they moved to Florida when I turned fourteen. My mom didn’t want me to end up a baby-making machine at such a young age. Mal got to stay with Caden since they went to high school together while I had to move to blue-hair-ville. I think they even had their Firsting together.” She shrugged. “Once I turned eighteen, I moved out on my own back to Wyoming.” She grinned at me, then continued. “When Caden’s dad moved the pack to California, Caden and Mal came up with the idea of helping the Lost Ones,” she ended and downed the rest of her juice.
“Why are you joining one now?” I asked. It was uncommon for Breeders to be separate from the protection of a pack.
She shrugged. “Why not? And plus Caden’s cute and Mal won’t boss me around. Utah has better work than here. I could probably make more money there.”
“What if Caden bosses you around?”
“He’s not like that. He doesn’t give orders; he makes suggestions and waits for feedback. He always has.” She grinned proudly.
“Caden is a strange dominant. He’ll make an interesting alpha. Mal seems…” I trailed off.
“More feral? He is. He’s closer to his beast than most. Caden has really good control of his own beast and helps Mal with his. They’re kind of a pair like that.”
“Like an alpha and beta.”
“Uh-huh.” She smiled. “Mal has always been closer to his beast. He’s closer to Gaia too. My dad said it’s because he was born under a full moon. It makes him more in-tune with things.”
“That makes sense.” I paused. “Did he ever get into trouble because of his beast?”
“No, not really. He’s just a really strong fighter and likes to go for the kill all the time. Caden is more for umm… What’s that word? Subjuctatering, or something.”
“Subjugation,” I corrected.
“Yeah, that. Caden has strong will, and he would rather have his enemies fear him than kill them, especially other wolves or people who have the power to change. Caden says killing isn’t the way to solve the world’s problems.”
“That’s pretty honorable. But don’t you think he would use his will to make his pack submissive too?” I queried.
“No, because he knows what it feels like to be overpowered like that. He says that a pack is there to be a team, and each member supports the next. Breeders should be cherished because without Breeders there would be no werecreatures to begin with. He really believes that,” she said, with a dreamy expression.
“It’s a little bit hard to believe. I mean, I can see he is different just by the fact he allowed a weretiger into a room full of wolves and Breeders and that he listened to our suggestions.” I bit my lip. I didn’t necessarily want to believe that Caden was a good guy. I hadn’t met many good guys.
“He is very different.” She smiled at me and gave me the last piece of bacon before taking a few dishes to the kitchen.
“Do you think you’ll be happy there in a pack?” I asked as we got up to clean.
“I think so. I can always come back if I want to. But I won’t know until I try.” She shrugged as we began washing the dishes together.
“Guess you’re right.” I focused on washing the dishes. Friday was only two days away. In two days she would be gone, and I would probably never see her, Caden, or Mal again. “I better get ready for work. I’ve got to be there in an hour.”
“Awww, I was having fun.” We dried the dishes and began to put them away. “I quit working at the Double D a few days ago. No loss there,” she added with a grin.
“The old men will miss grabbing your double Ds.” I smirked.
She giggled with appreciation. “They’ll find something new to get their rocks off with.”
I laughed as I wiped off the table. Once everything was clean, I turned to her. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“Any time.” She grinned. “Don’t ask me to make any other meal though. I’m not the greatest chef. Breakfast is easiest.”
I smiled. I hadn’t cooked in forever, hence the cereal habit.
“Shower time. Maybe I’ll see you when I get home.�
��
“Hope so.” She bounced forward and gave me a hug.
I cringed at first before patting her on the back awkwardly. She giggled at my return gesture before breaking the hug and prancing toward the door.
“Don’t stare at any leeches while I’m gone,” I called after her, and I heard her crack up as she skipped down the hall.
Chapter Fifteen
I dressed for work quickly, hoping that Doctor Reynolds would still be away at the conference. I wanted to find the root of the Andrus infestation, and his absence was necessary.
Just before I got to the hospital, I pulled out my mobile phone and called Vanessa.
“Hi, Shawnee,” she said when she picked up.
“Hi,” I replied stiffly, chickening out on what I had planned to say to begin with.
“Are you okay?” she asked. I could hear music in the background, which meant that she was probably at work. The music faded away when she moved to a different room.
“I’m okay. I, umm…will probably be working late tonight so I wanted to tell you that,” I said awkwardly.
“You…work late every night.” She sounded confused.
“I feel bad about being rude to you. I’m sorry I always push you away. I don’t mean to do that,” I blurted out, closing my eyes to stop tears from falling.
“I know you don’t mean it, Shawnee. Are you okay? You sound different. I’m coming over in a minute, all right?” Concern flooded her voice.
“No, no…I’m fine. I’m about to go into work. I just wanted to say that. I wanted you to know it, okay?” I gulped back a lump in my throat. It was hard to tell her how I really felt.
“Okay…” She paused. “I’ll come over tonight after work, all right? You can tell me what you need to tell me then.”
“Okay.” I hesitated, then added, “Thanks.”
“For what?”
I knew I needed to get off the phone quickly before she had a chance to ask any more questions. “I dunno, just thanks. See you tonight.”
“Bye, Shawnee.”
“Bye.”
I held my breath as I put the phone back into my pocket.
You can’t tell her. You can’t tell anyone.
“I know… I know I can’t.”
I walked into the hospital, greeting some of the staff that were ending their early-afternoon shifts. The first thing I did when I got to my office was check my e-mail. No news from Doctor Reynolds. I hadn’t seen Kurt in several days either. To be sure, I checked the lab and the logbooks to see if he had signed in. The last time he signed in for a shift was several days earlier. So now all I had to do was bide my time until midnight.
For the first few hours, I spent time down in the lab, reviewing some of the assignments that Dr. Reynolds and I had worked on. The most frustrating thing was the lack of details he provided me. He would present me with a task, and I completed it. Stop this reaction, create this one, destroy this hair follicle, create a new one, map this genetic sequence, match this DNA strand, etc. There was a reason for his ambiguity, and now I knew what it was.
I took a few of the file folders where Dr. Reynolds kept failed experiments—he didn’t have a folder for successful ones—and walked over to the tray used for soaking items. I dropped the file folders in it and took a large bottle of sulfuric acid from the chemical closet and poured it over the papers. After a while, the stack of folders resembled a pile of wet toilet tissue.
You’re on a suicide mission, you know that right?
Andrus-infected hospitals often lacked security. There were general security guards and cameras in the ER and outside the hospital. However, all of the high security areas allowed neither cameras nor audio equipment. The Andrus were good at their job and good at weaving their way into an environment. This required complete enmeshment, thus, they couldn’t run the risk of any camera or audio equipment even if it was monitored by their own people. Recordings have a way of ending up in the wrong hands. Particularly when in the hands of the corrupt Andrus to begin with. Any employee of the Andrus would be more than willing to take a bribe for a glimpse at the experiments. And besides, preternatural creatures had a way of distorting video equipment. It’s part of the magics.
After my game of destruction in the lab, I made my way through the ER and checked on a few of the patients who had been admitted. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. A young boy with a broken wrist after a skateboard trick down a flight of stairs, an older woman who fell while getting the mail, and a man who was bitten by a pit bull. I checked up on the latter. The man had a nice bite mark on his inner thigh. He was happy it wasn’t farther north.
Back in my office, I was somewhat astounded at the clarity of my thinking. How I was focused on my task and determined to do my part to let the Andrus know that they were discovered despite the consequences to me? What did I matter to them anyway? If I disappeared from here, they wouldn’t bother with me. I was as replaceable as the next doctor with a knack for chemistry. I took the files from my office, stacked them up, and began feeding each sheet into the shredder one at a time. My heart thudded in my chest.
When I was finished shredding anything that could potentially contain harmful information, I sat back in my chair and looked around my office. It was scarce, with a few medical books on a shelf and several diplomas on the wall. The diplomas and awards were the only hint of me that actually existed in here, not unlike my apartment. At home I had one trunk full of sentimental items and at work all I had were my diplomas. Not much to show for a rather successful doctor.
I listened to the sound of the clock ticking, counting down the minutes, and wondered what my mother would think of what I was doing. Would she approve? Would she try and stop me?
I don’t know why I’m being so cocky about all of this. I could potentially fail at finding the containment cells and even if I did find them, then what? What was the plan?
I gulped, being reminded of Mal and Caden’s plan for rescuing Lost Ones. What if I found a half dozen werewolf cubs? Breeders? Feral-borns? What was I going to do then? Okay, so maybe Caden was not the only one with poor planning skills… But, unlike Caden, I wasn’t as lucky. I had already initiated this plan by destroying those files. If Dr. Reynolds came back and found the files destroyed before I was able to help those being held, their lives might be in even greater jeopardy.
Idiot.
There was no going back now.
The hospital was nearly silent at midnight on a Thursday. The weekends were usually busier. There was less nursing staff available and many of the on-call doctors were probably catching a few hours sleep or getting something to eat. I casually went to the private elevator and completed the usual retinal scan. When the doors closed, I examined the number pad. I doubted that the containment cells were going to be on the top floor. I rationalized and hit B for Basement as my first choice. Taking a deep breath, I began my decent into the unknown.
There were no security guards down here. There was no need; the private elevator only allowed full-access staff to use it. When the elevator stopped in the basement, it opened into something that resembled a warehouse, lit with dim yellow floodlights, some of which were blinking with exhaustion. There were boxes of medical supplies stacked high to the ceiling and a random scattering of old, battered, or broken medical equipment stashed here and there. It was damp and dreary. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the closing elevator door shuddered. With my arms wrapped around myself, I began walking the length of the basement between the large boxes and metal towers. It was silent other than a few random drips from a leaking pipe in the distance.
A deep breath calmed me, and I continued walking around, weaving in and out of the aisles, just waiting for the moment when something would jump out and scare the piss out of me. I began humming softly to help keep me focused. When I made it to the other side of the basement, I found nothing but a cold concrete wall. A heavy sigh escaped my lips, and I decided that maybe the best thing to do was to follow the w
all all the way around in hope of finding a door. The basement was nearly the full size of the hospital. When I had walked for a good five minutes, I paused.
“Okay, think, Shawnee. There’s got to be an entrance down here. We’re only partially underground,” I said softly, then the thought struck me. Partially underground… The containment cells would undoubtedly be below ground.
I started walking again, and this time I kept my eyes on the soiled, damp floor. My sneakers treaded on dust and dirt, making distinct tracks in the shape of their soles. When I turned the corner, suddenly my footprints were not the only ones on the ground. Down the narrow aisle, I hurriedly followed the trail of footprints, keeping my eyes peeled on the ground for any hints of shifts in direction when—Wham! My head crashed into a tall wooden crate.
“Shit.” I rubbed it, blinked a few times, and took a step back to get the trail again. The footprints lead right into the crate that I had just walked into. I frowned and looked around it to see if it was moveable, shoving it with a grunt.
Of course that didn’t work.
The crate was a good two feet taller than me so this time I tried opening it. I pulled at the corner, then pushed it, huffing when nothing happened. How could footprints lead directly into a crate? It was too heavy to move and didn’t have a door. And then it hit me. I looked up toward the top of the crate and grinned. I grabbed hold of the top of the crate and feverishly pulled myself up to stand on it. I thumped around on top of it. Surprisingly it sounded rather solid.
Think, Shawnee; remember very large creatures need to fit into this entrance, I told myself.
I walked around on top of the crate until I heard a creaking sound when I stepped on a certain spot. That area was hollow. I bent down and used my fingers to pry open the top of the crate and nearly fell backward when I heard the sudden hiss of hydraulics releasing. The top of several crates opened simultaneously and the entire structured folded and disappeared into the floor. The now open space revealed a full concrete staircase that went down into a deep dark abyss.
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