by Kim Faulks
“Come on…just a little closer.”
Red glistened as it slid into the light from a cracked window. The slab was red, fresh…brimming with warmth…and life. My cheeks stuck to my jaw. Belly loosened, making me tremble. Making me need.
“That’s the way.”
My feet slipped, skimming the entrance as I stepped inside, drops of blood fell from an outstretched hand to splatter against the floor. “That’s the way.”
Overturned tables hugged the wall. Metal. Only this time they shone. Glass crunched under my feet. Agony cut, stealing my focus.
The sting came again, this time in my thigh. Metal prodded, like a claw through my clothes. I swung my hand, fingers skimmed the…metal. The room darkened, swimming before it sharpened.
Another bite. This time in my chest. I looked down as the floorboards moaned. The claw was sharp, pointed at one end, red seeped through my shirt.
“Beautiful…you are a pretty little beast, aren’t you?”
Shadows moved, swallowing me as my knee buckled. Hands reached for me, gripping my arms as he moved close. Hard eyes filled my world. He was the danger…and the same sick stench carried me back to all those years ago, to the night they invaded—the night they slaughtered…for they were…
Human.
3
Ace
The black Escalade throbbed as it idled outside Major General Newman Slater’s family home.
I’d been here before, many times. Every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. Any holiday where family was concerned for the last five years.
My brother’s family, always trying to make up for the fact that I had none.
I’d lingered in the corners, smiled, and raised my glass whenever Alpha looked at me.
He wanted me here…needed me here.
It’d never been out of pity or duty. Only out of love, born from the bond we shared—one I’d searched for my entire life. Brother. Family. We might’ve once worn the green, but this was deeper than any color, and stronger than any creed. When our backs were against the wall we wore red for each other—we sacrificed, we shared…we protected.
I leaned forward as the headlights shone inside the open garage door. “You want me to go in first?”
Alpha flinched and stared straight ahead, and in that moment we were back there. In the goddamn stifling dust-choked air, staring down at an uncleared Iraqi home hoping for the best—but expecting the worst.
I swallowed hard. No one tells you about the smell in Afghanistan, or the rubbish and flies, or the lost souls. The ones left behind…ones who carried mortar or the dead.
“No,” he finally answered and leaned forward. “I’ve got this.”
I reached for the handle and stepped out at the same time. Reflexes took over. Flesh met metal. The patterned grip so familiar, almost as though I’d lived my entire life with a weapon in my hand. I bore down with my thumb, releasing the catch, and drew my Sig Sauer free.
The driver’s door opened and closed behind me as I aimed for the shadows in the corner. Alpha moved slow, keeping in time with my steps…or were mine in time with his? He turned his head, raised his fist, two fingers swept forward. I moved past him through the open door leading into the house, cutting through the dining room and kitchen before I moved through the rest of the house and snapped. “Clear.”
My response fell flat, neither Alpha nor Gunny moved from the hallway, only stared at the study’s open door. I swallowed hard as my brother stepped up to the doorway and reached for the light.
The red glow reminded me of the seedy rooms I escaped from. The ones filled with hookers and peddlers, with glory holes in the walls and lost children outside. I bit my lip and fought the need to reach for the nape of my neck.
I’d heard Alpha’s words…heard what that bitch had done.
But to hear something, and to see something, was a different beast all together.
There was no body. No limbs and no bones…not even a strand of perfect chestnut brown hair.
Only a sea of crimson.
Alpha sagged against the wall and stared at the splattered desk. A tortured sound escaped, half a whimper, half a gurgle. X moved close, sliding up behind him. She didn’t touch, didn’t console, only pressed her body against his in an act of strength.
His hard jaw flexed as he turned his head, spearing me with a look of terror. “This is what she left me. Tell me brother, what the Hell do I bury here?”
My throat tightened. I swallowed, fighting down the lump.
Margaret was a good woman, an honest woman. She’d come from solid kin. People who stood up for those in need. She fed the homeless, and funded a group home for wayward girls. She loved her family—her husband and his sister—with the kind of ferocity you wouldn’t expect from someone so small.
After the death of Alpha’s father, she became his mother's backbone, and an integral part of Alpha’s world.
But for me, she was a welcome smile and a warm hug—the closest thing this dirty street-rat had to a mother. An ache speared through my chest…and for the first time in a long time the desire to have what I didn’t own reared its ugly head.
I didn’t crave money, or a fancy house. Had no need for sleek cars, or shiny black credit cards—it was honesty. It was raw, unbridled love of someone who shared your thoughts, your dreams, your name, and your blood. I just wanted someone—X lowered her head against Alpha’s shoulder as I answered—someone who wanted me. “We don’t bury anything. This doesn’t happen…not yet.”
The heavy echo of my heart filled the space.
There was no sound. No whisper.
Until Alpha turned his head. Rage flared in my brother’s eyes. Rage so hot I felt the burn as I growled. “Until the last enemy.”
“Until the last breath,” Gunny growled.
The words stuck in Alpha’s throat, wounded and raw. “And the last fight.”
I nodded and stared at the blood-splattered room. There was no end here…no resolution—no cold fucking comfort for those left behind. There was nothing but an empty room. One to match my empty heart. “We do what he trained us to do. We find the enemy. We shoot to kill.”
Alpha gave a slow nod.
“We need a list,” Gunny murmured and reached for her phone. “A hideaway, cabin, any place he’d go to ground. You knew him, Alpha, better than anyone. You might hate the sonofabitch, but you still knew him.”
My brother stared at the open folder on the raw oak desk and the scattered pencils and pens and shook his head. What could you say in the face of such utter betrayal, where the blood in your veins was the same blood in his?
When that man would leave behind his most prized possession—to save his own skin?
“I can’t…” Alpha took a step, rounding the desk. “I can’t fucking think.”
“You’ve got that place on Long Island, right?” she urged. “The one you keep hinting at for a city break.”
He shook his head. “It’s too in your face. It’d be crawling with the military by now.”
I moved past the cabinets filled with crystal carafes and silver stoppers. There wasn’t a crack in the glass, nor the shelving. Not a scorch to the cabinet, or a whisper that a life was taken in the most horrifying way.
You could almost be forgiven to think it never happened at all.
I lifted my hand to the cabinet. Blood coated the handle like thick weeping tears. Alpha wrenched his head toward me with a fleeting look of blind panic. The muscles of his throat tightened, until he slowly nodded his head. I gripped the handle and pressed the lever, opening the cabinet doors.
Files were crammed in one side of the cabinet from the floor until just over head high, and on the other side, low down were drawers hidden behind glass shelves. Gold shone so perfectly under the crimson glow of his wife’s blood. Rows upon rows, lined up like little soldiers. I gripped the edge of the cabinet and yanked.
The gold heart shuddered, but stayed still, pinned in place by the purple ribbon. Next to it sat a Bronze Star. All
those awards, and the sacrifice, the men and women under his command—ones depending on him to make the hard decisions and get them home to their families.
My gut clenched as I remembered the life he refused to save.
The heavy thud of a drawer filled the space, pens and objects rattled. I turned to the files and yanked the sleeves free. Names, places…military operations, most I knew.
“So if personal places are out, then it has to be someplace else.” Gunny moved close, reaching over the top of me to probe the files. “Some place military, out of the way, hidden. He wouldn’t go down there…would he, you know to Hell?”
She stilled and glanced at me. Her dark brown eyes sparked with something I’d never seen in her before—fear.
“Let’s fucking hope not,” I answered. “But if it comes to that, then I’m good to go. Get me in first—that’s all you need to do Gunny…just get me in there first.”
The glint in her stare brightened, turning into something I’d seen many times before. She clenched her jaw and gave one sharp nod before she dropped her gaze. Her brow narrowed as she stared. “The safe, you know the combination?”
I tracked the sound of his boots as he rounded the desk. “No…maybe. Hell, let me try.”
I backed up, leaving him to push in. Thick fingers punched with precision. Tiny beeps echoed, still the lock stayed shut. I left him to scowl and stab and made my way through the study. Sheer black curtains stuck bloody against the wall. Newman Slater liked the finer things, I’d give him that. I stood behind the desk staring at the shining crystal and the sleek furniture.
Gunny shook her head and muttered as Alpha stabbed the display.
“You’re gonna lock it for good,” she muttered giving him a glare.
But Alpha was Alpha. There was no telling him. Not once he set his mind to something. I yanked the back of the leather chair and pulled the seat out of the way.
The desk sat in the middle of the spacious room. A handset sat to one side, spilled pens had come to a stop in the middle of the desk. Three drawers took up the space on one side. I knelt and yanked the top open. It was thin and fast, flying out harder than I expected. But there was barely anything in there. A few lose pieces of paper. Nothing of importance.
The next drawer had personal items. A spare pair of reading glasses, and a small silver flask beside a photo of Alpha and Margaret. I yanked the thin metal frame free. It’d been taken some time in the three years before we left the Military. I knew it by the look of raw power in my brother’s eyes. A look that said he was solid, that he knew where his fate lay, and it was wherever his commanding officer told him.
It was an honest look…a peaceful look—a naive look.
I crammed the photo back into the drawer as Alpha punched the steel safe. The goddamn thing blared in response.
“Now look at what you’ve done,” Gunny muttered and bent low to peer at the blazing red error across the display. “Just shoot the goddamn thing next time. Put it out of its misery.”
Alpha dropped his hand to his waist, reaching for his gun as I shoved the drawer closed. A thunk sounded. Something slipped. A sheath of some kind, enough to draw my gaze. Empty drawers…too damn neat. I ran the tips of my fingers over the outside and underneath.
The tiny slip of paper came away to fall into my hands…on it printed in perfect scrawl was a set of six digits. “One-nine, zero-two, two-zero, one-one.”
They stilled, both wrenched their heads toward me and stared at the paper in my hand. The error display blinked once and disappeared. Alpha waited, and then with slow movements punched in the numbers exactly as I read them…February 19, 2011.
I stared at the date, as the safe gave a squeal and the lock disengaged. Alpha looked over his shoulder, urging me to his side without saying a word. I pushed from the floor as he swung the door open. A stack of files were shoved inside…accounting for the bare drawers. The edges of the folders were buckled, some of the pages had escaped, as though the Major General shoved the files inside in a hurry, desperate to hide whatever information they held.
“What are they?” Gunny craned her neck, reaching for the lower half of the small pile.
Alpha let her take what she wanted and moved to the edge of the desk. A grainy black and white photo slipped free and floated to the floor. I bent, and plucked the edges from the mess and swiped the front across my jeans.
“These look like compounds…look at this… Yeah, this is the first one where they had the Doc.” Gunny lifted the open folder.
“This one too,” Alpha muttered as I turned back to the photo.
It was grainy…taken a long time ago, maybe in the sixties, or the seventies, and looked like the inside of a lab, one just like we found at the compound. Only this one was trashed.
Buckled steel gurneys were slammed into the wall. Scalpels embedded into walls. Files and papers were scattered around a long slew of bodies. Doctors, nurses, and soldiers covered every inch of the room. They stared at me with lips parted…and the same goddamn silent scream I saw hours ago in that goddamn derelict house—and in the background was the biggest damn beast I’d ever seen.
Not a man, the thought hit me. A thick hide hung over a towering seven-foot frame. The fur of arms and legs sat flat against powerful legs and muscled arms.
The three-inch thick, bristled coat towered above his shoulders, and a round open-jawed skull sat atop his head with white canines the length of my damn hand.
But the hide he wore was no wolf.
This was a bear.
“Jesus,” Alpha whispered. “There’s more…so many fucking more. All the way back to the first. Operation Immortal, and the first poor bastards they infected.”
He flicked through the pages as I stared at a man who made the even the Guardian Zadoc look fucking tiny. I turned the image over, scrawled in neat writing were the words…Berserker, savage, bear-shifter. Clan exterminated. My gut clenched with the words.
“Fuck this shit was primitive. Listen to this…the young male subject seemed to accept the transmission of Class 1 DNA until he started to show signs of regression to his baser instincts.” He wrenched his head upward, brow narrowed. “Baser instincts. What the fuck does that mean?”
Gunny leaned close and raised her hand to flick through the images affixed to the front. “Looks pretty straightforward to me. The guy went bat-shit crazy and tried to eat his own face off.”
“Not until after he ate three others.” Alpha winced and looked away from the photos. “Jesus, that poor bastard.”
“So he was the first?” I murmured, trying to piece it all together.
Alpha nodded, lifting the image to scan the document. The word Condemned splashed boldly across the front in red. “Yeah seems to be. This whole place was the first…very black fucking ops then. Started Twenty-eleven, complete with underground bunkers and a goddamn elite training camp. Until they were attacked by Berserker’s...Jesus, I’ve heard some crazy ass stories about them, they’re one fucking species I do not want to meet. They attacked…”
An icy breath blew against the back of my neck, puckering the airs on my arms. “Don’t tell me February nineteen, right?”
“Yeah.” He lifted his head to the tiny slip of paper in my hand and then turned to the file with a little more determination. “Jesus, yeah. Killed them all. The doctors, Marines…the subjects. That’s what it says, subjects. They mean the people they were experimenting on, don’t they? This place has to mean something, right? Subject X,” he murmured. “Young male candidate. eighteen years old.” He leaned close and flicked through the images. “Sorry sonofa—”
He froze. The paper in his hand shook. “Gunny…Gunny.”
She whipped her gaze around the room, and then narrowed on the male.
My brother’s eyes were wide as he lifted the file. “This kid, he look familiar to you?”
I stepped close, staring at the geeky looking kid. He was shirtless, ribs stuck out of a scrawny frame. His skin was sunken, dark circle
s under his eyes below the inch-thick glasses across his face.
I knew that kid.
I fucking knew that kid.
“Hiccups.” The name bloomed from the dark recesses of my mind. Back from when we were nothing more than recruits, and a mess of skin, bones, and fucking snot.
“Hiccups,” Alpha murmured. “Yeah, that’s him. That's fucking him. He came through with us, right?”
I tried to resurrect those dark times, all the pain and the agony. “The kid started hiccupping whenever Sergeant asked him a question.”
“Pissed his pants too, didn't he?” Alpha’s brow narrowed. “Yeah, that was him. Felt sorry for the kid.”
“You beat the shit outta Bruno for making fun of him. First time I ever noticed you,” I murmured and that moment returned in a vivid display of blood, snot, and tears—and none of those were Alpha’s.
He was the perfect little recruit—buff, steel-jawed motherfucker. No one wanted to mess with him. Not with a name like fucking Slater. I glanced back at the open cabinet with its shimmering ribbons and medals. His uncle hadn’t been a Major General then, but he had a name as one hard-nose bastard—one you didn’t want to mess with.
And no one did. Not until that day. The day Bruno and his buddy Strep decided to pick on the weak and Alpha stepped in.
“Hiccups,” Alpha muttered and lifted those dark eyes to mine. “They beat him bloody, cracked his glasses, bruised his damn back. The kid pissed blood for days.”
I wanted to remind him about Bruno, who when he went to the infirmary, was never seen again. Alpha put a target on his back that day. One that made every half-brained, testosterone ape-looking sonofabitch take a nice hard look at the kid with a name.
And that’d always been his problem. He was the knight in shining armor. The blazing white flag in the face of all the heavy shit that went down…
They were waiting for him one night. Fresh from the shower he walked straight into the ambush. No one liked the kid with a name, not after sending their buddy Bruno packing. We’d been force-fed pain from the very first day we arrived. Every ten-mile run, and every minute you struggled in that damn pool with your hands tied behind your back.