Mikal (Second Wave Book 3)

by Mikayla Lane

  Mikal pulled out a chair for Chance and helped her sit before taking the chair next to her. If he hadn’t felt so bad about lying to his father, he would have smiled when she took his hand in her own under the table.

  Siggy and Dante were the last in the room, and they slid into the last two chairs with their comms out and still tapping on them.

  “Put them down and pay attention,” Grai said.

  “But Dad . . .” Siggy began when Grai slammed his hands down on the table.

  “I said pay attention!” Grai roared, startling everyone.

  Everyone sat a little straighter and the room became silent.

  “The lab is now swarming with military and government officials, and the dec charge you set off has let them know without a doubt that we’re involved,” Grai spat.

  When Chris started to open his mouth, Grai pointed his finger at him.

  “Don’t even consider it!” Grai started pacing near the wall of the room. “There is not much that you can tell me to excuse your actions,” Grai added, trying to calm himself.

  While Grai’s back was turned, Siggy nodded at Dante. Dante looked around at his siblings shaking their heads at him and he flipped them off before putting an image on the wall behind their father of the female who’d been left behind at the lab.

  Traze sucked in a shocked breath and Grai turned sharply and was greeted by the final image of the female who’d died.

  “Fucking hell!” Grai exclaimed. “What the hell was going on there?” he asked through gritted teeth as he studied the image on the wall before looking away.

  Chris looked around at his siblings and cleared his throat.

  “When they heard us break through the lab, the doctors stopped the procedure on her. It was going to be her last,” Chris said, unable to look at the image on the wall.

  Dr. Sergei Rostovic burst through the doors in his normal dramatic fashion, looked at the image on the wall, and began cursing in Russian while gesticulating wildly.

  Grai rubbed his hands down his face, then whistled loudly until the doctor quieted down.

  “Someone explain to me what the hell was going on in that place!” he roared, looking between the doctor and his children.

  “They were experimenting on them! They were creating them with traces of human DNA in order to make spare organs. The files they got,” Sergei said, pointing to Siggy and Dante. “say they’ve been trying to find a way to grow them and harvest their organs for the highest bidders—not for the sick! For those who want their longevity and healing ability and have the means to pay millions for it!” Sergei said, trembling in rage.

  Chance simmered with rage, the only thing keeping her seated was Mikal’s hand on her thigh and the calming energy he was flooding her with.

  “The child?” she asked.

  Sergei shook his head and pulled out his comm as the others waited with bated breath to find out if the small girl would be all right.

  Mikal held Chance’s cold hands in his own as he also looked to Sergei to find out if the girl would live.

  Sergei looked at Grai and when he nodded, the doctor spoke.

  “She’s missing a kidney and part of a lung. They took so much bone marrow there will be permanent marks in her skin from the needles. But she was lucky, and we can help her . . . compared to the others. And that one,” Sergei said, pointing at the female on the screen.

  The Dranovians had found the female with her chest laid open. Rib spreaders held her broken breastbone apart to give the lab doctors access to her rapidly beating heart. She was awake, and the monsters hadn’t given her anything more than an oxygen cannula before slicing into her torso. Just like in the image on the wall, she had looked at the Dranovians with the same anguish and unimaginable pain on her ashen face. She was missing both legs, an arm, her left lung, and a kidney.

  They were preparing to sever her aorta and remove her heart when the siblings arrived. Three sterile coolers waited nearby—one for her heart and her remaining lung and kidney.

  She had known she was going to die.

  Grai gripped the table so tightly his knuckles popped.

  “You’re telling me that they’re creating them to harvest the body parts?” he asked the doctor.

  Sergei nodded his head sadly.

  “They’re trying to anyway. So far, they haven’t been successful. Even though human DNA is used when creating the females, the organs are failing once transplanted,” Sergei said, nodding at Chance.

  “Do you know who’s paying them?” Grai asked with a growl.

  “I have detailed medical on most of them,” Sergei said. “Think of who is who in the recent spate of billionaires that have died, and that’s most of your list. The rest are politicians, royalty, and entertainers who haven’t had a procedure done yet.”

  “Do they say how many more are being held captive for this?” Mikal asked angrily.

  Sergei shook his head.

  “No. I can guess, but I can’t be sure because this could only be the list for this particular lab,” the doctor said as he threw his hands up in the air and fell into a chair at the table.

  Grai cursed again and looked directly at Chris.

  “Why the damn dec charge?” he asked.

  Chris sighed and shrugged.

  “Luca said she was too far gone. She knew it, and she didn’t want us to save her. She begged to be the one to set off the charge. She wanted to be the one to destroy the place that had tortured so many . . .” Chris admitted.

  “We couldn’t take a chance that any part of her would remain for them to find,” Shane added.

  “We got all the computers and still have access to everything,” Dante said under his breath.

  Grai slammed his hands on the table, causing everyone to jump, and glared at his children.

  “You,” he said pointing at each one around the table. “You’re all benched! You’re out of this right now. Siggy and Dante, you’re going to give everything you have to Traze.”

  “Now!” Grai roared when his sons didn’t move.

  Siggy and Dante handed over the two storage boxes of hard drives, laptops, and cell phones to the stone-faced Traze who’d moved silently around the table to get them.

  Mikal rose and faced his father.

  “I’m not sitting this out! You can’t expect me to!” he argued, wondering why his father wouldn’t want him to continue searching for his people.

  Grai looked at him incredulously.

  “Do I really have to explain it to you? Son, you’re smarter than this! Think with your damn head and not your heart for a minute!” Grai said, hoping Mikal would figure it out before he had to say something.

  When the others began to mutter, Grai was a little surprised and more than a little pissed off. He grabbed ahold of the side of the table and flipped it over on its side, causing everyone to stand.

  “Show them, Traze,” Grai said as his chest heaved in anger.

  Seconds later there was a perfect image of Mikal being hit by some kind of energy grid and being thrown out of his wind form from the sky in a shower of sparks. Various groans were heard before they saw the same thing happen to Chance.

  “Do you know what that grid is?” Grai asked them all, pointing at the screen.

  When everyone shook their heads or just stared at the screen, Grai continued.

  “Neither do I! Do you know if it will kill them? Have you even seen Sergei or Amun to see if there’s permanent damage to them? The two of them almost died out there! And the rest of you could have been looking at their bodies—as well as that poor female’s—if not dead yourself!” Grai yelled, his fear for his children causing him to tremble slightly.

  “You expect me to do nothing?” Mikal countered.

  Grai ran a hand down his face and looked with exhausted eyes at his precious son.

  “No, I don’t. I expect you to take care of the ones you’ve already rescued while you let the rest of us find the others. You think your job is done because they’r
e out of that hell?” Grai asked, wishing his son would understand what he was saying.

  Mikal snorted and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I think there are plenty of people here to not only help with them, but to help find the others,” Mikal said.

  Several of his siblings sucked in air over the exchange between their brother and their father. The Tezarians and Lara watched it like a tennis match. There was no doubt who would win.

  Grai’s eyes widened, and he growled before looking at Chance.

  “Chance, let me ask you—are you comfortable enough in the world to protect your sisters and yourself from those who’ve held you prisoner? Do you know that there is more than one alien race on this planet that you must be concerned about? Do you know which ones they are? How to look out for them or recognize them?” Grai asked, looking carefully at Chance’s facial expressions and body language before continuing.

  “Or do you plan on taking your sisters from one kind of prison to another? Never allow them to learn the world, to be a part of it? To make friends? To really live?” Grai asked, startling Chance as he expected.

  “I can help them adapt!” Mikal argued, angry that his father would use the females as an excuse.

  “How are you going to do that if you’re hunting labs or dead? Who the hell is supposed to teach them about who they are if you both get yourself killed?” Grai asked.

  “I don’t even know who the hell I am. How can I teach them anything?” Mikal roared, throwing his chair to the floor in his anger.

  Grai was on him in a second, his hands gripping Mikal’s upper arms while his eyes stared at him with pain and fear.

  “You’re my son! You’re their brother! That’s who you are! And now you are a brother to many more who need the comfort of their people while they learn to trust and heal. Let me find out what that energy field was that stopped your shift to wind before you go out there half-cocked again!” Grai pleaded.

  Mikal shook his head and pulled away from his father.

  “You can’t keep treating us like we’re five! We may have made a few miscalculations, but we pulled off both raids with no casualties . . .” Mikal tried to argue.

  Grai pushed Mikal into a chair and waved at Traze. A recording of the moment that Mikal and Chance were trapped began playing in the background while Grai stared at his son.

  “The only reason you and Chance are even here right now and not dead or captured is because I insisted the cats go with you, and they saved your asses! All of you!” Grai said, turning to look at the others. They avoided his gaze, knowing he was right.

  Grai leveled his gaze on Chance next.

  “I understand your anger, pain, and need to find your family. But if you keep this up, you will end up killing my family in order to find your own. Is the tradeoff worth it to you?” he asked.

  Grai wasn’t trying to be cruel; he was trying to make them all see that if they continued on the course they were on, one of them would end up dead. And he couldn’t bear to lose someone else.

  “You’re being unfair to her!” Mikal thundered, pushing his father away.

  Grai turned to Mikal.

  “Am I?” Grai asked before waving his arm to encompass the rest of the team in the room.

  “Which one of them are you OK with dying? Which one of the cats? Besides the danger . . . can either of you even shift form again yet? Or are you still left impotent from that energy barrier?” Grai asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Mikal snorted. He hadn’t tried to shift his form since they’d left the last lab, but he didn’t doubt he still had the ability. He looked over at Chance and shrugged before they both tried to shift.

  Nothing happened.

  Undaunted, Mikal and Chance tried again. Still nothing.

  Grai and the others grew more concerned as the minutes ticked by without either Mikal or Chance being able to shift.

  “Damn . . . could it be permanent?” Shane asked, worried for his brother.

  “You need to see the doctor to figure it out,” Declan said.

  “You need to let Sergei run a work up on you,” Chris said, agreeing with their father.

  Grai saw his other children start to see his point of view, and he pressed his advantage. He sat on the upended tabletop in front of both of them.

  “I’m not asking you to give up. I’m asking you to be checked out by Sergei; see if there’s any other effects of that energy barrier you hit. Let the engineers and techs look at any data on it that we can find in the hard drives, and let’s see if there’s a way to counteract it,” Grai said.

  When it looked like Mikal would say something, Grai continued.

  “While they are doing that, I will personally be looking for the other labs and will lead the next raid. The teams I’ve assembled to find Koda will be used to find your people as well. I swear on my life, son, I won’t stop until I find them and bring them out of those places,” he vowed.

  Grai wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep until he stopped the atrocities being committed against Mikal’s people—on all of their people. He wasn’t sure he could ever be more sickened by anything else after seeing the things his father had done, but there were certain humans who were quickly climbing the charts to the level of his father. It stunned him and made him more determined to stop them.

  Mikal sighed and crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at his father.

  “What the hell do you expect us to do then? Nothing? Just sit here while you handle everything for us?” he asked.

  Grai chuckled.

  “Do any of you remember what it was like for you when I first found you? How scared you were? How the only thing that helped you was each other? How do you think those girls will feel when they wake up, in yet another strange place, surrounded by people wearing the same kind of uniforms and weapons?” Grai asked.

  Mikal sighed heavily. He understood what his father was telling him. It had been even harder for Mikal since he was so much more different than the others, who had an easier time blending in with the humans. He didn’t want the females to struggle the way he had in learning to accept his uniqueness, but he refused to be relegated to doing nothing either.

  “So, again, you expect us to do nothing?” Mikal asked.

  Grai shook his head with a small smile at his son’s stubbornness. It was one of the many things they had in common.

  “No, son. I expect you, Chance, and the rest of this team to protect them while you show them how to blend in and protect themselves. I expect you to teach them that not all humans are like the ones who hurt them,” Grai answered.

  When Mikal again looked to speak, Grai rushed on.

  “And now that we know politicians are involved in what is being done to your people, I expect you to continue your work on the government aspect of all of this. I want you to take down every damn person that Sergei finds on that list. One way or another. It’s this team that can do that better than the rest of us. Now that you’ve been outed as part of the lab raids, you need to let us handle that part from here out,” Grai suggested, hoping that would placate his son.

  “So we can still do missions, just not in regard to the labs?” Chris asked, wanting to make sure he had it right.

  Grai turned to Chris and nodded.

  “They will be expecting you—all of you—at the labs. You need to stay far away from that. Besides, now that we have another connection through the list Sergei has, I need you guys to lean heavily on them to get what information you can,” Grai said.

  Sergei looked down at his comm.

  “I do believe that a few of these people have already tried to convince you that they have no part of anything shady . . . seems to me you need to find out why they lied to you. I’ll send the list to your comms,” the doctor said, rereading the list of people who’d donated DNA to have hybrids made for organ harvesting.

  “A politician who lies . . . what a concept,” Dree said with a sneer.

  “What a surprise,
most of these entertainers and business people are major contributors to the politicians on the list,” Siggy said, looking at the information Sergei sent to their comms.

  Grai looked at Mikal with a half-smile.

  “Train them, son. Let Chance learn how to run missions with you and the others. Give them an opportunity to become part of a family, part of something more, while you take down the bastards paying to kill them for body parts,” Grai said softly.

  “Talk about karma . . . be taken down by the person with your DNA that you were trying to kill,” Declan said with a smirk.

  “I like it,” Elias added.

  “Why wasn’t I used like that? Why was I spared that?” Chance asked the one question she wanted to know the most since seeing that second lab.

  “I don’t know. But I’ll find out, I promise you that. If you work with them,” Grai said, gesturing to his other children, “you can find out why those bastards paid for it to happen, and you can stop them from trying to find another way. Or other victims.”

  Chance wiped the single tear from her cheek and nodded her head. As much as she wanted to find out if there were others and free them, she knew that Grai was right. It was the cats that had saved them out there—Ranger in particular.

  Without knowing what that energy field had been and why they couldn’t shift, they could be captured or killed quickly if they went on another mission. Then they’d be no use to any of the others.

  As if reading her mind, Grai began to speak.

  “Let Sergei take a look at you two and see what’s wrong with your shifting. Be there for the others when they awaken so they aren’t with strangers. And work together to take out the bastards who think they are above the law.”

  Grai stood and laid a hand on Mikal’s shoulder.

  “Son, you know this is the right thing to do. This is your element. Show your new family your world and how to navigate it. I will send you everything we find out, I swear it to you,” Grai said gruffly, trying to keep his fear for his family at bay.

  Mikal nodded his head and hugged his father to him while everyone else seemed to let out a long held breath.

  “Let’s get this party started, boys and girls!” Siggy said, clapping his hands.