by Ann Vremont
Dominic! Tamsyn hadn’t seen him in anything other than human form.
The Ranchero’s shell had been knocked off and the ground around her was littered with their gear. A can of bug spray rolled toward her and she scooped it up. The shifter that had landed on the roof had Dominic pinned, what was left of the flagpole in his hand and aimed at Dominic’s heart as blood bubbled from a deep gash in Dominic’s stomach.
"Hey, fucker!" Tamsyn shouted, her arm straight out with the can of spray.
The beast glanced her way a second too long. She pressed the spray nozzle, blinding the thing as Dominic rammed his claws through its throat with a straight hand chop to the neck. It fell to the side, lifeless.
Something slammed her against the rock face. She lifted her head, saw the flagman shifter standing over her.
CUNT! FUCKING CUNT! GONNA KILL YOU FOR THAT!
Cruz jumped onto the shifter’s back, his claws digging into its face before pulling to the sides. Beneath the snarling and howling, Tamsyn heard the running boot steps of the rest of the men on the road crew. Fully human, they ran with rifles raised, moving forward with tactical precision.
Dominic launched himself up from the ground, his stomach still bleeding. One of the rifles fired. In horror, Tamsyn watched Cruz leap from the flagman's back towards Dominic, saw him spin as the bullet meant for his brother tore into his side.
She screamed, stumbling toward the brothers, her right leg folding from where she’d been slammed into the rock wall.
"Cease fire! You’ll hit the female."
Through the chaos, an old man walked with a cane. He was tall and hunched over. He wore khakis, like he was on safari and the three of them were the game. When he reached Dominic, he raised the cane and pointed it at Dominic’s chest. Taser wires shot out, embedding themselves in Dominic’s chest as he fell to the ground.
As Dominic’s convulsions stopped, the old man kicked him once in the ribs. "Didn’t I say I’d meet you in Cedar City?"
The men moved in on Dominic and Cruz. Cruz, bleeding a thick trail, dragged himself along the ground, snarling as the old man turned toward Tamsyn and pulled a smaller Taser from his pocket.
She tried to scoot backwards, her right leg useless. "No, pl--"
*****
Tamsyn woke, her wrists and ankles fastened to a hospital bed with nylon restraints. Someone had dressed her in a hospital gown and covered her from the waist down with a light knit blanket.
"Awake, are we?"
She turned her head to the side to see the old man, this time wearing a white smock. He held an x-ray in one hand and gestured at her leg. He slid the x-ray into a light box. "I was sure it was broken, but apparently not."
With a sneer, he looked at the swell of her stomach. "All the padding on you, no doubt."
Ignoring him, she lifted her head. She was in an open med bay. The beds were spaced far apart, maybe six feet on each side, with curtains separating them. Directly opposite her bed was the flagman in human form. A metal cage, shaped like a globe, covered his ravaged face. A thin sheet covered his lower body but she could see that he was naked from the waist up and attached to the bed by metal cuffs on his wrists and ankles. The gash Cruz had torn through the man’s chest was nearly healed.
He was trying to stare her down, his chest rising and falling in angry pants. Inside her head, between his deep throated growls, she could hear him screaming at her. REMEMBER ME, BITCH?
Next to her, the doctor chuckled. "Hamilton’s not too happy about Reggie dying. Afraid we had to muzzle him for our own protection -- and yours."
She only half heard the old man. She was too busy thinking about what had just gone on inside her brain. She’d heard Hamilton -- whole fucking words. She’d heard him at the ambush, too. And she’d heard Cruz assuring her it was okay.
Whole fucking words. Just like Dominic and Cruz shared between them.
The old man flicked her cheek. "You aren’t listening. I asked you about your parents."
She tried to lift herself up on her elbows to see the other beds along the opposite wall.
"Your parents?" The old man pushed against her chest.
There was no way in hell he had the strength to push her back down, but she let him think he did. Tamsyn looked up at him, her gaze clouding with angry tears. "My friends?"
The old man pulled the curtain behind him to the side, showing her Cruz. He was unconscious. A blanket covered him up to his armpits. An IV drip was attached to his arm. Unlike Hamilton, there was no cage around his head, but he had the same nylon restraints as she did.
"Let’s start with your mother."
"Professional whore. Dead." She stared at the IV line. The liquid inside was a pale blue. Not blood, not a dextrose or saline drip. "What are you giving him?"
"A suppressant. Neither of your friends will shift unless I want them to. And that won’t happen until they learn they’re much better off working for me than, well...being dead."
He drew the curtain shut. Turning back to Tamsyn, he asked, "And your father?"
"I just told you my mom was a whore." She lifted her head again to stare at Hamilton. He had an IV line, too, but the liquid was clear. "I’ve no idea who the fuck fathered me."
As she watched Hamilton, he started to squirm, thick hair breaking out across his exposed arms. Muscles rippled beneath the skin, popping, shrinking. "Doesn’t look like your suppressant’s working, doc."
"Ham isn’t on a suppressant."
The old man left her bedside for a few minutes, returning with a laptop on a rolling tray. She watched him scroll through his folders. He double clicked on the one marked "Subject Files." Inside it were two subfolders -- "M" and "F." He double clicked "F." The screen filled with more folders, each bearing a twelve-number filename. She guessed there were about two dozen such folders.
The old man selected "New Folder" from the menu commands. For the filename, he typed the day’s date and then hesitated. "What year were you born?"
She didn’t want to make things simple for him, but he’d find out easy enough. "1991."
He finished naming the folder with her birth year and then opened up what looked like a medical history sheet and filled in the information she’d given him -- including her mother’s profession. Next to father, he put "unk."
"So, is that how it works, biologically? One of my parents was a shifter, probably one of my mom’s johns?"
He glanced at her and then repositioned his computer so she couldn’t see the screen.
"You don’t like sharing much, do you, Beemer?" The old man certainly wasn't the person shifting in the video they had watched, but she had no doubt he'd been the one behind the keyboard feeding lies to them.
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
She explained the name, just as she had with Dominic. "Bad Moon Rising -- that’s you, right? You’re the lying piece of shit that betrayed us."
He pulled a syringe from his lab coat and placed it alongside the laptop. "I can sedate you, if you insist on cursing and being uncooperative."
She glared at him, but kept her mouth shut. She needed to figure a way out of this and she couldn’t if she was drugged out. Adopting a conciliatory tone, she offered a weak smile at the old man. "How are my friends?"
"You mean your lover and his brother?"
She wasn’t sure, but she thought the old man was leering at her now, his veneer of arrogance slipping for a second.
"Yeah, my lover and his brother."
Across the room, Hamilton snarled. The doctor shot him a hard look before turning back to Tamsyn. "Ignore Hamilton. I’m still trying to train him."
Tam nodded, again forgetting the old man’s presence as the faint odor of a woman’s perfume reached her senses. Hamilton smelled it, too, and turned his head to the side, waiting. Tamsyn heard a faint squeak of rubber on the room’s polished tile floors and then a soft, hesitant voice as a petite redhead stepped into view and startled the old man.
"Doctor, the lab said the
blood work’s back."
He held his hand out. She shook her head. "They’re still holding it."
"Then it’s not done." He turned, shooing her away.
She held her ground. "It is done, they’re just re-running the results. They want you at the lab."
Beemer drew a deep breath, an ugly mask settling over his face. "Why? Don’t they know how to do their jobs?" The redhead started to answer but he cut her short. He tilted his head in Tamsyn’s direction. "Is she pregnant?"
"No."
He sneered and glanced back at Tamsyn. "Not a very effective lover, is he?"
"Maybe I’m barren," she answered back.
"I hope, for your sake, you aren’t." He turned to stare directly at the redhead before speaking again. "Females are useless to us, otherwise."
"Doctor, the lab..."
The old man stood and motioned for the redhead to move out of his way. She hesitated and nodded in Tamsyn’s direction. "We shouldn’t leave her like that. Lab said her levels were all off."
"Am I completely surrounded by fucking imbeciles?"
"Careful there, Beemer. You’re going to need one of your own sedatives, you keep swearing like that." Tamsyn pretended to struggle through an attempt to raise her torso up off the mattress. The old man turned and pushed her back down.
Leering again, he leaned over her, close enough for her to head butt him if she wanted to, and warned her, "You will learn civility and obedience."
Beemer left with the redhead. Tamsyn heard a door shut, followed by the mechanical slide of bolts and the short, digital beeps of someone keying in a code on a number pad.
With them gone, Tamsyn immediately started testing her restraints. She felt stronger. Her leg felt like it had never been slammed against a rock facing. But the nylon around her wrists and legs wouldn’t budge.
Across from her, Hamilton started jerking at his metal cuffs. She looked over and saw that his face was almost completely healed. Earlier, she hadn't been sure he wouldn't call bullshit on her charade with the doctor, but it was clear now why he hadn't. He was confident he would get some "alone" time with her.
BET I GET OUTTA MINE FIRST.
Adrenaline slammed through her at the thought. She strained every muscle she had. The nylon, almost half an inch thick, made small tearing sounds. Across from her, metal groaned.
GONNA RIP YOU OPEN WITH MY COCK, BITCH. LET YOU HEAL. FUCK YOU DEAD ALL OVER AGAIN. MAYBE THE DOC'LL FILM IT.
His voice in her head didn’t scare her. What scared her was that his was the only voice in her head.
Cruz? Dominic?
THEY CAN’T HEAR YOU, CUNT. YOU'RE GOOD AS DEAD.
She jerked at her wrist restraints -- threw all her strength into the motion. The last of the nylon shredded. She reached down, unbuckled the restraints on her ankles. She heard one of Hamilton’s ankle cuffs pop, the metal skittering broken across the floor.
Tamsyn leapt from the mattress, grabbing the syringe Beemer had left behind as she did. She launched herself at the bed, pulling the plunger back. He brought his free leg up. It was mid-shift, covered with hair, talon-like nails curving towards him. She twisted, landing on his stomach with her knees. She jabbed his neck with the needle and shot him full of Beemer’s sedative.
THAT WAS FOR YOU. FIVE MINUTES AND IT’S OUT OF MY SYSTEM!
Tamsyn slid off the bed, pulled the plunger back again, filling the chamber with air. She jabbed the needle into him a second time, right above the bend in his elbow where a vein bulged. Her thumb hovering over the plunger’s tip, she smiled at him. "Good thing this’ll kill you in two."
She pulled the needle out, filled it with air again, repeated.
Pulled it out.
Repeated.
Hamilton was gasping, his face purpling and bulging, when she filled him with air the fourth time. Blood seeped from his arm from the multiple needle stabs.
"Sorry, Hammy." Her tone was grim as she drew air into the chamber a fifth time. "But I can’t be sure 80 c.c. is going to do the trick."
Hamilton jerked, his hips rising up off the bed as he convulsed in a death throe. Tamsyn let the syringe fall to the floor. Listening to him die, she grabbed the IV bag. Reading the label, her gaze widened. It was a 10% depo-testosterone drip -- they’d been pumping the freak full of steroids to help him heal.
She ripped the tubing from his arm and pinched it off while she carried the pole with its four bags over to Cruz. She swapped the line carrying the suppressant into his arm with the testosterone drip.
Beemer had put the three of them in a row -- her, Cruz, then Dominic. She pulled the curtain back, grabbed a second IV bag and changed Dominic’s line. When she was done, she unbuckled the restraints on them.
Time -- she had no idea how much she had. The lab could be three doors or three floors down. Beemer had already been gone at least fifteen minutes. She stepped into the center of the room’s floor and then turned a slow circle. One door. That was it. She looked up, hoping for ceiling tiles.
If Beemer came back before Cruz and Dominic revived...
If he came back with guards or more shifters after they revived...
"Fuck it!" There was a supply station near the door. She went and rummaged in its drawers, coming up with a fresh IV catheter needle and tubing. Returning to Cruz’s bed, she sat down next to him. She prepped the fluid bag and tubing, her gaze shifting between her hands working and Cruz’s face.
I need you to wake up, baby.
She tied a tourniquet a few inches above the bend of her elbow. She didn’t bother with an alcohol wipe, just checked the vein and tore the packaging off the catheter. Bending her hand at an odd angle, she used her wrist and forearm to pull the skin at the IV site taut as best she could. She slid the needle in, saw the influx of blood through the catheter’s plastic applicator.
Removing the needle, she bit off a piece of tape and secured the catheter in place before unknotting the tourniquet. She tossed the plastic applicator onto the floor and attached the IV tubing to the catheter and then opened the IV line.
Inspecting the job she’d done one handed, she smiled. "Take that, Professor Kenzie!"
Her smile faded as she looked down at Cruz. He was still out. She pulled back the thin blanket covering him. His lower torso was bandaged. Blood had seeped through the wound's dressing to dry a dark brick.
She moved over to Dominic and looked at his wounds. There were bandages covering his stomach, too, but they weren’t wrapped around like Cruz’s. There was an un-bandaged wound along his right side where the bullet that ripped through Cruz must have grazed Dominic.
A wave of dizziness rolled over Tamsyn and she stumbled back to Cruz’s bed. The injection site in her arm itched like ants were crawling over it and she scratched. Ears ringing, she looked down at her arm, saw that she’d just dug three burrows in her skin.
She held her hand up to her face.
"Not my hand."
"Tamsyn?"
She looked to Dominic’s hospital bed. He was sitting up, his eyes shifting from their usual golden brown to a flame yellow. He clutched his stomach. His lips peeled back in pain to show lengthening teeth. The top canines curved down to his bottom lip.
"Where are we?"
"Sanctuary, I guess." The words came out mangled, the muscles of her throat and face thickening to impede her speech.
They’ll be back, Dom. I don’t know when.
Dominic nodded. He looked at the IV tube running into his arm, then to hers.
They were pumping you two full of some kind of suppressant -- keeping you human...weak.
"Still weak." Dominic staggered off the bed, dragging the IV pole behind him.
Whoa, Dom, no cover there!
He caught the direction of her gaze and scowled. "No time for modesty, little sister."
He stripped the case from his pillow and looked at the fluid bag for the suppressant. "This it?"
She nodded and he dumped it in the pillow case.
Dominic
lifted his head and sniffed. "Something dead in here."
She pointed her hand...no, not her hand. Her hand didn’t have curving black claws sprouting from the end of the fingers, didn’t have burnished mahogany hairs bristling along the skin. She pointed in the direction of Hamilton’s bed.
Dominic leaned over. "How’d he die?"
Air embolism. She grinned, felt her tongue loll out of her mouth and snapped it back in. She ran a hand over her leg -- normal. Across her stomach -- normal. She tried to say something, and snarled instead. Fuck, Dominic. Is this how it works?
He shrugged and increased the drip on Cruz’s IV. "It ripped through me the first time. Cruz, too. Nothing short, nothing partial."
She and Dominic lifted their heads simultaneously as the elevator chimed. Dominic pulled the catheter from his arm. "Doors?"
Just the one.
He shifted to his hybrid form -- the process complete before Beemer could finish entering the security code on the door’s keypad. Tamsyn unhooked herself from the IV and wrapped her hands around its pole.
Quiet, little sister. Dominic slid across the room to the bed opposite his and pulled the curtain half closed before he climbed up onto the bed and waited to pounce. Tamsyn circled his empty bed and waited with the IV pole raised.
She could smell the woman, hear Beemer bitching at her.
"I’ll draw the blood myself. You obviously can’t be trusted with something so simple as labeling a vial."
Just the two of them. Dom whispered in her head. He nodded at the pole she had a death grip on. Don’t hesitate.
She wouldn’t. Not with Cruz on the bed behind her, unconscious.
The nurse came into sight first, swiveling her pretty head in the direction of where Dominic should still be prone and comatose. Seeing Tam, she gasped.
The gasp was followed by the ring of metal meeting first cartilage and then bone as Tamsyn swung the pole, hitting the woman in the face. Dominic jumped, caught Beemer by the throat with his jaws before the old man could raise an alarm. She heard Beemer’s neck snap, his body instantly going limp.
On the floor, the woman moaned. Her face was bloody, swelling.