Wolf Trap

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  Had it been wrong of her to invite him here? She could hardly breathe around him.

  Had it been wrong to keep what was in this cell?

  Matt’s hands kept him supported now. His knuckles, on either side of the glass, had gone white. She should say something, but couldn’t. Touch him? Every nerve in her body warned her not to.

  Hating the awkwardness, Jenna waited a few moments more before looking into the cell.

  Damn! Matt stared at the thing pinging around in there, and felt his own body react with a ripple of pure terror.

  The thing inside of this padded cell was a woman, all right.

  Barely.

  It was hard to get a good look. She was thrashing uncontrollably. Hitting the walls. Ramming herself right and left, on her feet and then on her knees when she’d fall. She rolled, lunged, tore at herself with her hands—hands that weren’t really hands anymore, that were more like an animal’s paws that had been bound tight with surgical tape.

  Her body was grotesquely out of proportion, as though she’d been stretched by some evil demon. She was naked, sort of. In actuality, her body appeared to be producing its own furry covering, though the process hadn’t been completed…yet. The thing in the cell was raw, and nearly completely mad. She was half bare skin, half fur. Half human, half animal.

  Matt felt a sound rise up from his belly, from somewhere so deep inside that it rolled upward as though moving through a mile-long tunnel. He stopped the sound in his throat, held it back with every ounce of willpower he possessed, knowing he had started to shake but unable to do anything about that if he was to keep the growl trapped inside. If he was to keep the secrets to himself.

  Must hang on!

  Jenna was beside him, and nothing if not observant. She’d note the shudders running through him, note how his insides were rippling and his pulse pounding. Jenna was outstanding at her job and in perceiving anomalies.

  Which was why he hadn’t called her after their last night together. Why he couldn’t have called her. Not after what had happened to him. Not until he had gained some control, gotten some answers.

  How could he have explained, exactly, lucidly, what had transpired three months ago, on the last night they’d made love in her apartment? What had happened to him on the way to his car?

  How could he tell Jenna that this thing in the cell—the mad thing she had labeled a monster by putting it here—was merely a woman caught in transition? A woman who hadn’t yet adapted to the new shape she was to become?

  Possibly just an average female.

  Until she had been bitten.

  By a werewolf.

  Whatever drugs Jenna’s staff had given this poor creature had jump-started this transition, usually tripped in the dark of night, by a full moon, into high gear without the presence of those other governing factors. The confines of this eight-by-eight cell would be claustrophobic.

  In essence, the woman in there was being tortured, kept from attaining the new shape her mutated cells demanded she attain. Frozen in a horrifying sort of limbo, compulsively seeking her new self, her human side weaker than what was trying to take her over. She couldn’t stop the process, become, ask for help, or go back.

  I’m so sorry, Matt thought, fighting the urge to break down the damned door. Jesus, I’m sorry.

  Next to him, Jenna’s body was tight as she observed this so-called anomaly. She remained mute when the thing in the cell suddenly ceased its terrible gyrations. She kept quiet when the thing turned slowly, as if it could sense them staring.

  Jenna said nothing when, even with the high-tech glass separating them, the thing in that cell looked at the door as if it knew he and Jenna were there.

  But Jenna jumped back when the thing lunged, as it pressed its constantly morphing face, a face like some hideous version of a cartoon nightmare, to the spot where Matt was resting his forehead.

  Jenna uttered something undecipherable as the thing in the cell stared back at them through terrified green eyes the same color as his own. As what had once been a young woman opened her mouth, exposing a set of newly formed, razor-sharp teeth, as if pleading with him to intervene.

  Like calling to like.

  Beast recognizing beast.

  Through a two-foot-thick padded door.

  Shit. Hell. No! Matt’s blood began to sprint hotly through his veins. His fingers started to tingle—always the first sign in a mounting crescendo of dubious signals.

  Darkness poured in suddenly from the periphery. From out of that darkness, and up from his gut, something unwelcome came tumbling. A unique presence. A horrifying one.

  Needing to protest this dark entity’s progress, assuming this was being caused by his empathy for the poor, freaked-out woman in the cell, Matt let loose the howl he’d been holding—a howl that tore from his throat as a reciprocal cry.

  Chapter 2

  Jenna tumbled backward, slamming her spine hard against the opposite wall of the corridor, gasping with fear. She fought to breathe, then struggled with the uncertainty of whether the man over there could have been kidding. Whether this could have been some particularly nasty form of male humor.

  The psychiatrist part of her voted for the joke. Her woman’s intuition screamed that something truly odd and completely earnest had happened here—of which she wasn’t a part and hadn’t a clue.

  Matt had howled. Like a wolf. Like a lunatic.

  “Matt?” Shaky voice. She tried again. “Matt? What was that?”

  The man who knew every inch of her body, inside and out, turned toward her, his face a mask of regret and, she thought, sorrow. Though he struggled to speak, he eventually said, “You have to get her out of here. Right now. If you don’t, she’ll die in another couple of hours.”

  Jenna stared at him for a full minute more. “What are you talking about?”

  “She will die if you don’t get her outside, into the open.”

  Fighting the instinct to laugh, Jenna smiled nervously. “Right. Let her loose. In the open. And you would prescribe this because…?”

  “I know what’s wrong with her. I’ve seen this before.”

  “What are you talking about?” she repeated, at a higher decibel.

  Matt pointed to the cameras near the ceiling and shook his head. He then pointed to her pocket, where she kept her keys.

  “It’s an automatic door,” she said in exasperation.

  “Which you can override with key number ten on that ring.”

  Was Matt starting to sweat? His face looked damp, and lined, though he was only thirty-two. His face seemed leaner than she remembered, more chiseled. His eyes, one of the features she had loved so much, seemed haunted as they gazed into hers.

  And what? Matt was actually waiting for her to do as he’d absurdly suggested?

  For a minute, she was at a complete loss.

  Matthew Wilson had been at the top in his field, in investigating strange occurrences in the population. And he wanted her to unlock this door? Why? What could he possibly know?

  Why had he made that ungodly noise?

  “Shall we go to my office?” she suggested, still shaky as she waved at the cameras. Her office was one of the only places in the building free of constant surveillance. Matt would know this.

  “You won’t trust me, Jenna?”

  The way he said her name brought a flush of heat to her neck and a feeling of regret so tangible she could taste it. Matt had always whispered her name like that in the throes of passion, when they were about to climax. Her name had become synonymous with that dual moment of incredible sensation. And he would dare to use it here?

  “I don’t think I can, legally, Matt. Not without knowing the facts. You better than anyone should know this.”

  “Her life is in our hands,” Matt countered.

  “Then you’d better explain quickly.”

  He threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender and nodded his head. “First, let me in to see her.”

  His hands, she noted,
were as shaky as her own.

  “You are kidding?” she said.

  “Never been more serious in my life. Let me into this cell.”

  “Matt…”

  “I’ll need a strong tranquilizer and a pair of scissors. It might save her from herself for a few minutes more while we talk.”

  A good hard bite to her lower lip brought not only a wince, but a piercing stab of uncertainty. She had always trusted Matt, at work and in the bedroom. No reason to mistrust him now, except, of course, for the months of infuriating silence. The almost complete disconnect.

  He looked so…hurt? Why would he have an overabundant empathy for what was in that cell? Did he assume she wouldn’t feel anything for what was going on in there? She hadn’t slept or eaten since the woman had been dropped off on their doorstep. Until six hours ago, after calling Matt, she couldn’t think about anything other than helping in any way she could.

  Jenna tried to back up another step, forgetting about being tight up against the wall already. “How do you know it will help her?”

  “Because,” Matt said, “I know what she is. I’m willing to try to help her deal.”

  Another bite. Jenna tasted blood this time. “Why the scissors?”

  “The tape is restricting her hands. Cutting off circulation. It’s bad enough that she can’t handle what’s happening to her, but now she can’t even feel herself. She needs to feel.”

  “She was cutting herself with her nails. Slicing her thighs open.”

  “What’s it to be, then? Waste time by talking in your office first or let me in there now, when it might make the difference between the possibility of saving a life or just watching her die?”

  “Possibility?”

  Jenna watched the corners of Matt’s mouth twitch as he concluded, “It might be too late already.”

  The phrase, and the way Matt had said it, chilled her. Jenna glanced down the corridor to where Jim, the attendant, sat in his chair, professionally looking the other way. She again scanned Matt’s face, a face she’d repeatedly told herself was way too handsome for her own good, and confirmed to herself that she loved Matt Wilson with every fiber of her being. She trusted him, aside from their personal problems. She did.

  But she had brought Matt here because she’d needed to see him again, not because she’d expected him to help. Now, she was torn. Despite her own desires, ultimately her responsibility was to try to help the woman in the cell. If Matt thought he could do that, he had to be given a shot.

  “Jim!” she called out, watching the attendant jump to his feet. “Tranq number four, and a pair of scissors. Stat.”

  The attendant pressed a panel behind him in the wall, typed in his one-word code and moved his big hands over a shelf. In seconds, he was beside her, handing over a preloaded syringe and the scissors, handle side out.

  In turn, Jenna handed the syringe to Matt, and motioned for the attendant to open the door from his control panel by the chair. At least she would keep Jim from getting too close when this damn door opened.

  Just in case.

  Matt listened to the clunk of the door’s lock releasing and sucked in a breath. God, he knew about this, all right. Firsthand. But it didn’t make what he was about to do any easier.

  The important thing in this inhumanly painful transition the girl was going through was to get her through it. Changing from human to a human/wolf hybrid state for the first time had been so bad for him, he hadn’t thought he’d make it. He wouldn’t have wished that kind of distress on anyone. There wasn’t anything comparable on the planet.

  Still, he had lived through it, as well as the second Change a month later. He had persevered, in part because of his background in research and the need to find out what the hell this was and what caused it.

  He had persevered also, in part, because of a pretty female cop named Delmonico who’d been first on the scene during the carjacking attempt that started this all off. A female cop who had taken one look at his badly chewed arm, a souvenir from the criminal they had chased off, and then handed him a card with a name and address printed on it. Just like that, along with the advice he’d never forget. “I wouldn’t bother with a hospital. The people on this card will help you.”

  He had used that card out of curiosity, shown up at the address on it, and found help in the way of a family anyone in Miami would have recognized. Landau. The old man a well-respected judge, and his son the Dade County deputy district attorney.

  But beyond those things, he owed his perseverance, along with his survival, to the woman who stood beside him now. Jenna James—and the immensity of the love he felt for her. A love he had never put into words. Never once told her about. And now it might be too late.

  The question that had plagued him, like this affliction had plagued him, remained. What better test would there be for love than confronting a partner with the worst sort of news? No, not a deadly illness. Something far worse. Something unbelievable. Unimaginable.

  He was himself at times, yes, almost completely. But at other times he became and would continue to become a…

  Werewolf.

  Full moon as catalyst, just like in the movies. Body morphing into a beast’s body, as this woman in the cell’s body was trying to do. Infected cells knitting together to shove humanness out and allow an animal in. An animal that was tucked inside at all times, every day, every minute, waiting to get out, wanting to be free.

  This initial phase of becoming had its own name. Blackout. The point where a human could no longer deal with the pain of being turned inside out and lost consciousness. A traumatic distancing of the body and mind from the body’s first gleaning of its beast.

  He had gone through it. Lived through it. So?

  Jesus, Jenna. What will this do to us?

  “Wait,” Jenna said as he pushed on the door. “Maybe—”

  He was already across the threshold. If it was too late for him, the least he could do was help out here.

  The thing inside, frozen with her jaw partially unhinged and her eyes wild in a black fur-covered face, and with her muscles visibly rippling and expanding with a constant motion that Matt knew had to hurt like a son of a bitch, stood there, on her toes, edgy, looking back.

  “It’s all right,” he soothed, his voice low and as gentle as he could make it, given how terrified he actually felt. “I’m here to help you.”

  The woman’s beast was gaining on the human half, but pathetically slowly. A menacing growl issued from her throat that had the hair on his arms standing straight up, and his own inner beast squirming. But she did not attack.

  “I can help,” he told her, his fear now not whether this creature would believe him, but of having Jenna hear what he was going to say. In these circumstances.

  Hell, he’d been afraid of this moment since the day after he’d left Jenna safe and sound and sleeping in her bed. And of what she might do. He’d been afraid of losing her, once she knew he was no longer completely human anymore. That for three nights a month, beneath a full moon, and though no one knew why, the beast inside him took over.

  “Matt?”

  His heart sank all the way to his ankles at Jenna’s soft tone. Ignoring the spike in his pulse, he faced not the woman he loved more than life itself, but the other werewolf in this room.

  “You know me,” he said to the woman. “Because I’m like you.”

  Keeping his own beast tamped down where it belonged, Matt taunted the she-wolf in the only way he knew how. He opened his mouth, let out a chilling, bloodcurdling howl—a foreboding sound that would have echoed but for the thickness of the walls.

  And as the she-wolf stepped forward, slow, tentative, irresistibly drawn to him, and as he felt her hot breath on his own chilled face, Matt muttered a very human “Sorry,” and plunged the syringe into her hip.

  The she-wolf’s scream was feral.

  Matt caught her in his arms as she fell.

  Chapter 3

  He was panting. The she-wolf’
s body temperature had to be through the roof, but she wasn’t his main concern.

  Jenna was.

  Dragging the unconscious she-wolf to the corner, Matt laid her down. Warily, he turned, palm out, asking Jenna silently for the scissors, trying to keep his tremors under wraps.

  Jena didn’t move.

  “I need to cut the tapes.” His voice sounded strange, he knew. Bad sign. His inner beast was not only awake, but pushing adrenaline through his veins.

  “That was quite a show,” Jenna finally remarked, her own voice up an octave and not too smooth. Her skin had gone ashen. Nor was she steady on her feet.

  She looked as if she could have used a bourbon, straight up. Hell, he could have chugged two or three. Maybe five.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not a psychiatric specialist for nothing,” he quipped. “Was,” he corrected right after.

  Jenna still hadn’t budged, at least not on purpose. She shifted on her feet, unconsciously rocking back and forth, her gaze riveted to him.

  “Was this…was this all BS?” she said.

  “Can we talk about it later? I’m not sure how long a tranq dosed for a small woman who isn’t at the moment a small woman might last, and I need to get these bindings off her.”

  I’m not sure how long I can keep away from you.

  “Do it,” Jenna directed. “Get the tape off.”

  Whistling through his teeth, hoping to ease some of his gut-wrenching tension, Matt knelt by the she-wolf’s side. Carefully, he cut the tapes binding her right hand, then moved quickly to her left.

  “You howled.” Jenna’s voice was stronger.

  “It was a distraction that worked.” Finished with the tapes, Matt got to his feet. “The tranq isn’t a cure for what ails her. As I said, she needs to be outside and needs help that this hospital can’t give her.”

  I need help, too, God bless it.

  I need you to understand what I’ve been through.

  I need your acceptance, not your pity, and a clear path to the truth.

  Just now, however, he needed a clear path out of there. Away from luscious, desirable Jenna. His beast was reacting to the downed female, and he didn’t understand why. There were five floors of building over their heads. It was early evening. Not yet dark. There was no full moon in here. No horrifying kiss of silver on his skin.