Iris

by Yolanda Sfetsos

Chapter Four

  “Shit!” The only exposed part of Iris’s body was one extended arm, and even that was slowly being consumed by the furry black rats crawling all over her. No amount of bullets would get rid of so many.

  Fox wouldn’t let her suffer through something this disgusting. Besides, they’d only just met. He couldn’t deny how much he wanted to learn her secrets. The how and why of her ending up inside this bleak room.

  There’s something about her…

  With a roar of frustration, he lowered the gun and put it away. It was useless. He’d already wasted enough bullets. The only way he could deal with this was to dive into the action, and tear into the dirty bastards with his bare hands. I’ve already lost six people, and I refuse to lose another.

  As he prepared to dive into the sea of moving black with only a small, white hand poking out of it, movement caught the corner of his eye. A bright flash crossed in front of him and continued to shoot across his line of vision. No matter how many times he turned around, all he caught was a glimpse. It stumbled past, too quickly for the eye to register exactly what it was.

  Who the hell’s joined the party?

  The thought of it being the killer pushed him into action. He took a deep breath and plunged into the quavering darkness of fur. If the killer could control the vermin as a distraction or a net, he would risk putting himself in the middle of it.

  A deep whoosh left his lungs as both his elbows impacted with the harsh concrete. The rats scattered away in a rush, screeching as if scared. Why hadn’t bullets affected their approach, but his body did? It didn’t make any sense.

  He rolled onto his back—ignoring the pain from the impact—and continued until he was in a crouch. The rats were gone, except for the motionless ones he’d shot. They lay littered near and around the cleared area. The corpses of his team had been devoured to the bone. Only a few strands of flesh left hanging, as if piranhas had ravaged them.

  These were some rats. Mutants, maybe. Who knew what substances the corporation dumped on these lower levels and what types of mutations resulted?

  “Iris, are you okay?” Fox stood up and headed toward her. She lay in a ball, head curved into her chest, arms wrapped tightly around her legs. He reached out, touched her shoulder, and she jumped. “It’s just me. It’s Fox.”

  She slowly uncoiled. “You saved me,” she whispered.

  The flash of white returned. Only this time, Fox zeroed in on who’d been her real savior. The rats hadn’t reacted to him after all. They’d reacted to this fur ball.

  Fox shook his head. “No, it doesn’t look like I did.”

  “What?” Her eyes shone with confusion.

  He wanted to remove his night-vision visor but knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to see a thing in front of him. Dim light still glowed in intervals outside in the corridors, but in here, there was nothing but pitch black.

  Fox pointed at the ghost of a man crouching down behind Iris. “I think that’s your hero over there.” One of the black rats was caught between the fur ball’s teeth, still squirming. Others lay around him, as if he’d collected them.

  “Hey there.” Fox took a cautious step.

  The man jumped back, shaking his head.

  Fox raised his palms in front of him and stopped. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

  Iris crawled over to the man, kneeling in front of him. She extended a hand out and pressed her palm on top of the man’s head.

  “Thank you.”

  The furred man closed his eyes and seemed to be purring.

  It was then Fox realized the man wasn’t wearing a white outfit as he’d first suspected. He was covered from head to toe in white fur. Whiskers adorned his otherwise human face, and sharp fangs protruded from the top and bottom of his mouth, like some sort of feline. Could this be one of the Cat People he’d heard whispers about?

  The population situated in the higher levels liked to spook each other with urban legends and horror stories—designed to scare and keep them out of the slums. One of the tales he’d heard during his school days was about the Cat People. Insane stories, claiming some humans had mingled so much with cats, they eventually cross-bred. Or simply adapted to the conditions and darkness below so much their bodies evolved to keep them warm and enable them to hunt the only nourishment available down here.

  The rat in his mouth, and the way he reacted to Iris, confirmed the aspects of the latter myth.

  “We need to move. Now that they’ve had a taste of fresh meat, they’ll come back when they figure out there’s only one of him.” Fox crossed to the doorway and peered around the corner. No one approached from either direction—whether cat, rat, or human.

  “What’s your name?” she asked as she continued to pat the large human-feline hybrid.

  A soft meow escaped from his mouth, but no words.

  “I think he’s one of the Cat People.” Fox pulled his gun out, reloaded it, and stuck it back into its holster.

  “He’s beautiful.”

  “I think you can admire him better if we get out of this dark hole.” He couldn’t keep the frustration from his voice. If they didn’t move soon, they’d have to deal with ravenous vermin as well as a killer on the loose.

  Iris looked at him over her shoulder. “You don’t like it here, do you?”

  “Let’s just say that I don’t come down here often.”

  She patted the human-sized cat one more time and rose to her feet. Her gaze fell to the eaten corpses but swayed just as quickly. “Why are you here, now?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “You already have.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them together and higher, distracting him more than he wanted. For the first time, he was glad the visor somewhat concealed his eyes.

  He shook the pang of desire away. “Yeah, and you didn’t answer me.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve already told you. I have no idea why I woke up here—”

  “Or why you were climbing out the window?”

  Her eyes narrowed at the question. “I was heeding the call…Oh, never mind. Look, can you help me find someone able to re-spark my memory or something? Maybe hypnosis would help. I don’t know. I just need to remember what happened, why I’m here.”

  “Sure. I can do that.” His body relaxed, relieved. For a second, he’d thought it would be harder to convince her to come along with him. There were a lot of pieces missing from the puzzle of Iris, and he wasn’t entirely convinced she hadn’t somehow been involved in the slaughter of his Spec-Ops team, but this was his chance to find out. If he helped her get to the top of the Wentworth Corporation Tower willingly, his father would confirm one way or another if this was the woman he wanted captured. There’d been no description, picture, or hologram given—just the gender. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “We need to get to the top floors. I can find someone to help you there. If we follow this corridor to the end and turn left at the junction, we’ll hit a service elevator which will get us as close to the top as we can.” He took the first step out of the basement.

  Iris caught his forearm. He tensed beneath her touch.

  “Who are you? Why would you have access to something like that?”

  “I’m a city official. It’s my job.”

  “A city official just casually wandered into the basement of a shitty building? I find that hard to believe.” The frown on her pretty face lit her eyes. The shine of emerald sparkled inside her irises, blended with the specks of sky blue around them.

  “I was looking for them.”

  “So, you lied to me? You did know the dead people.”

  Disappointment shadowed her features. She looked away, back at the big cat busy gathering the dead rats into a white pouch he’d pulled out from somewhere.

  Her hand fell away from his arm, and a blatant lie slid from his mouth. “Not really. I didn’t know any of them personally. I just knew they’d gone missing. It was m
y job to find them.”

  “So, these people were missing?”

  “Only for less than a day…”

  “Why would you travel all this way on your own, to track six people?” The suspicion darkened her eyes and face.

  “I’m a good officer.”

  “Yes, I bet.” She winked at him and looked over her shoulder. “Are you coming with us, kitty?”

  The white cat floundered over, using both arms and legs on the floor before rising to his feet. He disappeared out the door. He was fast.

  “Let’s get to this magical elevator of yours.” Iris walked out in front of him, heading after the cat.

  Uncertainty and guilt swept through his body. Why did he care what she thought of him, or about what would happen to her? It wasn’t his business. She was just some strange girl he suspected of murdering six people. Yet, he’d been prepared to save her life by risking his own when the rats had captured her.

  He didn’t doubt he would risk it again if he had to.

  Chapter Five

  Iris finally felt at ease, even if her mind was moving faster than it had inside the basement. Now, instead of just having to deal with strange snippets of things she wasn’t sure were real, she also had to think long and hard about this man called Fox.

  Her stomach fluttered at the thought of him. Such a strange and stupid reaction for someone she’d just met, under bizarre circumstances which could’ve killed her. If those boxes hadn’t been there to catch her fall, she’d have landed facedown and might still be bleeding on the floor of the basement…could have become unconscious food fodder for the rats.

  Instead, she was walking down a dimly-lit corridor with a man she wasn’t sure she could trust.

  The light bulbs overhead looked ancient and stung her eyes. An eerie, amber glow surrounded everything she focused on. The concrete walls around them seemed to get narrower with every step. Iris hadn’t realized it would take so long to walk the length of it. Not for the first time, she wished she’d been faster and had cleared the window before this man could stop her.

  She blew out a breath. “So, are we close?” At least the itchiness of the top and pants had worn off. After having so many rats climb all over her—tickling her nose, eyes, and lips—the clothes didn’t rattle her. Though, the sting of their bites did.

  “Almost there,” Fox said without looking at her.

  “So, what’s your story?”

  “Maybe you should be asking that question to your friend over there.” She followed his index finger, which was pointed at the strange but kind creature that had saved her life. She owed him and would never forget it. Whoever Iris really was, deep down inside, she knew she had to be a woman who’d keep her word, and that extended to Fox. He might be keeping secrets close to his chest and leaving large pieces of information out of the equation, but she’d seen the way he dove into the ocean of rats. He’d been prepared to throw himself into the middle of danger to help her.

  She owed both of them her life. Maybe after Fox helped her get to the top levels and find someone able to uncoil everything hidden inside her mind, she’d get the chance to do something nice for him. The thought made her blush.

  The large man, who looked more like a cat, hissed up ahead. He’d turned the corner with a white bag strapped to his back several minutes before. Now, his hissing reaction echoed out behind him.

  Fox looked at her and she back at him, then they both picked up their pace to a jog. They scooted around the corner and continued until they reached the cat.

  A large box-like metal contraption lay open in front of them. The light inside flickered on and off, then back again. Large blue, red, and black cables hung from the control panel on the wall. One of the buttons inside the panel had a faded triangle pointing upward painted on it, the other facing down. She cringed at the thought of what could lay beneath this basement level.

  “Son of a bitch!” Fox yanked his visor away from his eyes and sat it on the top of his head. He ran into the metal cavity and looked around. He repeated the words several times before kicking the inside wall, then walked out and kicked the outside as well. The panel frame jiggled off with a clang.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  The cat turned around abruptly. His bushy ears sat in the same spot as a human, but they were furry and rotated to whatever sound he heard. He hissed.

  A shiver raced down her spine.

  “This is the elevator that’s supposed to get us to the top.” Fox smashed the panel with his fist and another piece tumbled to the floor.

  “Can you fix it?”

  “No, I can’t fix it.” The anger made her recoil a step. He sighed. “I’m sorry. This just throws a huge kink into my plan.”

  “Isn’t there another elevator somewhere on this floor?” She looked over her shoulder. Shadows were closing in as the cat hissed louder. Her skin crawled. Someone or something was headed their way.

  Fox shook his head. “No, this is the only one. We were supposed to come down in this one and leave just as quickly. This is the only elevator which bypasses the slums. It would’ve made it so much easier to reach our destination…”

  “Yes, about that. What were you and your men supposed to be doing down in this dump, anyway?” Too many questions and problems prickled at her brain. As if she didn’t have enough personal baggage to carry, without adding his.

  He turned to look at her. She sucked in a breath, hoping he hadn’t noticed her reaction. It was the first time she’d seen his face properly since they’d met. With the goggles pulled up on his head, she got a look at his face and couldn’t stop staring at his gorgeous, light blue eyes. They were a shade she’d never seen before. His bone structure was flawless, masculine, and breathtaking.

  “They weren’t my men,” he replied, “but they were supposed to find a thief.”

  “All this trouble over a thief?” She swallowed the lump in her throat, finding it hard to believe that in a society with so much poverty, anyone would bother to waste time and resources with any sort of thief. It looked like she was right. Chasing some thief into this hole had already cost most of them their lives. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. “Someone’s coming.”

  “Are you sure?” His eyes were wide as he looked past her shoulder.

  She nodded. “They’re closing in.”

  “With the elevator busted, there’s no way for us to get out. Unless we—”

  “Unless we what?”

  The white cat was down on all fours and backed into her legs. She patted him absently as his tail circled around her ankles.

  “Unless we go the long way and take one floor up at a time,” Fox answered.

  “How long will that take?”

  “Without any shortcuts, it could take months.”

  A warm breath slid from her mouth. Months of traveling upward with no hope of getting anywhere meant they could get lost in the slums and become another nameless statistic.

  She found it strange to remember details about the society she lived in without being able to recall anything personal.

  Her attention faltered when something hard sliced the side of her cheek. It stung. One hand automatically rose to touch it. When she pulled her fingers away, blood stained them. She held out her hand for Fox to see.

  “What the hell? You’ve been shot!”

  “The bullet just grazed me.” Another bullet dodged past her. This time, it impacted with the metal wall behind her head.

  “Come on.” Fox took her hand roughly and started running up the only corridor to their left. The cat followed hot on their heels as the amount of bullets increased around them.

  “Who’s shooting at us?” She lowered her head to avoid being hit again.

  His breath was heavy, ragged. “With the amount of rounds they’re trying to hit us with, I don’t think it’s a good idea to stop and ask. There’s gotta be some stairs around here somewhere.”

  Several meters after he’d said it, the corridor ended in
a door with a small square window near the top. Fox didn’t stop, dragging her along as he pulled the door open and slammed it shut behind them.

  She tried to catch her breath, as survival instincts kicked into gear. Her limbs felt nimble and ready for action, both fists closed at her sides in case she had to fight. If she had to defend herself, she wouldn’t hesitate.

  “Let’s go up the stairs.” Fox grabbed her clammy hand again but released it instantly. “Ouch! You stung me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What’s going on with your hair?” He took a sudden step back, staring at her with a wild look in his eyes.

  The cat rubbed against her legs, and his fur stood on end.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Let’s get out of here.” She took the first step up and Fox followed close behind. The kitty ran ahead of them as the door below exploded off its hinges and shots rang out, again. Shadows played along the dirty, white walls as she tried not to slow down. She needed to keep going—get away from these pursuers—but at the same time, she wanted to fight.

  Something feral snapped inside her.

  They climbed one floor after another, until the cat stopped and rubbed up against the door on one of the levels.

  “We need to keep going,” Fox barked, running past him.

  “Maybe he knows a shortcut.” Her lungs burned. She wouldn’t mind some sort of shortcut at the moment. As long as they got away from the shooters. She closed her eyes, trying to fight back the instinctual need to react. Her hair crackled with energy.

  In her mind’s eye, lightning split the dark sky outside. She could smell the burned stench as it cut into the pavement, splitting it in two. Yet, they were nowhere near the street level. Not after climbing so many floors.

  The kitty nodded, stood up, and opened the door himself.

  Fox shrugged. They stepped out into the dark corridor and followed the white blur as he raced ahead. He took a left, a right, and another left, before he slinked inside a hole in the wall and disappeared from sight. It was only big enough for each of them to jump in single file.

  Another door snapped off behind them. Twists and turns away, but too close for comfort.