“Because the second I set foot in that godforsaken place I’m gonna see Hail’s face, his dead face, staring at me, like I betrayed him, like I failed him, and you know why? Because I fucking did. Because I am the alpha of this squad, kid, and that makes me responsible. To him, to the others, to his baby daddy, and to his twins. Me. I am responsible for destroying Hail’s family and ending his life, but you know what? That fucking turncoat cunt is going to be the one who pays. You…what’s your name?”
“Devin.”
“You get a choice right now, Devin. You cooperate with me and my city, you might earn yourself a second chance. You stay loyal to that bitch, I eat your head for breakfast. I am not even close to playing, Devin. I’m fucking done.”
“I believe you,” Devin said, and Pan was sure he meant every word.
“Then you’re smarter than you look. We’re an hour out. Killian, call Broderick, tell him what we got.” She shoved her phone into Killian’s hands.
“What do we have, specifically?” Killian asked as he dialed.
“A hundred and thirteen shifters, tranquilized, need immediate medical attention. Three prisoners, conscious, in good physical condition. One body.”
“Should I tell them who…?”
“Not unless he asks,” she said through gritted teeth. “Some things need to be said in person.”
Killian made the call and passed on the information. Broderick apparently didn’t ask who the body was, as Killian was able to hang up without saying his name. Still, his face was drawn and stressed by the time he hung up the phone.
“You okay?” Pan asked him in a near-whisper.
“Not even close,” Killian answered with the ghost of a smile. “But I’m hoping to be.”
“Me too,” Pan said, squeezing Killian’s hand.
The gates swung open as they pulled up, enabling them to roll clear through to the caged area without stopping. Every doctor, nurse, intern, and medical researcher in the city was waiting for them on the other side. A line of restraining beds stood beside them, one for each rescued shifter. As they pulled to a stop, Mariella looked at Pan and Killian closely.
“As soon as he opens those gates, you two go take a nap. Especially you, Pan.”
“I’m alright,” Pan said weakly. “I’ll be fine.”
“You are not fine. As soon as you can, okay? Go home and take a nap.”
Pan nodded and smiled at her, then he and Killian stepped out and stood by the fence beside Broderick. The look on Broderick’s face killed his question on his tongue; clearly, this gate would not open until every shifter had been removed from the vans. The vans, designed to carry eight shifters in relative comfort, were difficult to unload with the numbers that they had jammed inside; but, one by one, the shifters were brought out with the squad’s assistance. Once the medical staff and the military staff had settled into a rhythm, Mariella approached Broderick.
“Alpha Thyme,” she said with unusual respect.
“Alpha Squad,” he replied in kind.
“We lost Hail and burned sixty-six shifter bodies. We made zero kills.”
“Oh, no,” Broderick said, sweeping a hand over his face. “Not Hail.”
“I’m afraid so, sir,” she said, her voice trembling. “The place was booby-trapped to implode.”
“Is it still standing?”
“Yes, sir. We disarmed the bombs.”
“Good work, Alpha.”
Mariella scoffed slightly and lowered her head, shaking it at the ground. Broderick lifted her strong chin and looked into her eyes.
“I mean it, Alpha. You lost one, but you saved so many more. One hundred and sixteen.”
“One hundred and thirteen, sir.”
“I don’t think so,” Broderick said, putting a massive arm around her shoulders and turning her around. The three prisoners stood several yards in front of her, gazing around in stunned confusion. “I think setting a few misguided shifters on the right track counts as a win. They’d be pancakes without you and your teams.”
The doctors worked quickly, and soon all of the shifters were out of the van and strapped into beds. One by one, the vans pulled out of the now-open gates to return to their spaces in front of the research facility. Pan and Killian followed Broderick out after the last of the vans was clear, Killian with his arm draped over Pan’s shoulders, Pan with his arm linked snugly around Killian’s waist. As the gates closed behind them, Killian froze in mid-stride with a terrible look on his face.
“What is it?” Pan asked. He followed Killian’s gaze, then his own heart sank. There, standing in a crowd of other shifters watching the convoy, was a heavily pregnant man with golden skin and cascading black hair. His eyes shone with excitement and he cradled his belly contentedly as if to say, “it’s okay now, daddy’s home.” From the look on Killian’s face, Pan knew him to be Logan; and he knew that daddy was never coming home. It hit him then, like a punch in his gut. They watched from a distance as Mariella approached him and pulled him aside. They watched his spine go rigid and his face turn to fury as he angrily demanded to be shown the one thing in the world he wanted to see least. They followed, almost in a trance, as Mariella led the man to her van and peeled back the tarp. All expression fell away from his face. He turned his back on the body and walked away, not a tear shed, not a word spoken. For some reason, it made Pan irrationally furious.
“How can he be so cold?” He demanded rhetorically, clenching his fists. “He’s just seen his dead husband, doesn’t he feel anything?”
“Of course he does,” Killian said. “It’ll hit him later. I want to check on Floyd.”
“Floyd! Oh my god I told the kids I’d give them an update on Floyd and Jacob. I forgot, God I’m shitty.”
“You were distracted,” Killian reminded him with the ghost of a grin. “We’ll do it together, come on.”
They walked hand in hand to the hospital. Killian spotted the straight parents of one of his students, and moved to snatch his hand away. Pan held on tight and looked straight ahead, ignoring his whispered demands and forceful tugs. The world didn’t end when the parents spotted him. They waved and said good morning, and Killian responded weakly.
“Are you happy now?” He hissed angrily.
“Far from it, honey,” Pan sighed. “But did you die?”
“You could have ended my entire career just then. Do you realize that? Do you realize how fast everything could end?”
“Yeah. So do you. Pretty sure that’s why we screwed in front of an open window last night. Don’t tell me you’re only courageous when you’re facing death.”
“This has nothing to do with courage,” Killian snapped as they stepped through the doors into the hospital. “This is about my work. My kids. They’re my family, Pan, the only family I have anymore. I lost everyone I loved the first time I shifted, now you want me to risk everyone?”
“You think you’re the only one who lost family?” Pan asked angrily, whirling on Killian with blazing eyes. “We all lost family! Every last one of us! The smart ones among us find ways to forge new families. To make our own families. To fall in love. Have kids. Make something beautiful in this isolated, dull, depressing refugee camp.”
“And look how that turns out,” Killian said through his teeth. “One wrong move, one heroic act, and you’re all alone all over again. This?” He held up their linked hands, glaring into Pan’s eyes. “This is a wrong move. This is the wrong kind of heroism. This is…this is damn stupid, is what it is.”
Pan jerked his hand back as tears sprang into his eyes.
“Go to hell.” He turned on his heel and stormed down the hall to the Omega rooms, noticing Bernadette’s worried face out of the corner of his eye. She followed him as he peered into Jacob’s window and then Floyd’s.
“How does it look?” He asked her, his voice still tinted with hurt and anger.
“The boy will make it,” she said. “Might even be stronger for it, though I worry about his mind. He’s still ba
bbling whenever he’s awake, but the doctor has asked us to keep him sedated for the time being. The man….” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Well, look at him.”
Pan looked, and the hurt in his heart doubled. Floyd’s skin was like paper, clinging to the bones of his face. His lips were pulled tight over his teeth like a corpse, though his chest still moved with labored breath. His entire body looked deflated, as if someone had uncorked him and left him in the sun. Tears spilled over Pan’s cheeks as he gazed at this once-strong man, so loved by the children he chose to raise.
“No,” Pan said fiercely, brushing the tears from his face. “No more daddies die today.”
Bernadette tried to say something, but Pan wasn’t listening. He marched around the building next door and into his shop, inhaling the sharp aroma of hair chemicals. Boris looked up at him in surprise, then left the head he was working on to wrap Pan in a bone-crushing bear hug.
“Squirrel boy returns! Many clients today.”
“You’ll have to take them one more time, Boris,” Pan said as Boris set him back on his feet. “Where’s Damian?”
“Damian? Why?”
“I need him. It’s important. Life or death.”
“No, no,” Boris said, shaking his head grimly. “Too much life, death for that boy.”
“Boris, please,” Pan said, his voice cracking. “Please, he’s the only one who can help.”
Boris sighed heavily and trailed a hand over his beard. He smoothed his heavy brows then tugged on his earlobes, his hands moving with his thoughts.
“Alright,” Boris said. “I trust in you. Do not make me regret!”
“I won’t. Hand to God.”
“God is for women and dying old men.”
“Fine, then I swear on every shaggy brown hair of Damian’s bedraggled head that you will not regret this.”
“Good enough,” Boris said with a wide grin. “Boy is in back. Reading comic book.”
“I owe you one,” Pan said, clapping Boris on his arm as he raced through the shop. He flung the door open, making Damian jump. “Come on, kid. You wanna be a superhero today?”
“Yeah!”
“Awesome! Let’s go!”
He held Damian’s hand and ran back around the buildings, through the hospital’s back entrance. A nagging little voice in the back of his mind begged him to slow down and rethink this, to talk to the doctor, or Bernadette, or even Boris before doing what he was about to do. But the memory of the anguished wolf song, the sight of Logan’s swollen belly and the light going out of his eyes, Hail’s chipper voice talking excitedly about the mission like it was all a big game, those things were so much louder than that little doubt. He couldn’t watch the light go out of Ru’s eyes. He couldn’t let Alice lose her smile. He could not allow Floyd to die, not today. He pulled Damian into the room and locked the door.
“Alright, Damian. I know it smells weird and he looks kind of scary, but that’s okay. I need you to do something super important, and you’re the only one who can. You’re a superhero, right?”
Damian nodded hesitantly.
“Yeah, you’re a superhero. Your superpower is your bite.”
Damian’s eyes widened and he backed away quickly.
“No, no no no, come here, it’s okay. Listen to me. Do you know what DNA is?”
“It’s like a twisty ladder inside people’s bodies?”
“Yeah. And everybody has zillions of little twisty ladders, and some people’s ladders are stronger than others, and yours, Damian…yours are the strongest of all. This man? He’s super important to a lot of people. He has four kids. They need him, just like you need your daddy. But his ladders are falling apart. A very bad lady took them away from him. He needs new ones, and you can give them to him.”
“How?”
“That’s the best part. It’s super easy. All you have to do is shift, just like you did that day at school, and bite him. Anywhere you like. His arm, his finger, his nose…just don’t bite it off, that wouldn’t be good…and you don’t even need to bite hard. His body is soft because of the bad lady. Just a little gentle bite and you can make him all better. Can you do that? Can you save the day, Super Damian?”
Damian’s eyes were shining with tears and he was breathing hard. Pan knew he was pushing too hard, asking too much, but he didn’t know how to stop. His heart was breaking with every gasping, raspy breath that Floyd took, and he believed, he had to believe, that he could fix it.
“Please, Damian,” he asked, his voice breaking. “I’ll get you ice cream after, I promise.”
“Three scoops?” Damian asked, looking at him sideways. Pan knew as well as he did that he was only ever allowed one. Something about his triglycerides, he thought.
“Three scoops,” Pan promised. “But you have to do it now.”
“Okay,” Damian said. The little boy shifted in jerking, rough motions. It was always more difficult to do without emotions spurring you on. Once he’d transformed into a furry little beast, Pan took him by the hand and led him to Floyd. Damian pointed at Floyd’s forearm, and Pan lifted it gingerly over the side of the bed. It had a strange feel to it, as if the muscle fibers had all congealed into a single squishy mass. Damian looked at him for reassurance, and Pan nodded. Damian sucked in a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and bit down on Floyd’s arm.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When Pan had stormed off, Killian hadn’t bothered to follow. He wouldn’t have known what to say. Instead, he’d turned and looked out the window, watching the people of Regis Thyme come together to help the hundred-plus misplaced, mistreated shifters in whatever ways they could. He tried to process everything that had happened since that fateful Friday morning. It seemed like years ago. The wheels turned grindingly in his head, rusty with a lack of sleep and overloaded with information. Emotional, intellectual, physical…it was all too much. Scrubbing his hands over his face, he decided he needed a nap before he could begin to figure out how to pull himself together. But, just as he’d made the decision to walk away, he heard Bernadette scream.
“Stop that! No, what are you doing?! Unlock this door! Unlock it right this second!”
Killian ran down the hall, spurred by the panic in her voice. A child’s wail met his ear a second later, and he recognized it immediately.
“What’s going on?” He asked, coming up behind Bernadette in the hall. “Damian, are you okay?”
The boy was tucked behind Pan, who was talking very quickly in hushed tones to Bernadette. Floyd’s door was open, and his rasping gasp echoed in the hallway.
“He bit him!” Bernadette said, flapping her hands in distress.
“Who bit whom?”
“The little one bit the old man!”
“It was my fault,” Pan said. “I told him to.”
“Why on earth would you do that?” Bernadette asked, very near hysterics.
“’Cause I’m a superhero,” Damian’s watery voice explained through sniffles. “My dee-nay is strong, and his isn’t, he needed strong dee-nay and I’m a superhero with biting superpowers.”
Killian looked from Damian to Pan in shock. Pan stared back defiantly.
“And if it doesn’t work?” Killian asked Pan. “What are you going to tell him then?”
“It will work,” Pan said through his teeth. “It has to work.”
Killian was too tired and too furious to notice the tears shining in Pan’s eyes. He brushed past Bernadette and grabbed Pan’s arm, pulling him toward the door.
“Let go of me,” Pan said, shaking him off. “I promised Damian ice cream.”
“Three scoops!” Damian said delightedly.
Killian’s head throbbed painfully. Damian couldn’t have three scoops. Damian’s blood sugar was all out of whack, Natalia had given Killian very specific instructions at the beginning of the school year to watch Damian’s sugar intake like a hawk. Werewolf or no, the kid was still susceptible to diabetes.
“Three scoops,” Pan repeated calmly.
“Just this once, because he’s a superhero today.”
Something snapped in Killian’s brain. He’d reached his maximum give-a-shit threshold, and he was over it.
“Fine,” he hissed. “Give him ice cream. Let him bite people. Hell, there’s a whole field of people for him to bite, let him go to town. I’m going to bed. First person to disturb me forfeits their right arm.”
As he stormed off, he heard Damian ask, “What does forfeit mean?”
“It means give up,” Pan told him.
“Heroes never give up,” Damian said with all the seriousness he could muster.
“That’s right. Heroes never, ever give up.”
Killian was too muddled to decide why that particular exchange made him furious. He didn’t care why. All he cared about was getting to bed before he smashed something or lost his mind entirely. He pushed through his door and stumbled to bed, barely registering that Grover hadn’t been there to greet him, and fell immediately into a restless, angry sleep.
Pan began second-guessing himself the instant that Killian walked away. Bernadette was still staring at him in horror, and Damian was looking up at him with eyes full of questions. Pan inhaled deeply and squeezed his eyes shut, then looked intensely at Bernadette.
“I’m taking him for ice cream. That’s where I’ll be. If they can wait till we’re finished that would be…super.”
Bernadette only nodded silently, her lips pressed into a thin, angry line. Pan took Damian by the hand and walked him to the ice cream parlor, where he got his three scoops over bananas. Pan set his mind solely on indulging the kid, pushing the darkness firmly away. They sat at a small white table outside, under the shade of a dull green umbrella, and watched their fellow shifters hurry through their days. Most of the activity was still centered around the back field, and Pan noticed that they had pulled the ambulance out of storage. He wondered absently if they were planning to bring the shifters inside. It seemed like a foolish idea, considering how the beasts had behaved the last time they were enclosed, but he didn’t dwell on it. He didn’t trust his instincts anymore.
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