by Sarah Noffke
“We fought for our freedom,” Zephyr said in a low voice, his eyes trained on the area by the cabinets. The concrete was stained red and the expression in his eyes spoke of being suddenly haunted.
Rox strolled forward. “So whoever was running this operation feared you’d come back or tell the authorities and so they tucked tail and ran,” she said, picking up a syringe that was now mostly empty and inspecting the remnants of its contents.
“Your jokes are never appreciated,” Zephyr said, his eyes running over the space in front of him.
“What do you remember about being here? Any notable figures?” Adelaide said, striding to the nearest cage and peering into it. She couldn’t believe that men had been kept here, experimented on after being abducted. However, she knew that she needed to digest this reality especially quickly. Her father told her that bad, no, horrible things, happened on this planet, and if she was doing her job then most people wouldn’t find out about them.
“The main scientist was a man with a white beard. He was German,” Zephyr said, still having not moved from his place. Every now and again his eyes skirted to the bloody stain, as if transfixed by it.
“Alexander Drake,” Adelaide said, remembering the notes from the file.
“How do you know that’s his name?” Zephyr asked, daring to take a step toward the nearest cell, which Adelaide had just left to inspect more of the area.
“He’s the one that I told you about. The one who stole Lucidite research. My fath—my findings indicate that he might have been connected with the werewolf case,” she said, covering her blunder. The last thing she needed was for these two buffoons knowing who her father was or that he was a big deal; well, the biggest deal. Already everyone treated her differently because she was Ren Lewis’s daughter. Everyone expected big things from her.
“So can you run us through the process that they put you through to convert you?” Rox said, sifting through various supplies in the middle lab area. She held up an unmarked vial and frowned at it. “They didn’t leave behind any of the drugs or technology.”
Adelaide shook her head at the other girl as she kept striding by the cells, memorizing each one. They were all the same and all different in small ways. “Did you expect them to leave behind such evidence? How about a forwarding address? Do you think we should check with the receptionist at the front—oh, wait, that’s right. This place is deserted. And it’s deserted for a reason. These are people who don’t want to be found,” she said.
“People get sloppy, especially people abandoning a place in a hurry. A real detective looks for what got left behind,” Rox said, casting a smirk over her shoulder at Adelaide. “At least I’m looking for clues instead of taking the walking tour of this place.”
Adelaide ignored Rox. She halted abruptly in front of the cell she’d just come to. “The door…” she said under her breath.
“She’s talking to herself. Isn’t that cute?” Rox said in Zephyr’s direction. He had managed to move, but only a few feet. He appeared lost in thought, his eyes darting to various places in the lab.
“It’s still locked,” Adelaide observed of the cell in front of her. “Did one of the werewolves have the skill of teleportation?” she called to Zephyr over her shoulder. That seemed to wake him out of his daze and he strode over, each of his steps deliberate.
“Honestly, I only know what Rio’s gift was because it broke us out of this hell hole,” he said and paused only briefly before bolting forward. “There’s someone still in there!” he yelled.
“What?” Adelaide said, squinting through the dark of the lab, which was lit only by emergency lamps and light streaming through three small windows. All she could see was a cell cloaked in shadow. She took a step forward, feeling Rox at her back suddenly. And when she was three feet from the bars she saw it, saw what Zephyr could see with what she suspected was his enhanced vision, a gift from his wolf genes. There on the concrete floor of the cell lay a man. She guessed he was a man based on her knowledge of the case, but he appeared more like a rumple of limbs.
The banging on the bars stole her attention. “We left him behind,” Zephyr yelled, his fist connecting with the metal of the bars making a sound so loud it hurt Adelaide’s ears. The captain had gone from looking hollow to showing more emotion than she thought he was capable of. “We’ve got to get him out of there!”
Adelaide turned to Rox, who already had her mobile pressed to her face. “I’ll get Trent to send in reinforcements from the Lucidites.”
She was grateful that Rox had decided to call the Lucidites over her FBI buddies. This needed to remain confidential. Everything on this case needed to stay that way.
The cacophony of noise grew like a deranged train buckling off the tracks. Adelaide dared to step up close to Zephyr, who was beating his fists against the cage bars, which did nothing to rouse the man within. The one who apparently had been held prisoner without any help for all this time. He’s probably dead, Adelaide thought. She reached out to touch Zephyr’s shoulder but stopped a few inches away. “We’ll get him out. Help is on the way.”
Zephyr spun around, his face red and bulging with anger. “But help isn’t me. I left him behind to die. To starve to death!” he yelled, and it sounded like a howl at the same time.
Adelaide drew in a quick breath. “Then figure out how to get him out now,” she said, taking a quick glance at the unmoving body. “Think. Where are the keys?”
“I don’t know!” Zephyr said, throwing his head in his hands. “I looked before. They weren’t in the cabinet like how I’d seen the scientists retrieve them before.”
“Because…” Adelaide said, trying, hoping to draw something out of the man in front of her.
Zephyr’s eyes seemed to search without looking, darting back and forth. Then he darted in the opposite direction, turning into a quick blur. And when he returned a moment later he was brandishing a key between his fingers. “I had found this key before I escaped. A rent-a-cop knocked me in the face with his gun, though, and I dropped it over there,” he said, indicating a row of cabinets.
“No more story time,” Adelaide said, ushering him forward. “Unlock the gate.”
Zephyr had already turned around and slid the key into the lock. It didn’t fit right at first and took several attempts to find the right angle. But then with a jerk the key turned and the cell door swung open. And again Zephyr was a blur as he raced for the body, kneeling down next to it. His head flipped up, but Adelaide had already read the microexpressions on Zephyr’s face and knew what he was about to say.
“He’s still alive,” he said, touching his finger to the man’s neck. “But only barely.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“The laws of the Lucidite Institute must be upheld. It is for the benefit of the Lucidites, as well as the people on this planet who we serve.”
- Lucidite Employee Manual
A crashing sound echoed from the front of the building. Rox spun around to face the metal doors they’d come through. Zephyr ripped his head upward at the sound.
“Someone is coming,” he said in a rush, pulling the man’s limp body off the ground. Adelaide took hold of the unconscious man’s dangling arm, barely helping with the process of carrying him.
“How do you know?” she said, lugging the passed out man forward.
“I can hear their footsteps. I can smell them. They’re the men from the labs,” Zephyr said.
“Go through the hole,” Rox said, pointing to the plastic-sheathed hole where the werewolves had escaped through before. She ran for the brick wall and pulled the large tarp away with a swift movement, the sunlight on the back street shining through at once. Ducking her head through the hole, she determined at once that the space outside was clear. “Take him now! Get him to the car. Adelaide, call the driver and tell him to meet you back here,” she said, her voice suddenly authoritative.
“What about you?” Zephyr said, stepping on the other side of the hole and then pulling the
limp body through before Adelaide joined them on the sidewalk.
Just then a horde of masked guards burst through the metal doors, their guns pointed in their direction. “Go!” Rox yelled. “I’ve got these pansies. I’ll hold them off for you.”
Neither Zephyr nor Adelaide argued, just pulled the almost dead man away, toward safety.
Rox spun around, her fists at the ready. Five guards approached her in formation. They each held tranquilizer guns. They weren’t keen on harming the werewolves. Whoever was in charge only wanted the men returned.
“Well, hello, boys,” Rox said. “I’m not a werewolf, so why don’t you put down the guns and play with your hands.”
The guard at the front strapped the gun on his back and lunged for Rox. She twisted easily out of his attempt to pin her and as he turned she threw a kick that connected with his shoulder. She knew kicking him in the helmet would have little effect. And thankfully the kick she successfully planted sent the guard to the ground. Instantly two more guards were on her. One managed to throw a punch at her chest, but the result was unimpressive. Rox looked down at her chest and then at the guard. “You want to touch my tits, is that right?” she said and pulled up her knee, catching the stunned man off guard. Punches were supposed to hurt people and when they didn’t affect her it froze people. She’d seen this reaction most of her life. The man fell over, clutching his groin. And before she could react one of the guards caught her arms from behind her back. Two guards approached, their guns pointed at her.
They could tranquilize her and then she’d awake and maybe be a vampire or whatever crazy monster this organization made its prisoners.
“All right, I surrender,” she said, ceasing to struggle with the guard at her back.
“That’s right, honey,” she heard him say in a muffled voice. “Tony, cuff her,” he said to one of the guards in front of her.
The guard on the right pulled handcuffs from his back pocket, as he brandished a proud smile. The other guard beside him approached. Both looked like they wanted to get up close to the girl wearing tight jeans and a low-cut shirt. When they were only three feet away, Rox bent her knees, pulling her weight down before jumping up and back, forcing her captor behind her to take her weight. Each of her legs came up tucked into her chest before rocketing straight, punching both men in front of her in the chest. The assault would have been bad enough on its own based on her power, but the sharp heels made it exponentially worse. Then she dropped to her knees, pulling the man behind her over her back and throwing him down hard on the ground. The first two guards were stirring from their places when she backed up to the opening behind her. Just then a man in a silver-gray suit stepped through the metal door. The guards looked at him as though for the next order. He only shook his head, which seemed to tell them to halt their next assault. Then he turned his piercing greenish eyes on Rox, a haunting in his gaze. And Rox knew something crucial at that point. They weren’t messing with a regular villain. The person behind the werewolves was a powerful man who made her shiver violently.
“Who are you?” the man said, his accent Swedish maybe.
“I’m a diabolical bitch and also your worst nightmare,” she said, backing toward the wall behind her.
He smiled, his thin mustache curling upward with the gesture. “Oh, but I love nightmares. I enjoy creating them,” he said, looking out at the destroyed lab.
“Who are you?” she said, feeling the wall bump up against her calves.
“I’m the one who is going to win,” he said, a sincere calmness in his voice.
Rox spun and turned, jumping through the hole, running faster than most could in heels.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“There is no law on this planet that can’t be broken. It is merely our mindset preventing us from doing it.”
- Olento Research Employee Manual
Zephyr had traveled the world. He’d seen things that most wouldn’t be able to easily assimilate into the framework of their lives. And yet he was constantly struggling to understand this world he’d been dropped into. How hadn’t he ever heard of Dream Travelers before? How could he have been made into one? From the corners of his foggy memories he did remember being strapped down and forced to listen to music. It had seemed like such a strange thing for his captors to do. But it was a welcome relief from the injections, from waking up to find his head sore and bandaged. He never quit questioning what happened in the labs, but sometimes he put the questions into the file in his brain that was labeled “To be reviewed later.”
Adelaide turned toward him from her seat at the large conference room table in the Institute. “You’ve been unwilling to talk, but that’s going to have to end now.”
“Why?” he asked, studying the conference room. It should be lit overhead with fluorescent lights like most meeting spaces, but it wasn’t. Nothing about the Lucidite Institute was normal. Not the mode for entering it. Not the hallways. And he sensed that there was a great deal of non-normal technology inside the stainless walls of this place. However, Zephyr was an observer who tried not to make too many assumptions prematurely.
“Oh good, I get the opportunity to explain the obvious to a dumb American. Yay, me,” Adelaide said with zero enthusiasm. “You’re going to talk because you know things that can help us figure out how to find the other werewolves, but more importantly, we need to find who is behind this,” Adelaide said.
“Maybe Rox will find something,” Zephyr said.
“Or maybe they killed her,” Adelaide said, shrugging her shoulders indifferently.
“You’re kind of heartless,” Zephyr observed. He hadn’t liked leaving Rox behind, but even he admitted that it was the best option. Getting the injured safe was always the priority.
“No kind of about it,” Adelaide said, pulling a leather-bound book closer to her. It was bound shut with a strap and looked new, but worn.
“And Rox will be fine,” Zephyr said, remembering how well she fought in the alleyway. He could sense she was playing with him then, hardly trying. It was impressive and also highly annoying.
Before the door to the strategic department slid back, Zephyr’s head spun around. A moment later the door opened and three men walked through. If he was a werewolf then he would have known it was three men before they materialized. He would have heard their heartbeats.
The first man was average height, dark-skinned, and had his dreadlocks pulled up on each side, away from his face. But what caught Zephyr’s attention was the man behind him who was pushing himself in a wheelchair. Zephyr spun back around and faced the table. “Who are they?” he said, now looking at Adelaide.
“Nice men,” Adelaide said. “Everyone here at the Lucidite Institute is nice. I totally don’t get it. They’re a bunch of do-gooders, but that works in your favor in that way.”
“Like the FBI?” he said, again thinking of Rox.
“Fuck no. Go ahead and throw out all constructs you have about well-run organizations. This is the only one. The rest are corrupt in one way or another,” Adelaide said, turning over her shoulder and offering a fake smile to the men as they came around the glass partition and into the conference room.
“I brought you another mutt. He’s in the infirmary,” Adelaide said to the man with the dreads.
He narrowed his eyes at her before coming around the table, the other men behind him. Without a word he pulled the seat out beside him, pushing it away, making a spot for the man with silver hair to park his wheelchair.
“Adelaide, I’m sure our guest has been through a major ordeal and referring to him in such a way only makes him uncomfortable,” he said, his voice deep. He was young, maybe in his early twenties like Adelaide.
“Nah, Zeppy likes it,” Adelaide said, throwing a thumb in his direction.
“Welcome to the Lucidite Institute,” the man between the other two said. He had managed to park his wheelchair with ease and now had his hands resting on the table. “I’m Trey Underwood, the Head Official for the
Lucidites. I appreciate that you’ve been so willing to work with us. And I want you to know that you’re completely safe while you’re here. Our mission is to ensure that you have the protection and resources to recover from what has been done to you.”
“What has been done to me?” Zephyr said, finding his voice.
“We were actually hoping you could fill that in for us,” the man on the far side of the table said. He had hair as unruly as Zephyr’s, but his was all black and he wore black-rimmed glasses on his pale face.
“How about we back up a moment,” the first man with dreads said. “I’m Trent, the head of the strategic department. I’m the one who assigned Adelaide and Rox to your case. And this,” he said, indicating the guy with the glasses and a wide smile, “is Dr. Aiden Livingston. We suspect that it was his research that was stolen and used to create you.”
“You mean modify me. I was already whole before they took me,” Zephyr said, and felt the anger in his words.
“Yes,” Trey said, his words gentle. “Now can you tell us anything about being abducted?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t. I don’t remember much. Someone or something knocked me out from behind. I have zero idea how they snuck up on me, because I’m always hyperaware of my environment and had no indication of a threat. The next thing I remember I awoke in the cell they kept me in for who knows how long,” Zephyr said.
“Six months,” Trent offered. “You were gone for six months.”