The Shade Chronicles | Book 2 | Predator

by Bradley, T. K.

  The tips of Trey’s claws puncture my skin, and I feel something warm and wet trickling down to soak into my shirt. If I weren’t immune to the virus, I would be worried about the venom his claws are currently forcing into my bloodstream, but as it is, I have other more pressing issues to worry about. Like, you know, keeping my head on the end of my neck where it belongs. I try to pull in a breath, but the air can barely squeeze through the compressed airway.

  Lori thankfully appears in the gap between me and Howell’s body, finally blocking my view. I would blow out a breath of relief if I had any breath to spare. Her face, however, is anything but relieved.

  Oh yeah. She’s about to watch me die.

  I don’t die, though. I’m able to get just enough oxygen to keep me conscious. My vision swims, the sounds of the room hollow in my semi-conscious state, but I am most certainly not dying.

  “Let him go, Trey,” Lori begs. “Please.” I know how much that must have cost her, and I pry my eyelids open long enough to try to convey how much I appreciate the attempt. I don’t want her to blame herself when it fails.

  Trey blows out a sound of disgust. “What do you see in him? He’s weak, he’s a nobody.”

  “What, and you would have me choose you instead?” Now it’s Lori’s turn to sneer, and Kelly gives a little laugh from somewhere over to my left.

  “Of course that’s what he wants,” Kelly says with a throaty chuckle, but there’s no humor to it. “Trey wants his cake and to eat it too. He’s practically bulletproof, but it’s not good enough. He could have me, but that’s not good enough either.”

  I gag when Trey’s hand constricts. He gives me a little shake, and it feels like marbles are rolling around in my brain.

  Lori shouts from somewhere in the distance, Ellis says something, Trey growls… and then Bob’s voice says something that sounds like, “Let’s just get it over with.”

  I expect that to be the end of it. Life, that is. I’m sure I’m about to die, and I urge my lips to form words, a soft farewell to Lori.

  Except, I’m still not dying. The pressure eases, and involuntarily, my chest expands and draws in a deep, gasping breath. My eyes snap open.

  There are tears streaming down from Lori’s pitch-black eyes. Those tears are what sets her apart from all the others, and I welcome them, even if it costs me my life.

  There’s a grim set to Ellis’s mouth. He’s resigned to the outcome, but he doesn’t seem overly distraught. He’s not even looking at me, focused instead on Trey and Bob, who’s shifted his bolt gun’s aim over at Ellis. Does that mean I’m not about to die? It seems a ridiculous thing to hope for. I’m ready, I’ve made my peace.

  But if it’s not my death that we’re getting over with, what the hell else is going on? Trey’s grip limits me from turning my head to look over at where Kelly is slumped against the glass wall, but I can see Judith out of the corner of my eyes. Whereas Lori and Ellis are a mix of negative emotions, there’s something in Judith’s eyes that’s almost… excited?

  “What—” I try to force out my questions, but Trey tightens his hand just enough to halt my words. Right. Gotcha. No talking from me.

  Ellis takes a slow step backward, not once breaking eye contact with Trey. “Now you,” Trey says to Lori. “Back it up. All the way across the lab. Go.”

  Lori hesitates, biting down on her lip. Her fists opening and closing, I can almost see the war going on in her mind. She knows she’s not strong enough to stop Trey; she’s too small, too inexperienced to take down a trained fighter almost twice her size. But even knowing the facts, it takes a huge amount of effort for her to finally give in and back away.

  “That’s my good girl,” Trey purrs.

  I can’t stop myself from spitting out, “She’s not your girl.”

  Trey just chuckles before leaning in to whisper in my ear. “Oh, she’s mine, all right. You’ve always had a thing for her, but she’s never been yours. I gotta say, I’m a little impressed that you’re still pining for her, though, you know, considering her… current state.” He gestures with a clawed hand at her retreating form across the room. From the look of utter hatred in her eyes, I think it’s safe to say she’s heard everything he said.

  Her lips move, forming words, but she’s too far for me to hear what she’s saying. Trey, however, looks over. “My, my, such language. Didn’t your mother teach you better?” He casts a look over at Judith and gives her a wink. She’s backing up toward the other side of the lab without being asked to. She seems almost relaxed in this whole scenario, and I can’t figure out what she’s thinking… what she’s planning…

  “Come with me, Doc.” Without removing his hand, Trey leads me of to the corner of the lab where the coolers are located. His pace is too fast, and I struggle to keep my feet under me. I slip in Howell’s blood, and my body jerks down, causing me to hang myself with the noose of Trey’s fingers. Choking and gasping, I grapple at Trey’s forearm with my trembling fingers

  “Keep up,” he snaps. “We don’t have all day.” But then he laughs a little. “Well, that’s not exactly true. Once we’re done here, we’ll have all day and all night.”

  Bob giggles too, but it’s almost wary, nervous. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t rush, though,” he says from somewhere behind me, now out of my sightline. “Kelly could use a little first aid.”

  “Kelly’s not my problem,” Trey snarls. Even I know that’s a mistake. Bob may look like someone who’s been marooned on an island for the past 20 years, but it would be very unwise of Trey to underestimate the wily survivor. He’s lasted this long for a reason.

  Trey moves his hand around to the back of my neck; it’s just as threatening, but now he can easily steer me in the direction he wants to go. We come to a halt in front of the cooler. Through the glass door, I’m staring straight at the vials of blood I’ve been working with. The compound members gladly gave up samples of their blood for me to infect with the portentum noctis virus, an easier way of replicating the virus without having to forcibly take blood from any of my friends.

  Well, friends might be a loose term right about now.

  “If you wanted the cure, you know you could’ve just asked for it,” I say, my teeth chattering.

  “How nice of you,” Trey says from too close. I can feel his breath on my neck. “But what if it’s not the cure that I want.”

  “Not—” I’m such an idiot.

  Trey tsks behind me. “There it is. I can just about hear the gears turning in there, everything falling into place.”

  He wants the variant.

  Trey slides around in front of me so he can look me in the eye. I wish I could say I have the balls to stare into those fathomless pits, but I can’t stand to keep eye contact for more than a couple seconds before I find something else to stare at. “You’re going to infect me with the variant,” he snarls. “And then you’re going to infect Kelly over there.”

  “Is that all?” I offer waspishly.

  “Oh no. After that, you’ll infect Bob.” Trey gestures with his chin in the general direction of the last remaining human.

  “No! Bob, you don’t want to do that! We might be all that’s left!”

  Bob steps into view, still maintaining some distance from Trey. His face is a mask of determination. I know without a doubt that there isn’t anything I can say to deter him. His entire existence has narrowed down to a pinpoint. His daughter is the only thing that means anything to him. Even now, his eyes keep darting over to where Kelly is propping herself up against the wall. I don’t mistake the way his eyes move from her over to Trey. His hands move nearly imperceptibly, angling the dart gun just slightly in Trey’s direction.

  When he meets my gaze, I see something dark behind those eyes. “I don’t care about humanity,” he says simply. He really means it.

  I take a moment to weigh my options… only to find that I have none. “Okay,” I say, completely defeated. My shoulders bow inward under the pressure, the uncertainty. “Okay
, I’ll do it.”

  Trey finally loosens his grip enough for me to move a little more freely, but I know that he’ll still slash my throat sooner than blink if Ellis or Lori show any sign of moving in his direction.

  I pull the glass cooler door open, a soft hiss of refrigerated air brushing my clammy hands. The vial of replicated variant wobbles in my weak grip. For a fraction of a second, I imagine what would happen if I dropped it. No more variants… except that isn’t quite accurate, either. Ellis is right over there. Trey would just me extract another sample straight from the source.

  “Don’t drop it,” Trey orders, as if he can see the thoughts behind my brief hesitation.

  I throw a watery smile his way. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Uh-huh.” He plucks the vial from my hand and stares down at it, as if he can see the very cells within it. “How do I know this isn’t actually the cure? That you’re not trying to play a switcheroo?”

  “Th-the label. See? It says ‘variant,’ right there.” I point a finger but withdraw it quickly as he snaps his head up. I clear my throat and wait as he double-checks my claim.

  Trey points one claw at Ellis, Lori, and Judith in turn. “Stay put. Don’t move. The good doctor here is going to inject this mutant’s blood into me, and you’re not going to do anything to stop him. Got it? Once the three of us are all take care of, we’ll be on our way. We’ll walk out that front door, and you won’t ever need to see us again.”

  “I’m good with that last part,” Lori says with a sneer.

  Ellis, however, adds, “And you won’t hurt any more of the humans. Anyone who’s left, you’ll leave them be.”

  Trey taps his claw against his lip, and it makes a rasping sound over the scabby skin. “Hmm… let me think about that.” There’s a cruel gleam to his narrowed eyes; I can imagine that he’s thinking about Ellis’s soft spot for the humans and how to exploit it in his favor, but the only thing he really wants right now is already within reach. “All right. Fair enough.”

  Satisfied, Ellis gives a nod and sinks down into a casual crouch. I’m not fooled by his apparent relaxed posture. I have no doubt that he could easily turn it into a pounce if Trey leaves a gap in his defences.

  Trey is no fool. He sees the same thing and turns to Bob. “Keep your gun on that one.” He doesn’t point at Ellis, but at Lori. Ellis looks slowly between the sharp-tipped bolt and where it’s now aimed at Lori. His nostrils flare as he takes a calming breath, his lips thinned in barely restrained patience.

  There’s no way out of this. Trying to bargain or beg, manipulate or threaten, it’s all useless. My only hope is to do what he wants and cross my fingers for mercy.

  Trey lowers himself to his knees in front of me. This brings his head to my chest level, and when he angles his head up, I’m left staring into those eyes. Even though they’re the same color, the same oily texture as Lori’s eyes, I see no similarity between them. His glare is hard, cunning.

  “Do it,” he says, his voice low and calm, and my guts turn watery with the command.

  I nod, words escaping me at the moment. My tongue feels thick in my mouth, like I’m choking on cotton balls. I jerk my chin toward the nearest counter, where I had everything laid out, prepared to start injecting the cure, inoculating the citizens here against infection. God, how quickly our circumstances have changed. The cure won’t help any of them now. Maybe I will at least have a chance to help Lori and Ellis.

  “I—I need a syringe,” I sputter.

  He glares at me. I have no doubt that if there were another way to do this, he would’ve discarded me without a second thought. We’ve never seen eye to eye. Lori has always been a sticking point, as if she were a game piece, the rope in our tug-of-war. I always respected her choice to be with Trey, even as I was witness to his mistreatment of her. Now that Lori is choosing me, as misguided as it is, he no doubt sees me as the cause to all his problems. He needs a target. Too bad I’m also the solution.

  “No sudden movements,” he warns.

  I nod, my head bouncing around on my neck like a spring. My fingers are nearly numb from the stress, my body redirecting all of my blood to my brain in some lame attempt to protect me from an unknown threat.

  Too bad absolutely everything could be considered a threat right now.

  I make my way back in front of Trey. He watches with suspicion as I draw the infected blood into the syringe. I set the empty vial aside, raise the filled syringe up, and pause. Attempting to swallow is impossible, my mouth dry, my throat sticky.

  Shit. I’m not even a real doctor. Who the hell signed me up for this again?

  Oh yeah. It was Howell. The smell of his blood is still thick in my nostrils.

  “Right. Here we go,” I say, more to myself than to Trey.

  As I move in toward his face, the tip of the needle quivers back and forth with an alarming frequency. I gulp, and with my left hand, I slowly reach up and peel back the lower lid. I catch a glimpse of my own reflection in the smooth inky pool of his eyeball, and it confirms that I look as terrified as I feel.

  Oh, good. I wouldn’t want anyone to wrongly think that I’m enjoying this.

  I risk a quick look over my shoulder, where Lori, Ellis, and Judith are all watching with various expressions, holding their breaths.

  The skin beneath Trey’s eye is rough, like the bark of a tree, but inside, the skin is pink and healthy-looking. Probably from all that blood he’s been drinking this morning. My stomach does a flip. He’s already monster enough, do I really want to have a hand in making him even worse?

  The tip of the needle is an inch away from plunging into the eye socket, and right where I’m at the tipping point, setting my mind to pulling away and backing out, consequences be damned, Trey’s hand locks around my wrist.

  “Easy does it, Dr. Kimura. Wouldn’t want you to slip.”

  My wrist in his viselike grip, there’s nothing I can do, no way to stop the forward momentum. Trey tenses beneath me as I hover, needle tip just a fraction of an inch away from the soft skin of his inner eye. “Ready?”

  Considering the rocklike texture of his skin, it’s startlingly easy for the needle under his skin. Trey doesn’t yell or scream or sob. Besides the twitch of a finger against my wrist, he’s a statue. Considering the screaming I’d heard when their blood samples were taken, I had been expecting something similar.

  I hate that I’m even the tiniest bit impressed with Trey’s restraint. Nah, I’ll just chalk it up to my superior skills as a doctor. I must have the lightest touch.

  I push down on the plunger of the needle, injecting Trey with the thick red-black blood. His breath stutters, a groan threatening in his throat.

  A tiny drop of black blood beads and then pools inside his eyelid as I pull out the needle as slowly as I can. Trey stays there on his knees, closing his eyes and forcing the blood to drip down his cheek like a bloody tear. He holds his breath, waiting, waiting…

  We’re all waiting. For what, exactly? Well, something, anything, to happen.

  After what feels like an hour, one of Trey’s eyelids creeps open, peeking up at me.

  “Well?” he asks.

  “Well… what?”

  “Do I look different?” he asks impatiently.

  “Honestly?” I raise an eyebrow at him. I know he was expecting to come out the other side of this looking as human as Ellis, but the truth of the matter is that his body has changed to fit the virus. Adding a second strain to it won’t undo the changes to this body. But he doesn’t want to hear that, so instead I say, “Maybe?”

  He can obviously sense the truth behind my hesitation, and he flashes his canines at me. “You’re trying to trick me. You didn’t inject me with the variant.” He rises up to his full height, towering above me. He hasn’t let go of my wrist, and he uses that connection to jerk me closer. His breath is hot and rank as he leans in to within an inch of my nose. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “No!” I say instantly, but I find my
self turning my face away from him, closing my eyes and waiting for the inevitably pain when he decides to end me.

  “Stop!” Lori shouts, loud enough that I can hear her over Trey’s growl. “Think about it, Trey. Your cells can change, but your appearance won’t.” She’s able to perfectly sum up exactly what I was thinking. He wouldn’t have listened to me, but Lori seems to be able to get through to him in a way nobody else can.

  There’s a tension hanging in the air, but as long as claws aren’t slashing me to pieces, I’m okay with a little bit of tension.

  “As much as I hate to admit it, you might have a point,” Trey says grudgingly. “Doc, what are your thoughts on this?”

  I crack my eyelids open to peek at him. His hands are lowered at his sides, so I decide to take that as a good sign. “Well, it’s hard to say what’ll happen. You’re the first of your kind. I don’t exactly have a trial study to compare it to.”

  “What’s that mean?” he asks, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

  Use small words, I warn myself. It’s not good to confuse the monster. “Lori has a point. The only way we can know if it worked for sure would be if we tried it out.”

  “You want me to try it out?” The skepticism is thick in his voice, and I can’t blame him even one bit. I’m pretty skeptical myself. “Do you honestly expect me to just walk out into the sunlight, maybe roasting myself alive, all in the name of trying it out?”

  “I’m not sure what to tell you.” I force myself to draw a full breath of air, ignoring the foul taste on my tongue. “Maybe just stick your hand out the door real quick?”

  “I have a better idea,” he says darkly. Without warning, he slashes out his arm and Bob lets out a startled yelp.

  Kelly, who has been utterly silent this entire time, calls, “Dad!” She tries to go to him but ends up in a pile halfway across the room.

  “He’ll be fine.” Trey actually rolls his eyes. “I didn’t nick any important arteries or anything. Now we’ll just wait and see what kind of monster he turns out to be. Because if the variant worked on my cells, then that’s the kind of Shredder he’ll be.” He gives a slow nod, proud of his own logic.