Page 45

Billie

AS SOON AS my shoes make their first clumping-clacks against the cement of the animal husbandry floor, Little Fox starts going apeshit. Tossing her glasses across the room, she rakes at her lab coat with her claws, tearing it to shreds. Shit ain’t never gonna change. Fuck it . Time to load the clips, then we take ’em to war! She bellows the smooth lyrics like a battle cry, her eyes hypnotizing swirls of glowing green and white.

“Feckin’ hell,” I grumble on a wheeze, hunching over and grabbing my chest, feeling the vibration of her screams like a subwoofer hooked up to my heart. Squeezing my glowing eyes shut, I force down a gulp of air and try to rein in my all-too-bloodthirsty fox. “Assess and plan!” I grunt through clenched teeth, trying to remind her we can’t take action now.

Whipping her head around she hisses at me, and I feel her burning acid-like spittle splash across my face. Her bright eyes glow more white than green as she stalks on all fours toward me, snarling and growling. Feel them! she challenges. Feel their suffering!

Without further warning, I’m physically thrown back into Xander. His gut takes most of the blow causing him to expel a gust of air. The physical attack is a small representation of the mental one she launches—flinging and hurling the feelings, energies, and memories of the shifters being held just beyond the double steel doors ahead of me. I don’t understand how she’s accessed them so easily.

They’re leaking out of them! They’re being drained from their forms! she screams. Picking up a ball that looks like it’s made of black ice, she winds up like a pitcher and pegs me with it. Cold fear smashes me in the face, stinging my cheeks and freezing my body. She hooks her paws around a loop of gray mist, making a lasso out of it and tossing it over my head. When it covers my eyes, she pulls, blinding me. There’s only terrifying, blind confusion. Then I’m hit with a fireball of anger, and a lead blanket of apathy gets laid over me. I fall to the ground, panting, crying, weeping—screaming in my mind and aloud until all goes dark.

No grotto. No Little Fox. No laboratory. Nothing surrounds me. I don’t even exist. Not that it matters. None of us truly exist, not in these broken bodies laid to die in cages. A heaviness pulls at me, drawing me down as if I’m sinking into the cement floor, a hopelessness pulling me into a dark oblivion.

A roaring RAMPAGE! rips me back from the edge of nonexistence, dislodging the weighted blanket. My mind scratches at the lassoed blindfold, and with wide eyes, I look around her mental space, finding her standing upright on her hind legs, her spine arched, her front claws extended at her sides as she calls forth long jagged lines of bright-green energy. It crackles and churns around her, filling the grotto with her personal lightning storm of shifter power. Fuck.

Avanti Savoia! Biscotti cries out through our link, sending waves of his own outrage into us.

“Alessandro,” I hiss through gritted teeth, not able to keep the words in the mental only.

Mi dispiace! he replies in a strained voice.

My head is spinning, and I momentarily find myself back in my body, lying on my back, dazed, and confused, with Xander on his knees bent over me. “Help,” I plead through blurry eyes. “Feck, help her... help me.”

My body jerks off the floor like I just got shocked with a thousand volts as she tries to force shift me. I reach for Alessandro, but he, too, is suffering under Biscotti’s onslaught.

“No,” I weep my refusal, my head flopping from side to side. Large callused hands cup either side of my face, and Xander’s calm, commanding energy seeps into me. His wolf lopes his way toward Little Fox’s domain at a smooth even pace, embodying the sure strength of an alpha. Her alpha. He enters the grotto and assesses the entire space with critical eyes. Ignoring Little Fox throwing a lightning storm of a fit in the back corner of the room, he heads toward the screens. His eyes narrow on the central screen, blurred images mixed with snowy static, lines of information, and warning lights all flickering through in such rapid succession downloading into the mainframe at such a rate that smoke is starting to spiral from one of the computer units under the desk, and sparks are firing from one of the electrical outlets. Shit, is that my brain? Please don’t let that be my brain.

I vaguely hear Xander mutter some curses, while X-Wolf pushes onto his back legs and stretches his front legs out on top of the desk. He puts a paw on one of the levers and pulls it down. The static flickering on the screens stops, and the switching of images slows down. He jumps down, and with his snout, he pushes another computer into a locked position like he’s hooking it up. Once satisfied, he turns and strides toward Little Fox.

His glowing blue-and-white eyes take in the green and white lightning bolts zapping across the space, and he cants his head to the side. She snarls at him, and the room quakes. So do I—my entire body quakes. Xander’s wolf though? No reaction, acting like this is all part of her theatrics. He continues his measured pace until he’s saddled up right next to her. Sitting back and patiently waiting, he brushes his side against hers, and prickles of electricity fluff up his fur. He chuffs an amused laugh.

She spins her head to him, and he holds her infuriated gaze with a slightly bored, possibly exasperated, expression before jerking his chin to the monitors. She follows his gaze, reading everything, seeing the whole setup, and while her attention is there, he gets up and pads over to the chair at the center. Central Command. Spinning the chair around so the seat is facing her, he sits down next to it and glances at her and then pointedly at the chair.

The lightning storm abruptly stops, and the red flashing emergency lights that I somehow missed turn off, bringing the cool-blue lights back online. Little Fox drops down to all fours, and with a hanging head, she slowly makes her way to X-Wolf. She doesn’t do it with grace. In fact, there’s some petulant griping, and she conjures a few rocks into existence just so she can kick them. Once she reaches him, he dips his head down and nuzzles his snout behind her ears. Giving her a few gentle nips, he nudges her toward the chair. She jumps up, and when she lands, her tail accidently lashes across his face. He just blows out a breath and snuggles his muzzle into her side. She bends down, bringing her snout to his. They stare into each other’s glowing eyes, and though I sense affection and empathy from them, I also sense a sharing of knowledge and strategy.

With her more settled, I’m able to climb out of her mental space, coming to awareness still on my back, with Xander’s blue-and-white glowing eyes staring into mine while his thumbs gently caress my face. “Wilhelmina,” he hoarsely whispers.

“I’m okay,” I croak, my eyes readjusting to take in our surroundings. Shit, put on quite the show, didn’t we? Cringing, I drily swallow and mutter, “Low blood sugar.”

He huffs a low laugh. My shaky hands grip his broad shoulders, and I slide my feet under my bum. “Up,” I say. He slips his hands under my arms and helps bring my body vertical, where I find Dunne standing about five feet away.

Sweat frames his rather pale face. His brown eyes are wide and glowing behind his glasses. It takes him several attempts to forcefully pull his mouth shut. “What...” he wheezes wetting his lips. “What happened?”

Sliding my hand down Xander’s arm, I take hold of his hand and then close the distance between us and Dunne. “Sorry.” I wince. “Didn’t expect to feel that.”

“Feel what?” he squeaks.

“This,” I say, snatching his hand up in mine. Little Fox is right there waiting, and as soon as his wolf lets her in, which he’s eager to do so, she marches her way deeper into his mental space, needing to fully understand who he is at his core—to determine whether he’s friend or foe—because what we just experienced was a friggin’ attack. Whether it came from Lucas or his superiors, whether it was purposeful or an accident, all remains to be seen. Is he worth fighting for and saving, or does he need to be terminated and erased from all existence? Somehow, I get the feeling all existence means more than death. Her black lips curve into a vicious grin. Yeah, I’m not gonna ask for clarification on that. Not now, maybe later. Maybe not... ever.

The first layer of Lucas she strips away uncovers an insatiable curiosity. Both he and his wolf always want to learn more, the way things (living and inanimate) work, the reasons, the causes—the core truth of existence, of coming into being. But Dunne’s interest stems from a need to prove himself, to push boundaries and do what others never have. He attaches his self-worth to his comprehension and personal discoveries. He’s so focused on the experiment, on solving the equation, that he’s become tunnel visioned, seeing only what he needs to in order to solve the puzzle, not willing to wonder about the individual pieces and what they represent.

Little Fox sidles up to his small dark-brown wolf, who meets her with a wagging tail and doggy grin, rubbing and nuzzling her with open affection. Under his shiny coat hides a frail, underfed frame, and his overexuberant joy in greeting her suggests he’s been malnourished in more ways than one. Little Fox gives him a friendly nip and then steps back, assessing his mental landscape in the way X-Wolf showed her.

Dunne loves his wolf. He cares for, treasures, and values him so much that he’s protected him. Little Fox takes another step back and lightly brushes the back of her paw through the air surrounding Dunne’s wolf, and an opalescent shimmer ripples out as she does. A shield.

Dunne lets out a sharp gasp, and he tries to pull his hand from my grasp, but I growl, gripping tighter and digging my fingernails into the back of his hand. His hand goes limp, resigned to stay in my hold, and I hope that it’s a relieved resignation, like what we’re forcing him to acknowledge is, deep down, what he’s wanted to do but needed another to make happen. Having now made one shield visible, we’re able to see all of them, bubbles floating around the space. Some are shiny and iridescent like the one his wolf is held under, while others are thicker and not so translucent. The bubbles collide and bounce off each other, but they never seem to pop. The entire surrounding area is pillowed and padded, softening the blows.

Little Fox cranes her head back and takes several inhales, pulling the bubbles to her, inspecting them, scenting them, and determining what they are. Each contains either the soft emotions Lucas has bottled up in order to keep him and his wolf safe, or they contain truths that will cause him pain—truths about himself and the shameful choices he’s made. Little Fox heads to one of the padded walls and scratches at it until she feels the cool smooth stone underneath. Pulling back a little more stuffing, she finds a wall made of solid ruby underneath. All of these soft emotions and unwanted truths are held in a room made of smooth, durable, stoic rationality.

She scratches at it until her claw’s hold flecks of red. Bringing them to her mouth, she lashes her tongue out, tasting the truth of the structure. At first, he created it as a way to survive, to protect and do what he felt must be done—but then he couldn’t stop. He liked not feeling, not letting emotions mess things up. Everything is so much cleaner when rationality rules. But that is not who he is, not deep down.

Looking back over her shoulder at the dark-brown wolf caught behind the shimmering shield, the wagging tail, the intensity in his eyes, the silent whimpers that move his lips but do not penetrate the shield. No, this is not who his wolf is either. His wolf is an omega, an omega he believes he’s been protecting within the walls of rationality. In reality, he’s kept him captive in a prison of logic.

Little Fox goes to his wolf, she inhales, and her fur vibrates as she nuzzles up alongside him, weaving their fur together as she does. When she pulls away, his protective shield stretches like a bubble clinging to her fur until finally popping. Then she yanks on the cord to the secondary computer unit in her grotto, and it plummets into the space, shattering through the smooth stone that houses it all. Sparks and bolts of electricity shoot off the computer as it crashes to the floor. Sharp, jagged pieces of ruby slice through some of the bubbles, while electrical surges burst others.

The confetti of memories, Dunne’s and those from the shifters being held beyond the doors, flutter down and land like emotional snow in the red space. Dunne’s wolf wails, his golden eyes wide and shining with tears. Little Fox goes to him, stays with him, lets herself be covered in the confetti just as he does. She gives me a dip of her chin, and I gladly mentally retreat. She stays with the omega wolf, letting him know she does not blame this on him and that he is not alone.

I hold onto Dunne’s hand as he lets out choking sob after choking sob and drops to his knees. His other hand grips our clasped hands, tightening his hold, and his head bows under the weight of their suffering, the weight of his chosen blindness, clearly seeing what he refused to. Guttural screams and soul-shattering cries bounce off the concrete walls, surrounding us with the sounds of his shame and agony. I keep his hand in mine. I don’t let him go. I hold on as he falls apart, crumbling into a heap of emotional rubble.