Mine, page 29
All he wanted was to draw everything away from that hallway.
As he passed the elevator down which the blond woman in black had taken him, he thought his assailants’ strategy of trapping everybody underground was a good one. Bombs made noise and attracted attention, and the small town might not have had much on population, but there were people who would have noticed an aboveground altercation with this many pyrotechnics.
Down here, anything could happen. And with the elevators disabled and the stairwells compromised? And those cyborg soldiers having no pesky sense of self-preservation?
Kurling could wait anyone out.
On the far side of the elevators, he jumped over the dead body of one of the guards who had escorted him and the blonde down herein. And another who was gravely injured. Bullets continued to flash by Blade, pinging into the walls, skipping across the concrete floor with sparks, some more hitting him.
He kept going, and when he made a turn and an “EXIT” sign appeared over a steel door, he knew his instincts had been right. Clandestine labs needed fire escapes, not for building code purposes, but as a practical consideration, and every one he had ever been in over the last twenty years had had more than one satellite escape.
As he came to a halt, the footfalls of what was pursuing him were the heartbeat of his demise, but he felt no fear. He concentrated on the keypad and punched in the code the blond woman had given him.
“Come now, come now…”
Just as he caught a major whiff of his own blood, the dead bolt gave way, and he punched at the bar. The second steel weight opened, he slipped through, re-shut things, and listened to the lock reengage.
A staircase, good lighting, and fresh air greeted him, as if he had entered a luck lottery and come out a winner. Plenty of those units had seen him go in here, so they knew where he was—and that meant Kurling was going to order a takedown and put all his resources into the effort. Pulling clean oxygen into his lungs, Blade’s thoughts began to fragment, likely from the blood loss, but he couldn’t let his concentration slip. He needed to give himself a flight’s worth of head start before he let them close in—
The steel door was blown off its hinges directly in front of him, the panel flying at his body, only his quick reflexes sparing his life as the woof! of the shock wave tossed him to the side and the heat singed his eyebrows and hair.
Without missing a beat, he spun for the stairs and took them two at a time, his left leg hindering his ascent—whilst down below soldiers that had the advantage of not needing oxygen to power their muscles came after him at breakneck speed. Thinking of Lydia, he ran even faster because he needed to survive a little longer, so he could draw the fight farther away from her. As the zenith of the ascent was reached, he struggled to punch in the code to free the lock—
The release took many seconds longer than he’d wanted, and he had no idea what he was getting into when the door was finally able to open—
He burst out with gun forward and head swiveling, as he made sure the stairwell’s exit closed and locked behind himself.
It was another hall, in another structure. And the air was dry, and smelling of concrete.
A basement? he thought. Likely of the home.
He chose right for no reason at all, and looked for cover as he went along. There were a number of closed doors—
Boom!
As the robotic squad blew another door off its jambs, the banging sound as the steel panel ricocheted off something hard echoed through the hallway. Continuing on with his limp, his breath burned in his lungs, and that left leg seriously lagged. He must go faster. He was prepared to get into a shootout, but he wanted more distance if he could get it and some cover.
As he reached yet another door, something teased at the edge of his consciousness, but he didn’t have time to allow it to come to full cognitive recognition. He entered the passcode, endured an interminable wait, and hit another stairwell and exit.
And then he was back in the house proper. He could tell by the scent of fresh oranges and dishwashing soap—but he was not where he had been let in before.
A kitchen, he thought as he tracked the scent.
Rounding a corner, there was stainless steel cabinetry everywhere, as well as ovens, gas burner ranges, and refrigerators that were professional grade. Crossing the red-tiled floor as quickly as he could, he kept going, emerging out the other side into a small private eating area with a round table. From there, he entered the foyer with the statues, and paused to look back. As there were no immediate sounds of a chase coming for him, he glanced down to assess his wounds.
They were all superficial ones.
Those soldiers with the perfect aim, once they had identified him, had not tried to kill him. And that was when he realized that he had thought he was leading them. Instead, they had chased him… here.
Soft laughter percolated into the space and he pivoted sharply.
At the base of the primary stairway, sitting on the bottom steps, a male with a face that was nearly identical to his own was smiling.
“Did you have a good workout, cousin?” Kurling drawled.
THIRTY-NINE
WE CAN’T STAY here. The air quality is getting worse.”
As Daniel spoke, Lydia glanced down at him. They had come back to the point at which they’d entered the smoky escape tunnel, and to take the pressure off his legs, she and Gus had sat him on the concrete floor. In the unreliable, on/off lighting, she tried to judge his vital signs by how pale his face was and how often he blinked. Which was nuts.
And of course he wasn’t doing well. How could he be?
Gus coughed and paced back and forth. “He’s right. Besides, there’s nothing out there anymore. No more shooting, no explosions—”
“That we can hear,” C.P. cut in.
The woman was standing off to the side of the door Blade had departed from, that gun in her hand held with a relaxed confidence, her eyes locked on the latching mechanism like she expected things to open at any moment.
The air was getting thick with smoke that had backed up into the ventilation system, and though it was nice to think the quality was better down on the ground where Daniel was, she knew his lungs were vulnerable—and she herself was getting light-headed.
They had to somehow get out of the lab, if they were going to survive.
“We’ll go out and clear the area,” she heard herself say. “She and I.”
The protests from the men were immediate—but as she met C.P.’s eyes, the two of them were in perfect accord: Daniel couldn’t run, and out of the three of them who could, Gus was best able to keep Daniel alive.
There was just one thing that needed to be said before she went out there.
Lydia glanced down at her hand. The glass box with the little holes in the top was warm from her holding it, and the creature inside prowled around, pincers working like it was practicing the moves it planned to use as soon as it got a chance to get loose.
With grim intent, she looked at Daniel.
In response, he put up his own palm. “Go. And be careful. I’ll take care of the scorpion.”
His voice was as grave as she’d ever heard it, and she knelt down, staring into his eyes earnestly. “I believe Blade. I don’t understand him, but I believe him. It’s your choice, though. When this is all over.”
Daniel reached up and stroked her face, his thumb lingering on her lower lip. “I will love you from the other side—”
“Don’t say that—”
“—because you’re claimed forever mine.”
It happened so fast. One moment, he was taking the box from her; the next, he released the scorpion and placed the thing right at the base of his throat.
“No! What are you doing!”
Lydia’s voice echoed around as she went for the deadly arachnid—which was stupid considering she wanted him to take the venom. Just not here, not now—
The sting was immediate, and Daniel gasped as if he’d been shocked by electricity—and his body certainly reacted as if there were volts going through it, his legs kicking out as his head jerked back and hit the wall behind him with a sickening thump.
“What the fuck are you doing!” Gus barked as C.P. also shouted—even though it was too late.
The scorpion was tiny and fast, and it marked its trail down the electrode pads that were still stuck on Daniel’s sunken chest. Three stings? Four?
Lydia tried to catch the thing, but then she stopped with that because what if she got stung? Ripping off her fleece, she used the folds of the pullover to brush the arachnid off his skin. But that didn’t work. In the end, the scorpion chose when to go, skittering off into the shadows.
And then she didn’t think about the damn thing.
Daniel’s body started contorting, his lips peeling back off his teeth as he writhed in agony. In a sickening bloom, sweat broke out all over him, and his eyes started to roll into their sockets, only the whites showing.
“What did you do…” She fell down beside him. “Oh, God, Gus—”
The doctor dropped to his knees and checked Daniel’s pulse at his wrist. Then he looked to the steel portal. “I need an EpiPen… and I don’t know what else, but none of it is in this fucking hallway. Jesus! He’s insane—”
“No,” Daniel gritted out as he jerked his head up, his hands like claws as he lifted his arms. “I want this…”
Lydia put her face into his. She wanted to yell at him, she wanted to kiss him, she wanted to pray—
His eyes focused on her. “I want… to go out fighting, not failing. Fighting… for us… not dying by a disease.”
Tears flooded her vision. It was the very essence of him, wasn’t it. He was a warrior, a man of strength. And he was right, dying while hooked up to tubes on a fadeaway by inches was not his way.
But, oh, not like this. Not here. Not—
Gus pressed two fingers to the side of Daniel’s straining throat. “He’s going into anaphylaxis, I have to get that EpiPen. Right now.”
Lydia didn’t think a thing of it. She closed her eyes.
And shifted into her wolf form.
* * *
As Gus’s patient went into a seizure at the same time a catastrophic allergic reaction started to get rolling, he thought things couldn’t get more out of control. He was wrong.
One minute, Lydia Susi, a woman he had known in the kind of deep and intimate way tragedies tended to forge, was exactly who he had always been cognizant of. The next… she was…
Going through some kind of transformation that he had never seen before.
And would never have believed if he weren’t seeing it with his own eyes.
The change in her physical body was the source of myth and nightmare, a wolf emerging from the confines of her human form, arms and legs turning into limbs with paws, face altering into that of a canine-snouted profile, fur covering the nakedness as her clothes were split and fell away.
When it was all over, Gus thought once again of being out in the woods with Daniel.
“Jesus… Christ, I was right,” he breathed.
She was the wolf.
He looked at C.P. And when she was only staring with a remote expression of awe, he realized she had known all along—
A strangled wheezing sound refocused him on Daniel.
“I need my bag,” Gus said. “It’s in the patient room.”
“We’ll get it,” C.P. responded.
Standing by that door, a gun in her hand, and her eyes shining with a war-like light that suggested she was ready to shoot at anything that moved, he thought, for the millionth time, that C.P. Phalen was the most incredible woman he had ever met. And next to her, the wolf—Lydia???!—was likewise ready to roll, its jowls crinkled with aggression like the thing was already biting something.
“You have to stay here with him,” she said. “You’re the best medic we’ve got if he needs CPR.”
When, Gus corrected to himself.
“I agree,” he muttered. “But wait.”
Rising to his feet, hysterical laughter, the kind that meant a person was totally losing it, bubbled out of the terror-congestion inside his chest. And before he knew what the hell he was doing, he marched over, grabbed Phalen around the waist, and yanked her against him.
After a split second of shock, she yielded, her body easing into his own, her right arm—the one with the gun on the end of it—rising to rest along the top of his shoulders.
Gus bent her back, like he was dipping her while they danced.
“I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I first met you.”
With that declaration out of the way, he kissed the ever-living shit out of the great C.P. Phalen, crushing his mouth to hers, licking his way into her, holding her against him even though his ribs were still broken. But fuck it. Fuck everything.
When he pulled back, he stared right into her eyes. “If we make it out of this alive, I’m taking you out, woman. And I’m paying.”
Phalen laughed in a short burst and blinked away tears. “We’ll split the check. But I’ll let you get the door for me.”
He searched her face and prayed he would see it again. “Deal.”
And then fun time was over.
As he righted her balance, she looked down at Daniel. A bright-red flush was spreading up his neck from the stings, and his lips were swelling. Down on his chest, his ribs were pumping in an uneven way, and one of his legs was kicking sporadically.
“Is there anything else you need?” she asked.
He described the location of the go-bag in the patient room. And he nearly pulled her back as she turned to the keypad and started to enter the numbers.
She was going to die out there.
Or maybe they would all be killed, picked off one by one.
“Be careful,” he said to her.
She looked over her shoulder. “I’ll be back.”
Like she was the Terminator or some shit. Then again, as she punched open the door, and she and the—wolf?!—disappeared into the thick smoke, he almost felt sorry for their enemy.
As the panel slammed shut, he got with the program.
And returned to his patient. “Daniel, hang on. Just breathe with me, okay…”
FORTY
OUTSIDE IN THE hall, Cathy glanced down at the wolf next to her as it dawned on her that the thing might not recognize her as a friend. But Lydia—assuming the woman was in there somewhere—apparently had some control over the beast, because it wasn’t going after its partner on their Hail Mary mission. In fact, the enormous timber wolf had put itself in front of her as it lifted its nose and sniffed the air—which might have been thick with smoke, but that clearly had some information that was relevant, going by the attention getting paid to the milky waves of chemical stink.
“This way,” Cathy said.
But the wolf was anticipating the direction, padding forward, continuing to stay directly in front. Keeping the gun up, Cathy anticipated the door to the patient room she was looking for as if she could manifest it—and then there the thing was, sure as if it had heeded her call.
Pushing the panel open, she led with the gun, the strobing lights from the compromised electrical system making everything even harder to assess.
The wolf stayed in the hall, as a guard.
The good news—and, man, they were overdue for some—was that the air was much clearer here, and she went over to the supply cabinet above the stainless steel sink in the corner. The black bag was exactly where Gus had said it would be, and she yanked the surprisingly dense weight out. A set of handles dropped down, and she looped them over her shoulder, tucking the carry-on-sized duffle under her arm.
She heard the growling just as she returned to the door.
And then she heard gunshots.
“Fuck,” she muttered.
But she wasn’t leaving Lydia—or the wolf, and the wolf, whatever the wolf—out there undefended. Slipping out past the jamb, she expected to find the animal right there, but it had moved positions. Battling the smoke, and trying not to cough so that she gave her position away, she tracked the sound of that low, menacing purr all the way to the end of the hall—
The destruction of the work area was nearly total. The place had been demolished by bombing or gunshots or both—and as she looked across the lab stations, she couldn’t see anything moving. Up on feet, that was. There were bodies writhing on the ground. Guards. Medical staff. People she knew, had worked with, had hired. Had trusted.
Where the hell was the wolf—
The gun muzzle came out of nowhere, and it was right at the level of her head, so close she could smell the munitions powder.
Cathy shifted her eyes to look at the soldier. The empty stare she met was a dead giveaway that it was one of those machines. That and the fact that the skin tone was too even, no capillaries or flush enlivening that pasty white countenance.
“Give me your weapon.”
As the command sank in, between one blink and the next… she was back in the tunnel with Gus, his strong arms holding her, her weight hanging in the air, his mouth on hers, their bodies finally together.
As last thoughts went, it was not a bad one.
“Fuck you,” she spat as she swung her own weapon around.
As triggers were pulled, the attack came from the side, the wolf flying through the smoky air as if from out of nowhere, its tackle taking the machine at just the right moment: The bullet meant for Cathy’s skull went flying off to the left, a pinging sound ringing out.
After which there was the temptation to just pull her own trigger again and again.
Except the wolf was busy, fangs flashing, heavy body dominating the ground game, such that it was impossible to get any reliable target. The cyborg soldier still had its weapon, though, and as a bullet rippled past Cathy’s ear, she ducked and covered her head. Like that was going to help—
As a yelp cut through the struggle, a second attack unit appeared, and now was the time to discharge bullets. Aiming for the broad chest, Cathy started shooting and kept at it, the force of her bullets’ impacts halting the robot’s progress and then driving it back.
