21 Shades of Night, page 320
The ex-SEAL leaned back against a tree. “I’m listenin’.”
“I have a plan. Kalena has connections to Silex, the same organization that is behind the system that got us thrown in here. I have little time left to bring her up to speed on what her employer is doing behind the scenes. None of my connections at that company have been able to break through the firewall. Something tells me she knows how.”
“How do you plan on gettin’ her outta here?”
Thane grabbed his bag and pulled out a box. He opened the lid and David looked inside.
David shrugged. “It’s empty.”
“It looks like an empty box, but it’s not. One of my connections on the outside slipped the box inside of the cargo bins a few months ago. I just had to find the human with the orange drawstring bag and offer him something he needed badly in exchange. There’s a mechanism built inside. If it was scanned before the drop, the device would have looked like an old penny to the naked eye.”
“What is it really?”
“It’s almost like a panic button. Once activated, it’ll only stay powered up long enough for my exact location to be determined.”
“And then?”
“There’s only one shot to escape this place by helicopter,” Thane said.
“Man, you’re really insane. Why the fuck haven’t you pushed the button before? You’re waitin’ like a sittin’ duck.”
Thane exhaled. “The people who put me in here are holding something over my head. They have someone I care about. If I ever leave this place, I’ll be putting her life in danger. But if I stay here, she lives.”
“Somethin’ tells me you plan on pushin’ that button and lettin’ a woman you just met get away.”
“I need to be certain that I can take down this operation without fail. Kalena’s link to the company and free access to the files will get me or one of my Pack brothers inside. Things need to happen in a certain order. I can’t be in two places at once. I need to make sure Danika is safe before I release the evidence on Silex.”
“Danika?”
Thane nodded. “Yes, my youngest kin. Gavril threatened to have her killed if I ever left here. The moment I step foot outside of these barricades, the device will go off. I fear I won’t be able to reach her in time to explain everything and keep her out of harm’s way.”
“This is some fucked up shit, but I’m with you one hundred percent.”
Thane hung his head and chewed the side of his mouth. “The one obstacle I have before me is to gain Kalena’s trust. She’ll want to escape, probably now more than ever after I told her what I’ve been convicted of and just how corrupt Silex Pharmaceuticals has become.”
The ex-SEAL narrowed his gaze. “You’ve got more than one obstacle, wolf. Are you sure about this plan?”
“I can only push that button once and I’m going to push it for Kalena. My pack mates will take it from there and work with her to generate access codes. We’ll gather the evidence that will halt production of D996 and shut Area S2 down.”
David started pacing back and forth again. “You wolves take too many goddamn risks,” he commented.
“And you humans dance around too much.”
Chapter 10
AFTER HIS TALK with David, it took Thane no more than five minutes to maneuver the rocky terrain in wolf form to get back to Kalena. He felt guilty for keeping her in his hut, but if she moved around on the grounds too much, there was a chance that Nolan and his runners would pick up her scent. And there was no telling what Nolan would do with her. He wouldn’t put it past the leader to renege on the deal and come for Kalena earlier than they had agreed. It was a good thing that he’d gotten Kalena when he had. The right information in the wrong hands could be detrimental to the plans Thane had set in motion. Kalena’s connection to Silex had thrown him for a loop, but was it just sheer luck?
Thane needed to buy all the time he could until she was safe. The longer Nolan and his runners took to track her scent, the more time he had to make sure she was all right. If the helicopters didn’t arrive before the expiration of the deal he’d made, he would have to stall the leader.
Just before reaching the shelter, he shifted and quickly pulled on his jeans. He paused with his palm on the boulder and inhaled deeply. Her lavender scent was ingrained in his memory even though he couldn’t smell her standing on the outside. His heart rate returned to some form of normalcy, but his pulse quickened when he thought about how soft her skin had felt against his lips. She’d made him feel whole again, something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Not even when he was marked as an Alpha had he felt as complete as he did whenever he heard Kalena’s voice.
But he had to let her go. This was no place for a woman like Kalena. Even now, he doubted whether he wanted her to return to the company and be in the same building with a man he hated so much.
In a matter of hours, he’d have to make that decision.
Thane gathered up his composure and then pushed the boulder aside to enter the hut. He was immediately overcome by her allure, but the euphoric feeling vanished quickly when he realized the temperature in the hut was cold and the interior was nearly pitch black. The eerie silence inside was not a good sign.
His pupils expanded as he used his wolf vision to search the area. Panic set in the instant he caught sight of her small frame laying on the floor nearly two feet away from the bed. It made no sense that she’d be resting on the dusty floor and not on the bed.
He rushed over to her, turning her over so that she was face up. Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted. It was as if she were asleep, in a deep sleep.
“Kalena.” Thane shook her lightly.
There was no movement and her body felt like dead weight on his lap.
“No,” he growled. “Goddamn, what did they do to you?”
Anxiety crept up in his throat and he tried to gulp it down. He rose with her in his arms and laid her out on the cot. Her pulse danced quickly against his finger when he tested it. That was a relief, but she was still unresponsive. A palm to her forehead yielded a temperature that seemed higher than usual for a human.
Thane’s mind ran rampant for ways to help her. A damp towel to her forehead, water to her lips, calling her name. Nothing seemed to wake her.
Finally, he sunk to his knees on the cot beside her, fully processing exactly what ailed her. She’d been drugged. It all made sense now. She’d fallen into a coma.
They’d given her that fucking drug! D996.
She’d even confirmed it earlier herself without realizing it. She couldn’t remember anything after being caught in the labs and before she woke up on the truck.
How much of it had they injected her with? When? And why?
“Fuck,” he exclaimed, his canines shooting past his gum line.
He picked up Kalena’s hand and pressed his lips to the delicate skin over her knuckles. There was only one way to help her now. He’d have to do it before it was too late.
Thane Silex would have to make a decision—a life altering one—sooner rather than later.
Chapter 11
“KALENA?”
Someone was calling her. She recognized the voice. The sound of it settled deeply within her soul, drawing her out of slumber.
“Kalena? It’s Thane.”
His fingers grazed her shoulder, and she forced her eyes open despite the drumming pain near her temples. The first thing she recognized was unruly chestnut hair framing a hard contoured face.
“What happened?”
Thane helped her sit upright. “You blacked out.”
She glanced around to find that she was in the same hut, in the same clothes, and surrounded by the same drab lighting. Was she having deja-vu? Hadn’t she woken up in this same spot and predicament with no recollection of how she’d come to be here before?
“Blacked out how?” Kalena held her hand up to her forehead.
He narrowed his gaze. “Can you remember anything before you lost consciousness?”
She nodded. “We were talking about Silex and your parents.” She brought her hand to her lips. “And…we kissed. You left, but I can’t remember anything after that.”
“And before our talk…can you remember anything before then?”
“I just remember one pissed off wolf tearing through a bunch of other wolves, and then it shifted back to a naked man who turned out to be you. Then that lady told me that you'd just bought me."
He regarded her quizzically and then said, "I guess first impressions always stick."
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment.”
His shoulders dropped and a sigh of relief passed from his lips. “Then it’s only short-term memory loss.”
She shook her head. “Memory loss?”
“Temporary short-term memory loss. There’s a reversal to the drug you were given. This cure will slowly rid your system of the agent causing your memory loss and blackouts.”
Kalena shook her head. “One of the men who brought me here injected me with something when I tried to run off. And the night I was kidnapped, I was forced to breathe in some kind of chemical.” She gasped. “They used that D996 drug on me, didn’t they?”
He turned to catch her gaze. “How do you know about D996?”
“The day I was snooping in the labs, the day I was kidnapped, I came across the information. Someone must have left the logs open. I clicked on a few links and this database I’ve never seen before showed up. I read enough to know that mostly all the test subjects receiving the drug have died.”
“Most everyone dies if they’re not given the cure,” Thane said. “If my timeline is correct, then you lost the equivalent of a day while you were traveling here on the cargo truck. That means you’ve had D996 in your system for less than a week,” he said.
She slumped against him as another surge of nausea rushed over her.
“The feeling will pass, but you will need more than one dose of the cure, and you will need it again soon.” Thane handed her a canteen of water.
She took gulp after gulp of it, yet she still seemed unsatisfied. Her body craved the water to flush out whatever was causing her fatigue. As the beverage brought her temperature down, vivid memory flashes of the men chasing her down after she’d tried to escape with the truck came back to her.
She inhaled deeply, and then her breath rushed out unevenly. "How long was I out?”
“Nearly twenty hours.”
“Almost a day? Really?”
He nodded. “I sensed you were drugged when Nolan handed you over. I couldn’t be certain, and I fear you would’ve been out longer than you were without me intervening.”
“Why would Silex create a drug with only this type of remedy?”
“Silex is the largest and most powerful over-the-counter and prescription drug manufacturer. Because of your employment with the company, you should be aware that Silex has numerous product lines, but the company is mostly known for its painkillers—all of which are FDA approved and highly effective. What the public is not made aware of is that additional funding was provided to Silex by the government to research and produce a number of different drugs for various reasons. This happened almost two years ago.”
“Two years?” She frowned. “I didn’t research that far back before accepting the job offer.”
“Then you couldn’t have known about the business and ownership changes that happened around that time either. Most test subjects have signed contracts stating that they are offering up their bodies in the name of scientific research. That stipulation has always been in place, but before Gavril took charge, no one was ever given the drugs by force.”
“What does all of this have to do with the drug they injected me with?” she asked.
“D996 is not really a drug. It’s a weapon. This weapon is being refined through research, and its main purpose is to strip humans of their consciousness and ultimately, their memory. An enemy can do a lot of things when his foe is vulnerable and without recollection of past important events.”
“I see…” she mumbled.
Thane continued, “In answer to your earlier question…why would Silex create a drug with only one remedy? Silex began research and development of this drug at the government’s request for their use in secret missions. That was until they learned that all of the Silex family members were shifters. We were one of the last families to out ourselves. By that time, our scientists had already created the drug with only one cure—shifter DNA. This was, of course, to ensure that once the drug was released to the government, they’d still rely on the shifter population to produce it and reverse the effects as needed. Silex is not the only shifter-owned corporation in America with continuity of the shifter race as one of their prime agendas. There are other conglomerates worldwide just like it. When Gavril took the reins, having all that power went to his head. His indifference to humans in high positions didn’t help. Under my late father’s hand, we never took advantage of the weak. D996 lost the FDA’s approval shortly after Gavril claimed control of the company. He continued to produce it and sell it on the black market and still does even now.”
“You said your family was the last to reveal yourselves as shifters, but how come no one knows about Gavril?”
“Your government has a way of keeping these things under wraps if they must. Silex provides over eighty percent of all painkillers, and a number of different vaccines for humans. Halting the production lines of our legit drugs would be detrimental all around. On the other hand, bringing attention to the scandal and the issue caused by one bad seed would taint the Silex name. We don't want to be known as human killers. Rather than seeking out the help of federal authorities and government agencies who were already casting a critical eye on us, we intended to clean up our own mess with minimal damage to our legacy.”
“Oh.” Kalena exhaled, almost unbelieving all the information Thane was giving her. “I had no idea…”
“How long have you been with the company?” Thane asked.
“Not very long. Three months.”
“And your direct report…the VP of Accounting…how long has this person been employed by Silex?”
Kalena swallowed. “She told me about six months. They fired the last guy. He’d only been there a week.”
“Lucrative pay and impressive benefits to lure you in. High turnover and a substantial severance pay to keep the secrets in-house and skeptics out. That is the way Gavril operates.”
“The drugs are being injected into unsuspecting people just like me. This needs to stop. How can it be stopped?” Kalena balled her hands into fists.
“I have several connections that rotate their employment contracts with Silex on an ongoing basis. You might call them spies. They are loyal to me and belong to my Pack. One of my scientists is assigned to each lab at all times. The formulas are being tweaked to heavily reduce and eliminate the deadly side effects. There’s a small chance that you were administered a diluted version.”
“But why can’t you just escape here now and stop your brother?” she demanded.
“Gavril owns Area S2. All of it. When he killed the Alpha of the North Sky Pack in a challenge, he inherited these barricades. For the longest time, Area S2 was like the human equivalent of a prison to us shifters, and it still is, but Gavril has been misusing it for his purposes. Anyone who disrupts his operations or threatens him has been thrown in here on false convictions, along with the other tried criminals. If I step foot outside of these walls, I am positive he will be the first one notified. But it’s not my life that I am concerned about. When I agreed to disappear and remain in exile until my death, he spared the life of my younger cousin, who happens to be the true heir to Silex Pharmaceuticals.”
“Why didn’t he just kill you?”
“We’re not like humans. We’ve only adapted to your modern conveniences to stay alive and to flourish. For a wolf, living in captivity is one hundred times more dreadful than passing into eternity. He didn’t want to allow me that privilege.”
“What’s the coding for this cure?” she asked. “Maybe I’ve seen it before while working with Rhonda on the reports.”
“There is none. D996 was produced to do more harm than good. The cure would have never been given a code.”
“Then how do you have access to this reversal drug?”
Thane sat on the edge of the cot and ran a hand back through his hair. “The reversal is in my blood.”
“Tell me about the cure in your blood.”
“A cure exists in the DNA of shifters. There are temporary remedies, and there are more permanent ones. Injecting shifter DNA directly into the bloodstream can halt the deadly and harmful side effects of D996. This cure, when taken in regular intervals, cleanses the body of the D996 agent. It also adds to that human’s life expectancy.”
“What the…?” Kalena was baffled by this information. “How can it do that?”
“Simple. My species lives almost ten times as long as homo sapiens. Each dose of shifter DNA can add anywhere from one year to ten years onto the life of a human. The shifter’s genetics, position, and age control the potency.”
“Genetics?”
“Most Packs can track their lineage back to when we first came into existence in the B.C. era. We started out as one Pack and just as we do today, we branched off into others.”
She crossed her legs on the cot, puzzled that she’d never encountered this information before. Had never even thought to research it. Had she known that Silex was a shifter-owned firm, she probably would have. “And position?”
“There is a cast system or hierarchy within the shifter populace. Most abilities are gained by ascending or climbing the Pack ranks. There are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta positions. From there, we have Epsilons and Omegas and everything else in-between.”
“Age,” she urged. “Does potency improve or decline with age?”
“It improves greatly with age.”
“You’re pretty young, so that must mean your blood isn’t very potent, right?”
