Jackson locked himself in the Research Room and tried to work. It was impossible. He kept replaying that image in his mind – that single image – of Chloe standing in the doorway, trying to close the door before he could see Jean-Michel.

She'd slept with him. Chloe had slept with her ex-fiancé. He shouldn't have been surprised; it was the way the world worked. But damn, it hurt. He loved her. He'd thought she loved him. Hell, he'd been planning to ask her to marry him! That wasn't going to happen now.

He leaned far back in the chair, tilting it dangerously on its rear legs. The only woman in years he'd opened himself up to, and she'd done this. He didn't understand. Why would she do it? Was she genuinely still attracted to Jean-Michel, or had it just been a way to get back at her sister?

He had to know. He had to know why she'd done it. Even though he felt as if his heart had been shredded, he wanted to forgive her. When the world was falling apart around them, when the Beast Rebellion was on the rise again, he needed to forgive her. But to do that, he had to understand why she'd done it.

He went back to their room. It was late at night; surely, if she was able to sleep, that's where she'd be. He pushed open the door, flicked on the light.

She was, indeed, sleeping. She lay on her side on the bed.

But. She was still wearing all her clothes.

But. There was an open pill bottle on the bedside table.

But. She wasn't breathing.

"Oh God, Chloe, no!"

He ran to her. In that moment everything was forgiven, forgotten, as if it had never happened; fear crystallised into a hard lump in his chest. It ripped through him.

He scooped her up and ran. Doctor. He had to get her to a doctor.

Mitch wandered the corridors, aimless, passing only the occasional guard. None of them batted an eyelid at the sight of him, barefoot and in sleep shorts and a tank top; he'd developed a tendency to prowl the base late at night.

The place was quiet as the grave. Ironic, really, when you considered the madhouse the outside world was becoming.

Eventually he found himself in a VIP lounge. There was a bar. Just what he needed – half a bottle of Jack followed by sweet oblivion. Of course, tomorrow's hangover would be vicious, but he didn't care. Tomorrow was a world away.

"I wouldn't have thought that a man in love would have any sorrows to drown," he heard as he made his way to the bar. He stopped, looked around: - Abe.

"Then, my friend, you've never been in love before. What're you drinking?"

"Only water. I wish to keep a clear head."

Mitch rummaged behind the bar and came out with a bottle of whisky and a tumbler. He sank into a padded chair beside Abe.

"What has happened between you and Jamie?" Abe asked.

"I don't really want to talk about it." Mitch poured out a splash of burnished liquid. Knocked it back. Poured another.

"Forgive me, but you do. Otherwise you would have taken that bottle and gone."

Mitch held his refilled glass up, studying the way light fractured as it was filtered through the drink.

"Jamie ran into her old boyfriend after she came out of an interview. Then they went for a coffee."

"That is all?"

"All? All?" Mitch knocked back his second glass, poured another. "It was enough. More than enough."

"I take it you didn't know about the interview."

"Nope. Said she forgot to tell me after my arrival." He waved at his leg, bandaged and hurting.

"What bothers you the most? That she had an interview, or that she didn't tell you about it?"

Mitch opened his mouth, paused, closed it.

"She wants to move on." He stared at his drink. "I just know she does. A new job means she'll be independent again, she won't have to stay here…"

"With you?" Abe supplied.

Mitch raised his glass in an ironic salute. "The world's her oyster. Or it was, before the Beast Rebellion started again."

"And then she had coffee with another man."

"His name's Ethan. I've seen his picture in the paper, guy's got looks. Why wouldn't she pick him?"

"You do yourself a disservice, Mitch. And have you asked her why they broke up in the first place?"

"No. We haven't talked about it."

"And have you asked why they had coffee together?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Mitch's mouth twisted into a self-deprecating sneer.

"So obvious that you might have jumped to the wrong conclusion. My friend, I know you are both in love, but that is not enough – you also have to be honest with one another. Ask her why they broke up, ask her why they went for coffee."

"He was with her when the rats attacked," Mitch said. Now he was only sipping the whisky. "She told me he left her there. Just ran out on her."

"And she came back to you," Abe cautioned. "She could have looked for Ethan, but she did not. She came back to you."

"Yeah." Mitch put the glass down. "Yeah. You're right. Why is it you're right about everything?"

"I am not," Abe laughed, "but you and Jamie are my friends… and I am right about you."

Jackson was halfway to the Infirmary when the alarms sound. But he didn't stop.

"God, what now?" he shouted, brushing past mobilising soldiers. When he reached the Infirmary he grabbed the nearest doctor.

"This woman's taken an overdose," he barked. "You have to look at her right now."

"In case you hadn't noticed, young man, we're under attack!" The doctor was a small man, thin and mousy, with a receding hairline.

"The rest of the world can go to hell right now," Jackson snarled. "Just do your damned job and save her goddamned life!"

"Alright, alright… what has she taken?"

Jackson tossed him the half-empty bottle of pills. The doctor caught it in one hand, surprisingly dextrous, and peered at it.

"Hmm. OK. When did she take it?" he asked, waving them over to an empty bed. Jackson put Chloe down, then ran agitated hands through his hair.

"Uh… couple of hours, no more."

"Nurse! Prepare for an OD."

Jamie was done with letting Mitch stew in his own pity party. The man was good at beating himself up – too good – and good at making other people feel like they should beat themselves up. While having a drink with Ethan hadn't been her best move, there'd been a positive outcome – it had crystallised her thinking about Mitch. She wasn't about to hold anything back from him, not anymore.

But she had to find him first.

She dragged on jeans and a T-shirt, shoved her feet into sneakers and headed out. When he was down he liked to drink. Find the bar, find the man.

That was when the alarms went off.

Mitch was wandering back to find Jamie when the alarm sounded. He should have been terrified – the last time alarms had gone off in a military base, they'd been invaded – but all he felt now was weary and numb. He knew that was a bad thing, but he was having trouble making himself care. All these highs and lows with Jamie – they were really taking it out of him. Welcome to the real world, Mitch, it's been waiting for you. For a long time.

Maybe he shouldn't have had that third whisky.

He turned a corner. Jamie barrelled into him, lost her balance, and fell on her ass. She landed with a startled yelp that broke through that numb veil he'd drawn around himself.

Huh. Maybe he did care, after all.

He helped her stand. She let him. Mitch stood there, feeling awkward as the alarms blatted around them. He didn't have a clue what to say –

Jamie threw her arms around him. Her scent, her warmth, enveloped him; he returned the hug with a hungry desperation that startled him.

"We, uh, we're under attack," Jamie said, easing away from him.

"So the alarms say. What d'you think it is this time? Triads? Animals?"

She tilted her head to one side and treated him to a half-smile. "Don't really wanna hang around to find out."

"The lady talks sense." He offered her a flourishing bow that made her laugh, even though it was a shrill, slightly panicked laugh. Soldiers ran past them, buffeting them, but they stood firm. "Maybe we should, uh, retreat to somewhere safer?"

The power went off. The lights died, plunging them into darkness.

Jackson's heart hammered in his chest when the lights died. They came on a few seconds later. Relief – as vast as the ocean they'd flown across to come back to the States – flooded his system, making him sag against the wall.

Medical staff buzzed around Chloe. They'd laid her on a cot, half-covered by a privacy screen, while they worked on her.

"Is she gonna be OK?" he demanded. The doctor, barking commands to his nurse, ignored him. "Is she gonna be OK?" he asked again. "Tell me!"

"We're trying to concentrate here, Mr. Oz! If you can't stop asking questions, go wait in the hall!"

"Your bedside manner sucks," Jackson muttered, but he was already turning away.

"Trying to save lives here, not sooth your feelings."

Jackson ducked out into the hall. His hair was a mess where he'd repeatedly run his fingers through the strands. He couldn't lose Chloe, he just couldn't. She'd become his rock.

But if she recovered – and he had to believe she would – what awaited her? The knowledge that she'd destroyed their relationship with one stupid move? The knowledge that her sister and ex-fiancé were dead?

He would fix it. He couldn't bring the dead back to life, but he would fix the precious thing he and Chloe had made between them. Somehow.

When he turned a corner he was almost blind to his surroundings. Not so blind, however, that he didn't spot the three wolves at the far end of the corridor. The three wolves who sped toward him, teeth barred in angry snarls.

When the power came back on Mitch found Jamie plastered to his side. Despite the uncertainty of the situation, he found her proximity soothing.

"We have been breached! We have been breached!"

Abe almost barrelled into them as he ran down the corridor. They just managed to stand aside as he went past.

"Abe!" Kazuko was on his heels. Where had she come from? Mitch grimaced. There was too much going on; too much, too fast. "Come with me! You two, get to your room and stay there!"

"Man or beast?" Mitch asked as they dashed away.

"Beast!" Abe yelled back. "Lots and lots of beasts!"

Mitch grabbed Jamie's hand and pulled her away, back toward their room. The klaxons were still screaming.

"Whoah, not that way." They skidded to a halt; two big wolves blocked the corridor. "I'm not even gonna ask how they got in." They spun and dashed back the way they'd come – only to find another two wolves blocking their path.

"Oh," Jamie gulped, "oh God. Oh my God. This is it. We're donna die."

"I didn't rescue you from the ass-end of nowhere just to lose you here," Mitch bit out. He was looking at the walls, the floor, the ceiling. There were no other doors.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for an exit. And we have a winner," he said, pointing to a hatch in the ceiling.

"What is that? Air conditioning?"

"No time to find out." Mitch knelt, casting a wary eye at the slowly approaching wolves, and laced his fingers into a stirrup. "Up you go."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Does this look like the face of a man who's kidding?"

Jamie stepped into the make-shift stirrup, bracing herself on Mitch's shoulder. Still keeping an eye on the approaching wolves, he gave a great heave – letting out a grunt of effort – and hoisted Jamie high.

"Did you put on a few pounds over Christmas?" he wheezed.

She wobbled precariously, free hand flailing for the ceiling grate, until she managed to brace her thigh against his face.

"I swear to God, Mitch, if the wolves don't kill you I will! Higher!"

"I think I'm gonna rupture something," he bit out, but did manage to lift her another few inches.

Jamie banged on the grate. It was loose and came free with the first blow, revealing a dark opening just large enough for a person.

"Yes!"

Getting her arms over the lip, she jumped – almost driving Mitch to his knees – and managed to wriggle through the opening.

All four wolves howled. Mitch cringed, trying to watch both sets at once. Jamie wriggled some more, elbows, hands, knees and feet banging against the ceiling tiles, until she was able to stick her head out.

"It's storage space!" she called down. "Get up here, Mitch!"

"Ah… not sure I can…"

"Give me your hands!"

He looked up at her, smiling sadly. "You're not strong enough to lift me, Jamie."

"I will lift you if I have to rip my goddamn arms out of their sockets!" she snapped back. Looking frantically around, she spotted a pipeline emerging from the wall of the roof space.

"This has gotta work," she muttered. Yanking off her T-shirt, revealing the tank top beneath, she ripped it down the seam. The cheap Chinese import might just save Mitch's life. "Please God, let this work."

She tied one end around the pipe, quickly and efficiently fastening a knot. She tied the other around her ankle, pulling the knots until she thought her foot was going to turn blue. Then, taking a deep breath, she hurled herself out through the opening.

"What the hell are you doing?" Mitch yelled, tearing his gaze from the approaching wolves to her. The lead wolf – a massive animal with green eyes – pawed the ground and broke into a run. The others followed.

"Shup up and climb me!" Jamie shouted, reaching for him.

"You're crazy!" He grabbed her arms as she hung down. "How are you holding us up?"

"Shut up and climb!"

Terrified, he let her arms take his weight and hung in the air. She groaned, the sound more of pain than of effort. God, he was hurting her. He was hurting her!

"Climb," she said through gritted teeth.

He swung his legs up and out of the way just as the wolves reached them – but not quick enough to stop the lead wolf clamp its jaws around his already-wounded leg. Mitch screamed as he felt those sharp teeth rip through his flesh, as they crushed his leg bones. Jamie screamed – pain, horror, he didn't know – and hauled him back.

He kicked out, his free foot landing a solid blow on the back of the wolf's head. It whimpered but didn't let go. He kicked again, blood – his blood! – frothing between its jaws. The wolf finally let go, dancing back with its tail between its legs. The other wolves snapped and snarled at it.

Somehow Mitch got his leg over the lip of the opening. Then the other leg. He wrenched his back in an effort to get his lower body in. He let go of Jamie and grabbed for support within their hiding space. His hands closed around solid pipework. Then he turned and hauled Jamie back.

The wolves circled underneath them, eyes fixed on the opening. Jamie and Mitch collapsed against each other, sweating and bleeding but very much alive.

Jackson sprinted back toward the Infirmary, his one thought protecting Chloe. She was unconscious, maybe dying, and unable to defend herself.

He rushed into the large room, closing the doors behind him, and looked for something – anything to keep them closed. His eyes closed on an IV stand. Grabbing it, he rammed it through the door handles, then jammed a chair underneath it for good measure.

"They're right outside!" he said to the doctor. The other medical staff shied away from them. "We have to get Chloe out of here!"

"Mr. Jackson, she can't be moved." The doctor seized his arm to get his point across. "We've stabilised her, but right now she just can't be moved!"

"Then neither can I," Jackson said, shaking the doctor off. "Get out of here."
"You can't stay!"

"And I can't go. I can look after myself." And Chloe, he thought.

"You're either brave or stupid. I can't decide which."

Jackson shrugged. "I'll let you know when I find out."

The control centre was full of tense activity. Kazuko, Abe and Amelia Sage moved from monitor to monitor, tracking the animal invasion.

"I thought this was not supposed to happen!" Abe said, his face frantic. He'd found Jackson and Chloe. The medical staff had disappeared, retreated to more secure rooms. "How is it possible?"

"We took what we thought were the necessary precautions!" Sage was angry. "We have electrified fences. We know the wolves and bears will dig, so we sunk those fences fifteen feet below the surface."

"Did you factor in the rats?" Abe growled. Sage's mouth worked, but no sounds came out. "No. I thought not. The rats cut your power, and before the backup generators could cut in," he tapped another monitor, "your fences were trampled."

The outside of the base was a mess. All manner of animals wandered around; it was clear the mixture of bears, wild boars, and horses had made short work of the fences. Once they were down the wolves had been able to just trot across.

"Why are we not shooting them?" Kazuko demanded. "Why can't I hear any gunfire?"

"The, uh, the guns don't work," Sage admitted.

Silence fell in the control centre as everyone – Abe, Kazuko and the operators – turned to stare at her.

"What do you mean, the guns don't work?"

"I've had reports that soldiers are firing. But the mechanisms jam, or misfire. Bullets have been spoiled, wetted, or just plain old gnawed."

"Rats again?" Kazuko asked, sharing a look with Abe.

"It is possible," he conceded. "They are small, easily missed, and able to squeeze through the smallest spaces. They have nimble paws and very sharp teeth. Given enough time, they can chew through metal."

"So the fences are down, we have only backup electricity, and now our guns don't work." Kazuko's face was drawn. "Time for Plan B."

"Lieutenant, that hasn't been properly tested!" Sage protested.

"People are dying!" Kazuko pointed from one monitor to another… to another… to another. "Short of laying explosives, which I suppose we'd find the rats had also got into, this is all we have left!"

"I do not think I like the sound of this," Abe said, slowly shaking his head.

"I don't either." Kazuko turned to look at him. "But if we don't do this, more people are going to die!"

Save for Chloe, Jackson was alone. The medical staff had fled. He was OK with that. One man, one woman to protect. In a way it felt very natural to be here like this. The struggle to survive.

There had to be a way to stop this. There had to be. If he survived this, if Chloe survived this, he wouldn't stop until he found the answer.

Something thumped into the door. The IV stand bent, then bowed. Jackson snatched up the nearest weapon – a plastic chair – and prepared himself.

The door burst open a few seconds later. Wolves streamed in, howling and yipping with excitement… but they didn't attack.

One wolf trotted to the front of the pack, a big male with a shaggy ruff and livid orange eyes. Jackson brandished the chair at him. The alpha – for surely he was an alpha – seemed unafraid.

They stared at each other. Jackson saw what he'd been looking for, the defiant pupil, and for a second he hovered on an idea he'd had weeks before but had had no time to develop – Hartley's evolution, and the idea of interconnectivity. Looking around, he saw that all the wolves bore the defiant pupil his father had described so well. They were all linked.

Evan Lee Hartley had exhibited the same ocular mutation. He'd been in tune with the wolves, he'd understood them – and they'd understood him, enough to follow his command.

"That's it," Jackson murmured. "That's it. We don't need to cure the animals. We need to cure the people."

The soft hiss of gas snagged the wolves' attention seconds before it grabbed his. He looked around, wary, worried they might have to contend with a gas leak on top of the animal attack.

The alpha snarled at him, pawing at his nose, and then lunged. Jackson held him back with the chair, but it was desperate – with so many wolves, he had seconds at most before they took him down. Then they'd move on to Chloe.

A wolf collapsed. Another tumbled onto its side. More wolves dropped while Jackson looked on, amazed.

A faint smell reached his nose, astringent. He sniffed but didn't dare take his hand off the chair to cover to his nose.

As more and more wolves collapsed, he finally realised what was happening – gas. The soldiers had released some kind of gas that was knocking them out. Kill or tranquilise, he couldn't tell, not when his vision had begun to swim. Not when his arms felt like lead bars that could no longer support the chair's weight.

The alpha wolf got past his guard, but he was unsteady on his paws. Jackson turned to ward him off but he was slow, so slow. His feet felt numb. His knees unhinged and then he, too, was dropping; the chair fell from his hands and crashed to the floor. His eyelids felt too heavy to hold up.

The wolf leapt on the bed. Chloe lay there, unmoving, unaware. Helpless. Jackson's vision slid sideways; he reached for her.

It was too much. Blackness rose up to claim him.

Jamie and Mitch slumped against the wall of their hidey hole. The wolves still paced below.

Jamie leaned forward and eased up the leg of her jeans, then winced as she saw the ruin of her ankle. It was swollen and bruised, the skin badly grazed. She hadn't dared take her sneaker off. It hurt like hell, but it wasn't life threatening. Mitch, on the other hand… well, he was slowly bleeding to death.

"That was a really stupid thing to do," Mitch said, letting his head fall back against the pipe. His eyes were closed and he was sweating.

"Saving your life was stupid? Hold still and let me check that," she added, reaching for his leg. She'd tied her T-shirt around his calf. It was now soaked with blood; red liquid oozed through the fabric and dripped to the floor of the storage area.

"Leave it," Mitch said, without opening his eyes. "If you take the pressure off I'll definitely bleed to death. As it is, the probability is reduced to 'probably' rather than 'definitely'."

"You're not gonna die. Look at me when I'm talking to you, dammit!"

Mitch cracked his eyes open. His gaze was unsteady.

"You should have let the wolves eat me."

"If you say that one more time I'm gonna strangle you."

They lapsed into uneasy silence. Below them, the wolves continued to watch. And wait.

"You and Ethan," Mitch said eventually.

"You wanna talk about this now?"

He gestured to his leg. "Might not get another chance. Why did you guys split up?"

Jamie sighed. "Alright. I'll bite. It was just before I met you. I was investigating the Beast Rebellion, but back then it was just cats going missing. Right up until the lion escaped from the zoo, that is."

"And you came to get my 'expert opinion'." He leaned heavily on the sarcasm.

"I may have been just a teensy bit obsessed with Reiden Global," she admitted. "Even though Ethan knew why and how my mother had died, he still couldn't understand why it drove me. I had a blog, 'Girl With the Genie Tattoo'. I got a bit… ranty. It got me into trouble with my newspaper."

"Ranty? Is that even a word?"

"I'm a journalist, it must be." Her smile was fleeting. "Anyway, our relationship… we kept it on the DL. He said that if I gave up my quest to bring Reiden to justice, he could get me back in with the paper. And he'd make our relationship public."

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

"I wanted him to support me! He wouldn't do that. So I walked away."

"Until you saw him outside the coffee shop." Mitch's eyes were closed again.

"Right. I was confused, OK? What we have now… it's complicated." Jamie fiddled with the hem of her tank.

"You got that right. I wasn't sure if I loved you because what we could have had was taken away from us in that plane crash, or because I finally got you back again."

"That's exactly how I felt," Jamie admitted. "When I saw Ethan, I… I wasn't really thinking straight. I went for the interview because I thought, now that the Beast Rebellion was over, you'd want to move on with your life. You'd go back to LA, and I'd have to get on with my life."

"You thought I'd leave you behind?"

"I don't know what I thought. I guess… I guess when I saw Ethan, I just wanted to see if that old spark was still there. I'd forgotten why we'd broken up. Then the rats attacked and he left me behind, and I remembered all over again." She reached out, put her hand on his knee. "I made the right choice, Mitch."

"You sure about that?" He was looking at her again, eyes open, gaze clear this time.

She moved her hand from his knee to his cheek, then leaned forward and kissed him. It was a slow, lingering kiss.

"I'm sure."

They were silent again, but it was a comfortable, companionable silence – despite the pacing wolves below.

"I kissed Ben," Jamie said later. Her tone was bitter. "Ben Schaffer, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Right before I killed him."

"Aw, Jamie… you don't need to tell me this."

"I do. Get everything off my chest."
"I like your chest the way it is."

"You're funny." She smiled, but it was strained. "I don't – I don't wanna have any secrets between us."

Mitch's hand found hers, squeezed it tight.

"How did it happen?" he asked. Jamie could tell, from his tone of voice, that he really didn't want to know. But he was making an effort… for her.

"Oh, you know, the typical – FBI agent meets journalist, that kind of thing. He was… he was nice to me, Mitch. When Even Lee Hartley ran me off the road, I was so shaken up, I couldn't remember anything. Jackson was being an ass."

Mitch snorted. "Yeah. He can do that."

"But Ben was friendly. He knew the right things to say."

"So you turned to him."

"When he arrived at my hotel room, I'd just had a shower and I answered the door in a towel."

"You never answer the door to me in a towel."

"I'm sure we can work on that."

"Hey, do you smell… what is that? Some kind of gas?"

"It's making my eyes sting," Jamie said, rubbing at them. Mitch held her wrists, pulled them away from her face.

"Don't rub. You'll make them worse. This smells like anaesthetic gas," he added.

"Anaesthetic? You mean, like, tranquiliser gas?"

"Yup. I could do with catching up on my sleep…"

"No! Mitch, for God's sake don't go to sleep, not when you're bleeding like this!" She shook him, shocked, frightened tears spilling down her face, but his eyes were fluttering. He slumped further down the wall.

When Jackson came round, he found himself staring at a plain white ceiling. His mind was mercifully blank.

Then everything crashed back in – the Beast Rebellion, Natalie and Jean-Michel, Chloe's betrayal. His reaction. Her attempted suicide. His conclusions about his father's research.

"Chloe!" He sat bolt upright. He was in the Infirmary, in the bed beside hers. The wolves were gone. It seemed as if the attack was over.

"I am here." Her voice was weak, raspy.

Jackson stumbled out of bed. He felt weak. His legs were unsteady and his head was pounding, but Chloe was alive.

He sank heavily onto her bed. She was wearing a blue hospital gown and her hair was down. There were great, dark circles under her eyes like bruises. A nurse hovered on the far side of the room, out of earshot but within sight.

Of course, he thought. They've got her on suicide watch.

Jackson took her narrow, delicate hands in his, then kissed them.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

She turned her face to his but said nothing. Tears tracked their way down her cheeks, dripping on the sheet.

"Hey, hey, it's OK." He tried to put his arms around her. She shied away like a frightened fawn.

"I don't deserve pity, Jackson." Her voice trembled. "What I have done to you is unforgivable –"

"But I forgive you. I get it, I really do. You were pissed at your sister, Jean-Michel was holding out an olive branch… is that how it went down?"

Her big brown eyes swam with moisture. "How do you know me so well? How do you understand me, when I do not even understand myself sometimes?"

"Because I love you, Chloe. I love you and I forgive you. And…" He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out the small velvet-lined box. He opened the lid to reveal a diamond ring. "…and I want to marry you."