Chapter 8

Lucy was getting sick. Unfortunately, the mad scramble in Immunity forces and the crazed response from the city wasn't due to my handiwork. Lucy's mother had taken the girl to get a flu shot yesterday and now the city was littered with the Influenza virus. Everywhere you turned, there was at least one Immunity car zooming around with their sirens blaring. I scoffed and stared down at the street in front of the warehouse.

"Soon, Immunity's gonna wise up and realize that those Influenza aren't here to cause trouble," I heard Kat say from where she sat at the table behind me. "Every one of those viruses are nothing more than soon to be moles and rats for Immunity to use to get to the real heavy hitters in this city."

"We need to kick the plan into action. It has to be tonight," I replied and turned away from the windows. "Spread the word. We make our move tonight."

Kat raised a brow at me. "And how exactly are we escaping this time? The plan was to wait until Lucy was in school and we could escape on another human."

"Just leave everything to me, baby," I crooned and ran my claws along her cheek.

Kat rolled her eyes at me and said, "I'm not ditching this joint on some other godforsaken animal. Besides, don't you think I should know every part of the plan, Hun?"

She placed her hand on my while rubbing her cheek into my palm. I raised a brow at her in question, but she only kissed my palm in return. "We can abandon ship through Lucy's old mom or pop. Doesn't matter which one. Then once we're in one of them, we can stick to more adult circles of hosts. If I make my move in exclusively in adults, it won't be long before I make it big," I explained.

"I'm fine with whatever as long as it means we avoid any more mutts."

"There's just one thing I need you to do for me, baby," I said with a smooth grin.

Kat smiled in return. "Anything for you, Big Daddy."

~:~

"Alright listen up!" I shouted at my small group of goons. "Immunity's got their hands full dealing with all the influenza in the streets. This makes our job easier. Now's the perfect time to strike."

"Uh, Boss? Ain't we missin' somebody?"

I raised a brow at the germ who was scratching the back of his neck and avoiding my gaze. Everyone waited to hear what I was gonna say to this obvious reference to Kat's absence. I rolled my eyes. "You tellin' me that you need little Kat to hold your hand in a fight?" I asked.

"N-no. I was jus' wonderin' is all."

"How about you cut back on the wondering and focus more on the plan?" I warned. Scanning the group of germs, I let my gaze focus on one in particular. "Artie! Take this. I want you with me in the hypothalamus," I said and tossed Artie a gun.

His eyes widened before he fumbled to catch the weapon. "Y-you want me with you, boss?"

"That's what I just said. Let's move. You all know your jobs. Get to work!" I barked out and watched most of my men stalk out of the room with mean looks on their mugs. Artie blinked down at the gun before looking up at me with wide, fearful eyes. I smirked and clapped a hand down onto his shoulder. "Don't punk out on me now, man. We got a job to do," I said and shoved him towards the door.

~:~

No matter how calm I looked as I drove, Artie kept on with his anxious behavior. I turned the radio on with a smirk. "Relax, man. You look like you've never done this before," I soothed.

"I haven't. I'm not big on... killing."

"Don't even sweat it. You know the plan. You stick with me, we sneak into cerebellum hall and up to the hypothalamus, I do what I do best, we meet up with the rest of the gang and escape in Lucy's next cough," I lied.

"Are you sure we can escape?"

"We got Kat on our side. She used to work in the best Immunity force I've ever seen. Not only that, but she has a special set of skills that's going to make sure this all goes off perfectly. So relax," I said just as the song on the radio was interrupted.

"This is an urgent news bulletin! Hello citizens of Lucy. The Lucy Immunity Force has released an alert to the entire body, especially citizens living in or near the lungs. A group of armed thugs are holding several citizens hostage. Immunity forces have advised all citizens to steer clear of the area."

I chuckled lowly. "It's showtime."

I drove us up the neck, passing a couple Immunity cars on the way. They all were headed in the opposite direction, ready to face off against the germs I'd sent to the lungs as a diversion. I was sure that there was still a few guards left in the cerebellum, but I wasn't worried. That's what I had Artie for.

Unlike in Richard, the brain stem didn't have strict security guarding it. There was only one guard posted at the gate into the bairn stem. Adjusting my shades on my face, I drove up to the gate. "Hey there chief, lovely weather we're having," I said with a grin.

"I need to see your ID, sir. I can't let anyone in without ID," the young guard said.

I chuckled lowly. "Sure thing, my man. Let me just grab that for you," I said as I reached into my coat. Faster than he could react to, I shot my hand and hot claw out of the window and through his chest. The guard's eyes widened in shock as he gasped loudly and his cytoplasm bubbled and boiled. I could hear Artie's quick breaths from the passenger seat, but I ignored them and drove up to road to the brain stem. "Alright. Kat is gonna be waiting for us with a getaway car. The place is mostly deserted. I want you to get us a bit of insurance so that we can get out of here as easily as possible," I said.

"Insurance, boss?"

~:~

I hummed to myself as I strolled through the deserted halls of Lucy's brain. It was night and most of the cells had already packed it up for the night. Lucy's brain only had the necessary amount of cells working through the night to keep her alive and functioning. "For now," I said lowly and chuckled.

This was only my second human, but it was almost as if my feet knew exactly where to go. I was standing in front of the door to the hypothalamus in no time. I couldn't keep the wide grin off my face. Quickly stabbing the lock with my claw, I pushed the door open and stalked in. I could hear someone walking around and humming inside and slowly approached. I could see a she-cell in a lab coat writing on a notepad as she bobbed her head. Her short hair swayed as she moved her unimpressive figure to the beat of the music.

"I know you're there," she said in a light tone. My eyes widened in surprise. Schooling my expression, I stepped out of the shadows slowly, my claw at the ready. "Honestly, Thrax. You sure know how to keep a girl waiting."

"Kat?" I asked with confusion in my tone. The she-cell turned around and smiled brightly at me. She was wearing a large pair of round, thick glasses and the most unappealing outfit I had ever seen on her. "Is that really you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course it's me," she said and pulled off the glasses. I watched her pull off the lab coat and pull on her hair until it returned to it's normal length. She squeezed at her membrane to return it to her normal, curvy figure. "Nice trick, huh? It made all my undercover work a lot easier."

That's when I noticed the unmoving body of the scientist laying behind the desk. I chuckled and shook my head. "You were just supposed to get a getaway car and enough dough for us to live on once we blow this joint," I said and eyed the DNA structure twirling in the middle of the room.

Kat groaned loudly and sighed. "I know. But I got bored just waiting for you. I could have already damaged the DNA on my own, but I figured that it was something you wanted to do personally."

"You're damn right, baby," I said with a wide grin and plunged my claw into the case surrounding the DNA. Immediately, the room was cast in a red glow as the case gave way and exposed the twirling DNA sequence.

"Where's Artie?"

"I told him to collect some insurance so that we can have a few hostages when we make our getaway."

"A hostage wasn't part of the plan," Kat pointed out.

Once I had the DNA bead within my claws, I admired it for a few seconds before turning around. With a smirk, I held up the bead for Kat to see. She giggled lightly while twirling a chain on her finger. I raised a brow. "What's that? You went shopping again?"

"Not this time. I found it when I was stealing my disguise. I think I stole it off of one of those repair cells. I thought it would look nice on you. You never spoil yourself, Hun," she said while approaching me with the chain.

I was going to brush her off (now really wasn't the time to accessorize), but grabbed the chain from her instead. "I'll try it on later, baby," I said shoving the black chain and DNA bead into my pocket. "Now, we need to make our exit."

Suddenly, the sound of the alarm started blaring throughout the room. I chuckled deeply. "It looks like Artie made his move."

"I was wrong. I guess he was trustworthy," Kat said with a pout.

I grinned. "Doesn't matter. He won't be around to tell you that you were wrong. The gun I gave him isn't loaded," I said with a careless shrug. Kat blinked twice in surprise before laughing and leaning on her toes to kiss me on the cheek.