Krissy
Beyond reception, a hallway split my clinic down the middle, ending at the entrance to a small kennel area. Along the hall, my office, the washroom and two exam rooms stretched across one side. A room for taking x-rays, the operating room, a storage room and laboratory waited on the other.
The lab itself was not unlike one you might find in a classroom, merely half the size. Like most of the rooms in the clinic, it was windowless, though it had a heavy ventilation hood hanging over the far counter. Adjacent to the doorway, more counter space filled with various computer and diagnostic equipment stretched the length of the wall. Opposite of that, vertical rows of shelves and glass cabinets covered the wall. In the center of the room, two island counters sat topped with microscopes, test tubes and other small items.
Malcolm followed uncomfortably close behind as I walked in between the islands.
"You're familiar with how healthy spermatozoa appear, I assume?" I set the beaker I carried down on the counter, retrieving a pipette and petri dish as I glanced from Malcolm to Mort to Jase and back again. The two larger shifters stood a few feet back from Malcolm and I. Though their stance was visually relaxed, I could feel the threat of violence from both.
"Sure," Malcolm responded pompously. "Squiggly little white tadpoles by the millions."
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes while I transferred some of the fluid from the beaker to the petri dish using the pipette. Dish in hand, I moved over to one of the microscopes and guided the dish into place under the lenses. I dipped to look down the scope and made a quick adjustment, then looked back at Malcolm.
"Have a look." I nodded to the microscope and stepped aside.
Malcolm looked at me dubiously.
I prayed I had a stellar poker face. If this ruse failed, Jase and I may be as good as dead.
An agonizing beat later, Malcolm leaned over the scope.
"All I see are a few white specks." Malcolm frowned at me.
"No tails." I stated.
"What?"
"Heads without tails." I elaborated. "Tadpoles can't swim without their tails."
Malcolm turned to Jase, a wicked grin spreading across his metal-filled face. "Poor bastard."
Jase answered with a hateful growl.
The corner of Mort's mouth twitched like he wanted to smile and failed.
Malcolm started to laugh. His laughter died off when he turned back to me and recognized the fleeting hope in my eyes.
Fuck. It doesn't matter if he bought it. He was never letting either of us go.
I backed up against the other island as Malcolm addressed Jase again.
"As pathetic as this makes you, doggie, doesn't change our job."
Mort turned his full attention to Jase, who tensed.
This might be our last shot.
"Big Man can still use—"
I shut Malcolm up when I hefted another heavy microscope across his temple.
Jase wasted no time, hurling a fist at Mort's nose, but my focus went back to Malcolm, as my first swing barely dazed him.
I tried for his skull again. This time he was ready and smacked the microscope painfully out of my hands with his unnatural strength. I turned to flee but Malcolm was too fast. He had me in a headlock, leaving me scratching at his arm for oxygen. Then Malcolm unveiled the gun. The scent of cordite told me it wasn't loaded with tranquilizer. I went very still. But he aimed it towards Jase, now bloody and bruised, but still trading blows with Mort.
"He's not worth the aggravation, and you just might be the find of a lifetime, Ginger."
No!
Adrenaline surging, I did two things at once. I kicked out both legs to leverage against the counter, knocking us sharply backwards into the other island, and I shoved Malcolm's aiming arm up towards the ceiling. The gun went off before it went flying out of his hands somewhere behind us.
Through the blood rushing past my ears I thought I heard Jase shout my name. Malcolm released me when I knocked the wind out of him and I tumbled to the floor. On my hands and knees I scrambled towards the back of the room. I heard Malcolm curse at me as I spotted the gun in the corner three feet from me. An inhuman roar of anger reverberated directly overhead. Malcolm had climbed the island counter and glared murderous intent upon me. I dove for the gun, Malcolm pounced. My fingers found purchase on the cold steel before he picked me up and hurled me across the room, into a row of cabinets. I crumpled to the floor a second time, glass shards raining down along with me.
Miraculously, in spite of the immense force and pain, I never lost my grip on the gun. From where he stood, Malcolm could not see me. In those precious seconds, heart pounding in my throat, everything moved in slow motion.
I forced myself into a sitting position, lifted the gun in front of myself, levelling it on the encroaching shifter's face. I squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice.
Malcolm collapsed inches in front of me. A river of red started to pool around his head.
I let my arms drop to my sides and sent the gun sliding across the debris-littered floor into a corner.
The shots had been deafening, but I still heard the animalistic snarls and roars of the ongoing fight raging between Jase and Mort.
Ignoring the glass shards cutting my hands and knees to get a better view of the scuffle, I was horrified to find Jase pinned against the door with Mort's meaty fist wrapped around his throat, squeezing hard enough the blood flowed faster from Jase's nose, lip and the scattered cuts on his face. Jase struggled against the fleshy snare but he was outmatched.
Regretting my impulse to discard the gun, I turned back to recover the weapon—something else caught my eye. Breeching my growing hysteria, the letters T-R-I-B-U-T-A-M-E, on an unbroken vial jump-started my cognition. Hands shaking, I fumbled around for two syringes, draining the vial's contents into them.
Back on my feet, I saw Mort's free hand morph, huge thick claws replacing the fingers. He was winding up to swing!
With a primal scream I flung myself at Mort's back, hammering my weaponized fists down against his shoulder blades, thumbs plunging fluid deep into the muscle.
Almost instantly Mort's grip switched from Jase's throat to his own. He turned on me, disbelief in his eyes, his mouth wide open and gasping like a fish out of water.
Jase recovered his breath and footing, dancing around Mort to take a protective hold on me.
Mort dropped like a stone to his knees, froth starting to form in his mouth. Air no longer reached his lungs.
Jase yanked me backwards as Mort fruitlessly reached for me, before falling face forward. His arms and legs jerked violently several times and then went completely still. His eyes, at one time merely emotionless, were now totally vacant. Lifeless.
"Oh God…" My bleeding hands came up to my face.
"Fuck Krissy, what did you give him?"
"Euthanasia." I whispered as I started to tremble.
Jase looked at me, shellshocked.
"He was so big…a shifter," I started to ramble. "I-I knew it could—but I thought maybe since he was—I mean you heal so f-fast…" Tears burned my eyes. "I didn't actually want to kill him…them."
Jase looked over at Malcolm's body as if just noticing he was there. He carefully guided me towards the door, which flew open unexpectedly.
Led by a blonde man the same build as Jase, several other more familiar men swarmed into the lab. Tank, Jared and Trey flanked the blonde I didn't recognize. I spotted a few more unfamiliar faces waiting out in the hallway.
"What the fuck happened in here, man?" Trey gaped as he surveyed the damage.
Jared knelt down to examine Mort's body while Tank moved further across the room past Malcolm's. After a moment Tank returned to stand over Malcolm with the gun holstered in the front of his jeans. During this activity around us, the blonde stood facing Jase and I, scrutinizing me the whole time. I couldn't bring myself to keep eye contact, but I knew he watched me. Jase was hugging me tightly to his body as he addressed the wolf pack, offering them the rundown of his account—conveniently breezing past our minor interlude in my office and our reason for coming into the lab. He simply said I came up with a diversion.
Reliving the past few moments in Jase's retelling proved to be the proverbial straw. I felt as though I might retch and pass out at the same time, and the blonde's glare was like a hot spotlight. The unease he made me feel, it occurred to me, the blonde had to be the pack's alpha.
I wriggled out of Jase's embrace and shoved my way through the sea of wolves, muttering that I needed to wash up.
Jase
Garrett stopped me when I tried to chase after Krissy. "We're not finished yet."
Since I'd already agreed to submit, I had no choice but to obey my new alpha.
"Man, what the hell was this stuff?" Trey was inspecting a spill of Krissy's mystery fluid on the counter. "It smells like wet dog." He frowned over at his best friend, Jared. "Was your mom here too?" The frown turned into a smirk but Jared was not amused.
Garrett grabbed the collar of Jared's shirt before the wolf could start a new fist fight with Trey.
What did I just join up to?
"Enough! Start cleaning this place up." Garrett commanded.
"We could use their Hummer." I suggested. "Get rid of the bodies before we junk it."
Garrett nodded.
"Which one of them has the keys?" Jared asked, forgetting Trey's insult for the time being. "I'll back it up to the backdoor."
I checked Mort and came up empty. Tank bent down to check Malcolm. He found the car keys…and something else.
"Garrett."
Tank tossed Jared the keys, but Jared hesitated to leave as Tank held up a vial of blood. He walked it over to Garrett, handing the vial over. "It's hers."
Garrett studied the vial, then me. He'd encountered a similar situation with his sister Sedona. A blood sample had been stolen to test for—
"Is she pregnant?"
The earnest question threw me at first. I had to give my head a shake before I could answer. "No, that's not a possibility. They must have been planning to try to ID her animal. Probably as in the dark about her identity as we are."
"Fine." Garrett allowed. "Get to work. Before any neighbours get curious."
The alpha relayed to me the pack had parked their respective transport a few blocks away to avoid detection and attention. A gang of motorcycles in front of a closed veterinary clinic was indeed suspicious. Tank asked for the return of his bike so he could move it, so I handed him his keys and he left with Jared.
The pack had systems in place for hiding our supernatural tendencies from humanity. Most shifters were the same that way. Malcolm and Mort's bodies would have to be completely destroyed. We'd clean up the mess here, take the evidence with us. Some things, like the smashed cabinets were harder to return as they were. We'd need Krissy's cooperation to deal with that. After we were done with the Hummer we'd wipe it down for prints and crush it.
As some of the other wolves went about cleaning up the lab, I asked them to salvage what they could for the doc. She could look over whatever was left more thoroughly later. I helped lug the bodies into the back of the Hummer, thankful for the second time in as many days for the proximity to the foothills. When I cleaned myself up in the washroom, I had to rein in my panic at the sight of bloody glass shards Krissy left behind in the sink, before returning to Krissy's office to wipe down my prints and dispose of that second beaker. Finding Krissy's discarded robe, I was compelled to return it to her right away.
Plainly avoiding the lab, the doc had moved to the kennels after a lengthy time locked in the washroom. It was necessary to walk past the kennels to reach the backdoor, Krissy had to be well aware of our movements. Yet, she seemed numb to it all, instead fussing over her furry charges to keep occupied.
Trey and Jared had already left in the Hummer with the bodies and garbage bags full of the worst of the debris. The other wolves slowly filed out, eventually only leaving Garrett and Tank with Krissy and myself. When Tank assured him of the "all clear", Garrett excused him. He relocked the backdoor, then addressed me.
"I'll bring the Jeep and meet you out front in a minute."
I nodded and the alpha disappeared.
Krissy was whispering something I couldn't make out, to a siamese cat. She startled when I draped her robe over her shoulders.
"Let me take you home." I murmured.
I could smell the salt of her tears before she spun to face me. It made my wolf whimper to see her upset.
"They took my blood!" She weeped. "I didn't know how to warn you. Even if they had left me and taken you, they would have come back. I just know they'd have come back!"
I gently rubbed her shoulders, making soothing sounds. "Tank found it. It's dealt with now."
Krissy held out her hands. There were only red marks where glass cuts had been an hour ago. It was the same on her knees and feet. "Something's different. I heal like you." She was becoming frantic. "What am I, Jase?"
Hugging her reassuringly against me, I led her along the hallway back to the reception desk. "Shh, we will figure this out. It is going to be okay."
Having close contact seemed to help Krissy calm herself.
Garrett pulled up outside as we reached the front door.
I insisted on sitting in the backseat with Krissy, ignoring her protests to pull her up to cradle right in my lap.
She fell asleep almost immediately.