“Good boy.” Her voice held a faint note of praise as she moved and let him slump to the floor. “If you want to live. Run.”
He whimpered and scuttled off. She didn't bother to see which way, it was no longer relevant.
It was show time.
So why was nothing happening?
The cage doors remained where they were, open half an inch. There was no mad rush for freedom, as though the occupants didn’t trust the evidence of their own eyes. Didn’t trust that she wasn’t some agent of the Project here to torture them with the promise of freedom only to snatch it away again.
Another roar from the next room had Toni’s head whipping around. Darce was taking a beating out there and these pussies were scared of their own damn shadows.
“Out!” she yelled, running along the first row of cages and flinging the doors wide. “You’re free. Get out…”
Another roar from the crowd and she saw red.
“There’s a man in there being beaten to death. Like this one—”
She slammed a cage door shut, the Lycan within deader than a dodo, the scent of death clear from across the room. She spun around and spotted a dead Blood in another cage. Her hands caught the edge of the metal and with a vicious twist of her trunk, she slammed that door too.
“And this one. And that one, and him over there. They’re killing us and they’re f**king laughing about it. Now move you f**king a**holes. Without bars holding us in, what are they?”
The door nearest her edged open, the Lycan within pausing a second before he pushed it farther and ducked down to step out. He straightened up and turned to fix her with a solid amber gaze. He still wore the remains of a pair of combats, but the rest of his uniform and his boots were long gone. Vicious claw marks racked across his stomach, the pink lines almost healed now, and other cuts and bruises scattered over his heavily-muscled body said that he’d survived a couple of turns in the ring.
“Nothing,” he growled in answer. “They’re nothing. They’re…prey.”
“Prey…prey…prey…”
The call was taken up as Blood and Lycan alike scrambled from their cages, retribution ringing in their raised voices. They streamed past Toni and through into the main room. She paused for a moment, long enough for the cheers of the crowd turn to screams. Feral roars and gunfire soon joined the mix.
Nodding to herself, she headed the other way to the last corridor. If they had recording equipment, then that feed had to be going somewhere. Which meant there was a control room. She just had to find it.
Steps silent, she headed for the last door, stopping for a second by the still-warm corpse of the first guard. Her gaze swept over the crumbled form before zeroing in on his sidearm. She reached down and snapped the retainer, palming the weapon. A quick movement later and it was locked and loaded. Holding it down at her side, hidden by her thigh, she pushed the third door open and stepped through.
This corridor was identical to the others, but with a slight upward incline that pulled at the back of her calves. Blood decorated the floor, old by the smell, and one splatter bore trolley wheel marks. They’d brought more victims of, or for, the ring up here.
She trotted along the corridor, her breathing loud in her ears. With each step farther away from the noise in the cage room her unease increased. She shouldn’t have left Darce in the ring…should have gone back for him.
“For f**ks sake, stop it,” she growled. Darce Foster wasn’t some lost kid she had to protect. He was, had been, a highly-trained soldier. A rebellious poster boy for spec ops with devastating good looks and a kill record off the chart. And that had been before they’d given him the rabid wolf upgrade and permanent anger management issues.
A footfall warned her a moment before someone stepped around the corner. Four someones, all men, nak*d to the waist and covered in wounds and scars.
Toni slowed to a stop, a hiss rattling in the back of her throat as every instinct she had went bat-shit crazy. She snapped the pistol up and aimed for the guy in the lead.
“Freeze right there.”
They didn’t stop, just kept on walking and the blood froze in Toni’s veins. Her instincts screamed that they were wrong—abominations—and now her eyes picked up the visual clues. They walked almost normally, so very near perfect for human that it almost fooled her. It would have, if she’d been human. But her vision worked differently, processed images faster. If she concentrated, she could see things in a freaky version of slow motion.
Like now, letting her see the rapid fire jerking movements these guys made, the spasms so fast they were almost imperceptible. But she saw them. Caught the motions when they fanned out, the three at the back scuttling sideways like spiders. She frowned, her logical mind trying to fill the gap with a normal side step but it didn’t quite work. They weren’t human. They weren’t Lycan. Or Blood.
Which left one option.
Reanimates.
She focused on the face of the guy in front, her finger taking the trigger down to first pressure, ready to pull it all the way and blow his face through the back of his head. A face which came into focus. She paused as recognition kicked in and cut through her instinctive reaction to reveal the cutie driver from the hospital attack.
“Fredericks?”
He snapped a hand up—and the small group slowed to a stop—and looked at her. The frown between his brows matched hers.
“Major? Major Fielding?”
She lowered the pistol a little, still wary. It was Fredericks, no doubt about it. Part of her team for the hospital clean up, the last time she’d seen him had been the asylum before they’d parted ways, she to track Foster and he with the main force after the rest of the Lycan team. Her gaze slid sideways, checking out the faces behind him and her heart sank. Perkins, Fletcher and Kelwood. All alive up until a few days ago. Correction: all human up until a few days ago, because what they were now… She hadn’t a f**king clue.
“Crap. What the hell happened?”
Fletcher shrugged and between one blink and the next, he was two steps closer. Toni started, half bringing up the pistol again but made herself hold steady. She knew better than to discriminate on the basis of a person’s humanity, or lack thereof. But hell, that was some scary shit.
With speed like that, they could overpower a Blood or a Lycan with ease. Now the little scene she and Darce had witnessed in the ring made sense. From the runt of the Projects experiments, the Reanimate line had emerged the victor, able to kick the butts of the other two lines.
And fuck, they looked good. The virus had dropped weight off already rangy frames and added muscle. Shitloads of it. They were lean, mean and ripped as fuck. Whatever you wanted to call it, zombies should not look hot enough that any red-blooded female felt an instant need to jump their bones. It was a predatory alteration so clever it was almost poetic. Why stalk your prey when you could get it to come to you, all hot and eager?
“Fredericks…what happened to you guys?” she prompted, not liking the way he looked at her. To the rest of the world she was like Friday the Thirteenth and the Second Coming all rolled into one. To him, she was probably lunch.
Fredericks shook his head and focused in on her again. A sad smile curved his lips. Her gaze flicked down for a second and she winced. He was covered in wounds. None of which seemed to be either bleeding or bothering him.
“You know this place. Live to serve, even when you’re not. Alive that is. Especially when you’re not alive. As for what happened… We got hit by the Lycans, then brought back to base.”
He took another step forward, the smile turning. She backed up a step, then realized her back had hit the wall. How had he gotten so close so fast?
“They didn’t wait for us to croak it. Kelwood was awake when they got us. Said it was some kind of new blend. Gotta have been—because there’s way more going on here than normal.”
He tapped at his temple and took the last step into range. His hand closed over the pistol and took it away. A small voice yammered in the back of her mind as Toni watched him, let him. What the hell was wrong with her? She couldn’t move, like she was hypnotized. Like something deep within her, something dark and dangerous and not human, recognized him and what he was. Something all the way dead, rather than near dead like her.
“The other guys down here say they’ve been using a new strain of RA to fuel this place…” He motioned to himself and the men with him, a look of disgust on his face. “Using us to… No, you don’t want to know.”
“The other guys? There are more of you?”
He stilled, his expression blank, and she knew where some of those wounds had come from. “Not anymore.”
She couldn’t help it. Empathy and sorrow welled up inside her, knocking out all her bad-ass bitch reactions as she put a hand on his arm. He snapped his head around, that freaky-sharp movement making her jump and then catch her breath. But not as much as the look in his eyes did.
In them was sorrow and anger. And something so alien her heart stilled. He stepped in to crowd her against the wall. His hand snapped out, closed around her throat. She stilled. Freeze, flight or fight. All her survival instincts were triggered with a mere look. These new Reanimates…they were dangerous. Way more dangerous than normal RAs.
“So pretty, even for a Blood.” His deep voice pulled at her, pulled at the virus wrapped around her cells. But it was a wrong attraction, like the virus reacting to him, not the woman. “Always thought so…”
He slid his hand up, forcing her chin higher, and his thumb stroked over the line of her jaw. She kept eye contact, looking for the slightest indication he was about to rip her throat out. She’d seen what they could do in the ring…
“C’mon boss, we gotta get out of here.” Fletcher shifted behind Fredericks. “Take care of the Blood and let’s get gone.”
“No!” Fredericks snarled over his shoulder, slamming his free hand into the wall by Toni’s head. “We’re not hurting her. S’not her fault…and we aren’t the monsters they turned us into. We have a choice.”
“No. You’re not monsters.” She saw her chance and clamped the back of his neck. Made him look at her. “None of us are. We don’t need to fight each other. It’s us against them. Against the Project.”
He shook his head.
“You. Not us. We’re too much of a liability. Only four of us left with the new virus. Kelwood heard ’em talking. It’s all they had left, synthesized from the blood of a successful subject. So if they don’t have us…”
“They can’t make more of you.” She nodded in understanding. They were a weapon, pure and simple. And one she couldn’t afford to let fall into Project hands again.
“Go on then, and no chomping on any civilians.”
Her lips quirked as he let her go. She stepped back, adding bravado she didn’t feel to her voice.
“Or I’ll have to track you down and kick your ass.”
A crooked smile split his lips, showing a brief flash of straight white teeth before he winked.