“I tried to warn you, Piper, but you never did listen to me. You always had to find the deepest trouble you could get into, didn’t you?” His dark eyes stared hard at her.
She returned his glare. “I knew you were a monster, but even I didn’t think you were capable of this. How can you not care about your own son?”
“Noah is serving his country now in a way that only a shifter could. If I could’ve found a way to get you into the program sooner, I would have, but you insisted on being out of the country in obscure locations most of the time.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you.” But she still didn’t understand what he meant, and why he’d be willing to sacrifice Noah to his ambitions in such a glaringly obvious way. “What are the Feds doing here? And what are they doing to the shifters?”
“Nothing they didn’t volunteer for. Including your brother.”
“Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true. You can ask him yourself.” The Colonel had a twisted kind of pride on his face.
Piper snarled. “He would’ve told me if he was planning to enter some dark program for shifters in the military. You must’ve tricked him into it.”
“There was a small deception, I will admit. I needed to know if he was even qualified for the program first. I told him it would only be a day or two to travel the center in Afghanistan where we were processing soldiers. But when he tested so well—his blood an ideal match for many of our other test subjects—well…” The Colonel shrugged. “That’s when he had an opportunity to serve his country like he never had before.”
“You mean that’s when it became involuntary.” Piper could too easily see Noah not telling her that he was following the Colonel’s command for a special assignment. Especially if it was Top Secret. She would disapprove and try to talk him out of it—and probably go straight to the Colonel to complain, getting Noah busted even more. She wished like crazy he had trusted her… and given her a chance to warn him. Noah probably thought he was protecting her. Damn him.
“What have you done to all these people?” She gestured at the dozens of cages. “And what the hell makes you think you can get away with it?”
“I don’t have to get away with anything,” the Colonel said with a smirk. “This research is fully sanctioned at the highest levels of power.” He leaned closer to the bars. “And they’re not all shifters, Piper. At least, not yet.” He leaned away. “You might be able to help with that, once we have a chance to test your blood to see if you’re a good match.”
She frowned. “You taking shifter blood and… What? Injecting it into ordinary humans?” What the hell was her father doing? Creating new shifters?
“On the modern battlefield, there are no weapons that are off-limits,” the Colonel said, puffing out his ridiculously-decorated chest, a full battalion of medals that he kept on display at all times. “Genetic warfare is the latest stealth weapon of choice, and we’re not going to win unless we’re willing to go as far as the enemy goes. And a little bit further.”
“You mean you’re willing to do whatever’s necessary to rise up in the ranks and earn more chest candy?” All this talk of the battlefield and patriotism was bullshit. She knew her father. This was serving his ambition in some way.
“Disabling enemy shifters is just as important as creating our own shifter fighting force,” the Colonel said with a sneer. “And that kind of technology doesn’t come without a price.”
“One you’re happy to have other people pay.” Her loathing for him couldn’t possibly run any deeper. She was tempted to reach through the bars and scratch his face, but then she remembered she couldn’t shift at all.
“Once Senator Krepky has his registration laws in place, it will be even easier to identify possible contributors to the cause.” Her father lifted one eyebrow. “Although I suspect, being in the Senator’s office frequently, you already knew that was in play. Now that you’re here, you’ll get to see, up close and personal, how the whole program is going to work. When all’s said and done, I’m really quite pleased to see you here, Piper. Maybe I’ll finally have some use for you, after all.”
She just shook her head—she’d run out of words for the horror that was her own father. “We will stop you,” she said finally, even if she had no idea how that would happen at the moment.
The Colonel laughed. “Given that you’re in a fairly small cage, Piper, you might want to learn how to cooperate for once.” Then he turned his back on her and strolled toward the medical suites, probably joining up with his minion Agent Smith for more diabolical planning.