She opened her eyes—Agent Smith sat next to her in that same spinning office chair. Only this time he looked pissed. A glance down at her body, showed she was back to human. She had no recollection of shifting—it must’ve happened while she was out.
Agent Smith loomed closer with his angry face. “I need you to shift again, Grace.”
She scowled at him. “What? Did you spill all the blood you took the first time?”
He spoke through gritted teeth. “Your shifting ability is apparently unstable even when you’re unconscious. You had the annoying tendency of shifting back and forth. Then you shifted human and stayed that way.” He glared at her like he thought she had foiled him on purpose.
“I was unconscious. It’s not like I could control it.” She gave him a look like he was a nutjob. Which he obviously was.
She needed to focus on getting out of this mess, but her thoughts kept drifting to Jared. The idea of him being dead just surged tears to her eyes and threatened to break her heart into pieces. He was just starting to live again… her wolf broke out into a pitiful cry. Grace had to shove her mind away from those thoughts. She could mourn Jared properly once she was free. Or find him… she still held out the faintest of hopes that he had survived. Shifters were tough, and that man was the toughest she had ever seen. Marine tough. But she had to acknowledge the reality—she was on her own here. No one was coming to rescue her.
Agent Smith rose up from his chair and loomed over the gurney. “Are you going to shift for me again, Grace? Or do I need to persuade you?”
The gush of fear was back, but her rising anger fought against it. “You had your chance. I’m not playing your games anymore!”
He snarled and reached over to somewhere she couldn’t see… then came back with something that glinted silver in his hand. She twisted to take a look—the scalpel caught the overhead lights in its stainless steel polish.
“Wait…” she said, suddenly finding it hard to breathe. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, just grabbed hold of her hand, which was bound by a leather cuff, flipped it over to expose the back, and quickly whipped the scalpel across it. A sharp pain jumped from her hand and raced up her arm.
She couldn’t help crying out, more from the shock than the pain. She lifted her head and stared with horror at the blossoming red line. Agent Smith wiped the blood from the scalpel on a small cloth and dropped it next to her.
“Too bad your human blood doesn’t have quite the same properties as your shifter blood. But I’m quite willing to extract as much of it as necessary to get you to shift.”
The stinging pain of the slice quickly faded. But when she didn’t shift immediately, Agent Smith took another swipe across her hand, making her cry out again.
“You sick fuck!” The pain faded quickly again—she’d always healed super fast from her scrapes and sprains as a child. She knew it was a shifter trait, so she had kept it hidden from her father. But even at a young age, she knew it was unusual.
Agent Smith had this twisted look on his face. “Don’t talk dirty to me, Ms. Krepky.” He snorted at his own joke, but it sent even more chills through her. He retrieved the cloth to wipe the scalpel again and swiped roughly at her hand to clear away the blood.
Then he stared at the back of her hand.
Grace knew the cuts would be gone by now, probably leaving behind faint white lines like they usually did.
A frown slowly morphed his face from the sick, twisted look of enjoyment to one so intense it freaked her out even more. Then he slammed her hand down flat to the gurney and dove into it with the scalpel.
The pain was insane… like he was cutting off her hand! A scream ripped her throat.
He pulled back, holding the bloody scalpel aloft. Shaking with horror, she lifted her head to look—massive amounts of blood gushed up to obscure most of her hand, but the bone and fleshy stubs of muscle were sticking out. Her stomach lurched at the sight. But as she watched, the muscles writhed like snakes, stitching themselves back together. The rest was lost under a coating of blood.
Agent Smith stared open-mouthed at her hand. Then he grabbed the cloth again and roughly scrubbed away the blood. It hurt a little because she was still healing, but by the time he wiped the blood away, she could tell without looking that it was fixed.
The horror on his face would’ve been gratifying, except he still held the bloody scalpel aloft, and that sent lightning strikes of terror through her body.
“Extraordinary,” he whispered, still staring at her now-healed hand. He slowly dragged his gaze up to hers. “You heal very quickly, Ms. Krepky.”