A sickening dread ran through her with those words. She lifted her trembling chin to him. “It’s just what shifters do.”
His eyes widened a little. “You’ve been isolated. Kept away from other shifters. What would you know about what shifters can do… and not.” He almost was talking to himself, not to her.
She scowled, but at least he was putting the scalpel down. Then he seemed to think better of that and snatched it back up again, holding it up to her face.
She shrunk away, crying out an inarticulate sound of fear. “Stop!”
He got in her face, close enough to smell his foul breath. “Shift!” he demanded, his lips twitching with anger and a bizarre kind of insanity.
“Okay, I will, I swear!” She squeezed her eyes shut, turning away from him and focusing on calling her wolf. A moment later, she had shifted, but she was still trapped on the gurney with bindings at her feet and hands that seemed to shrink to her form. A wide leather strap across her chest also held her down.
She looked back to Agent Smith, to make sure he had put away the scalpel. He had taken several steps back, looking at her with wide eyes again, this time in shock. “You shifted,” he whispered to himself.
Wasn’t that what he wanted? Fuck, this guy was straight-up crazy.
He pointed the scalpel at her but kept his distance. “Shift back to human!” he ordered.
She did, struggling to worm her way back into her clothes during the shift. Her skirt managed to stay in place during the change, but her blouse was half off her shoulder, and her bra was down around her waist. She was in danger of being exposed, but that was the least of her problems.
Agent Smith stalked over with the scalpel, brandishing it in front of her face again. “I gave you the suppressor! How are you still able to shift?” Spittle was forming at the edges of his mouth. “What’s so special about you, Grace? What is this… this… unnatural ability to heal? Is it related to your rare pigment? Have you always had this ability?”
At least she could answer that last one. “Yes, as long as I can remember. I’ve always healed pretty much instantly.” She hoped that would keep the scalpel from coming closer.
But his eyes continued to hold a kind of horror. “This isn’t something to cure,” he said, talking to himself again. “This is way too valuable.” He snapped his fingers, excited about some thought inside his crazy head. “The serums… the side effects… this would eliminate them.” He looked back to her with wild eyes. “Our attempts to create super soldiers have been hapless at best. The subjects are hard-pressed to withstand the change. But if they had this ability—this enhanced healing ability of yours—then there is literally nothing we couldn’t do.”
Her mouth dropped open. Super soldiers? What the hell?
The crazy in his eyes just simmered up to high. “How far does this super healing of yours go?”
“I… I don’t know…” She was having a hard time breathing.
“Maybe we need to find out.”
He came at her with the scalpel again.
She screamed until she was hoarse… and prayed someone would hear.
Jared cruised into the nondescript office building as if he actually belonged there.
Piper had worked up an ID for him, complete with his photo and all the right security protocols, but it was nine o’clock at night and pretty suspicious for him to be straggling into work.
Or maybe not, given this was an NSA building. They must have all kinds of unconventional activities. But security also had to be tight. His cover story of visiting from another division with some kind of high clearance waiver to get inside without an escort would hopefully hold up. It wasn’t far from the truth, given Piper had pulled in all her favors to make this happen. Jared didn’t know what the NSA was up to or how Agent Smith could be conducting secret experiments on shifters without them knowing, but everything was compartmentalized in intelligence. The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, most of the time, by design. So it was possible Agent Smith had gone off book, and his activities weren’t officially sanctioned, at least by the NSA.
Clearly the Senator approved.
A guard with a badge that read “Johnson” gave Jared a dark-eyed stare as he passed the ID through the scanner. Jared hadn’t brought a weapon of any kind—Piper had warned him about the weapons scanner. Even if he was permitted to carry, they might check the registration. Which would not bode well for actually getting past the checkpoint.
“Good evening,” Jared said, trying to appear cool yet friendly. Definitely not someone sneaking in with falsified ID.