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The Alpha Men's Secret Club 5(6)



Could he survive this? The doctors were standing by for respiratory arrest. She was the one who made the hard decisions in the room.

“Push it up to 40.”

Her chest tightened.

Rust’s body spasmed violently in the throes of electric shock. Blood ran out of the side of his mouth despite the mouth guard.

Stan turned the dial down, and Rust’s body collapsed on the chair.

“Should we send the doctor in?” the enforcer asked.

“Wait.”

Alyssa checked Rust’s vital signs on the monitor. His EKG was all over the place, but once the current had abated, the rhythm was settling into a normal pattern.

“No, he’s OK.”

He was tough. Very tough. He raised his head once again and regarded her out of those impossibly green, glittering eyes.

Hate-filled eyes.

“Do 50,” she said.

Rust’s body shuddered and twitched like a livewire. And then it happened. The transformation. It was swift and brutal and violent.

In a matter of seconds, Rust’s body became the tiger’s. The tiger sprang out of the hospital shift and his bonds, breaking the wires and cables and straps which held him. The guards aimed their guns.

“Oh shit,” Stan said.

The tiger crashed his body against the glass chamber. The glass was fortified, but it still cracked with the impact. Jagged streaks ran through the surface.

The guards’ guns were all trained on the tiger.

There was a palpable buzz in the control room.

“Should we be alarmed?” said one of the scientists.

“No,” Alyssa said, more confidently than she felt. “The snipers will take him down.”

Please hold, she prayed to the gods of chamber glass.

The tiger crashed against the glass again, snarling and growling. The hatred in his green eyes was ferociously intensified. He had turned more beast than man now, and the beast was wounded, tortured and mad.

The glass cracked a little further.

It was amazing, Alyssa marveled. The glass was strong enough to withstand bullets.

The tiger rammed himself again and again at the glass, until it finally broke.

The first tranquilizer dart fired and struck the tiger in the forechest. However, this did not seem to stop the tiger as he bounded through the break. Amid showers of glass onto the floor, he sprang at Alyssa.

It was a magnificent leap, and it was done under a hail of further darts – all which pockmarked the tiger’s magnificent coat. But Alyssa and the scientists were further protected behind another wall of even more fortified glass for incidences like these.

The tiger struck this second layer of glass, and slid backward. He roared his rage and futility. He lifted his paw, and wavered on his balance. The drugs were taking effect. Alyssa and the scientists watched, hearts in their mouths, as the tiger swayed on his feet and finally – reluctantly – crashed onto his side on the floor.

Alyssa was heartsick. The tiger was such a proud, magnificent beast.

She watched as the doctors opened the door to the glass wall and rushed to the tiger, who was changing back to Rust’s human body. When the quick metamorphosis was complete, Rust lay there – eyes closed, naked and broken. Seven tranquilizer darts were embedded in his torso. Even more lay on the floor.

“Oh wow,” said Stan, leaning back into his chair. “What happens now?”

He hates me.

“We’ll let him mend,” Alyssa said. “I would imagine I’m not his favorite person right now.”

“No, I mean about the experimentation. What are you going to do next?”

Alyssa wrote down:



EXTREME PAIN (electrocution at 50 mAmp)

Transformation.

(Component of rage?)



She said, “I wonder how he would react to intense pleasure?”





6



Kate waited, as she always did, for her visitor at Finnegan’s.

When Rita Cunningham appeared, she was a totally different person. At least, she looked different. Her normally curly hair was now done up in waves. Instead of being a redhead, she was now blonde. Her clothes and shoes were different too, and she now wore makeup.

Rita Cunningham, the most famous investigative journalist in the world, had turned into a total sophisticate.

“Hi, Kate.”

“Hi, Rita.”

Kate almost expected Rita to air kiss her cheeks, but luckily, Rita settled for her usual handshake.

“You look good,” Rita said. And then she did a double take when she saw Kate’s swollen belly. “Woah.”

“Woah is right. Sit down, please. God knows I need to.”

“Yes, you’d better.” Rita sat down on the high stool cautiously. “Obviously, this happened . . . lessee . . . at least four months ago?”

“Yes. I’ve tried to keep it under wraps. But I don’t think I can anymore. That’s why I need your help.”