"Who could you possibly give m-" Dice started with a snort, but the rest of his derisive comment died in his throat as his eyes went wide, flashing the threatening dark brown of his bear as the realization settled upon him. "You can't be fucking serious."
"I am," Spade said, unflappable as ever.
"She's dead. She's been dead for five years," Dice said, pushing himself off the tree and crossing the space between him and the intel officer turned the living incarnation of the reaper with fast strides.
"She's not. And I can prove it. Interested now?" Spade asked, smoothing his expression into one that told Dice nothing at all.
His stomach twisted as he pulled a hand through his hair, feeling the sweat slick against his fingers.
He has to be full of shit. It can't be possible. Meredith …
"Talk to me," Dice said, his eyes dark brown and focused on Spade like laser sights.
"I knew you'd come around," Spade said, smirking.
The whole thing about kicking Spade's ass seemed more and more inviting as time went by.
Two
Meredith
Five months later …
"I'm going, I'm going. Settle down, Chip," Meredith said, moving to the armored vehicle faster now, which of course didn't stop Chip from shoving her in the back with his rifle.
It was funny how that didn't even faze her anymore. Like he'd shoot her. Like any of them would do a thing to harm a hair on her head, despite all the smack they talked. Meredith rolled her eyes slightly, stopping in front of the car and putting her hands out in front of her for Thyne to tie up with a loop of plastic that cinched hard around her wrists, but not hard enough to cut off blood flow or cause any permanent damage.
"So where are we going today?" she asked, sounding almost casual as Thyne shoved her into the backseat and pulled the belt over her body, securing her in place with her hands stuck in her lap. "Or is it super secret and I'm not supposed to know?"
"Vermont, I think. Funnily enough. Hey, it should be nice there right now, huh? Snowy and picturesque and whatever," Thyne said with a chuckle, jumping in next to her, though he didn't put the belt on.
"Yeah, that's what I need. A bit of winter wonderland to make all this freaking jungle bullshit seem like a bad nightmare," Chip snorted, slamming the door shut and climbing into the passenger seat in front.
Ordie was driving today. As far as Meredith knew, he'd lost his twin a few years ago and the werewolf hadn't been quite the same since then. Not that she could really tell. All of The Arctics' soldiers basically looked the same. If they weren't blonde and blue-eyed originally – designating werewolves from the higher polar areas – then they either dyed their hair and wore contacts to blend in or were embracing their 'specialness' and ran with it.
But none of the guys who weren't from the polar regions could ever become more than simple foot soldiers in the sick and twisted organization that was The Arctics.
It was one of many tidbits the young cellular chemist would have rather not known.
"When's the flight?" she asked, stifling a yawn.
"In the morning. We're getting there now since the drive is smoother at night," Thyne said conversationally enough, relaxing against the stiff leather of the seats.
They were travelling in a large armored vehicle, some sort of a Humvee as far as Meredith could tell, and the jungle roads they were traversing through were a challenge for even that kind of heavy machinery. Best Meredith could tell, she was in some sort of a Peruvian jungle, at least considering the species she'd been studying over the past six months.
About once a year The Arctics, her unwanted benefactors and unofficial owners, would fly her out into some new and kooky location, force her to do research she didn't want to do, and then occasionally fly into scarcely disclosed locations to defend whatever she'd been doing for the past stretch of time. It was sort of starting to become a habit.
At least this time it was the jungle. She vastly preferred the heat and the humidity over the freezing cold of the polar South, which was where she'd gotten to spend her last stint. All in all, if it had been her choice, she wouldn't have been using The Arctics' 'vacation' planning services.
But it isn't your choice, she reminded herself dully, resting her head back and closing her eyes.
It had been an exhausting day for Meredith Wilder. She'd been up since the crack of dawn, trying to get two rather fluorescent looking slugs to mate while under extreme duress, and it had gotten only weirder as the day went on. But oddly enough, it was by far not the most remarkable day she'd had so far, not by a long shot. Then again, five years of indentured servitude to some of the most dastardly terrorists the world currently had to offer did that to a girl.
Expand your horizons. Meet new and wonderful people. Figure out how to kill them from a distance, she recited under her breath, remembering the little motto she and a number of the other captured scientists had come up with during the frigid South experiments.
This time, she was all alone, with the rest of the crew being made up of The Arctics' loyals or foot soldiers. The closest thing she could get to a decent conversation was discussing hockey with the guards, but even they were strongly biased towards the all-wolf teams, so it really didn't make for good arguments. You didn't want to piss off a guy who could kill you in twenty-seven ways before you could finish your sentence, after all.
The compound, a sprawling location that almost looked like a jungle resort from a distance by the way it blended into the valley, disappeared from sight and the pitch darkness of the jungle took over. Her eyes fell shut again, the long day taking its toll.
Meredith must have fallen asleep because when she was thrown towards the front seat at a high speed, the belt catching her painfully in the chest, it came as a complete surprise.
"What the hell!" she screeched, heaving for breath as she struggled to understand what was going on.
The vehicle had driven into a deep ditch, tottering precariously over the edge. Thyne seemed to be out cold, seeing as he'd flown from the back seat and into the windshield. His body was slumped over the center console but Meredith could make no guesses on whether or not he was alive. Those werewolves were tough motherfuckers. Sometimes it seemed like it would take a lot more than a broken spine to slow them down.
"What the fuck," Ordie growled, grabbing for his rifle above his head, though he was sporting a giant shiner and probably a broken nose where his face had hit the steering wheel. "Get up, get out," he hissed at Chip, who seemed to be about as disoriented as Meredith was.
"Right," Chip muttered in response. "Thyne's out."
"I can see that," Ordie said, his voice strained with aggravation as he wiped blood from his eyes.
"Is anyone going to tell me what the hell's going on here?" Meredith asked, frantically trying to undo the clip on her belt with her tied hands.
Her ribs hurt like hell but the belt had kept her from any more serious damage. Before anyone could give her an answer though, both of the front doors were ripped open and Chip and Ordie were pulled from their seats like they weighed little more than sacks of flour.
"Knock, knock. Santa's here," someone called, marked by a scream that sounded like Chip's, and then a dull sound like something had been dropped from a great height.
Meredith couldn't see a thing in the darkness, the headlamps of the vehicle lighting up the front of the car but that only showed a drop of about ten feet.
She heard footsteps thumping over the roof of the car and she quieted immediately, whimpering under her breath as she finally got the belt open. There was only one way she could try to get out, because Thyne's legs were blocking the door away from her. She fumbled with the handle but found the door locked, of course, making her crawl over Thyne in an attempt to make it to the front of the car and out of one of the open doors.
Whoever owned that voice was scaring her witless. The guy hadn't sounded human, more monster than man, and that was something coming from a woman who'd spent half a decade surrounded by fundamentalist nutjobs.
Her frantic clambering was halted by the very distinct sound of twin gunshots and a low snicker coming from one of those … whatever they were that had dragged her guards, her captors, out. A flashlight shone into the car and it blinded Meredith, making her hold up a hand and look away.