Cats Got Your Tongue (Shifter Squad Six) (16 page)

“Glad you have your priorities straight.” Kelis scoffed with a wide grin.

“Got to preserve energy, after all. We have to make sure that you never get the silly idea that being away from us is something reasonable,” Grant said, giving her a stern look, though his lips were curled in a smile.

“Hey, that’s not how it went!” she protested slightly.

“Shh. Don’t test the cougars,” Grim said with a wink. “Unless you want to feel the consequences.”

Kelis bit her lower lip, grinning mischievously. So what if she did?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Grant

The room was tense with emotion as Grant stood watch like an angered gargoyle, arms crossed over his chest, keeping a stern eye on everything that was going on in the room. Kelis was sitting on the windowsill, exchanging worried glances between Grant, Grim, and the babies, probably feeling bad for the med techs. Grim was reclining in a chair, obviously uncomfortable with the whole thing, but still there for support as Grant knew he would be.

“Careful with that,” Grant told the young redhead poking a needle into Dylan’s arm to get a blood sample. “You better not miss the vein.”

The last bit came out like more of a threat than he’d meant it to, a slight growl in his tone, but he saw a flash of a grin on Kelis’s lips at the sound of it.

As long as the mother’s happy,
he thought with some dark sense of satisfaction, not managing to really keep his eyes off of the radiant woman.

She was positively glowing now, much more at peace with the world after their long talks the day before, as well as the hours of fucking. It had done everyone good, obviously, but now was no time to dwell on those very happy memories. Instead they had to focus on the task at hand, making sure none of these lab monkeys laid a finger on his kids that could harm them in any way.

“Grant, you really need to calm down,” Doctor Reynolds said,
tsking
under his breath.

He was a tall, severe-looking man, with horn-rimmed glasses and in gray slacks and a white button-up. Grant knew him as an earnest and careful man, a lynx shifter from what he’d heard, and while he would have trusted his own life in his hands, his kids were a whole other matter entirely.

“I just don’t want the boys getting hurt,” he said, the inkling of a sigh in his admission.

“They’re tough kids, Grant. I don’t think a lot of things could hurt them,” Reynolds said with a chuckle, marking down Dante’s and Dylan’s weights and heights.

He showed the sheet to Grant briefly and Grant had to cock a brow at the speed they were growing. It was obvious enough looking at them, but hard numbers had always spoken to him and made things all the more clear.

“Still, the point remains,” Grant said, moving a bit to watch another tech take a hair sample from Dante. “So, Doc, you want to tell me what you’ve found? The abnormalities, chemical composition of their blood, anything? What is it that’s causing this?”

Reynolds pursed his lips slightly, nodding at the tech holding up the blood samples in lieu of asking whether he could go run them. The aging man stepped closer to the table holding his laptop, flicking it open and browsing around until coming upon the file he was looking for. Grant walked over as Reynolds beckoned him, pointing at the screen as he slowly scrolled past a lengthy medical text.

“I have it written up and I can send it to you. But the best I can tell is that it’s very similar to what The Arctics were doing to those soldiers in Haygrove. It appears they’ve found some compound or a collection of compounds that strengthens muscle tone, reflexes, and alertness in general in adults, but it comes with certain side-effects.”

“Like anger management, deformity, insanity?” Grim asked dryly, obviously remembering the hulking beast back in Detroit that had taken most of Squad Six to gun down.

“Exactly,” Reynolds replied, looking sheepish for a moment before his professional façade fell neatly back in place. “But in infants, or in this case children who have always had this in their blood thanks to their mother being exposed to it, they react differently. It seems like it binds itself to the very act of growing up, speeding it up, sort of. But every time we have them in here, we see less and less of it in their blood.

“And it’s not entirely the same as what we saw with the soldiers. With them, it was imperative that we remove it from their active bloodstream through a series of blood transfusions and washing their blood, but so far we haven’t noticed any adverse effects with Dylan and Dante.”

“That’s good news though, right?” Grim queried.

But Grant caught the sliver of worry on Reynolds’s face, causing him to frown. Something was most definitely not all good in this scene.

“You want to expand on that ‘so far,’ Reynolds?”

Again, Grant saw that slight pursing of the lips and the furrowing of the man’s brow which could mean nothing good.

“I think we should talk alone, Grant.”

That certainly got everyone worried. Kelis’s pretty blue eyes went wide with alarm and Grim threw himself out of the chair, nostrils flaring.

“I think it would be best if you told all of us,” Grant said, watching Kelis rush to the boys, now playing happily with a couple of stuffed toys the techs had left them as they skittered out.

Reynolds stroked his chin for a moment, looking none too pleased with the situation, but as his weary eyes met Grant’s, Grant silently implored him to tell him what he knew. His heart was already beating hard in his chest, worry constricting it. With a sigh, Reynolds fell into the chair, looking up at the frazzled parents.

“All right. What I think is happening is that because the boys are not subjected to the chemical anymore and they only have what is in their blood, they will at one point ‘run out’ of it.”

“But isn’t that a good thing?” Kelis asked. “They would be… normal?”

Reynolds shook his head.

“They’ll never be like other kids. Their bodies have formed a dependence on this compound. I think that with careful dosing, the simplest thing to ensure them a calm and happy life would be shots of the compound whenever they ‘run out’ on their own. The problem is, they’re growing now, so the body gobbles up whatever resources they have. It’ll happen all through adolescence, or whenever they reach their full height. After that, as adults, I believe they wouldn’t need anything additional at all. They’d simply be… stronger. Bigger. Faster. Better than us.”

Grant looked at his happy twin boys, playing some kind of game with the stuffed bears, and his heart just about broke thinking that their future might not be cloudless.

“And what do you think will happen if they don’t get any additional doses of this… chemical?”

“We call if PX-45. I think what will happen, and soon, is that their body will start breaking down the tissue already formed to get at the stores of the compound.”

“You’re saying their bodies will start breaking down?” Kelis asked, pure horror on her face now.

Reynolds hesitated for a moment, sharing a look with Grant, and Grant knew he meant exactly that. His gut felt like it had been loaded up with stones and his throat went dry as parchment, his tongue feeling like it would never utter another word again.

“I fear that may happen, yes.”

“So can’t we inject more of this stuff? Like, we got some from Detroit, didn’t we? The techie we held up there… he must know how to make this shit!” Grim said, obviously aggravated, walking over to Kelis and putting his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to soothe her.

It didn’t do much good, seeing as Grim himself was practically shaking with rage and worry.

“The powder we got from Detroit was close, yes, but not the same. The Arctics have improved on it and we don’t quite know how,” Reynolds said, sounding apologetic.

“I hope you’re at least fucking
trying
,” Grim snarled, his eyes flashing gold.

Grant’s own cougar roared at that, an Alpha’s first instincts being to protect his mate and his young, but Grant quelled that anger and tried to channel his rational mind instead. He couldn’t lose his cool. Not now. Not when it could mean losing his boys!

“So we need to get more,” Grant said simply. “Right now.”

“Hey, let’s not be hasty here. Nothing has to happen. Perhaps I’m wrong. It could just be that they run out of the compound and the body weans itself off of it. Children are surprisingly resilient. Especially your two.”

Grant gave the man a hard, pointed look, the beast in him struggling to burst free.

“You really think that’s what’s going to happen?” he asked, keeping his voice cool and calm.

“It could,” Reynolds said, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes, looking far less than convincing.

“I’m not buying it,” Grim said with all the hurt and determination to fix things.

When the same redheaded med tech arrived at the door a moment later, looking meek and crestfallen, Grant knew that the worst had already begun. Reynolds looked up and their eyes met with the tech and right then and there, Grant knew that he had entered the fight of his lifetime. And this time, he couldn’t afford to lose.

“Come on,” he said to Grim and Kelis, walking over and picking up Dante. “We need to go.”

He was walking toward the door already when Grim caught up with him, carrying Dylan.

“Where are we going?” Kelis asked, running after him.

“We’re going to fix this. Now.”

So help him, Grant would make things right or die trying. If there was one thing he was not willing to do, it was to watch his boys suffer. No matter that he hadn’t been there the whole time to see them grow, he already loved them with all his heart. Nothing would stop him. Nothing should dare.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Grim

It was a cold night, the wind nipping through his light clothing as Grim made his way through the underbrush somewhere slightly north of the Canadian border. There was some static in his ear from the communications device and his rifle felt comfortable in his hands, but something wasn’t right.

It wasn’t anything around him. It was quiet and he could see the chain-link fence up ahead, glistening in the moonlight as he caught sight of it through the trees. No, it was in him. He didn’t feel right.

A week had passed since they’d found about the boys’ blood samples showing signs of deterioration. For the first few days, nothing had happened, and then everything had started to unfurl. Dylan was the first to start coughing and having difficulty breathing, and Dante followed. Then came the cold sweats, the tremors, the muscle weakness, and then bleeding from their eyes, noses, and ears.

There was nothing quite as horrific as watching your child suffer. Grim had once almost lost his left arm and had to have it essentially reattached in a tent in Afghanistan, but that had been nothing compared to the anguish that threatened to choke him alive every time he looked at Dylan’s or Dante’s confused little faces, twisted with pain. There wasn’t even anything to soothe them with.

The scientists were working around the clock, but they hadn’t managed to synthesize something resembling PX-45 for a year now. They wouldn’t do it overnight. Even if it meant losing their most valuable assets, as Spade liked to refer to Grim’s sons.

“Grim, are you in place?” Tex’s voice came over the comm, the werewolf shifter being right across from him at the other end of the compound now.

“I am,” he replied.

They’d dropped the use of their code names this time. It didn’t matter. All the gear was their own and as far as The Firm was concerned, they were out on a bender with Tex and Thatch, while Grant and Kelis and the rest of the squad was still in San Francisco, guarding by the babies’ bedsides.

“Lock and load,” came the familiar call, and despite himself, Grim grinned a little.

“Lock and load,” he replied, pulling out the fence cutters and quickly making a path for himself.

“You have two minutes to get in and out, starting… now,” Thames said, working as the lookout and backup.

Grim burst into action, running at full speed through the small yard and heading for the door secured with a padlock from the outside. There were guards circling the perimeter, but there weren’t many and they tended to wander far. But they had a very distinct pattern, one that did not take long to figure out.