Justus (2 page)

Something crunched in the
woods nearby. He could hear men talking. After he finished chewing
his mushrooms, he moved in for a closer look.

“I’m telling you something is
out here,” one man said and pointed to another. “I found some bones
picked clean. Too clean. It ain’t like I’ve never seen an animal
chewed by something bigger before.”

Justus winced. They were
likely talking about the rabbit he’d eaten the other day.

“You think those Luna freaks
are behind it?” A little guy carrying a rifle stepped up to the
other two.

The largest of the three men
shrugged. “Maybe.”

The Luna hybrids weren’t
behind it, but these men hated them about as much as he did.

Justus weighed the options.
Maybe if he just spoke to them, he’d be able to get himself off the
streets and away from Luna Lodge.

“They are up to no good over
there,” he said.

Justus had to agree. They
claimed to be the good guys, but that didn’t really explain why
he’d been locked up before he’d even done anything, all but accused
of being some sort of Horatius Group spy without proof. No good was
exactly what they seemed to be up to.

Maybe it was the fault of
that damned Remus. The playboy hybrid liked to think he had
everything under control, but given Luna’s contact with the Group,
there was no way they weren’t going to overreact when they realize
who they’d captured.

“Brother John said not to
spend much time on this,” the smallest man said. “We got other
things to work on.”

He’d heard the name John
mentioned before. He didn’t know much other than the fact the Luna
Lodge hybrids thought him an enemy. But their enemies weren’t his
enemies.

Being locked up just meant
that he had all the time in the world to listen and pick up such
information. Not all of it was useful, but he picked up what he
could while he waited to make his move. When the Group attacked the
lodge, Justus ran. As far as he was concerned, he’d let his enemies
kill each other.

A part of him wanted to
reveal himself, to let the men know he was on their side, but
uncertainty ate at him. Strangers were still strangers.

A wave of hunger struck, and
he teetered a little. His foot moved to the left and snapped a loud
twig.

The men froze.

“Who the fuck is out there?”
one of the men shouted.

Justus debated his options
and decided to just do it. He stepped out into the clearing.

“I agree with you on the
lodge men,” Justus said and raised his hands above his head. “They
held me prisoner there.”

“Shit,” the little one said
and aimed his gun at Justus. “Look at the size of that bastard.
He’s one of them.”

“We got to be sure,” one of
the other man said, his voice unsteady.

Justus tensed. This
conversation was definitely not unfolding as he had hoped.

“They can be all sorts,” the
other man said. “Our brothers have seen it. All rotten in the
inside, no matter what human skin they wear as a disguise. See
those yellow eyes. He’s one of them for sure. The Devil marks his
own in the eyes. They say they glow when the Devil’s commanding
‘em.”

Justus frowned, confused. He
wasn’t a Luna Lodge hybrid, and though his eyes did glow when he
experienced extreme emotion, it certainly didn’t have anything to
do with the Devil.

“You’re an abomination under
God,” the largest of the men said, raising a gun. “I condemn you to
hell, seed of Satan.”

He jerked to the side as the
man pulled a trigger. Slow, too slow.

The loud report of the gun
rang out in the twilight. Pain lanced through him.

“Got ‘em,” the man laughed
loudly.

He sprinted off, the man
shouting behind him.

Another crack of gunfire rang
out. Pain poured through his leg, but he gritted his teeth, doing
his best to ignore it, and continued to run. If he didn’t put some
distance between himself and the men, he’d be dead before
morning.

Chapter Three

Paige frowned as she
looked out the window at the jeep driving up her path. There was
only one group of people in town she knew who drove vehicles like
that, and today was not the day she wanted to deal with them.

She looked longingly over her
shoulder at the roast cooling on the stove. After two glasses of
wine, all she wanted to do was eat dinner, put her feet up and
enjoy a show or two. Maybe she’d try to forget all the crap from
the day if possible.

A minute or so later, a loud
knock came at the door, and she sighed. The roast would have to
wait, so she could deal with the ultimate cause of her current
employment problem.

She opened the door and
sighed at the sight of a huge man.

Unsurprisingly, Titus stood
on the other side of her old screen door with Rachel, the doctor at
the lodge. Even though she was a normal human, she’d ended up with
a hybrid, Marius. Just another one of the women who’d succumbed to
the charms of the admittedly impressive men there.

“I told you she’d be pissed,”
Rachel said and raised a brow to Titus.

The leader of the Luna Lodge
hybrids looked slightly flustered despite his suave and dark Native
appearance.

Paige gave a smile to the
doctor she’d come to both like and respect during her time at the
lodge.

“I see you haven’t stopped
giving him hell,” Paige said and nodded to Titus, who only seemed
more uncomfortable following their exchange.

Rachel sighed and rolled her
eyes.

“He thought he’d have a
better chance of being heard by you if he brought me,” Rachel
said.

Paige looked over to Titus.
He responded with a sheepish smile back, and then his face twitched
into a more serious expression, as if he seemed to realize he was
the one in charge of the trip out and not the mouthy doctor beside
him. He straightened himself and shot Rachel a stern frown.

“How is Kate doing?” Paige
asked before he could get out their reason for coming.

She really didn’t want to
have to turn them down again. It had been hard enough the first
time. Plus, with the threat of termination from the hospital
looming over her, she might be tempted to accept if they offered
her another job. And all her reasons for leaving to begin with were
still valid.

Paige sighed and opened the
door a little wider. Standing there talking on the front porch
wasn’t ideal since the weather had changed recently. The cold air
chilled her and forced out all the nice, warm air she’d created
with her roast.

He paled a little. “Kate’s
doing well,” he said and stepped through the open door.

Rachel let out a bark of
laughter and followed close behind. “The little wife is nearly
ready to pop with those babies and about as crabby as could be
expected,” she said. “Soon he’s going to have his hands full, and
he’s scared shitless.”

If it were possible, Titus
paled even more as he sat in the chair beside the couch. Rachel
took a seat on the couch.

Paige gave him a tender smile
and leaned forward a little.

“You’ll be fine,” she said.
“You’ve got a whole village to help.”

Her words seemed to calm him,
and she smiled. It was nice to be helpful. The Luna men always
seemed slightly lost, adrift in the human world they’d been thrust
into, and it tugged at her heart. Despite the danger, she envied
their closeness. They may have had a hierarchy and leaders, but in
the end, they were more like an extended family in many ways than a
group of super-soldiers.

“Yes, well,” he said and
cleared his throat. “We’re here for two reasons.”

Paige frowned a little and
sat on the couch near the doctor.

“Have you heard from Justus?”
Titus asked.

Paige stared for a moment
before speaking. She’d seen the handsome man in the room they used
as a makeshift prison near the clinic. It was one of the things
that just never seemed to sit right: holding Remus and Justus as
prisoners because they might be associated with the Horatius
Group.

She knew the Group was bad
and ruthless, but it just seemed shameful to lock up men who had
obviously been through so much already.

The haunting look she
remembered from Justus could only be an indication as to the
horrors he’d been subjected to.

She shook her head no to
answer Titus’s question.

“Did he escape?” she
said.

Titus winced at her words.
“He left during some of the commotion.”

“We want you back,” Rachel
said, looking over to her. “You know how understaffed we are. We
need you now more than ever.”

Paige knew how much they
needed her, but that was the problem really. The last person that
had come to work in the Luna Lodge clinic from the outside tried to
kill them.

The committee jerk from the
earlier phone call hadn’t been wrong. The hybrids were under
constant attack. The chances of another nurse being crazy enough to
accept and deal with working in such an environment were slim to
none.

Paige shook her head.

“As I said before, I just
can’t,” she said and looked between the two of them. “I really care
for the people there, but I just can’t. It’s too much. It’s…too
much excitement.”

Rachel looked over to Titus.
The calm expressions on their faces suggested they both had
expected the answer.

“What if we paid more?” Titus
asked.

Paige considered the offer.
It was tempting. Her bills were mounting, and there was no telling
when her sister would be back to help with that. If she did lose
her job at the hospital, things would get very rough. She’d likely
be hoping for something like this.

Still, that didn’t change
anything. Money wouldn’t help if the Horatius Group attacked again,
especially if she got caught up in the incident.

“Well,” Rachel said and
stood. “You’ve heard your options. I think we should be going—”

Titus frowned. “You didn’t
even give her time to answer.”

Rachel snorted as he
stood.

“She’s not going to sign up
today,” Rachel said with a sigh. “We just need to give her a little
time.” She managed a small smile. “She’ll come when she’s
ready.”

Titus stood and glanced
between them. He wrinkled his forehead, clearly unsure about the
conversation.

“If you say so,” Titus said
and shook his head.

Paige wanted to reassure him
they would find someone to help, but the truth was, she
couldn’t.

When she’d been asked to help
out, more than a few staff members had been sorry for her, and
several had said they wouldn’t help either because they thought it
was too dangerous or because they didn’t want to have to work
closely with the “freaks” in the woods.

In the end, most had only
done their duty at the town hospital when treating any of the
hybrids because they were curious, not out of a great sense of
duty.

Well, most of them. She could
think of a few who seemed to not be so disgusted with the idea of
working with the hybrids, but that was before the most recent
danger. No reasonable person would want to work for them now.

Maybe when the whole review
was over, she’d look at getting them the help they needed. Being
short on medical staff was one of the worst things they could have
at this moment, and she didn’t want to see anything happen to them.
If things just stayed calm for a while, people might be more
trusting as well.

Titus stepped out the door
and walked back to the jeep without a word. Paige stopped in the
door with Rachel.

“He’s worried,” Rachel said
quietly. “We are recovering after the attack, but one good hit
could send us right back to where we were.”

Guilt ate at Paige. Maybe,
with her help, she could make a difference. Still, it was hard to
go that way. She’d be putting aside the only place her sister and
herself had been able to call home.

She jumped when Rachel placed
a gentle hand on her arm.

“We do need you,” she said
and stared intently at Paige so hard that she had to look away. “No
one is going to try and force you to come, but you belong with
us.”

Paige looked back up to the
dark-haired doctor.

“Do I?”

Rachel gave a warm smile.

“You do,” she said. “You are
honest, and with men like this, that means everything.”

The two grew quiet as Paige
thought about what had been said. In any other circumstances, she
would have been relieved to know she was not only needed but that
she fit in. That was something she’d always had trouble with as a
child. Honesty wasn’t always the best when making friends.

“Just think it over,” Rachel
said and handed her a card. “You call me when you’re ready.”

Paige took the card and gave
a small nod.

She gasped when Rachel
brought her in for a hug. The prickly doctor had never really
seemed like the hugging sort.

“Be careful of the
townspeople,” Rachel said quietly in her ear. “Something is going
on. That’s all I can say for now.”

Puzzled, Paige pulled back to
look at Rachel. The woman stared at her for a moment before
nodding.

“I’ll see you soon,” Rachel
said firmly.

Before Paige could even
reply, the doctor was down the steps and trotting off to the
jeep.

She watched as they drove
down the dirt road, a cloud of dust in their wake.

Stepping back into the warmth
of her house, Paige shut the door. She stared down at the card in
her hand for a moment, wondering what she should do. Uncertainty
ate at her.

Paige set the card on the
table by the couch and shook her head. This wasn’t a time to be
making decisions. Right now, all she wanted to do was finish her
bottle of wine and eat her roast. At least it’d be a decent end to
a pretty much shitty and weird day.