Prisoner (Werewolf Marines) (17 page)

“You’ve had one success, Torres,” said Dr.
Semple.

DJ jumped. The woman was hovering over them
like a vulture.

“Do whatever you did for Farrell,” she went
on. “This is all being recorded. If you succeed, whatever you do
will become our new protocol.”

Justin’s muscles relaxed. With a shuddering
sigh, he lay still and exhausted, his eyes half-closed.

“You’re doing fine, Justin,” DJ said. “Just
rest for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

DJ beckoned Dr. Semple out of earshot.
“You’ve got six wolves here. What do you think I know that you
don’t?”

“Most of our subjects were already dying. Our
success rate has been very low. Of the subjects who survived,
Cordero was only partially healed, Roberts’ power has serious
drawbacks, and Killeen can’t control hers. And then there’s
O’Donnell.”

“Who the fuck is O’Donnell?”

She looked at him like he was an idiot. “The
black wolf. Special Agent Richard O’Donnell. He was never able to
change back to human form. Over a period of several weeks, he lost
his memories and his ability to comprehend most human speech. Now
he’s nothing more than an unusually intelligent wolf who doesn’t
remember that he was ever human.”

“Jesus Christ.” DJ felt sick.

“Anderson is a born wolf,” Dr. Semple went
on, as coolly as if she hadn’t just topped Grandma Steel’s horror
story about the made wolf who’d burned himself to death. “Malakar
was our only complete success. On the one hand, she was a healthy
volunteer. On the other hand, she was the only one of four healthy
volunteers to survive. So you know as much as we do, Torres.”

“This is the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever
heard of.
”

“I seriously doubt that, even if you slept
through your high school history classes.” The doctor pursed her
thin lips. “As I said, most of them were dying. They were grateful
for the opportunity.”

DJ forced himself not to punch her. “Can you
give Justin something for the pain?”

“No. Mild painkillers don’t help, and
stronger ones seem to interfere with the subject’s ability to
change. None of the subjects who were administered morphine or
nerve blocks survived.”

Justin screamed, then managed to choke it
off. “DJ!”

DJ bolted back and grabbed his hand. “I’m
here. Just hold on. I won’t leave you again.”

When he looked up, Dr. Semple was giving him
a ghastly wink. “Work your magic.”

DJ talked until his throat was raw, and kept
on talking. He said everything he remembered saying to Roy, and
then he said it again. On the theory that Justin would fight harder
if he remembered what he was fighting for, DJ quizzed him about his
family, his hobbies, his ambitions, his favorite music. He told him
what it felt like to be a wolf. He asked him if he’d ever thought
about joining the Marines.

He told Justin that he was strong and tough
and easily could have been a Marine if he’d wanted, that he was
exactly the kind of guy DJ would want watching his back, and that
he was going to make a fucking badass wolf. He held Justin’s hand
and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. He hit Justin across the face,
in case that had been what had done the trick for Roy.

It didn’t do the trick for Justin.

“Sorry,” DJ said. “I thought a shock might do
it. That’s why I didn’t warn you.”

“Do whatever you have to do,” Justin
said.

DJ went back to just talking. And Justin lay
there gritting his teeth, still a man, so pale that he looked like
Roy when he’d been bleeding to death.

“I’m giving it everything I’ve got, I swear,”
Justin whispered. “What am I doing wrong?”

DJ wished he knew. “Nothing. You’re doing
everything right. Just keep trying.”

“I can do that.” Justin’s eyes closed, and
all the machines sounded their alarms.

As the medics sprang forward, DJ slapped him
as hard as he could without breaking his jaw. His cheek was slack
and cool. DJ’s hand left a crimson imprint in his skin. Desperate,
DJ hit him again, driving his lips into his teeth.

The medics pushed him aside. DJ sat on a bed
and watched, numb, as they did CPR. The blood from where DJ had hit
Justin got smeared all over his ashen face.

Finally, Dr. Semple held up her hand. “Time
of death: 6:49 PM.”

All DJ could think was that he’d had nearly
seven hours to save Justin, who competed in triathlons, didn’t like
most hip hop but loved Eminem and Kanye West, had a date scheduled
with a lab tech named Catalina, and had decided not to join the
military because his father still had nightmares from Desert Storm.
DJ had probably only had fifteen minutes with Roy. In seven hours,
he ought to have been able to do more.

After they took Justin’s body away, Dr.
Semple seemed to notice DJ. With a greedy light in her eyes, she
asked him, “How do you feel?”

“Fucking fabulous.” DJ’s head ached. His
bones ached. He felt like he’d been in combat all day. “Guess you
won’t be using my methods for the new protocol.”

“I might. Some other factor was more likely
to have been the cause of the subject’s death.”

White-hot rage seared away his weariness.
“His name was Justin, you fucking Nazi!”

He was on his feet, his fists clenched, a
heartbeat away from knocking the doctor across the room. She jerked
up her stunner. Behind her, two guards covered DJ with their
tranquilizer guns.

“Remember what happens to Farrell if you lay
hands on me,” she said calmly. “Thank you for your assistance,
Torres. You may go now.”

DJ sank back down. “I want to see how Roy’s
doing. Our deal was that you show me video of him every day.”

“You saw some this morning.”

“That was your sicko torture video. That
doesn’t count. You agreed to show me footage of him being treated
well, every day. I haven’t seen that yet.”

DJ was ready to bust up the place if she
didn’t agree. If he could just see that Roy was still alive, he’d
know that he hadn’t fucked up
everything
.

To his relief, Dr. Semple didn’t argue. “I’ll
see what I can do.”

Chapter Eight: Echo

Days

Echo stayed in Mr. Dowling’s office as he
reconstructed the entire disaster, bringing in all the witnesses
and getting periodic reports from the hospital. The ones who’d been
most centrally involved, like Echo and the members of the pack who
weren’t still tranquilized, stayed while others went in and
out.

At the end of Charlie’s brief account, she
asked how Justin and Ning were doing.

“Who’s Ning?” Echo asked.

“The other security guard,” Mr. Dowling said.
To Charlie, he said, “Liu has a concussion. Graham’s in critical
condition.”

“Oh.” Charlie’s eyes welled up with
tears.

“Are you friends with him?” Echo asked.

“No.” Charlie limped out. Her hip always hurt
more when she got stressed.

“Take a muscle relaxant,” Echo called after
her.

Charlie was followed by a parade of random
employees who’d been eating lunch at the time. Every now and then
Mr. Dowling asked Echo a question to clarify or corroborate
something they’d said.

Whenever her mind strayed, she pictured DJ’s
strong brown hand in Justin’s white-knuckled grip, the split second
of horrified refusal that had crossed DJ’s face when Justin had
asked him to stay, or the even briefer flash of pleading in his
eyes before he’d told her to go. And then she started imagining
what was happening in the hospital.

Echo forced herself to pay strict attention
to the interviews and to the reconstruction of events that Mr.
Dowling had an agent draw on a whiteboard.

Finally Echo and Mr. Dowling were left alone.
As much to himself as to her, he said, “So, to sum up: O’Donnell
felt threatened by Torres for some kind of wolf dominance reason
and got upset, Anderson failed to slap him down, it got into the
pack sense, Anderson prioritized shielding the most lethal members
of the pack, and Malakar and Roberts and O’Donnell went berserk.
Torres was briefly affected, but was able to bring himself out of
it. You and Torres successfully worked together to contain the
situation, but despite your efforts, we had six minor injuries and
one casualty.”

“Casualty?”

“Dr. Semple just emailed me. Graham died a
few minutes ago.”

So that was that. A sharp pain pierced her
chest, as if she’d cracked a rib. Echo checked her watch. Justin
had been bitten nearly seven hours ago. DJ must have stood by him
all this time.

She took several deep breaths, and the pain
faded. “I don’t know why you keep the pack. They’re more trouble
than they’re worth.”

Mr. Dowling addressed her as seriously as if
she was a colleague rather than an asset. “You think I should
terminate them?”

“No!” Echo didn’t have fond feelings for the
pack, but neither did she want to see them all killed. “I meant you
could cut them loose.”

“And have them running around with no hold on
them whatsoever, knowing what they know? I don’t think so.” Mr.
Dowling rubbed his forehead wearily. “Take off, Echo. You’re
done.”

Echo walked through the corridors on
auto-pilot, only realizing what she was doing when she found
herself inside her apartment. Her old apartment. Charlie’s
apartment.

Charlie was curled up on the sofa, crying.
Echo sat and held her until Charlie said, “Michelle emailed me some
of the details.”

“Who’s Michelle?”

“Michelle Green. The medic. She said Justin
fought right up to the end. The way she described it, the whole
thing sounded so much like—”

Echo stood up. “I’ll call… um…” She fished
for the name. “Kevin! I’ll call Kevin for you.”

“I can call him.” Charlie sniffled. “Where
are you going?”

“To work out.”

To Echo’s relief, Charlie didn’t question
that. Echo did intend to work out, but by the time she reached her
new apartment, every limb felt like dead weight. She stumbled to
one of the beds, lay down on top of the blanket, and stared up at
the ceiling, trying to think of nothing.

Echo wasn’t sure how long she’d been there
when the front door hissed open. DJ stopped in the doorway of the
bedroom.

“Echo. Hey.” He came closer, till he was
standing over the bed. “Are you all right?”

“No.” As soon as she said it, she wished
she’d lied.

“Were you and Justin friends?”

She shook her head tiredly. “I didn’t even
know his name before today.”

“Combat stress?”

“That wasn’t combat.”

“Then what?”

She turned her head to focus on him. He
looked weighted down, his usual energy spent. Even the light in his
eyes had dimmed. “I’m fine. But you look beat. Go to bed.”

“Ah…” DJ sat down on the edge of her bed. He
was so close that all she’d have to do to touch him was roll over.
“Mind if we talk for a while first?”

The last thing Echo wanted was to hear all
about how Justin had died. But after DJ seemed to have poured
everything he had into trying to save him, the least Echo could do
was let him talk. “Go ahead.”

DJ kicked off his shoes, scooted up to the
head of the bed, and leaned against the headboard. “What’s your
favorite movie?”

That was more like it. She was definitely up
for a distraction. “
Little Women
.”

He blinked down at her. “Seriously?”

“No. That’s Charlie’s favorite.”

“Well, what’s yours?”

“What’s
yours
?”

“It’s—” DJ broke off, the hint of a smile
hovering at his lips. “I’ll guess yours if you guess mine. If you
guess wrong, you have to give a hint.”

“
Full Metal Jacket
,” Echo said
immediately. “You identify with Private Gomer Pyle.”

“Stop flattering me, I’ll get conceited,” DJ
said, but the smile became a real one. “And no. Though it did make
me feel better about my time in boot camp— it sucked, but at least
no one committed suicide. Give me a hint about yours.”

“It’s science fiction.”

“
Terminator 2.
You identify with Sarah
Connor.” He indicated her arm muscles. “You’ve got the guns.”

Echo was secretly pleased, but said, “I could
knock her out with one hand. My hint.”

“My favorite isn’t a war movie.”

She tried to think about other genres he
might like, but her mind kept being tugged toward Justin’s death,
like iron drawn to a magnet. Maybe if she put her thoughts into
words and released them into the air, they’d be out of her head and
gone.

She sat up beside DJ. Even as far as she
could get from him, she could feel his body heat across the narrow
bed. “I told you my sisters died because their genetic engineering
went wrong.”

DJ didn’t seem thrown by the change of
subject. “Yeah.”

“Some of them had worse problems than others.
Althea died when we were kids. Della lived into her teens. Brava
was twenty-two. We—” Echo couldn’t bring herself to tell DJ the
details. “We really thought she was going to make it.”

DJ put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m
sorry.”

Echo stopped herself from leaning into him.
She could feel every one of his fingers. Where they touched was the
only warm part of her body. “She got worse and worse. It was
obvious that she was dying. The made wolf pack wasn’t here then,
but they did have this one born wolf they’d captured—”

“Son of a bitch.” DJ’s hand slid off her
shoulder. He pressed his knuckles into his forehead and rubbed it
like he had a headache. “I know where this is going.”

“Yeah.” Echo was relieved that she didn’t
have to explain everything. “Brava figured, what did she have to
lose?”

DJ flinched. “Were you with her?”

“We both were. Charlie and me. And a medical
team. And Valerie, the wolf.” Echo bit her lip. The ‘getting it out
of her head’ idea wasn’t working at all. Instead, the entire thing
was more vivid than ever. “She screamed— Brava never screamed.
Valerie kept telling her not to give up. So Brava didn’t. For nine
hours. And then she died.”