Wolver's Rescue (4 page)

He heard the woman’s startled jump and
frightened whine.

Damn it! He had a job to do. His priority was
finding Thomas Bane. This woman shouldn’t be his concern. Her
presence and his actions had turned this mission into a royal fuck
up and he needed to salvage what he could.

“
Do you know Thomas Bane?”
he asked again, a little more sharply than he intended.

She stared at him, more frightened animal
than human. Her hands began to shake and she clutched the bag
tighter to her chest. When he took a step toward her, she backed
away and snarled.

“
Look, damn it, I’m not
going to hurt you. I just have to find this guy and then we can all
be on our way. I’ll take you home.”

“
No,” she whispered, and if
possible, looked more terrified than before. Her eyes were as big
as saucers, her lashes thick and black against the pallor of her
face.

His wolf growled in anger at the betrayal of
pack loyalty. In any decent pack, the males would fight to the
death to defend its females and its young. No pack would allow one
of its members to languish in the confines of any hospital and
certainly not a place like the Gantnor Clinic. What had they done
to her that she was now so afraid to return?

“
Shit.”

The answer sucker punched him in his gut and
his wolf snarled an objection. There was only one reason she would
be afraid to return to her pack. She was Outcast.

She’d committed some crime against them and
been shunned, cast out. Looking at the total wreck she’d become, he
wondered what a little thing like her could have done. Even with
some meat on her bones, she wouldn’t be much of a threat to
anyone.

“
Fine, fine!” He threw up
his hands, frustration getting the best of him. “I won’t make you
go home. Tell me what they did with Thomas Bane.”

The bag she held started to shake and she
turned toward the door and then back to him. Her impossibly wide
eyes became wider. Her whole body shook as she cradled the bag to
her chest. She took three steps back and turned toward the door,
but the sound of voices in the hall stopped her. Her head snapped
back and forth between him and the door, a trapped animal choosing
the lesser of two evils.

Bull couldn’t allow her to choose whoever was
in the hall. Her escape and discovery would mean his discovery,
too. With a single stride forward, he captured her waist with one
arm and her mouth with the other. He threw them both against the
wall behind the door as it clicked open.

“
I’ll meet you in the
cafeteria after I check on the patient,” the woman called to the
retreating footsteps.

Bull slammed the door shut as soon as the
nurse was clear of it and released the woman he was holding in
favor of the new one. Before he had time to decide what his next
step would be, the situation was taken out of his hands.

The little wolver advanced on him, holding
the electric prod like a fencer’s sword. Bull pushed the nurse
aside and held up his hands.

“
Whoa there, spitfire, can
we talk about this?”

But the woman wasn’t aiming it at him. She
advanced on the nurse who’d fallen to the floor and was now
scrabbling away, her hand held out in defense.

“
Don’t stand there, you
fool. Hit the panic button,” the nurse cried. Her next sound was a
high pitched screech as the tip of the prod touched her
arm.

“
Flop and drop,” the former
captive muttered as she touched the prod to the nurse again. “Flop
and drop.”

She would have hit the nurse with another
dose of current if Bull hadn’t stopped her, touching her shoulder.
Whereupon, she turned on him, weapon raised. Her eyes widened. Her
nostrils flared. Her lips pulled back to bare her teeth.

“
Take at easy there,
spitfire.” His hands were up in the air again.

It crossed his mind to take the prod from
her, snap her neck, and be done with the whole mess. She was too
close to feral to let her go. It wouldn’t take much effort. She was
weak and built like a twig, but something in those big brown eyes
stopped him. He couldn’t do it here, anyway, where the good doctor
might perform an autopsy.

She didn’t touch the nurse again with the
prod, but grabbed the woman’s shirt and began to drag her across
the floor to the cage. The nurse was twice her size, but the
scrawny thing wouldn’t give up. Bull watched, half in horror and
half in amusement as she went down on hands and knees, crawled back
into the cage that had been her prison and dragged the nurse after
her. Once inside, she stripped every piece of clothing from the
woman and then rolled her over into the puddle of shit and piss
that had spilled from the overturned slop pail.

Emerging from the cage with the nurse’s
clothing in her hand, she stood, locked the cage, and brushed
herself off. She picked up the fast food bag.

“
Well?” she asked as if he
was the one holding up their departure. Her voice was raspy, but
clear.

Bull opened the door. His intent was to check
the safety of the hall. Supper in one hand, weapon in the other,
she ducked beneath his arm and marched into the hall, an insane
soldier on the move.

She wanted to believe the big orderly was an
answer to her prayers, but something about him was off. He handled
Buster and Stu too easily. Not that they didn’t deserve it, but he
killed those two perverted monsters without batting an eye. It
wasn’t normal.

Though who was she to judge what was normal?
Normal for her was spending a whole day without making strange
noises or hearing them from the creature in her head. Normal for
her was dreaming about a book boyfriend or a movie star, not
zoophilic encounters with wolf-like creatures or inexplicable
nightmares. She hadn’t seen normal in a long time, although maybe
some of those things were changing. Her reaction to the broad
shoulders and tight ass walking in front of her was normal
enough.

She smiled at that, though not with her
mouth. Secret thoughts weren’t allowed. Nurses made note of secret
smiles. Doctors demanded those secrets be revealed. She’d learned
to keep her thoughts to herself. Better late than never, right?

“
Down.” He hissed the order,
matching the gesture he made with his hand.

“
I’m not a dog,” she hissed
back, but she dropped down behind the trolley cart of dirty
laundry.

He responded with a glare and a frown, and
she rejected her earlier thought. Prayers were answered by angels.
He wasn’t one. Not by a long shot. Which was fine by her. She
planned on getting away from him as soon as she could.

And why did he want to know about Thomas
Bane? Why all the interest all of a sudden? The only ones who’d
ever given a shit about Thomas Bane were her parents and Doctor
Gantnor. Her parents were dead and the doctor was crazier than she
was which led her to believe that this guy, in spite of those
delicious looking biceps, was a nut case, too.

There was no way in hell she was telling him
that she was Thomas Bane or allowing him to take her to the home
where her name was plastered on the mailbox. She’d be long gone
before he figured it out.

These thoughts ran through Tommie’s mind
while they listened to the squish of crepe soled shoes and the
ca-thunk, ca-thunk of a dysfunctional wheel as another cart passed
by.

“
I got this one,” a man’s
voice said from a few feet away.

The cart they were hiding behind jerked as
the speaker began to pull it out of line. She felt the big
orderly’s body tense, ready to spring. All she could do was hold
her breath.

“
Baby shower time,” a
woman’s voice called out over the sound of the churning washers and
dryers. “Everybody back to the break room.”

“
I don’t do baby showers,”
the guy on the other side of the cart called back.

The rude jerk. If she could have spoken
aloud, she would have called the guy a jackass. Since she couldn’t,
Tommie pursed her lips and rolled her eyes to say exactly what she
thought of the speaker. Her rescuer was watching her and she saw
the corners of his mouth quirk up as if he wanted to smile, but
couldn’t.

“
Shar made the cake,”
another male voice called out.

“
In that case, I’ll be right
there.”

After that, it was an easy walk to the
service door, up a flight of cement stairs, and out into the cold,
clear, and starry night. They were only three steps from the
stairwell when Tommie stopped to open her paper sack.

“
Jesus Christ,” he snapped
when he saw her tear open the bag, “Your little snack can wait
until we’re over the wall.”

“
My name isn’t Jesus Christ
and it’s not a little snack,” she hissed back. “It’s my
friend.”

“
You carry all your friends
in paper bags?”

Tommie ignored him. Her attention was focused
on the tiny brown body at the bottom of the bag. It wasn’t moving.
“Oh, please, please, please, little buddy, we’re free,” she
whispered and jiggled the bag, but the bat didn’t move. She tore
the bag a little more and, careful of its wings, lifted the
creature from the bag.

“
It’s a bat. It’s dead.
Let’s go.”

“
No, it can’t be.” The
thought of being so close to freedom only to lose it hit her hard.
“This was our dream.”

“
Your dream, not the bat’s.
His brain’s not big enough to dream. Drop the damn thing and keep
moving.”

Was it true? Had she sacrificed the little
creature for her own dreams of freedom? Maybe he’d been happy
locked away in their basement room. She touched the ugly little
face with her finger. His fur was soft as silk and he weighed no
more than a wisp of air. “Poor baby. Have I hurt you, too?”

She squealed and flailed her arms as the bat
flew up into her face. It tottered in the air for a moment before
flying off into the night.

“
It bit me!” she complained
to her companion.

“
That’s what you get for
being nice. Let’s go.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her along with
him as he strode out into the grassy area that surrounded the
building.

Tommie stumbled along behind him, trying to
keep up, hang on to her electric wand, and suck her wounded finger.
“What if he has rabies?”

“
Maybe you should have
thought of that before you stuffed your finger in its
mouth.”

Her legs went out from under her and she
almost fell. “Slow down. I’m not exactly in peak condition you
know. Do you think he’ll be all right?”

“
Who?” He didn’t slow down,
but lifted her arm higher, almost dragging her on her
toes.

“
The bat.”

“
If biting you didn’t kill
him, nothing will.” Eyes suddenly alert, he jerked her to a halt.
“Stop,” he said as if she had a choice.

Three dark shadows raced over the lawn and
Tommie knew immediately what they were; the guard dogs that kept
the patients from wandering too close to the wall. There was an
invisible line you couldn’t cross without meeting the Doberman
Pinschers’ menacing grins. She hit the button on her wand.

“
No.” He stayed her hand as
the dogs came bounding up wagging their rear ends along with their
stubby tails. Their jaws snapped, but only to catch the treats he
tossed them.

She saw his white teeth flash in the
darkness.

“
What were you saying about
being nice?” she asked with snide sweetness.

“
Not nice. Expedient. Let’s
go.”

Tails still wagging, the dogs escorted them
to the wall, where he made a stirrup with his hands and boosted her
up to the top.

“
Stay low. Wait until I get
up there and I’ll help you down.”

Like hell she would. The wall wasn’t that
high. She could be off and running before he made it to the top.
She turned and slid her body over the other side, and hung there
for a moment looking down. The wall was a lot higher on this side
than it was on the other and the ground below was covered in gravel
instead of grass.

“
Shit,” she muttered as her
fingers slipped and she fell to the ground. The sharp edged gravel
cut into the soles of her bare feet before she fell to her
knees.

So much for making a quick getaway. The fall
knocked every last bit of strength out of her.

Tommie crawled to the edge of the road and
sat down, consoling herself with the thought that she couldn’t have
gone far anyway. Their short journey through the building and
across the grounds had exhausted her. She was weak. She was filthy.
She was ten miles from home. Her car was parked inside the hospital
gates. Her purse, containing her driver’s license, cell phone, and
cash, was probably right where she had it last, in Raymond
Gantnor’s office. She had no transportation, no means to call for
it and no money to pay for it.

The not-an-angel landed beside her, as agile
as a cat. “Get up. My truck’s parked down the road. It’s not too
far.”

Tommie didn’t move. She was outside now.
Free. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with that freedom,
but she knew she wasn’t going to give it up again. She didn’t have
to follow anyone’s orders. She was going to sit here until her feet
stopped hurting. She was going to sit here until she understood
what was happening and had a plan.

He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”

She raised her hand, too, showing him her
middle finger.