Gator's Challenge (15 page)

Breath held, she stood to one side of the open doorway and listened.

“Who’s there?” a female voice asked.

Could Melanie be so lucky? She couldn’t help a feral grin as she stepped out and saw the human nurse she’d first met. The one she didn’t like.

What must Nurse Bitch think as Melanie stalked naked from the elevator, body covered in blood. “Where are my children?”

The nurse’s complexion paled as she backed away. “I don’t know where those demon spawn are. They disappeared.”

“Did you seriously call my children demon spawn?” Melanie arched a brow and smiled. “Thank you. But don’t think compliments will save your life.”

“Don’t come near me.” The nurse pulled out a needle. A wee one.

Melanie laughed. “Let’s play cat and mouse. Guess which one I am?”

Even in her human guise, Melanie could move quickly. She also knew how to fight dirty. A quick jabbing left that hit a jaw. A grasp of a flailing arm. A twist of a wrist to get a certain needle dropped. More twisting to get the woman to drop to her knees.

“I am going to ask you one more time.” She applied a little more pressure, even as the nurse whimpered. “Where are my children?”

“I told you. I don’t know.”

“Then you are of no use to me.” At the moment. Melanie snagged the discarded needle and jabbed the nurse with it, sending her into instant sleep. Killing her wasn’t an option yet. She might need the nurse’s active wristband and thumb to get out. With her boys.

Once she found them.

R
ushing
out of the medical building, Wes found himself immersed in noise, out-of-place noise that took a moment to process.

Under the whooping wail of the siren, he could hear the crackle of gunfire as weapons were discharged. Smoke curled with wispy tendrils in the air at a distance. Yells, screams, and even the roars and snarls of animals filled the air. More surreal was the golf cart that went whipping past, a pair of guards holding on for dear life. On their tail? A galloping moose.

He blinked. Yeah, still a moose with a big fucking rack chasing the shrinking cart.

By the time he saw the polar bear and the caribou, nothing could surprise him.

Was he hallucinating from the drugs pumped into the observation room? It might explain the madness around him.

A guttural roar saw him looking to his left. He wasn’t surprised to see a big brown bear taking on one of the scaled hunters. It seemed the creatures were loose. He noted more than one monstrosity diving and flapping in the sky.

What of his brother? Was Brandon among them? He’d not seen nor heard of his brother since his capture. What did that mean?

The vicious snarls of the Kodiak and the lizard snapped him back to the present. He really should help, even if the bear seemed as if he was doing a fine job. He danced away from the claws that might poison him. He kept clear of the slavering jaws. The Kodiak also had help in the form of a massive timber wolf nipping at the heels of the dinoman.

What should he do? He’d left Melanie inside, but he’d not had time to ensure it was secure. Wes had to trust Melanie could take care of herself while she awaited his return. A return that was delayed as a black panther leaped from the top of a careening SUV to land in front of him with a snarl.

Wes only knew of one family of cats in the neighborhood. Forcing himself to release his hybrid gatorman shape, he stood before Daryl, hands cupping his junk because it was never wise to dangle things in front of irate kitties.

For a moment, Daryl paced in front of him, peeling back his lip for an angry noise. He did that a few times before morphing into his human shape, a human shape resembling that of a very angry Latino male, who punched him in the face without warning.

“Asshole! Where the fuck is my sister?”

Hit him back,
his gator advised as Wes rotated his jaw. Melanie’s brother packed an impressive punch. But he wouldn’t return it. Melanie wouldn’t like it, and that mattered to him. “Melanie’s still inside the building. I didn’t want to bring her out until I knew what was happening.”

“Retribution has arrived,” Daryl replied with some pride.

“Those your friends?” he asked, jerking a thumb at the polar bear who cuffed a grizzly, who then proceeded to head-butt the furball until they both shifted shapes and stood glaring nose to nose. Only to laugh a second later.

The camaraderie of good friends. Other than Brandon, Wes had given up on that years ago, but he missed it.

“They’re friends. Allies. Call them what you like. They’re part of the rescue team.”

“How did you know where to come?” It was possible someone from Bitten Point had followed them, yet unlikely. Andrew and Parker took many precautions, precautions that seemed unfounded, given their open flaunting of shifters in and around the compound. “Did my sister make it out to tell you?” Wes asked.

He’d not spoken to Brandon since his capture. For all he knew, his brother had made it out of here with their sibling.

“Your sister? She’s here, too?” Daryl couldn’t hide a genuine inflection of surprise.

Deflation sucked some of the hope out of him. “If Brandon and Sue-Ellen didn’t get out to tell you, then how did you find us?”

“My idiot little sister swallowed a tracker before taking her stupid ass off.”

“Melanie wanted to save her boys.”

“She should have told me what she was planning and we could have better prepared,” Daryl grumbled.

As if. Melanie was too stubborn and brave for that. “Took you long enough to come for her,” Wes noted.

A scowl crossed the other man’s face. “I would have been here sooner, but Caleb and the others made me wait for backup.”

Gesturing at the caribou racing around with a screaming guard on his rack and the moose who stood watching with evident disgust, Wes said, “Interesting help.”

“I know. Not my friends. Apparently, Caleb knew a couple guys, mostly army dudes, from Kodiak Point.”

Wes couldn’t help his surprise. “Up in Alaska? And they came down here?”

“Them plus all the able-bodied folk in our town. And a few others. Once they all heard what was happening, no one could ignore it.”

Knowing Daryl had come with enough aid to truly shut this place down lightened Wes’s heart, and yet, at the same time, something niggled. Wes had left Melanie alone for more than a few minutes. Who the hell knew what kind of trouble she’d get into?

“I gotta go find Melanie.”

“I’ll come with you.”

At least that was the plan when Daryl began loping back with him to the building until the sound of a chopper overhead distracted.

The news logo on the side almost made him trip. Wes recovered and darted into the building, wondering if anyone on board filmed his naked butt sprinting.

What were they doing here? It hadn’t been long enough since the attack started for anyone to have reported the smoke or movie-style shoot-’em-up action. Had someone tipped them off?

This could get ugly, as in ditch-everything-behind-and-start-over-somewhere-new ugly. Another thing to worry about.

I’ll have to watch the news later.
After he found Melanie, who, of course, hadn’t stayed where he left her.

It didn’t prove hard to follow her scent. It went straight into trouble. He stared up the long shaft of the elevator and sighed.

Why couldn’t shit ever happen in the bayou? He could swim great in there. Scuttle across the marsh lightning quick. Sneak attack. But climbing? That was for the lighter limbed.

But it took only a hollered, “Don’t touch my mama!” for him to get moving.

I’m coming.
In a zillion, billion rungs.
Ugh
.

T
he nursery level
muffled the sounds of battle coming from outside, but she still heard them. The temptation to find a window to peek out of proved strong, but not as strong as Melanie’s mommy instinct to find her babies.

On bare feet, Melanie padded the empty halls, straining for any sound or clue as to their location. The stillness in the air felt unnatural.

Inside, her inner kitty paced, and the sense of danger bristled her fur.
Don’t trust the quiet,
her feline advised.

No worries on that count. The whole floor held a quality, that certain something, that let her know all was not as peaceful as it seemed. It was more than a gut instinct. She could feel it because buildings, places, they absorbed things and then oozed them. Right now, this twisted nursery oozed the calm before shit happened.

The smart move would be to leave, now. Find Wes. Find help. Do something. This level appeared abandoned, not a peep from her boys or anything else living, nothing except for that pervasive sense of danger.

I can’t leave. What if my boys are still around here?
At their size, they could hide anywhere. She would know. She’d almost lost her fur entirely more than once when they seemingly just disappeared.

Such as the time one peeked at her from a shelf in the closet behind spare linen. That fright took one of her lives.

The naughty little demon that popped up from the linen basket from under dirty clothes made her scream—and she lost another.

High entertainment for her boys and now, with danger stalking them, a honed skill that hopefully helped keep them out of harmful hands.

How to find them? Melanie didn’t have time for a thorough search. But how else to find them when, as she walked, she couldn’t help but taste the bitter ammonia in the re-circulated air. Its stringent scent nullified all others.

Forget scent. If she couldn’t see or touch the boys, what did that leave?

Let’s see if you’re listening, babies.
“Ollie, Ollie, oxen free,” she sang, the universal song from her childhood for when they played hide-and-seek. “Come out. Come out, wherever you are.”
Come out because Mama is here and I will keep you safe.

She yodeled again to let her children know she’d arrived in case they remained on this level.

Good plan, and we’ll let any enemies know we’re here, too, so we can take care of them. Rowr.

She didn’t correct the bloodthirsty plan. Anyone who got between her and her boys was asking for it. However, she doubted she’d really see much action. During her previous stay on the nursery level, she’d not seen any regular guards floating around, just the one nurse, and that bitch currently snored at the front desk.

Past the nurses’ station, she got to peek down the long hall lined with doors and windows. It seemed all the rooms were open. How strange. They’d always been locked before when she’d tried to get in them.

Given she figured her boys had either disappeared from the playroom or the barrack room with beds, she headed to the closest one first.

The playroom door teased with its wide opening. Easing along the wall, she halted for a moment to listen before she peeked in to see it looked like a tornado had gone through the room.

A tornado or a lizard? Even with the antiseptic smell in the air, traces of that psycho reptile lingered, as did his actions. Tables torn from the floor and overturned. Chairs thrown against walls, some smashed. Around the ventilation grills, the flooring and the plaster on the walls showed signs of damage. She wondered if the gaping holes were part of the search for Rory and Tatum? Just how crazy did Andrew and his people go looking? And how had her boys vanished?

Not seeing her sons in the room didn’t mean she took off right away. She decided to look closer at the ripped openings just in case she found her babies tucked inside. Tatum had once made it into the attic and popped his legs through the vent in the bathroom.

Andrew had been less than impressed, seeing as how he was in the shower at the time and screamed like a girl. A scream Tatum kept, unfortunately, mimicking.

Sob. Please let my babies be okay.
She missed them so much. She feared so hard for their safety. The best sign? There was no blood.

By the rip in the flooring, she dropped to her knees and peeked in the hollow and narrow space. No way had Rory or Tatum squeezed in there. Not only was the vent much too small, the area around the conduits was much too small to move through unless they were the size of a hamster.

Moving on, she noted the walls also didn’t provide any clues, the steel plate underneath a solid barrier.

So where are they?

She stepped into the middle of the room and inhaled deeply. Once again, that stupid ammonia smell permeated, wiping all essences except the truly strong one of the lizard thing known as Fang. Had they unleashed that crazy bastard after her babies? Had he found and hurt them?

He better not have.

The reminder she wasn’t there to protect them angered her. Claws popped from her fingers, and the hair all over her body prickled.

This is Andrew’s fault. His and Parker’s. They took my babies.
She would kill them for that.

She stepped back out into the hall, first taking a peek to ensure it remained clear.

Outside the building, the crackle and pops of gunfire had pretty much ceased, and she no longer heard the vicious barks and roars of the animal kingdom gone to war. She did, however, hear the
whup-whup-whup
of an approaching helicopter.

I must move more quickly.

A few strides and she arrived at the gaping door to the sleeping room. Her heart stuttered at the sight of the mussed bunks. In here, she could smell her sons. Smell their little-boy scent.

None of the destruction of the playroom had made it to this place. A walk around the perimeter didn’t reveal any clues or other exits. If her boys were here, she couldn’t have said where. A peek under the bunks didn’t reveal anyone.

“Where are you?” she muttered.

“Right here.”

She whipped around at the words, a feral smile stretching her lips as she realized who stood in the doorway. “Andrew. Just the man I wanted to see.” Wanted to see dead, but she didn’t specify that. He’d learn first-paw soon enough.

“Looking for the brats?”

“Where did you put my sons?” A rumbly growl accented her query.

An irritated scowl crossed his face. “Nowhere. They disappeared. From a locked room no less.”

“They escaped.” She couldn’t help a spurt of elation. Now if only she could be sure they’d escaped this place entirely because she couldn’t wait to leave.

First, though, she needed to ensure the man before her didn’t live long enough to ever harm her boys again.

“Are you gonna run and make this sporting for me?” she asked with a swing of her hips as she walked toward Andrew. She was done catering to his little ego—and she meant little. Her cat hovered, waiting for a chance to leap forth.

“We’ll see who does the running. I’m a changed man now.” As he spoke, his voice changed. It dipped deeper. He began to sprout hair, coarse brown and black strands, and yet he kept his human shape. He also kept his face, if hairier, but his eyes, they glinted a dark orange, and they glowed from within, alight with madness and violence. “I am so tired of people thinking they’re bigger and better than me. Especially you. You always made me feel small.”

“You never could grasp it wasn’t about size. All you had to do, Andrew, was believe in yourself. To stand tall.”

“I’m standing tall now.” He certainly was, as his body pushed upward and thickened. How was he doing this? Animals were restricted by the size of the host. Big men turned into big creatures. They were also heavy men as humans. But still, certain laws applied.

They just didn’t seem to apply to Andrew. He stood about eight feet tall. His body kept its human shape, despite his freakish size and fur.

She should also mention the honking huge claws. While over his shoulders peeked… She gasped. “Wings?”

But Andrew didn’t seem too interested in answering her surprise. With a roar of primal rage, he charged at her. She leaped out of the way, changing mid-air, a skill she’d learned as a cub because of an older brother determined to teach her to protect herself. Daryl used to practice by tossing her in the pond behind their house. She quickly learned to flip in mid-air and land with four paws on the one rock projecting from the surface. She hated getting her feet wet.

She also hated things that wanted to eat her. As Andrew rushed past, she landed behind him and slashed with her paw, her own claws extended.

Score! The cuts oozed dark red. A victory she couldn’t bask in because Andrew had already turned around. Snorting, much like a bull, his eyes seemed to get darker. He came at her again.

As her feline, Melanie could spring and dodge with ease, but Andrew possessed a long reach. The tip of a sharp nail caught her, and she screeched at the sudden bright flare of pain against her rear haunch.

It was then that a blanket flew off a bed, and from a hollowed-out spot in the mattress, a little body came flying out, arms and legs spreadeagle.

“Don’t you touch my mama!” Rory yelled.

He hit the papa bear and clung like a monkey, his little fists pummeling. So heartbreakingly brave, so woefully small. Andrew immediately plucked her son and held him out, short limbs kicking and punching.

A low, menacing rumble oozed from her, the intent clear—
Don’t hurt my baby.

Andrew roared and shook Rory.

Oh, hell no. She wanted to leap at Andrew, tear him to shreds, but she had to tread carefully. The man held her cub’s life in his paw.

She took slow, slinking steps toward them, her gaze unwavering. As center of attention, Andrew let a parody of a grin stretch his misshapen features. He pulled Rory close and inhaled deeply. Then licked his lips.

A horrifying threat that her son understood. He hung from Andrew’s grasp like a scolded puppy. Limp. Head hanging.

My poor baby. Mama’s here. I won’t let him hurt you.

She caught a glimpse of her son’s eyes through thick, dark hair. Mischief gleamed, and he winked.

What. The. Hell? She couldn’t even scream,
Don’t do it
. There was no time. Rory flipped from feigned terror to rabid kitty. He flipped in the air, using the hand holding him as a pivot point. He managed to lock his little legs around Andrew’s neck while, at the same time, landing a bite.

A fantastic move on anyone else, not an eight-foot, mutant freak.

Andrew snapped a gasket, yanking her son away and shaking him, hard.

He shook her child. Shook. Him.

I will shake you.
Once she clamped him in her jaws. She’d whip him around like a rag doll for daring.

Rowr
. Her roar vibrated in the air, challenging the bear in front of her who dared threaten her cub.

“Don’t move,” grunted the Andrew-thing. “Or the brat dies.”

At that threat, Tatum appeared, standing on the bed to Andrew’s left. Rory lifted his head, his eyes still not cowed. In twin tandem, her babies replied to Andrew’s threat. “But don’t you love us, Daddy?”

The boys didn’t know, and Melanie wasn’t about to hide the truth from them. She shifted back to her human form. “Andrew is not your daddy.”

“Then we don’t have to be nice anymore,” Tatum announced as he dove at Andrew’s legs.

“Hate him,” announced Rory, who swung suddenly, his two little feet connecting with Andrew’s less-than- impressive family jewels.

Teetering on one leg, and thrown off balance, Andrew fell, and she could only watch in fascination as her darling twins, who should have been unable to shift yet being so young, turned into something feline, yet scaled.

Oh my.

Her twin terrors nipped at the monster, instinct controlling their actions.

But Andrew wasn’t done with the surprises. With a massive roar, he flung their little bodies from him and stood. And he grew. Grew even bigger. His eyes turned a complete red, and he huffed. “Meat.”

Um, no.

Time to get out of here.