Prisoner (Werewolf Marines) (3 page)

Of course, the target who lay dead on the
floor could be a racist but not a terrorist. It was even possible
that her handlers had sent her to kill an obviously hateful person
solely to make her feel better about being their pet assassin.

She took a step toward the doorway, thinking
to search the house and see if she could find any evidence of
bomb-making or violent conspiracies.

Police sirens keened in the distance. She
slipped out of the house, leaped over the wall, and vanished into
the woods.

In the short time it had taken her to
complete her mission, the snow flurries had blown up into a
blizzard. Echo walked through a world of white, and felt nothing.
Not even cold.

***

Once Echo passed the entrance guards at
Wildfire Base, she took the stairs down to the service level. It
was a longer walk, but a quieter one. The unmarked corridors were
deserted except for the automated vehicles trundling along by
themselves, with their recorded voices chanting, “Robotic transport
vehicles will not avoid you. Please step aside. Robotic transport
vehicles will not avoid you. Please step aside.”

She had her peaceful walk, then took an
elevator to the apartment she shared with Charlie. Her handlers had
been alerted the moment she’d returned, but she hoped they’d leave
her alone for an hour or so before they came knocking, demanding a
report. Obviously she’d executed her mission: she’d come back.

Echo stood by the retina scanner and opened
her eyes wide. A light flashed, and the door slid open.

She froze on the threshold. Charlie was in
the living room, but sitting stiffly erect in her chair, not curled
up as she preferred, and she didn’t smile when she saw Echo. Her
paperback, featuring a heaving-bosomed woman clutching at a
gladiator, lay bookmarked on the table. And Echo’s least favorite
handler, Mr. Dowling, sat across from Charlie in a chair dragged in
from the dining room.

The sofa had been saved for Echo, but she
didn’t sit down. That might invite Mr. Dowling to stay longer.
Instead, she stepped in front of it.

“I can deliver my mission report in your
office,” Echo said. “We don’t have to bore Charlie with it.”

Charlie made a face that Echo interpreted as
fifty percent
Your missions don’t bore me, what are you talking
about
and fifty percent
God, yes, get this pompous asshole
out of here so I can return to my beloved Maximus
.

“Momentarily,” said Mr. Dowling. “Why didn’t
you collect your equipment from the dead drop?”

Echo shrugged. “I didn’t need it.”

Mr. Dowling’s lips pursed. “We’re concerned
that you’re becoming dangerously careless.”

“I accomplished the mission,” Echo said,
annoyed. “Apart from not getting body armor that I didn’t need and
would’ve only weighed me down, I did it exactly as I was
ordered.”

“The dead drop also contained your
weapon.”

Oops.
“I didn’t need that, either. If
it was important how I killed him, I should have been told in my
briefing.”

“The point is that you went into the compound
of a dangerous terrorist completely unarmed and unprotected.”

“The target is dead. What else matters?”

To Echo’s surprise, the look of annoyance and
frustration on Mr. Dowling’s face was mirrored by one of anger and
fear on Charlie’s.

“What matters is that we have serious
concerns about you,” said Mr. Dowling. “You’ve taken completely
unnecessary risks, and you’ve done so repeatedly and despite
multiple warnings.”

“I’ll be more careful next time,” Echo said,
but she could hear the insincerity in her own voice, and knew the
others could as well.

“Goddammit, Echo!” Charlie exclaimed, her
pale face flushing pink. “Are you
trying
to get yourself
killed?”

Unable to lie to her sister, Echo had to
think about it before she replied.

“No,” she said at last.

No, but I can’t say that it would bother me
if I did.

She looked inside herself for fear or sadness
at the thought of her own death, and found none. Nor did she find
anticipation or relief. She simply didn’t care.

Charlie turned to Mr. Dowling. “I told you
she was burned out. She needs a break. Give her a month off.”

“She had last month off,” Mr. Dowling pointed
out.

“Well, it wasn’t enough,” snapped Charlie.
“Give her another one.”

“We’re giving her a partner,” said Mr.
Dowling. “We think she’ll do better if someone’s there to keep an
eye on her.”

“I don’t want a partner,” Echo said,
horrified. “I don’t play well with others.”

Mr. Dowling caught her gaze, then looked
meaningfully at Charlie. “We think
everyone
will be better
off if you have one.”

A red haze settled over Echo’s vision at the
implied threat to her sister. If she snapped Mr. Dowling’s neck,
then picked up Charlie and bolted for the service corridors, she
could probably make it to the vehicle bay before the alarm
sounded…

“Echo!” Charlie said sharply, and banged her
cane on the floor.

The haze faded. Echo folded her arms across
her chest. “Who exactly do you think could keep up with me? You
better not stick me with someone from your screwed-up pack of
co-dependent made wolves.”

A stifled giggle escaped Charlie’s lips.

Mr. Dowling glared at both of them. “We’re
considering all our options for a suitable candidate. I merely
wanted to inform you in advance, so it wouldn’t come as a shock.
And I didn’t have to do that, so I hope you appreciate it.”

Echo barely stopped herself from rolling her
eyes. Probably what she disliked the most about Mr. Dowling was the
way he made her feel and act like a sullen teenager. “You’re too
kind to me. I don’t deserve it.”

He shook his head in exasperation. “Come with
me to my office and I’ll take your mission report. After that,
you’re on leave till further notice.”

Echo resignedly followed him out. As long as
Charlie lived, Echo had no real power. She’d do anything to protect
her last surviving sister, and her handlers knew it. If they wanted
her to take a partner, she’d have to grit her teeth and accept
it.

And when Charlie died and Echo had nothing
left to live for, Echo would kill them all.

Chapter Three: DJ

Wolf on the Run

DJ woke up feeling beat to hell. He didn’t
get a single second of peaceful amnesia, but instantly recalled
everything. Roy’s expression of mild surprise as he looked down at
the blood pouring from his chest. DJ’s fangs sinking into Roy’s
shoulder. Roy becoming a wolf in the medevac helo.

Once DJ opened his eyes, he’d find out if Roy
had made it. As long as he pretended to be asleep, DJ could keep on
believing that he had.

He’d never been good at keeping still. Or at
letting curiosity go unsatisfied, even when he knew the news would
be bad. He lay vibrating with suppressed energy, wondering where he
was and what had happened to Roy, if he was alive and if DJ’s ploy
had worked and—

DJ opened his eyes and sat up, throwing off
the covers. He was in a small, windowless room. The air that blew
through the vents was cool and dry and smelled faintly of
antiseptic. A private hospital room? There was no call button,
though.

He wore white cotton pajamas, presumably
hospital-issue, and the cuts on his leg and arm had healed to pink
scars. DJ frowned at them. He’d been unconscious for at least a
couple days, then. No wonder he was so stiff and sore. He had a
caffeine withdrawal headache, too. Maybe the corpsman had
accidentally overdosed him, or maybe he’d had a bad reaction to the
sedative. It wouldn’t be the first time meds hadn’t worked on him
the way they did on one-bodies.

There were two doors in the room. One
wouldn’t open, but the other was ajar and led to a bathroom. He
considered knocking on the locked door, then decided to take
advantage of the bathroom first. He used it, washed up, and then
cupped some tap water in his hands and drank. It was completely
tasteless, unlike the overly chlorinated water at his base in
Afghanistan or the mineral-heavy water of Camp Pendleton. He drank
again, wondering where he was. A different base in Afghanistan? A
military hospital in Germany?

He reached out for the pack sense, but wasn’t
surprised when he felt nothing. Camp Pendleton was only forty miles
from San Diego, but even that was too far for him to sense his
pack. He smiled at the memory of how his sister Five would reach
out to him every time she drove past the base on her way to or from
Los Angeles, holding the contact until she finally faded out of
range.

When he returned to the main room, a
middle-aged woman was standing by the bed. She had shoulder-length
hair the color of dust, and wore a doctor’s coat without rank
insignia. A civilian employee, probably.

“Dale Torres? I’m Dr. Semple.” The woman
offered her hand, which DJ automatically shook. In her other hand,
she held a small black box— some medical device, DJ supposed.

“My buddy, Roy Farrell—” DJ, caught between
“How is he?” and “Is he alive?” broke off without finishing the
sentence.

“Please, sit down,” the doctor said,
indicating the bed.

DJ sat, then stood up. “How— Look, if he’s
dead, just tell me.”

“He was taken to a shock-trauma unit,” Dr.
Semple said.

DJ sank back down on the bed. “So he’s alive?
How is he?”

“Let’s talk about you for a moment. You
seemed to experience some combat stress. Has that happened to you
before?”

“Yeah, a couple times. How’s Roy?”

The doctor didn’t answer directly, which DJ
hoped was because she didn’t know rather than because she was
trying to break the bad news in stages. “Does your combat stress
always show up as outbursts of rage?”

“No.” DJ wished he’d claimed he’d never
gotten it before. He didn’t want to discuss his fake rage or real
stress. “How’s Roy?”

“Let’s not get off-track. We’re talking about
you now.” Maybe it was DJ’s paranoid imagination, but he could
swear the doctor was enjoying herself. “Do you have nightmares? Or
insomnia?”

Those last few months, Roy had barely slept.
Sometimes Marco had to threaten to send him to the aid station
unless he lay down and closed his eyes. Then Roy, who never
disobeyed orders, would lie down and close his eyes. And Roy, who
ran out under fire to rescue wounded men without a second’s
hesitation, would wake up shaking and drenched in sweat.

DJ forced his mind away from those memories.
Answering the doctor’s question was probably the quickest route to
getting some answers himself. “If I drink too much coffee, sure I
get insomnia. But not otherwise, and no nightmares. Speaking of
coffee, would it be possible for me to get some? Like, right
now?”

It was another cup poured into the ocean of
DJ’s frustration when the doctor ignored his request for a caffeine
hit. “Do you ever have things that you can’t stop thinking about,
even if you want to?”

“Not the way you’re thinking of.”

“What way are you thinking of?”

“Song lyrics cluttering up my head. Tunes I
don’t even like. You know, earworms.” DJ couldn’t stand sitting
still any longer, so he got up again. Then he remembered that he
was trying to convince the doctor that he
wasn’t
anxious,
and stood awkwardly, forcing himself not to pace. “Do you even know
what happened to Roy? Should I be asking someone else?”

Dr. Semple ignored his questions. “Tell me
what combat stress feels like to you.”

DJ was way too stressed out to keep track of
complicated lies, so he stuck to the truth. “Like everything’s
going too fast.”

“Such as?”

“My heartbeat. My thoughts. The rotation of
the Earth.”

“The rotation of the Earth?” Dr. Semple
repeated, sounding fascinated.

“You asked. It doesn’t happen very often, and
it only lasts a couple hours. I don’t get flashbacks. I don’t get
panic attacks. I don’t have trouble eating.” He caught himself
pacing, and shoved his palm against the wall to make himself stop.
“Losing my shit in the helicopter was a one-time incident because I
was upset that my buddy
stopped breathing
, now will you
please fucking tell me if he’s still alive!”

Dr. Semple didn’t reply for long enough that
DJ knew what she’d say before she spoke. “I’m very sorry to inform
you...”

But I saved him,
DJ protested to
himself. His thoughts were so loud that they drowned out whatever
the doctor was saying.
I carried him out of the helo and I bit
him and I got him through the change. He was breathing when I saw
him last. I
saved
him.

“How did he die?” DJ’s own voice sounded as
if it was coming from a long way away. “I mean, where? In the helo?
In the hospital?”

The doctor tilted her head, as if considering
how much to reveal. “In the hospital. His heart stopped after
surgery.”

“I didn’t save him,” DJ said numbly. “I did
everything I could. And he still died.”

“What did you do for him?” Dr. Semple
asked.

For a brief, despairing moment, DJ didn’t see
any reason why he shouldn’t tell the truth. Nothing mattered except
that the best friend he’d ever had was dead. He couldn’t imagine
anything ever mattering to him again.

Except his pack. He still had to protect
them. “I got him out of the helo. I bandaged his wounds.”

“What else?”

I talked to him to keep him awake. I wrapped
my shirt around him to keep him warm. I turned him on his side so
he wouldn’t choke on his own blood. I held him in my arms so he’d
know he wasn’t alone.

“What else?” Dr. Semple repeated.

DJ shook his head, unable to speak. The
everlasting whirlwind of thoughts in his head had changed, not to
the elegant simplicity of combat where they laid themselves out
like beads on a string, but to a book he couldn’t read and didn’t
want to.