Silence that Sizzles (16 page)

“I guess I better get to work,” she said to herself out loud. She looked into the microscope. What she saw were normal platelets and blood cells. There was nothing to indicate that there was any type of mutation to the cells. This appeared to be the blood of a normal human. Kelly pulled the slide out from the microscope and looked at its label. Her eyebrows rose as she saw the name on it. Peter Franklin.

She looked at the boy in the cage. Miraculously, it appeared that he had fallen asleep. He looked small and vulnerable. Her heart went out to him. It wasn’t his fault that he had somehow fallen into this mess. She needed to find a way to get him out.

Kelly knew that she needed a fresh sample of blood. There’s no way that she trusted that this slide of blood was actually accurate. She knew what that meant. She was going to have to get a sample from Peter. She rummaged around in the cabinet until she found what she was looking for. Then she made her way back to the cell. She knelt down on the floor and sat cross-legged across from the boy just on the other side of the bars. She waited for a few moments, and then his eyes fluttered opened. They widened as he saw her sitting there. She put up her hands in a sign of peace.

“Peter, I told you I was going to need your help. I need to tell the man that was in here what happened to you. In order to do so, I will need just a little bit more of your blood.”

Peter shook his head violently. “No way. No more blood.”

Kelly wasn’t unaccustomed to dealing with difficult patients. In her line of work, she encountered it more often than she would’ve liked. Usually, it had to do with people being more nervous of the needle than anything else.

“Peter, do you see that man over there?” She pointed at the guard standing there staring at them on the other side of the door. Peter nodded. “I don’t want to have to call him over here to help me get the sample. That’s not how I like to work with my patients. I know that you’re scared. But I promise that I want to help you. There are people that I care about that are in trouble now too. We just need to work together, and if we do, I think we can both get out of here really soon and see those people again. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Peter still looked at her suspiciously. Kelly slowly took the syringe and the plastic compression band and set them on the tray in front of her. She let him look at them. “When I was in med school, I used to get people who requested me to do their blood draws all the time. You want to know why? They’d always say that when I took their blood, they couldn’t even feel it. I was always really proud of that fact. So if you can be really brave for me, I promise to make it just as quick and painless. What do you say? Will you help me?”

“If I do, do you promise that I’ll be able to go home?” Peter crept closer to her.

Kelly couldn’t promise that, but she needed his blood sample. “I promise that I will do my absolute best, Peter.” It was as much of the truth she could offer to him. Then she had another thought. “Do you know who Kyle Frost is?”

The boy nodded. “He’s one of the Urban Dwellers.”

She decided to roll the dice. “I’m Kyle’s mate.” She saw Peter’s eyes go wide. “That’s right. Because of that, I guarantee that he’s going to come for me. When he does, I’ll take you with me.” She realized that saying out loud that she was Kyle’s mate didn’t cause any sense of fear inside of her anymore. It felt right. It was too bad then that the rest of it wasn’t true.

Peter’s arm snaked through the cage, and he offered his vein to her. Kelly quickly took the opportunity to take a small vial of Peter’s blood before he could see the lie in her eyes. She gave him a Band-Aid and squeezed his hand. “Thanks, Peter, this is a big help.”

As he put pressure on the crook of his elbow, he gave her a shy smile. “You’re right. I barely even felt it.”

She chuckled and gave him a thumbs up sign. Then she got up and quickly walked over to the microscope. She readied a new slide with a small drop of Peter’s blood. She put the slide underneath the microscope. She gasped as she pulled away. Then she looked at it again. She was shocked. There was no sign of mutation. Peter was perfectly, normally human.

She started to scratch notes on the empty pad of paper next to her. She had to know more about this vaccine that Oak Tree had developed. She had a thousand questions. Was it possible that if it was administered prior to the first phase that that was the key? How could this be? What could it mean to the community at large?

She was still scribbling notes after having studied Peter’s blood further when she heard the door open. She looked up as the General entered. He immediately strode to the other side of the counter across from her.

“Well?”

“These are hardly the most ideal circumstances for being able to make a determination like this. But if you were to ask me what species Peter Franklin is, I would say that he is human.”

The lines around the General’s mouth tightened. He pulled his hand from behind his back. He had another file in it. He handed it to her. Kelly looked at it suspiciously and then back at him. “Is this information about their vaccine?”

“No, it’s the details of our own little concoction. Let’s just say that, once again, Oak Tree Pharmaceuticals wasn’t the only one doing their own work in private. That boy is a shifter. He was always meant to be a shifter, and you’re going to make sure that that destiny is fulfilled.”

Kelly realized then what she was holding. “So what you’re telling me is that while Oak Tree was working on a vaccine to end shifterism, you were working on the antidote?”

The General shook his head. “Not an antidote. A vaccine for humanism.”

Kelly felt shaken to her core. “Why would you need create anything like this? If a human wants to become a shifter, they simply need to be bitten by one.” There was a part of her that was relieved that Kyle had only grazed her with the mating bite. Anything deeper, and there would have been a chance that she would have been changed as well.

“By that time, they’re adults. Too wedded to their human side half the time. Do you know the suicide rates for humans who are bit by shifters? It’s not pretty. No, we needed a better way to bolster the numbers of our troops. An additional shot slipped in during the course of standard infant vaccinations, and there you go. A bumper crop of humans who will become shifters after all.”

“That makes you no different than Oak Tree. It’s worse because you are talking about playing God! I won’t have any part of it.” Kelly stood and slammed her hand down on the counter. That was when she saw the General’s eyes light on her shoulder. He moved around the table so quickly that Kelly could only gasp. When he ripped aside the side collar of her shirt, she knew then what he had seen. “When were you planning to tell me that you are my son’s mate?”

“You never bother to ask, but I am,” Kelly said defiantly.

The General shoved her away. Then he looked at the guard standing inside the door. “Double security around the perimeter. I think we’re about to get some company.”

Kyle stood in front of the row of tiny monitors and stared at the grainy pictures being displayed on the screen. He had security pull every single videotape in the building across the last four hours. He was looking for any sign of Kelly. He knew that she had to have entered the Market shortly after she left the club. From there, it was just a guessing game trying to retrace her path. Cal hadn’t been as much help with that as they hoped. He had simply said she wandered around for a long time, and he stopped to get a drink from a water fountain, and she was gone.

Sophie was the one who caught sight of her first. She pointed at the screen on the left. “There she is.”

Kyle pushed Sophie out of the way and ignored her snort of derision. It was his mate they were talking about. He was frantic with worry but was holding it together as best he could.

After confronting the small man at the booth, they tracked small drops of blood all the way to the loading dock at the back of the building. She was hurt, and Kyle could only hope that she wasn’t hurt badly. He assumed that the wound was probably a knock over the head to keep her quiet as they stole her out of the building.

His thoughts raced about who it might be. Could it be Oak Tree following through on their threat? Although it seemed the most likely explanation, Kyle couldn’t help but feel like they were missing something. He knew that Oak Tree had deep pockets. It seemed more logical that they would be satisfied with completely slandering Kelly’s name, especially since they had it all teed up already. This kind of violence sounded like someone else. His thoughts immediately went to a bad place, and he shook it off. He couldn’t let his past cloud his judgment about what was going on right now. He needed to be calm and logical.

Once they found Kelly’s entrance into the building, the guard in front of them was able to pull up the different cameras and trace her steps through the Market. She wandered around for the better part of an hour before she ended up in front of the booth of the small man. Kyle couldn’t keep the growl from erupting from the back of his throat. This was where things were going to happen. This was where he was going to get mad.

“You gotta keep your cool,” Sophie said. Kyle could tell that she was worried. He was keeping his leash on his bear as best he could. But now that he had let him out, the bear wanted to come back. The bear wanted to take its revenge on whoever had been foolish enough to mess with their mate.

Kyle ignored her once again. He could tell that Sophie was getting frustrated with him, but at least he had Cal on his side. Although, of course, Cal simply didn’t argue. Kyle realized that he had no idea what the larger man was thinking. It was kind of the nice thing about Cal. The man did what he was told, and he didn’t talk back, unlike Kyle’s other employees.

Kyle watched as Kelly talked to the small man for a minute or two. She was looking at something on the table in front of her. Then the man moved to the back to start digging in some larger boxes, and Kelly moved around the corner of his booth.

When she disappeared behind the booth, Kyle said to the security guard, “Flip on the camera so we can see behind the booth.”

The guard shook his head. “There’s a blind spot behind that particular booth. It’s one of those things that we keep meaning to take care of and just haven’t had a chance yet.”

Kyle couldn’t believe it. A moment later, the small man reappeared in his booth looking as if there wasn’t anything wrong. He looked one way and then another and then returned to what he had been doing originally. There was no sign of Kelly. Kyle slammed his fist down on the console. “You have to have footage of the loading dock at least.”

The security guard nodded quickly. “Yes, let me pull that up.”

Kyle waited impatiently as the guard’s fingers flew over the keyboard. A moment later, footage appeared in front of them. In it, although it was just a few minutes later, he could see a piece of black fabric was thrown over the camera lens. He growled in frustration, but Sophie leaned forward. “Play that back again.”

The security guard did as she asked. Just before the fabric slipped onto the camera lens, she told him to pause it. “Look,” she said. Kyle followed her finger. It was very difficult to see, but then he saw what she was pointing at. There was a small van parked across from the loading bay. It was almost completely out of sight. That was the target. He saw the emblem on the side, and he felt his insides grow cold. “Tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

“Okay, I won’t then.”

What they were looking at on the side of the van was an emblem for the United States Army.

Suddenly, Kyle knew who had taken Kelly. It seemed unfathomable, but then he remembered how his father had shown a peculiar interest in Kelly at the gala. Much more so than he would’ve expected. No doubt there was something else that he was missing. But now at least he understood where to start.

Kyle turned away and pulled out his phone. He quickly dialed Tony’s number. “Tell me where the closest lab is to Copper City that is operated by the Army.” Kyle didn’t bother telling him why.

“I’ll have to have Samuel look. But I think it’s probably outside the city. You remember they built that small facility out there a while ago? I didn’t think it was open yet, but you never know what’s going on with the Army.”

Samuel was the head of the Urban Dwellers intelligence group. If anybody knew anything about anything going on in Copper City, it was Samuel. He maintained a small network of spies in various high-ranking political offices and other institutions of interest to the Urban Dwellers. He had been a loyal employee of Tony’s for over five years.

“I think my father took Kelly.” There it was. The ugly truth.

He heard a small gasp on the other end of the line. There wasn’t much that surprised Tony. Having been raised by a politician, he was more than familiar with the different kinds of intrigue that went on in the government. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Then why don’t you call him and ask him directly?”

“Clearly, he thought that he could do this around me. At least, I think I know where he would go. Maybe it is about time we had a heart to heart, but we need to do it in person.”

“What do you need from me?” That was one thing that Kyle always appreciated about Tony. Unlike Eric, who was crusty and difficult in the best of circumstances and had to be convinced of everything, Tony was a man of action. Kyle often thought that if he hadn’t gone into psychology that Tony would’ve made an excellent soldier too.

“If you can have Samuel confirm, I would appreciate it. I’m sending you the picture I have now. I’m assuming that the vehicle will be registered to that address.”

“You got it. I’ll check in with you as soon as I know anything.”

Kyle directed the security guard to take a photo of the van. Then he gave him Tony’s email address and told him to send it off. That accomplished, there was only one thing left to do. He would start out towards the address in question and wait for confirmation. Once he had that, he and his father were finally going to have a talk that was about fifteen years overdue.

“I’ll go with you,” Sophie said as she started to follow him.

“No, you stay here. I’m not going to put anyone else’s life in danger.”

“You need backup,” Sophie said. “Surely your father is going to know that you’re going to figure out he was the one he took her, and then he knows you’ll come for her. You need someone with you.”

“No, I don’t. This is between me and my father, and he will understand that too.”

As Kyle drove out to the facility, he parked in a small parking lot on the outskirts of the city. He could see the lights of the facility in the distance. Judging by all the activity he could see even from this distance, it was definitely open for business.

There was a small ding, and he saw it was the notification that he had been waiting for. It was a text from Tony.

Samuel confirmed address. Van was registered there too. Good luck.

That was another thing the Kyle always appreciated about Tony. He wasn’t questioning his decision or making him feel like he was doing the wrong thing. The only thing that mattered was that Kelly’s life was in danger. He was going to get her out, but he wasn’t going to use violence unless he had to. If he had learned anything in the last fifteen years, it was that violence wasn’t the answer. He chuckled to himself, but it held no humor in it. Perhaps he and Tony had gotten their roles confused all along. Tony should’ve been the soldier, and he should’ve been the politician.

Now he could only deal with what was in front of him, though. There was only one way to confront the General.

“Let’s do this,” Kyle said to no one in particular. It was time.

Kyle got out of his truck. He carefully tossed his clothes into the front seat. He felt like his time was starting to run short. As soon as he was out of his clothes, he looked around him. There was no one in sight from either direction on the road. He gave it a moment, took a deep breath, and then he phased again. When his bear consciousness rose to the surface, Kyle knew without a doubt that this was the right thing to do. He and his father had gone round and round but had never had a full out confrontation. They were far long overdue.

Kyle ambled through the woods as it led up to the facility. Then he found the road again and ambled up to the front gate. He knew that there were more than a dozen guns trained on him. He stood at the front gates and let out a roar that he dragged from the depths of his soul.

Everything he felt about his life was contained in that roar. The unfairness of it all. The unwillingness to bow to someone else’s will. The fact that his father had let him grow up feeling as if he was never good enough. The fact that he had spent fifteen years in the Army looking for a kind of peace that he had only found just recently. His demons were still there, no doubt about it. But it was because of Kelly that he was willing to finally make the change necessary to move forward in his life and claim what was rightfully his.

Why hadn’t he told her this? Why had he let her leave? How he could’ve ever believed that she would do something like create a vaccine against shifters, he didn’t know. She had been the victim of a smear campaign, plain and simple, and when it had come time to decide if he was with her or against her, he had been against her. He couldn’t blame her for leaving. He would’ve done the same.

Now it was time to fix that mistake. He sensed hundreds of eyes on him, even though he knew there were probably only a dozen or so soldiers on the barricades. The gate in front of him stayed closed.

He heard a voice over the speaker. “No unannounced shifters. Phase back immediately.”

Kyle’s bear roared again. He would not bow down. These men were in his city and his territory now. It was time that the government figured out that if they were going to try and play games with Copper City, there was a new set of rules that they were going to have to follow. Kyle roared again.

He went up on his back legs knowing he appeared more threatening that way. He also realized that move exposed his belly. But there was no way that if his father was inside, he would let them shoot him. At least, not yet. His father would understand this for what it was. Kyle had come to challenge him once and for all.

Kyle waited. It took every ounce of self-control not to let the bear charge the gates. He innately sensed that if he did, the guards would not be so kind. He waited outside of the gates for the one that he had come to see. He knew that if he stepped through the gates, though, then he could be seen as some type of traitor or betrayer. After all, at some point, he had been part of that whole infrastructure. But now he was taking a stand that it was wrong. He wanted no further part of it. And, he had come for the one that was his.

It didn’t take long. As he expected, his father appeared from a door inside the building. He walked towards Kyle slowly with a grim look on his face. He spoke to him from the other side of the chainlink fence. “Son, I think that you have come to the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Kyle only snarled. He waited.

“Don’t let this get out of hand, Kyle. This has nothing to do with you. You are in over your head, and you are going to make enemies that you will regret.”

Kyle did nothing but snarl again. This was the only answer that mattered. Someone had come into his territory and taken something that was his. His bear would not stand for negotiation or further deception. There was one thing and one thing only that he had come for. And he would get her, no matter what happened.

“Son, I need you to phase back into your human form so we can talk.”

Kyle did not do this. He had broken free of all of the types of control that his father had once had over him. There was only one message that he needed to send. He didn’t need to be in his human form for that. He concentrated with every bit of his will, and then he sent the thought out across the distance between them. He knew the instant that his message landed when his father’s eyes went wide.

“I had no idea,” his father whispered.

There was power in the word, but that wasn’t the part that his father was reacting to. His father couldn’t care less about Kelly other than how he could use her and abuse her for his own purposes. Just like he’d used and abused his own son in the course of his treatments and his programs as he had allowed them to experiment on Kyle and the other soldiers through the years. Kyle held a bitterness against his father that he could no longer control.