He pressed a hand to his brow as if warding off a headache.
“So your daddy runs The Keep and didn’t give a shit if you got caught?”
“Shut the fuck up.” He whirled around and punched her in the gut.
Winded, she held onto her belly. If the ass wanted a fight, he’d get one. Course that had to wait until the pain subsided and her breath returned.
Cricket rasped, “I don’t give a shit, anyway.”
He scowled. “I killed the omegas at Warner’s lab, and maybe I’ll do the same to you.”
She straightened, and her fangs extended. “Coward. I bet you shoot wolves from helicopters.”
He laughed. “It doesn’t matter. By tomorrow, you’ll be just as dead as me.”
“I survived the change. Don’t count on me dying of Variant Midgard.”
“Runts are practically human, are they not?”
“So they say.” Cricket faced him. No reason he couldn’t be neutered before his death.
Suddenly, he leaned on the wall, his sweaty brow and increased body temperature the first sign of the virus. His eyes were glassy, bloodshot and the odor of decay already escaping his pores. Mood swings, definitely part of the illness.
She looked at the vent. Could she succumb to it? “The incubation period is much faster than six hours.”
“Improved.” Robert stared feverishly at her. “Fuck them.” He opened his mouth and removed a back molar.
“What are you doing?”
“Ending it.” The molar fumbled out of his fingers, and she grabbed it in the air. It held a tablet inside.
“Give it back, bitch!” He reached, but stumbled.
“Cyanide, easy way out, huh?”
Blood oozed out of his nose and his veins throbbed, like red rivers ready to burst and flood out of his skin.
With no tissue around to clean his face, the best she could do was to keep him calm. “Save your energy and maybe pray your vaccine against the other variant offers some help.”
He plopped on the bench and pinched his nose, his head high. He groaned. “Just give me the damn pill.”
Her ribs still aching from his fist, she winced and stomped on the tablet.
“No,” he croaked.
Her claws extended. “I can kill you swiftly.”
Jack looked at her and smiled with blood-stained teeth. “Go for it.”
She flinched. He stank like rotting flesh. “First talk.”
The dying man stopped smiling and moaned.
“Is a human mole working within our packs?”
“Fuck you.” Jack coughed up blood.
Cricket touched her hot sweaty brow. Despite her dominant human side, she had never once caught a human cold or illness. She’d been ill, but always from infections caused by injuries and from her close but painful brush with death during the change. Never from human diseases.