“Of course,” I heard Dr. Samboni say, sounding awestruck and worried at the same time.
None of this boded particularly well for me.How the fuck does he know I’m a white wolf? I haven’t shifted anywhere near this place. There’s no way he should be able to know that. He’s a human! He shouldn’t know about white wolves at all!
“I would like the two of you to form a proposal for what we will be doing instead. I will continue to collect some data,” the oldest doctor explained, ignoring me completely.
“Of course!” Dr. Samboni said, practically jittering before he hurried out the door. The other doctor, who still hadn’t said a word, followed him.
I scowled at the door, but I didn’t have long to think about it. Dr. Brenner was approaching me again, a casually pensive look on his face as he picked up another instrument. I tried to flinch away, but the restraints held me fast. But he proceeded to do nothing particularly invasive — he shone a light into my eyes like at the doctor’s office, took my temperature, boring things. No less uncomfortable, though.
He unbuttoned the top of my shirt even as I hissed and squirmed, ignoring me as if I was nothing more than a bug in his ear. I recognized the ultrasound for what it was — it didn’t hurt, and it probably wouldn’t cause me any harm, but still! He had no right to poke and prod at me like I was…I don’t know, not even alive.
“You already said I was defective,” I growled, squirming beneath the device. If I could just make his job a little more difficult, it would be worth it. “Why go to all this effort?”
“You’re still a shifter,” he said, not lifting his eyes from the screen behind me. “So there is still something I can learn from you.”
“You could justask me,” I snapped, struggling again.
“We have found your kind to be particularly uncooperative,” he replied. Something flickered across his face, but I couldn’t quite place the emotion there.
Encouraged, I kept digging. “My kind?” I growled again, showing my teeth. It probably wasn’t very impressive without fangs, but giving into my wolf’s instinct felt good just now.
“Shifters,” he said blandly. “Always so violent. So threatening.” He shook his head. “Why do you think they make better soldiers than most men, hm?”
How much does this man know about shifters?The thought made my skin crawl. “You’re making assumptions. You can’t prove any of that.”
He shrugged. “I don’t have to prove anything to you,” he replied, just as mild as he’d been this entire time. Dr. Brenner pulled the ultrasound probe away and set it down, looking pensive for a moment before pressing a button on the underside of my chair. The chair began to recline, just like a dentist’s office, until I was prone.
I shivered. “You know this is a race you might not even win. There are other wolves out there. Who’s to say they won’t join their countries’ militaries first?”
He sniffed. “You underestimate me. We will strike hard, and fast. And first.”
I growled back at him, straining my neck to try and watch him. He barely existed on the edge of my periphery, and I was starting to suspect he was doing that on purpose. “You can’t control people. This isn’t fuckingmagic.”
“Indeed,” he said, moving back to the rolling cart. “It is science. And you will find that I absolutely can.”
Before I could keep arguing with him, Brenner pushed my shirt up, revealing my belly. I shivered against the air as the probe was pressed back against my skin, none t0o gently.
“Ah,” he said a moment later, sounding more pleased than he had any right to. “I see the rest of your organs appear to be in working order. That’s pleasing.” He hummed. “Including your ovaries. And uterus. Excellent.”
Just the way he said it made me want to gag. I wasn’t some kind of walking womb or egg factory. I had no idea if I wanted children at all, but being forced to bring children into this world to be some sort of experiment? Absolutelynot. I would burn this place to the ground and myself along with it if that’s what it took.
The doctor set the probe back down and grabbed something else off the cart. “Time to test your healing factors,” he murmured, grabbing my arm.
“My what?!” I tried with all my might to jerk my arm away, but I still couldn’t move. He had no problem exposing the underside of my arm to make a small cut. I winced, but the wound barely bled, closing itself back up in a matter of moments.
Defective,I thought bitterly,but notthatdefective. I took a deep breath, trying to stoke my anger instead of letting anxiety crawl its way back up from the pit of my belly. I couldn’t afford to freak out right now. This Dr. Brenner character was a real piece of work, but I needed to get every bit of information I could. I refused to die in this place, and I refused to be any kind of lab rat for this sorry excuse of a man.
He pressed the blade to me again, more firmly this time, and I bit the inside of my mouth, refusing to scream. “You’re a sick fuck,” I snarled, allowing my anger to gain strength. “This is never going to work, you know. Never.”
Dr. Brenner simply hummed, watching my arm and taking notes as if he were observing a flower in bloom. “We will see, Subject 296. We will see.”
ELI
Eli’s Penthouse
Austin, Texas
We returned to my condo to regroup. I had thought I’d feel better here than I did anywhere else, but the sense of dread and anxiety welled back up the moment I unlocked the door to let Remus and my father inside. I hadn’t felt this way walking through a doorway since I was a kid, walking through the threshold into my mother’s new house. When the split had first happened, I'd missed her. I’d missed her fiercely.