Predator (18 page)

Taft turned to Bree. “Get out of here.”

Once they exited the office and were out of earshot of the men, Bree stopped short and whispered in Liam’s ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Me neither,” Liam said. “I’m not leaving my da with those bastards.”

“My dad told me to follow his lead. He must have something in mind.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” Bree inhaled deeply and tried to calm herself; her heart beat like crazy and every muscle in her body screamed at her to run, to flee, to get out of there as fast as possible while she still could, but an invisible rope seemed to hold her there, tied her to her father. She looked at Liam, who stood less than six inches away. He kept a strong face, a fierce determination, as though no one could stop him.

Bree counted silently to ten and then eased her head back past the door frame. Her dad, Conor, and the men were still in the same positions.

Everything after that happened so fast. Her dad swung his leg and kicked an unsuspecting Taft in the groin. He yelled “Catch!” and threw the flash drive to Bree; it flew through the air and landed short inside the room. Despite his obvious pain, Taft lunged for her dad, but her dad twisted hard to the left and dove behind his desk just as a shot rang out.

Bree gasped. The bullet went high and wide, missing her dad and hitting Taft instead. Surprise lit across Taft’s face, and he clutched his arm; blood ran between his fingers and down his sleeve.

Bree dove for the flash drive, but instead of closing her hand around it, her fingertips propelled the flash drive across the floor and under the desk, right back into her dad’s hand. She could sense Liam as he moved behind her but couldn’t see him. She heard a hollow click and then another hollow click and turned her head. The other bad guy tossed his jammed gun; it spun and slid across the floor and came to a rest next to a chair leg.

“Get out of here!” her dad yelled from behind the desk. “Now.”

“Run,” Conor added.

Bree scrambled to her feet. Taft reached down and yanked her dad off the floor. Pinned him against the wall, hands and arms flailing. “Go!” her dad said.

Bree stood there, frozen. She couldn’t leave; she had to make another try for that flash drive.

Then a strange noise emerged from Taft; it was deep and loud and guttural.

Heart racing, barely able to breathe, Bree couldn’t take her eyes off him.

He was transforming right in front of her.

A beast of a man before, Taft grew to nearly twice his previous size. His muscles became so huge they looked like they belonged to an ape on steroids. Elongated face and ears. Long teeth and fangs. Razor-sharp claws pierced the toes of his army boots. Hair sprouted from every inch of his skin and grew eight inches in a matter of seconds. He no longer stood straight; his mass and size forced his upper body slightly forward.

Bree followed movement across the room. The other guy had transformed too.

This was the horror her dad had created.

These were no longer men, nor were they super soldiers. They were pure killing machines. Beasts hungering for blood—lycanthropes with eyes that held only one emotion—rage.

Liam jumped on the one guy’s back, kicking at the lycanthrope with his heels. Rushing to Liam’s aid, Conor clenched his fist and cocked back his arm, but before he could throw the punch the lycanthrope tossed Liam off his back with ease. Liam landed hard against the office wall. Conor’s blow met the lycanthrope’s stomach with a thud, but the lycanthrope didn’t flinch. It clawed Conor’s gut and threw him against the wall as if he weighed nothing. The impact cut short Conor’s scream. He fell to the floor, right leg splayed at an odd angle, eyes glazed and fixed. Liam dove to his dad’s side and pressed hard on Conor’s stomach to try to staunch the bleeding.

Taft lifted her dad and dropped him hard. His knees buckled underneath him. As her dad struggled to gain his footing, Bree heard a guttural cry unlike anything she’d ever heard—and the other lycanthrope leapt straight for her dad.

Bree yelled, “Watch out!”

Her dad threw the flash drive to Bree. “Go. Get out while you—”

The lycanthrope hit her dad with such force he flew backwards and smashed into the wall. He slid down it like a rag doll before the lycanthrope grabbed him. The beast raised its paw and bared its razor-sharp claws.

One perfect swipe to the jugular was all it took to shatter Bree’s already broken life.

Blood gushed from the wound and coated the lycanthrope’s claws.

Her dad stared at Bree, wide-eyed from shock, neck ripped open, mouth agape, struggling to suck in air.

Then he dropped lifeless to the floor.

“Run, Bree. Run,” Liam yelled.

“Not without you.”

“Go.”

The instinct to survive took over. Flash drive in hand, Bree ran for her life.

Bree ran until her muscles burned, and even then she kept running—eyes straight ahead, arms pumping. Every now and then she looked back for Liam but found no sign of him. Flash drive clutched tightly in her hand, her feet pounded sidewalk, gravel, dirt, grass. Each frenzied step, each turn, took her farther from the reality that her dad was dead, her mom was dead, Troy was dead. Only when she realized she had no clue where she was going did she think about the fact that she was all alone in the world.

She couldn’t go home. Home no longer existed.

And she couldn’t go to Liam’s.
Oh God
, she thought.
What’s going to happen to him?
She turned again. If only she could see Liam’s face and know he was all right.

She continued to run. She had to keep her dad’s research from those men. He died protecting it, and she wasn’t going to let him down.

The woods loomed ahead, and Bree glanced behind her but saw no one. If the lycanthropes had chased her, they would have caught up to her by now. She’d seen the speed the mice had displayed.

Bree pushed through the densely-packed brush. Sticker bushes scratched at her clothes. She plowed on until she could no longer see the lit houses behind her. Then Bree stopped behind a large tree and slid to the ground. Only then did she let herself cry—deep, heaving sobs that wracked her body. Her muscles screamed from the torture, but it was nothing compared to the pain she felt in her heart; it was like someone had ripped it apart and tried to reassemble it without all the pieces.

She should have run to her dad’s side, cradled his head in her lap like he did for her after she’d had bad dreams as a child, smoothed his hair, and wiped the blood from his throat.

She never had a chance to say goodbye.

The tears eventually stopped, and she ceased shaking. Exhausted, she lay down, not bothering to clear a soft spot. The twigs beneath her head and the poking rock suited her. She welcomed the pain, the last thing she shared with her dad.

Before long, she started to shiver from the drop in temperature. She sat up and rubbed her arms and legs to get warm. Where could she go? Every time she sought an answer, she came up blank.

Bree picked her way back out of the woods. Faint moonlight guided her. Stopping at the tree line, she could see past a swing set and into a lit den where a man watched TV from a recliner, beer in hand. Continuing along the way, she passed house after house that revealed their occupants: a heavy-set woman leaning against the refrigerator eating ice cream straight out of the container, a dog curled up on a sofa, a man typing on a laptop at his kitchen table. People looking normal. Safe. How had her life, nestled among theirs, taken such a horrible turn?

Before clearing the woods, Bree scanned the area, taking in everything. After a white pick-up with oversized tires sped down the street, she raced across the asphalt, hopped the curb, and jumped a fallen branch on the lawn. She felt her pocket to ensure the flash drive was still safely inside and continued on through the night like a wild animal on the hunt, careful and determined.

A half hour later, Bree reached the field house behind Upper Press High School. The door was locked and so was the window. She grunted with frustration, wondering why this was happening to her. Why something couldn’t go right. Just one thing. Anything?
Please?

On hands and knees, she groped for a fist-sized rock. She stood three feet away from the window and wound up for the pitch. With all of her anger, she released the rock fast and hard. It crashed into the window, and the glass shattered, leaving a basketball-sized hole framed with jagged glass that would cut her to pieces if she tried to pass through it.

Bree thought for a moment. If she smashed out the rest of the glass she could climb through the hole; it was better than nothing, and it wasn’t like anyone else was around to help her. Before she could change her mind, Bree pulled her shirt over her head; the cool air stung her skin, and she shivered. Two quick wraps around her hand and the shirt was secure. Now for the window.

Before she could smash the glass, her cell rang. Bree glanced at the display, saw Liam’s number, and almost sank to her knees with relief.

She slid open the cell and shot out her words like a rapid-fire machine gun. “Liam! I thought they got you. I thought you were—”

“It’s not Liam.”

Bree froze.

That voice—it belonged to one of the super soldiers.

“What did you do to Liam?”

“He’s fine,” the man said. “For now. You have three hours to deliver the flash drive or he’ll die just like your father.”

Images of her dad’s ripped throat, the look in his eyes, the blood dripping down his neck, his dead body on the floor…they came back with a vengeance and Bree couldn’t shake them. She closed her eyes, but that only made it worse; they played like a HD movie.

So vivid.

So real.

Bree struggled to pull herself together. Her grief would have to wait. Liam needed her. But she had to stop the men somehow, prevent them from getting the research her dad had died trying to protect. How many others would die if these men succeeded? If she couldn’t stop them, his death would be for nothing. Her dad had never backed down when things got tough—and she wouldn’t either.

She couldn’t.

“I want to talk to Liam,” Bree said in a determined tone. “I won’t do anything until I’m sure he’s okay.”

“Suit yourself.”

She could hear a noise, like someone moving a heavy wooden door, and then the phone was quiet for a long moment before Liam came on the line. “Bree. Don’t do—”

A slap echoed through the phone. Liam’s cry sounded more like surprise than pain.

“Leave him alone,” Bree yelled.

“Remember—in three hours he’s dead. And you’re next.”

“I don’t have the flash drive anymore.” She fingered the device in her pocket. “I hid it and I need some time to—”

“Then get it.”

“Fine.”

“There’s a building at the far end of the Largemont industrial complex. You can’t miss it. Go around the back to the loading dock and you’ll see a sign over the door that says
Yang’s
. Make sure you bring the flash drive and come alone. If you don’t…well, you already know how it will end.” With that the phone cut off.

Shivering as much from fear as from the cold, Bree shut off her cell, pocketed it, and put on her shirt. She leaned against the field house attempting to come up with a plan that would save Liam and keep the research out of their hands. She kept coming up short, no matter what scenario she ran through her head. She was no match for either soldier or lycanthrope.

What do I do now?

She staved off the panic and sorted it all through again.

The answer hit her like a sledgehammer, fast and hard and full of power.

The waiting was the hard part. Bree wanted to place the call right away, but she needed to find a new hiding place in case the men tracked her somehow. But where? It had to be somewhere with people. A safe place where they wouldn’t dare approach if she wasn’t alone. The only places open around the clock were 7-Elevens and Dunkin Donuts. Either one had plenty of foot traffic at this time of night, but the 7-Eleven was closer.

When Bree arrived, bright lights lit up the store, and cars filled the small parking lot. She pushed inside the store—the bells jangling from the door announced her arrival—and strode past rows of candy and snack foods and a coffee station. She headed to the small bathroom in the back.

Bree locked the door behind her. She powered up her cell. One bar—her battery was almost dead—and the line was full of static. She moved closer to the half window and climbed the toilet seat to improve the reception. Then she looked up Isabella’s number.

After three rings, she got Isabella’s voice mail.

Bree’s heart sank. Then she blurted out, “This is Bree. Bree Sunderland. I’m in big trouble, and I really need your help. The soldiers turned into lycanthropes. They murdered my dad, they’ve got Liam, and now they’re after me. They want my dad’s research. They said to meet them at Yang’s in the Largemont complex. They said they need to figure out how to control the men—the lycanthropes or soldiers or whatever they are. But I don’t trust them, and neither did my dad. He died to keep it from them. You gotta help me. The Benandanti transformed into lycanthropes at one time. You have to know how to stop them.”

Bree looked at the phone with disbelief. What if Isabella didn’t get the message in time? What if she didn’t get it at all? Or what if she didn’t care? Tears flowed from Bree’s eyes, and she squatted on top of the toilet, phone in hand, shaking, not knowing what to do.

Hopeless and with no one to help her.

If she went to the police, they’d never believe her. And, although those men, those beasts, had said General Maberry had nothing to do with this, she didn’t trust them. Besides, she had no idea how to contact him even if she wanted to. And there was no time to figure it out.

But if she didn’t do something, Liam was going to die.

A rattle of the knob followed by a knock on the bathroom door startled Bree from her thoughts. She didn’t know how long she had been there, only that her legs were stiff. “Just a minute,” she said.