Wolver's Rescue (3 page)

Bull looked down at her. She was young. She
was pretty. She was getting blood on his shirt. He pried her off
his chest.

She looked surprised. “But...but you fought
them off to save my life.”

“
No. I followed protocol and
secured the ward. Your body was in the way.” The elevator doors
opened and he gave her a gentle push into the hall. “Get stitched.
Go home. Don’t come back,” he said. “Find someplace else to save
the world.”

The wide eyes narrowed to vicious slits.
“It’s your loss, you know” she snapped. “You could have had
something good.”

“
Yeah, me and a hundred
other guys,” he muttered as he watched her flounce through the
infirmary doors, no longer looking shaken.

He was about to follow her when the doors to
the second elevator opened and the male nurse, who brought the
gurney to pick up Moses, stepped out. Unlike the halls upstairs,
the basement halls were narrow so Bull waited for the gurney to
pass. It never did. He heard its wobbly wheel roll away in the
other direction and suddenly the infirmary wasn’t nearly as
interesting as the gurney’s destination.

He followed. His sensitive hearing made it
easy to stay well behind and out of sight. The basement was a maze
of narrow hallways and as he moved deeper into it, Bull could
almost feel the walls closing in. He ignored the sensation and kept
moving. The walls and floors became dirtier, and the air was stale
and musty with age. Bull pulled in deep breaths through his nose,
telling himself it would desensitize his chemoreceptors to the odor
of rats. It was bullshit, but it was all he had to keep the
claustrophobia at bay.

He heard the wobbling wheel of the gurney off
to the left where two hallways crossed, but another sound drew him
to the right. He’d heard the soft snarl that any wolver would
recognize. The mystery of Thomas Mortimer Bane’s whereabouts was
solved.

When the snarl was followed by a soft and
pitiful whine of fear, Bull began to run, ignoring the strange
sensation that stabbed at his chest.

Bull took a deep, calming breath, before he
opened the door. His story was ready. He was new, he’d say if
questioned. He was told to follow the nurse and the gurney with an
injured patient. He’d gotten lost in the confusing warren of
basement hallways. He needed directions.

He tried the knob of the room marked Animal
Behavioral Studies, found the door unlocked and pushed it open.
Ready with his explanation, he took a deep breath, but no words
emerged. He saw the cage and the creature within it.

The enclosure covered an eight foot square.
Built of steel bars and anchored to the floor at the four corners,
it was no more than three feet high. The wolver it held was down on
all fours because there was no choice. He couldn’t tell if it was
male or female. Wet, matted hair hung down to the ground in front
of it. Glaring, feral eyes stared out of the filthy face. Its lips
were drawn back in a snarl.

Two men worked together, one poking at the
wolver, the other trying to loop the collar of an animal control
rod over the wolver’s head.

“
God damnit, zap it again!”
the smaller of the two shouted as he gave the wolver a vicious stab
with the pole. “The fucking thing bit me.”

The larger, heavier man dropped his pole and
reached for the electric prod on the counter. “You could have made
this easy,” he said to the creature in the cage.

All of this came together in seconds; the
cage, the wolver, the poles, the words, the cut off scream as the
wolver fell forward with the agonizing touch of the prod. It was as
if the electric current flowed through Bull, too. His wolf snarled
and leapt inside of him with its need to be released. His human
mind and body exploded with instant rage.

With a mindless roar, he hurled himself at
the smaller of the two men. The pole was left dangling in the cage
as the man’s body was tossed across the room to land with a thud
against the wall. Bull felt the other’s presence behind him and
turned. Hands locked together, the larger man’s two fisted blow
drove into Bull’s shoulder instead of the base of his neck. The
force drove his shoulder down and his knees bent to absorb the
impact.

As the man drew back his hammer-like fist for
another blow, Bull straightened his legs and drove his punished
shoulder up and into his opponent’s gut. The momentum carried them
both to the floor. They rolled, broke apart, and scrambled to their
feet. The heavy man recovered first. He fell on Bull, grasping him
in a bear hug that drove the breath from his body.

Bull’s hands were free, but the big man held
him so tight to his chest, he couldn’t find angle or purchase to do
damage. He went for the eyes, thumbs grinding inward until his
opponent roared and let go. They fell apart. The man swung his head
from side to side, a bear unable to see. Bull fell to the floor and
his hand hit the handle of the animal catch pole. Breathing
heavily, he rose up, pole in hand, and threaded the loop over the
big man’s head. One hand on the pole, the other wrapped in the
cable at the base, he pulled to tighten the noose and kept pulling,
showing no mercy for the man’s purpling face and bulging eyes. He
watched without feeling as the man’s fingers stopped their clawing
and he fell to his knees. He kept tightening the cable until the
man fell to the floor and stopped gasping for air.

He left him there, went to the smaller man
crumpled next to the wall, felt for a pulse and finding one,
snapped his neck without a second thought.

“
Wolvers and cages don’t
mix,” he whispered to the dead man.

He turned back to the cage.

~*~

She was more terrified than ever. She curled
her body into the smallest possible ball, legs close together,
knees drawn up beneath her chin, arms locked around her legs. Her
back was pressed into the bars so deeply it hurt.

Though she’d never seen him before, this new
guy was one of them. He wore the same black trousers and white tee
shirt they all did. He wore the same black leather belt and shoes.
Only his anger was different. Pure and raw, it was more frightening
than anything she’d witnessed before.

He stooped down in front of the door to the
cage, snapped his fingers and beckoned to her. “Come on,” he
said.

She didn’t move. He was one of them. Maybe he
was angry because Buster and Stu had disobeyed Dr. Gantnor’s
orders. Maybe he was just angry. She pointed Stu’s catch pole, not
the loop, but the other end, and jabbed it at him.

He sat back on his heels. “You can’t stay
here. We’ve got to get you out. Come on.” He held out his hand
again.

She shook her head and jabbed at him with the
pole.

“
God damnit!” He slapped the
pole down with his hand and yanked it from her grasp. He threw it
behind him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said
angrily.

She’d heard that one before, usually right
before it hurt.

He let out his breath and got down on his
hands and knees. She watched his head swivel back and forth as he
took in the overturned slop bucket in the corner, the bowl with the
raw meat drying on the bone, the pile of rags she used for a bed,
the fine spray of water from the hose they hadn’t turned completely
off. While he made no noise, his throat worked like he was gagging
and the anger on his face turned into something else. He closed his
eyes and crawled through the cage door until half his body was
inside. He held out his hand to her again.

“
Please,” he whispered and
when he opened his eyes to look at her, she knew he was pleading
with her not to make him come in as much as asking her to come
out.

There was fear in his eyes. He blinked and it
was gone.

He hated and feared the cage. It was enough
for her to follow him if not trust him. She rolled her body forward
onto her knees and crawled toward him while he moved back. He
stood. She continued to crawl.

“
Get up. Let’s get moving.”
He was already across the room and stripping the clothes from
Stu.

She wasn’t sure she could. Forced to remain
on all fours for so long, it felt strange to stand on two feet. She
used the cage to haul herself up. Leg and back muscles stretched to
unaccustomed length and she clung to the top of the cage to keep
her balance.

“
Jesus Christ.”

She turned. He was staring at her again, his
eyes travelling the length of her filthy and emaciated body. It had
been so long since she’d been allowed clothes she’d forgotten she
was naked. Suddenly shy in the face of this strong and healthy man,
she hung her head and turned away.

“
Jesus Christ,” he said
again, angrily this time. “Can you get dressed? Do you need
help?”

For a moment, she couldn’t move. He’d asked a
question. He’d given her a choice. Did he expect an answer? She
took a chance and nodded and then wondered if he’d understand the
nod.

He did. He laid the shirt and black pants on
the cage. “Hurry. We don’t have much time. Sun will be up soon and
we need the cover of darkness.”

He disappeared into the storeroom and as she
struggled into the clothes that were much too large for her skinny
frame, she watched the door and listened. She heard doors and
drawers crashing open and banging closed. Painful things were
stored in there. When she heard the angry shattering of glass and a
string of vile curses, she panicked and dropped to her knees. She
started to crawl back into the relative safety of the cage. The
giant trousers slid from her hips and trailed behind her.

Halfway in, she stopped and shook her head to
clear it. His anger wasn’t directed at her. It was for what he
found in storeroom. That anger was somehow comforting.

If she was going to escape, she had to let go
of the present and reach for the past where she made decisions and
fought the turmoil growing inside her. Thinking was difficult after
all this time, but there were simple things she could handle, like
getting dressed and letting go of the cage.

Just wearing clothes made her feel more in
control and reason began to reassert itself. She hiked the pants
back up around her waist. Stu’s belt was too big and as she looked
around for something to do the job, she spied the fast food sack on
the floor. The food would be cold, but she didn’t care. She opened
the bag with trembling fingers.

Clothing and food she chose to eat. She
almost felt free of the prison she’d been living in for... How
long? Weeks? Months? Years? She looked around the room, searching
for something that might tell her and her eyes landed on the
picture that hung on the wall. She wasn’t the only one who deserved
freedom.

She grabbed the yellow paper wrapped burger
from the bag and stuffed it in the pocket of the pants. The fries,
she stuffed in the pocket of her shirt. She shuffled to the picture
on the wall, still awkward on two legs.

~*~

Bull rummaged through the storeroom,
searching for some clue to Thomas Bane’s whereabouts. There was
nothing there but medical instruments whose use he’d rather not
think about, and the folder he held in his hand. It had a label in
the upper right hand corner much like the one on Eugene Begley’s
dossier. The name was the same, but there was no dollar amount
beneath it.

He’d hoped the folder would tell him the
wolver was dead and his mission complete, but there was nothing to
indicate one way or another, just jotted notes in a shorthand he
couldn’t decipher. He folded the few papers and stuffed them in his
pocket.

“
Where is Thomas Bane?” he
asked the woman as he came back into the main room.

The woman clutched a fast food bag to her
chest as if he might try to take it from her.

Even curled in the corner of the cage, he’d
known she wasn’t Bane. She was way too small to be a man, but he
hadn’t realized she was a woman, either. He’d thought she was a
boy, a pup too young to have gone over the moon, or shifted to
wolf, for the first time. When she stood and faced him fully
revealed, he couldn’t keep the shock from his eyes.

It wasn’t her nudity. In many wolver packs,
nudity, particularly during the full moon, was no big deal. It was
what had been done to her body. She wasn’t an immature cub. She was
a fully formed woman who’d been starved and abused. Her skin hung
loose on the bones of her small frame. Her arms and legs were
covered with bruises, and marks from the prod.

Primal Law required that females be
protected. Where was her pack? How had they allowed this to happen?
Anger and repulsion vied for dominance as his wolf again rose to
the surface.

She was easier to look at now that she was
clothed, but she reeked of urine and rotten meat and shit. Her hair
was matted with filth. They sure as hell hadn’t used that hose to
wash her off. He needed to get her out of here. Under other
conditions, he would have delivered her to the first nurse he saw
and left her to the local police.

But he couldn’t turn her over; first because
she was wolver and not human and second, because he didn’t know how
many of the staff were aware of her captivity. Did they know she
was a wolver? Was she the subject of some bizarre human experiment?
Or was she simply kept here for the warped enjoyment of the cretins
he’d just eliminated from the human gene pool.

A small refrigerator held vials of blood and
urine, all marked with the name of the wolver he was looking for.
There were other samples as well, kept in small, round, Petri
dishes, and cotton swabs held in tightly capped test tubes. He
turned the water on and dumped everything in the sink. What
couldn’t be washed down the drain, he shattered on the floor to
contaminate whatever evidence they held.