Page 82 of After the Fall

I stepped toward the humans, but a competitor stepped in front of them. A female of my own kind. Was she going to kill the humans before I could? I wasn’t the sharing kind, and was looking forward to a hearty meal.

She bared her teeth at me. She wasn’t going to attack them, she was protecting them.

My skull ached and then another jolt of pain surged through my body. I would kill everyone in that room to make it stop.

The yellow-haired girl had water running down her face and was wailing like a wounded animal. She kept jingling a gold metal handcuff in front of me and wailing.

“Argh.” I dropped to my knees again. My head felt like it was on fire. I needed to make it stop. I lunged forward and smacked their protector out of the way. She was strong, but I was stronger. Stronger than I’d ever been. I could smash through the concrete wall and disappear into the woods forever.

I stopped and stared out the door, down the long, narrow hallway. It would be easy to get away.

But the searing pain returned.

Turning back to the humans, I picked the yellow-haired one. She was the stronger of the two, and might put up a fight. As soon as she was out of the way, the other one, cowering like a cornered rabbit – her neck would snap like a… I was failing to find a comparison, the only thing coming to my mind...

Stick.

It took two steps to reach the yellow-haired girl, but for some reason I couldn’t bring my hands to her throat. I rested them on her shoulders, but a familiar smell made me ease up my grip. I tilted my head and stared at her, but the claw lady pressed the button on her control.

I wouldn’t have cared if the person in front of me was my own mother; I would’ve squeezed the life out of her to make the pain stop. But I couldn’t seem to operate my hands. Something was stopping me from hurting her, something deep inside me that I couldn’t control.

The freakish one of my kind ran at me, but I swatted it away. He was weak.

While I watched the creature try to stand, I was rammed into the wall. The concrete building shook. A crack splintered up the blocks from the impact. It hurt, but not as much as the zap thing.

It took a few seconds to get to my feet and when I did, I saw that it was another one of my kind. A big one – one that looked and smelled to be almost as wild as me. This one was a real threat. I glanced to the red-clawed woman and she drew one of her fingers across her neck. I remembered this gesture from my human life. She wanted me to kill him.

I lowered into a crouch and used my powerful thighs to launch myself at the creature. He did the same. Our bodies slammed into each other. He grabbed me and I grabbed him.

He fought the same as me. Did I know him?

We tussled on the ground. As hard as I tried, the other guy was just as strong. He managed to pick me up and wrap his armsaround me in a standing wrestling move – one that I’d used in the past; one that I knew I couldn’t extract myself from.

The creature was making sounds. I knew that they were words, but I couldn’t understand them. He could’ve crushed me, and I waited for that to come. But instead, he just held onto me. I struggled, but knew I couldn’t get free.

The metal piece on my head got hot and I knew that another zap was coming.

This one was the worst. I couldn’t stand. My legs buckled beneath me. But the other sasquatch held me up.

The female that I’d tossed aside had put the humans in the corner, and like a bear protecting its kill, stood in front of them.

Red Claw screamed and I knew that another bolt was coming.

Instead of reaching behind me to fight the other sasquatch, I tapped at the metal on my head. As though my aggressor understood, he released one of my arms to pry the plate from my skull. It hurt, and the crunching sound of pieces of my skull coming off with the metal made me want to vomit.

The woman kept pressing the button on the box in her hand, but the metal piece glowed red and hot on the floor.

The room came into focus, and the foreign language that everyone had been speaking started to make sense. It was English, and I understood it.

I turned to face the sasquatch that had saved my skull. Even though I was still very wild, I recognized the familiar gaze of the sasquatch in front of me. If I’d been more human, tears would’ve blurred my vision.

“Jax,” I managed to croak. “You’re back.”

He pointed to the red-clawed woman. A man had joined her. The memories flooded back to me.

Carders. Implant. Dead hybrids. Joe.

HARPER.

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