Page 76 of Wolf Bane
“So they either hid the cars, or they’re moving on foot everywhere.”
Another nod.“We don’t tire as fast as humans.A were wanting to stay on the run can literally stay on the run for easily twice, three times as long as non-were.”
“You’re gonna be lucky if Justin and I can go on foot as long as a regular human,” I pointed out.“And I’m not leaving Robards.”
“We have to,” Tyler said shortly.“We can send someone back for him.”
“They’ll kill him.His own daughter will kill him.”
Eliza scoffed, startling me.I’d honestly thought she’d fallen asleep in there or just dissociated for a minute.Her bark of annoyance made us all jump.“If he dies, it’s due to weakness.Not me.”
“Oh my God, I wish I’d gagged her,” Tyler muttered.“We’re not leaving you here.And unless you’re cool carrying him, he has to stay.For now.”
“I’m not abandoning my patient.”I pushed past Tyler and made my way back to Robards’ bedside.“He wouldn’t make it out of the house anyway.He’s… he’s not well.”
“Landry.”Justin came to stand beside me, tenuous and pale.“What are you going to do if we leave you here?You can’t help him.”
“You don’t know…” I trailed off, closing my eyes for a moment.“It’s my fault he’s like this.If I’d stopped Garrow a year ago.Hell, years ago.If I’d paid more attention when I was younger.If?—”
“If Garrow had choked on a fucking grape when he was three and did us all a favor,” Tyler ground out.“Justin, what do you have?”
“Uh.I have, um, some notes about the serum they used specifically with Landry and Mal because they were using it as the basis for the Wolf Bane.I don’t know what they were doing to it, but they were basically turning it into a time bomb, targeting some specific cellular complex of the part-humans.”He shrugged helplessly.“I need more information if you want more answers.”
Somewhere, deep in the building, something heavy clanged and reverberated.
“Door,” Tyler muttered.“Shit.Daniel’s out.”
Hurriedly, Tyler and I shoved the table back against the doors.“Justin,” he ordered, “get over here.Put your weight against it.”
Justin and I leaned hard on the table just moments before a snarling weight hit the other side of the door.Daniel was a wolf again.Or maybe still.
“I’m in here!”Eliza screamed.“I’m in here!Help me, Daniel!They’re going to destroy everything!”
“Fuck my life,” I muttered, bracing against the floor.“Justin, you good?”
“Not even a little.”He was breathing heavy, eyes wild.“Lan, I think… I think it might happen again.I can’t… Fuck.”His eyes rolled back as a wet popping sound crackled up from his body.Thrashing, he fell to the floor, fighting against the change that was threatening to overtake him.
God, is that what I look like when it happens?Justin didn’t change the way I did—his hands remained hands, his jaw, his legs, his posture mostly human.But his body looked broken, wrong.Sweat poured from his skin, the stench of fear and animal panic swamping the lab as he burbled, something inside him crushing out the human parts of him, choking his voice into feral growls and gurgles.
I dropped to my knees, the table jolting away from the door with Daniel’s next hit.“Justin.Justin, listen to me.Breathe, okay?Big, slow breaths.Like this!”I demonstrated, though my own breath was audibly shaking.
“Landry!What the fuck, man?”Tyler shouted.“Fuck!”
“Justin, just listen to me, okay?Breathe.Your body is trying to protect you.It’s trying to make you the biggest, scariest thing in the room.That’s what the were part of us does.Don’t fight it.Just breathe, okay?”
“Physician, heal thyself,” Tyler muttered, joining me on the floor.He’d taken off the apron—good lord—and fashioned it into a pouch using the ties.“Hard drives,” he explained at my glance.“I’ll sort it out when we’re gone.Hopefully.There’s a good chance they’re toast now.I didn’t have time to get ‘em out safely.Justin.Hey, Justin, I’m gonna pick you up, okay?”
Justin panic-whined, trying to get away as Tyler scooped him up.“Don’t fight me,” Tyler ordered, infusing his voice with something that sent a spike ofyes sirstraight down my spine.I’d heard Ethan do that a few times with other weres, when he had his clan leader hat on, but never Tyler.
He wore the authority well, even if it was just over Justin in that moment.Because part of Justin recognized that tone too and just went limp.Daniel’s snarls had company now, at least one other wolf outside the door, both of them hurling themselves into it.“Will that work on them, too?”
“No fucking idea.”He nodded towards the other end of the room, where narrow windows overlooked the outcropping of the roof below.“It’s about ten feet down.Then another den from there unless we can get to the far end.It slants over a garden bed, if I have the map in my head right.”
The door clattered, bowing inward around the lock.Eliza’s shrill scream of excitement joined the fray.“Fuck.Go first.I have to try to get Mr.Robards.I can’t leave him.”
Tyler’s eyes flashed in annoyance, but he gave me a single curt nod before racing to the windows.I hurried to Robards’ bedside and, forcing myself to go slow enough not to cause damage, removed the saline drip from the back of his hand.Then the leads to his monitors from his chest and neck.Finally, the pulse-ox monitor from his finger.The read-outs on the monitors shrilled and flatlined without input, but I didn’t have time to shut them off.I gently scooped up Mr.Robards; he was barely more than a skeleton, I realized.Lighter than I expected, light enough to make me stumble back when the heaviness I’d braced for didn’t materialize.
“It’ll hurt,” Tyler said over the din, “but you can do it, Landry.If you can manage to shift even partially?—”
