I shot him a look because I’d been in said lab, all set to be Jenkins’ next guinea pig, before I killed him to prevent it.“Yes, he was an asshole, but he wasn’t wrong about the Black Circle.They’ve been focused on this since the war began, maybe before—”
“And you think they finally came up with something that works?”
“I don’t know.I’m just telling you—those guys were stronger than they had any right to be.They knocked me on my ass in Were form, and didn’t break a sweat.If that wasn’t a potion, I don’t know what it was.”
“And now the dark wants more soldiers to try it out on,” Caleb summed up grimly.
“Which they’re going to get if we don’t have help.”I pushed Noah.“Go!”
The wolves finally went, maybe because most of the ones here had been affected by Jenkins’ brew.Avargulfwith a grudge against the Clan Council, named Danny, had been Jenkins’ contact for finding him Were boys to experiment on, the kind nobody would miss.But Danny hadn’t given the Corps’ mad scientist the best of them.Those he’d kept for himself in a little cult of sorts, and stolen some of the potion to make them stronger.
He’d planned to force change in the Were community by killing off the Clan Council and making a bunch ofvargulfsinto the strongest Weres around.But Cyrus had thrown a spanner in the works by adopting some of those same boys, forcing Danny to join the new little clan they were forming, so he could stay in touch with his guys.In the end, they’d chosen Cyrus, and Danny had moved against the council anyway and ended up dead.But Noah, Lee, and Jason knew just how close it had all been, and how powerful that potion had made them.
They didn’t want to have to fight something like that, either, which was why I didn’t get any more arguments.
Changing and streaming back up the tunnel, they looked like a river of fur among all the cursing, jostling people.But my students… didn’t go anywhere.Sophie set her feet and raised her chin mulishly, and started to speak before I could, all in a rush, as if she’d been holding back before.
“You can send us back to that damned school; I don’t care!Or I do, but I’m not—we’re not—letting you get killed.Just no, just no, just fucking no, shut up!”she said, getting louder when I attempted to get a word in.“I’mnotgoing, and I don’t care what you do to me, what the Circle does, what anybody does!It won’t be worse—can’t be worse—than they already have!But whatever you do, this isn’t freaking happening!”
“Sophie—”
“Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care!I’M NOT LEAVING AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”
I stared at her because she genuinely looked deranged, panting, wild-eyed, and panicked when she never did.“Sophie, what thehell—”
“You see us,” Jen said, more calmly.“When nobody else does, nobody else ever has.We’re just freaks to them.Did you see that Gerald guy’s face when you told him Aki would get them out?He almost said no.If his buddy hadn’t been practically dead, he would have.
“They’re more scared of us than of the dark.”
“But you’re not, and you don’t die,” Kimmie put in.She had been so quiet, as usual, that I’d almost forgotten she was there.But while she lacked Sophie’s manic energy, there was a glint in her eyes that said she might be even more impossible to move.
“I’m not planning—” I began, only to get cut off again.
“Oh, please!You’re a crazy woman!”Sophie snapped.“With the self-preservation of a puppy in traffic!I saw what you did last night, jumping over that shield and taking on a whole damned clan on your own!You could have been killed—”
“But I wasn’t!”
“And you’re not going to be today, either, so shut up!”
I looked around at the others and got equally stubborn looks back.They weren’t going anywhere.And that was a problem because I had no way to make them and didn’t have time for it, even if I had!
“Lia!”Caleb snapped.
“Stay behind me!”I snarled at them.
“We’ll stay wherever the hell we—” Sophie began, before Jen grabbed her shoulder, hard.
“We’ll stay behind you,” she promised, her eyes steady on mine.
“And if I tell you something, you do it,” I said, getting in Sophie’s face, because it wasn’t Jan I was worried about.And then, I grabbed her by that abundant red hair when she continued to defy me, causing her eyes to widen slightly, because considering her abilities, I doubt very many people had ever dared anything of the kind.
But she allowed it.
“You don’t die, either,” I told her, all of an inch away from her face.“You do what I tell you, when I tell you, and we all walk out of here.Otherwise, this is the last time you’ll see combat with me, regardless of what happens.Do yougetit?”
She held my eyes a moment longer before hers finally dropped.“I get it.”
“Good.Then let’s go get our boy.”
