Her touch sent a jolt of cold fear through him. He was a valuable prize, but their kidnappers had no interest in her. She was disposable. He couldn’t risk it.
Still, he hesitated. Though he knew what he had to do, he couldn’t stop looking at her. Her expertly applied makeup was smudged, but that didn’t make her any less beautiful. There was a bruise along her cheekbone where one of their captors must have roughly tossed her to the floor. She was a shark in heels in the boardroom, but she would have been unconscious then. Totally helpless. And they’d hurt her.
The ravening horde of his inner monsters didn’t like that any better than Carter did, and started ranting and howling inside his head.
Kill them,growled one of his monsters.
Rip out their throats with our teeth,came a snarl that reminded Carter achingly of his lost snow leopard.
Kill, kill, kill,screeched a monster.
Blood-red pulsed across his inner eye as the monster who communicated only in colors conveyed its fury.
Carter’s heart agreed with them, but his mind warned him to be cautious. He was unarmed. He was undoubtedly outnumbered. Unlike the other people Apex had experimented on, he didn’t have any special powers. He could shift, but…
Yes shift!
Rip them to bits with our claws!
Our fangs!
Our talons!
[eager electric blue]
[bloodthirsty scarlet]
Shut up!Carter silently screamed at them.I’d rather die than have Fenella Kim find out that I’m a monster!
His inner monsters raged and howled and shrieked their defiance. Fenella was again staring at him like he was a lunatic. If he couldn’t get the monsters to lay off, he wouldn’t even be able to hear her if she said something.
Want to cooperate and letoneof you out, so I have a shot at turning into an actual animal instead of a grotesque horror?Carter inquired.
Yes, me,screeched a monster.
No, me,howled a monster.
Me!
Me!
Me!
[arrogant gold]
Carter gave an inward sigh. He had never been able convince only one of them to emerge at a time, and he suspected it wouldn’t help even if he could. They weren’t normal animals anymore; they were monsters, like him. He didn’t know why he kept trying. The triumph of hope over experience, he supposed.
We’re not shifting,Carter silently informed the monsters.We’re in a plane, remember? And you know what sort of horrifyingthingswe turn into when we shift, remember? We’d probably blow out a window and kill us all!
The monsters backed off, recognizing that as a real possibility. Carter had gotten better at forcing them into shapes that looked ghastly but were at least functional, but even now, it took a while. He didn’t have time for that now.
He turned away from Fenella and listened at the door, trying to bring his once-keen shifter hearing to bear. Most shifters had enhanced senses even in their human forms, related to the animal they became; like his lost snow leopard, Carter’s hearing and vision had been exceptional. But now he could sometimes access enhanced senses, including some that hadn’t been enhanced before, and sometimes not, with no pattern that he’d ever been able to discern.
He didn’t hear anything through the door but the roar of the engine. Mentally crossing his fingers that it was because there was nothing to hear, he rapidly picked the lock.
Carter eased the door open the tiniest crack. Peering through, he saw that the plane was just big enough to have cargo space at all. Duffel bags and other gear that presumably was normally stored in cargo was piled around. Three men he didn’t recognize were playing cards. No one else was in view. He didn’t see any weapons, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
The size of the plane meant he was dealing with five enemies, maximum: the three he could see, a pilot, and possibly a co-pilot. But the pilot wouldn’t be likely to leave to join the fight, so he could have as few as three people he actually had to fight.
