Shit.Trevor had hoped to have at least a day to sniff around and get the lay of the land, then talk to Ivy and Landon a couple of times when they came to visit him. But if regular people were starting to disappear into a hybrid lab and not being seen again, he didn’t have the luxury of moving slowly.
Brooklyn’s eyes darted to something behind him. “That’s them,” she whispered. “The new doctors.”
Trevor casually turned to see who she was talking about. He didn’t recognize two of the men, but the third was definitely Kamal Mahsood.
As if feeling Trevor’s gaze on him, Mahsood looked his way. Trevor’s gut clenched. Did Mahsood know he was a DCO agent? Even worse, could Mahsood tell he was a shifter?
Then he realized that Mahsood wasn’t looking at him, but rather, Brooklyn. Eyes locked on her, Mahsood leaned over and whispered something to the heavyset doctor with him. Thanks to his exceptional hearing, Trevor heard everything.
Is she the one?Mahsood asked.
The other doctor nodded.Will she work?
Mahsood considered that for a moment.I think the girl will make an excellent test subject, yes.
Trevor stiffened.Double shit.If he thought he’d been under a time crunch before, it just got worse. No way was he letting Mahsood experiment on Brooklyn.
“Any chance you know of a way to sneak into the isolation ward?” he asked her.
Her eyes widened, but then that calculating look was back along with the only smile Trevor had seen in this damn place since he’d gotten there.
“Actually, I might,” she said. “Do you think you can get Ian out of there?”
“Maybe,” Trevor said noncommittally. “Tell me how to sneak in.”
“The place I’m thinking about is kind of hard to get into.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “You give me good enough directions, then let me worry about getting in.”
Brooklyn chewed on her lip, considering him with that same devious look he’d seen on the faces of some the female operatives at the DCO.
“What?” he asked slowly, feeling he wasn’t going to like whatever Brooklyn was thinking.
“Nothing. It’s just now that I think about it, I realize it’s easier for me to take you there than give you directions.”
He frowned. “That’s not a good idea.”
She shrugged. “Well, you could always go with Ian’s method and get into a fight with an orderly. Though if you want to make sure you end up in the wacky ward, I’d suggest punching one. But if you go that route, they’ll probably shoot you up with drugs, and you’ll end up being a zombie like everyone else who ends up in there.”
Trevor ground his jaw. Damn, this girl was good. This was why he was glad the DCO had never teamed him up with a woman. It always turned into a train wreck.
Chapter 10
“Were you born this way?” Braden asked.
They were sitting at the small kitchen table in their dorm room eating the pizza they’d picked up from the cafeteria. Even though everything was different now that Braden knew her secret, it was still kind of weird hearing him say it out loud.
“You mean was I born a freak?”
Dreya cringed a little at how harshly the words came out, but there was a huge part of her that was still worried about what Braden really thought now that he knew what she was.
He scowled at her over the slice of double pepperoni, double cheese pizza in his hand. “You are not a freak.”
She held up her hands so he could see her fingernails, then let her claws extend out to their full length. “You don’t think so?”
Setting his pizza down, he reached across the table and took her hand in his, pulling it closer so he could get a good look. He turned her hand this way and that, tracing his fingertips over the claws, seemingly fascinated by the way her human nails molded themselves into her animal claws in one seamless extension at the end of her fingers.
The instinct to pull away so he couldn’t stare at her freaky curved claws warred with the bizarre pleasure she took from having him touch her. He had strong hands and fingers, yet he was also amazingly gentle as he touched the sharp tips of her claws.
