The walls on either side of the room were lined with makeshift holding cells, made out of heavy-gauge wire mesh partitions that had been bolted to the floor, ceiling, and walls. Two of the cells on the right and one on the left held people restrained to their beds the same way he was. Unlike him, they didn’t seem very interested in getting away. They were alive, because he could hear them breathing, but the sound was labored and shallow, like they were drugged. At least he hoped that was the case. Something was off about their scents. They smelled like hybrids but not like hybrids at the same time.
He was still trying to pinpoint exactly what it was about their scents that creeped him out when Mahsood and Brand walked in. Both men started when they realized he was awake. But they recovered quickly enough and hurried over to him.
Trevor expected Brand to say something first, but beyond the fact that he looked nervous as hell, the man who ran this place seemed to be content to let Mahsood run the show.
“I’m surprised you’re awake already, Miles,” Mahsood remarked, his dark eyes regarding Trevor with interest. “With the heavy-duty tranquilizers the orderlies gave you, we expected you to be out for some time…days even. Peter was worried you might never wake up. He was quite concerned about what your sister would say.” He smirked. “He’s always worried about where his next monthly payment is coming from.”
Trevor looked from one to the other. “Yeah, sorry about getting into it with those orderlies. I promise I won’t do that again. So, you can let me go to the common room, right? My sister never needs to know about any of this.”
For a moment, Brand looked almost hopeful.
“He’s special,” a female voice said softly.
Trevor craned his head around and saw a woman in her midthirties with dark, curly hair, standing in the shadows of one of the cages in the far corner of the big room.
“Special how, Ashley?” Dr. Mahsood asked curiously.
Trevor’s heart began to beat faster. Oh shit, this couldn’t be good.
The woman moved out of the shadows and across her cage. In some ways, her cell was much like the others with its same mesh wire construction and brass key lock on the door. But in other ways, it was unique. Unlike the other cells, this one had a window that looked out over the circular drive in the front of the building. There was also a shelf full of hardcover and paperback books, a desk covered with drawing paper and art supplies, a colorful blanket on the real bed, and even an expensive-looking music box with glittering gold paint and crystals on an armoire in the corner. The comfort of her prison stood in stark contrast to the cold and antiseptic feel of the rest of the room, especially the other cages.
As the woman moved closer to the door of her cage, Trevor got a whiff of her scent and realized she was the shifter they’d been looking for. But even from where he was strapped to the table, Trevor could tell there was something wrong with this shifter. The unfocused eyes, the semislack expression, and the slow, careful movements told him she was heavily sedated. It wasn’t simply the drugs, though. There was something about the way she looked at him that was just plain creepy. This woman was flat-out scary.
But as unsettling as the woman’s eyes were, Trevor couldn’t help the feeling that he’d seen her somewhere before.
The shifter stopped at the door of her cage and pressed her face right up to the metal mesh, pushing until her nose was sticking out. She didn’t look quite so familiar then—just freaky.
Fangs slowly extending, she began to blatantly sniff the air. She did it without even appearing to be conscious of the change or that people were watching. Maybe she didn’t care. Or maybe there was a really good reason this woman was in the wacky ward.
“He smells like me, but not like me,” the woman said in a slow singsong voice that made Trevor’s skin crawl. “Special.”
Mahsood gazed at him. “Really, Ashley?” He picked up one of the medical instruments on the tray beside him. “As special as you?”
“He’s not as special as me!” The woman’s tone was part petulant, part angry, and part mad as a frigging hatter. “Peter said I’m the most special.”
This was the shifter he’d hung around in a mental institute for five days to rescue? He could have been binge-watchingThe Walking Deadand not be this depressed.
Mahsood gave Brand a smile. “Peter is right, Ashley. You’re the most special, but this man smells like you, doesn’t he?”
That seemed to satisfy Ashley, who nodded as she turned and walked over to sit at her writing desk. “Yes, he smells like me.”
Both doctors turned to look at him again, Brand in a nervous way, Mahsood in a cold, calculating manner.
“Do you think that’s possible?” Brand asked. “That we could get two of their kind committed to a facility this small in the middle of Maine?”
Mahsood grabbed one of Trevor’s hands and dug under his nail with the sharp, pointy thing he’d taken off the tray. It didn’t necessarily hurt a lot, because that part of a shifter’s finger tended to get desensitized to pain from the countless times their claws came out. But he obviously couldn’t let Mahsood know that, even if it might already be too late.
“Shit, man, that hurts!” he shouted.
Mahsood dropped his hand, but probably not because he cared about the pain he’d inflicted. Trevor didn’t know what the man had seen, but something told him the guy had just verified that he was a shifter.
“It’s likely not as impossible as it seems,” Mahsood said, turning to the tray of instruments and rattling through them. “You mentioned that Miles had gotten himself in trouble for taking part in a series of adrenaline-fueled acts that demonstrated a complete lack of impulse control, didn’t you? I would propose that what we see as a man living his life on the edge of control is in reality a shifter who is simply bored with a world that moves at half speed from his perspective.”
Brand considered that for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. “That’s quite insightful. It makes me wonder if perhaps some of the patients that the field of psychiatry is labeling as maladjusted are in fact simply suffering from some level of this shifter condition.”
Mahsood snorted. “It makes me wonder if I should be scouring the psych wards of the world for more shifter subjects to experiment on.”
Trevor’s stomach clenched. He yanked at the leather and canvas restraints holding him, this time not worrying about how much noise he made. But while the straps creaked and groaned, they held him fast. Oh yeah, these people had learned their lesson with Ian.
