“She doesn’t look so special to me,” Ashley said sullenly as she dragged a ragged, squared-off claw across Brooklyn’s throat.
Brooklyn was still unconscious, and the claw barely left more than a welt across the teenage girl’s skin, but Trevor still growled at the other shifter, trying to warn her away, even though he still had the stupid fucking leather wedge strapped into his mouth. If he made it out of this, he was going to toss out every piece of leather in his apartment, because he officially hated the stuff. Hell, he might even give up eating cows.
Okay, maybe not.
The sound of his anger seemed to get through to the psychotic woman, and she turned petulant eyes on him.
“Did you say something?” she murmured, poking him hard in the chest with a clawed fingertip that dug into his skin at least a half inch. “I couldn’t hear you with that muzzle on your face.”
Eyes flashing, he growled again.
Mahsood and Brand had finished taking their damn samples a while ago, leaving him writhing on the metal table until the pain receded. Trevor had been a bit concerned that poking around near his heart was going to cause damage even a shifter couldn’t survive, but Mahsood obviously knew what the hell he was doing. That was clearly the case…since he wasn’t dead at the moment.
Two orderlies had come in thirty minutes ago and dragged Brooklyn out of her cage and strapped her to the table beside his. He’d growled at them, but they’d acted as if he wasn’t even there, then left without saying a word.
Right after that, Ashley had unlocked her cell from the inside and waltzed over for a look at the doctors’ newest test subject. Any thought that the woman might have about helping them had disappeared when she’d started poking Brooklyn and accusing her of trying to steal Peter’s affection.
Okay, that was seriously creepy.
Ashley leaned down and put her face close to Trevor’s, her gaze full of ten kinds of crazy. Her hand came up, and for a second, he thought she was going to rake her claws across his throat. But instead, he felt them working behind his head. A moment later, she loosened the leather wedge and took it out of his mouth.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
He wasn’t sure how else to start the conversation, but he needed to keep her talking. His sense of time was all screwed up, but he was sure it had been at least four hours. If so, Ivy and Landon would be showing up soon. He just had to give them a little more time.
Ashley tilted her head to the side, looking at him strangely. “Your eyes look like mine,” she said in a distracted way, like she wasn’t actually talking to him.
“That’s because I’m a shifter—like you.”
Ashley seemed to consider that, but then leaned close to take a big sniff of him. Her fangs popped out again, like she had no control over them. Her curly, dark hair brushed across his face as her head moved lower, and for a moment, Trevor was sure he recognized the scent. But then the image of the strange woman sniffing the dried blood on his chest distracted him from anything that resembled rational thought.
She looked up at him sharply, confusion on her face. “Peter said there’s nobody as special as me. He’s told me that many times.”
Trevor was about to point out that Ashley had been the first one to suggest that he smelledspecial, but then decided against saying anything so confrontational. Keep the scary shifter happy. That was his new motto.
“You are very special,” he agreed. “People like us are very rare and unique. There aren’t many of us in the world. We’re almost like family.”
Ashley winced at the wordfamily, like it upset her to hear. It made him wonder if she’d been dumped in here like Brooklyn and Ian by some assholes who wanted her out of the way.
“How long have you been here, Ashley?” he asked.
The woman moved so that her face was only an inch or two from Trevor’s. Crap, those sharp features were so damn familiar. Why couldn’t he remember where he’d seen her?
“I’ve been here forever,” she said softly. “Since long before Peter came and told me I was special. Long before I was given my beautiful bedroom with my window, my books, and my art supplies. Back when the rooms were all white, and I slept on the floor day and night.”
Trevor stared at the woman’s face, trying to understand why she was so familiar, while at the same time trying to comprehend the fact that she may have been in here her whole life. And from the sounds of it, she had it much better now than she had in the past.
“Do you remember who put you here?” he asked.
Her face darkened. “Mommy put me here when she said I couldn’t live with Auntie Mel and Uncle Joe anymore. When she said she couldn’t let anyone ever see me. When she hurt Auntie Mel and Uncle Joe and took me away from them.” Ashley’s eyes flashed, the scent of anger rolling off her. “Mommy gave me the music box and told me to be good for the doctors, but they weren’t nice to me. They kept me in the white room and wouldn’t let me see the sun.” Her face twisted in a sneer. “But then when I was older, I became special, and the doctors who weren’t nice to me were very sorry. That’s when Peter came and made everything better.”
Trevor opened his mouth to tell her that he was sorry for bringing up unhappy thoughts, when Ashley’s head suddenly jerked up, and she looked at the door.
“Peter and the mean doctor are coming back.” She looked at Brooklyn. “When they poke her with the needle, will she be special like us, or will she be angry like the boy they tried to help?”
“They’re not trying to help her, Ashley,” Trevor said. “They’re not trying to make her special like us. They’re going to hurt her and then put her in a cage. And when they’re done doing that, Peter and the mean doctor won’t need us anymore. They’ll kill us.”
Ashley jerked back like he’d struck her. Then she reached out and slashed her claws across his arms and chest. If not for the straps holding him down bearing the brunt of her fury, she would have gutted him.
