Chapter 6

Tilly

“What do you think is going on? Why would they put just the three of us in here with real beds and all?”

“Because we’re very interested in your brother,” a voice said through an intercom.

Aaron discreetly pointed to the camera in the corner of the room. They were watching us. It gave me the creeps. And what did they want with Gazza?

My confusion must have been evident.

Maxine hugged me and dropped her voice into an octave human ears couldn’t pick up.

“He means Lachlan. They think you’re Hannah. Let’s keep it that way.”

Louder she said, “It’s going to be okay, sweetie. Just do what they say and we’ll get through this.”

“Listen to your mother. She’s a smart woman, or whatever she is.”

“We weren’t given breakfast with the others this morning. Are you planning to starve us now?” Aaron asked the intercom.

We all turned at the sound of the lock clicking open. A woman dressed in blue scrubs wheeled a cart in filled with food. The smell of it made my stomach rumble with excitement.

“That’s a lot of food.”

“Consider yourselves our special guests,” the woman said on her way out.

“Special guests, huh?” Aaron said.

“I think they’re trying to fatten us up or something,” I joked, but I wasn’t certain there wasn’t a bit of truth to it.

Having Maxine and Aaron there with me helped a lot. I missed Lachlan so deeply it was terrifying. He was never far from my thoughts. Was all this special treatment stuff really because of him? It didn’t make any sense. I knew he was part of Westin Force and that they were trying to take down the Collectors, so why would they be giving us special treatment?

“This is really good,” Aaron said appreciatively as he ate a second piece of bacon.

“Eat up while the foods plentiful. In a place like this there’s no telling when our next meal will be,” Maxine said.

I hesitated. “Should we be worried? What if they put something in the food?”

I couldn’t stop thinking about how they had made me shift while unconscious. It was very disturbing. And I’d heard the screams and cries of others since we arrived. Something horrible was going on here and the cages were only the first clue of that.

Still, they were right and we couldn’t turn down food. We had to keep up our energy to fight them.

The rest of the day passed slowly. The lady came in to take away the tray and later she returned with lunch and then dinner. Otherwise we just sat around not really talking since we knew we were being watched and that they were listening in.

The only way to determine anything resembling time was by the meal arrival. After dinner I crawled into the smaller of the two beds and stretched out, grateful not to be in that cage anymore while also feeling a bit guilty knowing others were still there.

My head hit the pillow, my eyes closed, and it was lights out for me.

In my dreams Lachlan came to rescue me.

“It’s you.”

“It’s me,” I told him. “Shh. They’re watching.” But when I pointed up to the corner where the camera was, it was gone and when I looked around, we were suddenly back in his room at his parent’s house.

“It’s just you and me, beautiful.”

I cringed. This wasn’t real and that wasn’t my mate.

My eyes shot open. I still wasn’t in the room. I was strapped to a cold metal table as the man loomed over me.

“There’s my girl,” he crowed. “I suppose we should get to know each other better. After all, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. I’m Egan and you are. . .”

“Hannah,” I blurted out.

“See, that’s what I thought at first, but we both know that’s a lie because Hannah is just a kid. So who the hell are you?”

I shook my head and pursed my lips.

“Now you can make it difficult or you can just tell me. I already know you’re a filthy shifter. It’s a shame really. You’re so beautiful. Far too beautiful to be a mutt.”

I spit in his face because with my hands and feet tied, I had no other recourse to fight him.

He slapped me across my cheek, hard.

Maybe it was a mistake to provoke him, but I had to do something.

“How are you connected to Westin Force?” he demanded.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, bitch. We were able to tap into one of the cells of a Westin Force agent. It lead us right to that house, but no one can seem to find a goddamn connection to it, yet there you were, three dingo shifters. Don’t try to deny it, we’ve already confirmed it. I suspect the older two are his parents, but based on the pictures in the home, they have four younger children. Someone tipped them off and they got away when we tried to intercept at the school. But none of that explains who the hell you are.”

“They got away?” I said softly.

“Is that all you heard?”

I grinned triumphantly. “It’s enough. They’re safe. They got away. They’re going to be okay.”

“Who the hell are they to you?”

“They’re my siblings,” I told him defiantly.

“So you’re trying to tell me that you’re working for Westin Force?”

“I’m not confirming or denying that.”

“I have ways to get you to talk.”

“Torture? Try it,” I stubbornly challenged him.

“Truth serum.”

For just a moment I faltered.

“That’s what I thought. But don’t worry. I have more enjoyable methods first. You mentioned torture. Something tells me you’re a hard nut to crack and can take the pain. Honestly, I can appreciate that, beautiful, but what about your parents, if they are your parents. If they aren’t, I can tell from observing you that they are important to you at the very least.”

I held his stare praying my eyes and face didn’t give away just how terrified I was.

“One way or another, you will tell me everything.”

Where the hell are you, Lachlan? Please find us.

“Let’s get started, shall we?”

Before anything happened, the woman who had been delivering the cart of food to us at meal time walked in.

“My apologies. I just need to borrow my son for a quick moment.”

Her son? What the hell? She had seemed kind to me. Did she know what a lunatic her son was?

I channeled my dingo hearing to listen in.

“Egan, I said enough. Leave this poor girl alone until we know who she really is.”

“Ma, she’s a dingo shifter. What more do we need to know?”

“What Tribe is she from? Where did she come from? How is she connected to Westin Force?”

“What do you think I’m trying to do here? If you just stop micro-managing me and let me do my job, I’d have these answers.”

“I don’t like it, son. It’s a slippery slope. If you aren’t careful you’re going to turn into them and we all saw how that turned out. We’re smarter than that.”

“The Daniels did more for this world than any filthy shifter. You do remember how they killed Kent in cold blood, right?”

“Egan, your brother was never quite right in the head. We always knew that. He did horrible things to those people. I’ve forgiven them for killing him and you need to, too.”

“Never. I can’t even believe you’re saying this. Now? After all we’ve done to get here? You seem to fail to remember that they are nothing more than animals.”

“One of those animals saved my life once. Or have you forgotten about that?”

“I don’t have time for this. Now this is going to have to wait or I’m going to be late for my meeting. We need these investors to continue the legacy Trevor and his dad began. I can create them unique and super humans for their collections, maybe even get to the point of taking custom requests.”

“Monsters, Egan. That’s what we created. Monsters. Don’t forget that.”

“We’ve come a long way in the study of genetics since then. If Dad and Kent were still with us, they’d understand. Besides this was all your idea, mother. Look around. I brought it all to life.”

“This was never how I envisioned it. All you’ve done is create a massive slaughter house. We can’t possibly store the hundreds of dingoes you’re having brought in.”

“I need the best of the best. They’ve already murdered one entire group of specimens. Who knows what traits I could have found there? Storage will not be an issue. I promise you. I just need them alive to sort through the various traits I need for my research. That’s all. Plus, it’s a lot cleaner to stop their hearts and cremate them here than to have to deal with all the blood and disposal of so many bodies.”

“I can see your point on that at least. But I don’t like it one bit. Putting all of our resources in this one location is a bad idea. What if Westin Force gets wind of our location? Because mark my word on it, they will come for us and they will reign hell down on all of this.”

“We’ve covered our tracks well. There’s no way they’ll find our location.”

“I pray you’re right. Now go on and get ready for your meeting. I’ll take care of the girl.”

I pretended I hadn’t heard a word when she came back into the room, but my dingo was on edge and it was difficult to plaster a fake smile of relief to my face.

“I am sorry about my son. He means well, but can fluster easily. Best not to get him so worked up next time. He seems to really like you. I’ve never seen him take so well to one of your kind before.”

“That was him liking me?” I scoffed before I could stop myself.

She gave me a weak smile. “My family wasn’t always like this. Believe it or not, we used to protect your kind. It was my parents’ entire life, my in-laws too. My husband and I thought we’d continue that legacy and pass it on to our boys.”

“What happened?”

This time there was sadness in her eyes when she spoke.

“I was assigned to a facility that had just begun running a few tests on shifters. It was sort of like a prison for the really bad ones so we were all able to justify it. Every culture has dangerous beings. There are jails for a reason. Anyway, these sorts posed dangers to all, humans and shifters. They were evil, or so we’d been told. In hindsight, I’m not entirely certain. Whatever, there was a breakout and all the prisoners were released. Two of them came after me, but another protected me from them. In the end they all escaped.”

“We’re still human too. Without judge and jury, who was making the determination of punishment for them?”

“That was certainly a bit of a moral dilemma. At first even the worst of them were asked to participate in the trials. They had to sign a waiver and agree to it. In many cases it meant a reduced sentence there and we did try to rehab and release. But after a while that sort of fell to the wayside and it just became common practice that if they were there, they must have done something bad enough to deserve it and therefore had no rights.”

“But you don’t believe that?”

“I saw the decline of morals within my people. I warned others. And then, that woman saved my life. How could she have been so horrific and do that?”

“It weighs guilty on your conscience, doesn’t it?”

“It did for a long time. But one of those filthy animals followed me home that night. My husband tried to fight him off and he was murdered in cold blood. My children watched that happen. Egan was just a teenager and Kent was already falling in with a bad crowd. That just solidified his path. I’m not saying what we’re doing here is right. I’m just telling you, we all have our reasons. Like you for instance.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. What were you doing hiding in that house?”

“I was hiding because I’d just seen two men shoot my. . . parents.”

“Oh, honey, don’t start lying to me now. I know damn well they aren’t your parents and I was just so open and honest with you.”

I huffed. “My friends. They’re just good friends.”

“Friends. Not Tribe? Interesting. So what Tribe do you belong to then?”

I defiantly stuck out my chin. There was no way I was telling her that.

She just shrugged and released my straps.

I sat up in confusion. The temptation to fight her was strong, and yet, I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it.

“Tell me, don’t tell me. Eventually we’ll get out of you one way or another. Now go on. Back to your room. It’s down the hall and to the left.”

She left the room with the door wide open. I was too stunned to move at first.

It felt like a trap.

Forcing my legs to move, I left the room and followed her instructions until I found my room and reunited with Aaron and Maxine. I could have ran. I could have explored the area to get a better feel of where we were, but I did none of that. I had to ensure Lachlan’s parents were okay above all else.

“Good girl. You can follow directions,” Egan’s snide voice said over the intercom just before the lock on the door activated.