Trayrock, Present TimeTalen watched as the reporter spoke with the woman in the bed. The conversation was paced by the beeping of the machines – a drip of antibiotics or pain relief. He thought the former rather than the latter, as he doubted that the Van Helsings cared whether their test subjects were in pain.The covers hid the fact that this woman was missing both legs.“It’s an experiment,” the woman said, her face contorted around the constant flow of tears. “They are working on transplanting limbs. They say there is too little donation of organs and body parts, and many soldiers that need them. It’s only fair that we give to those in service. They took my legs,” she sobbed the words. “They took my legs.”“I’m so sorry,” Jacinta was weeping. “I am so very sorry.”The Medical Director made adjustments to the equipment. “You’ll be more comfortable now,” he told the woman.“Please don’t leave me here,” the woman pleaded. “My legs are just the start. They’re coming back for my arms,
Trayrock, Present TimeIt was bad. Cameron could tell from the looks on everyone’s faces. Whatever Rhett and Talen had seen on the level below had shaken Rhett up a lot, and whatever was in the rooms here, had Heath’s face blanched of color, and had the reporters green at the gills.“Fill me in,” Phillip Salem ordered curtly as the reporters disappeared into the third room.“Torture,” Aislen summarized. “In the name of medical science. The first two rooms have victims, the third… well, no one’s sure what to call them. Van Helsing soldiers who were the recipients of medical treatment at the cost of the victims. Don’t ask,” she added when Phillip’s mouth opened. “I’m not getting into it. It’s bad enough being in Heath and Talen’s heads and experiencing it secondhand. They’re coming back. You and the two local werewolves are to stay on this floor.”“No,” Phillip shook his head. “I’m not staying here.”Aislen searched his face for a long moment and then sighed heavily. Her eyes lost focus
Trayrock, Present TimeNiarthen was deep in another conference call with the Mer hierarchy and Seyvil. Tying up loose ends before leaving for Havermouth, Lyric thought as she watched Father Isaiah and the Mer woman, Sapphire, were brought up the stairs to the meeting inside.Lyric sat on the balcony seats and sucked down two of the Mer sweet water orbs, her eyes on the cages below. She still felt thirsty. Her skin felt dried out and itchy, and her hair like straw. She wanted to find a shower and soak herself from head to toe.She heard a yell below and leaned over the balustrade to look. Someone had turned on the sports field’s sprinkler system, dousing all the cages and causing the occupants to cry out in protest. The Mer soldiers not on active duty all stood helmetless under the falling water with expressions of relief.They were all suffering from dehydration, Lyric realized. But she stood up, holding onto the handrail. Was the sprinkler system fed from the river? She wondered. Wer
Trayrock, Present Time“Let’s have a look,” Cameron crouched next to Toby. The man was fucked up. “Blood?” Cameron looked up at Aislen who leaned over, one hand braced against the wall, unable to bend around the obstacle of her stomach.Talen and Heath were examining the barricade at the door and speaking with the patients who had created it. The humans who had attacked the hospital with them were searching room by room, removing patients to the stairs frantically.“What the fuck happened to you?” Toby rasped taking in Aislen’s very obvious pregnancy.“Ate something bad,” Aislen replied flippantly. “Hybrid pregnancy comes with supernatural superspeed babies apparently. Let’s hope the delivery is swift and painless. I doubt it though. I expect my cunt will split in two squeezing this thing out, and I fully expect to be screaming abuse at the men who put it in there all the while. They’re going to be making this up to me for, like forever. But enough about me, what is going on here? Wha
Havermouth, Present TimeMeguitte was unable to concentrate. The image of Bianca’s corpse back in the torture chair haunted her. She had been responsible for many, many deaths, from her escape with Thaelen from Beaupraxia’s cells to the flaming sparrow attack on the Concordian strongholds, through to those she had been forced to kill through the years in self-defence because some men would inevitably try to take that which should only ever be given. In the battle for Havermouth, she had killed again, using magical means, and in her recent investigations, she had again used magic to kill the werewolves involved.She was no stranger to killing. She had never been bothered like this before. This death was different.Bianca had turned against them, she told herself. Bianca had led the coup that had injured Harry and had all but killed Jules. Bianca had been the enemy. She had also been an ally and Aislen’s friend.She’d had no choice, she told herself. As Bianca had healed, she had recove
Trayrock, Present timeCameron met Rhett at the bottom of the staircase and handed him the man that he carried. “My dad is here,” he told his mate in stunned surprise.“Yeah,” Rhett’s expression was strained, his eyes wild and his hair in disarray. “I saw Harry.” He turned and bolted down the hallway with his burden, just as Harry blurred back into sight on a return trip, tossing back their long blond hair.“Cameron,” Harry put their hand on his shoulder. “It is good to see you.” They continued up the stairs, intercepting Jules on the way down and taking his burden from him before racing past Cameron again.“Cam,” Jules called down the staircase. “Quick now, let’s get these people out of here.”“Yeah,” Cameron pulled himself together and started to turn, when a noise down the hallway caught his attention. “Fuck,” he met Jules’ eyes. “They’re coming in through the main doors. You keep evacuating them this way, I’ll take care of them.”“You can’t do it alone,” Jules protested and ran do
Havermouth, Present Time“Shit,” Dan tugged Sigrid back behind him as a glass bottle was hurled out of Leighton’s torture chamber accompanied by a scream of outrage. The bottle smashed against the wall, and a thick black liquid slid down to bubble ominously in a puddle on the floor.“You were going to LOCK ME UP AGAIN!”It was Mercy screaming, Sigrid realized. “It’s alright,” she told her mates who had taken up a defensive stance around her. “I think Mercy just discovered Leighton’s plans for her if he’d followed through on following Jules Edison to Trayrock.”“This is precisely why, Mercy,” Leighton’s voice was patiently patronizing. “You are behaving entirely irrationally. This was a practical solution to an urgently required absence. You would have been perfectly safe and had a food supply sufficient for the duration of your mother and my absence.”Sigrid gestured for silence when Dan moved slightly, wanting to finish the errand now that the danger was passed, however, she wanted t
Trayrock, Present Time“Fuck,” Heath said immediately upon closing the door.“Should we be abandoning those patients?” Aislen was distracted by the drama unfolding in the car park as people’s attention moved from the collapsing building to the injured patients. “I feel like we should be helping those people.”“I think we are best to leave those people to be cared for by the medical staff,” Talen said grimly as he reversed the car out of the car park and made his way toward the main road. “It is too risky for us to stay here, Morgana. And Heath is right, we have other problems at the moment.”“We do?” Aislen leaned forward between the two chairs, bracing her elbows on the back. “Like what?”“Jules Edison and Harry are here,” Talen said quietly. “And Cameron just got into the car with them.”“Oh,” Aislen hesitated, and watching her face in the rearview Heath saw the moment it registered. “Oh. Oh shit.”“It is my fault,” Talen was grim. “Sigrid told me that they were on their way to Tray