Page 60 of Mated to Team Shadow

"Is it?"

"Not quite."

"You're right," she said. "I can't find Surma anywhere."

Damon

As we say in the Navy, "Situation Normal, All Fucked Up."

Dr. Meltdown left us in the dark in all ways possible. He knew that while we can see at night, we cannot in total blackness, and he wanted to make things as uncomfortable as possible. He turned off the lights, didn't feed us, and didn't let us congregate. Melkot knew how those things will affect us. Not the dark thing, but with my fast metabolism, the lack of food was a problem. Feral is what Melkot called it, the unreasoning aggression that overtook us when our cats got angry. We could control it better than when we were teens, but worrying about the fate of Kane and Jeanine might send me over the edge. Kane could take care of himself, but figuring out how Melt was now a rogue agent made me worry about what he did to Jeanine.

Melkot knew our ins and outs because he researched them when we were in our teens. But things changed when they sent us into the military for training. We were the youngest group there, and it was brutal. We started with an eight-week boot camp and progressed into a year and a half of different SEAL training programs designed to be impossibly difficult.

In BUDs training, our day started at 5 a.m. with a five-mile run before breakfast. The rest of the day and half the night was one punishing physical feat after another. We all got deep cuts and calluses on our hands while brutal instructors physically and verbally abused us.

It was for our own good. but the dropout rate for that twenty-six weeks of misery can run from seventy to ninety percent. Like they said in roll call, "Look to the right and to the left and say 'goodbye.' One of you won't be here tomorrow."

But that wasn't us, not Team Shadow. We always stuck it out because if one of us rang out, we'd all have to do the same.

And none of us wanted that.

So, I sat, and waited, and ignored the clawing hunger in my belly. I needed to see my teammates and missed my mate. I had to believe that Kane was out there getting help for us and that he wasn't lying in a ditch dead.

Okay, so I'm fatalistic when I haven't eaten. I put those candy bar commercials to shame, the ones that say, "You aren't you when you're hungry."

Footsteps walked down the hall, and I readied the homemade rope I constructed from my sheets. It wasn't easy to tear the fabric quietly. I had to sing over the sound of the sheet tearing, but then I braided the strips together and made knots through it. It was an effective weapon.

The door opened, and I covered my eyes in case they turned on the light because I didn't want to get blinded. And the light flashed on, and what, or rather who, I scented was familiar, but I couldn't place it.

"Are you okay?"

My eyes adjusted, and I pulled my hands away and stared.

"You're Jeanine's friend, Surma."

"Yes." She swallowed hard. Though she'd cleaned up, her faces still showed ugly bruises."

"Do you know what happened to Jeanine?"

"No. Do you?"

She shook her head.

"So they didn't take her on the ship?"

"What ship? It was just a stupid raft with an outboard motor. And no, Jeanine wasn't on it. Not with me."

"Fuck," I mumbled. "Do you know why you are here?"

"Morgan—he kidnapped women. A bunch, and I was one. He took them someplace. I don't know. I was the last one. He waited for some doctor to pick me up.

"Melkot?"

"Yeah, that's the name. He did some tests." Surma shivered, and I felt terrible for her. Volunteers, my foot. Melkot had Morgan kidnap women for his crazy plan to breed more shifters. He probably had plans to sell the children to the highest bidders.

"What's your name?" asked Surma in a quiet voice.

"Damon."

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