Page 70 of Wolf Bane
“I have an idea,” Justin said, voice barely above a whisper.
* * *
The human sizedcollar was almost too big on Eliza, even on the smallest notch.She didn’t fight us, though I could feel the tension shuddering through her still body.Daniel was something else entirely.He didn’t—wouldn’t—shift back to human form, so Tyler painfully shifted to wolf, cornering him against the bank of metal storage cabinets.It wouldn’t last long—Tyler was fast, strong, clever, but Daniel had mass on him and didn’t seem to be reacting as strongly to his own injuries.The blood had been his, staining Tyler’s fingers and face, but the injuries didn’t bother him as much as Tyler was bothered by his own.
I wondered if he was on something, or if maybe he was just one of those assholes who thought showing pain meant you were weak.
Probably both, I thought, eyeing him warily from my perch at the equipment bench.Every part of me hurt, and my head was pulsing with a liquid sort of pain that threatened to leak out of my ears.
“Eliza, please.Tell Daniel to stand down.”
She sniffed wetly, teeth bared in a parody of a wolf’s snarl.“You think I can control him?He’s not mypet, Doctor Babin.Or is that how it is with you and Stone?He’s your lap dog?A mongrel’s chew toy?”She spat and Daniel made a sound like a happy growl.
It would’ve been cute if I wasn’t kind of fighting for our lives at that moment.
Justin shuffled forward, staying out of everyone’s arm’s reach, even Tyler’s.“She said I was second choice.I’m a doctor so I was second choice.I… I told her I wasn’t a doctor like you.I was barely out of residency when I got the job at the ME’s office and…” He spread his hands limply at his side.“Here I am.Useless as tits on a boar hog to anyone but myself, and even that’s questionable.She said…” He gulped air, eyes trained on Eliza’s pointedly neutral expression.“She said I was one of the mongrels.A failed lab rat.And I should make myself useful.It was because of Garrow that I even got through med school.”He turned wide, wet eyes to me.“The bullshit studies I signed up for to make ends meet?”
“Garrow.”
He nodded.“Or his group anyway.All the time I thought I was doing something that’d help people, and hey what the hell, get paid doing it, I was… I was a fucking guinea pig for psychopaths!”
“You,” Eliza said, starting to lean forward, stopping only when Justin hurriedly brandished the clicker at her.She sat back on her heels and, through gritted teeth, tried again.“You are on the verge of something amazing, Doctor Babin, and you don’t even realize it.You’re willfully refusing to see how much we need you!You have the ability to help save an entire people, don’t you realize that?Don’t you see the gift you’ve been given?”She surged forward, still on her knees, desperately reaching for my legs.
“Daniel’s been working for Garrow for years, Doctor Babin!Years!He’s been instrumental in this project moving forward.I’m honored to be part of it, and you should be, too!You’re squandering this beautiful gift you’ve been given!Please don’t turn from us, Doctor Babin!”
“What the actual fuck,” Tyler muttered, and I could only nod in agreement.“You kidnapped me—twice, apparently,” I added with a pointed glare at Daniel.“You’re trying to engage in eugenics, which by the bye, is never awesome, you sick fucking freak, and expect me to justoh golly gee whiz doesn’t this sound greatmy way into joining you?”
Eliza was very still, her expression still caught on that wild, crying hope from just moments before.“Daniel was right,” she said quietly.“He was right.He said you should have been culled with the other mongrels, but I hoped… I hoped you’d realize.You’ve been with Stone for a year now.You’ve seen how the clans work up close.You’ve seen how you’re stronger than the other survivors.But you still don’tsee!”She drew in a shuddering breath.“You’re the one causing these deaths, Doctor Babin.You’re the one stopping us from doing the work!”
Her voice, raised in a shrill scream, bounced off the concrete walls and ceiling.Tyler winced, shaking his head in a very lupine way even as he kept pressure on Daniel.Justin just whimpered, scrubbing his face with his empty hand, staring down at Eliza.
“I didn’t ask to be changed,” he said softly.“I just thought I was paying for some med school stuff, you know?A bit extra, so I could actually eat a vegetable, instead of ramen and oatmeal every day.Getting a textbook instead of trying to illegally download that shit.”
His smile was a flicker, weak and crooked.Slowly, he moved closer, gaze lasering in on Eliza.“I’m a freak, you know?I don’t trust my own body.I can’t.I… I feel sickall the time.Like constant aches in my bones.My heart is just buck wild in here,” he thumped his chest, dark eyes wide as he picked up steam, “and it’s because you—you and your fucking freaks—decided to use me.To treat me like your fucking science fair project!”He pressed the button on the control, Eliza’s shrill scream bouncing from the walls.Daniel snarled, twisting to get free but Tyler held him fast for the moment.
“Justin,” I shouted.“Stop!Justin, we need her to talk!”
He moved his thumb, breathing hard, body shaking so violently I thought he might be on the verge of collapse.“I don’t want her to.I want all of them to shut the fuck up forever!”
I lurched at him, grabbing his arm before he could press the button again.He sobbed, fighting only a little until he just dropped.Strings cut, folded over, thumped on the floor dropped.Scrambling over to him, I crouched down, hand on his back.
“Breathe, okay?Let’s breathe.”A dozen things tumbled together at the same time—Justin’s health problems weren’t just down to exposure to this Wolf Bane shit.It was deeper than that, all the way back to the experimentation he underwent.Probably before, something he either never knew he had or never wanted to discuss.Anxiety, depression, only he knew, but it was exacerbated by what he’d gone through, by what had been done to him and his own guilt and self-recrimination over choices he made.Shit.Maybe I should’ve pushed him to talk with Gina Perrin sooner.Justin heaved, baring his teeth in a choked growl, twisting away from me.
“Justin, breathe, damn it!Focus on my voice, okay?We’re not gonna let them hurt you.Listen?—”
“Weak,” Eliza croaked.“Pathetic and weak.Doctor Babin, we needyou.We need—” She cut herself off, shaking as she pushed to her feet.Daniel stopped struggling under Tyler’s grasp and, with a creak and pop of bone, an awful wet sound just above a whisper, shifted into his human shape once more.Tyler fell back before leaping to his feet, poised for a fight, but Daniel ignored him for the moment, rushing to Eliza’s side.
“Tell him,” she ordered Daniel, voice trembling.“Tell him.”
“You’re the one who came closest.We need to know why.Garrow’s research is incomplete, and he’s promised us he has the means now, the ability to finish things.”
“That’s not as hopeful as you think it is.Not if he has you out here killing off your people.”
“They’re culling,” Tyler said, spat really.“It’s not new.It’s been part of our culture since as far back as we have history.”
Daniel nodded, grim-faced and maybe a little pitying as he eyed me and Justin.“Keeping the pack strong.The weak are removed from the bloodline.The ones who will slow us down, dilute our strength.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, what in the online incel neckbeard bullshit,” I muttered.“So, you’ll even kill off your own father,” I demanded, jabbing a finger towards Robards.“Kill little kids?All because they’re notperfect?”
