Kitty Goes to War

Chapter 20

WALTERS, TRAILING blood across the snow, had gone inside. No one else had come back out. He and Vanderman were still in the building.

“Where is he? Where is he now?” one of the escorts said swinging his rifle around.

Tyler glared at them. “You two—go back and tell Colonel Stafford that Walters is here, at the hospital.”

The pair hesitated. One was searching wildly for the unseen killer. The other was staring at the bloody body. Tyler touched this one on the arm. “Go on. Tell Stafford.” He spoke it like an order.

The soldier nodded, grabbed the other, and they ran back to the Humvee.

“Thanks,” I said, relieved. I’d started to worry that they would either shoot us—or that we’d have to rescue them.

“They’re safer this way,” Tyler said.

The three of us went inside the hospital and locked the door behind us.

The building was quiet. The cars in the lot meant that people must have been there, and while I could smell them, none were out and about. I hoped that meant they were safely locked away in rooms and offices. A heater vented somewhere, a distant hissing. We found stairs leading to the basement—I didn’t want us getting stuck in an elevator. Ben was at my side, face tight with concentration, looking all around us. He kept flexing his hands, as if feeling claws instead of fingers. Tyler walked behind us, turning to scan all directions, above and below in the stairwell.

Before we reached the downstairs level where Vanderman was being kept, a noise began to echo. The crunch of something metal breaking, the scuffle of a fight. Of a body smacking against tile. Then more quiet.

“Hoo, boy,” I muttered.

Slowly, I opened the metal door and emerged into the corridor.

Tyler stepped in front of me—taking point, the term was. He and Ben kept me between them, a protective shield, which was sweet, but made me growly because I couldn’t see past them very well.

“I don’t need bodyguards,” I said, stepping away from them to get some breathing room.

A tangy-sweet smell cut sharply through the chilled air, stabbing from my nose to my brain, and lingering on the back of my tongue as a familiar taste. More blood, freshly spilled. The second time in ten minutes—we were too late.

Part of me wanted to leave—this was army business. Not our territory, not our fight. But it was—I’d promised to protect Walters, and he’d seriously overstepped his bounds. That meant he was also my responsibility. I should have stopped him, I should have stopped this.

Ben and I stood back to back, a natural defensive posture, as we scanned the area, looking for the body. Or bodies. Tyler ranged a couple of yards ahead, glancing down the hallway and back at us—scanning for danger, and looking to us for cues about what to do next.

The smell came from an intersection ahead. I approached it slowly, breathing deeply and listening, and turned right to follow the scent of blood.

We found the body a few feet in, hidden around the corner. In a white uniform, he might have been a nurse or an orderly. His blood streaked across the linoleum floor. I knelt beside him, started to turn him over, and got as far as seeing his ruined neck and face before letting him be. The muscles on my back twitched, Wolf growing in my awareness, listening for enemies, waiting for an attack. This time, I smelled both Walters and Vanderman among the blood.

“I assume that’s Vanderman,” Ben said. “Walters got him out.” He looked in the opposite direction I did, and his breathing quickened. The two rogues could be anywhere now.

“I’m assuming,” I said.

“I could have stopped this,” Tyler said. “I should have kept better track of Walters. I should have made sure none of us got out. We shouldn’t have—”

“Stop it,” I said. He lowered his gaze. But I knew how he felt—I was the one who argued to let Walters out in the first place.

“Kitty,” Ben said, whispering. “Can you really talk them down?”

A couple of Special Forces–trained werewolves on the loose? I had to shake my head. I didn’t think I could, not with blood spilled. I remembered Vanderman in his cell, endlessly pacing, glaring out at me, murderous and unrepentant.

“We’ve got the gun,” Tyler said. “We can take them.” He sounded bitter, but determined.

That somehow didn’t make me feel any better.

“Come on,” I said, and retreated back around the corner from the direction Walters and Vanderman were likely to come at us. I hoped it gave us a more defensible position. It would at least give us some warning before the two werewolves launched an attack. “We need backup for this.”

The soldiers should have contacted Colonel Stafford, who would be here any minute now, but I wanted to make sure. Then I realized I didn’t have the first idea how to get ahold of Colonel Stafford. So I pulled out my cell phone and called Dr. Shumacher.

She answered before the phone had finished ringing. “Hello? Kitty?”

“Hi, Dr. Schumacher. I was wondering, could you give me Colonel Stafford’s phone number? I mean, if he even has a cell phone. Or if he has a secretary who has one. Or whatever.” My phone voice sounded like my radio voice, I realized—I came across far peppier than I was really feeling.

“Kitty, where are you, what’s happening, what’s going on?”

I hesitated a beat. “I expected Colonel Stafford would have called you the minute I showed up.”

“No, he didn’t,” she said, sounding frustrated. I couldn’t blame her for being put out. She probably thought she and Stafford were partners on equal footing. Stafford probably wasn’t thinking about her at all.

I sighed. “Fort Carson’s under lockdown. I managed to talk Stafford into letting us through because I thought I knew where to find Walters, and I was right.”

“He’s at the hospital,” Schumacher said. “He’s trying to release Vanderman.”

“Yeah,” I said. “He already has.”

“I should be there, I should have found a way there, this never should have happened.”

“Are you snowed in in Denver?”

“The news says it’s a storm of the century.”

“Hey, we usually get those every ten years or so,” I said. Ben was watching me, smirking—so I was still being too chipper. Tyler was braced like he was going to pounce on the first thing that came around the corner. He hadn’t drawn the gun yet. Maybe he wanted to do this with his bare claws. “Doctor, I need to get ahold of Stafford. I need to tell him what’s happening here.”

“I’ll call the colonel,” Shumacher said firmly, determined to be back in charge. I wanted to growl at her. That wasn’t what I asked, that wasn’t what I wanted to have happen.

“Doctor, how are you going to know what to tell him? You have no idea what’s going on here—”

“It’s my project. I’ll call him.” She hung up.

We were all going to die. I slammed my phone closed and shoved it back into my pocket. I didn’t want to think about what version of the story Shumacher was going to tell the colonel. He might just gas the place the place and call it a day.

“Someone needs to go outside and catch Stafford on the way in, tell him what’s happening,” I said.

Tyler said, “If we get to a land line we can call the front gate. They’ll be in radio contact.”

I smiled. “That’s so low tech it’s cool.”

“And in the meantime, we do what? Wait for our guys to stroll along and ask them to stop by for coffee?” Ben smelled twitchy, sweat breaking out despite the chill. He tapped his leg and looked like he was ready to start pacing.

“We have to keep them in the basement. We can’t let them get out.” We’d probably have to shoot them, which made me angry. And hopeless. I turned to Tyler. “Can you go tell Stafford that Walters is here and Vanderman’s out?”

“Kitty, you should just go upstairs and wait for him. You can explain it all when he gets here,” Ben said.

“I don’t think Stafford would even listen to me. He’ll listen to Tyler.”

“He won’t have a choice. Would you please just go upstairs?”

Ben wanted me out of here—he didn’t want me to face down Walters and Vanderman. We looked at each other, and I saw so many unspoken words. So much fierce protectiveness. I had a sudden urge to throw myself at him and wrap all my limbs around him. My hands itched from wanting to grab him.

“Ben, you should go,” Tyler said. “Stafford will listen to you.”

“Like hell. I’m not leaving Kitty here,” Ben said.

“Kitty has the best chance of talking them down,” he said. “And if she can’t talk them down, there’s me. So you have to go talk to Stafford.”

“I hate to say it, but we’re way past talking,” I said. It wasn’t just Vanderman who’d be up on murder charges now.

“You have to try,” Tyler said. “It can’t be too late.”

He wasn’t worried about Walters or Vanderman; he was worried about himself. He had to believe it was possible for them to come back from that dark place. Because then it would be possible for Tyler.

Ben said, “I’m not leaving you.”

I grabbed hold of his collar and pulled him to me. He cupped my face in his hands. Our kiss tasted hot and anxious after all the cold and stress of the day. It melted me, just a little. Enough to keep going until we cleaned up this mess.

“I’ll be okay,” I said, a statement made mostly on faith .

Ben nodded, but his frown wracked his whole face. “There’s got to be a phone in one of these offices. Shout if you hit trouble.”

“Hell, yeah,” I said.

Ben trotted back down the hallway and ducked into the first unlocked office. I almost yelled at him to close and lock the door behind him—but he did so without me having to tell him. Couldn’t have anyone sneaking up on him.

Tyler and I continued, toward Vanderman’s cell, looking for the rogues.

“Where else could they go?” I asked in a whisper.

“There’s the elevator.”

The elevator was at the other end of the hallway, around the next corner. “They wouldn’t take the elevator, would they?”

Werewolves on the edge of wild, on the hunt, would follow the trails of human scent. Their animal sides at the fore, they might not think of taking an elevator—the scent trail would be cut off. And even if they did think of it, they wouldn’t want to get trapped in a tiny steel box. At least, I wouldn’t.

“I don’t know,” he said. “If they know the stairs are cut off because we’re here—yeah, they might.”

“So we should go lock the elevator.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It all seems so futile.”

“Don’t say that. Remember, we’re here to save Walters.” We’re here to save you.

He shook his head. “Captain Gordon would have hated this. Hated what we’ve all turned into. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“I’m sure he was a very nice guy, but right now I’m royally pissed off at him.”

Tyler actually chuckled.

A crash rattled the hallway behind us, like a door breaking—I thought it was behind us, but these hallways looped back on each other, and with all the tile, they echoed. It might have come from the office where Ben had locked himself—or it might have come from around the next corner. Tyler and I were looking in opposite directions.

“That’s gotta be Van,” Tyler said.

“And Walters, right?” I said. “They wouldn’t have separated, would they?”

Or maybe they would. They were a wolf pack on the hunt—hunting us, the rival pack in their territory. They’d be moving to flank us.

“Go,” I said, and Tyler ran, back to where we’d left Ben.

So, either we’d split them up, or they’d split us up. We wouldn’t know which until it was all finished and we figured out who won. Except no one was going to win this thing.

Another crash sounded, and this time I was pretty sure it had come from the next hallway, where the elevator was. Maybe I could shut down the elevator. I stepped carefully, a Wolf creeping in this mad human forest—and smelled werewolves all around me, hunting, spilling blood. I had to listen, watch, smell, feel.

I turned the corner to find Vanderman throwing himself at a locked door. He was naked, as if he’d just woken up from shifting back from wolf and hadn’t bothered with clothing. He looked primal, his muscles flexing as he shouldered into the door, rattling it in its frame. Teeth bared, snarling, he grabbed the handle and wrestled with it, twisting, wrenching, looking for all the world like a dog with a chew toy.

The dead bolt cracked the frame; the door wrenched out of place. On the other side, two women screamed. Their footfalls pattered as they scrambled away from the door, and two sets of heartbeats raced. Vanderman doubled his efforts to break in.

“No!” I shouted and ran at him. I didn’t think about it. If I had, I would have run the other way. Of course, then he would have chased me. Wolves love nothing better than chasing after prey. This way maybe I had a fighting chance.

He jumped away from the door and faced me down. His eyes lit. Tendons and muscles stood out as he sprang at me with hands outstretched. Claws grew—he showed a sheen of fur. I scurried, trying to change direction midstride. Dodging didn’t help. He tackled me, smashing me against the floor shoulder first. It hurt.

Kicking, clawing, I tried to get out from under him. My breath came out in a whine. I had to get off my back or he would claw into my belly, rip into my throat. An arm free, I swiped at him, catching his face, ripping my nails across his cheek. I didn’t have claws yet. In a few more seconds, I would, like him.

He put his knee into my belly, pinning me. He was so damn heavy. But I didn’t stop struggling. Pain throbbed in my shoulder; I could feel ribs popping under his weight. Panic tightened my lungs.

“This is all your fault,” he growled into my face. His breath was foul, tainted with old meat. “You come into my territory, you steal my pack. I’ll murder you, I’ll—”

“Van, no!” Walters’s voice echoed. He appeared at the other end of the corridor, behind Vanderman. Also naked, glaring, wild—as much wolf as human. He might have been looking for Tyler, where the hallway turned back around to the elevators. And where was Tyler?

Walters continued, pleading. “She’s helping us, she’s on our side. I came to get you so she could help you, too.” The submissiveness of his posture was painful to watch. He was groveling, his back curled, his limbs bent, almost on all fours, only daring to take quick glances at Vanderman out of the corner of his eye. If he’d had a tail, it would have been between his legs and tight against his belly. In another moment he’d be on the floor, his stomach to the ceiling.

When Vanderman faltered, I snarled and kicked, hitting his unprotected crotch. He took it with little more than a grunt. Raking claws down his sides, across his ribs, I got him to flinch. I rolled to my belly and pulled myself away—his knee went into my back. If I shifted, I could get out of this . . . I tried to steady my breathing, tried to keep it together. I heaved, growling, and rolled away. Jumping into a crouch, I turned to face them. Wolf stared out of my eyes.

Vanderman stared right back. Pure hate, pure challenge passed between us. It was okay, I could take it. Sure, he was big and scary. But the more I looked at him, the angrier I got. He’d ruined things for the rest of his squad. They’d all be alive now if he’d been able to keep it together. I could blame him for the whole terrible sequence of events, since Captain Gordon wasn’t around to blame.

I tried to talk him down, as I told Tyler I would. Even though breathing hurt. “Sergeant Vanderman. You need to get ahold of yourself. If you expect to get out of this alive, stand down. In a minute this place is going to be filled with soldiers carrying rifles with silver bullets. They will shoot you. Please.”

“Van, come on,” Walters continued, backing me. His body acted on its own to give every submissive signal it could, at once. He fell to the floor, exposing his neck and belly even more, putting himself as low as he possibly could. He was trying to get the sergeant to stop and listen, to feel some compassion for this pathetic creature. To evoke some of an alpha werewolf’s instincts to protect the weaker members of his pack. “I came back for you—like we all promised. We’re in this together. We’ll get out. We’ll get away from here. They can’t stop us.”

Vanderman wasn’t listening to anyone anymore. The skin on his face furrowed as his nose wrinkled; his grimacing lips showed all his teeth. The expression was lupine. He was a very angry wolf. He stepped toward me, head leading, arms bent. On my hands and knees, I stepped backward. I just had to hold out until Ben or Tyler got here.

Walters whined. He’d tried to stop him the best way he knew, but Vanderman was too far gone to respond to the signals. So Walters attacked him. To protect me.

The smaller soldier jumped at Vanderman, and momentum shoved him over. In his next movement, Vanderman rolled Walters to the floor, pressing him down. The sounds they made weren’t human. Walters barely struggled, as if he knew this was how it would turn out, as if he believed he didn’t have a chance. Vanderman dived at Walters’s throat, teeth bared, releasing a guttural snarl. Hands with claws gouged into Walters’s belly. Blood spilled. Vanderman—partially shifted now, his face lengthening to contain wide, sharp teeth, capable of holding and ripping—clamped his jaw over the other’s throat and shook, tore, mangled, until red covered his face, chest, shoulders. Walters squealed, half human scream, half animal shriek of pain. He kicked, bucked, and tore at Vanderman with his own claws. But Vanderman had all the leverage—his claws were buried under Walters’s rib cage, digging for his heart.

I stayed out of the way, holding my aching stomach, favoring my hurt shoulder. Wolf knew better than to draw attention. Just stay calm, out of the way. I crouched low by the wall, one hand resting on the floor. But inside, I was crying out. Walters wasn’t moving anymore.

Tyler came up behind me. I glanced at him over my shoulder. He wasn’t looking at me, but at the scene of slaughter ahead. His lips were parted, his teeth bared, a sign of aggression. But the expression in his eyes was anguish.

He settled into a crouch and aimed Ben’s semiautomatic, bracing in his left hand and sighting down the barrel. With no fanfare, he fired three shots. All three struck Vanderman in the chest and head. Vanderman didn’t make a sound. He twitched and fell, rolling off Walters’s body. Then he lay still.

I turned to Tyler. “I tried talking to him. I tried.”

Grief furrowed his expression, his whole face taut to prevent tears from falling. His breath was coming in gasps, near to hyperventilating.

Then he squeezed shut his eyes and turned the gun to his ear.

“No!” I shouted. I flinched back rather than trying to go for the gun, to wrestle with that massive, professional arm. I didn’t want to touch it and have it go off accidentally, doing as much damage as it would have otherwise. All I could do was beg. “No, Tyler. Please don’t. Please.”

He didn’t put the gun down. But he didn’t fire. “I don’t want to turn out like him,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Like either one of them. I’m too dangerous to be around you. Around anyone. I’m too dangerous to be.”

“No, you’re not like them, you’ve already come so much farther. Look at you—after all this you’re still you. You’re okay, you’re going to be okay.”

The hand holding the gun wavered, and my heart swelled.

“Please put the gun down,” I said. “Don’t waste all this work I’ve been doing with you. I need to save at least one of you.”

Slowly, the arm dropped. The gun rested on the tile floor at his side. Carefully, I put my hand on it and pulled it away from his limp fingers, sliding it to the other side of my body.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

I slid my hand up his arm, squeezed his shoulder, and pressed my face to his neck as I hugged him. With deep breaths I took in his scent, and with the language of wolves I tried to comfort him as he slumped into my embrace.

My ribs hurt with every gasp of breath. I didn’t know how damaged I was, but I trusted that my werewolf healing would take care of me. My Wolf was still poised to fight; she wouldn’t retreat. But she wasn’t on the edge of bursting free anymore. I tried to concentrate on comforting Tyler, letting my own pain fade by ignoring it.

I heard noises. The women behind the door ahead of us were still there. I could smell their fear, their sweat. Around the other corner, a door smashed opened and several sets of boots clomped on the tile, running toward us.

Tyler immediately pulled away from me and straightened. His gaze had turned grim, but determined.

“Don’t tell him,” he said. “Don’t tell Stafford I was going to . . .”

“But don’t you think you can get some help, some counseling—”

Shaking his head, he cut me off. “I do anything like that, it’s on my own. I don’t want to give him any excuse to lock me up.” Tyler drew a deep breath, gathering himself to get through the next few minutes. Then the few after that. And so on.

Right. Then at least for now, it didn’t happen. I tried to stand, but pain shot through my guts and ribs. Breathing still hurt; I settled back.

Several soldiers paced up the hallway and stopped to crouch in defensive positions, their rifles aimed at us. I just looked at them. Didn’t beg, didn’t plead, didn’t yell for them to stand down. Just looked. Surely they could see that it was over.

The one closest to me lowered his rifle first. The other four followed. Then they waited.

Colonel Stafford and Ben came up behind them. When I saw Ben, tears finally blurred my vision. He met my gaze, and I tried to tell him everything without speaking. I wasn’t sure I could speak.

He gave my anguish back to me with his gaze, which I felt like a hand on my arm. His expression tightened, full of worry. But he didn’t rush. Turning to Stafford, he spoke a few words.

The colonel nodded and spoke to his men. “Stand down. Back off and wait at the doorway.”

The soldiers retreated, walking backward, unable to turn away from the tableau we presented: two people bent in despair, two ravaged bodies, a hallway spattered in blood.

Ben came to us first. I watched him, as if I could draw him forward with my eyes. He touched my shoulder, then Tyler’s, and bent his face to my hair. His breath tingled on my scalp, and I melted against him, relieved. I could finally let go. We were going to be all right.

“You’re hurt,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Mostly bruised, I think. Maybe broken ribs.”

“Can you stand?”

We’d have to get out of here sometime, I supposed. Tyler’s expression had settled into a mask. The sadness hadn’t gone away. He seemed so tired.

Holding Ben’s arm, I started to pull myself to my feet, but sharp pains rippled across my ribs. I hissed and doubled over, and both Ben and Tyler were at my sides, grabbing me to keep me from falling. They settled me against the wall instead. Yeah, bastard had broken something.

“What the hell did you do?” Ben asked.

“She went up against Vanderman,” Tyler said.

“You did what?” Then Ben rolled his eyes as though that didn’t surprise him.

“I had to,” I said. “He was trying to break into that room.” I called to Stafford, who was still hanging back. “Colonel, there are a couple of people in there, they might need help.” My lungs ran out of breath, my voice choked, and I started coughing.

Stafford looked like he wanted to argue, but he went to the broken door, called to the women inside, and after they answered, he shoved into the room. One more problem taken care of.

Ben and Tyler sat against the wall on either side of me. I leaned against Ben and let myself heal. Werewolf healing was fast, but never fast enough when you were in the middle of it.

“Walters saved me,” I said. “Right at the end. He got Vanderman away from me. I think he would have been okay. If we could have kept him safe, he would have been okay.” I shook my head.

Ben kissed the top of my head, and I sighed.

I would have liked to have said that it was all over. But I expected there’d be a lot of excuses, finger-pointing, and rationalizing. Maybe for Tyler this would never be over. He’d have Walters, Vanderman, Gordon, and all the guys from his unit living in his memory for the rest of his life. He’d be asking himself how he was the one who got out alive. This moment might have felt like a victory. But it was a Pyrrhic victory. We were left with a lot of pieces to pick up.

Stafford returned to the hallway. The room’s occupants were two women in fatigues, looking impossibly young and tiny. They glanced at the bodies, glanced at us, then hurried up the hallway and to the door. Two more hatch marks on the victory column. Were we even yet?

The colonel just stared at us.

Tyler pushed himself to his feet, stood at straight, formal attention, and saluted. He held his hand to his forehead in that salute for a long time while Stafford stared at him, apparently at a loss. My Wolf would have bristled under that gaze, accepted the challenge, and tried to throw it back to him. Tyler kept his gaze down. He stayed submissive, acknowledging that Stafford was the one in charge. Most people wouldn’t recognize the body language. Stafford may not have recognized it as lupine body language. But he recognized it as military.

He returned the salute, and Tyler dropped his hand.

“At ease,” the colonel said, and Tyler relaxed a fraction. “What happened here?”

“Sir,” Tyler said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “Sergeant Vanderman and Sergeant Walters aren’t going to be causing any more trouble.”

“And what about you?”

“I’d like to request a discharge, sir.”

I expected Stafford to argue, to at least get huffy, to rant at the little bit of his world attempting to slip out of his control. But he didn’t. He studied Tyler for a long moment, lips pursed, as if he wanted to say something but the words had stuck. Then he touched Tyler’s arm, a quick, sympathetic pat, and turned away.

“Stick around for debriefing. All three of you,” Stafford said over his shoulder as he continued on to lock down the floor.

My phone chose that moment to play “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” I answered.

Cormac said, “I need help. Now.”