Lawe's Justice

*PROLOGUE*

Screams echoed around the steel walls.

The sound bounced, splintering through the cavernous area and slicing through the senses of those forced to listen.

There was no place for the sound to go, no cracks, no ventilation to the outside. There was no way for it to dissipate easily. The sound ricocheted from wall to wall and from ceiling to floor before making the return trip to blend with the continued agonizing sounds.

Surrounding the theater-style examination/operation room were twelve eight-by-ten cells created from steel and iron bars. The cells ran the entire length of the steel wall at one side and were connected by frames of black iron bars at the front.

The barred doors were reinforced; the locks were digital as well as electronically keyed and almost impossible to crack unless total power, including that of the backup generators, was lost. Only then would the locks disengage and allow the animals held inside to be freed.

Or were they humans?

There were times when even they were uncertain of who or what they were, other than the fact that they had been created at the hands of the doctors and the scientists who were now inflicting a hellish death rather than creating a hellish life.

The screams echoed around the cavernous room again, filled with pain, fear and the knowledge that time had run out and there was no escape.

But she had been crying for days. Inconsolable wails that had left those locked behind the bars fighting the restless rage beginning to fill them. They had even seemed to affect the guards created to rule over them. Men, animals, whose eyes held no mercy but who now seemed to glance at one another in uncomfortable silence as the time of death grew closer. As the imprisoned creations watching them seemed to grow more still, more calm and silent than ever before.

They were her young, of a sort.

Conception had occurred in the artificial environment of a lab before the fertilized egg was transplanted into her womb and carried to term. As the time of birth neared, she was injected with the monstrous paralytic they had created that paralyzed all but the vocal cords, leaving their victims with only the ability to scream. Once she was restrained, then the child was cut from her body as she screamed in agony.

Unable to move.

Unable to fight.

Unable to control any part of her body except the vocal cords that the scientists refused to silence.

She would scream until her voice broke and then only silent animalistic growls would emerge from her throat.

But she wasn’t an animal. She wasn’t even a half animal as her young were. She was a young woman who had forgotten what gentleness and freedom were. She knew only the captivity, the pain, the endless pregnancies and forced births.

And now she would only know the agony and fear of a senseless, vicious death, which her young were forced to watch in uncaring silence.

Breed number 107 sat on his cot in the corner of the cell, his head laid back against the steel bars as his mother’s terror-filled sobs echoed through the room once again.

He and the one he called brother, the one they called 108, were only a few of the young in the lab that were products of her genetics. Born not just of her body but also of her egg, which had been fertilized in vitro with the animal-tainted genetically altered sperm used to create the Breeds.

And they were forced to remain silent, outwardly unconcerned, as though her screams meant nothing. As though they weren’t ripping through their souls and tearing their guts to ribbons each time she begged, each time she screamed in agony.

Each time she begged God for mercy.

Breed number 107 kept his eyes closed, his breathing regulated, and called upon fourteen years of training to maintain the control needed to restrain his rage and pain. If just one of her young broke, if just one of them showed a reaction or showed an emotion, then three of them would die.

As so many had already died. So many had already known the inhuman agony that waited when they were strapped down on the autopsy table in the center of the room.

The day before, the scientists had tortured one of their favored pets as well. As though they couldn’t sate their hunger for the blood, screams and agony forced upon the Breeds. Their victim, the Coyote lieutenant Elder, had been a surprising addition to the scientists’ mercilessness. Because, strangely, in an act so out of character for a Coyote, Elder had attempted to slip the woman from the labs and to shut down the generators that kept the scientists’ creations caged and under control.

Elder had failed, though. He’d been betrayed by one of the twelve who now sat silently in the cells as their dam’s voice began to rise in horror.

Breed number 107 wondered if this would be the final horror that would break the only female in the group. The young Cheetah female also suspected to be the woman’s natural child. The one who lay, as though sleeping, on the small cot in a far cell.

Morningstar wasn’t just being punished, though, and they all knew it. They had all watched Elder’s vivisection the day before and heard the scientists’ muttered conversation about a mating. So it was no surprise to 107 when they dragged the gentle, weeping woman from the enclosed room where she’d been kept confined since Elder’s failed attempt at removing her from the labs.

Her long, heavy black hair had flowed around her naked body, tangled and mussed from her battle with the soldiers who’d had to drag her away from Elder’s unconscious body after they were captured.

Now she was insane with rage from Elder’s death, and the pain from the soldiers’ touch. She had fought them as he had never seen her fight.

She cursed, raged, screamed out obscenities and called down all manner of curses against them. Her normally dark brown eyes, strangely flecked with blue, were a pure ice blue now, like flames burning in her Native American features.

She kicked, fought to trip her guards’ and swore vengeance.

To no avail.

“Bastards!” she shrieked. “They’ll come for you. My father and his father and those who have gone before. They will visit you in the dead of night and your blood will flow.” Her voice ragged and savage, 107 had never heard such a sound from any creature’s throat, even those of the Breeds tortured on a regular basis.

His nostrils flared as her scent reach him.

From the corner of his eye he could glimpse her as they strapped her down to the autopsy table in the center of the operating room. Once they inserted the IV and the paralytic’s slow drip reached her system, then she would be unable to move, unable to fight anything they did.

It didn’t take long for the drug to take effect. Her body went slack, and as she wept in pain and horror, the lab techs slowly released the straps holding her to the table.

Breed number 107 couldn’t see their eyes, but he caught a hint of human fear and compassion, of silent horror and desperation that didn’t belong to Morningstar.

It was the first time she had been injected with the paralyzing drug that it wasn’t to take a child from her body. The first time she had been placed on a table in the center of that room that she wasn’t to be inseminated.

She was to die and she knew it.

Her children knew it.

Breed number 107 forced himself to close his eyes once again. To concentrate on the scents of the humans and the Coyotes who were a part of this demonic practice.

Because one day he would be free, he vowed. One day, he would find them, each of them, and he would ensure they paid for the hell they created within these labs.

Until then, he could do nothing but force back the emotions churning, burning, ripping through his soul. He could do nothing but lock them away, place them so deep inside his spirit that there was no chance they would ever surface again.

His chest was tight as he fought to contain them. His eyes were damp. Breeds didn’t cry. They didn’t feel sorrow.

Or so they were taught.

They weren’t named; they weren’t cuddled, cherished or loved.

They didn’t go outside to play as young, nor were they allowed sleepovers as human children were.

Because they weren’t human.

They were animals that walked on two legs and who dressed, spoke and acted like humans.

But they weren’t human.

The knowledge that they weren’t human, that they weren’t born they were created, was one of their first memories. One of the first lessons they were taught.

“Nothing will change your deaths.” His mother’s wails were filled with tears. And fear. “Nothing can save you!”

And nothing could save his mother.

The scientists wouldn’t be punished. There were no laws to protect the Breeds or the helpless women kidnapped to give birth to them. There would be no justice for the creations brought to life within these steel walls. Or those sent to their deaths on the table beyond.

Panic filled Morningstar’s screams as the cold steel of the scalpel touched her flesh.

It was a sound of horror, of hysteria.

Her scent became stronger. He recognized the unique, fresh fragrance, mixed with the dark fear, and he knew he would always remember it as that of the only creature that had ever shown him kindness.

There was another smell mixing with it, though.

Elder’s scent was there and a scent of something deeper, stronger, one he had always associated with a deep, unnamed emotion. An emotion he had only scented when shared between two humans. Humans who carried a bond he had never understood.

It was a scent he had only caught a wisp of when taken out on missions in the past year. One he had come to associate with what the soldiers had sneeringly called love. A mix of lust and summer warmth, of comfort and contentment overlapped with a hint of adrenaline and excitement. And when mixed together, it was a fragrance that had called so strongly to him that it had been all he could do to maintain his composure.

And now it had regret welling inside him as he fought to hold back his rage.

Pushing it back, pushing it down took every ounce of strength he possessed. His brother, 108, was feeling the same rage, forcing back his own fury.

No reaction.

Those who existed within this lab had watched far too many littermates die from the inability to hold back their fury, their pain, the fact that they knew emotion and couldn’t hide it. That they knew honor and refused to ignore it.

They weren’t allowed to pretend to be human. Only humans had emotions and they were animals. Those with the arrogance to believe they could be human too were killed instantly.

Breeds weren’t allowed emotion, honor, loyalty to anything or anyone outside their creators, and they sure as hell were not allowed to form any bonds with each other or their dams. Those bonds, any bonds, were the basis for instant death.

“Please, God, kill me now . . . !”

She was begging now.

His mother. Her name was Morningstar and she was the daughter of a Navajo medicine man.

On his last mission the week before, 107 had mailed her father pictures, a map, a letter requesting his help, asking that he come and save the woman he had known as his daughter.

No one had arrived.

And now Morningstar was dying.

He didn’t flinch as the sound of her howls became sharper, filled with a horrendous agony, and the scent of her blood and horror began to fill the room.

His gaze slid to that of his brother, 108.

His twin.

They shared another bond as well that so far they had not revealed to the soldiers, scientists or other Breeds they shared the cells with. A bond and a knowledge of each other that they could be killed for, if it were ever discovered. They shared that bond with their mother as well, and he knew 108 was sharing her agony as well.

Breed number 107 knew his brother as he knew no other. A knowledge that allowed them to sense and glimpse into the emotions and into the heart of each other.

He had to inhale slowly, deeply as the scent of her blood became stronger and her screams sharper with agony, with the horrific knowledge of what was being done to her.

A vivisection. The dissection of a living body.

And he had to ignore it. He had to remain outwardly unaffected.

He had to pretend to be uncaring that his mother was being cruelly tortured for the scent Elder left on her. In her. The scent he recognized on a primal level as one that marked her as belonging to Elder. It was a scent he had never known, never smelled before.

The animal senses that were so much a part of him knew it on a primal level. That knowledge was transmitted to the man, and though it confused the man, he still knew it for what it was—a mark of belonging that pierced to the soul and refused to be denied. And in this place, in the horror of the life they were born into, it was a death sentence.

This was the pain of belonging to a Breed? The horrific nightmare of a vivisection because of a change within her body? A change that every Breed would know marked her as belonging to a Breed, if she had had the chance to live? A scent that marked her as belonging only to Elder.

This was how Elder had been caught. This was why he had been unable to rescue the woman he had bound himself to, because another Breed had detected the mark and reported it. Because one of Morningstar’s ‘get’ had betrayed the strongest of them all.

The Elder.

107 could have understood if it had been another Coyote who had turned the Coyote commander and that scent in to his masters. He could have understood it if it had been a human.

But it hadn’t been. It had been a Breed. It had been one of the Breed whelps who had been sheltered, nurtured and protected within her body until the scientists had cut it free.

It was a Breed that would die, 107 promised himself. He would kill the bastard and he would ensure that the Breed suffered.

That traitor would suffer to the very pits of hell, just as Morningstar Martinez now suffered. Just as her mate, the Coyote Elder, had suffered in his attempt to save her. Her and the Breeds she had given birth to.

The vow marked his soul as the screams became even more tortured, as they knifed into his soul and nearly broke his control.

His guts tightened as he pushed back all emotion. It was the only way to hide it. The only way to hide the rage.

The muscles of his thighs were steel hard, his back clenched and unclenched painfully. He couldn’t let anyone know the agony tearing through him. An agony that couldn’t compare to his mother’s. His screams could never match hers in pain, agony and defeat.

And the only way to save his brother, to ensure 108 didn’t suffer for his mistake of showing his rage, was to bury it. To bury it so deep inside his soul that it wouldn’t exist, so that he could function amid it.

To wipe away that final vein of grief, loyalty and the need to call some emotion his own, a need to feel and to howl in rage.

All that remained now was the need to be free, a need to taste, touch and hold freedom. To know justice, to understand the laws he followed.

The need to have a name.

He sat still and silent, showing none of the rage, the agony or the slow burial of the hungers that had begun to ride him in the past year.

All that remained was that need for freedom, that hunger for justice and the overpowering, enraged hunger for vengeance.

He wanted rules, a law to follow, and in that moment he realized there was nothing, no one, he could follow but himself.

He needed justice, but if he didn’t take it himself, then he would never know it, never taste or feel it.

He would become his own law.

He would become his own justice.

And in that moment, 107 found a name.

In that moment, he became his own law, his own justice.

Lawe Justice.