––––––––

Justin lay on the cot, eyes closed, waiting for the guards to enter the cell. He’d slept deeply and felt much stronger, but his heart was beating rapidly. Once the guards found out he was still immune to their tranquilizers, they’d never use them on him again. He’d only get this one shot.

The loud click of the door opening almost made him start, but he made himself lie still. He heard footsteps coming in.

“Hey, Justin, they brought food...” Fiona said, shaking him lightly. “Justin?”

She shook him harder. He let himself flop limply.

“Justin?” Her voice was sharp with alarm. “He’s not breathing!”

More footsteps, hurrying. Fiona exclaimed, “Hey!”

That was the signal: all the guards were inside.

As a male hand came roughly down on his throat, feeling for a pulse, Justin shifted. His big paws lashed out at the guards bending over him, sending them flying into the walls. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fiona whip around to punch the nearest guard in the jaw just as he reached for his walkie-talkie, then snatch his ID. He lunged to put his body between her and the guards as she whirled to close the door. 

A sharp pain stung Justin’s side, then his neck. He ignored it and pounced on the guard who was firing at him, slamming him into the floor. The man’s head bounced off the concrete, and he lay still.

Justin looked up. Fiona had grabbed a tranquilizer rifle and was methodically firing darts at all the downed guards, making sure they were out for the count. The first guard he had attacked, who had just staggered to his feet, dropped down again and lay still.

There was silence in the cell. All the guards lay unconscious on the floor.

Justin shifted back. He took a quick look at Fiona to make sure she was unharmed, and plucked two darts out of his body. Then he dressed in the uniform and shoes of the guard who was closest in size to him, and took the guard’s ID and tranquilizer rifle. Fiona did the same.

“You were great,” Justin said.

“You too.”

They exchanged a quick kiss, then opened the door a crack. The corridor was empty. They stepped out and used an ID to close and lock the door, then set out. When they turned the corner, they nearly ran into four guards who were just exiting a room. Justin’s pulse thundered in his ears, but Fiona nodded pleasantly at them. The guards nodded back. One of them locked the door behind him, and then they headed off in the opposite direction. Justin was immensely relieved.

The door the guards had just locked bore a small plaque that read SUBJECT NINE.

“That’s right,” Justin muttered. “Shane was Subject Eight, and Dr. Mortenson called you Subject Ten. They’ve got someone imprisoned here. We need to let them out.”

“Let’s go in,” said Fiona. “I don’t want to try to explain everything standing in the corridor.”

Justin used his ID card to unlock the cell, and they slipped inside and locked the door behind them.

A man was sitting on the floor with his knees up and his face buried in his arms. An untouched meal tray was on the floor beside him. He must have heard them come in, but he didn’t move a muscle.

Justin’s heart went out to him. How many hours had he spent at Apex in that exact position? He crouched down in front of the prisoner, out of easy striking reach in case the man lashed out in panic or rage. Speaking softly and gently, he said, “Hey. We’re not with Apex. We’re prisoners who just escaped. And we want to take you with us.”

The man’s head jerked up. He looked at Justin, startled and suspicious.

“You!” Fiona’s exclamation was filled with shock and fury.

Justin scrambled to his feet. The prisoner was staring at Fiona like he’d seen a ghost, and she looked ready to kill him.

“Who is he?” Justin asked.

“Carter Howe,” Fiona spat out. “The man who bit me and left me to die in the cold.”

Red rage engulfed Justin. He moved faster than thought, yanking the prisoner to his feet and punching him in the face. Carter staggered back against the wall, bleeding from a cut lip. Justin drew back his fist to hit him again...

...and only then realized that the man wasn’t trying to fight back. He wasn’t even defending himself. He stood still, arms at his sides and hands open.

Justin stopped, angry and frustrated. “Put up your fists!”

For the first time, Carter spoke. But it wasn’t to Justin. His gaze was fixed on Fiona. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. It was wrong.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it!” she snapped.

“I know. Go ahead and kill me. I deserve it. And I don’t care.” Carter tilted his head back, exposing his throat.

Justin glanced at Fiona. She looked as unsettled as he felt. He took her hand as they both backed away from the man.

“What do you want to do with him?” Justin asked her.

“I was going to help you beat the living daylights out of him,” she replied. “But now I’m not so sure. Unless this is some kind of trick.”

“I don’t think so.” Justin recognized the prisoner’s blank, bleak gaze; he’d seen it in the mirror. To Carter, he said, “How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Supposedly his plane went down over the Pacific,” Fiona said. “If that’s when they took him, it’d be over a year.”

Carter looked neither surprised nor unsurprised. He seemed lost in his own private hell.

“Serves you right!” Justin burst out. “You bit Fiona against her will. You left her to freeze to death!”

“No.” Once again, Carter spoke to Fiona rather than to Justin. “I bit you, yes. But I didn’t leave you to die. I was watching out of sight to make sure you didn’t freeze or fall off a cliff. When I saw you shift, I left. I thought you’d spend a night on the mountain regretting all your life choices and deciding to turn over a new leaf, then walk back to civilization.”

“That’s not what happened,” she said.

“I know,” Carter replied. “I eventually heard through the shifter grapevine that some grizzly bear shifter had gone to that mountain and rescued a woman who’d been stuck as a snow leopard. I realized it had to be you. I swear, I’d had no idea you were still there. I hadn’t known getting trapped like that was even possible.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Justin said furiously. “You’re the one who bit her! Everything that happened because of that was your fault.”

For the first time, Carter spoke to Justin. “I know. Believe me, I know.”

“Why did you do it?” Fiona asked. “And don’t you dare say you were in love with me. I know you weren’t.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Carter replied. “But I liked you a lot. When I found out that you didn’t care about me at all—that you were just using me—I felt betrayed. I was angry and I wanted to teach you a lesson. Well, I’m the one who got taught. I put an animal into you against your will. Want to hear about some poetic justice? Apex did the same thing to me.”

“Apex made you a shifter before you even met me?” she asked.

“No, no. I was born with my leopard. Apex took him away. He’s gone.” The bleak look in his eyes deepened. “And they put something else in.”

“They did?” Justin said, baffled. He’d had no idea that was possible. “What is it?”

“A... a thing. I don’t even know what to call it.” Carter shuddered. “Never mind. Go on, take your revenge. I won’t put up a fight.”

Justin looked at Fiona. Carter had wronged her; what to do with him was her call.

She folded her arms across her chest. “Talk is cheap. But action means something. If you really want to make it up to me, you can tell us everything you know about this base and how to get out of it. You must’ve picked up something in a year. We don’t even know where we are.”

“Alaska. The base is northeast of Fairbanks.” Carter gave them directions to the airstrip, then added, “Are you just trying to escape, or are you trying to blow up the base?”

“I wish I could, but it’s not like I brought explosives with me,” Fiona said.

“You don’t need them. The base has a self-destruct mechanism. They do evacuation drills—that’s how I know where the airstrip is. You could probably set off the self-destruct command from the computer in Dr. Mortenson’s lab.” Carter flinched as he said her name, making Justin unwillingly sympathize with him. “If you’re willing to risk it.”

“We are.” Justin and Fiona spoke simultaneously, then grinned at each other.

She gave him directions to their cell, then tossed him an ID badge. “We drugged the guards and locked them inside. Take a uniform and a tranquilizer rifle, then steal a vehicle and get out of here.”

Carter caught the ID automatically, then stood staring at her. “You’re letting me go?”

“I’m hardly going to trap you here while we blow up the place. Look, I wasn’t the nicest person to you either. So this is how I’m making it up to you. And now that I know what this place can do to you...” Fiona shrugged. “To be honest, I think you’ve been punished enough.”

Justin had been thinking along the same lines. In fact, he was tempted to say more. But Carter had harmed Fiona; Justin had no right to offer to help the man.

She seemed to know what he’d been thinking, though, because she said, “Justin, if there’s anything you want to tell him, it’s fine with me. But only if you want to.”

“I don’t want to. What I want is to kill this guy for what he did to you. But yeah, I think it’s the right thing to do.” Justin turned to Carter, who had been listening with visible bewilderment. “You’re not the only one who’s been hurt by Apex. It doesn’t have to be the end of your life. You can get through it. I promise. And if you ever need to hear me say that again, you can call me at Protection, Inc. in Santa Martina.”

For the first time, some life came into Carter’s eyes. “Thanks.”

He opened the door and went out. It clicked shut behind him, leaving Justin and Fiona alone.

“I can’t believe I offered to let that guy cry on my shoulder,” Justin muttered. “Ever since you told me about him, I’ve wanted to toss him out a plane without a parachute. I kind of still do.”

“I’ve wanted to get revenge on him for much longer than that,” Fiona said. “But seeing him here now, like that... I’m not sure if I forgive him. But I’m not angry anymore.”

There was a peace in her grass-green eyes that he hadn’t seen before. If it took meeting her old enemy again to put it there, then he was glad she’d gotten the chance.

“On to the lab?” she asked.

He nodded. “Wish I’d managed to get an imprint off Dr. Mortenson. She was too careful, though. Maybe if you’d given me crying lessons earlier, I could’ve lured her in closer.”

She chuckled.

They slipped out of the cell and headed for the lab. Justin hoped the doctor would be there. He wasn’t going to come to any kind of understanding with his enemy. He just wanted to make sure she didn’t escape.

Fiona stood back when he opened the door, in case any dart-wielding guards were inside. But the lab was dark and empty. He beckoned her forward as he flipped on the lights.

A harsh white glare illuminated the electric chair with its tangle of wires. The steel tables with their straps to hold him down. The industrial sink. The cloth for his face. The bucket of water.

Water filling his lungs. Pain knifing through his chest. His snow leopard shrieking in terror and agony. He was drowning on dry land, helpless, dying—

“Justin.”

Fiona’s voice and touch brought him back to reality. Her warm arm was around his shoulders, steadying him.

He forced himself to step into the lab and close the door behind him. “I’m all right.”

And he was. He hated being in the lab with the torture equipment and the memories, but he could stand it. Apex had hurt him, but it hadn’t broken him.

“Anything I can do?”

“You can help me blow this hellhole sky-high.” He gave her a nudge toward the computer. “Go do your genius hacker thing.”

She kissed him, then settled down behind it. He went to guard the door, taking a position where he could see the door and Fiona, but not the torture equipment.  It felt like he stood there for ages, the room silent except for the hum of the electrical equipment and the tapping of her fingers on the keys.

“Got it!” Fiona exclaimed. She beckoned him over and indicated a key. “Want to do the honors?”

“I couldn’t deprive you of the pleasure.”

“I blew up the last base,” she pointed out. “This one is all yours.”

“Since you put it that way...” He hit the key.

A loud automated recording began to play. “Warning! The self-destruct sequence has been initialized. All personnel, exit the premises immediately. This is not a drill. The base will self-destruct in fifteen minutes.”

“How’s it feel?” Fiona asked, grinning.

“Very satisfying.” He turned to take a good long look at the table and the sink and the bucket. They didn’t bother him half as much now that he knew they’d be vaporized in the next fifteen minutes.

He heard running footsteps in the corridor outside, along with a lot of yelling. Justin kept an eye on the door, but no one tried to come inside. It seemed like everyone was too busy getting the hell out of there.

“Looks like there’s some closed-circuit cameras,” Fiona said, peering at the screen. “Here’s some footage from outside our cell... The guards we knocked out are getting hauled out... Ah-ha, and here’s the airstrip. It’s got some snowmobiles, but no one’s taking them. They’re all piling into a couple of little planes.”

“You see Dr. Mortenson anywhere?”

“Not yet. Let me keep looking.”

The recording played again. “Warning! The self-destruct sequence has been initialized. All personnel, exit the premises immediately. This is not a drill. The base will self-destruct in fourteen minutes.”

Justin heard a commotion outside the door. He moved closer to it, tranquilizer rifle at the ready. It was only because he was listening so carefully that he heard the faint hiss of an automatic door behind him. He spun around.

A hidden door had opened in the wall behind Fiona’s desk. Absorbed in her work, she hadn’t noticed. Dr. Mortenson stood in the doorway, her face twisted with fury and a pistol in her hand. She glanced at Justin, then, with a sadistic smile, swung the pistol toward Fiona.

He knew what that smile meant. Dr. Mortenson wasn’t going to take any more hostages. He’d destroyed her life’s work, and she was going to take revenge by killing the woman he valued more than his own life.

He didn’t have time to shout a warning or bring his own rifle to bear. Instead, he leaped forward to shield Fiona with his own body.

The crack of a gunshot filled the air as a hard impact slammed into his side.

Like getting hit with a baseball bat, he thought. I remember that.

He landed in a sprawl against the wall, with a metal table and the electric chair partly on top of him. Fiona hit the wall so hard that the tranquilizer rifle she’d slung over her shoulder flew off and skidded across the floor. As she lunged for it, Justin saw Dr. Mortenson peer out from behind an overturned metal table.

“Left!” he yelled.

Fiona dove to her left just as the doctor fired. The bullet smashed into the wall, and Fiona ducked down behind the heavy steel desk. Justin shoved the table and chair off him, keeping the table on its side so he could use it as cover. He reached for his own rifle, then realized that he’d dropped it when he’d jumped. Now he and Fiona were trapped apart from each other, and only the enemy was armed. Either of them could become a snow leopard and jump the doctor, but she could shoot them before she went down.

As if to rub that in, Dr. Mortenson fired again. He heard the distinctive ricochet of a bullet bouncing off metal and saw a dent appear in the table.

The automatic recording came on, startling him. “Warning! The self-destruct sequence has been initialized. All personnel, exit the premises immediately. This is not a drill. The base will self-destruct in thirteen minutes.”

While it played, he took a closer look at Fiona. To his immense relief, she hadn’t been hit. But she looked worried. She pointed to him, then pressed her hand to her left side.

He glanced down. His shirt was soaked through with blood at the side. He lifted it and examined the in-and-out wounds. They were both bleeding a lot, and far enough apart that he needed both hands to cover them. He applied pressure, wincing. But he was more worried by how weak and dizzy he felt. He could lie there and fire a gun, if he had a gun. But if he tried to shift and jump the doctor, he’d probably pass out mid-leap.

Cold fear squeezed a fist around his heart as he thought, It’s happening again. I’m hit, and I can’t help the people depending on me. All I’m doing is distracting Fiona when she needs to focus on protecting herself.

This is not then, hissed his snow leopard. This is now. What is happening now? What can you do now to protect your mate?

Justin could see a bit through the jumble of wiring from the electric chair, and he scanned his surroundings. Papers from the desk were scattered all over. The computer was smashed. The bucket Dr. Mortenson had waterboarded him with had been overturned, and a wide puddle of water was spread across the floor.

He could see the two tranquilizer rifles, but neither was close enough to grab without getting shot. Dr. Mortenson could probably see the rifles too, which meant she knew they were both unarmed. He wondered why she hadn’t just walked up and shot them already... but no, she wouldn’t risk coming that close to people who could turn into snow leopards.

“Warning!” blared the recording. “The self-destruct sequence has been initialized. All personnel, exit the premises immediately. This is not a drill. The base will self-destruct in twelve minutes.”

If they waited, maybe Dr. Mortenson would take off rather than risk getting blown up with her lab. But he thought she was more likely to cross her fingers that she could shoot them dead before they could jump her, and get up and come kill them. In fact, it surprised him that she hadn’t come for him already. He was wounded, unable to put up much of a fight...

Ah. She must not know he’d been hit.

Justin caught Fiona’s eye. He took a hand off his side and pointed to the open floor between them and the doctor: we need to lure her out. Then he ran his finger from the corner of his eye down his cheek, tracing a line in blood that, he hoped, would look like tears.

Fiona nodded, then said sharply, “Justin? Justin! Don’t pass out! Stay with me!”

He moaned in pain, which wasn’t hard, then mumbled, “It hurts.”

“Just hold on.” Her voice had the forced calm of a woman on the verge of panic. “We can wait her out.”

With perfect timing, the announcement played again. “Warning! The self-destruct sequence has been initialized. All personnel, exit the premises immediately. This is not a drill. The base will self-destruct in eleven minutes.”

Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies, Justin thought. He let the tears fill his eyes and clog his throat, then said, “I can’t stop the bleeding. I’m scared.”

“I know, Justin, I know,” Fiona replied. “Just try to keep pressure on it, all right? I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

Justin gritted his teeth. He was losing a lot of blood. But there was nothing he could do about it. He had to keep both hands free to be ready for when Dr. Mortenson walked into his trap.

Fiona went on talking in her trying-to-sound-soothing-while-actually-terrified tone. Meanwhile, Justin kept careful track of the sightlines. He and Fiona were on the same side of the room and could see each other. Fiona was behind a heavy steel desk and couldn’t see the opposite side of the room, where Dr. Mortenson was.

Dr. Mortenson, who was hiding behind a steel table, couldn’t see anything unless she peeked out. Even then, she’d just see the table and chair and jumble of electrical wiring attached to the chair that was hiding him, not Justin himself. However, he could see Dr. Mortenson’s desk and the space between her and him through a peephole-sized break in the wiring.

Justin bet Dr. Mortenson had also figured out the sightlines. If she wanted to go kill him without getting jumped by Fiona, she’d have to wait till Justin wasn’t looking, then move silently so Fiona didn’t hear her.

He pointed sharply at Fiona: Now.

“Justin!” she cried out. “Wake up! Wake up, Justin! Justin!”

Fascinated, he watched Dr. Mortenson stand up, look straight at him, and smile that fucking sadistic smile of hers. When she stepped out from behind the table, he saw that she’d taken off her shoes. Her bare feet moved silently across the floor as she approached him.

Fiona was still calling to him, her voice increasingly frantic.

Dr. Mortenson glanced down at the wide puddle of water from the overturned waterboarding bucket that covered the floor between her and Justin. She stepped into it, very carefully so as not to make a splash.

Justin lunged out with a wire from the electric chair in his hand. He stuck the broken end into the puddle, and with his other hand, he flipped the switch.

A loud crackle sounded, and a white arc of electricity leaped up. Dr. Mortenson let out a long, piercing shriek of agony, then pitched forward. She lay still, her face in the water. A wisp of smoke rose up from her clothes.

“Warning! The self-destruct sequence has been initialized. All personnel, exit the premises immediately. This is not a drill. The base will self-destruct in ten minutes.”

Justin turned off the switch and let go of the wire. He knew that they had to get out of there, and he told himself to get up. Instead, he found himself sagging against the overturned chair with black spots dancing before his eyes.

Fiona jumped up, but rather than run to him, she bolted for the medicine cabinets. He watched in a daze as she yanked out an entire drawer full of bandages and brought it to him. He fished out a pair of pressure bandages and applied them. To his relief, the bleeding stopped.

“Anything else you should do?” she asked.

Stay warm, lie down with my feet elevated, and start an IV, he thought. Then medevac immediately.

“Warning! The self-destruct sequence has been initialized. All personnel, exit the premises immediately. This is not a drill. The base will self-destruct in nine minutes.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Get the hell out of here.”

“I can carry you,” she offered.

He knew she was strong enough. But it would slow her down—maybe enough to get them both killed. “Just help me up. We’ll see how fast I can go.”

She wrapped her arm around his waist, he put his arm around her shoulders, and they stood up together. He was relieved to find that with her support, they could get down the empty corridors in an awkward, shambling run.

I’d be faster if I was invincible, he thought. I wouldn’t need her help at all.

His snow leopard gave a warning growl.

But Justin wasn’t seriously tempted. He could still move, and that was good enough. If he was invincible, he wouldn’t notice if he started bleeding again. Worst of all, he wouldn’t love Fiona.

If I don’t make it, I want to die loving her, he thought.

She kicked open a door, and they stepped out into icy air and a field of white stretching out in all directions. Snow fell lightly from a gray-white sky. It took him a moment to realize that they were on the airstrip; the planes were gone. There were no cars, which made sense because there didn’t seem to be any roads. Several weird-looking little vehicles like motorized sleds were parked under an overhang.

“Great,” Fiona said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “There’s the snowmobiles.”

So that was what they were. Justin had heard of them, but never seen one before. “Do you know how to drive them?”

“Warning! The self-destruct sequence has been initialized. All personnel, exit the premises immediately. This is not a drill. The base will self-destruct in four minutes.”

“Yeah.” Fiona was already heading for the nearest one. “Destiny taught me. I’m just not big on snow-related stuff, that’s all. Hop on.”

She helped him on, then climbed on herself. “Hold tight.”

He wrapped his arms around her, pressing his chest against her back. The key had been left in the ignition. She started it up, and began to skim across the snow. He was startled by how fast it went. From the looks of it, he’d expected something like a golf cart, and had been wondering if it would be better to run. But it was fast as a car. He relaxed. They were in no danger of being caught in the blast.

He counted off the seconds in his mind, and when he got to three and a half minutes, he nudged her. “Stop. I want to see it blow up.”

She turned the snowmobile around, then brought it to a halt. The base loomed in the distance. A second later, it blew up with an earsplitting crack and rumble, followed by the slight push of the shockwave. Debris shot up into the sky, then fell down. And then there was nothing left but a heap of rubble.

It was over. Dr. Mortenson was dead. Apex was gone. Justin had finally accomplished what he’d sworn to do, all those years ago. But when he’d imagined it then, he’d always thought he’d die doing it. Then there would be no more pain, no more guilt, and no more trying. He’d be done with it all. He’d figured it would be a relief.

Justin’s blood-soaked shirt was starting to freeze in the icy air. His side hurt so badly, it was making him break out in a cold sweat, and then that froze on his skin. Just sitting upright was unpleasant and difficult. If he’d known they’d had minutes to spare, he’d have given himself a shot of morphine and taken the equipment to start an IV line. He longed to lie down the way a man lost in a desert longs for water, and they hadn’t even started their journey yet.

But Fiona’s body was warm against his, and he no longer wanted to be done with anything. He had a team and friends to return to, and a mate to build a life with. He had dogs to adopt.

He must have said some of that out loud, because she said, “We’ll go to the shelter as soon as you’re better. I want to help pick them out.”

“Of course. They’re your dogs too. I hope they’re not too much of a shock, after your robots. I hate to break it to you, but real dogs slobber.”

“Everything’s a tradeoff,” she said with a shrug. “Robot dogs don’t love you back.”

“Yours might. Maybe that’s why they haven’t taken over the world yet.”

“They’re probably just biding their time.”

Fiona bent over the snowmobile and programmed the GPS for Fairbanks, Alaska. She twisted around to kiss him, her lips warm on his chilled skin, and then they set out into the wilderness.