Chapter 4
Bellis was fighting the urge to hunt down a cigarette and a large black coffee. To his surprise, it wasn’t because of Sam’s offer of a blow job. No, something inside of him was baying at him to comfort her. That something would be ignored, because assassins didn’t deliver coffee or hunt down smokes, blow job or not. Still, it bothered him that no one was paying enough attention to her. Remy, King, Bishop. Hell, even Bodi had spent limited time with her. They didn’t scent the turmoil that faintly wafted from her. She was afraid and apprehensive, both scents you’d expect from a captive, but there was something else there, something that grew stronger the longer he spent with her. He wasn’t sure if it was heightening in her, or if he was just able to smell it more strongly because he’d spent time with her and was able to differentiate between her emotions. Ignoring the need to figure out the puzzle that was Sam Michaels, Bellis carried in a tray holding a tall glass of milk and a bowl of still-steaming stew.
King had made his threat and left, commanding Bellis retrieve a mat for “Ms. Michaels”. Apparently, her new cell would be the interrogation room, which was odd. The room had a hidden door, and for as worried as everyone was about little Ms. Michaels, it seemed an unwise decision.
Sitting on her mat, her ankle manacled and chained to the wall behind her, Sam eyed the tray Bellis placed on the floor in front of her before sliding her eyes to him, eyebrows raised in a ‘are you kidding’ expression.
Looking at the tray, Bellis snorted. “Food’s safe.” He planted his hands on his hips.
When Sam made no move for the tray, he rolled his eyes and squatted, reaching for the glass of milk and taking a drink before setting the glass back on the tray and lifting a bite of the stew to his lips and swallowing it down.
“Walkers are immune to illness. Everyone knows that.”
“We’re not immune to poison,” Bellis countered. “I’m assuming that’s what you’re worried about.”
She was, but wouldn’t admit it to him. Crawling from the mat she snatched the glass of milk off the tray and took a small sip, muttering, “I imagine if Monroe wanted me dead, dead is what I’d be.”
Bellis nodded. “Smart girl.”
Sam’s lips peeled back as she hissed, “Dumb boy.” Lifting the glass she drained it in several swallows while Bellis watched. Setting the empty glass down, she swiped the back of her arm across her lips before looking at him. “Girls are young, naïve, and full of promise.” The next words she pushed out in a sing-song tone, “Don’t get it twisted, dumb boy. It’ll huuuurt.”
“You can’t actually think I’m afraid of you.”
Sam grabbed the bowl of stew and blew on it before lifting a spoonful to her lips where it faltered long enough for her to say, “You fucking should be.”
Bellis studied her silently as she ate. Everyone was so worried, so overcautious over this tiny, foul-mouthed female who was clearly hiding behind bullshit and bravado. “That shit actually work with other people?”
Sam stilled with another spoonful of stew halfway to her lips. Flicking a glance up, she shot Bellis a dark look. “People?” She lowered the spoon back to the bowl. “There are no other people. It’s me, Megalya, and Skin Walkers. That’s it. I’m the only people I know.”
Interesting. So, she lived among monsters and beasts, and now believed herself to be one. “You’re hiding,” he challenged calmly.
“Hiding?” She gave him a bored look, then dropped the spoon onto the floor with a clatter before grabbing the bowl with both hands and lifting it to her lips and draining it. When she lowered the bowl, her cheeks were puffed out from too much stew. She chewed while glaring at Bellis. Finally, she swallowed and licked her lips. “This ain’t hiding, Demon. This is captivity. This is the opposite of hiding.”
He bristled when she called him Demon. He didn’t like being called that. “I didn’t mean from just the world, Princess.” He grinned when her brows punched down at the nickname. “I mostly meant from yourself. You’re trying to be this thing you aren’t. You’re hiding behind this character you’ve created.”
“You don’t know me, Demon, don’t pretend you do.”
“No, but I know my nose, my eyes. I scent things you think you keep hidden. If you want to survive this, you need to give Monroe what he wants.”
“What he wants is disloyalty, and then where does that put me? You think he could ever trust me if he thought that I’d turn on my own so quickly, so easily?”
Bellis shrugged. “Chance you gotta take.”
“You don’t get it.”
“Get what?” Bellis questioned.
“That loyalty is a fucking language, and not everyone speaks it. It can be taught, but only a select few who are eager enough will ever learn it. If it hasn’t been instilled from birth, the likelihood of retention is minimal.”
“And do you speak it?” Bellis ground out.
Sam lowered her chin, narrowing her eyes on him. “Fluently, motherfucker! I’m not turning on my people to save my own ass. That’s not how loyalty works.”
“So, you’d die for them?”
“Wouldn’t you die for your precious Walkers?” She angled her head. “We’re the same, just on different sides.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Walkers wouldn’t expect me to die to protect their secrets.”
“Yeah, but you’d do it all the same.”
He threw her words back at her. “You don’t know me, Princess, don’t pretend you do.”
She sighed, a bored sound, and her mind went back to two weeks ago.
***
Odium sneered at her. “The fire of my hatred burns brightly.” The Megalya’s grim expression morphed into a wicked smile revealing sharp, shark-like teeth. “I am not unable to avoid this violence. I am unwilling. Do you not feel it, sissster, or do you foolishly still cling to your need to belong to their society? They didn’t want you, remember? Have you forgotten their betrayal?”
Sam stared straight ahead, unblinking. She hated this place that she, Odium, and the other Megalya were currently calling home. It was a sewer, and there was no way to sugarcoat it. It made her feel like some fucked up April O’Neil every time she had to scan her surroundings before pulling back the manhole cover and climbing down to the literal shithole that Dr. Chambers had secured for her and the Megalya monsters. She didn’t like it, but she got it.
Dr. Chambers, the moron with all the plans, believed he could control her brother and the rest of the Megalya experiments. Still, he knew enough to house them separately from the scientists, guards, and other lackeys under Megalya employ who were hunting Skin Walkers in an attempt to replicate Skin Walker shifting abilities.
Standing on a concrete platform, surrounded by sewer water that ran from a grate at Odium’s right before flowing through several other grates throughout the large room, Sam wrinkled her nose at the nauseating scents permeating the air. “No, brother. I am but hardened by it and the lessons of life.” She recited Odium’s mantra with a cadence that spoke of repetition. She knew what Odium expected to hear, what he wanted her to say. “I do not need them. I do not want them.” The words were bitter on her tongue. What she didn’t want was to be related to Odium, to be part of his treachery, to be a Megalya, to be a part of any of this.
She tried to ignore the high-pitched clinking that always drew her eyes and made bile rise in her throat. At his waist, Odium kept Walker halos clipped to his belt. Trophies of Skin Walkers he’d murdered and then decapitated. Her brother and the rest of the Megalya believed that if they drank enough Walker blood, they’d glean Walker shifting abilities. It hadn’t ever happened, but it didn’t stop the Megalya from hunting, from trying. Sam glanced at the now-dull halos and had to fight to keep from retching. Most of the bands were smaller than the others, indicating Odium had taken them from women or children. It was horrific and a constant reminder that her brother was a monster. They were a constant reminder for her to never go soft, for weakness was as good as an invitation to a Megalya. If she couldn’t hack it, she’d be disposed of, pure and simple.
“Two weeks and we make our move.” Odium peeled his lips back and flashed his wicked teeth at her. “Then, you get tested.”
She swallowed hard. The plan was to move on the Skin Walker compound located in the Highwood Mountains of Montana. The Megalya had been striking out at one Walker at a time. Dr. Chambers and his superiors decided that wasn’t working, and that the best course of action would be to go into the Walker compound to take what they needed. No more waiting, and then the scientists planned on trying on Sam what they had unsuccessfully tried on Odium and the others.
Megalya weren’t born, they were created. Her brother had been one of the first humans to volunteer for the experiment. Volunteered! He’d talked their mother—a crackhead who’d all but abandoned him and Sam—into granting legal custody of Sam to him. He’d signed Sam up for the program too, but the scientists had waited. Thank God! They’d only wanted full-grown male subjects at that time. It had been Sam’s saving grace.
The scientists had promised shifting abilities, immunity to illness, and extended life. None of that had happened. Her brother had been turned into a monster. At first, there’d been no visible change to Daniel--his name given at birth—but then, within a day, all his hair had fallen out. All of it. By the second day, his ears had become more pointed on the tips and his teeth started falling out. The scientists kept promising that it was just his body attempting to shift to animal form for the first time. Then Daniel had been quarantined, and Sam didn’t have to be a fucking genius to see the fear and confusion on their faces when the scientists spoke to each other. Seven days later, Daniel emerged from quarantine, but he was no Daniel she’d ever known. In fact, the scientists declared he was now to be called Odium, but his name change was the least of her concerns. Daniel’s eyes had become a permanent solid black. His teeth had grown back, but they were wickedly sharp and layered on each other all crooked and lethal, like a shark’s. His skin had lost all color, but all of his physical changes paled in comparison to the changes in the man. He was different. His movements were always jerky like he was constantly being startled, and he made odd hissing sounds. During those first few weeks there wasn’t even a hint of recognition in his eyes for her. Then one day after “testing”, he came out and hissed, “Ssssissster.”
It had been one of the most disturbing moments of Sam’s life. That had been eight years ago, and compared to the things she’d seen since then, the moment now paled on her scale of disturbing moments.
Each subsequent year after the scientists had failed with Odium, they’d tried unsuccessfully to change others. All failures. All monsters, and now all under Odium’s control. The hive! It’s what the scientists called the group of Megalya beasts they’d created, yet couldn’t truly control.
***
Bellis’ voice drew her back to the present. “Where’d you go, Princess?”
Blinking, she jerked back a little when she realized he was squatting in front of her, his head canted as he studied her intently. Sam blanked her expression and reclined back on her mat, curling her legs up and placing her hand palm side down beneath her head as a pillow. Ignoring the whine in her muscles at the unforgiving concrete through the thin mat, she closed her eyes. “I’m done talking to you, and anyone else for that matter. Bring me your Dominant.”
She thought she’d get the last word, but realized she’d been wrong when Bellis growled. “Sleep, Princess, but know that when you wake, I’m gonna be right here.”
The threat sent a shiver coursing through her that she hid by rolling to her side. She needed to come up with a plan of escape. She had to get back to the hive. She needed to find a way back to Odium and his monsters so she could know what their plans were. Without her, Odium would go off the rails. She’d been the only hope of keeping him in check. The thought of him on his own made her stomach churn. Stupid Walkers! If they knew what he was capable of without her, they’d free her right now and give her keys to a damn jet plane to get her back to the Megalya as fast as possible.