Chapter Two

Rosie

She stopped knocking.

Her fist hurt from it. She hadn’t realized she’d been hammering away so hard. But the entire place was giving her the creeps, and the sooner she saw a familiar face, the better. Assuming that she recognized any of them. It’d only been a week, but in the grand scheme of things, they’d been in her life for such a short period of time, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d recognize them.

This was where they’d told everyone they were staying, and to come seek them out if they needed help, so she knew she had to be in the right place. Her hand hesitated as it raised again to hit the still-closed door. Maybe there was a reason they weren’t answering. Were they even home? Worse, perhaps they were home, could see who it was, and had decided not to answer.

She considered that for a moment. It didn’t seem like something that they would do. That didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme, unfortunately. There had been plenty of people in her life who had done things to her that she’d never expected them to. Being a good judge of character was apparently something she was terrible at. She was aware of it now though, and had taken steps to correct it.

Steeling herself against the mild pain from her hand, she slammed on the door some more, the force of her blows rattling it in its frame. Holding back wasn’t among her personality traits either. Neither was patience. If they didn’t answer now, she was better off just moving on. Maybe this wasn’t even the right place, though it certainly matched the description, right down to the name of it.

Something clicked in the door, and it pulled itself open.

“Who are you and what do you want?” The voice was like something conjured up from the depths of the earth, so deep and full.

Her neck popped several times as she craned her head up, taken aback once more by the outsized stature of the man who had opened the door. Internally she breathed a sigh of relief though. This was definitely the place. There was absolutely no mistaking them now that she’d seen them again. The man who had answered the door was gorgeous. Tall, light golden-brown

 hair and a matching beard trimmed short, along with a set of eyes so bright and blue she could have been looking at gemstones.

“Hi,” she said, unintimidated by him.

“Answer the question,” the giant rumbled back, his strongly defined jaw tilting downward slightly as he regarded her. Evaluated her.

“I was on the convoy.”

There was no reaction.

“The convoy that you attacked and rescued me and all the other women from?” she prompted.

“I’m aware,” the stone giant said, his muscles seeming to relax slightly, his voice thawing just a bit. “Why are you here?”

She hesitated. Why was she there? The answer that she’d worked up in her head sounded silly now.

“Ummm.”

The eyelids closed slightly. “You’re here because umm?”

The tone snapped Rosie back into reality. “Why are you being such a dick?” she asked.

To her satisfaction the oversized human in front of her blinked several times at her response. Clearly she’d taken him off guard. She pressed her advantage.

“After all, you were the ones that told us where you were staying, to come here and seek you out if we ever needed anything. So, here I am.”

The ice and steel returned to the giant, and he twisted slightly to look back into the room, before his gaze returned to her, pinning her in place with its weight.

“We didn’t tell people that,” he rumbled. “Why would we divulge our location? That would make it ridiculously easy for us to be tracked back here. So, try again,” he said, his voice growing threatening. He seemed to loom up and over her some more. “Who are you, and why are you here?”

“I…my name’s Rosie,” she stammered. “I was on the convoy! I was going to be part of the Bothwell-Ingrim Institute of Theoretical Anthropological Studies DNA Splicing Program.”

The figure shuddered. “Call it the Institute if you want me to keep listening to you. Do not use that ridiculous name.”

“Uh, sure,” she agreed. “No problem.”

“How did you find us?” he asked, his tone growing icy.

“Seriously? I’ve told you twice now,” she replied, letting her own voice grow hard. Rosie wasn’t about to let herself be intimidated by the gatekeeper. She knew he wasn’t the boss. The boss never opened the door.

“We didn’t tell anyone where we were. Nor did we tell any of the women on the trucks to come seek us out. We rescued them and sent them back to their regular lives, with the knowledge of what the program was truly about. After that, not our problem anymore.”

Rosie was fuming by this point. “I’m not making this up! One of you came and told me where you were staying and to come here if we needed any help. Why the hell would I lie about that?”

The man rolled his eyes. “Seriously? That’s such an easy way for the Institute to plant a spy in our midst. Which is preciously why we didn’t tell them where we were.”

Something in his voice sounded unhappy about that last statement, but Rosie couldn’t identify what it was.

“Well, one of you did,” she countered.

The blond giant sighed in anger. “What did he look like then?”

Rosie hesitated. “Umm, well, he was tall. Like you. And, um, muscular…also like you.”

“Are you just making this up as you go?” he growled, his voice filling with anger.

“No, I’m not. But in case you’ve forgotten, for any of us not used to your world, that day was a bit traumatizing to us normal humans,” she shot back, not appreciating his attitude. “How many people did we see you kill? Plus the car explosion, the gunfire. That is NOT a normal day for a human being,” she raged, her emotions pushing through the carefully constructed shell she’d erected around herself.

“Sorry,” she added as an afterthought.

“Give me some more idea of what this guy looked like.”

Someone farther into the room said something, but the man just ignored it.

“He was with you guys. There were four of you. Two of them came into my truck. One of them asked me to drive. I didn’t get any of your names. None of you gave it out.”

“Was the one who asked you to drive the same one who told you where we were?”

Rosie almost frowned at the sudden relaxation in his attitude. Did he recognize her now? This one didn’t seem familiar to her, but they all looked alike, so it might be tough.

“No,” she said firmly. “It was the one who was with him.”

The golden-brown eyebrows of the shifter rose up high for a split second before he was able to gather himself under control.

“Did he now?” The bright blue eyes cast a furtive glance back inside. “Isn’t that just interesting.”

“Um, so does that mean I can come in?” she asked.

“You’ve still jumped around, avoiding tell me why you’re here in the first place,” he replied by way of answer.

“Because,” she said, trying her best to keep her white-hot rage in check. “I want to help take down the place that almost ruined my life, and is ruining the lives of so many other young women, taking advantage of them, and ultimately contributing to killing your race.” Her upper lip pulled back in a scowl that seemed to impress the shifter. “I don’t believe in those things.”

“I see.”

It was not the reaction to her impassioned speech that Rosie had been expecting. She’d rehearsed the lines several times, hoping to give them as big of an impact as possible. Now that she’d uttered them though, and gotten absolutely no response, she felt a bit like an idiot. She clamped down on the heat in her face as best she could, determined not to blush in front of the shifters.

“It’s not right,” she said firmly. “They’re preying on the weak. I don’t like predators.”

That caused the twitch of an eyebrow.

“Stay there,” he said, and closed the door in her face without further warning.

“What the fuck!” she yelled, but it didn’t do her any good. All she could do was storm about the parking lot in front of the door and wait for him to open it. And storm Rosie did. Her feet slammed into the cracked and worn asphalt, kicking at little chunks of it to try and take out her anger.

Getting out here had not been easy, and now she wasn’t even sure if they were going to let her in.

The door opened.

“What are your skills? What can you contribute to the fight?” the same figure asked, his tone blunt and matter-of-fact.

“Ummm.”

“Are you a shifter?”

“Fuck you,” she said dryly. “You know the answer to that.”

“Can you shoot?”

“I’ve fired a gun before, yes.”

“Have you hit what you were aiming at?”

“Most of the time,” she admitted uneasily, looking away.

The shifter waited silently, his body language making it clear he wanted her to elaborate on her reaction.

Rosie sighed. “I can hit a target fine. But the one time I pointed it at a person, I missed with all three bullets.”

The huge head tilted slightly as she admitted the truth.

“What?” she fired back, not enjoying the way he looked at her. “Not all of us grew up living such an easy life, okay? Some of us had to fight for what we have, and to protect it once we had it. I’m not saying I grew up in the worst of the worst. But where I’m from, you did what you had to do.”

To her surprise, the shifter’s mask slid away. “Believe it or not, we understand more than you might think,” he said softly. “Sometimes things start with good intentions, and then spiral out of your control.”

Rosie frowned at the sudden admission of personal trial. She didn’t know this man, and yet here they were, exchanging bits of history about their lives.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a human, and unless you’ve got some sort of special skill, you aren’t really an asset to our team, and you’re more likely to get yourself killed than you are to help. Find something else to do. We won’t be responsible for your death. Go somewhere else.”

The door closed in her face, leaving Rosie standing under the short awning, her jaw slack with shock and despair.