Less than an hour later, Lilly was surrounded by grim-faced men and one woman in the staff break room of the military wing. She should have been comforted by the presence of a woman among them, but somehow the strange ice-blue stare of Private Nicole Smith disconcerted her. Especially after she and another of the team had been dispatched to deal with the rest of the guards. The terror in the screams that had echoed through the corridors was something she never wanted to hear again.

“Right, these are the plans of the hospital. Lilly tells me non-military patients are minimal at the moment. Apart from us, St. Mary’s is an open facility. Most patients are allowed home visits, so they’re offsite for the weekend.”

Nic snorted in bitter amusement. “Christ, the madmen really do run the asylum. But that means less for us to worry about. Think they’ll use blood-suckers or re-animates?”

Lilly edged closer to Jack, her single source of comfort and security in a world gone mad. He’d lost the hospital gown, as had all the people clustered around the table someone had dragged into the center of the room.

They were dressed in a combination of combat pants and jeans, and most were barefoot. One blond guy—Lilly couldn’t remember his name—had a pair of pink sneakers on. All were naked to the waist, except Nic, who was wearing a tank top with a smiley face on it. Apart from the single, slender female among them, the amount of ripped male flesh on display made Lillian feel a little lightheaded.

“Re-animates for sure. They can’t risk us turning the Bloods. They haven’t figured out the mechanism for cross infection yet. And we still have some patients and staff to worry about. They’re holed up in the other wing at the moment.”

The conversation made her head whirl. Most of it she couldn’t follow. Military-sounding words she’d never heard before and had no idea what they meant. Other words made her shiver, a part of her brain not wanting to know what they meant.

They didn’t look like soldiers, not the way they dressed, anyway. They looked more like models. Although she’d thought him too young to have signed up, Jack was older than the rest. His hair was close-cropped. The rest had more hair than the average surfer, flowing down to their shoulders in a shaggy mess. It didn’t look like a conscious decision kind of style as much as a “let it do its own thing” kind.

They were soldiers, though; that much was evident in the way they crowded around the table in an impromptu war council. And the small tattoo each had on their rib cage said far more than any talk of tactics.

She shivered. She’d seen them before. Meat tags. Which meant they were from a unit that went into extreme action, into combat so violent that bodies were rarely found whole.

“Ugh…” The groan started by Nic echoed around the table. “I freaking hate RAs! They taste bad.”

Lillian frowned. Tasted bad? She opened her mouth, but shut it again with a click. She didn’t want to know. She really didn’t want to know.

Thump…thump…thump.

The sudden noise outside made her jump. Before she could react, light stabbed through the windows, constantly moving and searching, as though a giant shone a torch inside to look for something.

Nic pushed the office chair she sat astride back and rolled toward the window. Leaning against the windowsill she looked up, craning her neck. “Two choppers with spots. Two more behind them, look like gunships.”

Jack nodded. “Clean-up. We have about ten before the transports arrive.”

Tension spiked sharply, as though it had barged through the door and filled up all the available space to watch proceedings. Jack looked around the grim-faced group.

“Okay, the terrain’s too open to make a break for it yet, not with those gunships out there. All we can do is lock down tight and sit through the first wave. Once the re-animates are in position, the ships should peel off.”

Darce nodded, leaning forward eagerly. “Then we spilt? The RAs aren’t fast enough to keep up with us. Not when we’re shifted and hot-footing it.”

Jack shook his head.

“Nope, we can’t leave this place undefended. RAs are dumb, but they’ll easily get into the other wing. You want innocent blood on our hands? Even if they are crazy, no one deserves that.”

He spread out the floor plan of the hospital Lillian had given him earlier. The paper crackled as he flattened it down. When the new extension for the therapy pool had been built, the architects had done a full work up on the whole building. She’d no idea why she’d kept it, but now she was glad she had. Jack’s eyes had lit up when she’d pulled it from the cupboard in her office.

“We’ve all fought RAs before, so this should be a walk in the park. Yeah, they’re strong as fuck and go down fighting, but they’re as thick as shit. If we lock down all these corridors here and here, and open these and the front door, we can create a killing field here with cross fire.”

He tapped the middle of the map, over an area that displayed where four corridors intersected in a staggered cross. The secondary branches were off to the secure wards, which meant they had a dual steel gate system not unlike an airlock. But instead of air, this one was designed to stop patients getting out. Or anything else getting in.

“Any that get through that will face Darce, Sanders and Nic. Any questions?” He looked up and around the group but no one replied. “Thom and Nic, you get down and unlock the front doors. Darce, go with them for cover fire, then get your ass back here. Everyone else, positions.”

The group around the table scattered, all going their own ways. Once they were alone Jack rounded the table and approached her where she was curled up on the single couch.

“Hey sweetheart, how you hanging in there?”

He crouched down in front of her, the heavy muscles of his chest and torso doing an intricate two-step as he reached out and took both her hands in his.

“Other than I have no clue what’s going on and feel like I’ve been plunged into a bad horror film, then yeah, I’m peachy. Thanks for asking.”

She knew she was being snarky, but she didn’t much care. She’d been pulled from pillar to post, seen men die hideously and she was supposed to believe that Jack and his men were some kind of military-created Lycanthropes.

Werewolves in St. Mary’s? It sounded like the title of a cheesy B-movie and was so ludicrous she wanted to laugh. She suspected if she started now, though, she’d never stop. If she hadn’t seen those wicked claws herself…she shook her head. Perhaps she was seeing things, a trick of the light. Yeah, that must be it. Otherwise she was going nuts. In a mental institution. How fitting.

“Okay, time out. I get the werewolves, but what on earth are RAs? And Bloods?”

Jack suppressed his sigh. He didn’t have time for this right now, but the suspicious shine in Lillian’s eyes, and the barely restrained hysteria within, told him that he’d better make time. Cursing, he marshaled his thoughts to put everything in an order she could understand. Maybe. At least he hoped so.

Normally, the project took its time prepping new recruits and staff. From the barrage of tests, through to the numerous friendly “chats” with the facility counselor, by the time the truth was laid on out there on the line, each newbie had been well prepared. Less likely to have an unstable moment.

The whole initiation process should take weeks, but he had to accomplish it in minutes. With a woman who was already half terrified.

“Okay, here goes. The Project is a secret organization operating within the Army. They’re government backed but I don’t know how far up the chain of command they go.”

Her eyebrow winged up, but he forged on anyway.

“They take people like me, pump them full of something…something that changes us. All I know is that I went in human and I came out like this…with this thing inside me. They control us, with more drugs and threats. If we rebel, we end up places like this, or worse. Silver bullet to the back of the head and an unmarked grave somewhere.”

He dropped his gaze, watching his thumb as he ran it over the back of her hand. She was tiny, her bones delicate under her skin. Beside her he felt huge, like a brute. He…the creature inside him…could hurt her so easily. His wolf wouldn’t hurt her, though. The damn thing was more likely to roll over and let her rub his tummy.

“We’re only one branch of research. There’re Bloods and the re-animates as well…”

“Whoa, whoa. In English, please.”

She turned her hands and laced her slender fingers through his larger callused ones. He wrapped his fingers around hers, desperate for the touch of her skin.

“You mentioned those earlier. If you tell me Bloods mean vampires, I will decide you’re crazy and walk out.”

“Okay,” he agreed amiably.

Silence stretched between them for a long moment. The penny dropped and her jaw went suddenly slack.

“Shit. You’re not kidding, are you? So if the Bloods are vampires, then what are the re-animates? No, don’t tell me…they’re zombies!”

She was being facetious, but Jack couldn’t help smiling. Quickly he smothered the expression and looked at her seriously.

“Sorry babe, but you got it in one.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” She ran a shaking hand through her hair. “Okay, say I believe you and somehow I’ve dropped into some kind of parallel universe…what happens now?”

If he could have kept the next words to himself, he would have. Blunt and forthright, he’d never been one to mince his words. He called a spade a spade. One part of him wanted not to tell her, to gather her in his arms and make a run for it so she didn’t have to deal with the horror the night was about to become.

If he did that, he could take her over the mountains. Find a town and let her go… As soon as the thought entered his mind, his wolf sat up and took notice. The thing didn’t bother much with his human thoughts, but the very idea of letting Lillian go, never seeing her again, had his wolf snarling a warning at him.

“We go down with the others. The re-an…the zombies come in. We kill them in a variety of bloody and gruesome ways. We try and stay alive until they’re all dead or the sun comes up. They’re slow in the sunlight. We can make a break for the mountains then. With us gone, the Project will leave this place alone and the people…your patients and staff…will be safe.”

She nodded. He could feel the question hanging between them. “What about me?” shone clearly in her chocolate, puppy-dog eyes. He ignored it, letting go of her hands to clap his own on his thighs and stand.

“Your choice, Lillian. You can go hide with the others in the secure wing. Or you can come with me, and see what the government is hiding from you.”