“What are you doing here? What happened?” Slade asked as Nora climbed down the long ladder to the underground base. The sharp, angry sound of his voice helped her to stop crying as she held onto the anger Slade inspired in her.
When she was five rungs from the bottom a strong hand bunched in the back of her dress and pulled her off the ladder. Nora fell onto her ass and nearly hit her head on a boulder but caught herself just in time.
“What are you doing here?” Slade repeated. “Are you crying? What the fuck is wrong with you? Get up.”
Nora climbed up onto her feet. “The pack tried to capture me. They suspected me after you took Angeline. How could you not tell me you were going to do that?”
Slade laughed. “We couldn’t afford to wait for a better opportunity. If you’d thought about it for all of twenty seconds you would have realized the same thing.”
“Where is she?”
“Who?” Slade asked stepping into her path when she turned to go down the tunnel. “I saw you on the cameras, you’re not supposed to be here. They probably followed you.”
Nora forced her body to relax. “They are too busy trying to find Angeline to follow me.”
“You better hope so. Doogle was pissed when he heard you were spotted coming this way.”
Doogle was one of the founders of the HRAF. Him being there couldn’t have been a coincidence. “How did he get here so fast?”
“He’s taken an interest in the Rizer pack. He arrived just after we did. I think he’s going to promote me within the ranks of the HRAF.”
“Where is the shifter you took?” Nora asks afraid to hear the answer. A shifter with powers of vision could be viewed as very dangerous or very useful. Either way, it would be bad news for the shifter.
Slade gestured toward the tunnel. “Doogle’s starting to question her. It’s not something you’re going to want to see, Nora. Besides, didn’t you hear me? I’m getting promoted.”
“Good job, Slade, really that’s great.” Nora but her hands on his chest pushing him back against the wall. He wanted her to go down on him or offer him some kind of sexual favor as congratulations. Slade would be disappointed. “I want to see the questioning,” Nora said and ran up the tunnel.
I have maybe three minutes before they cross that borderline and then it’ll be too late.
Slade was chasing after her yelling at her that she wasn’t allowed inside the questioning chamber. Nora kept running. The tunnels were sloped downward, deeper under the earth.
“Nora, you’re gonna get yourself killed. Doogle said nobody goes inside while he’s questioning the prisoner. That means nobody.”
She took the first turn jumping off the opposite wall, in a par core move she knew well. Slade was fast though and he caught her before she made the next turn. “What are you doing? You’re acting crazy.”
“I know what I’m doing. Let me go.”
Slade slapped her. “That knock some sense into you?” He asked holding his hand up as a warning that she’d get another if she didn’t bend to his will.
“Don’t touch me,” Nora growled leaning against the wall as she lifted both her feet and shoved him away from her.
Slade fisted his hand, his eyes widened as he watched Nora reach for her knife. He halted holding his hands up. “Okay, I’m sorry. You’re acting crazy, you know that?”
The door around the corner flew open and Doogle came out. “What is all this racket? I’m trying to save the human race for crying out loud.”
Nora recognized him from one of the rallies she attended a year back. He’d aged a lot since that time. His head of brown hair turned white, and the bags under his eyes were large and bluish purple. The whites of his eyes were yellowing like his teeth.
Doogle was one of the only two remaining HRAF founding members, the other six passed away in the line of duty.
“You,” he said pointing a gloved finger at Nora. It was outfitted with jagged silver claws. “You fed us the information on this shifter pack. Yes?”
“Yes, sir,” Nora answered.
He nodded. “Maybe you talk to her? See if she trusts you, knows you.”
Angeline might recognize Nora if she was at the waterfall that day when Nora was there with Ian, otherwise Angeline wouldn’t know her and Nora would have no sway when it came to trying to get Angeline to cooperate.
Only Nora wanted her to cooperate in getting herself out not giving up information to the HRAF. These people of the HRAF were confused like she was. They just needed a chance to understand the that the shifters were not all bad. Ian wasn’t bad. The way the pack reacted when they learned Angeline was captured told Nora that she wasn’t bad either.
Will she listen to me?
“I’d have a much better chance at getting the shifter to talk, sir. Nora, she’s soft when it comes to that sort of thing.”
“We don’t need to hurt her to get her to speak,” Nora said glaring at Slade for immediately jumping to torture.
Doogle’s yellow toothed smile as he gestured for Nora to go inside the interrogation room was haunting. Whatever happened to Doogle over the past year it was clearly too much for him.
Nora felt Slade’s anger rolling off of him like a shadow cutting out the light on the lighthouse. She knew she needed to placate him or he would be poisoning her name to Doogle the entire time she was with Nora.
“Do you mind if I go first, Slade?” Nora asked him knowing he would feel powerful when she asked for his permission.
Slade’s cold glare softened a bit and he gave her a jerky nod of his head. “Shouldn’t take long before you realize I was right.”
Nora walked through the open door Doogle held for her. The door closed behind her and she heard the lock tumble into place. She’d seen rooms like this one before. Torturing shifters for answers was a large part of how the HRAF got their information. The room had an examining table where the subject was strapped down, as Angeline was.
Her white blond hair was long, her skin so fair, especially with the fresh blood dripping from the silver headband that ran across her forehead and pressed into her temples. She looked like an angel being tortured, no wonder her parents picked the name they did.
Angeline looked at Nora as if she knew her, as if she expected her. “Nora,” she said her lips trembling. “You’re here too?”
Nora approached the table.
“She won’t get any useful information out of her,” Slade said to Doogle. The two of them and a few others were standing on the other side of the wall that was like a chain link fence, only it was made of steel and painted with melted silver to keep the wolves and other shifters from tearing it down.
“Be silent or I will cut out your tongue,” Doogle said to Slade. “We communicate through the code or not at all in here.”
Nora did not look their way she continued forward with her eyes on Angeline. Her stomach was largely rounded on her small frame. It was clear she was with child and this made things worse for her. No doubt the next move Doogle would make would be to threaten the baby if he hadn’t already.
“I know you’re afraid,” Nora began as she stopped next to the table. “I am too. You know that already though, right? You can hear my heart pounding in my chest. The HRAF won’t hurt you if you help them.”
The sudden tapping on the other side of the steel and silver wall where the group watching stood was clearly audible to Nora. Someone was pointing out through the code that Nora had not identified herself as HRAF and spoke as though she were separate.
“I can’t call upon any vision when I’m in this much pain. Can you take this thing off my head?”
Tapping code sounded in a clear command not to remove the head gear.
Nora’s mind was racing. They were locked inside the room and neither would be able to break out if the HRAF believed she was betraying them. The door needed to be open before she could free Angeline.
“Tell me what you know about the HRAF from your visions. If what you say is enough for them I will take off the band.”
Angeline turned her head as far as she could pressing her face against the table, trying to move the band. “I can’t think with this thing on.”
“Try,” Nora told Angeline in a no-nonsense tone.
Think Nora. How am I gonna get her out of here?
“The man you think you care for, Slade,” Angeline said drawing Nora’s attention from her thoughts. “You think you hate him for his lack of care for you, but you still care. He will be the one to kill you.”
Slade tapped out, I never hurt you. Through the code, they used that was like Morris code only different and faster.
“Tell me something about HRAF,” Nora repeated. “I know you’re in pain and I want to help you.”
Angeline growled as the silver continued to burn into her temples, the blood flow increasing. “What good is a human rights organization that kill humans? The poisonous gas that emptied Texas, it killed twice the number of humans than it did shifters. HRAF is nothing but a name for people scared of shifters.”
Nora stiffened at this. They were told that Texas was cleared of all the humans before the poison bomb was dropped. Now that she found herself in love with a shifter it was devastating to Nora and shameful that she’d ever been a member of such a group that would kill like the HRAF does.
Angeline moved her lips without making any noise. It took a second before Nora could make sense of what she was mouthing.
They’re coming.
Nora removed the headband.
“Put that back,” Doogle said aloud not bothering with the code.
Nora looked over at him leaning in toward Angeline as she did to remove the IV they had on her wrist. They’d hit the kill button and inject her with a mixture of metal breakdown in liquid form including silver which would kill Angeline and her unborn child immediately.
Angeline didn’t make a sound when Nora pulled out the IV, even though she was sure it must have hurt since she had to pull it out without looking at it or making any big movements that would cause them to notice that Nora had just removed their kill switch.
“Put it back on her head. She’s dangerous. She’ll tear your head off if she gets the chance, you foolish girl,” Doogle yelled.
“I told you, Doogle,” Angeline said raising her head up off the table to look at him. “You die today. Make your peace.”
Time is out. Any second the alarm will sound warning that the pack is coming. Nora loosens the straps on Angeline’s wrists enough that she can pull them free.
“Traitor,” Slade bellowed with such disbelief that Nora felt the sting that Angeline warned her about. There was still a part of her that cared for the young man that pulled her into that wagon.
“We were wrong about them, Slade. They aren’t all killing machines. I mean look at us. We have become the killers, Slade.”
He wiped at his face with the back of his hand, his mouth bowing in a deep frown as he shook his head, the black hate symbols tattooed on his scalp stretched and wrinkled as he fought to control his emotions.
Doogle slammed his hand down on the button that would trigger Angeline to be poisoned. The alarm sounded once and then silenced leaving lights flashing like a strobe as silent warning that the perimeter was breached.
Nora heard Angeline hit the table and turned back toward her with disbelief.
No! I pulled it out. I pulled it out!
Following the IV lines, Nora spotted the split and followed it with her eyes leading to Angeline’s other wrist.
They put in two lines?
Nora reached over Angeline and yanked the other line throwing both lines to the floor. “Angeline?” She grabbed her shoulders shaking her. “Wake up, dammit. Angeline,” Nora screamed her name.
Angeline didn’t move.
“Cut the baby out,” Doogle’s voice was to her immediate right. “It might have the same visionary skill. We can use it.”
Nora put one hand on the table. Leaping up, her legs wrapped around Doogle’s neck. His yellowed whites widened as he reached up to pull her legs away but he wasn’t fast enough. Nora executed the sharp twist breaking his neck as she took him to the floor.
The hurried knocking repeated growing louder as the message was passed throughout the base.
Kill Nora Prush. Kill Nora Prush. Kill Nora Prush.