ALPHA’S PREY

It will be days-maybe over a week-before someone realizes something’s gone wrong. The guys at the lab and my friends will just think I’m still up here doing research. I didn’t tell anyone I was headed down the mountain today.

I peer into the cage beside mine again.

Again, the woman puts her finger to her lips and shakes her head. “Quiet,” she mouths.

Shivers run down my spine, but I nod my understanding.

I have to trust my fellow prisoner in this situation. She’s been here longer than I have.

Nothing happens for a long time. I catalogue a million questions to ask these women when-if-I get a chance.

Finally, a door opens, bringing a shaft of light into the room, and the man who flagged me down on the road comes in. He’s wearing a white lab coat.

“Ah, our newest subject is awake,” he says in one of those falsely cheerful voices. “Time to start testing.”

I shoot a glance at the woman next to me, and the dread on her face confirms I’m not going to like this.

My captor opens the cage. “Tell me, what were you doing with the bear?”

I’m certain then, without a doubt, this is the man who murdered Caleb’s wife and child.

He grabs my arm and jams a needle into me, injecting me again. This time I don’t pass out, but my muscles go slack. I can’t move my limbs or even hold up my head.

The man wheels a gurney over to the cage and yanks me out by the arm. I can’t feel where he grips me, but it occurs to me he must be inhumanly strong, because he handles my dead weight with ease.

Refusing to play helpless victim, I use the only weapon available to me at the moment-my mind and my tongue. “You’re the bear,” I accuse him.

He freezes, eyes turning amber. As I watch in horror, he transforms. Or half-transforms. His face changes to bear-a snout grows where his nose was, vicious teeth stab down. His hands become giant paws, too-giant paws with killer claws. Some fur sprouts, too, but only in patches. He doesn’t fully shape-shift. He’s stuck somewhere in the middle: half-man, half-bear.

One of the other women in the cages screams, telling me she either hasn’t seen this side of her captor before, or it’s something to fear.

The guy goes nuts, slashing his claws through the air, knocking over a table and chair. He throws the gurney I’m on and my body slumps to the floor. It’s probably a blessing I have no muscle control because the softness of my body makes my landing easier.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

He tosses the cages around the room. The women in them scream. He continues on his rampage, tearing everything down, smashing lab equipment-decanters and test tubes and vials.

It seems to last forever. When there’s nothing left to smash, he runs from the room, coughing and wheezing between roars.

I hear another door slam and then one of the women speaks. “Holy shit. What the hell was that?”

“A shape-shifter experiment gone wrong,” I answer.

“A what?” This shaky query comes from another cage.

“This guy was a test subject of a government research project gone wrong. I’m guessing it made him insane as well as a monster.”

“Oh lordy,” the first women says. “That makes sense.”

“Why?”

“He calls this cellar the lab. He thinks he’s doing experiments on us, but they don’t add up. He takes blood and shakes it up in little vials with food coloring and water. He tortures us and says it’s pain tolerance tests. While we’re screaming, he yells at us to shift. We had no freaking clue what he wanted or is trying to do. Only that he’s fuck-nuts crazy.”

I struggle to move, but my body still won’t obey my brain. “I have to get us out of here,” I mutter, my lips and tongue turning as numb as the rest of me.

“Yeah, good luck with that. You won’t be moving for another six hours at the least.”

“My name is Miranda,” I tell them. “And we’re going to get out of here.”

“You sound pretty sure of that, Miranda,” one of them says drily. “But it doesn’t look to me like your plan is working so far. I’m Julia.”

“I’m Rachel.”

“I’m Tracy.”

“I would say nice to meet you, but the circumstances are shit,” I say. I’m slurring a little from the muscle relaxant. “There are Missing Person posters for all three of you all over New Mexico. You haven’t been forgotten.”

“Are you a cop or something?” one of them-Tracy, I think-asks.

“No. I’m an ecologist. But I met a man this week who was trying to solve your cases. He thinks this guy killed his wife and kid.”

Caleb.

Thinking of never seeing him again makes my chest go corset-tight.

I can’t count on him finding us. We said goodbye and he has no reason to suspect I’m not safely at home by now, curled up with my dog.

Bear!

“Have any of you seen or heard my dog?”

My heart pounds, thinking of how Bear went in that river. What if it wasn’t an accident, and my captor threw him in? What if he’s done something horrible to Bear?

“No.” Each of them answers.

I hear a door open and the three other prisoners all make hushing sounds. I shut my mouth and heed their warning. Making the crazy man mad isn’t going to be my best plan.

I need to get my brain working on a plan to get us out of here. Because staying trapped here forever as a crazy man’s test subject is not an option.