Chapter 21 Darla
Darla
Iwas so shocked to see the calm way my mate took down Xi I didn’t realize my team had arrived until they broke down the door to the lab. Lois, Martha, Cassie, Wanda, and Angie came racing in, guns drawn, fanning out into the room in an attack formation.
“We’re over here,” I called.
I wasn’t sure what happened to all the people who’d been working in the lab when I came in, but the place seemed to be empty now. The workers had scattered like rats leaving a sinking ship.
Lois charged over, the rest of the team following her.
Her shrewd gaze took in the scene. Yuri’s bear was still trapped in the exam room, although he was calmer now that Stacy had gone inside to be with him.
He was laying on the floor like a puppy, his head on his paws as he watched everything that was happening.
Meanwhile his mate was sitting next to him, stroking the fur between his ears.
I was still in full vamp mode, and my mate – my strong and wonderful mate – stood over the body of Xi, her gun trained on the dead fox shifter as if she wanted to be ready in case Xi arose Terminator-style and attacked us again. She was magnificent.
“You took out the fox?” Lois asked, obviously surprised.
When Kathryn only nodded I added, “With silver bullets.”
“Well Christ on a Cracker, what’d you need us for then?”
Kathryn finally lowered her gun, putting the safety on and sliding it into the cross-body purse she wore over her scrubs. I had no idea she had a gun – or knew how to use one – but I was glad about it.
“My father taught me how to shoot when I was a kid,” she said.
“He insisted that I get a concealed carry permit and always have silver bullets with me just in case. He’d seen too much weird shit in the military, with humans and supernaturals alike.
I always thought he was just being overly protective, but I guess not. ”
“Huh.” Lois wasn’t often at a loss for words, but she was now. I could see respect in her eyes as she stared at my mate.
We heard a loud crash behind us and then two huge wolves burst out of one of the other exam rooms, growling loudly.
They were shifters, but I could tell right away something wasn’t right with them.
Their energy was all wrong, and when I looked at their eyes, I could see no sign of the humans inside them.
They might be shifters, but their animals were fully in control.
The wolves stalked closer, walking side by side.
I shoved Kathryn into the room with Yuri and Stacy, closing the door behind her.
I knew Yuri would protect them both. Working as a team, my coworkers and I circled the two shifters, quickly surrounding them.
They didn’t seem to have any natural fighting instincts because we wouldn’t have boxed in real wolves or experienced shifters that easily.
“These aren’t natural born shifters,” I said, keeping my eyes on the wolves. “They must be part of the group that lived through Xi’s experiment.”
I made my voice deep and ordered, “Shift back. Now.”
“I don’t know if they even can,” Wanda said. “I saw some documentation in the files that the subjects who lived through their first shifts were unable to change back without chemical intervention. Xi had to put a couple of them down.”
One of the wolves lunged for Lois. My boss growled, and in an instant she was replaced by a large, dominant wolf. She growled again, using her body language to demand submission, but the two wolves appeared to be unaffected by her alpha energy. That turned out to be a fatal mistake.
One of them leapt towards Lois, trying to attack her, but my boss made quick work of tearing out its throat, killing it in an instant.
The wolf might have been immune to her dominance, but it was no match for a strong alpha wolf with years of battle experience.
It collapsed on the floor in a pool of blood.
The second wolf gave a high pitched yip, pacing in circles, clearly realizing that he was surrounded and freaking out.
Its muscles bunched and it leapt, somehow going right over Cassie’s head and crashing into the glass window that was full of cracks from Yuri’s escape attempt.
Stacy and Kathryn, who’d been watching what was happening from the other side, jumped back as he hit the glass.
The glass shattered from the impact, and the wolf scrambled over the windowsill into the room.
It jumped up again, unwisely going for the giant bear in front of him.
Yuri caught him mid-air with a roar, slicing him across the belly with his claws.
The wolf fell with a yelp and Yuri gave him another swipe, pulling out the wolf’s entrails as he lay twitching on the ground.
Stacy made a sound of dismay, then raced to the side of the room and vomited in a garbage can. Yuri immediately shifted back to human, running over to rub her back while she puked.
“I’m sorry mate,” he mumbled. “He was going to hurt you.”
Kathryn had her gun out again, holding it in one hand while she looked around frantically like she thought another monster was going to come out at any moment.
“Quit gawking all of you and clear the area,” Lois ordered, back in her human form. “Make sure there are no more surprises here.”
The rest of my team spread out to search the lab for other threats while I went to my mate, pulling her into my arms. She rested her head on my shoulder, giving me a tight squeeze.
“Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
She was staring at Xi’s body, her face pale. “I killed her.”
“You saved our lives,” I corrected, cupping her face. “Stacy’s, Yuri’s, and mine. You did what you had to do.”
“I know. I just...”
She took a shaky breath. “I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to save lives, not take them.”
“You saved three lives by taking one,” I said firmly. “Xi made her choice when she decided to betray her country and hurt innocent people for money.”
Kathryn nodded slowly, and I could feel through our bond that she was accepting this, processing it. She’d be okay. I’d make sure of it.
“What about you? Are you hurt?” she asked. “I was worried when you didn’t come back.”
“That didn’t mean you should come racing in here putting yourself in danger,” I said sharply, my adrenaline replaced by fear as I realized how badly things could have gone today. “You should have stayed up in the Emergency Department with Martha like I told you.”
Kathryn stepped back and glared at me.
“May I remind you who took down Dr. Xi while you and Yuri were locked up?” she asked. “Who knows what would have happened if Stacy and I hadn’t come to save you two. You could both be dead by now.”
From the other side of the broken window I heard Martha chuckling. I turned on her.
“You were supposed to be guarding my mate, not letting her play hero.”
Martha shrugged. “She was very clear that she was coming after you with or without me. What was I supposed to do? Tie her up? If you think you can control her, good luck. She’s got a mind of her own. And she’s a hell of a shot.”
Lois gave Kathryn a pat on the shoulder that made her take a step back to keep her balance.
“You sure do. For a human, you’ve got grit,” Lois said, giving her an actual smile. “Nice work in there.”
I’d never seen Lois smile at anyone besides her mate before. It was a bit disconcerting.
“At least someone appreciates me,” Kathryn said archly.
“Well, I’m going to need to call in a cleaning crew for these bodies.” Lois was back to her grumpy self. “I’m going to have a buttload of paperwork to do with the damned cops now too. I hate it when you kill the bad guys, it’s so much extra work for me.”
“We can go, boss wolf, yes?” Yuri asked. His hand was wrapped around Stacy’s, and she was leaning into his side. “I take mate home and make ginger tea.”
Stacy’s cheeks turned pink. “I can’t believe after years of seeing people’s gangrenous limbs and festering wounds I lose my lunch over an eviscerated wolf. I’m so embarrassed.”
“I will take care of you mate,” he said earnestly. “You will come back to my den with me.”
Stacy gave Kathryn a quick hug, promising to text her later, then left with a visibly happy Yuri. I had a feeling those two were going to be officially mated before the night was over.
“What about Xi’s accomplice?” I asked Lois after they left. “Where is the asshole who shot me with a tranq?”
“We’ll share what information we have with the feds,” Lois said. “They’ll want to talk to him, and all the other people who were working here to see what they knew about what was happening here, what Xi told them.”
“I’m not sad about Xi, but these wolves were someone’s family,” Kathryn said quietly, staring down at the bodies. “We should try to find the research records so we can at least tell their families that they passed away.”
“I’m on it,” Wanda said. “Don’t worry. Xi kept meticulous records, so I’ll figure out who they are and come up with a plan on what to tell the next of kin.
We also need to track down any other survivors, we don’t want to find out there are other crazed shifters on the loose.
But we’ll handle it, Darla. Why don’t you two head out and we’ll take care of things here. ”
“Are you in charge now, Diaz?” Lois barked.
“Sorry, boss,” Wanda said contritely. “Just trying to be helpful.”
“Well don’t be.” Lois looked over at me and Kathryn. “You’re relieved for the rest of the day, Pavlovski, so you can take care of your mate and recover from the tranquilizer. But I want your report on my desk no later than fourteen hundred hours tomorrow.”
“Yes boss,” I said. I gave Kathryn’s shoulder a squeeze. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
“I don’t have a home anymore, remember?” Kathryn reminded me. “That bitch blew it up. And she wasn’t even sure if I’d seen anything or not.”
She glared at Xi’s body like she wished she could resuscitate her for the express purpose of killing her again. My mate was fierce. I loved that.
“You can come to my apartment.”
“You don’t even have a bathmat,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“I have a bed,” I said meaningfully.
Her cheeks turned pink. “Fine.”
“We’ll go to Target tomorrow and get whatever we need for the apartment,” I promised.
“We have to work in the morning,” she reminded me.
“Oh yeah.” I kept my voice neutral, unsure if I’d be going to work at the hospital tomorrow, but the thought of not going made me sad. And not just because I’d be apart from my mate.
As we headed for the parking lot, I realized that I was going to have to make a decision about what to do next.
Lois had arranged for me to work at the hospital through a temp agency that we often used for undercover gigs, but they were only able to send me there because I had the qualifications for the job.
Sapphic Security and the temp agency would never have risked patient safety if I wasn’t.
But even though it was an undercover gig, I’d loved my time working as a medical assistant.
More importantly, I was good at my MA job.
Good enough that the Director of Emergency Medicine had pulled me aside a few days ago and offered to bring me on full-time if I was interested.
He’d even offered me a generous signing bonus, enough to put down a downpayment on a house.
I’d told him that I needed some time to think about it, but I had to admit that I’d felt more excited about that offer than I’d felt when Lois offered me the security job.
Then again, I couldn’t just quit. Lois and the Sapphic Security team had invested a lot in me the last few months, training me and preparing me to be a bodyguard.
I flashed back on the conversation that Kathryn and I had about me following my sister instead of pursuing my own dreams. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that medicine was my dream.
Would I be a total asshole if I left the agency to work at the hospital instead?
“Are you okay?” Kathryn asked when we got into the car.
I realized I was just sitting there, staring at the windshield.
“Oh yeah, adrenaline dump.”
Kathryn turned in her seat to face me. “Darla, if this is going to work between us, we need to be able to be honest with each other. What’s the problem? Are you upset that I took down the bad guy, well girl, instead of letting you save me?”
My gaze swung around to her. “Oh no, not at all. I love that you were able to handle yourself. You saved Yuri from being hurt and protected me as well. It’s just that… I know this was my first solo gig and all, but I don’t know if I want to be a bodyguard anymore.”