Chapter 2
Her arousal is a clinging perfume saturating my clothes. I can’t get away from it.
It’s embedded in my skin.
No matter how hard I scrub, the enduring scent still teases me.
This must be the penance I have to pay for my subterfuge.
Torture would be easier to bear than the elusive tease of her skin.
I strip out of my uniform like I do every night, and once again am tempted to burn it so I can have a moment of peace from her alluring smell.
That only worked so many times before the staff in the distribution started getting suspicious.
Having eyes on me is dangerous, so I’m stuck with having to be suffocated with the need that Jenny raises.
The water in the shower isn’t hot enough to drive it away.
I should be used to this by now. But lusting after her has only gotten worse, not better.
Scalding streams burn away the hair dye I’ve used to try and age myself. I never thought I’d be working at this institute long enough that I’d have to fake growing old.
Maybe I should just walk away. I’m failing in my search for my daughter. I doubt I’d even recognize her if I saw her.
She was just a baby when this corrupt organization took her.
They said she was “special”.
So did her mother. That’s why she chose the name Hope before she died.
A pang of pain still tugs at my heart when I think of Eva.
I barely knew her. We both found solace in each other’s arms for a week after the virus swept the country, leaving a path of devastation.
It was only when I ran across her months later I learned about the pregnancy.
Twenty years is a long time to look. Hope could be anywhere.
Or long buried.
This is a cruel world now. Humans have to hide away while the monsters run free.
I still think it’d be easier to live as prey in the wild, then trapped here with the truly evil.
The idea of helping Jenny escape resurfaces, as it always does when I’m standing here with my cock in my hand.
She doesn’t know I’m more like her than she realizes.
My DNA is tainted by the same mutations as hers.
Rapid healing.
Slow aging.
But I know the Dire wolf runs stronger in me. With every stroke of my shaft the knot at the base grows, begging to be lodged deep in her tight pussy.
Locking us together.
As it should be.
Only when I flood her will my scent ooze from her pores.
She’d be mine, claimed to the universe.
Even the creatures would leave her alone if we were free.
Fuck.
Wanting what I can’t have leaves me irritable. Pumping my fist faster up and down the thick length of my rigid cock, I shudder through a climax that leaves me swollen and sensitive, but no less relieved of the lust that rages within me.
How much longer can I hold out?
She must know how close I get to losing control every time she flaunts her naked body in front of me.
It’s almost as if she senses the animal beneath the surface, and she’s taunting me to let loose.
“Simmons? Are you listening?” My boss throws a balled up piece of paper at me, snapping me out of my lingering thoughts of Jenny’s bare breasts hovering inches from my face.
“Sorry, yea. You said there’s a hunt and capture mission. I’m not sure how this affects me. I’ve been on guard duty forever.” Retrieving the wad from the floor, I toss it into the can near my feet.
His grizzled jowls puff as he frowns. “I told you, this is all part of a new project involving your assignment. The lab coats are wanting to try some new breeding program—”
That makes me freeze, the rest of his words lost in the battering of protests that all fight to be said.
They can’t do this, not to Jenny.
“Why can’t they just do it artificially? They do everything else in a fucking test tube around here,” I grumble, slumping in my chair.
I don’t want to betray the surge of anger that has my hands shaking beneath the table.
Every time they take her in for one of their sadistic procedures, it kills me to see her pain.
But my hands are tied.
I can’t do a damn thing, or risk losing access to this hellhole.
Then I’d never find my daughter.
“Well—” Mr. Cavendish runs his sausage-sized fingers through his graying hair. “—you’re the best suited to keep her alive. We know she can handle a shit ton of damage if this half-breed hurts her, but I need you there to make sure she can get away if things turn south.”
I sit up as if the chair is electrified. “You want me in there?”
There’s no way I can stand by and watch this.
“What the fuck is the purpose? One of those things could rip her in half.” I’ve seen it.
My own brother turned into a massive beast nearly overnight.
He lost his humanity and shredded his wife.
That’s how I found him, still gnawing on her. Only the glimmer in his eyes revealed that it was him.
I was too sick fighting my own changes to save her. Or stop him from leaving.
Mr. Cavendish waves idly, then pulls open a drawer and pulls out a smooth wooden box.
The smell of stale tobacco flushes through the room before he withdraws a tightly rolled cigar.
They always make my stomach roll when he lights one.
“You know how those scientists are. They need more rapids. The ones from before Dire Day are starting to fade in their abilities. And anyone shitting out new ones aren’t letting us know.” He clips the end before puffing smoke as he lights it.
“Yea, people don’t tend to like having their babies stolen.” I keep my words low, knowing how rebellious they are to even utter.
His eyes narrow, nearly hidden by the fat rolls in his cheeks. “They aren’t human, Simmons. Remember that. They’re mutants that help hundreds of people to heal and survive. They’re vital in this war.”
An acrid cloud billows over me, but I tamp down the urge to cough.
“Your assignment had an unique one years ago. The freak has acid for blood or some such. Do you understand how absolutely vital that could be in the fight against the wolves? If we can get lucky enough to get one of those on our side, the dogs know not to attack.” His nose wrinkles. “I bet they can smell it.”
Can’t be any worse than the fumes emanating from his wheezing lungs.
My nose is sensitive enough I can detect the underlying sour rot of cancer somewhere deep in them.
He likely doesn’t even know it yet.
If I’m lucky, he’s too far down the pecking order to get a dose of blood from someone like Jenny to heal it.
His wet hacking just solidifies my suspicions.
The idea of her being drained to treat this asshole makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
“I thought all of the fertility attempts have failed in house?” Taking tiny breaths through my mouth seems to help dampen the stink. Slightly.
He taps a thread of ash into an overflowing dish on the corner of his desk. “Oh, there’ve been successful fertilizations. Just none with the right kind of mutations so they were terminated.”
Every day I think that this place has reached its limit for insane.
But here I sit, shocked at the new level.
“—so you’ll need to have your charge in Garrison C at fourteen hundred today.” He clears his throat and gestures towards the door.
Today.
It might be time to abandon my search for my little girl and get out with whatever shred of a soul I have left.
And take Jenny with me.