Chapter 11
Gary felt the power burn inside. Lightning-hot, it seared his mind and his body with the promise of change, but it didn’t burst free.
It churned there, boiling through his veins, but it didn’t pop.
It didn’t splinter. It didn’t do any of the things he thought he remembered; it just plateaued, an almost tip, a near explosion.
Close to the change that might bring back his legs. Close, but not there.
“Come on!” he growled at his arms. Where was the fur? Where were the claws? He needed to become a bear so he could return as a whole man with working legs. “Shift!”
Margaret whimpered. Gary’s head shot up and he saw her, nearly dressed except for her tee shirt clutched in her fist. She had it and both hands pressed to her mouth. Her eyes were wide and her skin ashen. She was terrified.
It will be okay, he thought. Everything was going according to plan. It had to.
“It’s okay, Gary,” Margaret said. Her voice was high with strain, but clear enough. “I’ve texted your father. He’s on his way up. It’ll be okay.”
He lifted his head and growled at her, a deep-throated growl because he didn’t want his father here. He didn’t want anyone except her and him. And to fucking shift!
The change was right here. So close. His entire body was on fire, even his legs, but the transformation was paused, pulsing like a damned disco beat that never found its climax. This was torture, hanging him uselessly in the place of almost, and it was like he was losing his mind.
Almost. Almost a shifter. Almost healed. Almost with Margaret forever.
Fucking almost! He was so close!
He heard the elevator ding, lifted his head and roared.
His father and Vic appeared. Vic was transformed and monstrous.
Gary glared at them, his mind focusing on Vic’s furred arms and wicked claws.
He saw the guy’s bear muzzle and curved ears, and he wanted them.
He was going to change into that! Or better.
He would be a full bear. A full fucking grizzly bear.
Except, no. Nothing happened, and the more he strained, the more furious he got.
“Don’t fight it,” his father said. “Just go with it, whatever it is.”
That’s what he was doing! He was trying to go with it, but he couldn’t kick over.
“Sorry,” Vic said to Margaret, gesturing to himself, and Gary fought back his fury at the interruption. “Had a dust-up with some hybrids and had to move some people around. Didn’t mean to leave you alone so long.”
Margaret nodded and hauled on her tee, her expression fearful. She pointed at Gary. “Is he going to be okay?”
Okay? No! Gary’s gaze cut to her. He didn’t want her covered, but he sure as hell didn’t want the others seeing her the way he had: flushed and pretty, undressed, her eyes dazed and her body so gloriously open to him. God, the scent of her alone…!
Except, she didn’t look open now. She looked frightened as she backed slowly into a corner. Her eyes were wet with tears, her hands shaking where she pressed them against her mouth, and her shoulders were tight with strained breathing. Her asthma had returned.
Damn it! It wasn’t supposed to be like this! She was supposed to be happy, not terrified. And he was supposed to have shifted by now. He’d had a plan. He’d had…
No!
His head dropped down. The power was burning out. He could feel it fading with every heartbeat, just what Dr. Sherilyn had warned might happen. Emptiness. His breath was harsh, sawing in and out of his throat. He’d failed.
He looked down at himself. Had he changed at all?
Even a little? No. He stared at his body and saw normal human arms and hands.
When he tried to move his legs, they were lifeless.
Dead weight. Flopping onto his ass, he glared at the useless things.
He started pounding on them, beating out his frustrations while he cursed with every breath. “Damned. Fucking. Useless!”
He’d had a plan, and he’d failed. He couldn’t be a full man for her. For him. He should have felt something. The impacts were jarring all the way up into his shoulder, but his legs were numb. He felt not a goddamned thing.
“Stop it! Gary!” Her voice was sharp as she crossed to his side. He could smell the acrid scent of her fear and he hated it.
“Leave me alone!” he bellowed.
“I won’t!” she shot right back into his face.
It startled him enough that he reared back, but she didn’t give him time to react. She grabbed his fist, wrapping it in her two small hands, and she held him there, fighting as he tried to jerk from her grip.
“We’re just experimenting, remember? A shot in the dark. No harm, no foul. How we feel about each other isn’t going to change. Nothing can make that change.”
He knew she was trying to help. He knew, but platitudes weren’t doing it.
He’d heard them all in the hospital after the accident.
Nothing has changed. You’re still you. We love you just as much.
Bullshit. Paralysis had changed things. It had taken months to learn how to be semi-sufficient again.
Hell, he’d needed Margaret to yell at him before he finally accepted using a catheter.
And, as for all those friends who’d sworn to keep in touch?
They hadn’t. Even his parents had disappeared.
His father faded away, and he’d had to throw his mother out because she was a constant worrying reminder of everything he’d lost.
So no, Margaret’s words didn’t help him. They didn’t soothe his temper.
“You like me this way,” he reminded her. “You want me to stay a cripple.”
She gasped. “That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is!” he roared, letting all his self-hated ignite his gaze. “You’re afraid of men. You would never have even said hello to me if I hadn’t been in a wheelchair. Admit it! For once in your life, say the truth!”
He was bellowing at her, and she was shrinking back. Where before she’d held his hands, now she clutched hers to her chest.
“Gary,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“As a cripple!” he shot back. “Only as a fucking cripple.”
She didn’t say anything, just pressed her hands to her mouth and shook her head.
He hated himself, then. God, he hated everything. She couldn’t deny it, and he’d just hurt her, the one person he loved most in the entire world. She’d feel safer if he stayed a paraplegic, though, and he hated her brokenness, however it had occurred. Like he hated his own.
His father touched Margaret’s arm, gently drew her back by his side. Gary didn’t like that, and he bared his teeth, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it. Not while dragging a useless lower half around like a sack of potatoes.
“It’s the serum,” his father said. “Makes us all aggressive. He doesn’t mean what he’s saying.”
Margaret shook her head. “He means it. He means every word.”
He did. And he didn’t. She couldn’t help that she was afraid of him. It had been his ego that convinced him she could change. That he could change her. That he should change her. Wasn’t that the first rule of dating? Don’t try to change the one you love.
He twisted so he didn’t have to look at her.
But that brought him back to Vic’s hairy face and clawed hands, at least for a moment.
While he watched, the man shook himself.
Like a dog throwing off water, he gave a full body shudder.
Then, bam: normal human again. With a grim expression and a false smile.
“Just the first try,” the guy said. “There’s more serum. We’ll try again in a few days, after you’re recovered. I should have made you wait longer, so that’s on me.”
How easy it was for him, to have a shake and be all-good again. Vic was whole. Vic would never be a cripple. Vic couldn’t feel his chance to heal draining away forever like Dr. Sherilyn warned.
“No,” Gary found himself whispering. “We do it now. Get me another dose.”
“No can do,” Vic said, his tone cold. “First off, I’m not so sure you’re in the right frame of mind—”
“My mind has nothing to do with it!”
“Your mind has everything to do with it, so get it under control!”
There was such authority in those words that Gary buttoned his lip. He didn’t want to. The surliness in him raged, but Vic was also right: He was out of control, and he knew it. So he took a breath and moderated his tone. “I’m okay now. Let me try again.”
Vic shook his head. “Couldn’t even if I wanted to. Too many problems here. Simon’s on his way back, we’ve got wolves flexing their muscles, Hank has gone off the rails, and no one’s seen Kennedy. I can’t spare anyone to help you out. And you definitely need help.”
“I don’t need any—”
“The hell you don’t!” Vic snapped. “Now calm your jets. We can try again in a few days.”
But he couldn’t. “The power is fading. I don’t want—”
Vic would have none of it. “I don’t want to stink when I shift. Too fucking bad. Your body isn’t ready to try again. That’s probably why it didn’t work this time. We’re lucky something worse didn’t happen.”
Gary sighed. He knew there was no sense in arguing, Vic had made up his mind, and that was the end of it. But there was tap water at his apartment just like here. He could guzzle it at home just as easily.
“Let me add something else,” Vic said, apparently reading his thoughts.
“If I find out that you tried again on your own, I’ll call my friend Dr. Lu at the CDC and let her bleed you and poke you and do god only knows what until you wish your only problem was being paralyzed.
Do you hear me? This is not something to fuck around with. I can’t have you hurting innocents.”
Gary’s gut clenched, and his head spun from sudden cold. “Call the CDC? You can’t do that,” he said.
Gary’s father stepped forward, his mouth a hard, flat line.
“He can, son. He can administer clan justice by clan law. And that’s one of the bad things about being magical in a scientific world.
There’s always someone who wants to know what’s going on, someone who isn’t too particular about who they hurt to get answers.
” He glanced at Vic. “That serum originally came from one of our own—a shifter, a cougar bitch who was experimenting on our young. Stole them right out from under our noses and injected them. It…it was bad, son. And most of the CDC would do the same or worse if they were told what you are. They’d cut you up and test all the pieces. ”
Margaret shook her head. “That can’t be true. They wouldn’t do that. This is America.”
Sweet, na?ve Margaret. Of course they would.
Gary could see the grim knowledge on his father’s face.
And Vic’s. This city was in lockdown with a terrible “plague” that turned people into monsters, and regular people couldn’t even begin to fathom what that was about.
The situation outside these walls was ugly and getting uglier, and he’d been selfish to demand his answers now and in way that might endanger other people. And yet, his opportunity was fading.
“Fine,” he said, though it nearly killed him. “I’ll wait.” His gaze cut to Vic’s. “But I won’t promise to wait more than a day.”
“Three,” Vic decreed, his eyes tortured.
“No shit, Gary, I’m not playing here. You tried and failed.
You need to recuperate or the next time will be worse.
Remember what I said? Many people like me—hybrids—lose their frontal cortex.
They go crazy and start killing people. It could easily happen to you. Maybe it almost did.”
“No,” Margaret breathed.
Vic nodded. “Yes.”
Margaret stared at him, seeming to sense something in the beta’s words that Gary hadn’t. “Are you okay?”
There was a flash of pain in Vic’s eyes. Then a cocky grin. “I’m shitting sunshine and rainbows.”
“So long as that’s healthy,” she said.
The beta shook his head and eyed her. “I’m a hybrid, sweetie, a brand-new species of shifter. Nobody knows what ‘healthy’ is. Not even our friend at the CDC.” He cut his gaze back to Gary. “But this is about you. Rest and recover. Let your body be at its peak when you try again. Or else.”
Gary was about to answer, but Vic’s cell beeped. He pulled it out of his shorts with a grunt, looked at it and said, “It’s Simon. You going to stay and meet your new alpha? Or are you going to go home and recuperate?”
Margaret’s breath was still short and tight, Gary saw. Her asthma always got worse when she was emotional, and he’d asked enough of her over the past two days. It was tempting to stay and petition the alpha for another chance to attempt a change, but—
“We’ll go,” he said to Margaret. “You need your medicine.”
She nodded, obviously relieved.
Turning to his father, Gary gestured for his wheelchair. “Help me into that, will you Dad?”
Might as well accept that he probably wasn’t ever getting out of it.