Chapter 3
JAX
My mood is heavy this morning.
Tippy snubbing me last night has left a sour taste in my mouth. Especially after I’d psyched myself up to finally tell her how I feel about her.
So yeah, I’m not at all in the mood to be hypnotized and taken back into my childhood trauma. But apparently, that’s what needs to happen to integrate my wolf with my human psyche.
I take the elevator to level three, where the wolves hang out.
There are two types of elevators here in the Labyrinth.
There are portal elevators, owned by the human authorities, sleek metal contraptions that carry all the cargo up to Sparkle City.
And then there are the smaller, more dangerous elevators that take the monsters between levels, including down to level ten, where the murky underground waterways and dank tunnels house strange, mutated creatures.
Level three, where I’m headed now, is referred to as Wolftown.
A fairly unimaginative title, considering this whole level is exclusively given over to two wolf packs.
One pack is pure werewolf, the others are shifters without were powers.
It’s said that in the early days of the Labyrinth, the wolves were too wild to mix with other species, but not bad enough to be banished to level ten.
Given a choice where to settle, they took level three and set up two distinct packs: the Braden shifters, and the Trojan werewolves.
The Braden pack, whose drug stash I tried to raid three years back, are a real fucking nasty bunch.
They have a massive chip on their shoulders because of their lesser powers.
The scars I received from their bites still ache at times.
The only one that doesn’t is the scar on my neck, where Traggar, the leader of what is now my pack, the Trojans, bit that fucking chip out of me.
And turned me.
Who would have thought Traggar would become my therapist.
My therapy started some months before I shifted.
Not that it’s been going well. At first, I really struggled to access my wolf.
As soon as I got onto Traggar’s couch, it curled up and went to sleep.
But since I shifted—holy fuck. It’s like a caged animal trying to claw its way out of my skin.
Nothing feels at all balanced. According to Traggar, falling into a coma after your virgin shift is a sign of a struggle between wolf and human.
There are gaps in my memories of growing up, and Traggar is convinced that my wolf is disturbed by some buried early trauma.
And frankly, considering how badly it’s been behaving recently, we need a solution before I go on my spying mission to Sparkle City.
I startle out of my thoughts as the elevator judders to a halt and the doors open.
I’m in a very different part of the Labyrinth now.
Dens stretch out in front of me, tunneled into the rock walls.
Huge fires burn in wider caverns, and wolfen guys with beards and tattoos laugh as they lounge around, chatting.
Further away, there is the sound of hammering in workshops, and I walk past another group in a large cave who are in training, jumping around obstacle courses.
All of them are in human form, but the wolf within is evident in their strong build and acrobatic moves.
Some of them wave as I pass. The Trojans have, for the most part, accepted me. I guess that’s one thing that’s easier now that I’ve shifted. I’d always felt something of an outsider down here, but the added muscle and agility I’ve acquired recently makes me look more wolfen by the day.
Soon, I reach the biggest den, in the center of the complex.
A woman raises her head from a large, engraved desk in the reception area as I enter. “Traggar’s waiting.”
It’s Louisa, Traggar’s receptionist, a beautiful, mature wolfen woman, her thick silver hair plaited around her head. She smiles, her long incisors flashing. Wolfen women are fierce and strong and… not my type.
Give me a pert little wixen with wide amber eyes…
My wolf snorts, but I ignore it, not wanting to rouse its ire just before a hypnotherapy session.
I take a seat and before long, Traggar appears. He pats me on the back with a muscular arm that I know could rip me apart if he chose to.
He leads me into his consulting room. The smell of incense is calming and the sconces are dimmed. There’s a large leather couch in the center of the room, slung with thick furs and velvet cushions. Dutifully, I lie on it and try to calm my breathing.
Finally, he senses I am ready.
“I want you to focus on events that led up to the chip being placed in your neck. I think it’s important…”
I nod. It’s an event I have no memory of, and all previous attempts have failed to bring it back to consciousness, even though hypnotherapy has successfully taken me back to childhood.
To when Clem and I were just normal happy human kids, going to school, playing with our friends.
Until our mom just disappeared one day. She went to work in her cleaning job and never came back, leaving our world shattered.
My therapy has accessed how I kept trying to find Mom, how I got put in remand school for being unruly, badgering the authorities to help find her and trying to tunnel through the dome walls.
But the events around how I became a programmed human; that memory still evades me.
Traggar takes me through the rituals that put me into a deep state of relaxation. Wolfen words wash over me, ancient and somehow familiar even though I don’t have a clue as to their meaning.
“Raise your hand when you are ready,” Traggar says.
Already, the memories are nipping at my consciousness. I frown, focusing.
I’m a teenager again, a sharp implement in my tight fist. I’m hacking at the hard internal wall of Sparkle’s dome.
Suddenly, strong hands grab me, pulling me roughly backward.
I must have screamed, because Traggar’s voice cuts into the scene. “Describe what’s happening.”
The memory gets clearer.
I squirm away from the arms that hold me and escape, ducking between the guy’s legs. I hear my voice, as if coming down a wind tunnel. “They’re gaining on me, they’re pulling me down.”
“Who are they?”
I shake my head, eyes screwed up. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Suddenly, I’m overwhelmed by darkness. It feels like I’m suffocating.
“There’s something over my head, like a—a sack, it smells like a dirty sack.”
Then comes a hard thump to my stomach from a large fist. “Arghhhhhhh!” I flinch.
“Has someone hit you?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“In the stomach… now they’re yanking my arms behind my back, tying my wrists…”
I jolt as I’m thrown onto a hard surface. “I’m in the back of a truck, or the trunk of a vehicle…”
I feel the impact of being tossed around as the vehicle picks up speed.
The images slide away and my current surroundings come back in focus. I stir restlessly and moan, not wanting to go under again. Traggar mutters some more words in wolfen. I hear the snap of his wand over my head, then inhale the heady scent of the hypnotic incense and I’m back in the past again.
The vehicle stops abruptly, and in seconds I am jostled out by rough hands and made to stand. Something cold and hard is forced into my back, the nozzle of a gun, I think. I’m pushed along, stumbling. “They’re taking me somewhere…” A door clangs. “A building. Down steps.”
It’s still dark. The sack is over my head, the gag tight and cutting into my mouth.
And then… Bright lights suddenly.
I recoil.
A face. Cruel, steel-gray eyes. Red lips that shape into a twisted parody of a smile.
Squinting, I mumble, “A female…”
“Human?” Traggar’s voice questions.
“I think… looks human. But nasty. Cruel.”
And then she speaks, and the words spill out of my mouth unbidden as if grafted on my soul, guttural and harsh. “Ah, Jax Summers. Tell me boy, do you want to die today?”
Fear grips me like ice.
“The penalty for drilling through the dome wall is vaporization. What do you say, Jax Summers, shall we vaporize you?”
I struggle, trying to escape those eyes, that voice. But I’m bound tightly by ropes that tether me to a plinth.
The woman’s face looms closer. Her smell is perfumed, but so sickening I want to vomit.
“You’re a bad boy, Jax—you have bad blood in you.
Always in trouble. Always breaking the rules.
But the fight in you, the determination, I like that.
We can harness that. You’ll make a good little worker, once we’ve brought you to your knees. ”
She laughs, the sound like a whip cracking.
“I—I can’t—do—this—” I gasp.
“Try to stay with it, Jax. Try to recall what happens next,” Traggar says gently.
“I’m on a plinth. There is an implement—a drill. Coming for my neck.”
Terror blocks my throat. I fall silent.
Traggar urges, “Now what?”
“Nothing… Nothing… darkness. I don’t remember, I don’t remember.”
I start to shake uncontrollably. My wolf is running in crazy circles inside me. I feel Traggar’s energy pulling me back, back to his den, to the here and now.
I’m hyperventilating, and I hear Traggar say, “Okay, breathe, Jax. Breathe. You’re safe. You’re here.” Then he says some wolfen words and my wolf quietens.
“You’re back here now. In my den. On the couch right here. You’re safe. Sit up, drink this.”
He hands me an earthenware mug full of a warm aromatic drink, and as I sip it, I feel my body and mind clicking back into the present.
“That woman, can you recall her face?”
I nod, still unable to speak as her image clarifies in my mind’s eye.
“You know who she is, don’t you?”
I nod. Finally, I croak, “Marsha Winters…”
Traggar’s mouth tightens. “Why am I not surprised? Damn her evil soul, she did that to you?”
I nod silently, trying to process what I’ve finally remembered.
Marsha Winters is the CEO of DeVines department store in Sparkle City.
At least, that’s her public persona. But we’ve long suspected she plays a more sinister role.
She has a big stake in DV Medical and Biotech Research, the research lab that’s working on ways for humans to breathe Earth air again.
She’s also behind the birth-enhancement program that farms enzymes from minotaurs to increase human pregnancy rates.
She’s in the ear of every important human in Sparkle, right up to Ronald DeVine himself.
But until this moment, I’d had no recollection that Marsha Winters programmed me. She just stood there while faceless humans drilled the chip into my neck, turning me into Peripheral 101.
Traggar speaks what I’m thinking. “There’s no doubt now that Marsha is a malefic, Jax. But what if it’s worse than that? What if she is in charge up in Sparkle, not the other way around?”
I stare at him. “You think she runs the whole shitshow? That she’s behind the uptick in munitions supply and putting more troops at the portals?”
“I think it’s plausible.”
“So the Mayor, the human authorities, they could all be doing her bidding?”
Traggar shrugs. “Clearly Marsha ordered the chip to be placed in your neck. She wanted to stop you finding something out, Jax…”
Traggar’s frown deepens. “It also means she will recognize you if you put a foot wrong on the mission. That could be devastating for our plans.”
I sit up, grope for my vape in my jeans pocket. It’s not there.
“I’ve taken it off you,” Traggar says.
“You fucker,” I growl. He must have taken it when I was under hypnosis. “I need it.” Reliving that experience has shaken me to my foundations. “For fuck’s sake, just give me the fucking thing, will you?” I almost beg.
Slowly, Traggar returns my vape. I’m ashamed to admit, I snatch it.
I inhale deeply and my wolf coughs. When it coughs, I get the worst tickle in my throat. I sit there coughing and spluttering while Traggar watches me out of cool, appraising blue eyes.
When I’ve finally finished spluttering, he growls, “You can’t vape on the mission.”
“I won’t.”
“You’re telling me your addiction won’t get in the way?”
“It’s not an addiction. It’s a habit.”
Traggar snorts. “Semantics.”
“I can kick it like that…” I snap the fingers of my free hand.
“Okay then, bin it.”
“What—now?”
“Yep. Put it in the bin.” He grabs the wastepaper basket and places it between us. I look at it. Then I look back at my vape. My fingers tighten around it, resisting.
“Go on,” he orders.
I take one more drag, then chuck the vape into the trash. A wave of terror rolls through me. It feels like he’s asked me to cut off my own arm.
I started smoking just after Mom disappeared.
Grabbed a pack out of my dad’s pocket. I’d always hated him smoking, but one puff and I understood the appeal.
The release I felt as that first shot of nicotine hit my bloodstream gave me a moment of peace.
It made the pain bearable for a while. Soon, I was hooked.
Even when my own father got sick and died of lung cancer, I couldn’t break the habit.
Smoking was the one thing I could depend on to ease the loneliness, the overwhelming sadness of losing Mom. And when I was programmed, it made the numbness of being Peripheral 101 bearable. I’ve recently swapped it for vaping, due to Tippy’s determination to cure me with her vile-tasting potions.
But give up vaping?
Fuck, that’s a hard ask.
I must have turned pale, because Traggar leans forward, picks the vape out of the bin and hands it back.
I hesitate. Then I grab it from him and shove it into the pocket of my jeans.
Traggar’s eyes are steely. “Your wolf is allergic to nicotine. It disempowers it, fractures its energy.”
“Too fucking bad. I smoked long before it arrived on the scene.”
“Yes, you did. But you’re a werewolf now. And a Trojan. We don’t use substances.” Traggar’s eyes bore into mine. “Your wolf is extremely unsettled. I sense it’s not just the vaping. What else is going on?”
“Nothing.” I shrug, look away. My fingers roll over thin air and my lips purse, wanting to suck on the vape. No way will I take it out of my pocket in front of Traggar.
Traggar frowns. “Bickering with your wolf. Weakening its powers with nicotine. We have to resolve this before we can send you up to Sparkle. It’s a problem, Jax.”
I stay silent. So does my wolf. But we both know what the problem is.
My feelings for Tippy.
But how can I tell Traggar that, when wolves and wixens don’t see eye to eye?
‘You need to quit vaping, Jax. Immediately.”
“I’ll sort it,” I say briskly, getting to my feet and heading for the door.
Traggar’s words follow me. “If you’re still vaping by our next session, we’ll have to resort to stronger measures.”
I don’t wait to hear what other measures Traggar has in mind. I’ve had enough for one day. I yank open the door and head out.
“Piece of cake,” I throw over my shoulder.
You’ve got no fucking chance, my wolf sneers.