Chapter 9 #2
She was gone, overtaken again by the beast inside her.
Her body convulsed, muscles surging, sweat pouring down her face. The restraints strained, leather creaking, bolts groaning in their sockets. Blood ran down her wrists where the straps cut too deep, but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t.
I jerked in my own bonds, terror clawing up my throat. If she got free, I was the only one left in here. I’d be first.
“Stop,” I begged, though I knew she couldn’t hear me anymore. “Please—”
Her head snapped back, and she roared. With one violent wrench, the steel bolts anchoring her chair screeched loose from the floor.
The entire frame tilted as she heaved against it, snapping leather with sheer brute force.
One arm came free. Then the other. Then her legs.
Then the straps around her waist broke, and she was completely free.
I froze, breath locked in my chest.
She staggered forward, bloody, wild, her chest heaving like she was being ripped apart from the inside out. Her eyes locked on me.
And then—for one impossible heartbeat—she was lucid.
The glow dimmed. Her gaze softened. The feral mask slipped, leaving just a girl: tired, broken, terrified.
She lurched toward me. I flinched, but instead of hurting me, her hands grabbed the straps pinning my wrists.
With a snarl that was half pain, half purpose, she tore the leather loose.
My arms sprang free. Then she yanked at my legs, ripping through the straps until I stumbled forward, almost falling into her.
Her breath was hot against my ear. Her voice cracked and slurred, but the word was clear.
“Run.”
I blinked, stunned. “What—?”
“Run!” she screamed, and the glow flared back into her eyes, her face twisting, her body seizing as the beast surged up again to claim her.
She shoved me hard, sending me sprawling onto the cold tile. When I looked up, she was already gone, what little humanity she’d clung to drowned under the feral storm.
My heart pounded and my legs trembled as I scrambled to my feet.
I did exactly what she told me.
I ran.
My bare soles slapped against the cold tile, each step a jolt up my legs as I bolted out of that sterile chamber. My breath came too fast, and all I could hear was the pounding of my own heart.
Behind me, the girl screamed.
It wasn’t human.
It was torn and broken, all rage and no soul.
I sprinted past white doors and gleaming counters, past abandoned carts of syringes and instruments. The med wing stretched too long, too bright, with nowhere to hide.
Then the noise hit, metal shrieking, a body thudding against a wall. I glanced back and wished I hadn’t.
The girl barreled through the doorway behind me, tearing the frame apart as if it were cardboard.
Her skin gleamed with sweat, her teeth red with blood.
Two techs who’d lingered too long and then frozen with shock when I came careening through, screamed as she caught them.
One swipe and a man’s throat opened, spraying across the sterile wall.
She bit into the other’s face, tearing and snarling like an animal that hadn’t eaten in days.
I screamed, shoving myself forward harder.
Shift, my mind screamed back at me. Shift now or die.
But nothing happened.
I didn’t understand. I should be able to shift now. I’d been bitten by a wolf shifter. That meant that I was one now too.
My legs pumped, my lungs burned, but my body was still human, weak, slow, breakable. I imagined claws, imagined fur and strength, but it wouldn’t come.
“Please,” I choked, half sob, half prayer. “Please, let me change—”
Her howl split the air again, closer now. The lights flickered as if even the power grid knew what was coming for me.
I slammed into a corner, hands scraping the wall as I whipped myself down another corridor. A cabinet toppled behind me as I clipped it, vials shattering, a chemical stench flooding the air.
The berserker was faster.
I could hear her feet pounding the floor, could hear her ragged breathing, wet and animalistic, as she devoured the distance between us.
Terror shook every bone. My body wanted to freeze, to crumple, to give in.
No, I thought, biting down on the scream tearing through my throat. Not like this. Not as a captive. Not hunted like an animal.
I dug deep, clawing for something, anything. Rage, grief, fear. All of it boiled in my chest, sharp and hot, until I thought my ribs might split.
Shift!
I screamed with the effort, throat raw, my vision swimming. For a breath, I swore I felt it, my skin burning, my blood thickening, my muscles twitching like they wanted to snap. My nails pricked, lengthening just a fraction. My teeth ached like they wanted to sharpen.
Still, it wasn’t enough.
The change slipped away as quickly as it came, leaving me human, panting, half-broken and terrified.
And the girl was still coming.
I bolted through another door, a lab this time, gleaming white and full of tables and machines I didn’t understand.
A tech turned toward me, eyes wide, and then the berserker girl was on him.
His scream cut off in a gurgle as she slammed into him, his blood spraying across the glass cabinets behind him.
I stumbled backward, gagging, my back hitting another door. My palms were slick with sweat, my heart thundering so hard I could barely hear the carnage over it.
The berserker’s head snapped up, eyes glowing as she fixed on me again. Her lips peeled back, blood dripping from her chin.
I turned and ran.
My legs felt like lead, every step a battle, but sheer terror kept me moving. My lungs burned, my vision blurred with tears. The hallway stretched forever, white walls streaking past as the pounding of her pursuit swallowed me whole.
Shift, damn you, I begged my body. Don’t let me die human. Don’t let me die as helpless prey.
The corridor narrowed into a dead-end lab.
I didn’t realize until I burst inside, my chest heaving, my legs trembling. White counters, glass cabinets, a bank of blinking machines humming in the corner. No exit. No windows. Just one door.
The one I’d come through.
Behind me, nails scraped the tile. The sound was worse than the screams had been, purposeful, hungry, almost like she was savoring the hunt.
I whirled, pressing my back to the far counter. My palms slid across its cold surface as I searched desperately for a weapon. My fingers closed around a steel tray, light and useless. I clutched it anyway, my knuckles white.
The doorframe shook as the berserker slammed into it. Her scream ripped through the room, shaking the lights overhead until they flickered.
She slipped inside. Her gown was nothing but shreds now, her skin slick with sweat and blood. Hers, theirs, I didn’t know. Her eyes glowed with unnatural fire. Her teeth snapped as she spotted me.
And then she smiled.
My stomach dropped.
She crouched low, muscles bunching, blood dripping from her wrists where the straps had torn free. Her nails gouged lines in the tile as she stalked closer.
I lifted the tray. My arms shook so badly it rattled.
“Stay back,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Please.”
She tilted her head, mock curious, and lunged.
I screamed, swinging the tray. It clanged against her shoulder with a hollow smack that did nothing but piss her off. She backhanded it away like a toy, the metal skidding across the floor.
Her growl vibrated through my bones. She was between me and the door now. There was nowhere to run.
My back hit the counter. I slid sideways, searching for another weapon, but there was nothing but vials and papers. Nothing to fight with.
Tears burned my eyes. My chest spasmed, panic choking me.
Shift. Please, shift.
I tried again, clawing at the mark on my shoulder, begging whatever wolf was supposed to live inside me to come out. My nails scraped my skin raw. My vision tunneled, ears ringing, body shaking with the force of my desperation.
Nothing.
The berserker shrieked and surged forward, closing the last few feet between us.
Her hand clamped the counter, her body looming over me, her teeth flashing as her face twisted into a snarl.
I pressed myself back as far as I could go, nowhere left to retreat. My pulse roared in my ears. This was it. This was where I died, ripped apart by a girl who’d been made into a monster, the same way I had been until Varek saved me.
Her breath was hot on my face. Her hand lifted.
And the door exploded inward.
“Mariah!”
Varek hit the girl like a wrecking ball, his shoulder slamming her away from me with bone-shaking force. They crashed into the far wall, steel denting under the impact. He moved so fast I barely saw him—half man, half wolf, his claws raking across her arms as he snarled.
The berserker shrieked, twisting, slamming her elbow into his ribs hard enough to make him grunt. He staggered, but only for a heartbeat. Then he surged back, his body rippling as fur tore through skin, his face elongating into a muzzle before snapping back to human in the same breath.
He was shifting in flashes, back and forth, like the fight itself couldn’t decide what form it demanded of him.
“Stay behind me!” he barked, his voice half growl, half yell.
I stumbled to the corner, my body shaking, clutching at the counter for balance.
The berserker lunged. Varek met her head-on, claws against claws, the sound of flesh tearing and bone cracking echoing through the sterile room.
She slammed him against the counter, glass shattering around them.
He roared, raking his claws across her chest, sending her flying back into a bank of machines.
Sparks spat from broken circuits, but she only shrieked louder, eyes blazing, blood spraying as she barreled forward again.
Two soldiers stormed in through the wrecked doorway, rifles raised. “Commander—!”