Final Extraction by Julie Trettel

Vada

Chapter 2

 

 

 

I awoke to the annoying beeping again. This time when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t entirely blinded. The bright light overhead was off, but the sounds of machinery continued. My head pounded, making it difficult to concentrate on anything else.

For what felt like a long time I’d been drifting in and out of the darkness. I had blurred memories and flashes of activity around me, but the last solid memory had been the look on his face as he was dragged from the building just before the collapse.

I knew that face would be etched into my brain for all eternity.

He was my mate. Everything about him called to me on some weird cellular level. He was meant to be mine.

For years I had sensed his presence nearby, but now I had a face.

Perhaps I’d made the wrong decision going back for the girl this time, but I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t at least tried.

It had nearly cost me my life.

From the beeping, buzzing, and whispered voices all around me, I suspected I was still in limbo between life and death, but I’d survived.

Was the girl I’d risked everything for alive as well? I was going to be very pissed if I’d let her die despite everything.

That moment in time was so vivid in my thoughts.

I stopped and my eyes locked with the man’s. I knew what I had to do, but it had been the hardest decision of my life as I turned and ran away from him, back into danger as his friends dragged him from the building as he fought to get back to me.

The girl had been running towards us, so I had found her easily, but it was too late. Just as I heard the bomb explode, I looked around to take in our surroundings. We were in the hall right next to the Kevlar door that would take us to the basement. No shifter wanted anything to do with that door. It was the one they all disappeared behind, never to be seen again.

It was my only hope. I opened the door and pushed the girl down the stairs. She stumbled on a few before catching her balance. Neither of us wanted to go down there so we stayed right there in the open space of the stairwell behind that door.

I’d heard our human captors brag about that door. It was made of Kevlar, the same as what police used in bullet proof jackets, only much thicker and more of it. An entire door concocted of that. It was impenetrable, or so they said.

The fact that I was still alive was a testament to that door.

I could recall the exact moment of the explosion. The door had been blown off the hinges, but it lodged in the stairwell just inches over my head. I’d pulled the girl to safety under it as rubble and debris closed in all around us.

I had no idea how long we’d been there. It could have been days, weeks, or even months. I was too weak to ask.

As they dug us out, I tried to call out for help, but my throat was so hoarse that it had barely come out as a whisper that no human could hear.

Our saving grace had once again been that door. They’d returned for the damn door and found us there instead, but not before it had nearly broken ever bone in my body as it crushed down upon us during their extraction.

They could have left us there for dead, but they hadn’t. I’d been in and out of consciousness ever since, however long that had been.

I moaned when I saw the shadow of someone approaching.

A friendly smile hovered above me as I tried to keep my eyes open.

“Well good morning, sunshine. You are a stubborn one,” the man said. “Let me get a nurse in here.”

Come back, I tried to call out, but no sound escaped me.

He soon returned with a nurse dressed in scrubs. She checked the equipment and stopped the annoying beeping. I was grateful for that and instantly felt calmer with the obnoxious noise blaring nearby.

As she touched my arm, I jerked away. All my senses felt heightened, putting me and my gorilla on edge. They didn’t even know I was a gorilla shifter. In all the years I’d been held in Raglan captivity, only twice had I allowed myself to shift, and that was in total secrecy when I was certain there were no cameras on me.

My gorilla was so suppressed that often I wasn’t even aware of her existence. Only when our mate was near did she even stir, but she was here with me now. Seeing my mate’s face seemed to have awakened her and she wanted nothing more than to find him.

The nice man returned as the nurse was finishing up.

“She’s a little jumpy,” she warned the guy.

He smiled down at me. “Well, you’ve certainly been through a lot. I’m Jake. Do you have a name?”

“Vada,” I said barely over a whisper.

“Vada. I like that. This is the longest you’ve managed to stay awake since we brought you in. Do you remember what happened?”

“Explosion. Rubble.”

He nodded. “You were very lucky we found you. Trevor was determined not to let some specialty door get left behind and we found you beneath it. That stupid door of his probably saved your life.”

I nodded.

“Huh, so you knew it might?”

“It was a chance,” I explained.

“You did good, Vada.”

“The girl?” I asked.

He frowned and my heart sank. “She lost a leg and is very depressed, suicidal I’m afraid.”

“But she’s survived?”

“Yeah, she did.”

I closed my eyes in relief. Pain and grief for such a loss as one’s leg would be detrimental to any human, but for our kind it meant the chances of her ever shifting again were slim to none. That was a life sentence worse than almost anything, even a lifetime in captivity with these monsters.

I drifted back to sleep. When I awoke again the room was empty.

I took inventory of my surroundings. The camera in the corner confirmed I was being watched.

I sighed. My gorilla had been anxious since the explosion and could use a quick stretch, but not with spying eyes.

There had been a gorilla with us for a while. My mate and his friends had rescued her from this nightmare and, for that alone, I would be eternally grateful to him.

I’d heard our captors’ excitement over finding a gorilla shifter. There had been a few that were skeptical because Sahara had refused to shift into human form—ever. In that way we were complete opposites as they had never seen me in my fur.

I knew it annoyed them. They wanted to know what I was to determine what strengths my DNA might gain them. Sahara had never confirmed her human side for them, no matter what they had done to her in attempt to verify it.

Even the genetics testing that they took were too inconclusive, and so there remained just enough uncertainty that they had never really run experiments on her.

For me they had taken blood and even marrow from my body, but despite their best efforts and moments when I thought for certain they would kill me, they still didn’t know what I was.

I had been with them for so long that at this point I was more a slave than a prisoner. This allowed me to roam more freely and to help the others better. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t mind it so much either. Saving the others was my life’s mission.

With that thought in mind, I knew what I needed to do. I had to work hard and regain my strength. Shifting would help that so much, but not with that camera on me. In human form this could take weeks, maybe even months. I had to find a way to shift safely and still maintain my secret. For now, I tried to focus on my circumstances.

I lifted my right arm. It felt like it was weighted down. I groaned in frustration. I was concentrating so hard that I didn’t even notice when Jake walked back in.

“That’s great, Vada, but you don’t want to overdo it. This is really your first day conscious. You need to take it easy.”

“And we both know that leaves me vulnerable, a liability. Trevor and the others won’t carry me but for so long before I’m put down like a wounded animal.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“That’s sweet, but you’re still pretty new around here. Trust me when I say that’s exactly how things work.”

“Well not on my watch,” he said, almost secretively, before turning and leaving me alone again.

I laid there in the dark for a while. The nurses came and went as they checked my vitals. I had no doubt they were reporting back to Trevor. I was a benefit to him, and he was smart enough to know it. That alone would buy me at least a little time to figure out how the hell I was going to survive this.