“Dumb fuck.” Baldy raised a long rod-a cattle prod. The kid was as far back as he could get, but it wasn’t far enough. He jerked at the shock of the prod, and the bastard didn’t stop, kept jamming with the prod until the boy screamed.
Teeth grinding together, Vic yanked at her ropes.
And then the kid…blurred.
A huge tawny cougar stood where the boy had been. A chilling snarl ripped through the room, echoing off the concrete walls. The hair on Vic’s arms rose.
What the hell? Kid one moment, the next, a…a mountain lion. She sucked in a hard breath, tried blinking her eyes. The big cat still paced the cage. Am I drugged? Like when Private Renner had a bad reaction to morphine and spent hours screaming about ghouls eating his heart. Or maybe she had a concussion. Yeah, this wasn’t happening. She didn’t believe in ghosts, ghouls, or people changing into mountain lions. Woo-woo stuff was for flakes and druggies.
“Cut the crap, Swane.” A man said from the stairs. White, average height, heavy build. Older, in his sixties. Wearing a suit. Scarred knuckles matched his battered face, nose busted in the past, thin lips and dead-cold eyes. Might be in nice clothes, but the body inside said thug. “He can’t talk in cat form.”
“Not my fucking fault. I only tapped it,” Swane said. When the cat swiped at the cattle-prod with three-inch claws, he used the prod until the cat shrieked in pain. “It’s not gonna talk anyway.” Swane tossed the device onto a table. “Fucking thing would rather starve. Look at it-it’s dying.”
“Dammit.” The suit crossed the room to the cage where the cat paced back and forth. “It’s amazing he’s still alive. He should have died the first week with what you did to him. The creatures are fucking strong.”
“An’ you really want to turn into that?” Swane spit on the floor.
Vic stared. The suit wanted to become an animal? Was he insane?
His face turned ugly. Brutal enough that Swane took a step back. “I’m not paying you to think. Just to get answers.” He glanced over his shoulder. “What happened with the old bitch?”