Wolver's Rescue Read online

  She was truly frightened now. They’d wet her down. The prod would hurt more against her wet skin. They’d use the capture poles to snap a loop around her neck and drag her from the cage like some animal.

  She wasn’t an animal. No matter what she dreamed or what the doctor said. She wasn’t an animal. She wasn’t.

  But like the animal she wasn’t, she bared her teeth and snarled. And like the human she no longer was, she whined with fear when the water and electric shock hit her at the same time.

  ~*~

  The alarm sounded and blue lights flashed in the hallway.

  “Ward C. Ward C.” The loudspeaker overhead announced the location of the problem. “All patients are required to return to their rooms immediately.”

  The announcement triggered an immediate response in Ward B where Bull was working the evening shift. Like an electric shock, he felt the current of excitement run through the patients. Whatever was happening in Ward C was about to carry over into B.

  Two of the men in grey smocks with big red ‘B’s painted on the front nervously shuffled to their doors and closed themselves in. Four more looked up at the speaker box on the wall and went back to their card game. A young nurse, who’d had the misfortune to unlock the ward door just as the alarm sounded, was suddenly confronted by the other thirty men using the rec room who charged en masse for the now opened door that led to the other wards. The nurse’s white shirt disappeared in a sea of grey.

  Bull didn’t bother to shout an order or a warning over the din created by the men. He waded in, tossing bodies out of his way, yanking shirt collars and avoiding the punches being thrown at him. He threw his body against the door. Two inmates screamed as their hands were caught between door and jamb. Bull opened the door just enough for the hands to slide free and slammed it again.

  He grabbed the nurse’s arm and hauled her to her feet. Sheltering her with his body, he moved to the station where two other nurses and another orderly had locked themselves behind the wire and glass windows and heavy security door. He was greeted by three horrified faces and three pointing fingers. Using the key that hung from the set at his waist, Bull opened the door wide enough to shove the rescued nurse inside before slamming it shut and turning back to the over excited crowd.

  Like the Red Sea, the crowd of shouting men had parted for Moses. Comparable to Bull in size, though heftier around the middle, the heavily tattooed patient had killed his ex-girlfriend and two of her friends while they were celebrating her engagement to another man. His mental stability was currently being evaluated. He’d already thrown two other patients down a flight of stairs and broken an orderly’s nose. He charged at Bull and the chair he held over his head came crashing down.

  Bull caught the descending chair in both hands. For a moment, the two men seemed suspended in time, chair balanced above them. Then, biceps bulging, Bull shoved, wresting the chair from his attacker’s hands. Moses flew along the parted sea, landing on his back. Bull didn’t stop. He brought the chair down on the stunned man’s head and turned to the other’s.

  “Who’s next?” he snarled. He spread his arms and curled his fingers in a come-on to the next opponent.

  His wolf was close to the surface, but the men of Ward B wouldn’t see it as such. What they saw was the same look they found staring back at them from the polished metal mirrors in the bathrooms. They knew a crazed animal when they saw one and backed off. Madness was an everyday occurrence here and survival depended on recognizing who was crazier than you.

  The Gantnor Clinic was a privately run facility subcontracted by the State to house the criminally insane. Two-thirds of its population was here on the taxpayer’s dime. The rest had families wealthy enough to hide them away behind the Clinic’s late nineteenth century facade. The employee turnover was fairly high and Bull’s size and muscle mass made him an instant hire as an orderly. It was his sixth day on the job and his seventh mini-riot. He’d quickly learned that while the behavior he’d just displayed might be reported, it wouldn’t be penalized. Someone had to keep the inmates under control.

  Six days and still no sign of Thomas Mortimer Bane. The name wasn’t in the computer or in the paper files that were kept in the rooms behind the reception desk. Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t here. Bull had cross-checked several other patients. One of them had missing paperwork, too.

  More astounding was the lack of security. Doctors and other clinicians worked out of a separate wing where security was tight. If they ventured onto the wards, they were always accompanied by two guards with Tasers ready. The rest of the place was a disaster waiting to happen.

  There were two guard shacks; one at the ornate front gate where the facility’s few visitors entered, and one at the rear drive where trucks made their deliveries and employees parked. Inside, he’d counted only two dozen security personnel keeping watch over four hundred inmates, most of whom had violent histories. Sure, meds were issued three times a day, but no one made sure they were taken and, as the mini-riots proved, they didn’t always work.

  The night he’d gone through the paper files, he’d parked his truck on a road that ran beside the eight foot stone wall that encircled the grounds, scaled the wall, and walked across the park-like grounds. His only challenges were the six Doberman Pinschers that patrolled the grounds at night and he’d already established who the top canine was with them the night before. He’d parked on the street ever since and no one ever questioned how he came to work without signing in at the guard shack.

  Attacks on employees were fairly common and he’d seen both guards and orderlies watch with arms folded as inmates attacked each other.

  Something was very wrong at the Gantnor Clinic and because he’d never known Eugene Begley to make a mistake about a target’s location, Bull decided to spend a few more days looking around before calling it quits. That was how he ended up on Ward B when the latest disturbance broke out. He’d offered to work an extra shift to cover for absentees.

  Pale and badly shaken, the nurse who was almost trampled had a cut along her hairline that might need stitching.

  “I’ll take her down,” Bull volunteered, not because he particularly cared, but because it gave him an opportunity to check out the infirmary which was on the basement level.

  When the elevator doors closed, the young woman threw herself into his arms.

  “You saved my life.” She sobbed into his chest, but it was a fake sob with little effort behind it. When he didn’t immediately respond she looked up at him with her sad, puppy dog eyes and batted her lashes. She pressed her breasts against him in clear invitation.

  Bull looked down at her. She was young. She was pretty. She was getting blood on his shirt. He pried her off his chest.

  She looked surprised. “But...but you fought them off to save my life.”

  “No. I followed protocol and secured the ward. Your body was in the way.” The elevator doors opened and he gave her a gentle push into the hall. “Get stitched. Go home. Don’t come back,” he said. “Find someplace else to save the world.”

  The wide eyes narrowed to vicious slits. “It’s your loss, you know” she snapped. “You could have had something good.”

  “Yeah, me and a hundred other guys,” he muttered as he watched her flounce through the infirmary doors, no longer looking shaken.

  He was about to follow her when the doors to the second elevator opened and the male nurse, who brought the gurney to pick up Moses, stepped out. Unlike the halls upstairs, the basement halls were narrow so Bull waited for the gurney to pass. It never did. He heard its wobbly wheel roll away in the other direction and suddenly the infirmary wasn’t nearly as interesting as the gurney’s destination.

  He followed. His sensitive hearing made it easy to stay well behind and out of sight. The basement was a maze of narrow hallways and as he moved deeper into it, Bull could almost feel the walls closing in. He ignored the sensation and kept moving. The walls and floors became dirtier, and the air was stale a
nd musty with age. Bull pulled in deep breaths through his nose, telling himself it would desensitize his chemoreceptors to the odor of rats. It was bullshit, but it was all he had to keep the claustrophobia at bay.

  He heard the wobbling wheel of the gurney off to the left where two hallways crossed, but another sound drew him to the right. He’d heard the soft snarl that any wolver would recognize. The mystery of Thomas Mortimer Bane’s whereabouts was solved.

  When the snarl was followed by a soft and pitiful whine of fear, Bull began to run, ignoring the strange sensation that stabbed at his chest.

  Chapter 2

  Bull took a deep, calming breath, before he opened the door. His story was ready. He was new, he’d say if questioned. He was told to follow the nurse and the gurney with an injured patient. He’d gotten lost in the confusing warren of basement hallways. He needed directions.

  He tried the knob of the room marked Animal Behavioral Studies, found the door unlocked and pushed it open. Ready with his explanation, he took a deep breath, but no words emerged. He saw the cage and the creature within it.

  The enclosure covered an eight foot square. Built of steel bars and anchored to the floor at the four corners, it was no more than three feet high. The wolver it held was down on all fours because there was no choice. He couldn’t tell if it was male or female. Wet, matted hair hung down to the ground in front of it. Glaring, feral eyes stared out of the filthy face. Its lips were drawn back in a snarl.

  Two men worked together, one poking at the wolver, the other trying to loop the collar of an animal control rod over the wolver’s head.

  “God damnit, zap it again!” the smaller of the two shouted as he gave the wolver a vicious stab with the pole. “The fucking thing bit me.”

  The larger, heavier man dropped his pole and reached for the electric prod on the counter. “You could have made this easy,” he said to the creature in the cage.

  All of this came together in seconds; the cage, the wolver, the poles, the words, the cut off scream as the wolver fell forward with the agonizing touch of the prod. It was as if the electric current flowed through Bull, too. His wolf snarled and leapt inside of him with its need to be released. His human mind and body exploded with instant rage.

  With a mindless roar, he hurled himself at the smaller of the two men. The pole was left dangling in the cage as the man’s body was tossed across the room to land with a thud against the wall. Bull felt the other’s presence behind him and turned. Hands locked together, the larger man’s two fisted blow drove into Bull’s shoulder instead of the base of his neck. The force drove his shoulder down and his knees bent to absorb the impact.

  As the man drew back his hammer-like fist for another blow, Bull straightened his legs and drove his punished shoulder up and into his opponent’s gut. The momentum carried them both to the floor. They rolled, broke apart, and scrambled to their feet. The heavy man recovered first. He fell on Bull, grasping him in a bear hug that drove the breath from his body.

  Bull’s hands were free, but the big man held him so tight to his chest, he couldn’t find angle or purchase to do damage. He went for the eyes, thumbs grinding inward until his opponent roared and let go. They fell apart. The man swung his head from side to side, a bear unable to see. Bull fell to the floor and his hand hit the handle of the animal catch pole. Breathing heavily, he rose up, pole in hand, and threaded the loop over the big man’s head. One hand on the pole, the other wrapped in the cable at the base, he pulled to tighten the noose and kept pulling, showing no mercy for the man’s purpling face and bulging eyes. He watched without feeling as the man’s fingers stopped their clawing and he fell to his knees. He kept tightening the cable until the man fell to the floor and stopped gasping for air.

  He left him there, went to the smaller man crumpled next to the wall, felt for a pulse and finding one, snapped his neck without a second thought.

  “Wolvers and cages don’t mix,” he whispered to the dead man.

  He turned back to the cage.

  ~*~

  She was more terrified than ever. She curled her body into the smallest possible ball, legs close together, knees drawn up beneath her chin, arms locked around her legs. Her back was pressed into the bars so deeply it hurt.

  Though she’d never seen him before, this new guy was one of them. He wore the same black trousers and white tee shirt they all did. He wore the same black leather belt and shoes. Only his anger was different. Pure and raw, it was more frightening than anything she’d witnessed before.

  He stooped down in front of the door to the cage, snapped his fingers and beckoned to her. “Come on,” he said.

  She didn’t move. He was one of them. Maybe he was angry because Buster and Stu had disobeyed Dr. Gantnor’s orders. Maybe he was just angry. She pointed Stu’s catch pole, not the loop, but the other end, and jabbed it at him.

  He sat back on his heels. “You can’t stay here. We’ve got to get you out. Come on.” He held out his hand again.

  She shook her head and jabbed at him with the pole.

  “God damnit!” He slapped the pole down with his hand and yanked it from her grasp. He threw it behind him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said angrily.

  She’d heard that one before, usually right before it hurt.

  He let out his breath and got down on his hands and knees. She watched his head swivel back and forth as he took in the overturned slop bucket in the corner, the bowl with the raw meat drying on the bone, the pile of rags she used for a bed, the fine spray of water from the hose they hadn’t turned completely off. While he made no noise, his throat worked like he was gagging and the anger on his face turned into something else. He closed his eyes and crawled through the cage door until half his body was inside. He held out his hand to her again.

  “Please,” he whispered and when he opened his eyes to look at her, she knew he was pleading with her not to make him come in as much as asking her to come out.

  There was fear in his eyes. He blinked and it was gone.

  He hated and feared the cage. It was enough for her to follow him if not trust him. She rolled her body forward onto her knees and crawled toward him while he moved back. He stood. She continued to crawl.

  “Get up. Let’s get moving.” He was already across the room and stripping the clothes from Stu.

  She wasn’t sure she could. Forced to remain on all fours for so long, it felt strange to stand on two feet. She used the cage to haul herself up. Leg and back muscles stretched to unaccustomed length and she clung to the top of the cage to keep her balance.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  She turned. He was staring at her again, his eyes travelling the length of her filthy and emaciated body. It had been so long since she’d been allowed clothes she’d forgotten she was naked. Suddenly shy in the face of this strong and healthy man, she hung her head and turned away.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said again, angrily this time. “Can you get dressed? Do you need help?”

  For a moment, she couldn’t move. He’d asked a question. He’d given her a choice. Did he expect an answer? She took a chance and nodded and then wondered if he’d understand the nod.

  He did. He laid the shirt and black pants on the cage. “Hurry. We don’t have much time. Sun will be up soon and we need the cover of darkness.”

  He disappeared into the storeroom and as she struggled into the clothes that were much too large for her skinny frame, she watched the door and listened. She heard doors and drawers crashing open and banging closed. Painful things were stored in there. When she heard the angry shattering of glass and a string of vile curses, she panicked and dropped to her knees. She started to crawl back into the relative safety of the cage. The giant trousers slid from her hips and trailed behind her.

  Halfway in, she stopped and shook her head to clear it. His anger wasn’t directed at her. It was for what he found in storeroom. That anger was somehow comforting.

  If she was going to escape, she had to let go o
f the present and reach for the past where she made decisions and fought the turmoil growing inside her. Thinking was difficult after all this time, but there were simple things she could handle, like getting dressed and letting go of the cage.

  Just wearing clothes made her feel more in control and reason began to reassert itself. She hiked the pants back up around her waist. Stu’s belt was too big and as she looked around for something to do the job, she spied the fast food sack on the floor. The food would be cold, but she didn’t care. She opened the bag with trembling fingers.

  Clothing and food she chose to eat. She almost felt free of the prison she’d been living in for... How long? Weeks? Months? Years? She looked around the room, searching for something that might tell her and her eyes landed on the picture that hung on the wall. She wasn’t the only one who deserved freedom.

  She grabbed the yellow paper wrapped burger from the bag and stuffed it in the pocket of the pants. The fries, she stuffed in the pocket of her shirt. She shuffled to the picture on the wall, still awkward on two legs.

  ~*~

  Bull rummaged through the storeroom, searching for some clue to Thomas Bane’s whereabouts. There was nothing there but medical instruments whose use he’d rather not think about, and the folder he held in his hand. It had a label in the upper right hand corner much like the one on Eugene Begley’s dossier. The name was the same, but there was no dollar amount beneath it.

  He’d hoped the folder would tell him the wolver was dead and his mission complete, but there was nothing to indicate one way or another, just jotted notes in a shorthand he couldn’t decipher. He folded the few papers and stuffed them in his pocket.

  “Where is Thomas Bane?” he asked the woman as he came back into the main room.

  The woman clutched a fast food bag to her chest as if he might try to take it from her.