Her Wild Hero

***

Kendra was practically unconscious by the time the hybrid threw her to the ground. She wasn’t sure how long he’d been running. She only knew it had been too long. It felt so good to have the pounding in her head stop that she didn’t even complain about the pain when she hit the stone floor.

She didn’t know what was coming next, but she couldn’t muster the strength to care. All she wanted to do was lie there until the earth stopped spinning. She reached up to touch her head and realized her helmet and goggles were gone. She must have lost them while that jerk was hauling ass through the jungle.

It wasn’t until a hand touched her shoulder that she discovered her survival instinct was more intact than she’d thought. She shoved the hand away and scooted back, only to hit something.

“Relax,” a male voice said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to make sure you’re okay. It looks like those things roughed you up pretty good.”

Obviously, the man wasn’t a hybrid. That fact alone was enough to snap her out of the fog she’d been buried in for the last…well, however long she’d been carried around on the back of that hybrid like a hobbit on an orc.

Kendra pushed her hair back from her face to see a gray-haired man kneeling beside her. He reminded her of her grandfather, except for the bloody rag tied around his forehead. Despite his kind eyes, she scooted back again, but whatever was behind her was still in the way.

“Slow down,” Granddad said, reaching out to steady her.

A wave of dizziness swept over her. She shook her head to try and make the fuzziness go away, but that only made it worse. Then she realized the thing behind her was soft, squishy…and hairy.

She jumped and quickly looked over her shoulder. It was a body. A young guy, who looked like he might have been cute before someone crushed his throat. She scrambled away from the body on her hands and knees—the hell with her spinning head.

She dragged her gaze away from the dead man and looked around the room. Maybe thirty square feet, it had no windows, no furniture, and hardly any lighting to speak of unless you counted the two naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The door across the room, on the other hand, didn’t look that cheap at all. No doubt it locked from the outside.

Kendra studied the other two men locked in with her and Granddad. Like him, they had graying hair and wore white lab coats. That probably meant they were scientists or doctors of some type. They looked just as abused as Granddad. One was holding his arm pressed against his chest like it was broken, and the other had bruises covering half his face.

She jerked her head at the body. “Who is that?”

“That’s Jacob. He was my research assistant,” Granddad said. “He complained about how we were being treated one too many times and those things killed him.”

Kendra couldn’t miss the sadness in the old man’s eyes as he looked at Jacob’s body, and her heart went out to him. When she’d seen the lab coats, she’d naturally assumed the men were working with Stutmeir’s doctors, but if that were the case, why were they sitting in here with her like prisoners? More importantly, who’d smacked them around, and why was one of their fellow scientists lying dead on the floor at the hands of the hybrids?

“Who are you?” she asked.

Granddad held out his hand with a small smile. “I blame the stress of the situation for making me lose my manners, forgive me. I should have introduced myself before. I’m Harry Caswell. At one time, I was the assistant director of research at this facility.” He motioned to the other two men. “And these two fine gentlemen are Albert Moline and Lester Tellarson, both senior researchers.”

She shook each of their hands. “Kendra Carlsen.”

“You must be one of the people Marcus has been hunting,” Harry observed. “Guess he finally caught you.”

Momentarily distracted from the other questions she’d been planning to ask—and figuring that this new subject sounded a lot more relevant—she jumped tracks to see where it would lead. “Who is Marcus? And why would he be hunting me?”

The three men exchanged looks; then Harry spoke again. “I really thought you would know. Marcus Roman was the head of security here. Well, until a couple weeks ago anyway. Now he’s…well, I can only assume you haven’t seen him yet. He’s rather hard to miss.”

Kendra could only think of one man she’d seen who fit that description. “Marcus is the leader of the hybrids, isn’t he? Seven feet tall, muscles everywhere, and freakishly long fangs?”

The old man nodded. “Hybrid, huh? Interesting name, but it fits. I’m guessing you met him then?”