Page 94 of Crimson Moon Falling

The parking lot stretched ahead, and footsteps pounded behind me. Heavy, ground-eating strides. I risked a glance back and saw the long-haired ogre closing the distance with horrifying speed.

I cut left, sprinting between two parked SUVs. My lungs burned. The implant sent another pulse, this one cold and sharp, flooding my system with adrenaline. But my legs weren’t long enough.

Ten yards from the edge of the lot, he tackled me from behind. The impact drove me into the asphalt, my hands and forearms skidding along the rough surface. I thrashed, bucking against him, but he was too heavy.

“Got her,” he snarled.

The cat shifter appeared beside us. She dropped to one knee, and I felt a sharp sting on the side of my neck, then cold flooded my veins.

Her strange eyes were almost regretful. “Don’t fight it.”

The sedative hit my system like a freight train. The implant scrambled, trying to filter it and keep me conscious. For a moment, it worked, holding back the dark tide rising inside me.

But the darkness won. The last thing I saw was the ogre’s furious face above me, and the vast, blue sky beyond.

Then nothing.

I woke to the smell of antiseptic in a hospital bed with medical equipment surrounding me. I tried to move, but restraints held me down. I looked down and saw straps around my wrists and ankles.

My stomach lurched. My hands were encased in what looked like thick rubber mittens, and copper grounding wires trailed from the mittens to a box mounted on the wall.

Between my legs, something cold and plastic sat against my inner thigh. A catheter, I realized with a jolt of shame. They’d catheterized me while I was unconscious. My clothes were also gone, replaced by a standard blue hospital gown.

I was in what looked like a hospital room, maybe twelve feet square, with a camera watching from the corner near the ceiling, its tiny red eye blinking. The chip buzzed inside me, meticulously cataloging information. Did it understand that if I didn’t make it out of here alive, it wouldn’t either?

My breathing sped up, even with the sedative still in my system. My ribcage throbbed where the ogre had hit me, and my forearms felt scraped and raw, but the pain was manageable.

Flickers of panic started in my stomach as I tried to flex my fingers inside the mittens. They’d immobilized my hands completely, knowing what I could do.

I reached for the bond and pushed out, searching for Conall’s warmth. Only a faint hum came back. It could’ve been the drugs, or maybe the distance.

A terrible sense of déjà vu hit me, and my mind flew back to Roswell. Oh god, I couldn’t go through that again. Where were Owen and Feeny? Was Freda still alive?

The door opened with a pneumatic hiss, and two men walked in. I recognized Director Langston immediately. He wore a navy suit and a red and blue silk tie, and assessed me from behind wire-rimmed glasses.

I’d never met the second man, but I knew him from news footage and from the energy I’d picked up at the Mary Mountain facility. General Michael Wilson stood in uniform, staring down at me. He was in his fifties, with the lean, honed physique of a man half his age.

He held himself rigid as he appraised me. “Ms. Blackthorne, I’m General Michael Wilson.”

“I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but…” I looked down at my restrained and mittened hands.

“Apparently, you’re resistant to sedatives.”

“Good to know,” I muttered, and turned to Langston. “Why am I here? We had an agreement, and you violated it.” The rubber bit into my wrists as I slowly tested my restraints. Wilson pulled a rolling stool from the corner and sat, crossing an ankle over his knee, the casual posture calculated.

“You’re here on my orders,” Wilson answered for him. “Why did you go back to Mary Mountain? What were you looking for?”

I held his gaze, but fear coursed through me. Did he suspect I was looking for clues to implicate him?

“I’m an ISB investigator assigned to a missing persons case. I went back to look for leads. You haven’t told me why I’m here.”

Wilson leaned back. “You’re telling me you hired another helicopter and went back to Mary Mountain just to look for an insignificant missing park ranger?”

My eye twitched. My father was one of those insignificant park rangers. “Yes.”

“You’re suddenly popping up everywhere. You were in the middle of the ApGen case last year, then Roswell. And now, here you are again. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Wilson stood and started pacing.

“It depends on your point of view.”