KARA/CAROLINE

I woke up fully Kara but fighting a major headache. I tried to move my hands to rub against my face and they were stopped by a cool blockage like a metal cuff against my wrists.

I noticed I was lying flat on a stiff table, a myriad of buzzing old computer noises sounding all around me. The scent of blood and death permeated the moist air, and a saccharine sweetness was coating my nose and throat like stabs of pure sugar. A constant water drip sounded as an echo around the area, making it seem like a creepy dungeon from some horror flick.

"Sir, I think she's waking up." The voice was deep and muffled, coming from off my right.

The male voice that answered was feeble and rasp, as if every consonant where hard to form and air was hard to breathe. "No... she's not."

My eyes opened like I was trying to shove through razor blades and focused on the muffled voice next to me.

It was a man in full military gear, from camo pants and jacket to black leather gloves holding some scary looking assault rifle, but it was held as if uncertain if he should point it my way or not. He had a camo helmet with a black plastic breathing mask and clear eye protection. He was staring at me with a wondersome interest. "Sir, she is awake. She's looking at me."

"Don't be... absurd Corporal. We pumped them... with enough silverbane smoke... to be out for two days. It's barely been.... twenty minutes." Every word seemed to have a deep gulp of air accompanied with it, like the speaker had never learned to inhale correctly.

The military man still stared, gun gripped in his tightening fingers. "You said she was a healer, right? Maybe she healed herself."

"I'm not... speaking about this anymore... Corporal. I'm on the edge... of a breakthrough. I need to work quickly." The breathy voice spoke and then broke into a fit of hoarse coughing. It sounded like he even spit.

I tried to turn my view to the feeble voice, but there was a cold grip on my head, keeping my neck stationary. My eyes widened trying to look to my forehead in alarm.

The muffled military man spoke, the gun moving just enough that I could read Brock on his name tape. "You are in Sargent Major Lawrence's laboratory. You are cuffed so you won't hurt yourself."

My headache was slowing, but a numbness in my arm, brought my eye that way. My movements were blocked by the head cuff enough that I could barely see over myself, but I was not wearing the same clothes I started the day with. These were some thin white material, almost like scrubs. The freaks changed me? My eyes followed the sleeve down my arm, and I could see the telltale sign of a red tube coming from the hollow of my inner elbow.

Were they taking my blood?

"Let me go," I spoke in a wavering voice to Corporal Brock.

"You kitten are the cure to cancer. We can't do that."

My brow lowered in a glare, my voice box trying to work around the sweet tang. I made it a stronger demand. "Let me go right now, Brock."

He startled and then glanced to his name tape then back to me. "We can't do that. We need to study you."

"By holding me down?" I felt clarity begin as my inner wolf mind started to free and my vision started to heighten.

"Stop it kitten," he warned, the gun finally pointing on me.

"No." I took a deep calming breath and closed my eyes, ready to push the healer forward on my own when the feeble voice called out again.

"Corporal Brock! I thought I... told you to be silent. I... need to work... here."

"The patient is awake Sir, please come look!"

When I opened, I saw the gold of my eyes reflected in his face shield. His eyes held a slight nervous quality to them.

There was a scraping of metal as a loud chair was pushed out. Then sashaying steps and the constant squeaking of gears that needed to be greased came toward me.

A withered hand, wrinkled, whitened and covered in dark spots invaded my vision, pushing on the rifle. "Put that down... Corporal."

Suddenly a new face was hovering over me. He was old, nearly elderly, with a completely bald head and the thinnest eyebrows. Wrinkles hung from sunken cheeks and dark under eyes. Age spots littered his face like paint splatters and there was a redness to his cheeks more like bruising than blush. His nose was pointed and long and held an oxygen tube running around to his ears and tied at his neck over a doctor's coat. That must have been the squeaking gears; an oxygen tank on dirty wheels. His thin lips pressed into a tight line as he regarded me. "Well... hello there," he rasped.

"Who are you?" I asked in irritation.

He took a few huffing breaths as if even the ten steps to my side winded him. "I am... Doctor Melvin Lawrence. Senior chemical... engineer for DOSS. Former... I should say." His eyes wandered down my body in appreciation, like I was treasure to be robbed and not a person.

"What do you want with me?"

"You... my dear... are our... panacea."

Two other military men in the same gear walked up and looked over me, guns relaxed to the ceiling.

"Panacea?" My clarity blurred as my mind raced to understand.

His eyes pointed to the tube in my arm. "Your blood is... the key. The cure to cancer. I will... synthesize it... and make billions."

"Let me go," I spat, trying to move from the metal clamps.

"Someday... maybe," he replied and then started his shuffling steps around to the blood bag. "Good flow girl." He brought the bag up from somewhere below the table and let me see. He handed the pint to a guard and then attached another bag.

"Get this needle out of me!" I seethed, pressing on the restraints.

"In time girl." He grabbed the blood bag from the guard, and then shuffled back to wherever his desk was. The chair scratching sounded against the floor again.

Brock glared down at me. "Calm down kitten. You'll hurt yourself. Don't you want to cure cancer?"

My movements quieted as I stared back to him. "You think I can cure cancer?"

I mean it could be possible right? I cured broken bones in minutes and those sick werewolves completely. Why shouldn't cancer be tried as well?

"That's what Sargent Major is trying to find out. That's why we've been in this hell hole for five fricken' months."

His words were truthful. He really felt like I was the answer. "Why am I clamped down then? Let me go."

He shook his head. "We can't let you go. It took so long to find you."

My eyes glowed gold in anger. "If you want me to cooperate, you'll untie me this instant."

"Sargent Major's orders. You can't go free. Your species is too powerful."

I growled out in rage, senses clearing and pushed on the restraints. I screamed a mighty sound, trying to back it with as much force as I could.

Another of the guards still standing over me laughed a patronizing sound. "Try all you want, darlin'. We've had ages to perfect restraints against your kind."

The use of the hated pet name made me glower.

"They're a microalloy glass infused with silver and wolfsbane. There's no way you're getting out of that. Even your big male species never even cracked a brace."

He set his gun to one hand, loose down at his side and stepped forward. "Too bad Sargent Major wants you for a pin cushion. You're quite pretty." His finger slid down over my arm, back of his hand gliding off the side of my chest.

The healer burned bright in me and when he got to my hand, I twisted my wrist and grabbed onto his finger and buried my glance deep in his eyes. Even through his gloved hand I called to his body and dropped him right to sleep. The gun clambered beside his now dozing frame.

Brock and the other guard then aimed their guns on me, frightened.

"What did you do!?" The other guard cried. He kicked at his friend, trying to keep eyes more focused on me. "Lenny?! Eff dude. Get up."

Brock lowered himself to a crouch and I couldn't see what he was up to, but he called out, "he's just passed out. Sucker is fine."

The third guard had angered eyes through the mask, dark brows lowered in agitation, and gun still pointed at me. "What did you do to him little girl?"

A flare of temper emerged, and I gave him a super sweet purr of a voice, "I cut off all the oxygen to his brain. He will be dead in six minutes." It was a bluff; I just put him to sleep. And really, I wasn't even sure how long a human body could survive without air, but a dog's limit was four to six minutes.

His eyes widened with horror and he screeched, "you give him back his oxygen witch!"

Instead, I looked at the ceiling as if I was bored. It was badly pressed concrete, long shop lights hung unskillfully to brighten the area. They weren't doing a very good job, as it was still quite dim. "I'll pass, peanut head."

"Peanut head? Who the eff are you callin' peanut head little girl!?" The gun tip touched my cheek and I stared over to him unconcerned.

"Corporal Dylan!" Melvin's scratchy voice yelled. "Get back... to your... post."

"But Sir! Corporal Lenny is dying!" He spoke incredulous.

"She didn't... kill him. Now back!"

He growled out, nose and eyes wrinkling as if he was baring his human teeth under the dark mask.

The gun point released from my cheek and I waved with my fingers. "Bye Corporal Dylan."

"Bch," he mumbled under his breath, but I figured I caught his meaning well enough and smirked.

My glance went to Brock's and I fluttered my lashes, my super sweet purr back. "Will you hold my hand Brocky-Baby? I'm awfully scared of this horrible place."

He grinned, cheeks pulling up over the mask portion and he winked. "Good try kitten." He stepped back out of my line of sight leaving me alone on the cold table.

"It's not working!" Melvin yelled in his raspy voice. The power he put behind it must have really hurt his throat as he started coughing and making the spitting noise again.

He stood and hobbled back into my view. "It's not... in your blood. Where... is it!" He demanded.

"Where is what?"

"The healing!" He shouted and then a hand went down to his side and a squeaky gear was turned. He breathed deep, low gasps in, like he had given himself an extra burst of oxygen from the tank. Then his angered sunken eyes turned back on me. "Is it your marrow? Heart? Brain? I will... dig... until I find it."

"You're crazy."

"How do you heal!" His fist came down against the table and a smack sounded. He growled out in pain and then held over his hand. His good hand reached to his shirt pocket and brought out a white handkerchief that was covered in brown-red splotches. He coughed into it.

My eyes came down almost sickened. "What's wrong with you?"

He panted through the pain, replacing the stained handkerchief. "I have stage four... lung cancer. I need that healing."

I stared at the withered man for a moment. He was obviously in trouble with his hand, as well as some horrible cancer. But if he didn't look so pale and gross, I would have thought he was faking, as the healer inside me had been dormant this whole time.

"Let me go and I'll heal you," I propositioned.

He shook his head, a timid movement from his pained neck. "I can't... do that." He panted a few breaths before continuing. "I need... to synthesize... the formula. I need... facts."

"It's not facts. It's magic. It's healing from the supernatural world."

I really wish the healer hadn't thrown my stone now. If I did heal him, how much power would that take? He'd have all my own life force, instead of the world's.

Would it kill me to do too much?

He sneered, a lip turned up. "It is facts. And... I will find... it." He looked around his laboratory as if he was wondering what tool to start carving the healer out of me with.

I swallowed noisily.

"How about... out of good faith... as a show of... mercy," a button was pushed somewhere on the legs of the bed, and suddenly the cool glass was off of my head, but wrists and ankles still held tight. "There. Now you... can see... the procedures. Now tell me... where it... is."

My head twisted and turned, stretching through the tightness of my neck and then my eyes gawked around the laboratory.

It was dark and gloomy, much like you'd expect a basement or garage laboratory to be. Nothing like the sterile and spotless white lit labs I'd ever been in. Chemistry beakers and burners crowded one dirty table. He had an old noisy computer and microscope on a counter that ran the length of the wall at my head. The wall above covered in filthy tools and sprayed with old blood. Upright cages lined the side near my feet, all were tall enough for a man to walk in. Shelves with bottles and chemicals were beyond the cages to my left, and to my right a large metal crane contraption of some sort. The lights beyond it emptying into darkness and the quiet chatters of unconscious werecreatures whispered below.

"Where are we?" My head dodged back to him.

"We... are on your Fremont reservation... deep underground. ...Close to Loa."

Behind him a yard or two was another table I hadn't noticed before. There was a naked man on it, mutilated and coated with blood. Dead. He was certainly a werewolf, but his healing couldn't keep up with the deep slices into his flesh every inch. Blood dripped off him to the table and then oozed to the floor. His fingernails had been pulled out and face unrecognizable with horrendous swelling and bruising.

The man was literally tortured to death, and recently. My stomach lurched and my heart blackened for the poor man's last hours.

"Now tell me... the secret." Lawrence complained.

At the site of the tabled wolf, my healer wasn't pulled from me because there was no bringing that man back from the dead, and there would be no way I was helping the feeble old monster now.

"Go to hell," I spat.

"Tell it to me!" He leaned over in my face, a single blood droplet spilling from his mouth.

My words were low and deadly, and I held my hand open the best I could from under the restraints. Maybe I would be able to cut off someone's oxygen. No better time to try. "Touch me and I'll show you what I can do."

"Don't do it Sir," Corporal Brock warned, pointing at Lenny who was still passed out on the floor.

"You will pay for what you did to that wolf. Just you wait," I threatened.

He gave an unconcerned tilt of his head. "You... my dear... are held down... with silver. You... are going... nowhere."

"Watch me," I seethed.

I brought the wolf power out of me, trying to remember how to do it without the healer on that mountainside with Will. The clarity of the area overcoming my senses: dripping of the stream down in the low cavern, the sleeping werecreatures and their inaudible grunts, the scared scent of failure coming from the two conscious guards, the stench of evil and death drowning the old man, the microscopic particles of wolfsbane still clinging to the dust in the air.

My muscles tightened and I yanked and pressed on the restraints.

This would end right now!

I fought hard with a thunderous scream against the shackles.

I tried again and again.

But every maneuver was futile. The glass didn't budge.

Melvin started laughing, spraying me with blood droplets. "See girl? ...You're mine now."

I growled lower than any infuriated caged wild animal. I was caretaker of the wolves in the cavern and he would not take them like the male beside me.

This was my calling.

He would never harm another in my charge.

My teeth clenched. Goosebumps tingled up my arms. The voice of musicals past started filling me, Seize the Day catching fire in my mind. My singing started ringing loud and clear in the dank area.

♪ Proud and defiant, we'll slay the giant!
Judgment day is here.
Houston to Harlem, look what's begun! ♪

"What's she doing?" Brock stared confused.

♪ One for all and all for one!
Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!
OH! Strike! ♪

I punched against the glass clamps with each exclamation, power raging through me, the chattering sounds from the wolfcreatures in the cavern becoming a roar. On the last, instead of pushing on the restraints, I pulled in two quick forces, completely shattering the bones in both wrists, and pulled my hands free.

"What the?" Melvin coughed, and stepped backwards bracing himself against the other table.

I sat up in a quick motion, eyes on the restraints at my ankles. With all the force I could bear with my heightened wolf strength, I brought my broken fists down on each cuff and this time the cuffs did shatter.

Brock had finally gained enough sense to point the gun at me.

"Don't shoot her!" Melvin cried, but I had already backhanded both Corporal Brock and the weapon across the room.

My wrists began to heal quicker than expected, but the agony of continued fighting, bore deep into me.

Yet, I would not stop.

I pulled the needle and tube of blood from my arm and my own redness sprayed across my white suit and onto the floor until the puncture site closed.

"Hit the smoke!" Corporal Brock called and Dylan ran to a big red button. A bright white flash lit the area for only a beat.

I jumped off the table, dismantling the breathing mask and helmet from the sleeping Corporal Lenny as the rich violet smoke began filling the laboratory from a pipe above. I closed off all breathing, but the smoke was like piercing chilies directed into my eyes. In mere seconds the apparatus was across my face and fresh oxygen flooded into my body. There must have still been traces of the wolfsbane in my lungs because the fresh air was angelic.

Kara? Kara, can you hear me?

William! Are you okay?

Am I okay? Are you okay!

I'm alive, but I'm in some laboratory with a mad man.

We'll be right there love, hang on. Be safe. Use your ring.

Brock ran at me sending a full-bodied punch my way and I darted it like it was merely a bubble floating on the wind. I used his own momentum to push him flying against the back wall, upside down against the cages. He crumpled at the base, head first and out.

Not to push you out Will, but I need to concentrate here. Sorry.

The rapid firing of a gunshot blasted passed me and I turned my attention to Corporal Dylan. He shot a thick stream again but missed my quick movements in a wide arc. Bullets whizzed past me, as I dodged behind the table next to the fallen Lenny. I was kneeling in a pool of my own blood from the leaking bag but shielded from the firing. The constant firing shattered beakers and glass all around me, sending tools flying from the wall.

As I covered below wishing I could hold my ears, I noticed that I had been shot at both my left arm and left thigh, adrenaline keeping the pain at bay. My eyes traveled up to the ruby ring still at my finger. 'Use your ring.' He had said. I stared at the beautiful ruby and poured healer magic into my own wounds, it was nearly automatic, and I grinned beginning to sing again. The music being muffled by the oxygen mask.

♪ Nothing can break us
No one can make us quit before we're done!
One for all and all for one. ♪

The bullets both tinkered to the ground, replaced in barely a moment by healthy skin.

It was power like I'd never felt.

A metal toolbox clambered to the ground at the head of the table, being displaced from the counter by the continued gunfire. I dashed forward on my knees, slipping slightly in my own spilled redness, and grabbed it. Aiming for Corporal Dylan, I threw the heavy item straight at him. It hit true, right to his forehead and he dropped to the ground. The rain of bullets finally silencing.

Lenny was sitting up groggily, and when he saw me beside him instead of strapped to the table, he hollered in fright. Seconds later the butt of his own gun slammed into his face and he fell back again.

I looked over his gun in my hands. I had never used a rifle before, but I'd seen enough movies to know where the ammunition came from, so I released the magazine from the gun with a button on the side. I had no idea if there were other steps to clear a gun and I couldn't figure out which button was the safety, so I pocketed the magazine and tossed the gun to the side.

Brock was then standing and hovering over me, his rifle aimed forcefully down at me. "Get up kitten. Before you see what glassalloy bullets do to your species."

I glared up to him and his weapon was pointed to my face. I put my hands up in surrender, but not submission, and started to raise.

He used the gun tip to point to the table with the slain wolf. "My mother is dying of cancer. We're getting that cure. Now I want you on the other table and this time we'll make sure those pretty little wrist guards stay tight."

I stilled processing his words. His mother had cancer. He had reason to be here and want the cure. There would be no way he'd put a bullet in me that could ruin his mother's chance.

"Move it kitten!" He threatened.

My head tilted and voice soft. "You're not going to kill me." And then I struck. In a wolfen flash of speed I darted forward, hands already up instead outstretched to his neck and dropped him to sleep.

His magazine was pocketed as well and with a few steps to Dylan, I grabbed his too. With a second thought, I went back to Brock and checked his pockets for a wallet. Nothing. But he did have a dog tag: Preston Brock. I quickly tried to look over his information, social security number, blood type, religion. Not helpful.

The smoke was still dense on the area and the lights flickered. I stood quickly, praying that the whole lab wouldn't soon be immersed in darkness. I tried to breathe in some deep breaths of the mask's purified oxygen in the moment of calm. I searched the ceiling and followed the pipe to an end where the smoke was being filtered down into the lab. The smoke was thinning from the opening but the air around the lab was still thick as its tendrils danced around me on the floor flowing clear up to knee level. It emptied into the darkness, seeming to flow the way to the cavern, probably tumbling in waterfalls down to the werecreatures.

I glanced to the red button Dylan had hit. Would another hit stop the smoke? Or just blast us again? I couldn't risk the wolves below getting hit again, and as I watched and considered my options the smoke answered for me when with a metallic bang somewhere, the vent shut off completely.

My attention turned to Melvin. He was moaning and slumped over in his desk chair, blood dripping on the keyboard from a surface wound to his head. He was gasping like a fish in air, and I checked down his oxygen tube to see that it had been cut through lower down, maybe from a bullet or glass debris. My eyes followed down to the fallen oxygen tank.

Sucker was dang lucky that hadn't been pierced by a bullet. I guess we all were.

I lifted the tank back to a standing position and shut the oxygen lever off.

Lenny was making a coughing sound, still surrounded with the smoke and no mask, so I stepped back to him and lifted him to a sitting position against the table, face out of the smoke. He was just a drone. He didn't deserve to die.

Like my wolf.

I looked over to the tortured man and my heart wrenched. He hadn't deserved that. He probably had a wife somewhere, maybe even children. They would probably never get closure to this tragedy. His face was battered passed recognition and it wouldn't be too long until he disintegrated as supernaturals do.

My eyes scanned the area for a blanket, something to cover to poor man, but there was nothing. A blue plastic sheet from near the chemical tower brought me walking that way. It was a tarp. Most likely covered in horrendous chemicals, but what could it hurt now?

Laying the tarp over the wolf, I gave him last respects. With a full-bodied sigh, I looked to follow the dark hallway to freedom when I realized that the gasping from Lawrence had quieted.

He would die peacefully, in his sleep, with the lack of oxygen.

That angered me.

He did not deserve to die peacefully when he was steps away from the man he brutally murdered.

In new resolve, I grabbed medical tape from his counter and started fixing the oxygen tube back together. It wasn't pretty and wouldn't be perfect, but it would do for now. I turned the lever high letting the monster get the air he didn't deserve.

But he did deserve to be prosecuted for his unspeakable crimes.

Lifting the unconscious monster by the back of his shirt, I shouldered the oxygen tank and started dragging him down the hall, hoping to find sunlight and bring the slain wolf his justice.