Gull paced the corridor outside the med bay, his gut in knots. Reaching the room's barred door, he eyed the people inside. Hashi and Westie stood with weapons aimed at the unconscious lycan now chained to the exam bed. His mother, a full-figured festival of orange florals and frizzing black hair, fussed over blood pressure readings and pupillary responses. The tutting noises escaping her lips expressed concern for her patient, not for herself.

Gull didn't know what unnerved him more: the sight of Zera, once so formidable, now pale and unresponsive; or the sight of his mother leaning over the damn lycan to check the mutt's eyes. The deep brown skin of his mother's throat, exposed by her smock's florid neckline, hung over teeth restrained only by a wad of cloth and a leather strap.

Hashi had tried to pull the doctor back to a safe distance. He'd earned himself an elbow to the ribs and a burning, dark-eyed glare, a look of remonstration Gull recalled well from childhood. Zera's loss of consciousness had given Dr. Jina Chase her desired opportunity to examine her test subject. Nothing in heaven or on God's green earth was going to get her to back away.

That opportunity, however, lasted barely five minutes.

"She's waking." Hashi grabbed the doctor and hauled her away, ignoring a salvo of curses in French and Swahili. The deputy mayor's top concern had to be Colony security as he wrestled one of the settlement's precious health experts to the door, but long-suffering love was what had him taking a headbutt to the chin without complaint. Five years he'd waited for Jina Chase to stop stubbornly grieving her husband's—his best friend's—loss.

Gull finished hauling his mother out of harm's way, dragging her back to the Brick Room's reception area, out of sight.

"Gulliver!" Jina fought to get back to her patient. "Let go at once!"

Gull simply hooked her about her generous waist and dumped her on the reception's ratty sofa. Aiming an index finger straight at her flaring nostrils, he had her freezing before she could do more than plant her hands to get back up. "You know the deal," he bit out softly. "You and the project keep a low profile. You agreed to that for your own good and the Colony's, and you'll stick to that deal or I'll shoot your test subject right now."

His mother seethed a second, her ample chest heaving before her chin came up. An emotion far worse than anger turned her posture brittle: motherly concern. "Now, you know how I feel every time you go off jumping about broken-down, tetanus-riddled buildings."

"Tetanus? The city is overrun by lupine mutants, and your first concern is tetanus?"

"It's just one example of the risks you take, my boy."

Unable to help himself, Gull planted a kiss on his mother's wide, brown forehead. "I got nothing to complain about. I'd have been dead at twelve if you hadn't adopted my delinquent arse. I'm on bonus time."

"Idiot." His mother smoothed a hand over her untameable hair, her expression regal. "You and your siblings were your father's project, God rest his overly optimistic soul. You're nothing to me but worries and a pain in my rear."

Gull grinned. As a retired social worker, Jude Chase had collected stray children as if he were running an animal shelter. "If Dad were here, he'd kick your arse too."

"Hmmph." Jina looked down the corridor to the exam room. "I need to do more tests, Gulliver."

"Start with the blood you've just drawn."

Keen dark eyes cut back to him. "She was teasing you."

Gull didn't pretend not to understand his mother. She'd noted the psychological changes in Zera. They were potentially more important than any physical ones. "She taunts people to keep them off balance."

Jina grunted, pursing full lips. "She'll be doing it to defuse the stress she's feeling, poor dear. This all must be very unsettling."

Gull sat and looped an arm about his mother, giving her a one-armed hug. "Dr. Chase, are you feeling sorry for the man-eating, psychotic monster?"

That earned him a look of reproach. "That young woman's a victim in all this too, Gulliver. It took incredible bravery for her to come here and entrust herself into our care."

"Or incredible cunning."

His mother clipped him about the ear. "My boy, you've seen too many rat-infested sewers and not enough of the Colony's garden. You make time to admire the flowers and pull some weeds before you head back out into those nasty streets, or I'll be planting your cynical head in the dirt to feed my roses."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Idiot."

Hashi came out, a cooler bag in one hand, which he handed to Jina. Her blood samples. "Get back to the lab, find out what you can." He turned to Gull. "The mutt's agitated and about to bite through her gag. Go see if you can charm her into smiling again, bloody scary smile that it is."

Gull kissed his mother on one plump cheek and headed back to the exam room. At its door, he swallowed a curse. Chain clanked as Zera wrenched at her bindings. The lycan gnawed at the leather and cloth blunting her fangs, all the while doing her best to eviscerate Westie with a hot amber stare.

"Westie." Gull stepped inside, leaving the door pointedly open behind him. "You'd be better positioned outside with Zera awake."

"So would you be," his sister muttered as she eased back to the door, her gun's muzzle directed at the floor, but pointed in the direction of the lycan.

Rolling his eyes, Gull closed the door. "What's the drama exactly? I'm safer in here than I am on the streets." It was a joke, but the memory of Stroya rose, turning his words into a truth that chilled bone. He dragged up a smile for his sister. "Just watch my back, and send in the food when it arrives. I'd prefer a well-fed patient."

He turned to Zera; assessed the damage. The feral snarl wrinkling her nose looked lupine, but the burning glint in her eyes wasn't devoid of reason.

He moved to the bed's side. "I'll remove the gag if you quit the snarly shit and promise not to sink your fangs into me."

Her teeth remained bared, but her struggles against her bindings stopped, telling him that while she was seriously pissed, she was very much in control.

Taking care to minimise any chances of her biting him, Gull unclipped the leather strap holding the cloth in her mouth—cloth that was instantly spat out and rapidly followed by an oath worthy of an ex-sailor.

"What the fuck, Gulliver?"

"You fainted." He met her fury without apology. "And there is no way in burning hell we were going to risk one of our doctors in here without you being restrained."

Zera spat out a fragment of cloth. "I don't see a fucking healer in here anymore, just a spineless piece of shit."

Gull crossed his arms. "Spineless—intelligent. Potato—po-tah-to. I'm liking you in those restraints right now. You do realise you're frothing, right? I'd best get the doc to check for rabies."

"Arsehole."

He sighed. "You done with the tantrum?"

"Not until I rip your tongue out through your throat."

Gull turned at the sound of Westie tapping the door's bars. "Hold that thought. Breakfast has arrived." He went to the door to retrieve the supplies. "Ooh, someone's found Miss Snarly an apple."

"Fuck you, Red." There was venom in the response, but also the narrowest thread of humour.

"Just for that, I'm keeping it." Gull tucked the apple into his pocket. He'd give it to her when she wouldn't throw it at his head. Risking life and limb, he perched one butt-cheek on the bed, beside a long, bare, heavily chained leg. He fished out a water bottle from the bag Westie had handed over. "I'm not real keen to bottle feed you and play airplanes with your food, so I'm going to release one of your hands. Do not go for my throat."

"No promises."

Arms at full stretch, Gull undid the padlocked chain and weaker hospital wrist restraint around her right wrist, then quickly retracted every inch of himself out of the lycan's reach.

"Chicken." Zera lifted her arm to stretch it and flex her fingers. "Give me the water."

Gull threw it to her.

She caught it, proving her reflexes were working just fine. She took a swig, eyes cool gleams. "Who was the doctor?"

"No one you need to worry about."

"You smell like her."

Gull's stomach tightened. "I had to restrain her from fighting her way back to your bedside. She takes her doctoring seriously."

"No. You had traces of her scent on you when we first met." Zera took another mouthful of water. "Who is she to you?"

"She adopted me as a kid."

Zera's eyebrows went up. "She's your momma?"

Gull smiled blandly. "You do anything to harm a hair on her head, I will shoot enough Taser darts into you to set your mutt hide on fire."

Zera considered him a beat, then gave a one-armed shrug. "Fair enough." She jammed the water bottle under her arm and snapped fingers at him. "Hand over what's in the bag. I'm starving."

Gull tossed her a protein bar then took one for himself.

Zera tore into the bar's wrapping, all fangs, no manners. She 'wolfed' down one bar then another before she spoke again. "All those tests you plan on running. I assume they're all medical-related things. Blood content, cell changes, and whatever."

Gull nodded. "Your cooperation is appreciated."

Zera cast her restraints a dry glance, then looked back up. All humour vanished from her eyes. "If you're planning to try and cure others, there are other things you need to assess."

Gull's insides knotted at her tone. "Like what?"

"Like assessing whether they can handle what they've done. The sight of my own blood was enough to trigger some serious psychological shit, Red."

Gull stared, suddenly understanding her faint. "I'm sorry to hear that." Fuck. Of course, a physical cure wouldn't be enough. Even if memories were hazy, no one who'd lived as a blood-thirsty animal would come back to their humanity without mental health issues.

Zera looked away, jaw tightening. "I was trained to respect the chain of command and take lives if needed. I can rationalise what I did, tell myself I was following orders—those of the fucking virus. But Red..." She met his gaze. "They were really shitty orders."

Gull clenched his fists, sympathy a queasy churn. "Don't take that on. Just make your own choices from now on." For as long as the therapy's effects lasted. His heartbeat stumbled at the thought of her being lost again. Nothing was certain. "The Colony's got a few mental health experts. You want to talk to one?"

Zera grunted and shook her head. "Maybe later. Right now, all I need is a promise." She fixed her stare on his. "If I revert, a bullet gets put through my skull, preferably a fifty cal." She looked to the door, to Westie. "Same promise from you, Hardcase."

Westie flexed her hands on her weapon. "Be my pleasure to deliver on that promise, fang face. You're one hundred per cent pain in the arse."

Zera blinked. "You know that's a compliment, right?"

Gull rolled his eyes. "No one's shooting anyone—unless it's absolutely necessary."

Westie expressed her doubt with a grunt, then raised a hand to her earpiece. She looked to Gull. "Hashi wants a word."

Gull dumped the rest of the food bars out on Zera's lap. "Feast and be merry. I'll be back in a bit." He jabbed a finger at the lycan, then at his scowling sister. "Both of you, play nice."

Hashi waited in the Brick Room's overgrown driveway. Always alert, even with the relative safety the weak dawn offered, he scanned the surrounding streets. "Tell me what happened."

Gull kept his own gaze moving over buildings and shadows. "Zera's the lycan Ramesh and I tracked over the last few nights. She had a predictable range away from known dens. She'd been wounded and was after easy animal prey. Didn't seek out other lycans, and they didn't seem interested in her either. While the pack alpha still considered her 'his', I think she was out of favour. She was as safe a target as we were going to get."

Hashi's gaze sharpened. "You met the alpha?"

Gull grimaced. "What Ramesh and I didn't know, was that while we were tracking Zera, another wolf was tracking us—one that wasn't being driven by appetite alone. She was in that headspace they get when the pack's suffered a few losses. You know, hunting for humans they can make pack. The lycan, Destroyer—"

"Fuck." Hashi spat to the side. "The names they pick for themselves. Don't need to be a doctor to know the virus rots their brains."

"She shortened it to 'Stroya'."

"Well, that's all better then."

Uneasy memories killed Gull's smile. "She took out Ramesh quick. Probably figured he was the only real threat as I didn't have a rifle in my hands at the time. I'd like to think that's why the switch in her head flicked from killing to preserving me for later fun, but Zera said Stroya had been stalking me over multiple nights—that she liked my damn hair."

"Shit." Hashi shook his head. "Ain't good when a mutt gets fixated on a person. They're unholy, covetous beasts."

Gull breathed deep to kill nerves. "Anyway, the alpha turned up, claimed me as pack, and dragged me back to the den—the underground car park of what was the Wild Seas Casino."

"Fuck." Hashi raked back his hair. "How'd you get out alive, kid?"

"Zera created a distraction, allowing me time to escape. I think when she regained consciousness from being Tasered, she tried to shift and couldn't. She had questions and was rational enough to know she needed me alive to get them."

"Shit, Gull."

Gull exhaled, resisting the fear that wanted to surface. "Zera doesn't think Stroya will quit the chase. I need to head elsewhere, Hashi. One of the outer bases in the suburbs, maybe. If I put another pack's territory between me and this one, the bitch might lose my scent and any interest."

"Go pack a bag." Hashi reached out to squeeze Gull's arm. "I'll round up some company for you. It's citrus season in the city's backyards, and I wouldn't mind some limes for that salvaged tequila you found last month."

Gull glanced back to the Brick Room. "I don't like leaving like this. I don't know if Zera will stay rational and human, but right now, she is and she's remembering what she did while a wolf, viewing it through human eyes. If I go, you've got to get her support. Treat her like she's a threat—she is one—but she's also someone going through some rough shit."

Hashi nodded. "I'll see to it personally. And see to it that your mother doesn't get sucked in by those big gold eyes. She claims it was your father who liked to save strays, but we both know she was a willing accomplice."

"It's too late for that, Hashi. The second that drug went into Zera's bloodstream, my mother took responsibility for her. She's going to be a serious pain in your arse, trying to play mother duck to a sharp-fanged mutt."

Hashi's smile was wry. "You take after her, kid. The number of times you've looked back to that med bay in the last two minutes says so."

Gull winced. "Just don't let Zera kill anyone. She's made it pretty clear she'd prefer to be shot."

Grunting, Hashi slapped him on the back. "You look like shit, but right now, rest will get you dead. Grab an expired energy drink, say your goodbyes, and make the most of daylight. You can't be here when night—"

A concussive crack. The punch of a Mk 21 sniper rifle discharging one of its devastating rounds.

Howls rose, only a few hundred metres away.

More gunfire shattered the morning quiet, sentries on the Colony's watchtowers and surrounding buildings opening up on multiple incoming threats.