that was the same one who’d ordered Lambert to step aside. Waylon’s profile was barely recognizable from the edge of Cole’s vision as he moved in behind the other guards and gazed into the cell over their shoulders. “Everybody move back,” he said. “Make sure there’s a video feed rolling on this and remove anyone not approved for G7 cases from the surveillance rooms. Now!”
Feet scrambled and bodies moved. That was all Cole could make out, since he wasn’t about to stop what he was doing. Chop struggled beneath him and pounded his fists against his ribs and shoulders. When he hit the side of Cole’s head, he only forced him to twist his face and rip off a sizable portion of skin. Chop screamed and grabbed hold of Cole’s hair, pulling him up and away from the coaster-sized hole within inches of his throat.
If he had fangs, the job would have been so much easier. The fact that he even thought that made Cole realize just how far he’d fallen. He was a Skinner. He had the scars and nightmares to prove it. Although the skills he’d been taught had served him well so far, it was the cinching pain inside that spurred him into drinking another human’s blood. What sickened him even more was the fact that allowing that blood to flow down his throat brought him more relief than he’d felt in recent memory. The tendrils wrapped around his innards relaxed. The pain subsided. The healing serum kicked in. He started to get dizzy with the joy of no longer feeling like all of his organs were being pinched between the coils of a spring. Even with the coppery taste of Chop’s blood coating the back of his throat, he couldn’t help but smile as the cell door was opened and the guards crawled inside. The wound on Chop’s neck glistened like a freshly cut piece of raw meat that had been plastered to his skin.
“Is he dead?” Waylon asked.
The guards grabbed Cole, shoved the sparking end of a stun gun into his side and cuffed him. “Could be. Want me to check?”
“No. Take him to Medical ASAP.”
Waylon stood just outside the cell as Cole was slammed up against the bars. He jotted on his clipboard and asked, “What made you do that?”
“Didn’t have a choice,” Cole wheezed. “He wouldn’t stop swinging at me when I asked him nicely to stop.”
“Hold him steady,” Waylon said to the other two guards. Once Cole was straightened up and both arms were secured behind his back, Waylon reached into a pocket to remove a bundle of cotton swabs wrapped in a plastic baggie. “I saw you drink his blood. What made you do that?”
When the swab was rubbed against his chin, Cole squirmed away but wasn’t quick enough to prevent the sample from being taken. Now that the pain had subsided, he felt like he could withstand whatever punishment was about to be heaped upon him. He stared defiantly at the guards and kept his mouth shut.
“You’re not a host to the vampire growth,” Waylon said. “Do those tendril fragments somehow give you an innate need to feed or was this just to make your discomfort subside? Do those tendrils help you in some way like they do for the Nymar? Your scars and blood samples mark you as a Skinner. Are you truly being turned or is this possibly a by-product of the Mud Flu?”
Rather than say anything that could possibly be of any help to anyone, Cole asked, “Who the hell are you?”
“Answer me first and things can go a lot smoother for you. Otherwise, you’ll be quarantined and I’ll just deduce the answers myself. If you fill in some of the blanks of my research, you’ll spare someone else the time and discomfort of being imprisoned.”
“Spare who?”
“Whoever is brought to us next,” Waylon replied. “Perhaps someone you know. Perhaps a stranger. Either way, you would have kept that person from going through the same ordeal you now face.” Squinting as if he was trying to get a closer look at whatever lay behind Cole’s eyes, Waylon added, “I can make it worth your while. You’re in a great deal of trouble with the law.”
“Isn’t that why I’m here? Aren’t you guys connected to the goddamn law?”
Once Chop was dragged from the cell and lifted to his feet, Cole was tossed back inside so his face skidded along the floor.
Waylon watched with the same amount of interest he