Protector Panther (Protection, Inc 3)

Catalina hated to walk out the door, leaving Shane behind. Her stomach clenched in an unpleasant flutter that was starting to feel all too familiar. But she was less afraid for herself than she was concerned for him. Cool as he’d seemed when he’d traded sarcastic remarks with the doctor, she could tell that it shook him to be trapped in that place. She felt awful leaving him alone, imprisoned in an empty room with nothing to occupy his mind but his pain and his memories.

The heavy steel door locked behind her. She stood in a corridor like those in hospitals, all white walls and fluorescent light strips, flanked by the creepy doctor and a bunch of guards.

“So, I’m going to be working for you now?” Catalina asked as they began to walk down the corridor. “Isn’t this a lot of trouble to go to just to hire a paramedic?”

Dr. Elihu gave her an oily smile. “We don’t want you for a paramedic any more than we wanted Shane because he knows how to parachute. We’re offering you a chance to serve your country in a much more significant fashion.”

“Doing what?”

“Don’t play coy. Garrity must have briefed you.” The doctor gestured for her to turn left, into another corridor.

Catalina tried to memorize the doors and branching corridors as she passed them. The place would be easier to get lost in than even the notoriously mazelike Santa Martina Central Hospital.

“Not really,” she said. “He’s pretty closed-mouthed. And you shouldn’t just leave him in that room. He needs to see a doctor.”

“He’s already been examined,” Dr. Elihu replied. “His injuries don’t require attention. Soon you too will have accelerated healing capabilities.”

“If I don’t drop dead!”

The doctor gave her a bland stare. “Sounds like Garrity’s mouth wasn’t completely closed.”

Catalina scowled, wishing she wasn’t so prone to blurting out exactly what she was thinking. No wonder Shane hadn’t been willing to tell her his plan. “I hope you don’t want to make me into a spy. I’d be the worst one ever.”

“No, we’ll tailor your assignments to your capabilities.”

Catalina didn’t feel remotely reassured. “Like what? What have you been making Shane do for you?”

“Missions to support the best interests of America.”

Black ops, Shane had said. And his eyes had gone bleak as a frozen lake.

“Assassinations, right?” Catalina demanded. “He was a hero— he saved people—and you forced him to become a hit man!”

The doctor didn’t so much as blink, though her voice had echoed off the white walls. “War isn’t pretty. And Garrity chose to enlist.”

“He didn’t choose this!”

Dr. Elihu’s emotionless gaze reminded her of a snake. “He had options. He still does. Just as you do.”

“So I can leave?” Catalina inquired. “Great! Show me the exit.”

“You may consider yourself drafted. I’m not going to make it easy for you to desert. But all soldiers have that option. So will you, in time. But like all choices, it will have a price.”

“What’s the price?”

/> “Garrity can tell you. Though of course, it’ll only be relevant to you if you don’t drop dead.” The doctor mockingly imitated her inflections. Catalina wanted to punch him. “But since he informed you of the mortality rate of ultimate predator 1.0, you’ll be happy to hear that 2.0 is much safer.”

“How much safer?”

“We estimate a survival rate of up to fifty percent.”

Catalina’s stomach lurched again, then steadied. Fifty-fifty wasn’t bad odds. 1.0 had apparently been even more dangerous than that, but Shane had survived it. And she was hardly a stranger to risk-taking. She’d flown into disaster zones and treated gunshot victims when the people who shot them might still be around. In Loredana, she’d crawled into a partially collapsed building to treat a man who was still pinned inside, knowing that they’d both be killed if there was an aftershock. He’d survived, and afterward the doctors had said it had been thanks to her. Some risks were worth taking.

She remembered the thick velvet of the panther’s fur, his sleek muscles and sense of controlled power. Catalina didn’t want to want something that was being forced on her, might kill her, and came with the price of being enslaved by an evil black ops agency. But she did want it. She’d always dreamed of having super-powers.

“And if it works, I’ll be able to turn into a panther?” she asked. “And terrify people just by looking at them?”

The doctor pursed his narrow lips. “You’ll be able to do something that a predator can do. It might not be the same as Garrity’s powers. As for turning into a panther, that’s up to him.”