Protector Panther (Protection, Inc 3)

Then it was down to five of us. We went ahead with our plan anyway, but we never got near a phone, and Armando didn’t make it out. All that happened was that we did some damage before we all got tranquilized. After that we were guarded much more closely. They chained up everyone who was going to get bitten, so they couldn’t do anything once they became a shifter. Armando and Rosa and Tyrone survived getting bitten, but not ultimate predator.

Finally Justin and I were the last ones left. He was doing better by then— he could get out of bed and walk around the room— but it would be weeks before he was up to running or fighting. He told me to forget about him and escape by myself. But there was no way I’d leave him there, wounded and imprisoned and alone.

Blackburn came in to bite Justin, and I did my best to kill him. He was a shifter, way stronger than I was then, but I was a better fighter. I might’ve had a chance, except for those fucking tranquilizer guns. I got knocked out, and when I woke up, Justin had been bitten.

His wound was nearly healed, and he was much stronger than he’d been just a few hours before. Nobody had told us that shifters had healing powers. Those bastards at Apex had deliberately let Justin suffer instead of having Blackburn bite him right away, just to make it harder for the rest of us to escape.

Apex waited a couple days, until Justin was completely recovered. They drugged us both so we couldn’t fight, and put him through the process. It had gone wrong for the others right away, but Justin seemed fine. Dr. Elihu was all excited. And I— I was sure he’d make it.

Then he collapsed. Everything happened so fast after that. One second he was talking to me, the next second he’d stopped breathing. I started doing CPR, but Dr. Elihu and his medical team tried to take him away from me. I knew they were going to try to resuscitate him, but I wouldn’t let go of him. I couldn’t. So I got tranquilized again.

When I woke up, he was gone.

I didn’t fight when Blackburn came for me. With no one left to protect, I didn’t care if I lived or died. But once he bit me, I felt differently.

It’s hard to explain

if you’re not a shifter. Even if you were born a shifter, I think it’s different than if you were made into one. My panther’s me. But he’s me with a voice and body and instincts that are different from me, Shane. He’s the part of me that’s pure predator— that doesn’t care about anything but the hunt and the kill and survival. He sure cared whether he lived or died.

By the time they put me through the process, my panther had changed how I felt. I was absolutely determined to live and escape. My panther didn’t like being trapped any more than I did.

And I survived.

I have no idea why I was the only one. Everyone else had been just as determined to live as I was. But it had gone a little differently for me from the beginning. Blackburn was a leopard, and the others he bit became leopards. Technically, I am too. A panther isn’t a different species, it’s just a black leopard or black jaguar. But I looked different.

That probably had nothing to do with why I survived, though. Justin’s leopard looked different, too, and it didn’t save him. His fur was white instead of yellow. When I met Fiona at Protection, Inc., I realized that he’d been a snow leopard, like her.

Once I’d gotten through the process, I found out that I could make people not notice me. I don’t think anyone at Apex was expecting that. I demonstrated my fear power, so they’d think they knew what my power was— and that it was the only power I had. I gave them a couple days to let down their guard, and then I walked out without anyone noticing. I stole one of their cars and a couple of their wallets, and took off.

I wish now that I’d gone back to my Air Force base. I thought of it. But I didn’t know if Apex was a government agency or what. If they were, I might just be delivering myself straight back to them. And I was afraid that if I contacted anyone I knew, I’d put them in danger.

Once I could get online, I looked myself up. Apex had put a story out that we’d all been killed in action when our helo had gone down over the ocean, so there were no bodies. That made me really reluctant to contact anyone in the government— that was a hell of a cover-up. Apex had to be powerful. Anyone I talked to might just turn me over to them.

So I ran halfway across the country, then hid out in a big city. I figured I could lose myself there for a while and think things over. But I didn’t know as much about hiding my tracks then. And I didn’t know a clock was ticking.

I was free for about a week, and then I got sick. I thought it was the flu. The symptoms were a pretty good match— weakness and fatigue, fever and chills, pain in my bones and joints. At first I wasn’t worried. I’m a PJ, right? I’m strong. I figured I’d just hole up where I was, in this dirtbag motel I’d checked into under a fake name, and drink a lot of water.

But I got a lot worse, really fast. By the next morning, I could barely stand up. Then I thought maybe I had pneumonia. I was worried Apex would find me if I went to an ER, so I decided to take a taxi to a clinic. I figured I could get antibiotics without having to check myself in anywhere. But I didn’t even make it out the front door of the motel. I passed out in the lobby, and someone called 911.

I woke up in the ICU. The doctors told me my heart was failing. I was young and I looked strong, but I was dying and they couldn’t figure out why. They wanted to know my complete medical history and if I’d traveled abroad recently. I tried to stick to my cover story, but it’s hard to lie well when you’re that sick.

By then I’d guessed that what was really going on was the ultimate predator process catching up to me. I figured it was even money whether or not I’d die of that before Apex found me.

It turned out that Apex was already hot on my trail. They’d tracked me down to the city I was in, and they’d already started contacting hospitals asking for a man of my description with my symptoms. They said I had a rare virus and needed to be quarantined. I was in the hospital for less than a day before Apex found me and had me medevaced back to the base.

So I ended up right back where I started. That was when Dr. Elihu explained to me that I needed regular treatments that I could only get from Apex, or the process would kill me after all.

I didn’t want to die. I especially didn’t want to die like that, slowly in a hospital bed. I’d always wanted to die in combat, on my feet. I decided to play along, do as I was told, and figure out how to replicate the treatment so I could get away later.

But the only way I could deal with being an assassin was to let my panther take over. He was fine with lying in wait to kill people. So I let myself just become the predator.

In a way, it felt good. It was like being in combat or practicing martial arts. There was nothing but doing. I didn’t plan anything past the end of a mission. I didn’t grieve. I didn’t think about the past or future. I lost track of time. A year went by, and it barely felt like a month.

Then they sent me to kill an arms dealer. He was my age and had hair the color of a new penny. He was a bad guy, for sure— none of the people Apex sent me after were innocent— so I went ahead and took him out. But it made me think of Justin. Apex had killed him, and I’d never paid them back for that. And it reminded me of who I used to be.

I’d never figured out what the treatment was. And if I hadn’t in a year, I never would. But I was tired of being nothing but a predator. I wanted to be Shane again, even if it cost me my life.

I went back to the base and did the treatment, one last time. Once I was done, I broke into the base commander’s office and killed him. Then I went looking for Dr. Elihu. But the alarm got raised before I found him. I was near an exit, so I had to make a decision. I could either keep fighting and eventually get tranquilized, or run.