Free Hidden by Mason Sabre Page A

A newspaper lay strewn across the floor. It was as if they had been attacked by a pack of wolves.
    At the back was a private room—an office. Maybe it was where Cathy and Jeff did all the paperwork. It held a small table, a chair and a microwave. It met all the requirements for someone who needed to live at work. The sound of shuffling caught his attention, and Malcolm stood perfectly still, listening. He honed in on it. It was coming from what seemed to be a utility cupboard. He strode over and yanked the door open.
    Inside, a young woman put her arms up. She was bleeding. “Please, don’t hurt me.” She was shaking and crying.
    “Where are Cathy and Jeff?”
    The girl cried harder and brought her hands to her face. She let out deep sobs that wracked her entire body. Malcolm leaned down to her and pulled her hands away from her face.
    “What happened here? Where are the Knuths?”
    “I don’t know,” she cried.
    “I don’t have time for this. You work for them. Where are they?”
    The girl just cried harder, and Malcolm let himself breathe for a moment, swallowing down the anger that threatened to bubble out and made him want to shake the girl for answers, but that would get neither of them anywhere.
    “I didn’t mean to get them in trouble,” the girl wailed. “Please don’t leave me here. It’s all my fault.”
    “What is your fault?”
    The girl slowly got to her feet. Her wounds were mostly superficial, but she moved with a limp. She heaved in a breath, her face red, mostly from crying. “I told him about the baby. I didn’t mean to. I’d just … I’d never seen a mix baby before.”
    “Who?
    She wiped her face. “My boyfriend. He came here with Norton’s men. I didn’t know he would …”
    Malcolm didn’t let her finish.
    Norton’s men.
    Shit .
    Norton was the company who crafted the liquid silver. They were the ones who made weapons that stopped Others . What they wanted a mix-breed baby for, Malcolm had no idea, but whatever it was, it would not be good.
     

Chapter Nine
    Cathy stood at the clearing at the centre of the woodland, holding her paw off the ground. It throbbed in time to the beating of her heart and she was certain that it was broken. The coppery taste remained in her mouth where she had bitten the man, bits of flesh stuck in her teeth irritating her. He might have busted her arm, but she sure as hell took one chunk out of his leg. She wanted to rest her paw down on the ground, but even the slightest touch had her growling and wincing with it, causing pain to lance through her and into her shoulder like lightning.
    The young man in front of her clutched at his leg. Blood soaked through his jeans and his not-so-injured girlfriend stood next to him. “Where did your husband go?”
    That was what they wanted to know. They wanted her to show them, but she would not. They’d raced after his bike, raced around the back, but he was gone and they chased him. It had given Cathy the chance to shift and go after them, but the man had kicked her and twisted her paw until she felt the bone inside snapping. Now she stood with them again, only this time two Humans stood either side of her. Another man stood behind the young one. He came up last. He was different to the rest, wearing a suit and well spoken. In his hand was a gun, one of the guns with the silver in.
    “There are plenty of places you know that I can shoot you and it won’t be fatal.” He pulled two glass tubes from his top pocket and pushed them into the barrel of the gun. He signalled one of the Humans at the side, a young man, and he obeyed without hesitation, moving towards Cathy. She could see him in her peripheral vision, but refused to turn her head and give him the satisfaction of thinking she feared him. He had a gun too, though. Her heart thumped when she heard the click and felt the cold metal press against her fur and skin. The silver was like the warmth of a fire beside her, an inch closer and it would burn.