Skin Walkers: Leto

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Cover Artwork done by:

Cindy Hubbard

Cover fonts, spine, and back cover done by:

Cindy
Hubbard

This story is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidences are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Susan A. Bliler.

DEDICATION

DJ

Thank you
for always being there brother

Illegitimi non carborundum

Chapter 1

Shy swallowed hard.  Her wet fingers trembled as they reached up for the doorknob.  A second loud explosion rocked the lab and had her fearful hands latching onto the doorknob and turning frantically.

She’d been held captive at Megalya Labs for what she guessed had been
about five months.  A former intern, she’d been sickened when she discovered that the so-called scientists were experimenting on live human specimens. 

Confronting Dr. Chambers had been the biggest mistake of her life.  When she’d threatened to call the authorities and have the lab shut down, he’d had
her hauled from the lab.  At first she thought she was being escorted from the building.  She’d fought and cursed the other technicians for allowing Dr. Chambers to abuse the handsome man she’d seen strapped to the table in the glass partitioned exam room.  She wasn’t so lucky.  Instead of being ejected from the lab, she was dragged to her own exam room where she’d been beaten, stripped, and examined against her will, and that had only been the beginning of her hell.

  At twenty-six, she was just finishing her final semester of college.  As part of the requirement to earn her degree in Cellular Biology, it was mandatory to complete a ten-week internship with one of the dozen or so medical facilities and labs that existed in the North West region.  Foolishly, she’d chosen the Megalya facility because it boasted some of the most renowned Biomedical Scientists of the generation.  She knew from research that their work was far more advanced than that of the other labs…if she’d only known then just exactly how advanced! Her intention was to use the internship experience to help get her into graduate school.  Now, she didn’t want to ever see another fucking lab for as long as she lived, even if it was only a few more moments!

A loud crash sounded overhead.  The cement walls of
the small exam room she was kept in fractured.  Huge cracks opened up on two of the walls and zigzagged up and across the ceiling.  She blinked and sputtered as debris rained down on her upturned face. 
God, please don’t cave in, please don’t cave in, please don’t cave in!

Her eyes darted to the sink in the corner that had been shooting water into the air since the initial explosion had shaken her from her sleep.  The water on the ground was slowly rising and she wasn’t sure if she was more terrified of drowning or of being crushed by the thick concrete ceiling. 

Turning she gripped the doorknob with both hands and attempted to open it.  Five months of being underfed, abused, kept in the dark, and experimented on had left her weak. 
Too weak!
  A whimper escaped her lips as the overhead lighting blinked out for a few fleeting seconds.  The alarms that had been screeching for the past ten minutes ceased momentarily then shrieked back to life when the lights flashed back on. 

“H
ELP!”  Shy screamed as she banged on the door.  She didn’t want to die here away from her family.  Her thoughts flashed to her sister and a dull ache settled in her chest. 

She’d wondered over the past five months that she’d been held captive what her family had been told.  Had they even been told anything?
  If left to her imagination, her poor mother probably thought she’d been murdered and buried in the woods.  Now knowing what she did of the Megalya technicians, Shy was certain they’d formulated some elaborate lie and fed it to her family.  Her parents would take it at face value, but her sister would be an entirely different story. 

Just as Shy would if the situation were reversed, she knew her sister would search to the ends of the earth to uncover the truth.  The two talked daily…hell almost hourly and there was
no way Shy would disappear without first talking to her sister.  It had been so long though that Shy wondered if they all thought she was dead. 

The thought of her
sister mourning her death sparked Shy to scream louder and bang harder on the door.  “HELP!  LET ME OUT! I’M IN HERE!  SOMEBODYYYY!

The sound of gunfire had her clamping her mouth shut.  She pressed her ear to the thick iron door and strained to listen harder.  Just on the other side of the door she could hear muffled voices.  With her ear still to the door, she was thrown back with the wind whooshing out of her lungs as the door was kicked in.

Pain throbbed in her chest and jaw but were a secondary concern as her lungs struggled to take in air.  Her eyes took in the dark clad form that filled the doorway as she used her arms and legs to scramble away from the menacing figure.  As the large man entered, black smoke billowed around him and poured into the room.  Shy moved faster to get away.  When her back hit the wall, she could only watch as a second person appeared.  Both wore full black fatigues and had their faces covered with dark masks.  Dark glasses hid any view of their eyes.  They looked like some military Special Forces team, and the automatic weapons each man held left Shy wondering if she should be relieved or terrified.

“Walker?”  One of the men asked in a gruff tone.  She couldn’t tell which one spoke though because the masks covered their mouths.

How do they know about Walkers?

“
Can’t scent her.  Too much smoke.”  The man closest to her bent and grabbed her wrists, hauling a startled Shy to her feet before lifting her into his arms.  “Better safe than sorry.”  He motioned toward the other man with his head, “Find Conn.  Let him know we have a female prisoner.  Tell him to send Aries.”

Terror was instant. 
Prisoner? 
Unsure whether they meant that they knew she was being held against her will or whether they meant she was now
their
prisoner Shy screeched, “Wait!”  She tried to push out of the man’s hold, but had little strength to do more than place her hands on his chest.  “Wh-where are you taking me?”

He turned his face towards hers,
but his covered features gave no hint at emotion.  “Stay calm.  We’re getting you out of here.” 

Still unsure of whether he was a “good guy” or a “bad guy”, Shy stammered, “Wh-who are you?”

He was already carrying her effortlessly out the door when he resp
onded simply by saying, “Walker.”

“Walker?  Is that your name?”

The man stalled and turned to stare at her.  Shy only saw her own reflection in his dark glasses and cringed at the sight of herself. 
Her cell hadn’t had a mirror, only a metal frame cot with a flimsy wanna-be mattress, one small sink and metal toilette. 

Shy couldn’t take her eyes off her reflection, s
he looked different.  Too thin, too pale, too haggard.  Her once glossy, fiery, red hair was now dull and lifeless.  Even her once vibrant blue eyes now seemed dull and flat.  Her self assessment quickly ended when the stranger leaned forward and sniffed at her loudly for several minutes before finally pulling back.  He began walking again, this time much faster. 

“Wait!”  Too much excitement and adrenaline left her wiped. 
She rested her head against the guy's chest.  “Th-there’s another prisoner.”  She didn’t want to forget about the captive that had caused her own incarceration. 

“
Don’t worry; my Commander’s got your mate.”

Shy tried to lift her head and failed, able only to gape at t
he man. “My what?”

“Mate.  My Commander has freed him.  He’s safe, you don’t need to worry.”

“He’s not…” she didn’t get to finish the sentence.  Another loud explosion rocked the facility.  The man holding her crushed her head into his chest and took off at a dead run. She couldn’t see anything but heard a loud crash just behind them. 

The man holding her yelled, “Shit!  It’s coming down
!”

Shy kept her eyes tightly closed and curled one fist into the man’s
thick military-style vest as she silently prayed,
Please not like this!  I don’t want it to end like this!
 

Breathing became difficult and she realized that dust and smoke filled the air.  The man holding her continued to run with her as if she weighed nothing.  The loud moan of metal twisting could be heard and everything was silent for one eerie moment before the ground shook and an ear shattering crash rattled her teeth.  Shy held her breath and knew she was dead.  A few heart pounding moments later she felt the blistering cold of a
Canadian winter’s night freeze her still wet skin.  Her eyes flew open and the first thing she saw was the breath she held escape her lips on a cloudy sob of relief. 

It was dark, and more fatigue-
clad figures raced toward them.

“She’s unharmed,” the man holding her spoke.  “She’s the other one’s angel.  Where’s Aries?”

Someone approached.  “They have the male captive in the chopper, he put up a fight.” The other man who spoke laughed, “He thought Conn was Megalya.  Aries is tending to Conn.”

Conn? 
Shy remembered the name, it was rare.  The logs at the Megalya facility had detailed records on an individual named Conn whom they believed was one of the elusive Skin Walkers.

The man holding Shy growled.

“It’s alright York.  Conn’s fine, it’s just a bloody nose, but you know how Aries overreacts whenever he gets even a scratch.”

York? 
Shy lifted her head to stare at the young man standing in front of them.  Her gaze met that of a young man with soft brown eyes.  She stared at him as the adrenaline wore off and she began shaking uncontrollably. 

“Shit bro, she’s soaked.  You better get her onboard before she freezes to death.”

She was pulled tighter into York’s chest as he stalked toward a waiting helicopter.  “James, tell Conn we’ll follow in the BlackBird.”

The young man smiled over at them, “Okay.  I’m riding with Conn and Aries in the Raven.”  His smiled broadened, “I wanna be there when her mate wakes up.”  He beamed at Shy, “Your Walker’s a bad ass.  I haven’t seen anyone give Conn such a run for his money since the time Aries called him on.”

These people thought the male she’d attempted to rescue was a Walker!  She hadn’t believed that anyone outside of the Megalya was aware of the supposed existence of Walkers.  She wanted to ask the young man how he knew what a Walker was but he sprinted into the darkness; besides her teeth were chattering so badly she doubted she’d be able to formulate a coherent sentence. 

York tucked her head closer to his chest and took off at a run.  She felt him lunge and she could feel the weightlessness of being airborne before the sound of feet slamming on metal registered.  He released the hold on her head an
d she looked up to discover they were in the cabin of a military-style helicopter. 

“Aries coming?”

Shy scanned the cabin and was unsettled to discover three other soldiers crammed along the bench opposite them. 

“No,” York responded loudly over the sound of the blades as they whipped to life.  “Let’s move!”