"Has to be; otherwise there'd be more Shifters than humans."
"Maybe you just don't recognize a Shifter when you see him." I couldn't prevent the snide comment from slipping out but regretted it as soon as Mason said, "You know we can rip those stitches right out of Connor. We could even inflict some more wounds if we wanted, worse wounds."
I gritted my teeth. "Humans outnumber Shifters."
"Thank you. See how easy it is when we all cooperate?"
Thank God, he didn't ask any more questions until I was satisfied with the work his dad had done on Connor. It wasn't the prettiest stitching I'd ever seen, but it wasn't as though I planned to frame it and hang it on the wall. It just needed to do its job—stop the bleeding until Connor woke up and could tend to his own wounds.
To my immense shock, Mason let me take a shower to wash off all the blood. Monique served as my bodyguard and stayed in the bathroom to make sure I didn't try to make a run for it. But her presence was totally unnecessary. I wasn't going to leave Connor.
"You know I never really believed it was possible," Monique called through the shower curtain. "The ability to change into another shape. It just seemed so improbable, something better suited to the SciFi channel."
Scrubbing my body hard, I didn't answer.
"But the pay was so good, you know? I'm the oldest of seven. My parents aren't well-off. I was trying to do what I could to help out."
If she was seeking forgiveness for her part in this experiment, she was looking in the wrong place.
Monique was taller than I was but sweats are somewhat adjustable so she let me borrow a pair that she never used in public, but used solely for hanging around her house. She liked them large so she'd be comfy. What was loose on her was snug on me.
She also located some blankets and borrowed a sweatshirt from Johnson that I could take to Connor. Not that I thought he'd wear it. It had the Bio-Chrome logo imprinted above their slogan: "Studying chromosomes for a better tomorrow."
"When you brought us breakfast this morning, you knew what they had planned," I said.
She appeared remarkably sad when she nodded. "Yeah. For what it's worth, we all thought it was a bad idea—but Mason is obsessed with the medical ramifications. Don't you understand the lives that we could save?"
"The Shifters don't hold the cure. Do you really believe you can transfer abilities that easily? There are creatures with the ability to regenerate missing limbs. Do you think they'd provide us with that capability if we sucked the life out of them and put them in a test tube?"
"They're not as similar to us as the werewolves are."
"Shifters," I corrected her.
I expected her to take me to an interrogation room like I'd often seen in movies: one table, one hard chair, a dim light bulb hanging from a cord.
Instead she took me into an opulent room that was all white furniture and black decor. Mason and his father were sitting in large, plush chairs. Wilson and Johnson were standing nearby, tranq guns at the ready. Maybe they were worried that I'd try to overpower them. But all I wanted was to get this interview over and get back to Connor.
Mason indicated the sofa. "Make yourself comfortable."
After everything that had happened, this moment was surreal. I tried not to moan at the luxurious comfort that enveloped me when I sat. It was a sharp contrast to the concrete floor on which I'd spent the night and Connor was now lying.
"Help yourself," Dr. Keane said, waving his hand over the coffee table in front of me where tiny bubbles rose through the liquid in a champagne flute and appetizers waited on black plates.
"Let's just get this done," I said impatiently, anxious to get back to Connor—even though he probably had no desire to see me return now that he knew the truth about me.
"All right." Mason leaned forward. "So Shifters are born."
"Yes."
"Do they always have the ability to shift?"
"No."
He arched a brow at my reticent answer. "Explain."
"The ability to shift is dormant until the girl turns seventeen and the guy turns eighteen. During the first full moon following the designated birthday, the first shift occurs. It can't be stopped. It can't be controlled. After that, a Shifter learns to shift at will."
"Is everyone in Tarrant a Shifter?"
"No." We had a lot of tourists, campers, and nature buffs who came through, so it wasn't a lie.
"The tattoos I've seen—what do they signify?"
"Shifters are connected to wolves and wolves mate for life. When a guy finds his mate, he has a Celtic symbol representing her name—or as close to it as possible—inked on his shoulder. It's tradition."
"Celtic. Are your origins in Great Britain?"
"We don't know for sure. We think so, but…" This was hard. Telling him so much.
"But?" he prodded.
"Shifters live all over the world. Different clans."
"Are they all wolf?"
"No, but I've never seen one that wasn't."
"So the different animals don't mix?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I just know I've never seen one."
"Interesting." He ran his fingers over his face as though he could see it changing into that of a wolf. His actions gave me the creeps.
He narrowed his eyes in thought. "So what are the sherpas protecting in the forest?"
"Little hidey holes like the cave where you found Connor and the others a couple of weeks ago."
"That's it?" he asked in disbelief.
"Isn't that enough?"
"I thought maybe there was a village or a secret city."
No way was I going to tell him about Wolford. "Shifters are nature lovers. They like to hang out in forests. As you saw with Connor, clothes come off when they shift so they have areas where they hide things—extra food, clothes. That sort of thing."
He leaned forward, his eyes searching my face. "Tell me everything you know that I haven't asked."
I wasn't going to reveal that when in wolf form, a Shifter could communicate telepathically with other Shifters who were also in wolf form. That was Connor's secret weapon. It was the only chance he had to save himself. The only chance the Shifters had to possibly stop word of their existence from reaching beyond Bio-Chrome.