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After Northern Ontario, they’d had to take two weeks to recover, and L’s hands had been full quite literally of the Wolves during rehab. Canine no longer feared the petite woman, after having her fingers working that dislocated shoulder during the healing period. Tundra always returned from her appointments with less of a limp and a glazed, relaxed smile on her face.
“You’ve wrecked my whole team, Líle. They’re addicted to your care more than working at this stage, I think.” Chris had teased, sitting at the lunch table with the whole group that Friday.
“I wouldnae say ‘wrecked’, per say. Maybe trained, like good pups.” She winked. She pulled a travel-sized bottle of massage oil out of her pocket. Popping the cap open, she watched ten of the twelve people around the table’s heads snapped up in attention at the sound. “See? Trained, the whole lot of ‘em.”
Chris snickered and shook his head, taking a small bite of his lunch when the heads resumed their previous positions.
“If you don’t marry her for her hands alone Chris, I’m going to.” Jill grinned over her plate.
“Not if I get to her first, Supercop. I love you, but you can’t do what she does with those magic fingers.” Carlos smiled brightly.
“She got with Alpha first, hands off.” Canine stared the two down.
“Back off.” Umber growled playfully.
“Sorry Jill, you heard them. She’s Pack now. Can’t let you have her.” Chris smiled innocently.
“You don’t quite pull off innocence, Redfield. I’ve known you too long, and it’s your Squad that seems to have claimed squatter’s rights with your lady instead of you.”
“I claimed her a long time ago. Before the pups came along.” He leveled her with a look that made Carlos and Rebecca sit up in their seats.
“Dios mio… I knew he was a fucking wolf at heart. Nobody that big isn’t a werewolf.”
“But it wasn’t a public claiming. Is that how we got all the whole Squad? All this talk about pups and such... Was there a mating ceremony we missed out on?” Becca teased.
L snorted and shook her head, “I’ll nae tell. At least nae while the sun is up.” She stole a bite of baked potato off Redfield’s plate, putting a few slices of her apple on his in exchange.
“Ms. L should have a call sign, seems as she’s Pack now.” Piers ventured.
“Come to think of it, West needs one too.” Lobo pondered.
“I think Kennedy already came up with one for West. Wasn’t it something like Shadow Daddy? I think that’s what he said.” L smirked.
“Oh, fuck you L!” Leon threw a wadded up napkin at her.
“Cannae do that. That’s incest, ye ken? What with West bein’ yer mom and shadow daddy. I hear he isnae opposed to doing both. I’m Irish, nae a hillbilly.” Swatting the napkin away in time as the table erupted in laughter.
“Where is West anyways? He usually pops in on Fridays.” Umber asked.
“He had some appointments today, cannae dodge all the responsibilities all the time.” L smiled mischievously.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following Monday, the Hound Wolf Squad and their Captain found themselves about to be deployed on yet another joint op with Kennedy, West tagging along as per his contract. For the first time in months, it went well. B.O.W.s. were eliminated, data and samples retrieved, and West looked satisfied in his seat on the Osprey back.
“Good eatin’?” Piers joked, getting the attention of the rest of the passengers.
“Aye. Always enjoy a free meal.”
“You should ask what he calls the different viruses.” Redfield looked up from his report writing with a small smile.
Piers and the rest perked, “Oh? T-Virus?”
“Capri-Sun.”
“G?”
“Maxwell House. Good to the last drop.”
“C?”
“Squid ink. Lil bit fishy.”
“T-Veronica?”
"Spicy Soy.”
“A?”
“Ambrosia. Sweet.”
“T-Phobos?”
“Lemon juice.”
“T-Abyss?”
“Salty Static.”
“Las Plagas?”
“Crack. Speedy crack. Worse than cocaine in my system.”
“I’d pay to see that…” Tundra mused.
Leon snorted, “You don’t want to see that. Trust me.”
“I didnae hear you complaining about it in the Eastern Slav when you saw it, Kennedy.”
“G-T-C hybrid?”
“Umami.”
"Uroboros?”
“Ooooh. My favorite. Forbidden Spaghetti.”
The Wolves lost it at that one.
“F-forbidden spaghetti?!” Umber Eyes wheezed.
“Aye. Goes down smooth and very filling, like a good spaghetti dinner.” He grinned manically.
“That’s nuts.” Lobo was laughing too hard.
“What’s your first name anyways? Besides Virus Gourmand?” Night Howl queried with a small smile.
“It starts with an ‘L’, wee pup. If ye guess, I’ll cook you dinner, no viruses seasonings added."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After they’d landed, showered, debriefed, and were headed out, West walked with Chris back to his Jeep to catch a ride. He’d showered while everyone else was debriefing, no desire to talk to the Director or Hunnigan today.
“You’re a terrible tease, West.”
“It’s a lifelong habit, Big Boy. Besides, wee Howl looked at the footage again. Can see it on his face. His brain willnae let ‘im process what he saw there yet.”
“They are going to have so, so many questions.” Chris chuckled as they climbed in.
“Aye, and if they play nice, I’ll answer.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two Weeks Later…
Kennedy was running up the stairs, slamming his way through the door into the Hound Wolf Squad’s bullpen and speeding to Chris’ office like a man on fire.
“Leon?! What’s wrong?”>
“They took West. A new branch posing as DSO under orders from the President tranquilized him and snatched him one hour ago. Unmarked SUVs. If I hadn’t been looking at the footage of the parking garage with the car break-ins, I wouldn’t have seen it. He was supposed to meet with Hunnigan and I about a new op coming down the pipeline at three this afternoon.” He shoved a USB drive into the Redfield’s laptop and played the footage, hoping that Chris could recognize some of the blurry faces.
Chris was white-faced as they watched.
“Wait… replay that last five seconds. There. Him. Wasn’t he the one screaming at West when he hopped the fence with Sherry?”
“Fuck. You’re right, that’s Parker. He was suspended without pay for two weeks after that incident and demoted down a full rank for recklessly endangering civilians when chasing West down.” Leon growled, “Means we’ve got a damn mole in the DSO again. I’ll alert Ingrid.”
“I’ll let the Director know West and L have been taken. Because they can’t take one without the other.” Chris rubbed his face and growled at the stress. “I’ll get the Squad on this too immediately. This is now top priority.”
“We’ll find them, Chris. We’ll get L back in your arms and West to safety.”
“I know.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It took almost a month in total from the initial abduction, through the tracking of Parker and sifting through CCTV and satellite imagery. Rentals traced, police reports rifled through, black market contacts pressed for information, and it all led up to this moment.
Deep in Tunica County, Mississippi, there was an abandoned automotive factory that had been retrofitted with a basement lab. The schematics were sketched by a frightened engineer that had been paid off to keep silent by a shadowy corporation that seemed both nebulous and nameless.
The comms were only active on an as-needed basis, and permission to use deadly force was temporarily restricted until the missing BSAA contractors could be located. Moving as one unit, Redfield, Kennedy, Valentine, Oliveira, Dr. Chambers, and the Wolves made their way in. Each room was an exhibition of the macabre with the data; diagrams of internal organ structure, healing factor rates, bone marrow samples, blood, and other things that the Wolves couldn’t readily identify. Every room was devoted to the studying of some part of the captives.
The worst yet was the Regeneration Rate notes Tundra came across. She skimmed the information and threw up immediately in the nearest trash bin.
“They cut out her uterus to see if it would grow back. Because she’s kin to West. His left lung grew back, after they removed it.” She heaved, tears pouring down her face as Lobo rubbed her back and struggled to keep the bile in his throat from spewing out.
Clearing the security room, they were finally able to get the location of West. No L in sight.
“Kennedy, Rebecca, you’re with me to get West. He’s going to need medical care if those cameras are showing us real-time images.” Chris growled. “Jill, Carlos, you take the Wolves and keep us clear. Get everything; wipe the hard drives when you’re done. The FBI is taking custody of the scientists we’ve captured for interrogation, as they have domestic authority, but they will be liaising with us with all intelligence they gather. It is to be passed only to myself, Kennedy, and Dr. Chambers.”
They hurried to their assignments, Redfield kicking in the door to the chamber West was held in. The room was a sight straight from a horror movie.
West was strapped to a stainless-steel operating table in nothing but a thin pair of shorts. An IV was pumping a constant stream of sedatives into his left arm, the right was splayed oddly, with metal rods impaling through the upper arm above the elbow, one through the center of his forearm, and a third straight through the palm of that right hand. Electrode prongs were buried into the meat of his left thigh, with burns around the puffy, reddened tissue there, and clamps connecting to a car battery were hooked onto the impaling rods. The worst was his torso… flayed open with cadaver clamps holding the flesh apart, internals on display with a camera pointed and recording the rate of regeneration.
His heart was still beating, somehow.
“Rebecca, get him closed up first. Then we need to ease off the sedation.” Chris paced over, touching the face of the unconscious male gently.
“I’m on it. They have fresh suture kits… I think they were intending to do more before we interrupted everything.” She teared up a little, going to start the emergency closing to get West a fraction less vulnerable for transport.
“We’re going to need a safehouse, Chris. No way will West make it on the plane back to New York in this state.”
“I already have one, co-ordinates are programmed into the third transport van we drove here. I’m not leaving West unattended any time soon. The Squad can go back to Headquarters, but I can’t. Not for at least two weeks. Maybe longer until I can get him somewhat stable and fed.”
“His stomach was…removed.” Kennedy pointed to the organ on the surgical tray next to them.
“It’ll take around a week for it to grow back. This isn’t the first time.” Chris’ expression was grim.
“Okay, I’ve done a quick stitching, but he really should have a plastic surgeon to close this up better. I’m taking out these prongs first, then the rods, then the sedation. He’s going to be in so much pain… but at least the blood isn’t a problem. I don’t think there is any left.”
“He doesn’t care about the pain, Becca. Just need the foreign objects out so he can knit back together.”
“Right.” She continued on with her tasks, packing the wounds from the rods before wrapping the entire arm in compression bandages, as well as his torso. She balked when she checked the IV bag. “Oh my God.”
“What?!” Chris growled.
“This is a 64 mg drip of Carfentanil. It only takes 2 mg to knock out an elephant and kill fifty grown adults.” Her voice was barely a whisper as she shut it down and removed the needle from the left arm.
“It’s pure poison… that’s probably what’s kept him alive this far and stopped him from escaping.” Leon rubbed his face. “Lucky that he’s not human, otherwise this would be a cadaver recovery.”
Within three minutes, West’s eyelids slowly began to flutter. Throat bobbing, he hissed almost silently as he struggled to wake around the agony. Feeling a warm hand on his face, he groaned weakly.
“Shhhh. We’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re safe now. It’s just me, Becca, and Leon.” Chris spoke softly, stroking the cheekbone with a thumb to bring a little comfort.
“Reddddfffielll. C-cannae hold this shhhape...mush…lon’r. L?”
“I know, it’s okay. The four of us are going to a safehouse, everyone else isn’t invited. Nobody else is going to find out today. As far as they know, L escaped and is still missing.”
“Kay…” West’s head lolled to the side, passing back out.
Wrapping a blanket tenderly around the weak form, Redfield carefully scooped the limp body up and hurried out to the van, bypassing the Wolves with a speed that startled them. Kennedy and Rebecca hot on his heels. He cradled the body tenderly, accommodating the weight shift as they stepped into the cool evening air and getting into the van.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jill was overseeing the remainder of the lab clean up, and the chain of custody proceedings with the FBI. Carlos was working with the Wolves to wrap everything up on their end. He was also doing his best to divert their attention from their Captain’s whereabouts.
“Sir, should we head to the safehouse soon? We are all finished now and usually check in with Alpha before heading back to Headquarters when we are separated on missions.” Canine spoke, the others nodding behind him.
“That’s a negative, Canine. We have orders to go directly back to New York.”
“What about search and rescue for L? She’s missing.” Tundra’s brows furrowed in worry.
“Your Alpha is already on that case now, Kennedy and Chambers with a team will be overseeing West’s medical care until he’s stable for transport.”
The Wolves weren’t buying it. Something was off, big time. The bundled body in Redfield’s arms had looked smaller than West’s sprawling limbs at the two second glance they’d had as the man had run past them out the door.
Oliveira was lying to their faces, he’d swallowed twice after relaying the orders.
Something was really off.
Night Howl’s brain finally clicked the puzzle pieces together. He paled and shook slightly with the effort of not barking out the words his mind produced. Instead, he managed a shaky breath or two, before squaring his shoulders and looking to Carlos.
“I know L’s location. Pass that on to the Captain when you can.”