A quetzal in the hospital? When the alarm sounded, Talina had felt a rush of cold blood run through her veins. She had leaped out of Shig’s office, slammed open the weapons locker door, and stripped a rifle out of the rack. Even as she went sprinting down the admin building hallway the siren began to blare its deadly warning.
“Make a hole, people!” she had hollered at the knot of folks waiting outside of Yvette’s office to file paperwork.
“What have you got, Two Spots?” she had demanded, accessing her com system as people scrambled to get out of her way.
“Felicity says that a man and woman burst into the hospital carrying a child on a plank. And she insists that they had a quetzal with them. She just turned and bolted her door before she called me.”
“A man, woman, and child. With a quetzal?”
“You know as much as I do.”
That had been before she, Trish, and Step Allenovich had carefully stepped through the entrance to the hospital. She’d seen the dusty Beta parked in the street outside.
Now she stood, her body protected by Raya’s office doorway, her rifle at the ready as she scanned the hallway. She could just see the Wild One’s rifle barrel. A military weapon, capable of full-auto fire.
The guy wasn’t kidding when he said he could fill the hallway with blood and body parts. And worse, the fool had the Supervisor hostage?
“Listen, no one has to get hurt,” Talina called. “What’s this about a quetzal?”
“His name is Rocket!” the guy hiding in Kalico’s room bellowed back. “He’s not going to hurt anyone!”
“Iji here,” the botanist announced in her ear bud. “We’re in through the rear. Spiro might be able to shoot the guy through the Supervisor’s window.”
“Roger that.” Talina peeked around the door jamb. To the gunman, she shouted. “What on Earth possessed you to bring a quetzal here?”
“He’s bonded with my daughter,” the guy shouted back. “Just get the damned doctor down here to check Kylee out! She’s badly injured. Maybe dying. And leave Rocket alone. He’s not going to hurt anyone. You get it?”
“Hey, take it easy.”
“Easy?” he bellowed back. “We just came to get a child medical attention, and now I’m up to my ass in the shit! You hurt my kid, or her quetzal, and you’d better be ready for hot rounds.”
Hot rounds? The way he talked? Talina frowned.
“Stand down, Marine. No reason to get into the shit. Not here. If I come out, can we talk? No tricks?”
“Best news I’ve heard all day. But where’s the doctor?”
“Two Spots? Where’s Raya?”
“Locked down at the cafeteria.”
“Escort her to the hospital.”
To the marine, she called, “She’s on the way. Coming out!”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Trish called from where she sat ready on the other side of the hall, gun braced on Felicity’s door frame.
“Hey, who knows more about quetzals than me?”
To her com, she said, “Everybody hold. Let me see if I can figure this out.”
Taking a deep breath, Talina set her rifle butt-down against the wall and stepped out into the corridor, hands up. “No tricks,” she reminded as she walked slowly forward. She had that eerie, queasy feeling as the military rifle’s muzzle centered on her gut.
She stopped no more than three paces from Kalico’s door and stared into the marine’s eyes. He might have been thirty, tanned, with a clear-eyed stare, the rock-solid type who’d been down-range, seen it all. She thought he looked vaguely familiar. One of Cap’s guys. His dress was unusual, textile rather than chamois or quetzal hide. But clearly handwoven.
“Supervisor?” Talina called. “You all right?”
“Hell no. These damn cuts aren’t healing. But if you mean has this guy hurt me? No.”
“Talina Perez, right?” the marine asked.
“You?”
“Mark.” The gun didn’t waver. “Don’t hurt my daughter or her quetzal.”
At that moment, a shadow played over the window on the opposite side of the room.
Talina accessed her com, ordering, “I said, everyone was to . . .”
The glass shattered as Lieutenant Spiro thrust a rifle barrel in, barely aiming as she fired past Kalico. The round tore through the marine’s arm, spattering blood and tissue. Cracked through the surgery door across the hall.
Talina jerked at the spatter.
The rifle fell with a clatter as the marine half spun. Talina was staring into his wide eyes, light brown. Clear. And watched as he slowly sank to the floor.
“He’s down,” Spiro said into her com. “Supervisor’s secure.”
Talina bit off a curse, dropping down as she bellowed, “Spiro, you stupid, fucking cow!” she snapped. “I had this under control!”
“Yeah, some control,” Spiro said, breaking out the last of the glass before levering herself through the window. “A guy with a gun was in the Supervisor’s room. Turns out it was a deserter, Mark Talbot. My only regret is that I took a snap shot and winged him instead of center-punching the piece of shit. Now, let’s kill this quetzal and get things back to normal.”
Talina ripped a zip tie from her belt, grabbed a bandage pack from the emergency tray beside the door, and pulled the pad tight to stanch the blood from the marine’s wound. Fortunately the bone wasn’t broken, but he had a hell of divot through the triceps.
Talbot, huh? She barely had time to wonder where the other two were. How they’d ended up as Wild Ones.
Talbot was gasping, trying to sit up.
“Stay down,” Talina growled.
“Not the quetzal. It’ll kill Kylee. Kill me.”
“What the fuck?” Spiro muttered, pushing past Kalico.
Talina beat her to the surgery door, eased it open and peered around the jamb to see a blonde woman crouched down in the corner, her arms around a young quetzal that was shooting patterned flashes of yellow and black, its collar fully expanded, tongue flicking.
And there, on the surgery, lay a blonde girl. Maybe ten. Covered with a blanket.
Spiro pushed past, raising her rifle. To the woman, she said, “Step back. Now!”
The blonde woman had tears in her eyes, was fighting sobs. “You kill me first,” she said hesitantly. “Go on. Get it over. You murdering bastards!”
“Suit yourself,” Spiro told her emotionlessly, sighting down her rifle.
“Save them,” the quetzal whispered in Talina’s mind.
Talina suffered that palpitation of the heart as she shucked her pistol and jammed the muzzle against the back of Spiro’s head. The lieutenant froze.
“You press that trigger, you’re dead, bitch,” Talina crooned in Spiro’s ear. “Now, lower the rifle. You step back. Easy. And you walk your ass out of this hospital. And if I so much as see you here again today, I’ll consider it proof that you and I are going to settle this once and for all.”
From behind Talina, Kalico Aguila’s weary voice said, “Lieutenant, you are dismissed.”
“Ma’am! There’s a deadly animal right here! You can’t expect me—”
“Dismissed, Lieutenant!”
Talina stepped back, pistol up, finger hovering over the trigger. Every nerve in her body tingled as it jazzed on the adrenaline high of combat. In her gut, the quetzal was hissing and clawing.
As Spiro’s raging gaze met hers, Talina felt her mouth flood with saliva. For once, she was as ready as her quetzal to kill the woman.
“Later.” Spiro mouthed the word.
Talina nodded, flinty eyes meeting Spiro’s, fully aware that they’d passed far beyond the point of no return.
As Spiro left the room, Talina took a breath, seeing where Spiro’s bullet had shattered one of Raya’s surgical cabinets. A bottle of priceless antibiotic was exploded all over the inside of the cabinet, and daylight could be seen through the resultant hole in the wall.
Talina holstered her pistol, stepped over to the little girl, and lifted the blanket. They weren’t kidding about her leg and hip. “Ah, shit.”
“Don’t hurt Kylee,” the crouching blonde said. “Please. We’ll do anything. Pay anything. Just help her.”
Talina stepped over, crouching down where the woman and quetzal huddled in the corner. She thought something was familiar about the blonde. But the quetzal took her full attention. A juvenile, its three frightened eyes fixed on hers. From the colors shooting over its body, the creature was terrified.
On the table, the little girl was moaning in time to the quetzal’s deep-throated chittering. Damn, how closely linked were they?
The quetzal inside her was purring in reassurance. Like she’d done the right thing.
“It’s all right,” Talina told the panicked juvenile. Felt her mouth water as the little quetzal’s tongue flicked out, played softly across her lips. She forced some of her saliva past her lips, let the juvenile lick it, having no idea what she might be communicating.
Aloud, she said, “You’re safe now.” The quetzal’s colors shaded subtly into milder yellows and blacks.
“Tal?” Trish called from the hallway.
“Yeah. We’re cool. Get Raya in here. Now!”
Where she stood inside the door, Kalico had braced herself against the emergency tray, her gaze fixed on Talina, the woman, and the quetzal.
“How is my husband?” the blonde woman asked, still shaken.
“Shot in the arm.” Talina told her. “How in the hell could this have gone so bad?”
“Because, Perez,” the blonde woman said through gritted teeth, “you’re all murderers here. But your doctor is the only hope my daughter has.”