“We’re not owned by anyone. And we’re not here to hunt you for any other reason than revenge.”
“We have not harmed you,” Two said defensively.
“You wiped out an entire shifter Pride. That alone deserves death,” Rance growled from behind Two.
“Our objective was to carry out the attack! Orders are not questioned!” Two answered angrily.
“By who?” Steve demanded.
Two scoffed. “Do you think they’d let themselves be identified? All we know is it was retribution. It was ordered. They deserved it.”
“Really? And the women and children? What did they do to deserve to be slaughtered?” Steve shouted.
Two didn’t answer right away. Finally, he met Frenzy’s eyes again, looking to the male for an understanding of some type. “It is kill, or be killed. There are no others like us still alive. We are always being watched, tested for shortcomings. If we are found to be defective we are eliminated. We do not question orders!” he said angrily.
“Yeah, I remember orders like that. We all had them, but we didn’t wipe out women and children. And newsflash! We’re others, we’re alive! What do you mean there are no others? We counted at least nineteen sets of boot prints you left behind. And what the hell is up with that? Were you not taught to cover your damn tracks? Leave no evidence behind? If you want to blow something up, blow it the fuck up, but leave no evidence of yourself! Surely you were trained better than that!” Frenzy demanded.
Two’s demeanor shifted into defensive and defiant. He didn’t like the insults being hurled so casually at him. “If you are going to kill us, be done with it,” Two said.
“If we wanted you dead, you’d be dead, and you wouldn’t have seen it coming, you’d just be fucking gone,” Feral snapped.
Frenzy nodded. “Yep. What he said. So, here’s what’s going to happen boys and girls. You’re going to behave yourselves and we won’t have to shoot you, because what was that you said? Kill or be killed? Yeah, we’re not going to be killed. And we’d rather not kill you, but if you push us, all kinds of fun things can happen. But I digress because I’m about over this shit. Let me take a step back and start again all professional and shit.” He plastered one of his most unnerving smiles across his heavily freckled face. “We’re taking you back to where we live. It’s a real nice place with hundreds of people just like you. Some females that have chosen not to return to their families because ironically enough, they feel safer with us than the world as a whole. Some people that work there to make our lives easier, andthe General who found out about us and led the mission to save us. We got pools, places to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, game rooms, beer, dancing, movies, jobs if you want them, and more to come. You are free, my friends. You’ll have your own home, your own things from the clothes you wear to the furniture in your house and no one will take it from you. You will never have to do another damn thing you don’t want to do. No more teams, no more military drills, no more threats on your life, or torture and punishment.”
“Unless you want it,” Savage said, “the military teams, that is. We use the skills they taught us and the training they drilled into us, to hunt those that made us this way. We use the skills they gave us against them. And when we find them, we kill them. Unless we think they’re in a position to help us locate more of our kind, then after we get what we need from them we kill them. We do want revenge, but we want to free all those like us even more than we want revenge.”
Four vehicles, pulled up on the highway and came to a stop. “Like I said, we’re taking you to Alliance. You’re free. If you give us any trouble on the way home, you’ll be shot. You may die, you may not, it depends on who gets tired of dealing with you first,” Frenzy said.
“The rest of our kind that are with us…” Four said.
“If you can tell us how to find them, we’ll free them. If you don’t, we’ll free them anyway, it will just take a little longer to locate them,” Frenzy said.
“Let’s wrap this up. I don’t like standing here in the open,” Savage said.
“Same,” Frenzy said. “Let’s go, people. Our chariots await.”
Without hesitation Four stepped forward and started walking past them all. “Which vehicle?” he asked, very willingly and happily walking away from everyone, not the least bitworried about the weapons still pointing at him. They’d said he was free, and free sounded good to him.
Fierce and Storm fell in behind him to make sure the only place he went was the vehicle.
Frenzy tapped his ear piece. “Valid, get out and let these males see which car you’re driving.”
“Tell Valid to get in the car with Hail, we’ll take one car with two from this team, the other can ride with you and your team back to Alliance,” Savage said.
“Fierce! Storm! Take Four to our car,” Frenzy called out.
“You coming? Or do we put you down right here?” Feral asked the other two males.
Five and Two looked at each other. “We’re coming,” Two said.
“But you have to rescue the others or they’ll be tortured, possibly killed, because we didn’t return,” Five said.
“How long do you have until you’re supposed to report back?” Frenzy asked.
“Dawn tomorrow,” Two said.
“Better get your ass in gear and tell us where to locate the others like you, then, huh?” Feral said. “Let’s move, people.”
As the two remaining males were escorted to the waiting vehicles by Frenzy and the rest of the Variant, Rance and the shifters finished searching the field. When they were done, they walked over to the vehicles, too.
