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“He doesn’t look in great shape,” Ash said. “Kind of skinny.”
“There’s scar tissue on his side and around his paws. They look like surgical scars.” Cleo frowned. “The kind of thing we’ve seen on other animals the Siblet experimented on.”
“Bone spurs would make a handy addition to those grotesque beasts they’re creating,” Georgia said.
“Have you escaped from the Siblet?” Cleo pulled a protein bar from her pocket, broke off a piece, and threw it to the silver rodent.
It grabbed it and chewed it down in two bites, then inched forward, sniffing the air.
“It must be a male,” Georgia said. “Food is always the way to a guy’s heart.”
Ash grinned. “It works for me. Isn’t that how you seduced me?”
“I thought it was the way Georgia always kicked your butt in the sparring arena that made you fall for her?” Cleo said.
“That too. She’s the perfect combination of fire and ice.”
“Quit it.” Georgia’s cheeks flushed.
“We’re not leaving this little guy behind. Not if he’s been involved in the Siblet experiments,” Cleo said. “No more cruelty for you.”
It took a few minutes of cajoling and throwing pieces of protein bar until the silver rodent was within touching distance. Cleo gently caught hold of him, and he went limp in her hand as if he expected to be punished.
“Yep, that’s a male.” Georgia inspected the silver rodent.
“We’ll take him back to the Apocalypse and he can pal up with your banty,” Cleo said.
Georgia shrugged. “Sure. They can cause trouble together.”
Cleo opened a pouch on her backpack, shifted the equipment into the main part of the pack, and tucked the silver rodent into it. She gave him the rest of the protein bar, then hoisted the backpack onto her shoulders.
“You need to see this,” Ash called out from a short distance away.
Cleo hurried along the corridor with Georgia. “What have you got?”
“Something I never want to meet when it’s alive.” Ash nudged a huge crocodile-like creature with his boot.
“What the hell is that?” Georgia knelt beside the body and ran a scanner over it.
“Look at the scales.” Dread trickled down Cleo’s spine. “Do they remind you of anything?”
“Gabblefoot scales,” Georgia said after a short pause. “You think the Siblet have perfected a camouflage ability on their beasts?”
“It’s impossible to know for sure now the creature’s dead.” Cleo ran her hands over the scales. “They could act as a camouflaging mechanism.”
“Its tail is a mess,” Ash said. “There are dozens of small puncture marks all over it.”
Cleo glanced over her shoulder at the silver rodent, who hissed at the dead beast. “Maybe our little friend here is useful in a fight.”
“Such a tiny thing couldn’t kill this creature,” Ash said. “It wouldn’t have stood a chance, especially not if this thing was camouflaged.”
“If there’s something more lethal than this beast in these corridors, we shouldn’t hang around any longer than we have to.” Cleo stood from her examination of the dead creature. “Let’s make a note of the layout of the site, record some samples of this beast, and then head back to the Apocalypse.”
“How about we blow this place to pieces?” Georgia said. “If this is the Siblet main base, we can cut off their head by destroying this place.”
“Let’s gather as much information as we can before doing that,” Cleo said. “We’ll check the rest of the rooms, make a recording of everything, and then report back to High Command.”
Ash and Georgia worked on the sample collection, while Cleo headed into a room on her right. Her nose wrinkled at the iron rich smell in the air. It smelled like something was bleeding out in here.
She turned the corner, and her heart froze. She forgot how to breathe as she stared into a large cage.
A dead-looking Hunter was chained up behind the bars.
Cleo staggered forward, a strangled groan slipping from her lips. “Hunter?” What the hell was he doing here? How had he been captured by the Siblet? He was supposed to be fighting on some frontline with other Apexians, not be in this underground hellhole.
With a trembling hand, Cleo reached for the cage bars. Hunter hadn’t responded to her voice, and as she got closer, she couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
Her heart constricted as a vice wrapped around it. Hunter couldn’t be dead.
