Chance

The double doors of the small clinic burst open. Two women covered in blood rushed through the doors. Once inside, they stood dazed for a moment by the bright florescent lights.

"I need help here!" the more upright of the two women shouted. Her blue eyes flashed with anger and her hair looked even whiter under the harsh lights.

The other woman remained silent, her blue-eyes glassy, one hand on her stomach trying to keep the hole there plugged.

From somewhere, the sounds of running feet could be heard. Two nurses came into the room already in gore-stained scrubs.

"Jesus!" one blurted out.

The other shouted back down the hall. "We need a gurney! And hurry up, it's Agent Pavel, she's been shot."

The two moved to take Agent Pavel, only to be met with a growl from the white-haired woman.

One nurse halted and the other quickly bowed and exposed her neck. After a beat, she said softly, "Zoya, we need to take her, so we can stop the bleeding."

The white-haired woman blinked feral blue eyes, and then nodded. "Sorry, it's been a long night."

The two nurses relaxed a bit and nodded. "It always is on a full moon night."

As gently as they could, they took Agent Pavel from her grasp and started checking her over. The agent whined for a moment and looked for her sister.

"I'll stay right here and wait for you, Chance, I won't leave you. Okay? I'll be right here."

Chance blinked tired dark blue eyes and nodded. Then she was being lowered onto a gurney, her guts feeling like they were on fire.

There was a voice speaking over her head, and then a brief sting of a needle in her arm. "Gunshot to the lower abdomen, most likely silver, considering it's a full moon night."

Another voice chimed in, "Fucking humans, they already have us reduced to this reservation in the middle of fucking nowhere. And then on the one night the Weres have to run in their animal forms, they sneak over here and hunt. We should be hunting them."

"Adam, shush, you don't want to make Agent Pavel here have to arrest you."

"How can she fucking betray us like that by working for the Government…Human-Werewolf Affairs Bureau, my ass? Now her sister is a hero..."

The voices trailed off as whatever they gave her started to work, and Chance wondered at the venom in the male nurse's voice, if she would ever wake up. Her sister…her sister…she wouldn't ask what Zoya had done to the men that shot her. She knew, without knowing, that their bodies were food for the desert creatures. Her sister was the hero of her people like some sort of night stalking vigilante, while she had chosen to work with the humans to make things better. How could one night so long ago create two totally different people?

She remembered that night, dreamed about it, woke up in a sweat, a scream locked in her throat over it.

They were running. Her family pack was running, at night, it was her father, her pack mother, Zoya, Ivan, and her. She was the smallest, still a gangly pup. Her father and pack mother had separated briefly for two years, and she had been the result. Born to a human mother who had wanted one night on the wild side… Her family pack was large Siberian wolves, made for hunting in the cold and snow. They had beautiful white fur that stood out starkly in the warm desert climate that all the Weres had been regulated to after the war. It didn't matter they were designed for cold and snow; they were placed here with all the others.

Chance was smaller and her fur was black, helping her blend in more with the night. Then out of nowhere came the first 'bang', which was like thunder rolling over the night, and her farther fell, blood spraying the rest of them as the top of his head crumbled away.

Then her pack mother…

She yipped and was crushed under her pack mother's body and came to a tumbling, wrenching stop. There was more gunfire and then silence.

She tasted blood and death. It stung her nose. Then her ears came up with the sounds of booted feet crunching on the desert floor. Laughter coated the wind. Words like 'Monster' and 'Killer' and such were bantered around.

Her heart pounded in her chest as the footsteps got closer. She whimpered and growled, trying to get free of her pack mother's greater bulk. And then came the sounds of screams and bones crunching, and then Zoya was there, covered in blood.

That was the night that shaped both of them, setting each sister on a different path. Her with the humans, and her sister against them, both wanting better things for their people.

####################

The humming was definitely off tune. In fact, it was so very off tune that it almost sounded like someone was doing their darnedest to hum very loudly as far off tune as possible. It wasn't a particularly good song to hum even, although that didn't seem to bother the person humming it as loudly as she could.

The humming stopped when the door to the room banged open. "Ah, there's my lovely nightingale," the voice that belonged to the humming person said.

"If you keep humming, I swear to God I'm going to slit your throat and string you from the roof!" the newcomer growled, which was followed by the sound of a metal tray being slammed down on something.

"There, dinner!" The door to the room opened and slammed shut again.

"I love you too, dearest one!" the hummer called after the nurse then laughed and set to humming again as she cheerfully started to investigate the sloppy contents of the dish.

Chance's forehead wrinkled into a frown, dipping black eyebrows into a sharp V. The slam of a tray caused blue eyes to crack open. The room was blurry, and her mouth tasted of nasty things. As things focused a bit more, she realized she was, yet again, in the recovery room at the clinic.

The hospital was a sad state of affairs with the government funding only allowing for so much. Public opinion was that they were Shifters, and Shifters had inhuman healing powers. That caused another bitter thought, yeah like those healing powers had done her family a lot of good when they had been shot in the head.

Weakly, she tried to reach the glass of water next to her bed, which was tempting her, all ready to be drunk, it even had a bendy straw.

The humming cut off in mid note, which was probably a blessing. "Hey, super agent, you're alive over there?" The woman sounded surprised at that. "Well damn, I think I just lost my bet with nightingale."

Chance wanted to say 'Fuck off!" but it came out more like a raspy death rattle. She stayed focused on her hand, which was making slow progress to the cup.

"Hey, least you could do is be neighborly and say hi back." There was rustling and a muffled curse from the next curtained-off area. A second later, said curtain was shoved aside to reveal a gangly looking woman with shaggy, unkempt brown hair and a mischievous look in her eyes.

Hobbling on a cast foot, she moved over to the bed.

"Ah, the water crawl, I've done that before. Usually after a bender though." Using the tip of a finger, she pushed the water cup closer to Chance's hand, slowly.

Chance looked up with a glare, her blue eyes flashing like stormy skies. "Wh…who…who…the hell...are you?" she rasped out.

Tsking, the woman pushed the cup of lukewarm water closer. "You should really drink some water. Then you can yell at me. Or I could sing for you. Would you like that?" Without waiting for an answer, she dove into a truly horrible rendition of Bird on a Wire.

Chance tried to growl, but she just hurt too much. Finally, she snagged the water and took a healthy drink, nearly choking on it. "Shut up!" she rasped out then promptly vomited over the rail of her bed, her empty stomach unable to handle that much water.

The shaggy woman held up a hand, suddenly stopping her singing and dodging vomit. "Hold that thought!"

She hobbled quickly back to her side of the room, jumping up onto the bed just as the door from the hallway slammed open.

"Ah, nightingale!"

The disgruntled old nurse in the door glared at the woman.

"I'd like to lodge a complaint. Super agent is disturbing my restful slumber by singing horribly off key. I think you should transfer me to a private room." She smiled, hopefully. When the nurse continued to glare, she sighed. "And she vomited." That got the nurse moving, towards Chance.

The nurse helped the agent to lean back on the bed and whisked the curtain closed. "You really shouldn't drink that much water, Agent Paral," the old woman admonished, stepping around the vomit as she checked vitals.

Chance flopped back onto her bed, groaning and holding her stomach, where a shattered silver bullet and all its remains had been dug out.

"Pavel, it's Agent Pavel," she croaked out.

"Well, Agent Pavel, you should know better than to drink so much water after a stomach wound." The gray-haired nurse shook her head and took away the glass. "I'll let the doctor know that you're awake and send someone to clean up the mess."

"Goodbye, fairest nightingale, until you come again to brighten this room and shine a ray of sunshine into my very heart!" the woman closest to the door called out as the nurse left, receiving a one-fingered salute from said nurse.

"She loves me dearly, can't you tell?" the woman laughed.

"Thanks?" Chance said to the nurse as she left, before turning to the woman next to her. "Who are you?"

"A law abiding citizen who has the privilege, no…wait, the honor of being in the same room with super agent Pavel, sister of the great and merciless Zoya!" The woman seemed to find that quite funny and laughed until she looked over at the expression on the agent's face, and sobered. "But before you go looking up my social security number, which I don't really think I have, but anyway, name's Kehpri."

The bit about her sister immediately had her on edge. "Kehpri..?" She sat up and set her feet on the ground, testing her balance. Already she was doing much better. "What kind of name is that?" She reached over and switched off the extremely out of date monitor then pulled various needles and tubes from her body.

"Chance..? What kind of name is that?" Kehpri snickered then made a face as she saw what the agent was doing. "Not that I really care, but shouldn't you be in bed, you were just puking all over the floor a minute ago?"

"Chance is a name I haven't given you," she grumbled out. "And I have work to do." Kehpri was bugging the shit out of her, and since she felt like shit, she wasn't in the mood to stay here, no matter how hot Dr. Miller was.

Lacing her hands behind her head, Kehpri whistled a few bars of something that wasn't recognizable as a song. "So you're out of here, with a hole in your stomach? Wow, so those stories about how stubborn you are were actually telling the truth."

Chance managed a somewhat decent growl. "No, but I'm sure it's more having to do with the stubbornness of Federal Agents."

"Yeah, about that, where are all your fellow agents. Aren't all the boys in blue supposed to swarm the place when one of their own gets hurt?" Kehpri sat up in her bed, watching curiously as the last of the needles hit the floor.

"The few agents are probably out swamped with all sorts of shit storms. It is a full moon night." Which answered her own question, Kupie doll here wasn't a Were, because obliviously she wasn't all furry.

"Oh, right, I got so caught up with auditioning for American idol that I forgot all about that moon thing. Huh, pesky moon…" She swung her feet out over the floor and stood up, leaning against the bed to take some weight off the cast on one leg. "So, you going to turn all furry?"

"American what..?" She shook her head and took a step, ignoring the pain that came with each step. "I'm not talking to you about my personal life."

She hobbled to the end of the bed looking for her clothes, which normally should be in a bag at the end of the bed. She bent over to pick them up, grunting at the pain that radiated up from the stitches in her stomach.

"You know, even people who can heal quickly have a hard time with a bullet to the stomach. Even worse if it's silver." Kehpri grinned, leaning closer to the door so that she could peer out the small window into the dim corridor beyond.

"Woops, gotta go to the bathroom." She hurriedly shuffled her way into the small toilette and locked the door behind her.

"What the fuck?" Chance mumbled out as the other woman disappeared. Slowly, she straightened up, but she could smell blood coming strongly from the clothes in the bag.

The sound of arguing came from the hallway, followed a moment later by the door to the hospital room opening fast enough to bounce off the other wall.

Her eyes turned towards the door, and her sister's menacing frame filling it. The hospital clinic wasn't that big, and she was surprised Zoya waited as long as she had. Zoya was the spitting image of their parents.

Strong Russian ancestry radiated out of her: white blonde hair, blue eyes, and every other dip and curve of her body.

Chance, other than the blue eyes and height, looked every bit like her birth mother, with her black hair and dusky skin.

"I know you think you're the Alpha of these parts, Ms. Pavel, but you can't just burst in without waiting for us, it causes trauma for the patients," the nurse bit out, already on her last nerve because of the loony in her ward.

"I told you when I dropped her off that I would be back for her," Zoya snarled over a shoulder then slammed the door shut in the nurse's face.

"I'm going to get the doctor!" was heard from the other side.

Zoya snorted, dragging the lone chair in the room with her over to where Chance stood. "Here, you look like you're going to fall over," she shoved the chair towards her sister.

Chance felt like she was a child again. But unlike when she was a child, she wasn't trailing after her bigger sister hoping for approval. "Zoya, I'm fine. I just need to get dressed and get back to work. I can't afford this, not tonight."

Not on a full moon night when humans and Shapeshifters were out doing all sorts of stupid shit to each other.

"As if you're in any shape to do anything about it," Zoya countered, going over to the small barred window in the wall and peering outside. At one time the hospital had been part of a military base, and it retained all of its charm from those past days. "Why do you have to be so difficult about this, Chance? Just sit down and heal without dashing off and getting shot at again. You know my pack and I can handle it tonight."

Chance stiffened, and before she could stop herself, she blurted out, "Handle it, like the men who shot me." And she wanted to take it back, 'cause she didn't want to know how Zoya had handled it. Didn't want to know because as she had lain bleeding out into the sand and dirt of the high desert floor, she had fumbled for her cell phone and called Zoya, called her and said, "I'm dying. I'm dying with the moon and the stars pointing at Orion, with the wind blowing from the east where the rabbits and the badger make their nests together."

She called her sister because she had known, without a doubt, Zoya would find her and make it right, and her fellow agents would still be lost in the scrub.

"I handled it exactly like they tried to handle it for you," Zoya shot back, stiffening as well. This was a familiar fight for the two of them. "Your fellow 'agents' haven't even noticed you're gone yet! They're still out there trying to track down the hunters. Now you tell me which one of us is more effective?"

She raised a hand and lowered her head. "I'm sorry. Please don't say anything else." Anymore down this slippery slope and a line would be crossed. She sat, suddenly tired, and noticed a small stain of red on the hospital gown; she'd popped the stitches. "That's not fair. We do the best that we can. And, and we've made so many changes to the policies that used to surround this shit hole."

Zoya was spared from giving a caustic answer that would have helped neither of them by the hospital room door opening again. The woman who stepped inside was as different from the dour and rather large old nurse as was possible.

Dr. Miller exuded an unconscious aura of sexuality around herself. Her straight blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and model-like complexion only strengthened it and helped explain why almost the entire hospital staff was in love with her.

"Zoya, you have to stop coming in here and terrorizing my nurses." Even her voice had a smoky quality to it. The older sister's posture immediately changed as she smiled.

"Sorry, Dr. Miller, I'll try to be nicer next time."

"Oh, I'm sure you're plenty nice when you want to be," the good doctor answered as they locked gazes, leaving Chance sitting there.

Chance bristled as she felt she wasn't even in the same room with those two. Jealous feelings rose in her and she wondered just for a moment why her sister couldn't be straight, leaving her a more fair advantage with the fairer sex.

Seeing her sister standing next to the doctor only made her realize what ungodly beautiful children they'd have if Zoya were capable. And the way Zoya bragged sometimes; who knew, maybe some of the pups running around were hers.

"Hello, remember me? I'm the one with the bullet wound: and a badge and gun."

"Agent Parel…" Dr. Miller switched the full force of that personality to the wounded woman in the chair. "I'm glad you're looking better than earlier."

Zoya gave her sister a dirty look and went back to stand by the window. The good doctor picked up the medical chart at the end of the bed and started to flip through pages, frowning briefly.

"Been going through your own records, Agent? I didn't know you knew how to read these." She rearranged the records into the order she liked and kept reading.

"It's Pavel, not Parel, just the same as Zoya." She sighed and glared at her sister, who just stuck her tongue out. "Of course I went through my records, that bullet will be evidence."

"Hmmm…well, for some reason, you were checked in as Agent Parel." The doctor scribbled something on the paper. "How are you feeling now?"

"I'm fine. Just need to get dressed and get back out in the field." She crossed her arms over her stomach to hide the slightly larger red stain.

"She broke a stitch or something, she's bleeding again," Zoya happily betrayed her sister.

The doctor sighed and went to get a pair of gloves. "Agent, you were told to stay in bed, exactly to avoid hurting yourself."

Chance threw the bag she had picked up with her bloodied clothes at her sister in frustration. "I hate you." But they both knew she didn't.

"I'll just leave you to the doctor's care," Zoya smiled and headed for the door. "I look forward to seeing you around later, Doctor Miller." The doctor met her eyes and smiled as they both stared at one another for entirely too long. Zoya gave a rakish grin and headed out into the hall, where members of her pack were waiting.

"Zoya, wait! Doctor, can I have a minute with my sister?"

"As long as you promise to get back into the bed after?" the doctor demanded, masking it as a polite request.

"Yeah, fine. I need my cell phone..." She paused at the look. "Or a phone of some sort to report what happened. I promise I'll stay here until the morning."

"Good enough," Dr. Miller agreed. On purpose, Zoya lingered in the door so that the doctor had to squeeze past her to get out of the room. Grinning, the older sister closed the door and looked at her sister. "I think I should come back with a splinter or something and get the doctor to examine me."

"Please don't rub it in my face that women will always prefer you to me, even though I have a badge and handcuffs." She sighed and looked everywhere but her sometimes painful, estranged sister.

She cleared her throat then quietly said. "Thank you, for coming for me when I needed you. I know you don't agree with me or my choices in life, but you were there when I needed you."

Zoya studied her sister seriously. "I'm your sister, what else was I supposed to do?" She smiled quickly though, the seriousness fading. "Besides, now you owe me big time. I'll see you later, got to go see to the pack." With a mock salute, she was off.

Chance made a face that could have gone better. "Well, that blows," she muttered, running a hand through her hair.

"What blows?" Kehpri asked, easing open the door cautiously. When the room looked empty, she stepped out of the small bathroom and closed the door quickly. "You might not want to go in there anytime soon." She waved her hands back and forth at the air in front of it as if blowing away a bad smell.

The dark-haired woman developed a tic in her right eye and buried her face in her hands. "I'm stuck in the hospital over night with an insane person."

"Really..? There's someone else here?" The wild-haired woman peered out the window into the hallway. "Wow, your sister and that doctor would make such beautiful children."

"Shut up," Chance bit out between clenched teeth.

She didn't look, not wanting to see her sister intimately invading the hot Dr Miller's personal space.

"I thought she was supposed to come back here to fix those stitches for you," Kehpri ignored the command, still watching the hall. "Guess she's going on break or something. Hmm…on break with your sister."

"Shut up," she said again, only this time there was a little more bite in her tone.

"Ok, ok, shutting up," Kehpri muttered, hobbling back over to her bed and hoping up onto it. She stayed quiet for about two minutes. "So...seen any interesting movies lately?"

Chance groaned and desperately pressed the button to summon the nurses.

####################

It was long past lights out for the hospital. Only a dim light shown in from the hallway and then there was a stray beam or two from the moon through the thin curtains. Kehpri cursed as she tripped over something and moved towards the bed that super agent was sleeping on. "Hey, you awake?"

"Unfortunately… Please stay away from me; they've already had to re-stitch me twice now." Chance was almost to the point she wanted her gun.

"Well, that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't thrown that vase at me." Kehpri sounded amused by the entire thing.

The dark-haired woman rolled on to her side. "You are insane."

"Probably," she chuckled, leaving the agent's side and hobbling towards the small closet where her personal things were. "But I'm an insane person with a pickup truck. Want to get out of here?"

She looked for a clock, but there wasn't one. It was after midnight, things would be settling down and it would be another month until the full moon. She should check on the agents under her, and start paperwork. Being involved in a shooting would hamstring them for a while.

On the other hand, Kupie doll, or whatever the hell her name was, didn't seem to be that sane. "Yeah, okay," she found herself saying.

A pair of pants went sailing through the air to land on the wounded woman's bed. "Here, your clothes are all bloody." The woman stripped off the annoying hospital gown and started rummaging for her clothes naked.

"I can't use them; they won't fit over my cast," she grumbled.

Chance mumbled something about insanity being contagious and picked up the pants. Rolling over she paused, having no problems seeing the other woman in the dark. She pulled the pants up, finding them slightly short in the legs and baggy.

She eyed the other woman again in confusion then noticed how she could count Kehpri's ribs and the woman's malnourished state.

A pale blue dress shirt was pulled on, hiding the woman's ribs from view and draping down to her upper thighs. Kehpri hummed off tune as she found her sneakers and shoved them on over bare feet.

"You ready?" she asked, not able to see as well in the dark.

"Yeah…" She stuffed her feet into her hiking boots. "Fuck," she moaned, realizing she had no idea where her gun and badge were. Probably still with her car in the middle of nowhere, next to the hunter who had shot her just as she shot him, and heard his friends run off.

"You all right..?" That was an actual note of concern. "You tear open stitches again? I thought you would have healed that by now."

Chance left her stuff covered in blood, not wanting to ruin the chain of custody. "No, I haven't healed, and what makes you think I would have healed, you don't know anything about me. I was moaning because I have no idea where my gun and badge are. Well, I have an idea, but...never mind let's go."

Kehpri sneaked to the door, something that would have been more effective if every other step wasn't followed by the thud of her cast. "Shhh…be very, very quiet, we're hunting rabbits," she whispered with a funny accent and then creaked open the door and peered out into the hall. Making sure no one was in eyesight, she went out.

Chance pinched her nose. "We're what? Never mind…" She pushed ahead and started down the hallway to the backdoor. Her, Ivan, and Zoya use to play in here, before it had been converted to a clinic.

"Hey! Wait up," Kehpri hissed, thudding along as she tried to catch up with the fast moving woman. Damn those long legs moved fast.

Chance paused, waiting for the other woman to catch up. "Hurry up, gimpy."

"Now you're just being mean," the brown-haired woman huffed, already out of breath. The heavy steel door opened surprisingly easily. Kehpri squinted in the darkness trying to make out her truck. "Ah, there it is. Over there, near the far wall."

"I'm a federal agent, I don't think people associate us with nice." She bit her lip for a moment, weighing her options of letting Kupie doll make her way to the truck or helping. While it was sure to be a laugh riot, it would take fucking forever. "Here." She wrapped an arm around the woman's waist then put Kehpri's arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah, you're a real mean one. Just like your sister, right?" Kehpri huffed glad for the support. It was certainly faster this way, as they crossed the mostly empty parking lot to the far side.

A rusting hulk of a pickup truck was parked under a flickering streetlight. Most of the original paint was impossible to see, as the body seemed to be one large piece of rust. The back bed was rusted through and a sheet of plywood had been bolted in to replace the missing metal.

Chance stiffened then swung the other woman around to face her. "How in the hell do you know about me or my sister? How do you even know she's my sister?" A burst of paranoia caused her heart to pump faster and eyes to dilate in the dark.

Kehpri eeped in surprise at the sudden move, "Because you told called her your sister while I was in the bathroom!" she stammered, quickly.

"No. You knew before that, when I woke up in the recovery room. And for your information, I'm a lot nicer than my sister, and I have a gun and handcuffs." Belatedly she realized how tightly she had grabbed the other woman and let her go. "What is this magic power you have to get under my skin and piss me off?"

"My winning personality," Kehpri rubbed the arm, certain that by tomorrow there would be a hand-shaped bruise there. Ignoring the question, she hobbled to the truck and opened the unlocked door.

Ducking her head under the seat she grabbed a set of wires and sparked them together until the truck's engine turned over. "You coming?"

"Yes, but you can't drive. So go get in the passenger seat...please." The please hurt her.

"Fine," Kehpri gave in easily. "Just watch out for that rust spot in the middle of the floor. I don't think it would hold you." The woman climbed over the bench seat to the passenger side.

"I'm not being controlling; you can't drive with your leg in a cast." She said a prayer that the truck wouldn't fall apart and got in. "Where am I taking you?"

Slamming her door shut, Kehpri put her cast leg up on the dashboard. "You know where Painted Rock is?"

"Yeah, I know where it is?" She backed the truck out.

"Good, drive that way. I'll tell you where to go." The gears ground horribly as she backed out, but it settled down when the agent put it into first and then second. "And you are being controlling."

Chance smiled. "The title Agent before my name kind of gives away the controlling part." She frowned as she realized she was smiling and joking around with the annoying insane woman.

"Aha! I saw that, you smiled."

Chance's frown got deeper, and she decided to concentrate on the road. After a while, of minutes slowly ticking away as they drove along the flat dusty road to what looked like nowhere, Chance cleared her throat, "So how'd you break your foot?"

"It's not broken." Kehpri began fiddling with the radio, trying to find one of the two stations that came in clear on the antique radio system. Finding a country and western channel, she started in on her finest twang singing.

"Then..." As the singing started up, Chance gritted her teeth and slowly counted to ten, trying to resist the urge to put her fist through the radio faceplate. "…why are you wearing a cast?"

Only when there was a pause in the singing to indulge in some soulful guitar did the other woman twist in her seat to look at the driver. "It a nice sort of accessory, don't you think?" She hefted the cast and let it thud back down on the dashboard. "Besides, for some reason, you need to be sick to get into a hospital."

The tic returned to Chance's eye. "Why would you fake a broken foot to hang out in a hospital, which, I might add, I'm fairly certain is a crime?"

"I should probably take it off soon; hard to drive stick shift with this on." Kehpri turned back towards the windshield, singing until another pause in the deep, sorrowful lyrics. "Because I meet the most interesting people in hospitals…"

She flashed a white-toothed smile in the darkness. "Oops, turn here!"

Hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, until knuckles turned white. She turned sharply, the truck fishtailing, and for a moment, Chance imagined the rust bucket breaking apart, but it held together.

"Good driving," the brunette applauded. "They teach you that in super agent school?"

The tic got worse, and Chance feared a migraine was coming on. "Yes," she bit out in a clipped tone.

"Cool." Kehpri pointed towards what looked like a dirt path off the seldom-used road that they were already on, "That way. You have to put it in low gear, it's a steep climb."

Chance did as she was directed and shifted the gears. Again she lamented on her mouth's answer of yes. She should have stayed in the hospital and soaked up Dr. Miller's bedside manner.

As the pickup truck rumbled up over the hilltop, Kehpri pointed out the window. "Ah, home sweet home." The silver Gulf Stream trailer was parked off to the edge of a cleared out area. White plastic picket fencing had been placed around it to form a sort of yard populated with bright pink plastic flamingos.

Chance made a face at the garish pink of all the damn plastic flamingos. Then it dawned on her. "Why the hell didn't you tell me your foot wasn't broken? I just drove you out into the middle of buttfuckingEgypt for no damn reason. You could have just dropped me off at the bureau office."

Kehpri rolled her eyes and got out of the truck as soon as it had come to a stop in what was more or less its parking space, "Because I couldn't take off the cast at the hospital. Then they'd know I was lying." She shook her head, hobbling towards the Gulf Stream.

Chance got out of the truck, slamming the door, her hands itching for her gun that wasn't there. "I-you-GODDAMNIT!" she howled out and kicked a large rock then groaned and doubled over in pain.

She'd probably popped her stitches again.

She straightened out and stared at Mother Moon, wondering if the universe was laughing at her.

"You probably shouldn't kick things when you're still recovering," Kehpri said helpfully, hobbling back towards the agent. "You coming in?"

Holding a hand to her abdomen, she eyed the trail fearfully. "I don't know, are there more flamingos inside?"

"You think I'm insane? They need to live outside." Putting an arm around the taller woman's waist, she helped her towards the trailer. "Come in, rest, and I'll drive you wherever you want me to in the morning. Sound good?"

"You know, there are laws against kidnapping a federal agent?" she muttered out. God she'd been outsmarted by an insane one, nobody would ever find her body.

"Ha! If I wanted to kidnap you, I would have drugged you while you were sleeping." There wasn't anything resembling a lock on the door, a swift kick opened it.

Chance frowned again as she noticed the lack of lock. As she sat down, she asked hesitantly, "Um…is it just you out here?"

"Hold on a second." Kehpri stepped outside and cursed a few times, pulling on something. Another kick, with the cast foot, and a little portable generator kicked over and started rumbling. The lights inside the trailer gradually became bright enough to see by.

A lone human female in the middle of the reservation, that probably wasn't really all that safe…especially on full moon nights, or if Kephri went into heat. Some of the more wild shifters, who went feral, could smell that for miles and track down a female and rape her, not being any the wiser that his attention was very much not wanted.

Then others would just rape a lone female because she was alone and human, and then others might just hunt her as prey. And the list of things that could go wrong with Kephri out here in the middle of nowhere continued on in Chance's brain.

Kehpri thudded her way up the stairs and into the trailer. "See, better than that hospital room, isn't it?" The inside of the trailer had seen better days back when the truck had been bran new. Grabbing a fishing tackle box that now served as a toolbox, the slim woman pulled out a saw blade. "Help me with this, will you? This thing itches like crazy."

Chance sighed and got up. "What do you want me to do?

The hacksaw blade was thrust towards her. "Saw."

"I thought you'd never ask," Chance muttered out and took the saw and started to cut.

"Hey, you're good at that. If the super agent job falls through, I'm sure you could make a great nurse." She paused. "Or mass murderer, I guess." The skinny woman flexed her leg, grinning at the sensation of not having the cast on. "Next time I'll just say I have a sprained ankle or something."

"They didn't x-ray it?" She sniffed and didn't smell any pooling of blood under the skin. Judging from Kehpri's temperament, the outdated x-ray had probably been in use and the nurses had put it on to get the woman to shut up.

"Nurse Nightingale fell in love with my charming personality and was putty in my fingers," she proclaimed happily, tossing aside the remnants of the cast. "So, you want food? I've got Spam, and probably some more Spam."

Chance's stomach rolled over and died at the mention of Spam. "No thanks. Look, if you have a phone, I'll just call one of my agents and have them come pick me up."

Kehpri laughed as she walked over to the corner of the room that served as a kitchen and grabbed one of the two cans of Spam that were left in the cupboard. "Does it look like there's a phone here?"

Blue eyes darted around hopefully. "No, it doesn't." …Which brought her back to the question of safety. "Don't you think this is kind of risky? Being out here in the middle of nowhere by yourself, a human female."

"Why? Are you offering to protect me?" She mock leered and started to rummage for a can opener. "Besides, it's safer out here. No electronics, no credit cards, no web, no computer access, nothing to draw attention to me."

"And why wouldn't you want attention drawn to you?"

The Spam came out of the can with a wet, slurping noise that even made Kehpri wrinkle her lips at it. That didn't stop her from finding a fork and starting to eat like she hadn't eaten in days. "Because," she mumbled around a piece of what was kind of meat, "they're out to get me."

"Right, and who is they?" Chance drummed her fingers and wondered what the fuck she had gotten herself into.

"Them, all of them… You sure you don't want any of this?" The mass actually quivered a little as Kehpri shoved it towards the agent.

Chance turned green as she got a whiff of it and bolted for the door.

"Aw crap, now she's probably going to pull more stitches," Kehpri sighed. Stuffing her face with what was left, she went to find the medical kit.

Outside, Chance was fighting hard not to vomit. She was on her hands and knees, her forehead resting against the cool ground.

"Hate her, hate her, hate, hate, hate, hate her," she mumbled over and over.

"You don't hate me, you like me, actually." Kehpri took a seat on the edge of the door, watching the rocking woman. A rather large red case propped up on the door jam next to her.

Chance laughed hollowly, "Don't flatter yourself." She sat back on her knees, groaning as the healing muscles of her stomach protested the treatment it had received today.

"You should probably rest so that you can finish healing." Kehpri stretched out her legs, staring up at the sky above. "It's amazing how many stars there are out here…worth everything just for the view."

"You have a needle and thread in there?"

Holding up the kit with the red cross on it, she responded, "Yup. What do you need it for?"

"You made me pull open my stitches again." She stepped over Kehpri and went to the sink that was in the living room/kitchen. She pulled up the hospital gown she was wearing as a shirt and looked down, where blood was dribbling down to her belly button.

"Explain to me why you aren't healing?" Plopping the kit down on the small counter top, she opened it and snapped on some exam gloves expertly.

Chance made a face, and her jaw took on a stubborn angle, "Again, I'm not talking about my personal life. Just 'cause my sister is a Were, doesn't mean...never mind." But she was healing. Any human that had taken a gut shot wouldn't even be up and walking around.

"Doesn't mean you are also? Sure it does. You have the genes, just maybe not all of them." Kehpri doused a pad with an anesthetic disinfectant and started to carefully clean the area around the split stitches.

Chance gritted her teeth, at the sting of disinfectant. "Zoya and I only share one parent, so no, I don't have the genes."

"Uh huh… That's why you're standing right now after getting shot in the stomach." Wiping away the last of the blood, she took out a smaller pack and started to thread a needle, humming again while she did. "I'm going to have to stitch this again."

"Erm..." Chance turned, staring at the gloved hands and the needle. She pursed her lips and wondered how to phrase what she wanted to say.

"Why should I let you come anywhere near me with a sharp object?"

"Oh, don't be a baby." Then she moved remarkably fast and pushed the needle through the first part of the wound.

Chance released a hiss of pain. "Shit!" she barked out. "That better be fucking sterile," she grunted out and just gritted her teeth.

"It was when I stole it." Kehpri squinted in the bad light and pulled the rest of the thread through the wound, pulling the two pieces of flesh closed. Expertly tying it off, she moved down an inch and started again.

"Don't move, you don't want a scar, do you?"

"You do realize you just told a federal agent that you have stolen goods." But Chance stood absolutely still. Her brain was picking up cues and processing them. She saw how focused and steady Kehpri was, how her personality seemed to change. She cataloged that she'd probably worked in the medical field at one point.

Snipping off the last bit of stitching after tying it, Kehpri gave her a crooked grin. "You do realize I could be joking." The needle was tossed in the trash bin and the case zipped back up. "There, and I probably didn't even give you hepatitis."

"Thanks," Chance said tersely. She crossed her arms over her chest and asked, "You have an extra shirt I can borrow?" Again she wondered why she hadn't stayed in the hospital.

"Maybe," Kehpri waggled her eyebrows. "Why?"

Chance rolled her eyes and sat down. "Because I don't have one, and I don't know you well enough to be naked in front of you."

"Really..? Because I'm pretty sure you know me more than most people I've seen naked." But she went to the small bed in the back and pulled a drawer out from under it. Finding a t-shirt that had been snug on her before, and now hung off her frame, she tossed it to the other woman.

Chance struggled a bit and finally got it on. "Thanks."

It definitely looked better on the tall agent. Unfortunately, the day was catching up to her, and she was in no shape to try what her libido wanted her to do, besides all of the obvious reasons that it was an awful idea. "The couch is all yours," she said suddenly.

Chance grunted, looking around the small room for the couch, and found it being used as the table, "'Night."

"Yeah…" Kehpri got up and brushed the shirt she was using as a skirt, "'Night."

####################

It was a few hours before sunrise, when even nocturnal animals were starting to slow down and before any hint of the coming sunrise lightened the horizon. From the other side of the trailer whimpers started, followed by thrashing as the woman on the bed started to struggle.

A blue eye cracked open, and the first thing Chance realized, was despite her best efforts, she had succumbed to sleep. The next thing she picked up was the sounds of someone in distress. She uncurled herself from the ball she had somehow managed to get herself into on the couch and stood.

She unconsciously made a face and wondered, since there was only one other person in the trailer, if she really wanted to put herself in Kupie doll's shit. She sighed, ran a hand through her hair, and slapped herself a couple of times. She was a federal agent, that's what she did, help people. She was a fucking idealistic civil servant. She chuckled at that one. Maybe she'd have it put on her business card.

Unconsciously silent, she padded over to the door that she had seen Kewpie doll disappear into this morning. She tapped on the door. "Kewpie…err, Kehpri, you okay?"

When there was no answer, Chance cracked the door, easily seeing the thrashing figure wrapped up in her sheets. Chance made the face again, the one she made when she really didn't want to do something, but did it anyways. She opened the door wider and stepped inside the room.

"Hey, Kehpri, it's me, Chance. Um, super agent." Standing hopefully out of fist swinging distance, she reached out and tapped a shoulder, "Kehpri!"

Kehpri came away with a scream and swinging. A fist lashed out as she screamed at the top of her lungs, scrambling backwards and blindly lashing out at anything near her.

"Whoa, whoa, hey now, no assaulting the federal agent," Chance easily caught both failing fists.

"No!!!" Kehpri kept struggling, trying to get free from the hands holding her. On the fourth tug she realized who it was and collapsed forward, against the agent's shoulder, shaking.

Chance was stunned for a moment, and awkwardly wrapped her arms around the skinny frame. Her victim sensitivity training going right out the window, "Hey, hey, hey...hey...now, it's okay."

"No it isn't," the shaking woman whimpered. "So don't patronize me by telling me it is." Skinny arms wrapped around the dark-haired woman's mid section as Kehpri shifted closer. "Stay here," she whispered, "just until light."

"Okay? It's not okay," Chance readily agreed. God above, maybe she had burnout, she had to wonder, because when her day started, she never envisioned this. "You want me to stay here, with you, in this tiny bed?" She just wanted to clarify.

"Unless you prefer the floor," the muffled response came as the shaking slowed to mild tremors.

Chance reflected on all the times she had woken up, with the nightmare of the death of her family, alone, shaking, and wanting just someone to be there for her. "Yeah, I'll stay, but no funny stuff. And I better not get hauled in for a sexual harassment charge."

A laugh that was half a sob caught Kehpri by surprise. "No wonder you're single." Shifting, Kehpri pulled the thin blanket up over them both and found a comfortable position.

"I never said I was single. For all you know, I have a husband or wife who's really pissed at me right now." Fuck yeah, that was a pipedream. Maybe normal agents got partners and family life, not the ones who worked the Reservation; they just got burnt out and killed.

The woman tucked into her shoulder using it as a pillow made a disbelieving sound, "As if you would ever cheat on someone. You're so full of moral fiber it hurts to look at."

Chance just made a face. "I try, but it's really hard sometimes. This, however, is not one of those times, so...yeah...just to be clear."

Kehpri was silent for a bit before she shoved herself up enough to see the other woman's face in the dim light, brushing curly hair out of her face. The generator had run out of gas a few hours ago, so the night was quiet once again.

"Are you saying I'm not attractive?" she demanded.

"What? Shit, I'm not answering that. I know better."

"Humph." Kehpri settled back down. "You suck," she mumbled.

"Like I haven't heard that before," Chance muttered then wrapped hands in safe places on the woman's body, holding her securely. "Okay, loony, go back to sleep, I'm here, and I'll keep you safe from whatever haunts your brain."

"You better. If they kill me in my sleep, I'm coming back to haunt you," the other woman mumbled, yawning and throwing a leg over the other woman's hips and fading off.

"Can't have that," Chance said as she stared up into the black, inky ceiling of the trailer. She was awake now, having more sleep than she normally got. It figured a woman hit on her, and she was fairly certain Kehpri was hitting on her, and the woman was insane.

####################

She stayed good to her word and watched over the crazy woman until night gave way to dawn. Her thoughts had already typed up various reports, and figured out where the remote was for her stereo, not that she'd been home in a week to look for it.

As daylight poked through the blinds, she poked the malnourished woman attached to her side and was currently drooling on her shoulder in a disgusting manner.

"Hey, you need to get up and take me to work now," she whispered.

Kehpri mumbled something and held on tighter, turning her head so that she could shut out the light.

"Come on, Kewpie doll, I'm already in enough shit. Please don't get me in deeper by being late."

"Hmmm…don't want to get up," she mumbled, stretching slowly. That had been the best sleep she'd gotten in months. Feeling good and enjoying the slow wake up, she started to press her lips to the warm skin near her lips.

Chance jumped and croaked out, "Please don't! You promised no funny stuff." She quickly started unwrapping the woman from her body, trying to get out of the bed.

"Party pooper," Kehpri grumbled, yawning and stretching. Still half asleep, she stumbled up out of the bed, past the other woman, and towards the closet-sized bathroom.

"Whatever. Hurry up. I'm going to miss the morning brief."

"Ah, I should have known, you're married to your job." Using a wet washcloth, she finished cleaning up and did a quick tooth brushing. Not really caring that she was naked from the waist upwards, she emerged and rummaged through the clothes piled near the bed for something to wear.

"Yes, I'm faithfully married. So put those away, I'm not tempted at all." …Which was mainly true. Chance liked her women with more meat than bones, and Kehpri would have been plenty attractive if she would eat a gallon of cheeseburgers or something.

The woman was too skinny to be considered healthy. Chance shook her head, her shoulder length black hair moving, as she tried to get any ideas of caring or concern for the idiot woman out of her head.

Finding a red t-shirt that had seen better days several years ago, Kehpri pulled it on and grabbed a threadbare backpack from next to the bed. "All right, oh annoying one, I'm ready. Let's go."

Chance said nothing, just happily followed like a puppy dog. Now that they were moving, that meant that this would soon be behind her.

Patting the head of a pink flamingo that was near the path on the way out to the pickup truck, Kehpri pointed to the passenger side. "I'm driving."

Chance made a face. "But if I drive I don't have to bother giving you directions."

"It's my truck." Yanking open the driver's side door, she ducked under the dash to spark wires together until the engine decided to start.

Somehow, Chance doubted it was her truck. More than likely, the woman had found it deserted on the side of the road, but she really didn't want to get into that. "Okay, fine. Can we stop at my apartment so I can change? Then you can drop me off at the office and we never have to see each other again."

"Wow, did you just wake up a bitch or were you like that last night and I missed it?" Hurt by the words, Kehpri slammed her door shut and barely waited for Chance to get in before shoving the shifter into gear and spinning the tires.

"What?" Chance blinked at the outburst. "What did I say?"

"You know what, how about we just don't talk? If I'm so annoying to you, just sit there and point at where I have to go." Kehpri turned on the radio and raised the volume annoyingly high.

"Fine," Chance said grumpily, and rubbed her stomach.

It was a quiet ride down the dusty washed-out path to the main road. Kehpri glared out the cracked windshield at the dirt road. "I'm not insane," she finally said as they pulled out onto the larger road.

Chance said nothing. She just stared out the window. In the distance she could see the old military housing of Fort Nelson that the Pack Zoya now ran lived. It was one of the better towns on the reservation.

"I'm not!" Kehpri shouted, nearly sending the truck fishtailing off the road as she glared over at the dark-haired woman.

Overcorrecting, she managed to get the truck back under control, knuckles white on the steering wheel as she focused on the driving again. "Sorry. I just have this thing about being called insane."

Chance looked over at the other woman, opened her mouth, thought better of it, and then went back to looking out the window.

The silent treatment was really starting to get to Kehpri, and the woman tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, fidgeting. Ten miles down the road, she broke. "Could you say something?"

She almost said, 'you told me not to talk', but then changed her mind. "If you're not insane," which she doubted, "then why act like it?"

"I like the term strange, instead of insane." She tried a little smile, but when the other woman continued to look at her, she sighed. "It makes people underestimate you. Also, people tend to stay away if they think you're insane."

"If you want people to stay away, why did you kidnap me? That makes no sense."

"Had to get you out of the hospital somehow…" The entire truck bucked as she drove it up onto the paved road. The springs were in as good a shape as the rest of the truck, and Kehpri nearly hit her head on the roof.

"It's a hospital. It's not like I was in any danger in there." Chance's fingers started drumming against the glass of the window.

"Ha! That's what you think. Hospitals are dangerous places." The first signs of civilization were starting to appear around the edges of the road.

Chance pointed to the right then whipped her head around as they passed the road she wanted. "I clearly pointed for you to turn."

"Fuck." The tires screeched as she did a completely illegal u-turn in the middle of the street to get back to where they should have turned. "I thought we weren't pointing anymore."

"We weren't? Why didn't you tell me?"

Kehpri did a respectable growl of her own, "Which way now?"

"Follow it until you see the sign for the Old Grove Apartments." More and more buildings were popping up, most of it the uniform pattern of military housing.

"Apartments..? I thought I was taking you to work?" Not that she really relished that idea, in fact, now that she was thinking about it. Reaching around into the space behind the bucket seat, she got out a beat-up ball cap and an old style pair of sunglasses.

"I can't show up to work like this," she pulled at her shirt. "Just drop me off at my apartment and I'll have Quinton come and pick me up and take me in to work."

"Oh, right." Kehpri relaxed. Not driving up to a federal building was a good thing. The apartments looked like they were cheap buildings even for prefab buildings. "Eww, you live in one of these?"

"It's cheap, and well, this is where all non-shifters tend to live, safety in numbers and all that. You can park in spot 312."

Making a wide turn, she parked in the spot marked by the pale white spray paint. "A lot of people live here?" She peered up out the windshield at the cement monstrosity in front of her.

"No, only a handful, most humans don't want anything to do with the Reservation. You get a few bleeding hearts, hippie back to nature types, college kids writing thesis on Weres or Reservation life. A few mix-breeds, those who have one human parent and one Were parent, they tend to feel really lost in the world. The only regulars that stay here are the agents." To say she lived here was stretching it, more like stored her stuff here and lived out of a work jeep and the office.

Shoving down on the parking brake, Kehpri turned towards the federal agent. "I'm serious. Stay out of the hospital. Bad things happen there."

Chance chuckled. "I think the people who work there took an oath to help mankind, or something." She got out of the truck and started up the three flights of stairs to the top floor. Fishing around in her pocket, she realized with a groan her keys were in the middle of nowhere with her gun and badge, probably having a fucking tea party.

As she reached her door, she jumped up, grabbed the lip of the roof, hauled herself up and walked across to the flimsy balcony on the other side. She dropped down and entered through the balcony door she never locked.

Her apartment wasn't much to look at, but she was never home. It was fairly large for a one bedroom. Truth was though, she hardly slept in here.

There was an overstuffed couch, a tiny TV on a huge TV stand, a punching bag, and a sickly plant she called Tree.

"Hey, Tree," she grunted out as she slid the balcony door shut. In a continuing pattern of normalcy, the plant didn't talk back. She pulled the borrowed t-shirt off and walked into the bathroom and grabbed her toothbrush.

Furiously brushing her teeth, she went over to a closet, opened it up, and grabbed dark blue slacks and a white buttoned down shirt, and then started looking for the jacket that went with the slacks. It was a standard suit for all agents, although when she was out in the field, she shucked it for jeans and a T-shirt, especially in the summer around here.

She frowned when someone knocked on her door. "Just a moment," she gurgled out, her mouth full of toothpaste. She slipped on the shirt and walked over, stopping to spit toothpaste in the sink before ending up at the door. "Yeah?" she said, opening the door. She sighed seeing Kehpri, assuming their time together was over.

"What?"

The brunette ducked her head to one side, looking around the irritated agent to get a peek at the apartment. "Huh. Not bad, kind of empty looking though. Don't they pay you enough to buy furniture?"

"Um...did I forget something?" Chance tried to block the doorway, but Kehpri was slippery to stop.

"To invite me up," was the blithe reply as the skinny woman slipped past and started to poke around, investigating the rooms.

Chance made a face as the woman slipped past her. "No, I didn't." She turned around and barked out, "Put that down!" She walked over and ripped the framed photo out of the woman's skinny fingers. The photo showed three kids, two girls and one boy, rough housing with a large white canine.

"Is that you as a child?" Kehpri tried to get a better look, even as Chance held it out of her reach.

She looked at the photo as if it had changed suddenly. "It's a family picture."

"Oh." Kehpri stopped her attempts to look, but watched with interest as the agent put the picture back down. "Where's your bathroom?" she asked suddenly.

"Over there," she pointed out the door in the wall.

"Thanks. I can give you a ride to work after, if you want, since you don't have a car here," Kehpri called out. She nearly whined with envy when she saw the full sized shower and bath. A second later, the shower started.

Blue eyes tracked back to the photo. You couldn't really see her face, but she was certain that she was happy and smiling. Her dark-haired head standing out next to her sister and brother's white blonde, and her father was huge in his animal form. Sadly, it was the only picture she had of him and…and she couldn't see him. Now she couldn't even remember what he looked like.

Her head whipped up as the shower started, and she huffed and rolled her eyes.

Stalking over to the closet, she finished getting dressed. She snagged a ring of keys from a hook and pulled down her extra gun and unlocked the case it was inside.

"Don't worry, you're already late anyway!" Kehpri yelled from the bathroom. The hot shower, after weeks of sponge baths, was orgasmic in its pleasure. Shuddering, she started to scrub clean.

Disgusted that the first few minutes of water ran brown down the drain, Kehpri spent a bit longer in the shower than she'd expected. It was more than just a couple minutes by the time she emerged from the shower and helped herself to one of Agent Pavel's towels.

Chance was feeling almost back to normal as the shower turned off. She started to button up the shirt, but paused for a moment, checking out her stitches. They didn't seem to be seeping anymore, and even now, she was questioning if she had been hurt as bad as she thought she had been.

She finished buttoning up and tucked her shirt in. Frowning at her closet, she wondered yet again where the hell the blazer was that matched the pants she was wearing.

The bathroom door cracked open enough to let a cloud of steam billow out into the hallway. "Hey, do you have some clothes I can borrow?"

"I got the stuff you let me borrow yesterday."

Kehpri muttered something that sounded like a curse and stepped out of the bathroom with the towel wrapped around her. "Where are they?"

"I got 'em, one sec." She scooped the pants off the floor and the shirt off the couch. Then felt a pang of pity or guilt or something like guilt. "Hey, I'll get you something clean."

Kehpri appeared in the door of the bedroom, wet hair dangling down her face and back. "No, no. I'm not good enough to wear super agent's clothes. Just give me mine."

"Jesus…I was trying to be nice," she threw the clothes at Kehpri.

"Don't strain yourself." Grabbing for the clothes let part of the towel slip, but Kehpri was proud of herself for keeping up her affronted anger, and stalked back to the bathroom to change

"I won't!" she huffed out then slammed over to her dresser and pulled out an old shirt and some shorts. Then still in a snit for some reason she couldn't even fathom, she pulled open the bathroom door. "Goddamn it, I'm being nice here. Take the fucking clothes...." she trailed off.

"Err, um, you're naked."

"That's what happens when I get changed." The skinny woman stepped into her pants and pulled them up. When there was no comment, she raised an eyebrow and looked at the woman in the doorway. "Are you going to tip me for the show?"

The dark-haired woman reached up and rubbed her nose. "No, I'm not tipping...arghhh." She shut the door, stomping off to her kitchen that was separated from the rest of the place by a counter, and pulled a box down from on top of the fridge and grabbed some power bars.

Feeling better with herself after getting the better of the last exchange and being clean, Kehpri emerged from the bathroom in her clothes. "I borrowed some of your soap and shampoo. You ready to go?"

Chance grunted and threw a snack bar at the woman, and followed her to the door.

####################

Chance stepped out of the rusty piece of shit Kehpri called a truck, and gave a half assed wave as she walked up the steps into the small two-story building that was the local FBI.

She opened the door and saw all her fellow agents sitting around. Six, including her, had been out in the field following up on what little leads and hunches they had. Three others had the night off, to work the morning shift or to receive a call to come out and follow up if need be. It was a rotating shift for the full moon coverage.

The over pumped up ultra dick Halstead turned around first, and noticing her.

"Hey, nice of you to join us, Super Agent," he smirked at her, getting everybody else in the room to turn and look over at her.

She bristled but said nothing; just happy she'd had the presence of mind to have Kehpri stop at her crappy studio apartment so she could change.

The local branch director frowned at her, his eyebrows looking like a fat fuzzy caterpillar dancing on his forehead. "Agent Pavel, debriefing starts at 9 sharp, it is now, 9:09. You're late."

"Sorry, sir, I was shot last night..."

"Yes, I know. I received a phone call from Doctor Miller when you disappeared from the hospital with another woman."

"Alright, Chance! Getting so desperate you have to steal the warm bodies from the clinic?"

"Halstead!" the director barked out before Chance could. "I know we give a certain amount of latitude, on all sorts of things, for agents who choose the Human-Werewolf Affairs posts, but one more outburst like that and you'll be off duty and seeing a shrink."

The bulky man's face went stony and he turned back around.

Everyone there knew he had only stayed in the FBI program because he had agreed to be posted here; anywhere else and they would have booted him out.

"So, Agent Pavel, I understand you were in a shooting. Your first since you've been here with us. Jeremy is still the winner at four bullets removed."

The agents cheered for a moment as the short, stocky man stood and gave a small bow.

"Now that you are officially one of the boys, I will need to see your weapon, take a statement, and we will have to go out to the site and do the usual processing of the scene." He held out his hand.

Chance looked sheepish. "I don't know where my weapon is. I think it may still be at the scene."

"You think," the director made an annoyed face. "And do I want to know why you called your sister to get you, opposed to protocol and calling in?"

"Well, at the time, I thought I was dying, and knew she could find me a lot quicker than you all...err, sir."

"Mule," someone coughed under their breath, and Chance's face started turning red in anger. The director either didn't hear it or ignored it.

"Whatever. Chance, we got you a new partner, finally. Say hello to Donald Gibbons," the director swept his arm out and a young man stood up, barely topping Chance's own 5'10" by a couple of inches.

God he's young…was the first thought to enter her brain. He was still bright-eyed and happy. The world of the Reservation hadn't crushed him yet. Chance stepped forward and shook his hand with a quietly spoken, "Donald".

"Okay, with that out of the way, we'll finish reporting in of the shit from last night and then everyone can get on assignments. As always, those of you who worked last night have the day off…except for Pavel and Gibbons. You two get to go process the scene of the shooting. If in anyway it looks like there will be any sniffing of Internal Affairs, give me a call. And Pavel can come back and start on paperwork. Alright, people," he clapped his hands together, "let's start the healing."

Chance hated that joke.

####################

"Video conference initiated," said the computerized voice, and the screen blinked into life.

On the screen was an old, white male with eyes that carried dark black bags under them. "What's happened?" he barked out, running a hand through his wispy white hair.

"I was in the middle of a test run on the new batch of WH3435, so this had better be important."

"Of course it's important, Bob," the voice purred out.

"Doctor Stetler," the man corrected sternly.

"Of course, Doctor." The woman barely resisted rolling her eyes.

"So, what's so important?"

"Well," she started, a huge grin forming on her face, "I was finally able to use Subject 122. And I must say…the initial results were fantastic."

"Subject 122..." The older doctor turned from the screen and the sounds of papers being moved around could be heard.

"Yes. She was brought to the clinic with a gunshot wound to the lower abdomen, considerable loss of blood. During the operation to remove the bullet and stop the bleeding, I was able to inject her with WH3434. I have to say it was like she started to heal on the table. When she woke up a few hours later, you could barely tell she had been shot at all. She was up and moving..."

Stetler cut her off as he came back into view, a file in his hands. "Agent Pavel," he threw the file down with disgust. "That's if she's not already a Were to start with."

"Sir, I think it's time to let those hunches of yours go. She went under a full belly of testing to see if she was a Were, and passed all the tests with flying colors. Never once were they able to trigger the change. And from my notes here, you went above and beyond in the test scenarios on her."

"Yes, well..." he grumped, "I just have my reservations as using her as a test subject. In my opinion, she should be in one of my cells."

"Yes, well, you know the ruling of 1962. All children of mixed heritage with one Were and one human parent shall be considered a human and given all rights and privileges as such, pending the passage of two full moon nights supervised without change. Agent Pavel is for all purposes a human. All be it, a special one."

"Yes, yes, Dr. Miller, I am aware of the Carolian study of mixed breed children; how they hardly get sick, how they tend to be superior athletes, and heal more quickly from minor injuries. Although nothing compared to their full-blooded Were cousins. That is why I think Agent Pavel should not be in the study, she isn't a full human to start with."

"Well, she's hardly been in the study at all. She never comes to the hospital."

"I thought all agents on the Reservation were supposed to come in once a year for a physical?"

"They are, but Agent Pavel has only been out here for two years, and so far she's managed to get out of it. But that doesn't matter. She sustained a serious life-threatening wound that, from what little is known of mixed-breed children, the rate she healed at was not normal."

"Yes, but it would have been normal for a Were."

Dr. Miller closed her eyes for a moment, wishing Bob would get over this fixation he had with Chance Pavel.

"Perhaps, Dr. Miller, if you could get me a blood sample of her sister, then I could be more convinced she is what..."

"Everybody, and all the scientific data, points to a mixed-breed child," Miller cut in. "And while Zoya is more than willing to share other fluids with me, she is way too smart to give me any blood. And trust me, Bob, I like my lungs and liver right were they are."

"Fine, fine...if you think it's necessary keep tabs on Chance. But I'm telling you, her results will skew the final measurement of the testing."

"I realize I'm not your precious Dr. Madison, but I worked just as hard to get into the program and..." She was cut off as Dr. Stetler ended the video feed.

"Uptight asshole," the doctor cursed.

####################

It was awkward in the jeep, driving out into the middle of nowhere. She hadn't had a partner for almost nine months now. Alexa Stevens, a grumpy African-American woman, had been her partner when she'd first taken the assignment here. Alexa was good, a wealth of information that Chance readily soaked up, but the woman had been here for six years, and was in the deep stages of burnout.

The Reservation had that effect on people. Despite all the noble intentions an agent had when coming out here, they burned up rather quickly under the assault of reality. The reality was…Weres resented being taken away from their native territories and shoved on to the Reservation. They resented the fact they had sided with the humans during the Vampire Rebellion of 1899 and their thanks was to be classified as a hostile, rounded up and shoved on to a piece of land no bigger than Rhode Island. Reality was…local law enforcement couldn't enforce the laws on humans on the Reservation. So a human drove across the border, walked into a store and then walked out with a case of beer without paying. Law enforcement couldn't do squat. A human comes across the border and rapes a woman, the local LEO couldn't do shit. That was where the Federal Agents came in. But up until recently, there was maybe one agent stationed on the reservation as a liaison. And normally, he was there because he was one more fuck up from being kicked out.

Things changed a bit in 1965, when Weres went from being hospital animals to Para-humans. It was the time of civil rights and advanced technology, like cameras, were able to show the horror of Reservation life. Things changed a bit, and from then on out, things started to slowly change in the minds of the people. But on the Reservation, the Weres didn't change; they stayed regulated to separate packs. Most packs distrustful of other packs. Zoya's territory was on the upscale of change, but honestly, her sister was more progressive than other packs. Zoya was the Alpha, dictator supreme; there was no doubt about that. But she had shifted the territory into more of a town, allowed some industry in, and started a town council. She allowed other Weres to join her pack, not just wolves.

But that didn't change the fact that there was still a lot of distrust and anger deeply entrenched between the humans and the Weres. And there were a total of ten Agents out here to follow up on all the shit people did to each other. All that shit wore her old partner down. Chance, in retrospect thought that maybe Alexa had wanted to die, she had certainly gotten sloppy the weeks leading up to the accident. In the end, Chance's first and only partner had her leg chewed off by a Were-cougar doped up on meth. It had taken months, but Chance didn't have nightmares about that one anymore.

"So..." she said to break the silence.

Gibbons just looked at her with trusting brown eyes, that weren't yet shuttered to holding the horrors of life at bay.

"Why the Reservation..?"

He smiled, showing dimples. "Well, my wife wanted to move closer to the family, and there is a signing bonus now, if you sign up for Reservation work."

"No shit, a bonus?" Well, fuck, she'd missed out on that. "So where's you're wife's family?"

"They own the Blackwater Ranch, up north just into Nevada."

"Huh, really…you're married to a Were?" Well, didn't that beat all?

Gibbons' face took on sort of a stony look.

"Oh, hey, I don't mean it to be an asshole, just surprised. The Blackwater family is good people. Their ranch gives a lot of jobs and money into the community." Truth was…the beef was considered some of the best, but until recently, nobody in the US would by, it was all shipped overseas. Japanese and Russian politicos and wealthy elite loved it. She had no idea how they ran the ranch, considering that Cattle and Weres probably shouldn't mix. Somehow they made it work.

"Well, Justine can't, well..." Gibbons looked uncomfortable.

"Whoa, whoa, don't be putting me in the middle of the family secrets here. We haven't been partners that long." She took the jeep off road and they bounced along inside.

"Nah, the Blackwater family has a genetic defect; about 2% of the kids born in the family are non-shifters. Justine's one of those. Shit, I don't know why I shared that with you."

Chance made a face, "You did it 'cause I might sympathize. You heard Halstead's comments about my mixed race."

The agent looked uncomfortable for a moment. "Yeah, maybe." he hedged.

"Don't worry about it. But the moment you start telling me how lousy your sex life is, I'm kicking you out of the car."

Gibbons just threw back his crew cut head and laughed. "No worries, there is no problems there."

And Chance felt like kicking him out of the car for that too.

They pulled to a stop in the middle of nowhere.

Getting out of the car, Gibbons looked around. "Jeeze, how can you remember this was the spot?"

"I got shot, not going to forget it anytime soon."

"Point…"

"And that's my car," she pointed to the crappy, late model, compact hidden behind some boulders.

"So why here? What made you think hunters would be up here," he asked his young face eager.

Chance had to wonder if this was what Alexa felt like with her.

"Natural blind of rocks to hide the hunters, and it looks down on that pond, a water source for predators and prey."

They paused awkwardly as they found where she'd been shot. There was a decomposing body on the ground and blood soaked the dirt floor. "That's an awful lot of blood."

"Yeah, it is," she agreed, and started looking around for her gun. "I'll leave you to process the body."

She found her gun where his buddies had kicked it into the scrub along with her badge. She snapped gloves on, took a couple of pictures then picked up her stuff and put them in a bag.

Gibbons looked a lot green as he asked, "Should you even be here?"

Chance snorted and looked over at him. "Kid, you got a lot to learn about working on the Reservation. First thing, is that the Weres don't like us, and the humans don't like us, and Halstead's a first rate asshole. No one will help you, and nobody but that guy's family is going to care he's dead. And nobody but me cares that I was shot." That wasn't true, she was sure Zoya cared.

"That's a bit jaded," Gibbons shot out as he processed the body.

"And you're still green, but you'll learn. If you're in a tight spot with hunters, pull out your gun and use it. If you're in a tight spot with Weres, pull out your gun and use it. 'Cause, kid, they all want you dead."

Gibbons just shook his head but stayed silent, though he was getting a little tired of being called kid.

Chance just grinned and tossed her badge and gun over to Gibbons. "I'm going to go see if I can find where his buddies ended up. Or at least get some tire treads."

Gibbons nodded, but he'd gone pale. It looked like a fox or coyote had gotten the dead guy's eyes during the night.

She walked down the hill weaving in and out of the squat and sparse conifers, bent with lack of water. She remembered seeing the flash of something in the night, and coming up to investigate. She'd gotten out of her car and walked over to where the three yahoos were making a hunting blind, although they were being way too loud and drinking. But it was only sunset at this point, with dusk dripping down and starting to coat the landscape. No moon, yet.

She hadn't really expected them to shoot her; they hadn't done anything yet. But a few more hours and a lot more alcohol later, all sorts of bad shit would happen with these guys.

She'd told them to explain themselves, and a short, squat guy who probably had short man's disease had gotten in her face and pulled a gun on her. She, of course, had pulled her own. Still, she had been surprised when he pulled the trigger, and only managed to fire out of self-preservation. All this time out here and she'd never been shot. Plenty of other bad stuff, but not shot.

She hadn't felt the bullet that pierced her flesh, but she had felt the burning in her gut, as well as a flood of blood exiting her body. She had writhed and screamed on the ground with the remaining two hunters gibbering in a panic.

Jesus she'd probably just lost what was left of her faith in her fellow man. She spotted tire tracks and took a few pictures, as well as bagging a beer can.

She hiked back up to Gibbons, who was sitting on a rock in the shade. "Alright, I found where they parked. Took some pictures and bagged a beer can for DNA." She tossed the jeep keys at him.

He stared at them for a moment. "Are we going somewhere?"

"Nope, but you're going to need a way to get back to the station," she said with a grin. "I'm taking my car back and start filling out the incident paperwork, as well as working on some other stuff. You get to wait for the meat wagon. See you back at the station." She grinned and pulled out her car keys. Take that, Mister-I-have-a-perfect-sex-life. Her grin got wider.

Back at the station, she turned on the small fan she had nailed to the window and it weakly moved the hot air around. She stared at the three messages on her desk. Dr. Miller had called her three times already. Jesus…if she'd known the woman would notice her, she would have gotten shot then snuck out of the hospital months ago.

She moved the notes up to her "I'll get around to that soon" pile and looked woefully at her "Get this done right fucking now" pile. Her computer screamed in agony as it booted up. Her ribs were throbbing, but she knew any ice would melt long before she made it back from the fridge.

She studied the map, three more missing Weres last night that they knew of…a mother Werebear and her cub, then a werewolf from Nightshade, which was a creepy town. They rarely got calls up there. It was sort of like a more intense version of Las Vegas for extreme adult appetites. She wasn't certain her appetite would ever be adult enough for that place. She'd heard rumors of Vamps up there, and maybe a witch or two. So they'd have to go sniff around but… She shuddered just thinking about it.

With a groan, she decided to go make some coffee.

####################

Zoya turned off the shower and stepped out into the thick steam covering the bathroom. She yawned and brushed water-drenched locks out of her face and grabbed a thick towel. Wiping steam off the mirror, she studied her face. She was tired, full moon nights did that to her. Alphas, those with the ability to resist the call of emotion and mood, that so ruled the Were nature, were rare. Most of her full moon nights were spent running herd on her pack. Of course, last night had the unexpected complication of Chance.

She sighed as she vigorously dried her hair. Fucking Chance… Her half sister was always a mystery to her, why she had stayed in the human world, joined their ideals, and became a federal agent. Once Chance had turned eighteen, she'd begged her sister to come back to the pack, to rejoin them. But no, Chance wanted to change things from within the system.

She hung the towel back up and stepped out into her luxurious bedroom. The windows were open, letting in the bright afternoon sunlight. She could see the haze of the heat baking the world outside. In the distance she could see the city, her city, spread out, and the garish military complex where she let the humans stay and pretend they had influence in her world.

The comforter on the bed moved, and a blonde head poked out of the covers with a squeak.

Zoya frowned and wondered what the hell she'd been thinking, letting Veronica into her bed. She kicked the bed. "Get your clothes and get out," she said matter-of-factly, turning to her huge closet and pulled out a designer suit and jacket that fit her body very well.

The woman in the bed pouted, "You can't mean that, especially after the fun we had last night."

Zoya chuckled and turned with an evil look on her face. "I've had better. Now get out. I have a meeting, and you're lowering my property value."

There was a small feeling of remorse as the woman sniffing back tears grabbed her clothes and ran out of the room, but then Zoya just shrugged it off. Being a leader of a pack meant not dwelling on the unpleasant things she did sometimes.

She finished getting dressed and pulled her long hair into a ponytail. Opening the door, she found Terry standing outside with her phone and a cup of coffee. She smiled at the old woman and took both. "Lovely as ever, Terry," she said with a grin.

"Zoya, stop bringing home those bitches, you get yourself a good strong Alpha bitch to help you rule, and things will get better."

"I know, I know. But you know me…I'm just not ready to settle down."

The older woman sighed and swatted Zoya's behind as the woman passed, going down the stairs to her office. She flipped open the phone. "Yes, Bill, I know you have a problem. You have a problem because you tried to screw me. I allow you're company to come in and build a mining rig, and you try to get out of hiring my people and paying fees. So if you want your copper plant and you're fucking copper, you better start meeting our agreement."

She listened to the guy on the other end try to wheedle his way around their agreement.

"Let me see…you thought you could outsmart the stupid animal person. Now listen here, Bill, my land, my mining facility, and oh yeah, jobs for my people. Or you can explain all the arsenic you left in the ground at your other mining sites when they closed down."

There was a stunned silence from the phone.

She grinned, "Yep, I bet you thought you bribed all the right people to make sure that report never saw the light of day. Funny thing there, Bill…my nose alone can detect a plethora of disease and poison, so I didn't need any report to know what you guys buried in those sites when you closed them. You think I was just going to bend over and let you rape my people, think again. So, is it going to be my way, or am I going to be kicking your people out and selling all that copper to somebody else?" She grinned. "Yeah, you have a nice day too."

She might not have a fancy degree like her sister, but that didn't mean she was a stupid animal. It was a wonder what a fake identity and a credit card could get you online now. She had a couple of online degrees in business and other things that caught her fancy. Of course, Zoya Pavel had none of those.

There was a knock at her office door and she leaned back in her leather chair and stared around her. She'd built a good life in the shadow of her father's death. She'd brought the pack here farther then he ever would have, but he'd been stuck on the idea of them being the noble savage. The best of animal and man, and that someday the human race would realize that. She snorted, not likely. She'd brought many of the packs together, opened inroads on the Reservation to industry. And because they were considered their own sovereign nation, she could undercut taxes and prices elsewhere in the US and abroad. Big business didn't see color or the furriness of skin, they saw the bottom line. And she helped them achieve that bottom line quick and easy.

Of course, the big picture was to unite all the rag-tag packs and prides under her, because as the good old American saying went, 'United we stand, divided we fall'. United with hundreds of Weres under her, it'd be best for the humans to start watching their backs. She grinned evilly.

The knock came again, only louder.

She blinked and came out of her daydream of world domination. "Come in."

Duncan stood filling the doorway. "Um, you wanted me to remind you of the two humans in the holding cells."

"Oh, right. Thank you." She got up and followed Duncan into the basement, which smelled strongly of animal musk. She normally held more feral members or teenagers with hormone issues, and the occasional female who was going into heat during a full moon. Regardless, on full moon nights she held pack members who needed help controlling themselves when the moon was high. With a strong Alpha influence, many Weres learned to remain themselves even when they slipped their skin, but it took practice, and many lone wolves went feral in the scrub of the high desert, and true Alphas were hard to find.

However, one cell in the back, still housed two humanoid figures.

Seeing them approach, a raspy voice strained from overuse called out, "You can't keep us here. You don't have any authority to hold us."

Zoya and Duncan stopped in front of the cell. She barely kept her distaste from showing in her winter blue eyes. "You two were found speeding away from a shooting."

"Yeah, so what?" one of the men challenged, his face gaunt and tired, huge dark circles spread out from under his eyes. "You…" he pointed a finger at them, "don't have the authority to hold us. When I get out of here I'm having the feds come in and shoot your freak asses full of sliver."

"Really?" she raised an eyebrow and smirked at Duncan. The big man barely kept his face neutral.

"Jacob, shut up," the other man said from where he sat, a defeated slump to his shoulders.

"What? I know the laws, and the law is only a federal agent can charge us."

"Oh, like the federal agent you shot last night?"

"Ah…what..?"

"Yeah, your buddy shot a federal agent."

"Oh God," his face went pale. "I didn't look too good at that badge. I thought it was just one of your mule local law officers out."

"Wow, and the fact you think it would be okay to shoot anybody boggles my mind. But you see, it gets worse, that federal agent just happens to be my sister. So now you can understand my level of pissed off."

"Good," the hunter said, getting his steam back. "Freaks are now infecting all levels of the government. You are a disease that needs to be stopped."

The other hunter stood up. "Jacob, shut up." He turned, looking at Zoya. "I'm sorry. I…I'm desperate. I lost my job a month ago, and my little girl, the doctors say there's something wrong with her heart. I needed money and Bobby, he's the guy your sister shot, he said I could get the money I needed coming out here and hunting Weres. I know it's murder, and wrong, but I'd do anything for my little girl. Please, Bobby had some connection for body parts of Weres."

That wasn't the first time she'd heard that. There was a huge black market in Asia for were-animal bodies. The Asian continent didn't really have any Weres left, so to speak, tigers, foxes and the mythical shark hadn't been seen in decades.

"God you are such a fucking whiner," Jacob turned on his fellow hunter.

"Just because I have a family to live for, you bitter old fuckhead."

Zoya let the two men bicker, before she held out a hand and Duncan dutifully placed one of the hunting rifles pulled from the cab of the truck the two men were driving in, in her hand. She made sure it was loaded and pulled the trigger. The sliver bullet slammed into the hunter's head, and exited out the back with a splatter of blood and brain.

Jacob, stunned, watched his fellow cellmate slump to the floor dead, "Holy shit!"

"Jacob!" Zoya said, getting the man's attention. "You're probably thinking to yourself that somehow you're the lucky one, right now, at this very moment. But you'd be wrong. I showed him mercy, gave him the quick kill that you'll be begging for six months from now." She turned away from the cell, Duncan following at her heels.

"What do you want me to do with him?" he asked, his Scottish accent slipping out with the smell of fresh blood getting to him a bit.

"Send him on to Nightshade. I'm sure he'll feed somebody's kink up there. Send the instructions he's to survive at least for six months of hell there before somebody better even think of going too far."

The big man nodded.

"The other one…find out if he does, indeed, have a family. And if his story was true, make sure his little girl gets that surgery she needs."

Duncan's stride paused for a moment in surprise, "A human."

"Don't question me on that. He was a desperate man thinking of his family above all things, even right and wrong. I respect that. If he was lying for my sympathy, I want to piss on his remains."

"Yes, boss."

####################

Leaving behind the annoying agent, Kehpri spun the wheels on the truck as she pulled away from the nondescript looking building that housed the FBI offices. Nobody had given her a second look, but just being there was enough to make her uneasy.

She was glad to see the place in her rearview mirror. The brown-haired woman started singing when she couldn't see it anymore at all, after rounding a bend in the road.

With the windows down, the wind causing her hair to fly about unrestrained and the music as loud as the pitiful speakers could handle, she even felt close to normal. The full night's sleep had been wonderful.

"Then she had to go and ruin the moment by jumping out of bed, like I was some sort of crack whore or something," Kehpri frowned, her mood turning dark again. "Fuck her. I don't need her to like me."

It would have been nice to have a friend though. It had been a long time since she'd been able to talk to someone. Even before she'd gone on the run it had been tough to talk to anyone.

"Crap. Pull it together. You don't have time for memories."

Focusing on the road ahead of her and ignoring the memories that clamored for attention again, she headed away from the center of the small town, towards the edge of civilization.

"Time to go to work…" She couldn't let herself she'd fall back into a pit of despair comparing her current work place to the state of the art facility she'd once worked at. The self-storage place was nearly abandoned. Certainly she'd only seen one or two other people using it in the months now that she'd been set up.

"Shit, gotta remember to find some money to cover next month's rental." That was getting harder also. She'd run out of things to sell a while ago. Parking the truck next to the end unit, she hopped out and fished around under her seat for a tightly bundled plastic bag.

Pulling out her keys, she unlocked the heavy padlock on the door. Quickly, she slipped inside, closing the door behind her to keep any possible prying eyes from seeing inside.

Paranoia wasn't something she really joked about anymore.

At least the place had electricity, which was more than she could have said for her current home. The industrial switches hummed as she forced them into the on position. Fluorescent lights flickered and came on, illuminating the workspace she'd made for herself.

Equipment was piled across benches. Most of it was standard biological laboratory fair, centrifuges, computers, and microscopes. All of it had been stolen or bought through far less than legal routes. The plastic bag she was holding was tossed onto one of the benches. The blood-soaked cloth inside, from Agent Pavel, would be analyzed soon enough.

The only thing that was obviously out of place was the bullet reloader setup that she had in one corner of the rental space. Bags of silver powder and pellets rested around it.

Today she ignored the scientific equipment and went to the main computer system and its attached scanner.

Reaching down her pants, she pulled out the photograph she'd smuggled out of Agent Pavel's apartment.

"All right…let's see if I can find out who you are." She put the photo on the scanner and started to work.

A thick bunch of cables ran from the back of her impromptu computer network up to the roof above her. She was sure that the owner of the shit dump would probably be furious if he ever found out about the small satellite receiver she'd drilled onto the roof, but she really didn't care.

As always, she was careful to cover her tracks as best as she could. She'd never been a fantastic hacker, though, and without the programs that friends had given her; this little jaunt into the government computer systems would have been well beyond her abilities. First up, a look into the FBI files that she'd only briefly skimmed through a couple of days prior. This time she made full copies of the personnel files on the ten agents that were stationed on the Reservation.

That would be her bedtime reading later.

Closing down the window, she shifted to the Department of Defense net and pulled up a nifty little program she'd stumbled across. Feeding in the cropped pictures of the faces from the picture she'd borrowed from Agent Pavel's house, she set the program to analyzing them.

"For once this facial recognition software is going to actually help me."

The prospect of using the department of Defense's programs against it always made her smile. Leaving that to run, she considered the experiments she had lined up on the bench.

None of them were possible, since her mission to the hospital had frankly been a failure.

"Well, I did get Chance out of there, before Dr. Miller could do anything else."

It really annoyed Kehpri that she hadn't been able to sneak in while they'd been working on the agent during the first few frantic moments. She'd seen the good doctor inject something into the agent, but she hadn't been able to get a sample, or even get the used syringe.

Unfortunately, that meant she was going to have to go back to the hospital and try again.

Hopefully the staff wouldn't just throw her into some psychiatric ward.

"Hmmm..." Picking up a small data recorder, she flipped it on. "It's now been three weeks since I've come to the Were Reservation. I know that there is an answer here, somewhere. The files that Tim got me, along with my mysterious contact from the DoD, show that the tissue and blood samples came from here. My attempt to find out what Dr. Miller is doing here have not been successful yet. Note to self, attempt infiltrating the hospital again, perhaps not as a patient this time."

She clicked off the recorder, staring at the lab bench as she considered her possible plans of action.

"Oh, note to self. I have to return the picture to the Super Agent's place - soon."

Again, the recorder was clicked off. This time she set it aside on the desk.

Since the program was still dutifully sifting through data and trying to match a name to the faces on the faded out picture, she leaned back in the chair and laced her hands behind her head.

There had to be a connection between Dr. Miller's presence here and the disappearing Weres. She was sure of it. Bob had to be involved in it somehow, also, although he was doing a great job of keeping himself clean of any incriminating evidence.

"Goddamn it! Six months now and all I have are fucking rumors!"

It was infuriating. Six months on the run, six months of hiding out and trying to piece together what was going on. And what did she have…a banged up pickup truck, an ancient Gulf Stream trailer, and a lab, of sorts, hidden in a space rental place.

She was alone, utterly alone. No one would care if she died suddenly out here. No one would even miss her. In fact, a few people would be pretty happy if she did.

"Fuck it." Grabbing the photo off of the scanner and leaving the computer to do its thing, she decided to get to work on the blood samples. That would give her something to concentrate on so she wouldn't feel so lonely. There were days when she thought she would go insane from loneliness.

"Maybe I already have."

She laughed, "Talking to myself again."

Sighing, she pulled on some gloves and pulled open the white plastic garbage bag she'd used to stuff the cloth in. Time to find out what Agent Pavel's DNA could tell her.

####################

Chance got out of her car, not as cool as the work vehicle she got to drive and not as many gadgets, but it got her from point A, her house, to point B, her work. The day had been hot, and her shirt was stuck to her back with sweat. She pulled into the local market near her house.

Instead of suffering the food at the Frosty Stand, which she was pretty certain the young punks who worked there spit into her food, she was going to try cooking for herself…which was depressing.

Her day had been full of shit, the kind of human shit and suffering that made her sometimes sit at home with her gun in her mouth, thinking seriously of eating a bullet. A roughneck Were full of attitude coming out of the store slammed into her. She gritted her teeth and attempted to move around him.

"Fucking puppy, go back to your human masters, we don't need no human-loving piece of shit stinking up our territory."

The tic started in her right eye again, and she just gritted her teeth and went inside.

Chance just didn't need this shit today.

She had spent most of her day just across the border following up on a rape charge. The smug asshole who had raped at twelve year old girl would probably never see the inside of a jail, and now she was just feeling filthy and like she'd failed.

Everyone stared at her, and whispered behind her back, and she wondered how Halstead had managed this for five years, and she was nowhere near the asshole he was, although, he did live off the Reservation.

She bought some steaks and a sack of potatoes, just because it was a good buy, and beer. Then feeling guilty, threw in some apple juice, to pretend she was healthy. The cashier rang her up way too high for the steaks, but Chance didn't have it in her to argue. She just kept seeing the beaten and bloody face of that girl and kept thinking about how much she'd failed her.

As she walked out to her car, she cursed when she saw her left back taillight had been kicked in.

She dragged her tired ass up the three flights to her apartment, took one look at the door and knew someone had broken in. The open door was a big clue. "Fucking great," she muttered, kicking the door shut.

A startled yelp echoed from deeper in the apartment, and Kehpri appeared at the door from the bedroom, grinning sheepishly. "Hi."

Chance just stood for a moment, her lips pursed. She thought about an outburst, but gave up the idea it wouldn't do any good. "You…but it's only been a week since last we saw each other."

"What a week though," Kehpri grinned, which turned into a smile when she spotted the shopping bags. "Oh, are we having dinner?" She rubbed her hands together hopefully.

"Yeah, why not," Chance said. "'Cause if I asked you to leave, would it do any good?"

"Nope," Kehpri said happily, very, very glad that she'd managed to return the picture to its spot in the back before the agent had barged in.

She walked past her to the kitchen, flipping on a light. "If I find any of my underwear gone, I'm shooting you, just so we're clear."

"As if I want anything to do with your underwear…" Kehpri trailed along behind her, still fixated on the bags of groceries that the dark-haired agent was carrying. "So what are we having for dinner?"

"You a vegetarian?" Chance asked, setting the bags down.

"Like I could afford to be a vegetarian." She didn't have the finances to be choosy about the things she ate.

"Well then, we're having steak and potatoes." She rubbed her face wondering why she didn't just kick the insane woman out of her place. It wasn't like Kehpri weighed anything.

"Steak and potatoes," the other woman almost drooled right there. "That sounds great." She hesitated a moment "Did you want, I mean, is there something I can help with?"

"Yeah, um, you can um... no, not really. Give me a moment to change and I'll start. You want to take another shower?" Chance asked as she walked to her bedroom, un-tucking her shirt from her pants.

Kehpri frowned and looked down at herself. "No…I don't think so. Why, are you saying I smell?"

"No," Chance shouted from her bedroom. "You just seemed to enjoy taking one when you were here on Tuesday." She paused, thinking to herself that she really hadn't been home since then, either. "Jesus is it really Friday already?" she muttered and threw her blazer on the floor and started unbuttoning her shirt.

Her stitches were itching like crazy, and maybe she should go in and see Dr Miller to get them removed, the woman had been calling for a follow up.

"It is? Oh, right, yeah it's Friday," the distracted sounding shout came from the other room as Kehpri started to fiddle with the fairly nice stereo system in the living room. "If you're offering, though, I might take you up on the shower thing later."

"Yeah, why not, you already broke into my place." She shucked off her pants and slipped on some well-worn jeans. With her shirt unbuttoned, she wandered to the doorway. "Why are you here?"

"Hhhhhhmmmmmmmmm..?" Kehpri looked over, grinning as she took in the rather interesting fashion statement. "What?" She had to mentally slap herself to get her mind out of the gutter. "Well, your door was open, so I decided to see if you were in."

"My door was open?" She frowned and walked back to her closet. "Well, fuck." She took her shirt off, pulled on a t-shirt, and pulled her hair back in a short ponytail. She grabbed her keys off the key hook, unlocked the gun box and put away her service weapons.

"I know, and I came ready to try and pick the lock. Good thing it was open though, I really suck at lock picking." Finding a channel that she liked, Kehpri flopped down on the couch and listened to the smooth jazz that was being played.

She looked around but didn't see anything missing. "Well, I haven't been home since Tuesday, so God knows how long it's been that way. I don't see anything missing, so I guess that's good." She threw a towel at crazy and went out on the balcony to start her small gas grill. "So what's your week been like? You feeding and watering your flamingos?"

"Of course not, they're plastic." Kehpri wandered after the agent, making sure that the music was loud enough to hear out on the small slab of a balcony. "Besides, I don't have much water. I've been trying to figure out what the hospital people have been doing." The brunette looked so very earnest in answering, that even as her stomach rumbled at the sight of steaks.

"Hospital?" she raised an eyebrow then just shook her head. "And why were you trying to break into my place?" She looked up and sighed, "Never mind."

Happy that the grill was going, she let the rack heat up and went back inside. She popped the steaks out and ripped open the wrapping. She'd been planning on cooking both and eating the other one tomorrow, but she was committed to feeding the crazy lady now. She opened the 5lb bag of potatoes and pulled out two good-sized ones and rinsed them off, popping them in the microwave.

She asked, "How do you like your steak?"

"Medium…" Kehpri perched on one of the barstools that seemed to double as kitchen chairs, watching the goings on with great curiosity. "How do you know how to cook?" It wasn't gourmet cooking, but it was more than she herself knew how to do.

"After my parents died, I went to live with my uncle Paul, who was a dick. Women did all the cooking and cleaning, and men sat on the couch and farted - I guess. So I was regulated to the kitchen to learn my womanly duties. Now my uncle Paul is still an ass, but when I went away to college and then joined the FBI, knowing how to cook came in handy, especially living by myself. Do you have any idea the crap they put in fast food?" She stopped massaging the steak-rub into the meat and blinked at Kehpri, "Well, that was an intensely personal story I had no intention of sharing." Self-consciously, she went out to the grill and turned the heat almost off, and threw the meat on, leaving Kehpri to fidget a bit awkwardly in the kitchen alone.

Not particularly liking the feeling, she jumped down off the stool and went to stand in the doorway to the balcony, watching the woman grill. "My mother always tried to get me to learn how to cook. I never really figured out how to do it without a recipe. She always said it was more of an art." Maybe an exchange of stories would set the other woman at ease.

Chance nodded and sat down on the one dirty, plastic chair out on the balcony. "Well, recipes are good templates, but they're general in a lot of ways. Different altitudes and climates can affect a dish greatly, and then sometimes your palate just craves more than what the recipe says. But that's my opinion."

Unconsciously, she started scratching her ribs where her stitches were driving her nuts.

"What's wrong with your stitches? Don't tell me you tore them again!" Kehpri was quickly out of the doorway and kneeling by the chair that the agent was sitting in, pushing up the shirt material to try and see the stitches she'd redone just a few days ago.

"Stop it. They itch, just means they're healing." Chance was a bit bemused to have Kehpri kneeling at her side.

"As if you know anything about healing…" The brunette managed to push up the shirt enough to see the wounds. Her eyes widened then narrowed as she studied the stitches. "Well...your stitches have to come out."

"Okay, I'll go see Dr. Miller on Monday. She's been calling me all week to come in for a follow up."

"No!" Kehpri's eyes got all wide again. "No Dr. Miller! She's evil. I'll remove them myself."

Confused, Chance sat back. "She's a doctor, they take a Hypothetical Oath or something...you know, to help mankind. You have some sort of hospital phobia?"

"Of course not, I was in the hospital when I met you, wasn't I? Don't move." She got up and dashed inside, going to grab a few things she'd seen in the bathroom on her last visit.

"Um, I think Dr. Miller is a little more qualified to do this. Plus she's hot." She grinned a bit at the thought of being topless in Dr. Miller's hands. That faded though, and she pondered, if that was so appealing why was she putting the good doctor off. That…she didn't have an answer for.

"You think she's hot?" Kehpri asked, emerging with a bottle of peroxide and a nail cleaning kit. "She's evil and demented. She'll use you for one of her demented experiments." So saying, she knelt again and poured a liberal amount of peroxide over the small pair of scissors.

"Don't move," the skinny woman demanded, then gently started to snip off the knotted end of the stitches and pull them out.

This had to be the most interpersonal contact she'd had in a while, barring the guys at work and her sister, how fucking weird was her life. Chance didn't move a muscle. "This couldn't have waited until after dinner?"

"No," was the short answer as Kehpri worked her way down the line of stitches. "Dr. Miller could have done a better job stitching you instead of flirting all the time," she grumbled, not taking any pains to hide her disdain for the good doctor.

"Okay, then. You're jealous of Dr. Miller…which is understandable. She's a doctor with a staff and a hospital and you're not."

The last stitch was removed a touch more roughly than was really called for. "And you are a bitch," Kehpri said, tossing the scissors back into the toiletry kit.

Chance thought about it for a minute. "Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. Shitty week," she said in her defense. She had to chuckle because they were all shitty weeks. God she was overdue for a vacation.

"Are you always this annoying or only to those people you think are insane?" Kehpri asked, getting up from next to the seat.

"Um, well...is that a trick question?" She blinked then pulled her shirt back down and got up. "It's possible, I suppose, that I am always annoying."

"And this is the best conversation I've had in months," Kehpri grumbled to herself, stowing the toiletry kit aside to watch the grilling that was going on.

She checked the steaks, happy that they were cooking slowly and that they might just been done at the same time as the potatoes. "But you may just be overly sensitive, since you're insane."

"You know, I really don't remember admitting or agreeing to this insane thing." The slim woman perched on the edge of the dirty plastic chair, trying not to drool as she caught a whiff of the delicious smells of cooking steaks.

"Semantics," Chance muttered out. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer. "You want a beer?"

"You have beer?" Kehpri very nearly leapt off the chair to follow the agent into the kitchen, "Cold beer?" She really had to come around here more often.

"Well, it was cold when I got it at the store thirty minutes ago." She grabbed one and twisted the top off. "It's an amber, I think."

"Oh God, I think I love you." Kehpri snatched the bottle out of the other woman's hands and took a deep drink. The sounds that followed were probably a shoo-in for any porn movie out there.

"Um..." She cleared her throat and felt a little flush. "I'll be right back. I'm just going to go to the bathroom."

Rolling the bottle along her neck, Kehpri made some sort of vague agreeing motion. It had been so long since she'd had actual cold beer, she'd forgotten what it tasted like. "Want me to look after the steaks?"

"Um, yeah, whatever..."

Chance shut the bathroom door and turned the faucet on cold and splashed water on her face. She stared at her reflection. "You need a girlfriend. Okay, you need to get laid…if the crazy lady is making you hot." She slapped more water on her face.

The alcohol was going straight to the brunette's brain. Taking another drink that emptied the bottle almost halfway, she wandered back out to the balcony to watch over the all-important steaks.

"Hey, how do you want your steak?" the shout from the balcony came.

Chance came back out, pulled the potatoes out of the microwave and threw them into the oven.

"You can pull it off now. I like it more on the raw side." She grabbed a beer and started drinking.

"Hope you have more beer too." Kehpri started getting the steaks off the grill and onto the plate. "I need to come here more often for dinner," she grinned widely, as she carried the plate with steaks inside.

"I have a six pack. Erm, well, a four pack now, I guess." She scratched her head in wonder at the domestic scene going on in her apartment.

"Perfect." This was turning into a really good day as far as Kehpri was concerned. "I don't suppose you have ice cream for dessert, do you?" she asked, so very hopefully.

"Dunno, check the freezer." She stared at their dinner. "Jesus I need to eat more vegetables. I'm never going to have another bowel movement again."

The freezer would have to wait. The meat was entirely too tempting right now. Without waiting for permission, she grabbed the largest of the steaks and started right in. "Dinner's great like this," she mumbled around a piece of meat.

Chance watched stunned as the woman grabbed the bigger of the two steaks and started inhaling it. Grumbling about rude, uninvited house guests, she pulled the potatoes out of the oven and opened her fridge, pulling out some butter and tossing the sour cream into the trash without even looking at it.

It was passed its prime by a month.

Juggling her beer and plate, she went back outside where the scorching day had given way to a pleasant evening.

"This is really good," Kehpri called after her, licking her lips in a pause that was dictated by the need to breath.

"Glad you liked it. Come over anytime and sponge off me." She was being sarcastic, but oddly, it had been nice to cook for someone else. She checked that the grill was turned off then swung her feet up onto the railing and started to eat as the sun disappeared.

The last of the meat was carefully gnawed off the bone, and only when it was completely clean did she set it aside and pick up her fork again for the potato. "Thanks for the invitation," the brunette said happily. "I'll bring beer next time." She'd try to bring beer, anyway.

Chance just grunted and cracked the bone of her steak with her teeth and started to suck the marrow out.

There was a moment of silence as Kehpri stared at her dining partner, and then she looked back down to her potatoes. "Sooo...you said you can't change shape, right?"

Chance raised an eyebrow, set the well-gnawed bone down and picked up her beer. She took a long swallow before finally answering. "No. I'm human, I'm FBI, and unless they've changed the wording somewhere, no Para-humans may be in any level of government. Mixed-breeds are considered human."

"Right, right…" She took a bite of potato and studiously watched a car passing down the street below. "So how'd you heal so quickly?" she finally asked, in what she was pretty sure was a neutral tone.

Shoulders shrugged and Chance got up suddenly, no longer hungry, and stalked inside. "I guess I wasn't hurt as bad as everyone thought." She tossed her food in the garbage.

"Do you enjoy living in denial?" Kehpri called after her, the neutral tone gone and replaced by annoyance.

There was a headache forming behind her eyes, and a whisper of memory wanting to get out. But she wasn't up for dealing with the past, so she pushed it away.

"Look, I've had a shitty day. Some prick raped a twelve year old, and by the time someone thought to call us, the evidence was already corrupted and he'd gotten five of his buddies to swear up and down he was with them. So...yeah..." She finished scrubbing her face. "I'm going to go take a shower then maybe drink myself unconscious, 'cause I have tomorrow off. Help yourself to..." She gazed around her pathetically stocked kitchen. "…stuff."

From the door to the balcony, Kehpri winced, feeling like an ass. "Look, I'm sorry, I just..." She grimaced. "I'm not really good with people," she offered, finally, a bit lamely.

It probably wasn't wise to leave crazy alone in her house, but she'd already broken in and kidnapped her. Chance held up a hand to silence her. "No more talking until I have a shower and another beer. Then you may have a shower and join me in getting drunk."

She pulled her shirt off as she entered her bedroom and stripped off the rest of her clothes. She started the shower, opened the medicine cabinet, grabbed the aspirin and took a handful.

There were only two more beers in the fridge. That would make getting drunk rather hard. Kehpri weighed her options. She did feel bad about making the other woman give her food.

Well, she felt kind of bad about it.

Digging into her torn and dusty jeans, she pulled out the crumpled bills in it and shrugged. She probably had enough time to go get some more cheap beer. Tearing a piece of paper off a takeout order form, she scrawled a note, left it on the table and closed the door after her.

Shower was hot, scalding into her skin, burning away most of the shit, leaving her in a better frame of mind. With her mood considerably better, she turned the shower off and stepped out, grabbing a towel. "Hey, you'd save any beer?"

When silence was her only answer, she stepped out of her room. "Crazy?"

Chance looked around on the off chance Kewpie doll was lying in wait with a sharp knife. Instead, she found a note saying 'BRB with more beer'. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Jesus. I had hard alcohol in the cabinet above the fridge."

She looked at the time and sighed. Really, how much trouble could the woman get into? "Right…" She ran back to her room and pulled on some clothes.

The door to Agent Pavel's apartment banged open and Kehpri leaned against the doorframe, out of breath, a case of the cheapest beer in both hands. "Did you know you live in a really crappy neighborhood?"

Chance skidded to a halt halfway down the hallway. "Jesus…I was almost worried. Yeah, I know, I live in not the best place."

"No, I mean it's really a bad neighborhood. These guys were following me almost all the way back here..." She paused, slowly smiling. "Aw, you were going to come save me! You care!"

"No, not," Chance grumbled and tightened her towel that had come loose. She stood awkwardly for a moment. "Uh, thanks for getting beer. I'll just go get dressed."

"You did care!" the taunting yell came down the hall after the agent. Laughing happily, Kehpri slammed the door shut behind her and started to pile beer in the fridge, singing off tune again.

Now dressed, Chance came back out. "Please don't sing anymore." She wandered over to the stereo and turned off the light jazz station that was driving her nuts and put in a Jimmy Buffett CD. Blushing, she quickly skipped it past 'Why don't we get drunk and screw' to a different song.

The beers safely in the fridge, Kehpri shoved the box next to it to host the inevitable empty bottles. An open one for herself and one for Chance, she said, "You don't like my singing?"

"No, not really…" She took the beer and sat on her overstuffed couch with a happy sigh. "There's a towel and some clothes in the bathroom if you want to shower. And you're sleeping on the couch tonight. Remind me and I'll grab you a pillow and a blanket.

Both eyebrows went up as Kehpri found herself a seat on the opposite side of the couch. "I'm staying here?" She grinned. "Don't I get the bed?"

Chance snorted, "No. You only get the bed if we're sleeping together…which we're not. And you're drinking, so you're not driving, which means, 'cause I'm feeling nice since you braved my shitty neighborhood to get beer, that you get the couch."

"Otherwise, what, you'd make me sleep on the balcony?" That seemed a bit rough to Kehpri. Thankfully, she had beer to down to dull the pain, which she did.

"Um, nah, I'd still let you sleep on the couch. I was just giving you a hard time." She downed her beer and got up to get another one.

"You want another?" she held up a full one, shaking it."

"Better bring two." Kehpri showed no indication of getting up off the couch. In fact, by the fifth beer of the evening, she was pretty certain she was never going to get off the couch again.

Slumped back onto the arm, she stared up at the ceiling above her.

"You're ceiling is really dirty," she said, managing to raise her beer and take a drink without dribbling too much.

"Yeah, well, it's the maid's week off." She brought the beer over, handing it to Kehpri, and sat down. She sipped her beer then pulled her shirt up. She looked down, studying where Kehpri had taken the stitches out. "It's not going to be a horrible scar. You did good work on the stitches, Doc."

"I did great work. I can't believe that hack Miller ever got through medical school." The empty beer bottle joined its pack mates on the floor by the edge of the couch, and she took the new one.

Chance wisely said nothing. She was well aware by now that Kehpri had issues with Doctor Miller, "So why aren't you a doctor anymore?"

"Who said I wasn't?" She managed to lift her head and narrowed her eyes at the other woman.

"On vacation then, to the lovely and scenic Were Reservation?" Chance sat her empty down and started humming to the music.

"Hmph…you can hum to music but I can't." Kehpri let her head fall back and laughed. "Yeah…vacation. I'm taking a sabbatical. It clears the head."

"Humming is okay, but no singing."

Kehpri snorted, "That's discrimination. I thought you super agents were supposed to be above that sort of thing." She took another drink.

Chance chuckled, "Fucking place to take a vacation." She looked over then reached over, brushing an unruly strand of curly hair behind Kephri's ear. Her fingers lingered for a moment then she snatched her hand back. Wow, maybe it was time for bed if she was thinking that Crazy was looking sort of cute in a mad doctor way.

"Hmmm…good place for a vacation," Kehpri mumbled, eyes closing. She'd had enough beer to be feeling very nice; maybe she'd even get a good night sleep. "I thought you didn't like me," she mumbled.

"I don't." Chance got up. "Let me get you a pillow and a blanket."

"What a sweet talker you are," Kehpri grumbled, putting down the half empty beer. That was enough of that, before she said anything really bad.

Chance laughed, a full, rich sound, "You want sweet talk and pretty words, go to Zoya." She returned with an extra pillow off her bed and a blanket.

####################

Chance woke, sitting straight up in bed, the nightmare already receding. Her t-shirt and boxers were soaked with sweat and her panting breath sounded loud in her bedroom. The nightmare had shifted somehow. Normally it ended with the death of her family, with the crack of a rifle, and the smell and taste of blood everywhere. This time it had kept going. Her Uncle Paul had been there with a baseball bat. He was screaming at her, and hitting her over and over again, calling her a freak and a monster.

Jesus she shouldn't drink so much before going to bed.

Her door slid open and she looked over, easily seeing Kephri in the dark room.

"You okay?"

She thought about lying, making Kephri go away, but then she settled for the truth, "No, not really, you?"

"Me neither."

Chance could almost taste the unasked question by the other woman, and she threw back the covers. "Why don't you, sleep in here with me…safety in numbers."

A moment's hesitation and then Kehpri was walking over and sliding into the bed. Chance spooned around her and had to wonder if there were two more fucked up people on the planet, or perhaps misery really did like company.

"Don't you wish, sometimes, that you could avoid ever sleeping again?" Kehpri's voice sounded lost in the darkness, weary.

"Sometimes, yes, sometimes, no…sometimes...even though it's a nightmare...I get to be with my family again. I can't remember what they look like. It's so clear on waking, but then it fades."

"What happened to them?" Feeling the other woman tense, Kehpri stroked the arm around her mid section. "You don't have to tell me, just, you know, sometimes it helps."

"Shot by hunters. It was a clean kill; both of them hit in the head. Weres can't heal that. My brother Ivan wasn't so lucky, glancing wound causing brain damage, and Zoya and I were fine. Well, if you consider being covered in your pack mother's blood and brains okay."

There wasn't really so much that Kehpri could actually say in response to that. Everything that came to mind seemed too trivial and she knew how much she hated it when people said stupid inane things. "I hope they got what they deserved," she said instead.

"Maybe… Zoya was hiding in the shadows of night, and I pissed myself. I was lying under my pack mother's dead body, hearing the footsteps getting closer and closer and then Zoya attacked them. She killed them, ripped their throats out."

Kehpri shuddered at the rawness in the agent's voice. She could almost picture the scene that the dark-haired woman was describing; seeing it in her mind's eye. "Then you decided to join the FBI, to make sure that people like that would get caught?"

"Yeah… I understand why Zoya did it. She was protecting me, her pack. But in the end, the FBI came in, investigate