Page 55 of The Enforcers: KANE

Rachelle was none of those things. Until he’d seen her in the vault, he would have bet money she was one of the few truly good people in the world. She’d made him a better person, until he turned his back on her.

And now this.

“You heard me,” she said quietly.

He could hear the shame in her voice, and feel the old, old pain those words brought up inside her. Some of the anger drained out of him. Wolf stopped growling.

“How did it happen?” he asked. “And how did you end up on the streets?”

Rachelle was still leaning back against the head rest, her eyes closed.

“There used to be a secret black ops lab called Gen-X,” she said quietly. “Some rogue government scientists found out that shifters existed and started experimenting on them, extracting their DNA and implanting it in other shifter species. Trying to clone existing shifters, or grow their own in vitro. And they tried to graft powers and abilities from some shifters into others.”

Kane felt chills running up and down his arms. This was like a nightmare come true. And Rachelle had come out of some experiment?

She glanced at him, then turned her head and closed her eyes again. “My parents were part of the program, I guess,” she said. “I never knew them. I was born in a lab and raised in kind of a halfway house.”

She gave a sardonic laugh. “It was a ranch, out in the country, but fenced. Sort of like a wildlife safari park. They wanted us to live together, to be socialized and to understand humans and modern life.” Her voice grew dry. “After all, they couldn’t send us out on missions if we couldn’t blend in.”

“Missions?” Kane asked.

“Yeah.” Her voice sounded tired. “We were trained to be soldiers and spies. They were going to either sell us to the US military, or to other governments or organizations as mercenaries.”

The cynical part of Kane’s mind told him that even if this were true, it didn’t mean she wasn’t still a mercenary. The part of him who’d loved Raven for ten years said there was more to the story.

“So how did you end up on the streets of Seattle?” he asked.

“A few of the scientists went too far,” she said. “Some of the others found out what they were doing—the kinds of powers and abilities they were trying to give their subjects.” She turned and looked at him again. “All those stories about genetically engineered shifters being crazy? There’s a lot of truth to that.”

He winced. She wasn’t crazy, but he could see how the kind of monsters these fuckers were building might be.

“Anyway,” she said, “the scientists with the consciences tried to stop the really bad stuff, and the two sides ended up going to war against each other. A lot of the altered shifters were killed. Some disappeared—we think into other labs that the remnants of the original group set up. And a few escaped. Like me.”

She shook her head. “I just wanted out. I wanted to live in the world. Enjoy ice cream. Love someone. Even if I had to live on the streets, I didn’t care. I was sure someday I’d have a better life.” She gave a bitter laugh.

He guessed her life hadn’t turned out to be as much better as she’d thought it would be. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Rachelle shook her head. “Are you kidding?” she said. “We’re the stuff that nightmares are made of. I’m a chimera, Kane. A mishmash of different kinds of shifters. A freak. I couldn’t show that to anyone. Even if word didn’t get back to the remnants of Gen-X, other shifters would kill me.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Kane said.

“I know,” Rachelle whispered. “But you were so beautiful. Wolf was so beautiful. I couldn’t stand to see the look on your face if you saw what I was.”

Kane bit his lips. He wanted to tell her he wouldn’t have cared, but maybe he would have. He’d never been known for his tact or his compassion, even now. Back then he’d been worse.

“Plus, crushing on you, remember?” she said. “Nothing says ‘be my Valentine’ like turning into a scaly monster.”

He shook his head. She was trying to play on his sympathies, bringing up the past.

“So what am I supposed to do with all this?” he asked. “I’m responsible to the Council, to the casino, and to my alpha. You have illegal powers, and you’re messing around in a crime scene chasing—” He broke off as a realization hit him.

“These are genetically engineered shifters, aren’t they?” he asked, putting the pieces together. “Stealing money for…what?”

Rachelle sighed. “We’re pretty sure Gen-X is rebuilding their organization,” she said. “They’ve been underground for ten years, but they’ve recently built a mobile lab that they move from place to place.”

“And the casino robberies are financing it?” Kane asked. “How long do they think they can keep that up?”

“They won’t need to do it much longer,” Rachelle said. “This might be the last job. They’ve made off with over fifty million in cash in these robberies. If they’ve had some kind of breakthrough that allows them to create stable supersoldiers, once they start selling them, they won’t need to rob casinos. That’s why we have to catch them now.”