The doors opened and Tim flinched as Justice North and a dozen large New Species males stomped into the room. Tim recognized how angry Justice was by the narrowing of his catlike eyes and the fact that his lips were parted enough to reveal his sharp canines. Tim waited as Justice stalked closer.
“What is your directive?” Justice snarled.
Tim straightened his shoulders and met Justice North’s heated stare. “To assist in the rescue of all New Species.”
Justice nodded. “You’re our team. The government assigned you to assist us but you answer to the NSO first and foremost, Tim,” Justice growled. “That means all New Species. When a female Species demanded medical attention for a human, she should have been given what she wanted. First contact is very important. She thinks your team is just as bad as the humans who kept her captive. Is it true the human had already been shot when your men roughed her up and handcuffed her, almost allowing her to bleed out on the floor?”
Tim flinched as his gaze shifted to Trey. “Is it?”
Trey sighed, addressing Justice. “I was a floor above them but I have spoken to that team leader. It appears so, sir. She was suffering from a gunshot wound and holding a weapon in her lap. Two security guards were dead on the floor next to her. The team assumed they’d turned on each other to prevent us from gaining any information if they were arrested.”
“The Species female,” Justice snarled, “said the human was beaten by the team. She swears the human’s face was bleeding and bruised only after they arrived. Is that true? Did someone hit the human?”
Trey cleared his throat. “I questioned them about everything that happened. One of the men smacked her with the butt of his assault rifle to knock her down. Her face got bruised then or from when they secured her on the floor.”
Another growl sounded and one of the New Species males stepped forward. True was a big son of a bitch—six foot six, wide shouldered and broad chested. His dense biceps stretched the black shirt sleeves to their limit. Shiny blond hair fell to his shoulders and his dark-brown eyes narrowed with anger as they fixed on Trey. Tim tensed, hoping a fight wouldn’t break out since he was aware that particular New Species, whom they’d rescued on a previous mission, was still learning to control his temper. The day had already been a total clusterfuck and he didn’t want it to worsen.
“She’s a small human who was already bleeding. There was no cause for your team to rough her up or use handcuffs. A small child could have dealt with her in that condition. She was helpless.”
“I wouldn’t have done it but I wasn’t there to control the situation,” Trey muttered. “I did bust their asses.”
Tim inched closer to get between them. Those were his teams so it was his mess. “I understand you’re upset, True.”
“Upset?” True snarled. “No one should abuse a female—human or Species. This is why I protest being forced to stay in the rear when the team enters a situation. I wouldn’t have allowed that to happen but she was already down when the team allowed me out of the elevator. I didn’t realize she was injured. The stench from the blood of the dead guards and the explosives used to open the doors masked her scent.”
One of Tim’s men snorted. “She works for Mercile or whatever company name they are using now. Who cares? How many of your kind has she helped kill? No disrespect, sir.”
True snapped his head in the direction of Chris, the team member who’d spoken. “We don’t abuse females. I don’t care if they work for our enemy. She’s a helpless creature.”
“She works for a company that is an offshoot from Mercile,” Tim reminded everyone, sending Chris a dirty look to silence the idiot. The guy was new, had a bad attitude, but he’d deal with him later. He focused on the New Species again. “Her welfare wasn’t our priority. That would be saving New Species. I’m sorry your female got upset, Justice. The truth remains the same, though. The woman your female was upset about wasn’t some innocent victim we attacked. She worked for Cornas, which we all know is Mercile with a new name, and she’s as guilty as hell under New Species law. The badge clipped to her coat had her name and picture on it. Not to mention, she was found only feet from the doors where your people were caged, on the same floor where over a dozen of your kind were being held. That woman is either going to spend the rest of her life in prison or she’s going to get the death penalty. They will decide her fate at Fuller, once she’s transferred there.”
True growled. “She won’t be killed by us.”
Justice calmed. “We don’t condone anyone killing females, Tim, though sometimes it can’t be avoided when they are among the crueler doctors whom we’re certain killed our kind or if we had no choice because they opened fire on us. Our female said the human saved her from a rape last month and again from a guard putting a bullet into her right before the task force rescued them. Someone disabled the locks on those cell doors by frying the circuits with a stun gun. She had one of those in her pocket when they stripped her bare in Medical and our female said the human claimed she was disabling the locks to keep them safe. None of our people died because those guards couldn’t gain access into their cells.”
True nodded. “We discovered bullet scars on some of the doors. The idiots built those rooms to keep our kind prisoner but they made them break-in proof as well. The guards would have gone in to shoot our people dead if those locks hadn’t been destroyed. Whoever disabled them saved lives.”
Tim ignored the throbbing at his temple, a sign of an oncoming monster headache. His team had made a few mistakes but they were somewhat justified. “Someone poured coffee into their mainframe computer. We pulled the woman’s prints off the coffeepot handle inside the computer room. Why did she do that if she’s so saintly? The data couldn’t be restored. It fried the damn thing. She covered Mercile’s ass when she did that. There are no records, no real proof that the testing facility belonged to them. They leased the building under a shell company and we are hitting a dead end on tracing the money that funded it. Those files were our only hope of cementing proof directly back to Mercile.”
Justice frowned. “I don’t know why she did it.” He turned and stared at the team’s medic. “What is the human’s current condition?”
“I just spoke to the older Dr. Harris. She’ll live. It was touch and go for a while but they stopped the bleeding. I heard she was given blood and New Species healing drugs. The injuries caused to her face aren’t life threatening. She’s bruised up but it’s mostly just painful.”
Justice faced Tim. “Interrogate her but do it with respect. She obviously saved some of our people. Keep that in mind. Find out why she did all of it and what she was protecting Mercile from on those computers. Offer her a deal if that’s what it takes to get more proof against those bastards for this one.”
True moved closer. “I want to be there.”
Justice studied him. “Why?”
“She worked in New Mexico last year.”
Justice appeared surprised by that news. “You knew her?”
True nodded. “She was kind.”
Justice frowned. “Were there experiments between the two of you?”
“No.” True scowled. “I’ve never mounted her if that’s what you’re asking.”
Justice seemed to accept that. “How was she kind?”
“She didn’t treat us as if we were animals. She sneaked in candy and pain medication to our injured. She seemed to care about us.”
Justice cocked his head, the frown returning. “You cared about her?”
“I never attempted to attack her when I could have but I then learned she was working with the doctors on a drug development.”
“How did you learn that?”
True hesitated. “Polanitis believed I cared about her since she’d shown kindness and tried to secure my agreement to willingly mount her, promising it would mean she’d survive. He informed me they were working on a new breeding drug.”