Wolves & Aprons

BE

Chapter Four

Six months after signing Dr. Voss's contract, Kimberly barely recognized herself. The desperate young woman who had scrubbed floors for survival had been replaced by something harder, more dangerous, though she was only beginning to understand what that meant.

The pain had been excruciating. Her bones felt like they were being broken and reformed, her muscles torn and rebuilt. She'd screamed until her throat was raw, begged him to stop, but the restraints had held firm.

When it was over, when the agony finally subsided, she discovered that everything had changed.

She could hear conversations three rooms away. She could see perfectly in darkness that should have been absolute. Her strength had tripled, maybe quadrupled. And underneath it all, something wild and hungry had awakened something that whispered about dominance and the hunt.

"Magnificent," Dr. Voss had breathed, watching her test her new capabilities. "You're perfect."

Now, six months later, Kimberly sat in the back of a hired car, watching her first real target through enhanced eyes that could pick out details impossible for baseline humans. Mr. Ralph Hendricks lived in a penthouse that overlooked Neo-London's financial district, a monument to wealth built on the suffering of others.

Dr. Voss had been thorough in his briefing. Hendricks ran what appeared to be a legitimate shipping company, but his real business was human trafficking specifically, the a*******n and sale of children from the Lower Wards. Black children, mostly, taken from families too poor to mount effective searches, sold to wealthy buyers who treated them as commodities rather than human beings.

"He's a monster," Dr. Voss had said, sliding Hendricks' file across his desk. "The kind of evil that hides behind respectability and charitable donations. The authorities won't touch him too well connected, too careful to leave evidence. But monsters like him understand only one language."

"Violence," Kimberly had replied, the word feeling strange and right on her tongue.

"Justice," Dr. Voss had corrected with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Sometimes they're the same thing."

The car pulled away, leaving Kimberly standing in the shadows of an alley that provided perfect sight lines to Hendricks' building. Her enhanced senses cataloged everything the security guards' rotation patterns, the camera placement, the scent trails of everyone who'd passed through the area in the last twelve hours.

Hendricks was alone tonight. His wife was visiting her sister in the countryside, his security detail reduced to a single overnight guard who spent more time watching p*********y than monitoring the building's entrances.

Perfect hunting conditions.

Kimberly moved through the shadows like smoke, her enhanced reflexes allowing her to avoid every camera, every motion sensor, every electronic eye that might record her presence. The building's service entrance yielded to her new strength the lock twisted apart in her hands like it was made of clay.

The elevator shaft was her highway. She climbed the cables with inhuman ease, her enhanced muscles feeling no strain from the twenty-story ascent. By the time she reached the penthouse level, her heart rate hadn't even increased.

Hendricks' apartment was a study in expensive tastelessness—marble everywhere, gold fixtures, art that had probably been stolen from museums. But Kimberly's enhanced senses picked up something else: the lingering scent of fear. Child fear. Recent and recurring.

He'd had children here. Recently.

The monster inside her, the thing Dr. Voss's treatments had awakened, began to stir.

She found Hendricks in his study, a brandy snifter in one hand and a phone pressed to his ear. His voice carried clearly to her enhanced hearing.

" yes, the shipment arrived safely. Twelve units, all in excellent condition. The buyers will be pleased." He paused, listening to whoever was on the other end. "No, no issues with the families. Poor people don't ask questions when their children disappear. They assume it's gang violence or drugs."

Kimberly stepped into the room, moving with predatory silence. Hendricks continued his conversation, oblivious to her presence.

"The profit margin on this batch is exceptional. Young, healthy, easily trainable. The Middle Eastern buyer specifically requested children under ten apparently they're easier to break."

The casual cruelty of his words sent rage flooding through Kimberly's enhanced system. The monster inside her howled for blood, for justice, for the kind of retribution that came with claws and teeth.

"Mr. Hendricks," she said quietly.

He spun around, the phone slipping from suddenly nerveless fingers. "Who…how did you get in here?"

"Does it matter?" Kimberly stepped into the light, allowing him to see her clearly for the first time. She looked like what she'd always been a young woman from the Lower Wards, unremarkable except for the intelligence in her eyes and the way she moved with predatory grace.

"Security!" Hendricks shouted, his voice cracking with panic.

"Your security guard is watching p*********y and eating donuts. He won't hear you." Kimberly moved closer, her enhanced senses drinking in the scent of his fear. "We need to talk."

"Look, if this is about money "

"It's about justice, Mr. Hendricks. It's about the children you've stolen, the families you've destroyed, the lives you've treated as commodities." Kimberly's voice remained calm, conversational, even as the monster inside her prepared for the hunt. "Do you know what happened to the twelve children you shipped out last week?"

Hendricks backed toward his desk, his hand reaching for what was probably a panic button or a weapon. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't." Kimberly's smile was all teeth. "You never know their names, do you? Never think about them as individuals. They're just inventory to you."

"You're insane. I run a legitimate shipping company".

"You run a child trafficking operation that has destroyed the lives of over two hundred children in the past three years." Kimberly tilted her head, studying him like a scientist examining a particularly interesting specimen. "Tell me, Mr. Hendricks, do you have children of your own?"

"Stay away from my family!"

"Why? They're not in danger. They're wealthy, white, protected. Not the kind of children you steal." Kimberly began to circle him, her movements becoming more fluid, more inhuman. "Do you know what it's like for a parent to wake up and find their child gone? To search everywhere, to call the police who don't care because poor children disappear all the time, to never know what happened to the most precious thing in their world?"

"Please," Hendricks whispered, his back now pressed against the window. "Whatever you want, I can pay".

"What I want," Kimberly said, her voice dropping to a growl that carried harmonics no human throat should produce, "is for you to understand what terror feels like."

The transformation began then the change Dr. Voss's treatments had made possible. Her bones stretched, her muscles expanded, her fingernails became claws that could rend steel. Her human appearance melted away, replaced by something that was part woman, part wolf, and entirely predator.

Hendricks screamed.

"Now you know," Kimberly said, her voice deeper now, carrying the undertones of the beast she'd become. "Now you know what those children felt when your people dragged them from their beds."

She moved faster than human eyes could follow, her claws finding his throat before he could scream again. The kill was quick, merciful in a way Hendricks had never been with his victims.

When it was over, when the monster had fed and retreated back into the depths of her soul, Kimberly stood over the body and felt... nothing. No guilt, no horror, no remorse. Only a sense of rightness, of balance restored.

She arranged the scene carefully broken window, signs of a struggle, claw marks that could be attributed to a large animal. By the time she left, it looked like something that had escaped from a zoo had mauled Hendricks.

The authorities would never solve the case. They wouldn't even try very hard, once they discovered what Hendricks really was.

Dr. Voss was waiting for her when she returned to the mansion, a glass of expensive wine and a satisfied smile greeting her arrival.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Free," Kimberly replied, and meant it.

"Excellent. Rest tonight, recover your strength. Tomorrow, we begin preparing for your next assignment."

"Next assignment?"

Dr. Voss handed her a new file, this one thicker than the first. "Senator Marcus Tristin. A corrupt politician who's been selling government contracts to the highest bidder, regardless of the human cost. His latest deal involves selling defective medical equipment to children's hospitals."

Kimberly opened the file, studying the photograph of a distinguished man in his fifties with silver hair and cold eyes. "What's the approach?"

"Infiltration. You'll pose as domestic help in his household, gather intelligence, then eliminate him when the opportunity presents itself." Dr. Voss's smile widened. "It may take weeks or even months to get close enough, but patience is part of the hunt."

As Kimberly studied Senator Tristin's file, she noticed a smaller photograph clipped to the inside cover a younger man with kind eyes and a gentle smile. The caption read "Liam Tristin, son."

"Collateral damage?" she asked.

"Hopefully unnecessary. The son appears to be uninvolved in his father's crimes. But if he becomes a threat to the mission..." Dr. Voss shrugged. "You'll do what's necessary."

Kimberly nodded, closing the file. She was Dr. Voss's weapon now, honed and perfected for a single purpose. The desperate young woman who had signed his contract six months ago was gone, replaced by something far more dangerous.

She should have been horrified by how easily she'd adapted to killing. Instead, she found herself looking forward to the hunt.