EIGHTY-THREE

Pierce stood beside the front door, out of sight. Hiding was unnecessary though. Pheromone-induced panic attacks left the victim incapable of coherent thoughts. Pierce could have been waiting in full view, holding a large and bloody butcher knife, and it wouldn’t stop anyone inside from fleeing through the opening.

His own mental count put it at three minutes. Which meant that two minutes had passed since Theo would have activated the canister at the intake vent. About enough time for the system to draw that air all through the house.

Pierce heard the screams. Prepared himself.

The front door crashed open.

After that, it truly was like shooting fish in a barrel.

He waited until the man had passed him and given him a large target. Thhhttt! He fired a dart into the back of the first person who had flailed out through the doorway.

Then a second. A third.

All three managed to stagger almost to the bushes at the edge of the property before falling.

Pierce stayed in position at the doorway. The tranks would keep those three down for at least five minutes.

Pierce left his gas mask in place. Just a whiff of pheromones from the interior of the house would send him into a panic too.

He listened for screams. Heard only silence.

Counted to another sixty.

Agency procedure 101.

House was clear.

He jogged around the side of the house and found Billy.

“Anyone come out your way?” Pierce asked.

“No sir,” Billy said from behind his face mask.

“Then lets get Theo,” Pierce said. He had plastic tie handcuffs ready in his back pocket. “Three came out my side. And all of them are down.”

Totally without any sense of reason, Caitlyn’s mind surged back to consciousness. She screamed and bucked and flailed uselessly against the straps that held her in place on the table, oblivious to pain as the edges of the straps cut through the skin of her wrists and ankles.

She was also oblivious to the sound of great thumps as the hybrids, in equally blind unreasoning, battered against the glass barrier that held them prisoners, their panic and intense muscular power outweighing the disadvantage of their shortened limbs.

Caitlyn continued her epilepsy of terror until the pheromones, drugs, sheer exhaustion, and stress forced her back into unconsciousness.

She didn’t hear the sound of shattering glass.