“Yeah, well, if you hadn’t been on a sex strike for the last year, maybe I wouldn’t be a horny honey badger.”
Ignoring the same argument they'd been having for the last eleven months, Buck didn't need to tell Harry he now knew why he hadn't been interested in any other women for over a year and had turned down dates left and right. It was obvious. It was nature's way of getting him ready to find his mate.
"It's got to be…" Zeroing in on the one thing that didn’t belong, the piece of landscape that was just too green, too bright, too perfect, he yelled at precisely the same moment as Harry, “There it is!”
Holding on as the honey badger flew a hundred yards to the fake plant, Buck focused on the concrete and metal right below. "There's a huge, completely vertical shaft, like a silo, right beneath us and then a labyrinth of tunnels snaking out in every direction from there."
Throwing open the lead lid—bigger than a manhole and twice as heavy—Harry's foot had just landed on the first rung of the ladder when the whistle of a yellow-throated warbler reached Buck's ear. Returning the birdcall with the song of a Louisiana water thrush, he told his honey badger, “Hang on. That’s Dusty.”
“Yeah, I know. Did you forget I’ve been with ya since day one?”
“No, asshole. I wasn’t… oh, forget it.”
Appearing at the edge of the dense overgrown foliage surprisingly untouched by the fires, her face, covered in black and green greasepaint and her blonde hair tucked up in a black nylon beanie, only Dusty's smile was visible. Holding up her right hand, she signaled with two fingers that she was going left and around the other side. With a single nod, Buck approved her plan and watched his oldest friend disappear into the jungle.
“Guess she found another way in,” he mused to Harry as the honey badger made quick work of the long, steep ladder.
“Yep,” came Harry’s clipped reply. “Now, which way?”
“North about 100 paces then right fifty more.”
Traveling so quickly that the walls of the dark gray tunnel were nothing more than a blur to Buck, Harry snorted sarcastically. “Just for shits and giggles, you got an estimate on the number of bad guys we’re about to run into?”
"Thirty, maybe thirty-five heartbeats right ahead. More spread out all over," Buck answered back. “Can’t you hear them?”
“Not even a little. Feels like I got wool in my ears,” Harry responded, his tone sounding weird, somehow off and distant, all the usual playful piss and vinegar reduced to little more than a bad attitude.
“You okay, big guy?”
“I’m… not… well…”
And just like that, Harry was face down on the floor and Buck was trapped inside his seven-foot, fur-covered honey badger's body. Trying to force the shift, throwing everything he had—magically and otherwise—into getting them both back into his human body, the best Buck could do was turn Harry's head to the side.
Well, shit, that took way more energy than it should have. At least I can see and smell, he thought to himself. And what is that?
It took a second longer than it should have, but then again, he’d never been trapped inside his honey badger without a way out before. There was no denying it. The steady, approaching footsteps of ten, maybe fifteen big-ass dinos were heading straight for his location.
“Wake up, Harry,” he ordered. “Wake the fuck up. Now is not the time. You have to…”
“It’s no use,” a deep rasping grumble growled from just above his head. "Your honey badger's down for the count, and you're trapped. Just shut up and enjoy the ride, Buck Blackthorne. The boss has been waiting for you.”
The boss?
Buck felt the prick of a needle in the side of Harry’s neck.
Hey, what the fuuuuuuu….?
Vision blurring, his words slurred together, Buck felt like the morning after a ten-day drunk—bad with a capital B.
"Don't fight it," the growl ordered, a weird sense of regret in his tone. "It'll just make the hangover worse, and where you are going, you're gonna need a clear head. At least when you wake up, I can assure you that you'll be you again and honey badger will still be sleeping."
Yeah, well, fu— fu— fu…
And that was as far as he got.
8
Unfortunately, waking up chained to a chair wasn't new for Freddie. Neither were the silver shackles burning the skin on her wrists and ankles. Being in her bra and panties with all ten tootsies in two feet of water with jumper cables attached to long, scary-looking bolts coming out of her cuffs? Now that was a whole new experience.
Blinking back the effects of the drug Dino Dave had injected into her veins, she called to her alter ego, praying Raeanna was okay. “Hey, Bright, you in there? You good?”
“Yes, I’m here,” the winged tree frog slowly replied, her voice hollow, almost tinny. “Good? Not even close.”
“What the hell happened?”
A low moaning sigh followed by a deep, stuttering breath, and Bright's whispered answer, sans any sass, was, “That fucking dino outsmarted us. Apparently, he knew another way up the mountain that we didn’t see.”
“Yeah,” Freddie spat. “I’m such a fucking idiot. Why didn’t I—”
“Stop that shit,” Bright hissed, even her rebuke sounding weak. “I didn’t think of it either. All th— that— *cough– wheeze* matters, is fi- finding out what’s going on and getting us outta here.”
Suddenly swamped with worry and more fear than she’d felt in a really long time, Freddie demanded, “What’s wrong, Bright? I can’t tell anything about what’s going on with you. Can barely even feel you at all. What is happening?”
Silence. Cold, barren. Deafening. That was all Freddie got in return.
Pushing the magic from her mom’s witchy side and the fairy enchantment from her dad, the mysticism she usually let her winged tree frog control, Freddie kept calling. “Bright, damn you. Do not do this to me right now. Yes, I operate better under pressure, but this is bullshit. Utter and complete bullshit.” More magic. More power. More of everything she had, and Freddie started screaming, "Raeanna Bree, you better answer me. Now is not the time for the silent treatment. Especially when I wasn’t being the tiniest bit bitchy. You need to answer me NOW! YOU NEED—”
CLAP!
CLAP!
CLAP!
Slow applause reverberated off the concrete walls all around her, forcing Freddie to swallow the rest of the frantic orders she was about to shout at her alter ego. Throwing her mind open as far and as wide as it would go, she instantly zeroed in on a blank spot. A little bit of nothing amid a hive of activity and mysticism.
There were shifters, all the same somehow. It was weird. And there was the bastard, Dino Dave. Oh, yeah, he was there.
“I’m coming for you, asshole,” she ground out through gritted teeth, her every malicious intent pointed at Dino Dave. “That’s a promise.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere, Dr. Winifred F. Lightfoot, renowned scientist, highly regarded researcher, most sought-after authority on prehistoric lifeforms, and so many other things including—”