D.O.G. Chapter Twenty-Six

D.O.G. Chapter Twenty-Six

Ana hit the floor hard as Reith’s punch connected with her jaw and the gun rattled to the floor. For a long moment, she saw nothing but stars across her vision and tasted her own blood in her mouth.

There was a moment of utter shock, but it didn’t last long before she felt strong hands on her and she screamed. Her arms and legs thrashing wildly to try and kick or scratch, but it was no use. Reith grabbed her by the arms and slammed her back against the couch, pinning her legs under him as her straddled her and held her arms above her head.

“Calm the hell down or I’m going to punch your lights out, you hear me?” He warned her, and the good natured tone was gone from his voice, replaced with gruff annoyance.

“Get off of me!” Ana spat at him, but he only sighed and popped her hard on the cheek with the back of his hand.

“Look, either shut, or we’ll be more than happy to gag you. Dante.” He turned his head to look to a man that had entered the room behind him.

Dante had shot, neatly cut black hair that was spiked on his head. In his lip was a piercing, but he looked like an ordinary teenager. She could have gone to school with him.

He walked over to the couch and took out a roll of fabric as he sat on the coffee table to unravel it. The black kit opened to reveal needles, IV lines, and vials. Ana instantly starting fighting again, but a voice quieted her.

“Ana, where is the encrypted disk, darling?”

She looked over at Nie angrily, bucking against Reith again in an attempt to throw him off her. “What?”

Nie sighed, taking his head phones from around his neck and rolled them up slowly before shoving them in a pocket. “Haydren would have brought it home the other day after stealing it from us.”

“I don’t know about any disk! Get off of me!” She directed the last to Dante and Reith as the former began getting his things ready for what she didn’t know, but the instant she saw him produce a small vial of clear liquid from her pocket, she swallowed. What the hell are they going to do…?

“Which room is Haydren’s? I’ll have a look myself.”

“No!” Ana cried, eyes widening.

Nie walked toward the hall then paused, smirking to himself. “Ah, is there something in there you don’t want me seeing? Or someone…?” He chuckled before looking to her. “Tell me where it is and no one has to get hurt, girl.”

Ana thought widely for a moment, trying to think. “I…I think Haydren must still have it with him. I found something in his pocket the other day, but I gave it back to him!” A thought struck her then and she went cold. She had left it on the coffee table. One of the girls might have grabbed it…

“You’re a liar. Just like that dirty mother and father of yours.” Nie tapped his forehead with his gun. “I can sense a lie, Ana…just like Haydren, just like the rest of the agents.” He made for the hall again and Ana had to stop him. I have to keep him talking. Maybe Haydren is on his way. Please, Haydren…

“You’re not one of them! You’re a murderer.” Ana snapped and shivered as a cold alcohol pad touched her arm. She flicked her eyes to see Dante was cleaning her skin at her elbow, getting ready to do God knew what.

Nie stopped once more, laughing to himself. “And Haydren is not a murderer? Haydren has killed many more than I have. Ask him sometime about the bridge he blew up and how many innocent people he killed. Then again though, you won’t be living long enough to ask him…” He looked at her then and something in his eyes made Ana think of a crazed, rabid wolf. “I don’t kill innocent people, Ana, only those that I am forced to.”

“You killed my parents!” Ana screamed and he laughed loudly at that.

“Pytor and Geneva were not your parents, girl. Let me make this clear to you.” He walked back towards her and looked down at her face. “You might be of their DNA, but you aren’t a real human. You never were. No one birthed you into this world. No one carried you for nine months. You grew in a tube, in a lonely laboratory. You were injected over and over with nanites to keep you alive. You aren’t meant to be here, on this Earth. You’re an artificial human. Do you even have a soul…?”

Ana stared up at him, fighting the urge to let any tears fall from her eyes. “I have a soul…unlike you.” She turned her face away from the three of them

Nie laughed softly at that. “You aren’t very good with comebacks. I’ll take that as a compliment.” He looked to Dante. “Draw enough blood so that we can run the proper tests on her nanites. We need to know what formula Pytor used to sustain her.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if we just took her to the lab and ran the tests on her there?” Dante asked curiously.

Nie rolled his eyes at him. “We can’t just take her back to the Order, Dante. She might not look it, but she’s powerful. She just doesn’t know it yet. We don’t want her around when she realizes that power.”

Ana narrowed her eyes in thought. What…power? She felt the gently poke on her skin as Dante pressed one of the needles into her and she screamed, once again trying to get free, but Reith only tightened his hold as Nie disappeared down the hall.

“I said, let me…go!” She screamed, but froze when she heard a yell from the hall. It wasn’t the girls.

Nie came out of the hallway with Janus attached to his arm like an attack dog. His teeth digging into the arm of the agent, blood staining Nie’s sleeve.

“God damn, dog!” He raised his gun and knocked the animal across the head.

Janus gave a high yelp and staggered away before falling to the ground. Ana glared at Nie. “You bastard!”

“Learn to keep your dog on a leash then!” Nie yelled back at her then stomped his way back towards the room. This time, there were no screams. Had he not found the girls? She could hear him tearing apart the room, but the girls remained silent.

Ana’s breath caught in her throat as she waited and listened, but slowly, she felt herself oddly relaxing. She moved her eyes back to Dante and saw he was injecting a needle filled with the clear liquid into the line he had set in her arm.

Slowly, Reith loosened his hold on her arms and let them go. Ana tried to fight, but her body just wouldn’t respond to the command. She raised her hand and watched her fingers move.

“You’re wondering where you’re fight went, aren’t you?” Reith grinned down at her. “You’ve never really had a dose of the proper stuff, have you? It’s what they use on us to control how we think and act.”

Ana blinked at him, turning her head as Dante pulled the syringe free then hooked one of the vials to her arm, filling it with blood before moving on to the next. As if not seeming to care what he was doing anymore, her eyes went to Janus where he lay motionless on the floor. Was he did? She shut her eyes but smiled to herself. No, only stunned. He would live.

A yell of frustration touched her ears as Dante finished with the third and last vial. She rolled her eyes toward the hall as Nie came stomping towards her, his gun aimed at her head. “Where is it?!”

Ana only looked at him as if sleepy, then shut her eyes. “Where is what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, girl! Where the hell is the disk!”

“I don’t know.” She said simply, then, before she could stop it. “Maybe one of the girls took it from the table…” You idiot! She cursed herself, but the nanites were making her too compliant.

Nie turned on his heels and started back towards the room, but Janus caught his leg as he passed and snarled loudly as he got to his feet once more, though shaky. He was not going to let Nie go after the children, that much was for sure.

“Bloody, mutt!” Nie kicked the dog away with his other foot, but when Janus came for another round, he raised his gun and fired.

A sharp yelp filled the air and Ana stared in stunned silence as Janus fell where he stood, blood staining the living room carpet as he whimpered.

“That’ll teach that damn dog.” Nie spat and looked back to Ana, then paused as Reith pulled away from her to let her up with a cry of shock. Her eyes were glowing brightly in her skull as she slowly got to her feet. Reith fell to the floor on his ass as he quickly backed away from her.

“What the hell?” Dante too backed away from her.

Ana’s black hair seemed to blow in some sort of nonexistent wind, then the windows of the room smashed outward in a rain of glass shards. A hand went to her arm and ripped out the IV line, blood gently oozing from the wound before it quickly healed over. She tossed it to the side then took a step towards Nie.

He felt the wind whipping at his face as he raised the gun at her, prepared to shoot her. “So this is it? Pytor’s weapon? Pathetic.” He squeezed the trigger, but froze when nothing happened. Everything in the room went silent and more a brief moment, he felt as if time had stopped, then it came crashing back and the bullet exploded from the end of his weapon.

It zipped through the air towards Ana and as it drew closer, the air around her seemed to flare in a blue light. The bullet exploded in a burst of small shrapnel and metal dust. Nie’s eyes widened and he cursed loudly, firing two more shots, but all ended to the same way. “Don’t just sit there, someone do something besides me!” Nie yelled at his two companions, but Reith ran for the door. Dante got to his feet, his own gun in hand and before he could even knock the safety off, Ana reached out and grabbed the weapon, the other hand grasping his throat.

Dante gasped and screamed if she were killing him, and as Nie watched, he realized she was. His face was draining of color, and not because she was choking him. She was steal his energy. He could feel it transferring through the air where she touched Dante. He felt his pulse quicken. My God…What did Pytor create…?

“Ana!”

A voice from the door stunned him and he cursed as he saw Haydren rush through the door. She seemed shocked by his appearance the sound of his voice. She dropped Reith to the ground and he lay there, weakly groaning in pain.

Nie turned down the hall and ran for the guest room. The window was still enacted, but with one swift kick, he broke out the glass and slipped out, jumping to the ground with one bound and rolled to the grass as soon as he landed.

Haydren hadn’t even seen him, but when he heard the glass break, he cursed loudly and went to Ana, catching her around the waist as she weakly stumbled, the light dimming around her and her eyes shutting. “Ana! What the hell…?”

He looked around the apartment, seeing Janus dead lying in a pool of blood, the carpet covered in glass and vials of blood all over the place. He gently laid Ana on the floor and tried to rouse her. Sighing in relief when she opened her eyes again, but there was something different in them. That glowing light remained strong and she reached her arm out past him, gently touch Janus on the side and a soft sigh escaped her lips.

Haydren’s brow furrowed in thought as he felt the air go electric and he swore he could see the current of energy on the air between Ana and the dog. She shut her eyes again and softly, Haydren heard the dog whimper then he got to his feet, shaking his furred body as if he’d fallen into the water then looked to Ana and Haydren curiously.

Haydren’s mouth hung open slightly as he watched then he looked to Ana once more. “Ana…?”

“Hmm?” She opened her eyes to him and softly blinked, the glow having bled away, replaced with her beautiful blue gray eyes.

“Are you alright?” He asked, feeling foolish that he could not think of something better to say at this moment, but he felt dumbfounded. She had just brought Janus back to life… What could someone say after seeing that?

“I’m fine, Haydren…don’t worry about me.” She gave him a small smile then frowned. “The girls are in the closet in your room. Make sure they’re okay…” She reached up to touch his arm and he jolted slightly from the electrical shock in her hand. “I’m so glad you got here, Haydren…”

Haydren slowly nodded and stroked her face softly as she lay back on the floor once more, her eyes shutting as she seemed to pass out and Haydren softly sighed. “Ana…” He took out his phone and called for Rodrigo and Angeth and an ambulance once more. He smoothed the girl’s black hair from her face and kissed her brow before he went to go to the girls.