Project Rescue - A Shifter Novel (NaNoWriMo19)
Chapter 31 - Sick Puppy

“You are self taught?” Digger asked incredulously.

“Yeah, I am. It’s nothing to be proud of. It was out of necessity. I had to sew myself up a couple of times,” I commented, shrugging my shoulders. I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal. Anyone would have done the same. Some of the men I had fixed were reported to the monster as dead. He didn’t care and would have Antonio dispose of them. Antonio gave them a lot of money and put them on a plane. He would tell them he would kill them if they were caught, and if they ever talked. It worked.

“I thought you had years of training at a medical college. You don’t realize how good you are. You’re better than I am,” Claw insisted.

I didn’t say a word. I shrugged my shoulders and continued to clean up. After I gathered up everything we used in surgery I put them in a pot of water and lit the burner. I went over to the corner and made a bed for Manuel. He wouldn’t do well in a hammock, not at all. I walked back over to pick Manuel up when Matheus put his hand on me to stop. He picked up Manuel and took him to the bedding I had made for him. Claw set up and I.V. and checked his vitals.

I wanted to clean the table and sit down for awhile. I was tired physically and mentally. I boiled some water and pulled it off the fire. I added a little bleach, not enough to hurt our noses, and scrubbed the table, but was stopped by Flirt. He grabbed the scrub brush from me and cleaned the table. He took a towel and dried the table after it was cleaned. After he was done I slumped down into a chair for a little bit. I still had towels and rags to bleach.

Warrior walked over to the kettle on the other burner, pouring a cup of coffee and walking back to me. He put the coffee in front of me and sat down at the table. I watched as the other men sat down with me.

“You have a new handle, Selina, we are going to call you Amazon Doc,” Madrid announced.

I turned quickly towards Madrid. “Not badass enough, General.” I smiled at him. “How about badass doc?”

Matheus piped up. “It’s a great name for my mate. She is a badass and she could have been a doctor. She still could be.”

I was startled by his confession. Me a doctor? I always wanted to be one until the monster had me fix up men so he could torture them all over again. I never wanted to be a doctor after the first encounter. But, right now it sounded like a damn good idea. “I would love to be a doctor.” I turned to look at Madrid, smiling a little. “Need a doc, General?” I smirked at him, causing him to laugh.

“We always need docs but you would have to pass every test imaginable to become a Shadow Cat.”

I plastered the biggest smirk I could, not saying anything else.

“Uh, never mind. You would pass every test. I know you would, doc badass.”

Everyone started laughing and shaking their heads at the General.

“Okay, back to our earlier discussion. What are we going to do to get rid of Barbosa? He needs killing worse than I ever thought before. He will never leave us alone. There will be women who are taken so he can rape and terrorize them or kill them,” Madrid commented.

“He rapes girls from the age of thirteen to twenty-five-years of age. He doesn’t like them any older. He thinks the younger they are the better for him to have a son. Every girl who has found out she’s pregnant killed themselves. He had a twelve-year-old girl before I left. It’s sickening to hear them cry out and then have nightmares,” I clarified shuddering. I was sick in my heart at what my only family could do to another person.

He was one sick puppy.

All the men were surprised and sickened at what I had said. Their faces paled and they looked as if they could puke at any time. I sure I looked the same. I know the reports they had didn’t talk about the young girls.

“Why didn’t Antonio report anything about the young girls?” Warrior asked. “He should have done so.”

I interjected my information. “He didn’t know. The young girls were kept on my floor of the compound. He didn’t want to share them with his men. He wanted a son to take over for him. He knew I wouldn’t do it.”

“Makes sense now,” the General commented offhand.

“We need to rescue the girls if we can,” Matheus threw into the conversation.

Everyone nodded their heads. We all knew that it meant we couldn’t blow up the compound.

“I can show you where the girls are kept at all times. They don’t ever go off the floor,” I hinted.

The General got up from the table, walking over to his rucksack and searching for the maps. He walked back over to the table, handing the picture of the compound to Selina. “Show us. I want to work around it and save those girls. They will never be the same but they will be alive and Barbosa will be dead.”

I looked at the aerial picture of the compound. I made sure I had it turned the right way, not wanting to mess up the room location of the girls. I marked the picture with an arrow of the girls rooms. They were at the very far end of the compound. The monster wanted to show them the forest, knowing they couldn’t go into their natural habitat. Most of the girls had never been out of the rainforest. I didn’t know how many girls he had.

I handed the picture back to the General. He looked at the picture and nodded his thanks to me.

“I’m going to pass the picture Selina marked but I will have more marked for each of you later. I want you to study how the compound looks in comparison to where the girls are. We need to get them out and returned to their family.” He paused and looked at each person. “Barbosa is Selina and Matheus’s kill. Don’t kill him unless he cheats, and he will cheat. But, if he thinks Antonio will help he’s got another thing coming. I think I’m going to enjoy watching when he replaces out his trainer is not his at all.”