I stared at Lisa in stunned disbelief, then at Dr. Merrit…the complete asshole whom I’d thought was only a step or two away from the next Dr. Mengele.

“YOUR UNCLE?” I blurted out shock.

“Not biologically,” Lisa admitted with a shrug. “But he is an old friend of the family.”

For a moment, I continued to stare at Lisa, then everything snapped into place. “He’s your mysterious contact,” I blurted out, remembering how her ‘source’ kept giving her information about our sisters and where they were being held. Then my eyes widened and I stared at Dr. Merrit, exclaiming, “You’re the one who told Lisa about my crash…”

“I’m glad she reached you in time,” Dr. Merrit responded. Then he actually sounded apologetic as he added, “She told me about your condition when she found you…”

Then Dr. Merrit went to the nearest cage, the one containing Rebecca. She glared at him suspiciously as he unlocked the cage and then the shackles that bound her hands and feet.

“Rebecca,” he said her name, using that instead of Angel Subject Prime for the first time with her. She gaped in surprise while he went to unlock Julie next.

Rebecca gave Dr. Merrit another suspicious look, then grabbed me in a hug. “You’re alive,” she blurted out. “When your helicopter went down…”

“I’m fine,” I assured her, trying not to think of how messed up I’d been and how close I’d come to dying. “Thanks to Lisa.”

Rebecca turned her attention to Lisa and then stood there, staring at her as though she still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She hesitantly reached out and touched Lisa while Lisa stood there, looking guilty.

“You’re alive,” Rebecca said quietly. Then she grew angry and demanded, “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I wanted to,” Lisa responded, staring at Rebecca and then the others who’d been released. “You have no idea how much I wanted to…”

“We would have come with you,” Dani exclaimed, giving her an angry glare.

“And that’s why I couldn’t,” Lisa responded defiantly. “If you would have left too, it would have given everything away. I couldn’t take a chance of anyone finding out what I was doing. It was too important.”

Nicole came forward and grabbed Lisa in a hug, gasping, “You really are here…” She stood back with tears running down her cheeks. “But why? What was so important that you have to make us think you were dead?”

When Lisa didn’t answer, I did. “She was working on a vaccine. A vaccine for the harkon virus.”

All my sisters gasped in surprise, though it was Nicole who blurted out, “That would have been a death sentence if you were caught…”

“Hence faking her death,” Dani said with a look of realization.

“How close?” Rebecca asked grimly. “How close are you?”

Lisa smirked and responded, “I finished it almost two months ago. We have a working vaccine.”

The other all gasped at that, getting excited. They spent the next minute congratulating Lisa, almost seeming to forget about her faked death…or at least deciding to hold off on further discussion until later.

I gave each of my sisters a hug, then while the others were focused on Lisa, I looked Julie over. “Looking good,” I told her with a grin.

“I feel kind of weird,” Julie admitted self-consciously.

“Welcome to the family,” I said with a chuckle, giving her a hug. Then I teased, “Now I’m not the rookie angel anymore.”

Julie gave me another hug and said, “I’m just glad you’re alive… After that crash…”

“Don’t forget being attacked by a demon and then having a bomb dropped on her head too,” Lisa added, suddenly making the rest of my sisters stare at me in surprise.

That just reminded me of how Lisa was able to find me in the first place so I looked back at Dr. Merrit, then asked Lisa. “Okay, please explain what is going on with him.”

“Like I said,” Lisa explained, “He’s my Uncle Gavin, the guy who got me interested in science in the first place.” Then she grinned and added, “He’s been working as my inside man. When Dolenz wanted someone to keep an eye on us angels until they could reopen the experiments, they asked Uncle Gavin since he’s a top virologist. Of course, they didn’t know that he’s family. He accepted the job to help us out…so he could keep an eye on Dolenz for us.”

Dr. Merrit nodded at that, then said, “I owe you all an apology for my behavior over the last few years.” He actually looked sincere as he said this. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t allow anyone to suspect that I was sympathetic to your situation.”

“Well you certainly had me fooled,” Dani said, still looking suspicious.

He looked at Lisa and let out a sigh. “I’ve done everything I could since they arrived to delay the experiments, and if you hadn’t come when you did, it wouldn’t have been long before Dolenz and Lawrence became suspicious. As it was, I was taking a risk by ceasing their sedation and getting everyone gathered here in one place.”

“So you want to know how the rescue plan is going,” Lisa responded with a grin. “Well, I’ve made it so some pretty powerful people are pretty mad at Dolenz and Lawrence. The public at large will be on them soon enough too so they weren’t exactly thinking clearly.”

“They locked Roberts up,” I pointed out grimly.

“Yeah, but we knew that was probably going to happen,” Lisa responded. “This way we got them to escort us straight to our sisters.” Then she paused to muse, “Of course, it would have been a lot easier if Lawrence had just accepted those orders, but doing what he did and taking the third DSU rogue opens up some new options.”

“We should probably get going soon,” I reminded Lisa. “We need to get in place.”

“Agreed,” Lisa said with a nod.

Suddenly, there was a faint shrieking sound from somewhere down the hall. Every one of us froze at that, though Dr. Merrit just scowled with a worried look.

“What the hell was that?” Lisa asked, though I already knew.

“The demon queen,” Dr. Merrit answered grimly.

“She’s been doing that for the last couple days,” Julie added with a worried look.

Lisa stared at him in surprise, then demanded, “Why aren’t you keeping her sedated?”

“Because she’s already built up a tolerance for everything we’ve given her,” he answered with a shake of his head.

“I’m the only one here who hasn’t seen that thing,” Lisa commented, “and even I know it’s a bad idea keeping her around.”

“Just one more thing that Dolenz and Lawrence have to answer for,” Rebecca said.

Dr. Merrit stood there with an odd look on his face before asking, “Were you aware that the demon queen has somehow integrated angel DNA into her own?”

“What?” Lisa demanded, giving Merrit a look of surprise.

“She appears to have encountered angel DNA somewhere,” Dr. Merrit continued with a scowl. “I believe the angel DNA is responsible for her gender change as well as her intelligence and ability to speak.”

“Oh shit,” Rebecca exclaimed, holding her stomach. She had a dark look on her face as she continued, “During the incident, the demon clawed me pretty badly… Yavich got my blood on him…”

“Now we know where that bitch got our DNA,” Dani said impatiently. “Can we get out of here now?”

Rebecca and Dani picked up with weapons that our soldier guards had on them, then we started down the hallway. I really hoped that we wouldn’t have to hurt anyone to get out of here, but I wasn’t counting on it. Killing demons was one thing, killing a human was another…no matter how much of an idiot he might be.

Just then an alarm began going off and I blurted “Oh shit… They know we’re escaping…”

“That’s not the alarm for an angel escape,” Dr. Merrit said with a look of fear on his face. “That’s the alarm for a demon breakout.”

“Oh shit,” Dani exclaimed.”

“We’re not exactly armed or equipped to fight demons right now,” Nicole pointed out.

I looked to Lisa, who definitely didn’t look happy about this either. “This wasn’t part of the plan,” she said, sounding uncertain.

I let out a sigh, then said, “Then we should get back to our plan and let these third guys deal with the demon.”

No one argued so we hurried down the hall again, though we quickly encountered two more soldiers from the third. They immediately took aim at us, but Nicole and I quickly snatched the guns from their hands and knocked them down.

Dr. Merrit was about to shoot them with his tranquilizer darts when Rebecca stopped him. “With a demon running around loose, I don’t want to leave anyone helpless to at least run away.”

“You’re traitors,” one of the soldiers spat at us.

“How do come up with that?” Rebecca asked him with an annoyed look.

“The general said…,” he started, though Lisa interrupted him.

“General Lawrence is a wanted criminal,” Lisa stated firmly. “He was removed from command and ordered under arrest for kidnapping,” she gestured to our sisters, “illegal experiments, and his part in causing the demon outbreak in the first place.” She paused to give the soldier a glare while she added, “General Lawrence has gone rogue and has taken the third with him. The third DSU is no longer operating under the authority of the US government.”

“Now who’s the traitor?” Dani asked him with a sneer.

The soldier looked like he was going to argue, then stammered, “I was just following orders…”

“Like that excuse worked in Nuremberg,” Rebecca added. Then she looked to the rest of us, “We don’t have time to waste talking…”

We grabbed the radios from the soldiers, but as we were about to continue, someone came over the radio in a panic. “The demon escapee is releasing the other demons,” the voice blurted out. “Now it’s at the demon queen’s cell… Oh God, the demon queen is loose. I repeat, the demon queen is on the loose.”

Every one of us froze at that, including the soldiers we’d just taken down. Julie and Dani simultaneously blurted out what all of us was thinking. “Oh shit.”