by Nikki Dean
Janae turned away in silence.
“That’s what I thought. Fuck, no, I’m not risking any more of us to help her, when she allowed this to happen.”
The others exchanged a look and nodded.
“Sorry, Bunny, but unless we have more to go on, there’s nothing we can do. Plus, she wanted to leave Matt down there,” Alec agreed.
“That’s true. We all heard her say that you couldn’t rescue him,” Damon said. “She was willing to let him die, but told you to clear her conscious.”
“That’s such bullshit!” Janae protested. “Why would I have even told Mallory anything if I didn’t want to do something about it?”
“You said we couldn’t move him, or he’d die,” Mallory said slowly. She was looking down into Matt’s face, the prickly blond stubble that lined his cheeks and the circles under his eyes.
He looked exhausted, even as he slept.
“So what do we do to keep that from happening?” Mallory asked. “How do we wean him off of this drug, and when will he wake up?”
Nico finished arranging the jaguar on the other bed and came to sit beside them. He’d hung the other bag of sedative up on the wall like Matt’s, as well as the IV fluids to keep it hydrated.
“Just don’t touch it, for now,” Janae said. “I’ve got the drip turned down, so it won’t give him as much now. Turn the slider down to low in about eight hours, then unhook it completely eight hours after that. He’ll wake up soon after. He should have fluids too, though. Try to use your powers on him to help.”
“You’re sure he’ll wake up so soon?” Nico asked. “When will you be by to check on him?”
“Are you kidding me right now?” Janae began, then shook her head. “I’ll come in the morning, but that’s all I can promise. He’ll start to come out of it even with the drip on the lowest setting, but it’s not safe to remove it completely until the whole sixteen hours is up. I’d cut those times in half for the cat. It weighs a lot less.”
“And what do we do with that?” Everett demanded. “A fucking jaguar in a dorm room.”
“I don’t know, ask your crazy cat lady over here. Animals are her area of expertise,” Janae said. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go get some sleep. It’s been a stressful day.”
Mallory snorted. “Tell me about it.”
Janae left without another word. Mallory put her palms back onto Matt’s bare skin and matched her breathing to his, trying to see if his mind was any clearer after reducing the amount of sedative in his system.
It wasn’t yet. Still, it had only been half an hour since they’d found him, at most. No one else said anything, but Everett did move to the end of the other bed, reaching out to pet the sleeping jaguar laid across it. Luckily it wasn’t fully grown, so he had room.
Someone knocked on her door jamb in the other room a little later. Mallory went to see who it was and found the building maintenance crew there, taking down the remains of her old door to replace it with a new one.
“Do you know if the police are going to come by or anything?” Mallory asked. “I had to get out of here earlier and didn’t see anyone.”
They looked at her in surprise. “Civilian police aren’t allowed on campus, Miss. The Department of Defense should have been here already, since we got the all clear to come fix the door. I don’t know what they would do if you weren’t here to meet them.”
“I’ll be sure to just take a seat instead of getting medical attention the next time I’m attacked in my own room, then,” she retorted, shocked that they would honestly expect her to sit around and wait after her shoulder had been dislocated. No matter that Janae had been able to fix it, since it was only sheer luck that anyone had called her.
“Maybe just sleep in the other side tonight and don’t touch anything until they come investigate?” one of the workers guessed. “I’d call them about it tonight, if I was you.”
Mallory rolled her eyes and nodded, then thanked them as they finished up. Setting her new set of keys onto the dresser, Mal went back into the other room.
“I guess whoever is in charge of this place doesn’t care when students are attacked in their own rooms?” she bitched. “The maintenance guys just told me to sleep over here and don’t touch anything in my room until someone comes to look at it, and that I’ll have to call and make the report tonight.”
“Why would they come without a report?” Everett asked. “That would be weird.”
“So no one from the school would have called them? Even though a maintenance report was filed to fix my door?” she asked, bewildered.
Everett narrowed his eyes. “These guys are the only academy authority who saw anything. It’s technically their job to make a report asking for an investigation. You want them to do that now?”
Something’s not right. Mallory looked at Nico, who nodded. “Then who notified maintenance to fix the door?”
“She’s right,” Damon said aloud. “Maintenance would have only been told after the report was done. Any investigation should have included looking at her original door for any charms or forced entry. We can’t stay here.”
“Where else are we going to go?” Mallory asked. “Where can we keep Matt safe?”
“Fuck,” Everett swore. “I can take Matt home with me, and this damn cat, I guess. Nico, is there any way you can just replace the lock on hers really fast, and you sleep here? It’ll look too suspicious if Mallory disappears again.”
“Are you sure?” Nico asked. “It’s no problem replacing the deadbolt so we know. No one else has a key. That might actually be how Pohler got in to begin with.”
“With a key?” Mallory repeated doubtfully. “I have both of mine still.”
“The registrar keeps a spare in everyone’s files in case one of the roommates loses theirs. You’re only supposed to get one key per student,” Nico answered. “He could have stolen it. Or just ordered her to give it to him, under Fitzam’s authority.”
“So he could have a key to this room, too?” The thought was unsettling, to say the least.
Nico nodded and stood, checking his watch. “There’s a hardware store on the other side of Helston that’s still open. Gonna go there really fast, so there are fewer chances of anyone recognizing me. I’ll be back in about forty-five minutes to fix this. I’d say we can leave Matt here tonight, just to keep him a little more stable, what do you think?”
“If we can guarantee that he’s secure, that’s fine,” Damon said with a glance at Everett. “I think we should all stay, though. Just in case.”
“I’ll start pulling the other mattresses in here,” Mallory said after a minute. Damon and Alec got up to help as Nico took off.
Everett stayed where he was, absently petting the unconscious predator while he watched Matt sleep.
Chapter 31
Nico got back and replaced the locks with a few minutes to spare, making short work of it. They got Mallory’s mattress and the spare arranged on the floor and spent a mostly sleepless night checking on Matt in shifts.
Mallory though she heard muffled roaring once or twice, but figured it was someone or other snoring too loud in the small room. There were some drawbacks to being piled into a room with five guys and a sedated jaguar, after all.
Janae came by in the morning, as promised, and reduced the dose of sedative. She was flustered, in a hurry despite it being Saturday morning, and she kept glaring at Mallory every so often.
Mal ignored her until Janae grabbed her arm and pulled her into the bathroom.
“This again?” Mallory asked as Janae turned on the shower and sinks, and flushed the toilet, pushing the handle down with her foot.
“The lab was attacked last night,” Janae whispered urgently.
Mallory gaped at her. “Like, after we did?”
Janae nodded and hit the flusher again, drowning the room in sound.
I’m going to have to ask her about this noise obsession. Why does she think someone’s listening to her all the time
? Or are they? Mallory wondered. It wasn’t really the time though.
“Don’t fucking say things like that, and yes, after us. Would I be telling you otherwise?” she demanded in exasperation. “I got a call about it this morning. It’s completely destroyed. The animals that could be moved are gone, and no one has any idea what happened. Not even,” she stopped herself, biting her lip, “not even my contacts have any idea what happened, but they’re talking about some kind of monster destroying everything. It sounds ridiculous, but even the data backups were apparently destroyed. Like an insane power surge hit them.”
“What? A monster? Are you fucking with me right now?” Mallory tried to laugh it off. The amaroq must have found out somehow. I wonder how many other labs it’s destroyed, and who’s behind them.
“Who were you working with down there?” Mallory demanded. “Who was running it?”
“I don’t know.” Janae grabbed Mallory’s hand and she could feel the other girl's sincerity. “I really don’t. I got an email one day with pictures of my younger brother and sister, and instructions to go downstairs to the door that I showed you. I put in the code and they acted like I’d been there all along. It was insane. I couldn’t tell you who all was there because they wanted to be, or if they were forced. I mentioned it once, and was told I couldn’t ever talk about it again unless I wanted something bad to happen. So I haven’t, until now.”
“You must have recognized people though, gotten to know them after a while. Who was involved?”
Janae’s face tightened and she dropped Mal’s hand as she began walking away. “I told you, I don’t know who was there because they wanted to be, or because they were forced. I don’t want to point any fingers when they might be in the same position I am. I have to go.”
“Can I at least call you if Matt doesn’t wake up today?” Mallory asked.
Janae paused, looking back. Finally, she nodded.
“Thanks.”
She didn’t say anything, and left without another word. Mallory went back into the room and sat on the side of Matt’s bed, reaching out for him again.
“How long should it be?” Damon asked.
“Not sure. She said he should be off the drug around noon, but will be drifting in and out as his body gets used to the lower dosage. I need to figure out this link before.”
“Which you don’t need us for,” Everett said. “Which means I’m going home.”
“The amaroq attacked the lab last night,” Mallory said softly. All eyes turned to her. “Janae just told me. It’s completely destroyed.”
“Good. Now they can’t kidnap anyone else to torture them,” Everett replied. “And any evidence we left behind is destroyed.”
“We need to talk about this,” Damon said harshly.
“No, we don’t,” Everett replied. “What are we going to say, or do about it? The amaroq is a monster, but at least it got that right.”
“Everett - ” Damon began, but Ev waved him off again.
“See you later. Have fun getting your faces eaten off by that thing,” Everett muttered, pointing at the jaguar on the opposite bed.
He was right. Or at least, potentially, since it was waking up with a growl, showing its teeth as it lay there panting.
“It’s trying to figure out what happened, and why it feels Matt,” Mallory said as she hurried to its side. “I need to link with it and see what I can do to break its ties to Matt before we lose them both.”
“Could that really happen?” Nico asked. “He could still die?”
She nodded. “Probably. Or go insane. Animals have very deeply ingrained instincts that he’ll feel and be driven to obey, even if he doesn’t realize it. Then he’ll question everything and eventually lose his shit trying to make sense of it all.”
“Is that how you felt?” Nico asked.
“Not as much. I started a lot slower, and very gradually. I noticed that I could connect with animals externally, through talking to them and trying to communicate, before I ever tried to link to them mentally. And I started a lot smaller, with less complicated creatures.”
“Spiders?” he guessed.
She nodded. “I wanted to stay in bed all day and wait for food to come to me. Makes about as much sense for a teenager as it does a spider,” she laughed. “Eventually I figured it out. Matt won’t have that luxury, though.”
“So what can we do?” Alec asked. Everett was already gone, but he and Damon were willing to do whatever it took to help out.
“Get food. It’ll be hungry when it wakes up, and Matt probably will be too. Something light for each of them now, and a real meal for later.”
“What the fuck do we get that’s a light snack for a jaguar?” Alec muttered as he and Damon went for the door, committed to their mission. “Some chicken wings?”
Nico and Mallory heard Damon hit him in the hallway.
“That should keep them busy for a while,” Mallory said as she stretched out on the bed beside the big cat.
“Should you really be that close to it?” Nico asked in concern. “It’ll probably be pissed off and scared when it wakes up.”
“The goal is not to let that happen,” Mal replied. “We want it to wake up comfortably, but I need to sever their link first. Otherwise it might attack Matt.”
Nico sat at the end of the bed, watching her reach out to stroke its soft fur. It was about four feet long from the tip of its nose to its rump, then another two feet or so of tail was curled up around its backside. Sharp claws adorned each paw, and they could see its canines poking out from between its slightly parted lips.
“Do whatever you need to do, but I’m not going any farther than this. It could rip out your throat with one little twitch if it wanted to. Hell, it might even be on accident at this point.”
“You want to test your cat-like reflexes against this big guy’s?” Mal teased. To be honest, she was glad he was there, since he was right. It could kill her without even meaning to, and while she’d connected with a lot of animals, none had been this big or frightened.
Humans were its enemy. Including her.
Not that she blamed it. She’d be pretty pissed too, in the same circumstances.
Everything will be fine, she told herself. Match its breathing and reach out. This isn’t any different than a regular old alley cat, or a pissed off raccoon. I haven’t failed yet. I won’t start now.
It growled again, shifting in its sleep as it caught her scent. She closed her eyes and dove in, determined to see how it was linked to Matt and break their bond while she had the chance.
Its presence was a seething mass of anger on her web, trapped by the drugs but still aware enough to know that it was in the presence of humans. It didn’t like it. Her smell, and Nico’s, and the other guys’ was flooding its nose, triggering its fight-or-flight instincts. And since the drugs were keeping it paralyzed, keeping it from fleeing…
Fight, it was.
Mal reached out and grabbed its paw, holding it down just before it made a feeble attempt to swat at her. It thrashed inside its mind, panicking at the idea of being tied down.
As it clearly had been before.
Oh, sweetie, I’m so, so sorry. Tears prickled behind her closed eyelids as she sifted through its memories, seeing what had been done to it. It groaned in her ear, a pitiful attempt at another growl as the drugs pulled it back down into oblivion.
Mallory blasted what little awareness that was left with warm affection, telling it over and over again that it was safe. She had no idea how long they lay there together as she stroked its cheek, tickling its scent glands until she smelled more like it than herself. But the next time it came to was a little better.
You’re safe, you’re safe. I won’t let anything happen to you. She tried to project an aura of protectiveness to it, like it would sense from its mother. She had no idea how old the jaguar was, but judging from its size and what she vaguely recalled from reading up on them forever ago, it wasn’t yet two.
Whi
ch meant it should have been at home still, snuggling beneath the trees and learning how to hunt from its mother. Instead it’s here, ripped from its home by a bunch of assholes who think they have the right to dissect it, see how it works and use it for their own selfishness. Maybe we’re not so different after all.
She had to push the infuriating thoughts away when the jaguar growled in her ear again, struggling to lift its head. Mallory hit it with another wave of calm, trying to get it to accept her.
It worked, a little. The growl faded and it went back to sleep, this time less drug-induced. But she could still feel its instincts fighting against the sensation of Matt within its mind.
Mallory zoomed out inside her head, examining the bits of web that tied her and the jaguar together, then the bits that tied it to Matt, instead. The strands between it and her were luminescent, pale, shimmery ghosts of connection that encircled their minds. It was graceful, easy contact that could barely be felt. It was comforting, even.
But the strands that tied it to Matt were the opposite. Hard, unyielding slivers of burning metal were all she could equate it to as she tentatively touched them, feeling the damage they were inflicting on both sides.
It was like being stabbed in the soul, having bits of it sucked out and replaced with another’s that was so foreign, neither side had any idea what to do with it.
How do I get rid of this? Or maybe change it, so that it’s more like my web? They might be able to stay connected a little, but not like this. Never like this.
She focused on the extra strands, trying to loosen them in her mind. Both the jaguar and Matt flared with discomfort, and she let go. Instead, she reached for the jaguar again, gently prodding the places where the connections were forged. The strands of connection were a little more pliable here than in the middle, a little lighter in essence.
A little more like her own web.
Mallory envisioned strands her own shimmery, pale webbing wrapping around the painful intrusions, covering the dully throbbing lines of metal until it formed a coating. She pushed the coating down into the jaguar’s mind, sending it love and comfort as she followed the lines of pain through its consciousness, wrapping each one in her silver web. When she was certain that she’d gotten them all, she began to pull back, praying that she could take the unnatural connections with her, encased in her own magic.
