by Anne Stuart
The gurney was empty.
She looked up, out over the vast expanse and into the barely glimmering darkness, and her skin prickled. Something, someone was watching her.
She tried to calm herself. It wasn’t necessarily John, she reminded herself. Alf and Mick might put him somewhere else for the night, and the top of the habitat was open to the sky. Birds could swoop in and nest, and probably other creatures could climb whatever fenced the place in, or burrow under the electric wire. It was probably something utterly harmless, staring at her out of the darkness. Like a raccoon, or the Australian equivalent of a raccoon. She had absolutely nothing to worry about. She just had to get her butt out of there as quickly as she could.
The one thing she wasn’t going to do was run. Years ago, when she’d been a child, she’d been visiting her grandmother’s farm in Vermont, and she’d gone for a walk in an adjoining field, only to come face-to-face with about twenty baby cows. The heifers had stared at her curiously, and she’d stared back. And then she’d started to back up, away from them.
To her horror they’d moved forward, curious. She walked a little faster, the fence in the distance. They speeded up as well. Suddenly she’d panicked, turning and running to the gate and vaulting over it as the herd of cows stampeded after her, their hooves thundering on the ground.
She’d been sitting in the dirt, crying, when her grandmother had come out. She’d taken one look at Libby with her grazed knees and dirty, tear-streaked face, walked over to the fence where the heifers were crowded, and said in a loud, commanding voice, “Shoo!”
And they’d scattered, running off in fear for their life.
They never stopped teasing Libby about her terror of the harmless heifers. Probably one reason why she cherished the city. At least there all the wild animals were on two legs.
And so was the wild animal she’d come in search of, she reminded herself grimly. And her still-sore wrist was proof that he was a great deal more dangerous than a herd of curious heifers.
She took a step backward, then another, unable to shake the memory of the cows. It had been when she’d turned her back and run that they’d broken free, charging after her. As long as she stayed calm, in control, then she’d be safe. Show fear, and she was toast.
The ground was rough beneath her feet, but she didn’t waste her time glancing down. It would be too dark to see, and she didn’t want to distract herself. She let her feet slide lightly across the dirt, so that she wouldn’t accidentally trip on something, trying to be calm. She hadn’t made the mistake of saying anything—he might not even know she was trapped in there with him, defenseless, unprotected.
She was almost at the door. A faint glow filtered through the screen, and the sky overhead was growing paler in the morning light. Just a few more feet, she thought. Surely she could turn and run now. He wouldn’t be able to catch her in that short distance. If he was even inside the habitat, if he was even aware that she’d been incredibly stupid enough to have stepped inside it without making sure he was strapped down.
Another foot, and she could turn and run. Just one more, and she’d be safe. One more.
She spun around, ready to sprint to the door, and slammed up against him.
She let out a muffled shriek of terror, one she tried to stifle, though she wasn’t sure why. He seemed absolutely huge, looming over her in the darkness, and she’d never felt so small and fragile in her entire life.
He didn’t touch her. He didn’t need to—his very proximity was threat enough. His eyes were open, but they were dark, dilated by the drugs and the darkness, and she couldn’t see anything but dark black holes of blank rage.
“Don’t hurt me,” she whispered. “Please.”
He didn’t even blink, staring down at her with a kind of dazed intensity. She was acutely conscious of everything, of the vast amounts of smooth, warm flesh in front of her, of the sky lightening overhead, the sound of the birds, the smell of tropical flowers and plants. Not a bad memory for the last one in her life, she thought in a kind of stupor, half prepared for one of his huge hands to come down on her, crushing her into oblivion.
He still didn’t move. And then a raw, rasping sound came from deep inside of him, painful, tortured, more an expelling of breath than words.
She stared up at him, confusion obliterating her panic. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”
He made the noise again, harsh, guttural, incomprehensible, and for some crazy reason she reached toward him, wanting to touch him, wanting to calm him.
The lights came on full force, startling them both. And then a moment later he’d disappeared into the thick undergrowth, seconds before the door slid open, exposing a fully armed Alf and Mick.
“What the hell are you doing in there, Doc?” Alf demanded. “You want to get yourself killed?”
It took all her strength of will to appear calm and unruffled. “Where’s our subject?” she asked innocently. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come down and observe him, but he’s not on the gurney and I haven’t seen him anywhere.”
“Good thing for it,” Alf said. “He could snap your neck like it was a bunch of twigs. What kind of fool are you to walk in there with him running loose?”
“I had no idea he was running loose—it was too dark to see the gurney. And you’d led me to believe you kept him drugged and tied up twenty-four seven.”
“We could hardly do that, miss,” Mick piped up, his face worried. “He’s got to be free to roam, to take care of business, if you know what I mean.”
“No,” she said, confused.
“He means he’s not going to be giving him a bath or changing his diapers and neither am I,” Alf said with a snort. “We undo his bonds and keep his dosage low so he can move around during the night.”
“And how do you get him trussed up again in the morning?”
The smile in Alf’s deceptively pleasant face was chilling. “We do a bit of hunting,” he said, patting the rifle he was carrying with affection. “God knows it’s boring enough here—we need a little sport to help us pass the time. Mick can’t hit the broadside of a barn with one of these, but I’ve gotten quite good at it.”
“Hey, I can use a handgun,” Mick protested.
Alf frowned at him. “I don’t think the lady doc needs to know that. Are you coming out, miss, or are you just going to stand there waiting for Tarzan to swoop down on a vine and carry you off? Maybe that’s what you’ve got in mind, eh?”
“Don’t be disgusting, Mr. Droggan,” she said briskly, moving past him. “And I don’t want you shooting him with your tranquilizer darts today. Let him move around the place freely.”
“No can do, miss. I’ve got orders from Hunnicutt, and he’s the one who pays the bills. We need to get readings on him, take some blood—”
“Take some blood!” she repeated in shock. “How much do you take?”
“Only about four ounces. Not enough to matter.”
“Every day? You’ll kill him!”
“Did he look dead? I don’t think it even slows him down. And his blood is like liquid gold—the market’s enormous.”
“Why? Why would anyone want his blood?”
“It’s pure. Untainted by civilization. Drug companies and research and development departments have a thirst like a vampire for the stuff. We started out taking half a pint every day but he began to look a bit pale, so Old Ed had us cut back. At least until we can get him to eat meat and liver. Right now he’s strictly veggie.”
“But what about the drugs?”
“They can filter ’em out, no problem. They’re the newest thing in tranquilizers. Bloody miracle drugs, they are.”
“Leave him alone, Mr. Droggan,” she said, unable to keep a faint, pleading note out of her voice.
It did no good, of course. “No, Dr. Holden,” he said flatly. “I’ve got my orders. If you’ve got a problem with anything take it up with Old Ed. He’ll probably be back tomorrow or the next day to see how
things are going. He never stays away long—Tarzan’s his newest toy on Christmas morning, and he’s going to play with it until he breaks it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Libby said in a quiet voice. She still hadn’t moved. Mick and Alf were on one side of the sliding door, she was on the other, still in the steaming atmosphere of the habitat. Where had John disappeared to? He must have known Mick and Alf would come armed, but why hadn’t he hurt her? What had he been trying to say to her? If, indeed, he was actually trying to communicate. It might have been just wishful thinking on her part.
Mick stuck his gun inside the door, peering into the murky darkness. “You sure he’s not around, miss? You wouldn’t want him jumping out at you from the bush. He’s a wild animal.”
“He’s not…”
“I’ve had enough,” Alf said flatly, stepping over the doorstep, gun at the ready. “Now, get your pretty little arse out of here or I’ll be using the dart gun on you, missy.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said. But the problem was, she knew he would. Somewhere in the darkness John was watching, listening. Not understanding, of course, if she could go by the blankness of his expression.
“You’re a cheap bully, Mr. Droggan,” she said sharply, moving toward the door.
“No, miss. I’m a very expensive bully. Ain’t I, Mick?” Alf rumbled with laughter at his own humor.
She couldn’t look back. The door slid shut behind her, closing the two men in with their guns and their prey, and there was nothing she could do to stop them, nothing at all. For some reason she wanted to cry, and she wasn’t sure if she could keep blaming jet lag.
Her bed was only slightly damp from the melted ice, and she flung herself down on it, anyway, cradling her wrist. It didn’t hurt as much as it had, though it was definitely bruised, the marks of his fingers purple and blue against her pale skin. For some reason she had the absurd fancy that he’d hate it if he knew that he’d hurt her. Ridiculous. How could he not know?
What had he said in that rasping, ruined voice? Had he used actual words? Did he even know words? What was he trying so desperately to tell her?
He hadn’t touched her, when he could have so easily. Hadn’t hurt her, had simply disappeared when the door opened, though animal instinct must have told him that if he took hold of her he’d have something they wanted.
Of course, he might have known they’d simply hurt him even more. Knowing Alf, he probably would have shot her first, then taken aim on John. What was that line in the movie Speed? “Shoot the hostage”? Alf would have taken great pleasure in shooting her.
What had he been trying to tell her? The sounds, the look on his face swirled around and around in her mind, but no matter how hard she tried to force it, it wouldn’t come into focus.
Had the harsh rasp of his voice come from the damage the hunters had inflicted on his neck? Or had he lived alone in the jungle, never using his voice, so that when he tried it came out like the pained cry of an animal? Was there any way she was going to find out?
She couldn’t stand this. To hell with Edward J. Hunnicutt’s bottomless pockets, to hell with her career, to hell with everything. Richard used to tell her she didn’t have the killer instinct, and until she developed it she wouldn’t reach the top level in her field.
If she had to be ruthless, then maybe the prize wasn’t worth the price. Besides, what did she really want in life? The chance to do research, to study in peace. She hated academic politics, hated the stupid games she had to play with people to keep them from interfering.
She wasn’t going to let them do this to John. Not going to let them bleed him, day after day, until he was so weakened he could hardly move. Not let them hunt him nightly, for a twisted kind of sport. Not let them use him like a circus freak for the gratification of Hunnicutt’s ego.
And suddenly something in her brain clicked, and she knew what he’d said. Those harsh, guttural sounds, almost unrecognizable, before he’d disappeared back in the dense foliage.
“Help me,” he’d said. She was sure of it.
And she was going to do exactly that. She was going to set him free.
Chapter Six
When Libby walked back into the observation room late that afternoon Mick and Alf were playing cards again. Alf was probably cheating, from the expression on Mick’s sorrowful face, and neither of them bothered to do more than give her a cursory glance when she opened the door.
“Did you catch him?” she asked in a deceptively even tone of voice. The very thought of hunting him through that tangled jungle made her sick to her stomach, but any more protests would be a waste of time.
“’Course we did,” Alf said, taking a leisurely sip of beer before discarding. “Got him in the left shoulder. He went down like a log. So don’t give me trouble about any fresh bruises. He got them falling.”
“But Alf, you forgot you—”
“Shut up, Mick,” Alf said pleasantly.
Mick shut up, glancing uneasily over his cards at Libby. “Want to play a hand, Doc? Alf’s a real master at cards.”
“No, thanks. I wanted to read some of Dr. McDonough’s research. The stuff in my room is incomplete.”
Alf lay down his cards to look at her. “And what might you be wanting to know?”
Libby shrugged, trying to look no more than casually interested. “Oh, normal stuff. Weight, blood pressure, reaction to stimuli. Mick said McDonough thought he might be deaf until he tested him. I’d like to see the results of those tests, among other things.”
Alf was still looking suspicious, but the beer and the poker were clearly higher priorities. “Left-hand filing drawer. There are CD-ROMs there with the information. McDonough ran the gamut.”
“He even tried electroshock,” Mick offered. “You should have seen Tarzan…er, John, jerk. You’d think he was flat-out cold, Dr. McDonough would apply the electrodes and wham! He’d jump a mile.”
“I don’t think Dr. Holden is interested in hearing about that,” Alf said, frowning. “She’s got a tender heart, you know. She’s worried we’re going to hurt the creature. She doesn’t realize that he’s like an animal. He doesn’t hurt easily, and the moment it’s over he’s forgotten it.”
“And how would you be knowing that, Mr. Droggan?” Libby asked, flipping through the CDs. “Did he tell you so?”
“You know as well as I do that he can’t communicate. His brain hasn’t evolved to that level. He’s a throwback, more animal than human….”
“I appreciate the benefit of your scientific observations, Mr. Droggan. But he might very well be suffering from brain damage. When someone is nearly strangled it cuts off oxygen to the brain. He may have been verbal and intelligent before Hunnicutt decided to send a crew of thugs to capture him.”
“We weren’t the ones who captured him!” Mick protested.
“We’re not the thugs she means, laddie,” Alf said with a snort. “We’re not responsible for the shape he was in when he got here.”
“But you’re responsible for the shape he’s in now,” she muttered.
As expected, Alf had grown tired of her criticism. “We’re trying to concentrate on our game, missy. Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” she said, humming noisily under her breath as she opened drawers, keeping her body between the two men and what she was looking for.
The drugs were easy enough to find. A dozen doses of the tranquilizer, prepackaged with syringes attached, plus another twenty-four tranquilizer darts. She ran the water in the sink, to cover the sound of her activities, but Alf didn’t even bother to look up.
Easy enough to squirt the drugs into the sink and refill the syringe with tap water. The seal on each dose was broken, but she was taking a chance Alf wouldn’t notice. She was almost finished, ready to start on the tranquilizer darts, when Alf’s voice startled her.
“Bring us a beer, love,” he said. “Since you’re already over there you can prove yourself useful.”
If Libby had had
any qualms about what she intended to do they vanished instantly.
“Certainly,” she said sweetly, opening the refrigerator and pulling out two dark bottles of Guinness. She would have made an excellent spy, she thought smugly. She opened the bottles and squirted two of the remaining syringes into each one before she turned around, and neither Mick nor Alf even noticed the delay.
“That’s a good lass,” Alf said dryly when she presented him with the bottle. “If this science thing doesn’t work out you can always be a barmaid.”
She gave him a sour smile before turning back to the sink, busily covering up any sign of what she’d been doing. She pulled a few CDs at random, then turned back to the men. “What time are you shutting this place down?”
Alf yawned noisily. He’d already drained half the bottle of Guinness, and she realized he had six empty ones on the floor near him already, with Mick keeping pace. Maybe she hadn’t needed to put the drugs in the beer after all—they’d probably drunk enough to pass out.
Then again, better safe than sorry. Beer and tranquilizers wouldn’t kill them—they were too mean.
“What’s it to you?” Alf demanded belligerently.
“I’m here to do a job. I need to know when I can do it.”
“If you hadn’t slept all day you would have had plenty of time,” he replied. “We’re shutting down early, so you’ll just have to entertain yourself with reading Dr. McDonough’s research. Pretty dry stuff if you ask me. Mick, go in and unfasten the restraints on Tarzan.”
Mick looked startled. “Are you sure? We cut back on the stuff today because we thought Dr. Holden would be working with him….”
“We didn’t cut back that much, old son. If you’re too chicken to go in there then I’ll take care of it,” Alf said, rising on slightly unsteady feet. Had he been drunk before and she just hadn’t realized it, Libby thought. Or had the drugs already taken effect?
“I’ll do it,” Mick said reluctantly. “You want to watch my back in case he’s livelier than we expect?”
