The cafeteria was near empty, and I snaked as much food as I could, keeping a careful watch on what went on my plate. It’s not that I thought the workers would do something evil; it’s just I’ve seen enough on TV detailing what wait staff do to the food of people they don’t like to make me paranoid. It adds another dimension to being hated.
The dinner was chicken, and it was good. I managed to creep out of the dining hall just as it started to get busy. A few poisonous looks and some stage-whispered comments that lacked originality were my reward for lingering too long. A hall clock told me it was 5:45. The sun, which I still hadn’t seen, was either down or the cloud cover it was hiding behind was thick, because it was dark outside.
I paused by a window in the corridor outside my room and stared across the grounds. What would Mom think of all this? I wondered. Where was she? Why did she leave? I swallowed hard. What caused her to flee? Was she in trouble?
Was it me?
The smells of dinner filled my nose as the volume of the crowd in the cafeteria was on a steady rise, so loud now I could hear them from where I was on the other side of the building. Most of the professionals had gone home for the day, but the casually dressed metas passed me in the hall, on their way to evening meal. Their conversations were excited, those of people among friends, and they dropped off when they saw me.
I realized I had been staring out the window at a lamp for the last five minutes. Going to the gym to work out again didn’t appeal to me, and I had a feeling Dr. Sessions wouldn’t be getting back with my results this evening. I thought of Mom again and knew that what I wanted was to go to sleep and try to dream of her.
I walked down the hall to my door and opened the handle. It wasn’t locked, because I didn’t have a key for it. Since everyone hated me, I supposed I should get a key, so that no one could sneak into my room while I was away.
I closed the door and flipped the light switch and realized that I was, by far, too late, because not only had someone snuck in while I was at dinner, but they had stayed to wait for me.
“Hello, little doll,” came the whispered, throaty voice of Wolfe, towering above me. His hand came down and grabbed me around the neck while I was still too stunned to react. “Wolfe has been waiting for you.” He pulled me close to him and I felt his hot, stinking breath on my face, then felt the warm wetness of his tongue licking my cheek. “It’s time to play.”
Fifteen
However I might have responded, speech was not possible with his hand squeezing my larynx. His black eyes were bulging out and his smile was a grin that revealed his spiked teeth. I felt them brush against the side of my head as he pulled me close and took a long breath through his nose, inhaling on my hair.
“Wolfe has missed you twice, little doll, but now we can be together and play the way we’re supposed to. Then, whatever’s left of you when Wolfe is done…” I felt his breath drift down to my neck as he embraced me and his teeth slightly bit into my shoulder – enough to puncture the cloth of my turtleneck and the skin but not enough to cause a deep wound – and a little sucking sound followed for about a second. “…they can have. That will make them happy. And you…will make Wolfe happy first.” A half-insane titter of glee came from him and I heard the smacking of his lips.
I made a guttural sound of choking and he loosened his grip as he moved me in front of him, enough so I could take a breath but not much more. I could already feel the pins and needles in my feet and I tried not to jerk too much for fear of breaking my own neck. I must not have been the first person he’d placed in a chokehold because he’d learned to grip low enough on the neck that he didn’t cut off all circulation.
“Pl…pl…” I couldn’t get a word out.
He turned me around in his hand so that he was behind me. I could feel his body pressed against me, as though it were an iron wall at my back. My feet touched the floor again but his grip assured me that if I tried anything out of line, I wouldn’t survive until the agents came to my rescue. Not that they would at this point. Not after what I did. I was alone here.
“Pl…please…” I rasped through the barest opening he gave me to speak.
I could hear a moan of pleasure. “Yessss, little doll. Begging is good play. Pleading is fun.” His other hand crept around my waist and I felt a shudder of revulsion when it came to rest on my belly and one of his claws raked through my clothing, giving me another superficial laceration.
I felt a twinge of pain, sharp despite the shallowness of the cut, and I felt the trickle of blood start to run down my abdomen under my sweater. His finger ran to his mouth and I heard the sucking sound again followed by another little moan of pleasure that made me ill. “I can taste everything about you in your blood. Your fears. Your doubts…every exquisite little part of you…this will be satisfying for both of us…” His hand slid around my belly again and I grunted, my fear for my life momentarily outweighed by a rising sense of disgust.
“H-how…” The words stumbled out as my mind sought out any delay I could find. “How did you find me?”
His grip tightened and once more I found myself in a battle to breathe. “It’s not your place to speak or ask questions. You are to be silent except for the occasional moan or scream.” His fingers dug into the cut he had made in my stomach and it suddenly wasn’t superficial anymore. I would have screamed, but he had a choking grip on my neck, as though he anticipated it.
“I’ll tell you,” I heard him say through the searing agony in my guts. “You shouldn’t have left all those agents lying around when you ran from Wolfe last time…two of them were alive, you know…and very helpful, after Wolfe spent some time playing with them…very helpful…and tasty. They were no little dolls, but they made a fine distraction until I could get my hands around you…and in you…” He stabbed his finger back into me and I wanted to scream but was out of air. Lights blurred my vision and the edges of everything in the world smoothed out. A flash of light blinded me.
I felt a spasming shock of pain, lighter somehow than what was going on in my guts but still painful, and I felt his grip loosen. Another flash, another shock and his hand slipped from my neck. My hands found their way to my belly to staunch the bleeding. It felt like he had torn loose my intestines and I crumpled into a pile on the floor just trying to catch my breath. My eyes made their way up to an astounding sight.
The windows had exploded inward and men in black tactical vests swarmed the room, guns firing all around me. The one in front that was a little too small for his tactical equipment was blasting away with the same type of weapon I had seen Kurt use at my house. With a shock I realized it was Hannegan, his gear tight on his massive frame. Wolfe seemed to be resisting the weapon even more fiercely this time, shrugging off the shots. Shotguns were going off in cascading blasts of thunder in front of me, the muzzle flashes lighting the room.
A scream from Wolfe seemed to stop time and I saw a blur of motion from his hands as he lunged forward. Kurt went flying, hitting the wall and bouncing off, landing in a heap on three of his fellows. He was lucky; Wolfe had punched him rather than using his claws.
The next hit from Wolfe was a slash and it caught two guys with shotguns that had closed on him. One of them lost his head, literally, while the other started gushing blood from the chest. Wolfe lashed out with a kick in the other direction and I heard it make contact with a Directorate agent standing above me, just out of my field of vision. There was a sickening crunch of flesh and bone drawing and breaking, then a desperate sucking sound that tapered off after three breaths; it was audible to me only because he landed less than a foot to my right. I dared not look at the dying agent for fear of who it might be.
My hand clutched at my wounded stomach and I tried to get up on all fours but failed, lying prone on the ground. I saw another body hit the floor in front of me and realized that there was only one pair of feet still standing and it was the booted set belonging to Wolfe. I raised my head to look up at him as he stopped in front of me. He l
ooked down with a twisted anticipation that made me feel nausea that had little to do with the fact that I was nearly gutted.
“Now…” he breathed, lifting me into the air, twisting my torso and wrenching a scream from my lips. “Before we were so rudely interrupted…” His finger hovered in front of my eyes and he twisted me around and laid me facedown on the bed. The pressure of his hands around my neck hurt as his claws pricked through my sweater and drew blood. I felt him standing above me even though my face was buried in the bed. I screamed again but it was so muffled by the mattress that it didn’t even sound that loud in my head.
He wrenched me around, twisting my midsection once more and then forcibly placing an arm over my upper body, anchoring me in place. “Much better,” he said in a whisper. “Now I can hear you scream.”
I’m ashamed to say that the next sound I made was more of a whimper. At least if I screamed defiance I could have vented some emotion in his direction. As it was, the panic was so rooted in me that I had no idea what I could do about it. He was invincible, I was wounded, everything hurt. I’d watched a whole army of trained agents go up against him and lose. What could I do? He rolled me to the right and then left, enjoying the squealing sounds I made from the pain in my stomach when he moved me. I was crying from the agony; it was horrific and I just wanted it to end.
The bedspread was slick with blood by this point, and he pushed me again. I caught a glimpse of a notebook and pen as he climbed up onto the bed and straddled me, looking down, one hand at his side and the other being used to completely manhandle me. I flopped about, offering little resistance. The pain was so bad I felt like I’d been cut in half. The best I could do was let him flip me again and maintain enough presence of mind to let my hand go to the pen on the nightstand, grasping hold of it.
“Grr…uckle…” I made a pathetic kind of gurgling noise that was about 90% from the pain that was starting to dull as I verged on passing out and about 10% from being unable to articulate the terror, agony and rage that flooded through me with the adrenaline.
“Tsk-tsk, little doll…I told you, your place is not to talk…it takes Wolfe out of the moment…”
I made another gurgling sound as I tried to speak. I wish I could say I had some witty remark in mind, but I was far beyond that point. I was just trying to get him to hold up for a moment, to get him to listen to me.
It worked. “What’s that, little doll?” He leaned in close, tongue running along my cheek. “We’re destined to be interrupted any time, so perhaps Wolfe should finish now? Or perhaps carrying you away will heighten the anticipation for later?” His free hand pawed my chest, bringing a fresh wave of nausea as he took liberties with me that no one had ever taken before.
“Not…like…this…!” I spat a mouthful of blood in his face, causing him to recoil as I brought the pen up and around, driving it into his ear. His hand was already moving to wipe off the spit when the pen made contact. I didn’t have much strength left, but I used it all and aimed it perfectly. It sunk in and he tore off a scream that sounded like the world was ending in front of my face; then he hauled off and backhanded me so hard I flopped off the bed, landing on the floor facedown.
“BITCH!” His fury was white-hot and I could hear him above me. At this point I was immobile, unable to move anything but my hands, which had found their way to my stomach wound. “I’m going to finish you now, and I’m not even going to be nice, little doll. There won’t be anything left when I’m done with you—”
His hands seized me on the shoulders and he rubbed my face into the carpet hard enough that my nose broke. I felt him clutching at me, scratching and cutting as he used his claws to hack at the waistband of my pants – then I heard another horrific cracking noise and it took me a minute to realize that the sound wasn’t made by him hitting me but by someone else hitting him.
A blast of chill ran through the room from the window and I could have sworn that there was a winter storm even though a few minutes earlier it had only been cloudy. A gust blew in a circle and I realized my door was open. The breath of frost licked at me and the feeling of a deep chill ran up my spine, causing me to wonder if it was from the blood loss. The cold wind carried its own smell, unique, but a subtle reminder of the walks I had taken around the grounds in the last few days.
I used the last of my strength to roll to my back and realized I was surrounded by the prostrate bodies of the agents that had stormed the room. My eyes moved to Wolfe, on one knee, still impossibly tall, but faced down by a dark figure that stood between him and me. Wolfe was breathing in fits and crimson ran down the side of his face in a dark stream from his ear. “Jotun,” he said in a low voice. “You’re still alive after all these centuries.”
“Only just,” came the quiet voice of Old Man Winter. His height was not quite that of Wolfe when the beast was standing, but seemed like a giant from my perspective. “The millenia have been kinder to you than to me, I’m afraid.”
“Let me have the girl,” Wolfe said, dragging himself to his feet. “You can have the little doll back when I’m done, but I have to…have to…finish…I can even leave her alive when I’m done…at least a little…”
“I think not,” Old Man Winter said without pause. “I have another squad of agents on the way, and you know that with my help…” He let his words trail off.
“I’m not done with her.” Wolfe’s voice was infused with a kind of mania that chilled me worse than the freezing air. He stomped his foot and I heard a snap that I suspected was the sound of his foot finding a Directorate agent’s neck as it landed. “I won’t stop until I have her, ‘til we…play.” The last words came out in a twisted, lyrical note that would have filled me with disgust if I weren’t completely wrecked.
“You are done with her,” Old Man Winter said as the chill intensified, both from his words and from a howling tempest of cold winds. “You will not seek her here again unless you wish to face me…and as old as I am now, you and I both know that although one may survive a confrontation between the two of us, the survivor would never be the same…”
I thought I saw a brief tremor from Wolfe, but it faded as his eyes flickered and the most horrifying creature I could ever imagine bounded out the window. I heard the crushing of snow for a few footfalls, saw Old Man Winter turn to face me with those ice blue eyes, and then it was as if my brain blissfully proclaimed me safe, because I lowered myself back down and passed out.
Sixteen
When I woke up, things were hazy and a small woman was hovering over me in a lab coat. She flashed me a quick smile as I blinked at her. “Don’t try and sit up yet,” she said, brushing a lock of black hair out of her eyes as she leaned over me. I obeyed her, mostly because I didn’t feel as if I could move. I looked down to see my clothes replaced with a hospital gown.
The memory of Wolfe’s attack cut through the haze and I felt nausea set in below the pain in my stomach. I started to gag as I recalled every sickening detail of what he tried to do to me and I began to retch. Searing pain raced through my abdomen.
“Whoa!” The woman grasped me under my shoulders, helping me turn. I threw up over the edge of the table, unable to control my reaction. A disgusting feeling of being violated seeped into me and I retched again. I wanted to shower, to scrub my skin until it bled. I grimaced from the pain in my stomach that was made worse by my heaving. “You need to settle down. That maniac nearly pulled out your intestines and that’ll slow anyone down, even a fast-healing meta like yourself.”
I coughed. “Who are you?”
She wrapped a stethoscope around her neck before answering. “Dr. Isabella Perugini. I’m the resident M.D. here in the medical unit.”
I blanched as she turned and injected a needle in an IV that ran to my arm. “Where’s Dr. Sessions?”
She snorted. “The lab rat is where he belongs – playing with test tubes and beakers.”
The haze of pain began to lift. It was still there; I just didn’t notice it as much. “So h
e doesn’t treat patients?”
“No.” She turned back to me, a clipboard in her hands. “I’ve treated you both times you’ve come through my doors. Want some medical advice?”
“Will it stop the pain?”
“Not immediately, but it could prevent it in the future.” She turned serious. “Stop facing off with this Wolfe character, will you? I’m sick of having blood all over my floor.”
“Send some of it to your pal Dr. Sessions; he’s jonesing for it.”
“First of all, it’s not all yours,” she said with a nod to a half dozen figures on beds down a line from me. The agents that tried to rescue me from Wolfe. “Second, if he wants it, Ron’s welcome to come over here with a mop; I suspect the janitorial department is getting quite sick of cleaning up these sorts of messes.”
“Did someone say my name?” I looked as far as I could toward the doorway and saw Dr. Sessions silhouetted in the frame.
“Yeah,” I said in a ragged whisper. “I was just telling Dr. Perugini that she should save you some of my excess blood since it’s everywhere.”
“Yes,” he said with excitement, “that would be marvelous.”
“Ron,” Dr. Perugini said in acknowledgment, with a tone that indicated some impatience. “Why are you darkening my door?”
“I came to give Ms. Nealon her test results.” His face twitched and he pushed the glasses back up into position on his nose. “Quite interesting.”
“Of course it escapes your notice she’s near dead,” Perugini muttered under her breath, sparking a quizzical look from Sessions. She opened her arms wide. “By all means, deliver your test results.”
“So what am I?” I said without preamble.
“No idea,” he replied as he crossed the floor and halted at my bedside. “You defy immediate classification.” A smile of delight colored his pasty features. “Truly bizarre.”
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