by Lexy Timms
“Remarkable,” the woman said, her voice reverent. Filled with awe. “Truly remarkable. Too many factors to study. Too much to learn. Why can you understand me when no one else could?” She tapped a finger against her lips and sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Mann. You may resume your feigned indifference. Franco, break her hand.”
The cat roared, lunging to his feet, his hackles raised.
“I am sorry, Mr. Mann, but I do have other subjects, other tests. I really don’t have time for this. Franco—now.”
Chapter 18
Franco seemed frozen. Angelica remembered the man’s caginess when he told her about the girl in the lieutenant’s quarters. He has a good heart. She held her breath. Somewhere in there.
“No,” he said, and faced the doctor squarely.
“I’m sorry, Franco, I seem to have misunderstood. Did you just refuse a direct order?” Melinda hissed and strode behind the nurses’ station. Franco didn’t move or speak. She stood there a moment, in apparent disbelief. “Are you under orders to work under me? Am I still in charge of your little division here?” She opened a drawer and rooted around, searching for something as she spoke. “Disobeying me means disobeying your superiors; you realize that, don’t you?”
“I will not break her hand.” He spoke the words simply. A polite refusal, though Angelica could see the way the sweat beaded his forehead. “She is unarmed and weak. There is no need for violence.”
“But you do understand...” Melinda said, closing a drawer and looking behind the desk at the cabinets there, though the doors were open, showing empty shelves, “...that you are in dereliction of duty, yes?”
Franco said nothing. He simply stood and faced her.
“Franco,” Angelica half-whispered the words, “don’t do this for me.”
Franco looked at her and shook his head. “I’m not doing this for you, Doctor. I do this so I do not become whatever Batu was. I will not hurt the innocent for the sake of causing pain, any more than I will stand by and watch my people be sold into slavery to fund this...” He waved at the facility, his face twisted in anger and pain.
Melinda laughed. “Franco,” she said sadly, shaking her head, “this is paid for by a private investor. Do you think I’d have anything to do with human trafficking?” Her voice rose on the last, and she made an impatient gesture with her hand. “Your lieutenant was already hip-deep in that before I arrived. He ignores me, I ignore him, and science wins.” She pulled at another drawer and dug around in it. “We save lives, we end pain, we end sickness, and take a good damn swing at birth defects, too. I get first dibs on anyone I want to test but, no, none of this is paid for by... uh...”
Her head came up. When she looked at Franco it was with a strange sort of look. Grim. Terrifying.
Angelica gasped and opened her mouth to scream, though what she was warning Franco about she had no idea. A tone? Something in her body language? She shot a glance at Taylor but the cat was still, tail lashing as he moved back and forth in front of the glass.
Melinda’s voice was deadly calm. “Franco. I ordered you, now I ask you, very politely, please. Go break Dr. Truman’s hand. Or arm. It truly doesn’t matter what. Just do as I say.”
Franco locked eyes with her and drew himself up. From this angle Angelica couldn’t see his eyes, not that she needed to understand his resolve. “No.”
No...
Her cry echoed his, screaming through her mind, but Angelica couldn’t get the word out. No. No. No.
“Fine, idiot.” Melinda sighed heavily. “You win.” She pulled a pistol from the drawer and fired. Franco went down instantly. The cat roared and flung himself at the glass while Angelica finally found her voice and screamed. It was too quick, too real. She couldn’t process it—at least part of her mind didn’t want to believe what it had just scene. “Get up...get up, Franco.”
But he lay still.
Damage to the pectoralis major, pectoralis minor, possible rib fracture, Slight damage got to trapezoids. Considering the approximate angle, the bullet either passed through the musculature or it punctured the lung. There was no telling from where she was. Everything inside her screamed at her to rush to the man’s side.
There was nothing she could do. A man was dying and there was nothing she could do.
“Akisha!” Melinda shouted. The soldier who had shot Taylor with the tranquilizer dart entered. He looked at Franco, his face expressionless, and saluted Melinda.
“That’s much better.” Melinda switched to another language. Something Angelica recognized as one she’d heard the natives speak. While the long string of words that meant nothing to Angelica, they obviously did to Akisha. Angelica sank to the floor, her palms against the glass, watching helplessly as Akisha saluted and picked up Franco, taking him to an empty cell and securing the door. When he returned, he had blood on his shirt.
He saluted the doctor once more.
Melinda spoke again and pointed toward Angelica. Akisha nodded.
“I spent a while here,” Melinda said as an aside to her, “so I learned the language. English is the official language, of course, but there are others. One of which is Bebe.”
As she was speaking, Akisha crossed over to Angelica’s cell and spun the wheel that held the door closed. The cat threw himself at the glass, his actions wild. Uncontrolled. His roaring, while muffled, was heartbreaking to hear. Taylor—the tiger—both screaming for her.
Melinda lifted an eyebrow at the force he used; the glass shook under the assault.
The door opened with a hiss of air and Angelica scrambled to her feet and stepped back despite her resolve to show no fear. It was made more difficult by lack of proper clothing and the inherent feeling of helplessness being naked against her attacker. There was nowhere to run, no place to hide.
Akisha entered the cell, leaving the door open behind him. He pulled a nightstick from his belt. Angelica shook her head at him, pleading with him silently. No. He spoke no English, that was what Franco had said, and she hadn’t even heard of Bebe before today. She looked into his eyes. They were the eyes of a shark. Akisha wasn’t enjoying this, but he wasn’t opposed to it either. He was following orders. Break a doctor’s hand, clean the floor, salute the flag, it was all the same to him.
He managed to get very close before Angelica’s determination to not let anyone see her fear shattered. She was a doctor; all of this was far beyond her training or her experience, and being suddenly at the mercy of someone like this monster...To lose her hand, and possibly her career to something like this.
What about your life? Do you seriously think it will end there?
She screamed. Behind her, the cat roared and the glass buckled but held. Akisha grabbed her wrist and the baton fell, twice. Angelica screamed again but this time the sound was wrenched from her throat already raw and aching. The pain laced through her, white fire starting at her fingers and chasing up her arm as she heard the bones snap. She crumpled to the floor, sobbing, cradling her arm as Akisha simply turned around and left, closing the door behind him.
“Why?” The question came out as a sob, as a demand. She needed to understand. Her brain tried to catalogue what had happened to her, but for once her endless medical dictionary had run out. She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on anything more than the single word. The only question that mattered right now. “Why?”
Melinda walked calmly over to where Taylor was trying to claw a hole through the heavy glass and checked the bottle that the nurse had placed there. She nodded, satisfied, and shut the valve off. She removed the bottle and closed the panel that hid the connection.
“I always get what I want,” she said, sounding pleased. “That should do for now. I don’t know about you two lovebirds, but suddenly I’m a bit hungry.” She picked up her empty cup and started to walk off. “Oh!” She paused at the door. “My manners. Can I get either of you anything? Fresh-caught mouse for example? No? Dr. Truman, can I get you a sandwich? They make a wonderful Rueben, but it takes two hands to hold it, so...
I suppose not. I know! I’ll get you some juice. Everyone loves juice.”
Angelica curled into the fetal position. The paper gown gaped at the back. She no longer cared. If she stayed still she could think. Somewhat. Every movement aggravated the pain, ground the bones against each other. She couldn’t look at her hand. The flesh was swelling. Discolored. Strange. It didn’t seem to belong to her, and she couldn’t stand to see it right now. Stomach roiling, she thought how it was a thorough job for all she was only hit once there.
My arm... he hit my arm, too...
She couldn’t move it, didn’t dare. The angle was unnatural. Wrong.
She kept her eyes on Taylor’s cell.
Please stop. Please stop. I need you to stop before you hurt yourself. Please stop.
The cat had become frantic. Aside from the pacing and roaring and hurling himself to the walls, he was shedding at an alarming rate.
If that’s not love, what is? Angelica snorted with amusement, and recognized shock. Tried to dredge up the definition so that she would have something to focus on. She needed the familiarity of her mind.
The main symptom of shock is low blood pressure. Other symptoms include rapid, shallow breathing; cold, clammy skin; rapid, weak pulse; dizziness, fainting, or weakness.
Through her tears she watched as Taylor crouched and his back grew and melted and reshaped and reformed and changed. His rear legs elongated and the knees pulverized and reformed. The hair was replaced by smooth skin and his hands. Angelica felt a laugh that was as much sob as hysteria burst through her clenched jaw, as his hands flattened and broke and reformed.
All she had to do was ask. She didn’t have to make me prove I’m not one of them.
Right now, she wished she was.
“Angelica?” Taylor’s voice called from what seemed a very long way away.
I have to get up. I can’t stay like this.
It was too much work. Besides, movement and pain were the same thing. She decided to remain on the floor, despite the chill and the cold breeze blowing in through the vents. The paper gown fluttered around her, the paper crackling as she shifted.
“ANGELICA?”
Taylor. Taylor was calling for her. He sounded absolutely frantic. Furious. Terrified. She catalogued the emotions as she worked her mouth, trying to find enough saliva to speak, trying to find the words that seemed intent on eluding her.
“Down here.” Speaking required unclenching her jaw, and a gasping sob erupted from her chest, the kind that made it hard to breathe, the kind that came from so deep that it hurt, dammit, but she couldn’t have stopped it if she’d tried.
“Angelica, hang on, we’ll get out of here...”
“Taylor...” She took a shaky breath. Another. She had to be calm to talk. “Didn’t you hear her? She said she got first dibs. Meaning that...” She swallowed a cry as a fresh wave of pain washed over her. She’d moved her hand without intending. She’d thought she could keep it against her as she shifted. She needed to get up. “Meaning that she tested people who didn’t... who weren’t... the ones who shifted, she studied... the ones who didn’t... they’re the ones who ended up sold, Taylor.”
“She said she wasn’t a part of that...”
But his words rang hollow. He didn’t believe that any more than she did.
“No. I’m...” She swallowed. “How much do you think a doctor is worth on the black market?” She bit her lower lip. “Not that I can do much doctoring right now...”
“Angelica, hold on... We will find a way out of here.”
She nodded and shifted so that she was sitting leaned against the wall. It hurt like hell but made her feel at least marginally in control. Not that I am. I’m in a cage, after all. A fucking cage. A way out?
But she answered him all the same, finding enough energy to at least put on the show of courage that she knew he needed right now as much as she did. “I know...”
But they both knew that it was a lie.
Chapter 19
The gown Taylor had worn was torn by the cat. He managed to salvage enough to tie around his waist. It was little things like that which made someone feel slightly human.
He looked at his fingers, his toes. He stood and looked at his feet, ran his fingers through his hair. He’d shifted, but the cat was still there. It was like trying to type with a house cat who wanted attention. But in this case it wasn’t attention the cat wanted, it was revenge. Angelica was hurt. She was in shock. Taylor couldn’t see her well enough from this angle, and she was huddled on the floor not far from where she’d fallen. She’d propped herself up a little. It wasn’t great, but it was a sign of life. Evidence of fighting back.
Damn, if he wasn’t proud of her.
Not that he discounted her fears. It was likely that the ‘subjects’ who had proven to not be useful to the doctor’s experiments were shipped off in the trafficking ring. How much a doctor was worth to slavers was a very valid question, especially when that doctor had earned money for medical school by winning beauty pageants as a youth. The question was, would they take her for her medical expertise or for something else.
I will kill for her.
“You and me both, buddy.” Taylor swore, acknowledging the cat. “We need to get out of here first.”
Mostly, they needed to stall. Taylor couldn’t tell Angelica some of the things he was hoping would come to pass. There was no way to talk to her without being overheard. And as much as it might give Angelica hope, he needed to keep some things to himself.
He needed to see her. Had that robot idiot broken wrist or broken arm? He couldn’t be sure, but it looked bad. When he moved to see if he could get closer, he staggered and fell against the glass, suddenly dizzy. He got a mental image of the cat looking sheepish, head hanging down. “You have to let me drive the body,” he cautioned as he pushed himself upright again.
How do you balance all the time like this on two legs?
He squatted down on his haunches, trying to see Angelica. She hadn’t said anything when he’d fallen. She hadn’t been saying anything for a while. Unconscious? In that much pain? He’d told her they would get out of this mess and they would, if they could last long enough. He needed her to hold on. He needed her to hear his voice. To say something, to make a noise, anything. Anything at all that would let him know she was still there with him.
“Don’t leave me now,” he murmured as he shifted to get a better view. “I need you.” Was that her foot—yes. Part of her leg. The skin was pale. She twitched. Shifted. Let out a soft moan.
“Angelica,” he shouted, wondering where the sound system was that enabled them to talk to each other. It hadn’t been on earlier; she’d been muffled. But when Melinda had been in the room he’d been able to hear her just fine. That moan told him it had been left on. Lucky for them. “So, what do you think...” His tone was conversational. Casual. If someone was listening, let them. Of course, they were being monitored. But speculation would be normal, and he needed her to concentrate on something else. Anything else if it helped her get her mind off the pain. “She said this was all from a private investor.”
“Bullshit,” Angelica spat out after a minute. Good girl. She was rallying. That was the Angelica he knew and loved. “This has to be...” She paused and Taylor understood why. She was fighting a wave of pain. He felt the breaks every time he shifted, but at least it was over quickly. The way she responded to his inane babblings, she was using that conversation to distract herself from the pain like he’d wanted her to. “...has to be a government job... can’t get... soldiers and... equipment...”
“No. But she could have both. What if that investor was someone who had some influence with the local government?” He hesitated and decided that he might as well continue, overheard or not. “When I left, I was about to be reassigned. Somewhere out of the way. Someone didn’t want me coming here. This isn’t just local. This is widespread.”
“Taylor...” Angelica whispered. He strained to hear her. “Does
it hurt like this when you... change?”
“No. The bones change and reshape, but there’s no damage from the outside. There’s no beating to cause bruises and it’s over quickly.”
“Still,” she said, and a sound suspiciously like a sob followed a protracted silence. “I can’t imagine you feeling this and still be willing to change.”
“You learn not to fight it,” he said quietly. “At first, everyone fights it. It’s scary. And painful. But when you learn not to fight it... it’s easier.
Still learning.
Taylor smiled. “It’s an ongoing process, learning to share with the other.”
“The other?”
“Normally...” He thought about how to proceed. It didn’t matter, really, this was all to get her talking, to take her mind off the pain. “Normally when you’re a cat, your human mind is distant, vague. The cat called me the ‘other memory’. Nothing is shared, and when you revert back what happened to you as the cat is gone, like a hole in your mind.”
“Sounds scary.”
Taylor shrugged. “It’s normal. I’ve never known any different.” He shifted a little, sitting cross-legged, where he could see her better. “No one shares their psyche. Until now.”
She moved, coming around to face him, and screamed as she put her hand down without thinking. He winced in sympathy. He waited until the pain wave passed, until she could speak again. He could see her face now, deathly pale, sweat trailing down the side of her face. “What do you mean until now?” she asked, swiping at it carefully with her good hand.
“This... this pheromone gas... somehow it’s... it’s shared us. Instead of fighting for control, the cat and I apparently share the helm and... well, we’re joined now. We’re both conscious as either man or beast.
And it’s very confusing.
“And it’s very confusing.”
“How?” Angelica asked, her face a study in pain.
“Excellent question,” Melinda said from the doorway, holding another cup of coffee. “I would love to know that, too. Welcome back Mr. Mann.” She set her cup down and walked to a cupboard behind the nurses’ station. She pulled something out and went to a slot in the wall beside his cell. She opened a panel, pushed the package through. It fell at his feet. “A replacement gown, Mr. Mann. Since you’ve already changed once today, I don’t think I need to cut the strings in the back like I did last time. Just keep them in mind, as we wouldn’t want you to strangle.” Her smile was particularly sincere.
