“Yeah, I’ve been working on something for a while now. What I saw, I knew I needed to talk to you about it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. The white lab coat she wore crinkled some under her arms. Its whiteness brought out the deep green of her eyes. It took some time to get her mind back to the subject at hand. He looked so different and it made her become unfocused some. When she won the fight, she turned everything back over. “That Collins you mentioned the other night. Do you remember that?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He stepped closer to her, intrigued with what she just asked. He had no idea what she was referring to, but his attention was now all hers.
“I have a blood sample from someone called Collins that I would like to discuss with him. Do you know where he is now?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t seen him for a while,” he began, paused and continued. “I had the weekend off and I haven’t seen him since last week.” What happened that night, the night that he was bitten, struck his head with madness. He could see himself running through the grass. He could see himself running along the side of the building. It felt like a dream. It felt strong, so much so, he had to pull himself back towards her voice. It took some effort. It took almost everything he had to get back to seeing her again.
“You said that he works here, right?”
Again, he shook his head. He truly didn’t know the answer to the question.
“Where did you meet him?”
He blinked again. “I met him back there.” He pointed to the double doors. Thinking of everything, all at once, he tried to pull his thoughts together long enough to ask some questions himself. “Why do you want to know?” In the back of his mind, he hoped that this had something to do with what happened with him. It seemed like a long shot, but one that he had to take.
“Like I said, I have this blood sample that shows some things in it that I need to ask him about.” She smiled, but only briefly.
He could see nothing but wonder within her very beautiful eyes. “What’s wrong with him?” he heard himself ask next.
“Well,” she began, thinking about how far she should try to explain everything that she knew. She had so much rolling around inside her mind that she didn’t know how much he might understand about what she needed to know. After some brief thought, she decided to just go ahead and say what she needed to say. “He has something in his blood that I’ve never seen before. It seems that his cells are infected with some kind of a parasite. Something I can’t understand and I was hoping that he would indulge me with.”
“How do you mean?” he asked fast, and he didn’t know why. “What kind of infection?” If Collins was ill, it makes sense. He was awfully strange to be normal.
“His cells are active, almost like they are the infection themselves.” She turned back to the double doors behind her. “I really need to see him. If you could take me back to where you met him. I‘d like to be able to ask him a few things, if I could?” She turned back to him with an idea coming up in her thoughts. He knows something. I can feel it. He’s acting strange. More changed in him than just his looks. He seemed to be hiding something, and she couldn’t understand why he would do that with her. He didn’t seem like the type of person that would hide things. He seemed honest enough from the start, so why would he hide him now? Why would he be afraid to let her know about his friend?
His eyes widened, although he couldn’t have possibly read her mind, he would have agreed with what she thought about him. He didn’t understand any of it, what-so-ever. “Back there, several turns.” He pointed to the double doors. Maybe if I help her, she’ll help me. What would it hurt?
“Can you show me?” She smiled.
He smiled as well, and nodded. If she wanted to see the place, he couldn’t think of anything to stop him from showing her, so he moved to the door, and used his access card to unlock it. The pad beeped and the door clicked, so he opened it for her.
“Thank you.” She nodded, walked through the door, and headed to the hallway behind it. She stopped, and waited for him to join her again. Everything she just thought about him, corrected itself in her mind, and she liked him even more for it.
“What kind of an infection do you think he has?” He closed the door behind him.
“I don’t know. That’s why I need to see him.” She smiled again.
He nodded, and shrugged his shoulders softly. He turned and started walking with her.
She walked with him, side by side. “So,” she began as they came to the first intersection and turned right. “You must tell me how you changed so much.” She passed him another smile.
It seemed like small talk, he felt sure of that much. “Well, it just kind of fell off.” He smiled back to her and laughed some under his breath. She would have never believed how right he was. “It wasn’t hard at all.”
She laughed back. “Why cut the hair?” They turned the corner and headed down the next hallway, and just up ahead, she could see that they were approaching yet another intersection, and with seeing that, she knew where they were going. They were heading to where they kept the animals—a strange place to find someone, unless this Collins worked with the animals, but he couldn’t do that. No one worked there anymore. They haven’t used animals for years.
“I must have needed a change.” He laughed again. Talking so honestly with her like this, he couldn’t help himself. They came to the intersection and he turned. Up ahead, he could see the double doors that he had just seen moments ago, inside his memory. How real that memory seemed right then at that moment, that it made everything feel so weird reliving it all so quickly. “Right here.” He pointed to the doors as they stopped directly in front of them.
She stopped, and stared at the doors with wonder. “This is where you met him?” She stepped to the right door, turned, and faced him.
He nodded, looked at the doors, and saw something that completely surprised him suddenly. Written on a sticker with a red background and big white letters, was the word Restricted at the center of each door. He never saw them before, and had no memory of ever seeing them. Instantly, he became worried all too quickly. Seeing them, he didn’t know what to think or how to feel about them.
“What’s wrong?” She noticed the look on his face.
“I don’t remember this.” He pointed at the stickers, looking like a showroom model showing off a new and special prize to a perspective buyer.
“This is a restricted area.” She stepped in between him and the doors. “Did you meet him out here?”
He shook his head, still looking at the sign.
“You met him inside?”
He nodded his head yes.
“What was he doing inside?” she asked, more than just completely confused, but now completely dumbfounded as well. No one should have been in the room. There were only four people with access to it, as far as she knew, and she was one of those people. The others were Mister Ross and Gary, and of course, Alfred Hayes, their last animal keeper. No one else should have had access to it. No one even knew what the room was used for, for that matter.
“I don’t know. It was dark.” He looked from the sign and back up to her.
She could see a heavy fog hanging over his eyes. He looked more than just confused. He looked almost scared. “He was in the room with the lights off?” she asked, feeling concerned. Jimmy wasn’t just acting strange, but he also looked completely terrified. Something happened to him. He showed all of the signs of someone that was more than just a thousand miles away, but also, someone that seemed to be completely different from the man that he once was. He acted almost as different as night and day.
He nodded again.
She now had to see inside the room, now more than ever. She went to the door pad and used her access card to beep open the door, and let herself inside.
He stayed there and watched her pass him.
Inside, the room looked so dark that she couldn’t see anything in front of her face. Her immediate reaction was to t
urn back to the doorway to look for a light switch, but not finding one at first, it was so dark she couldn’t see anything there; she had to feel for the doorjamb instead. It didn’t take her long to find one, so she flipped the switch up, and the lights came on.
Seeing the lights on, he left the hallway and slowly made his way inside the room. Instantly, he felt uneasy. Instantly, he felt almost afraid of what he would see once he saw it again. Seeing it, he was right. Immediately, his heart began to thunder inside his chest. Instantly, his breathing picked up its pace. Almost at once, his face began to grow red hot with fire. Almost as fast, his eyes began to water and his hands went wet to the touch. He felt scared all right. He felt absolutely terrified.
The room looked far different from when he saw it last. Back then, it was nothing but a prison. He could even see bars in front of him when they forced him inside the cage. He could see those who brought him food, throw it at him from behind the bars, and then back away, laughing as they did it. He could hear them mock him, and call him names. He could remember all of it. He could remember everything. He saw them coming at him with the cattle prods, jabbing at him to move. Remembering all of it, he felt something else there just as strong. It felt just as fierce. He could feel their fear. He could sense the fear that they had for him.
She walked into the center of the room, and there, she stopped and turned back around. “This is where you met Collins?” She looked back at him in disbelief but that faded fast once she caught a glimpse of the look on his face. She saw nothing but horror in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” He looked almost like a deer, crossing the road with nothing but the blare of headlights coming at him fast and furious from the car about to strike him. “What makes you afraid of this place?”
“I don’t like this place,” he answered her with a whisper. He could barely make out what he even said. “This is a bad place. This is a prison.”
Hearing that, she turned back to the room. Off on the opposite side from them, she could see a bed lying up against the far wall. To her left, and to the right of the room as he saw it, she saw a row of cages lining the wall. There were six of them in total, two stacked one on top the other. All of them looked empty. To her right, and his left, she saw nothing but a large counter that ran along the entire length of the wall. That was it. There was nothing else there. Nothing looked like a prison. Nothing felt like one either. “Why do you think this was a prison?” Nothing that he said made any sense to her. Why would he feel like it was one? Why would he tell her all of this?
“Because, that’s what it was. They kept him in here. They trapped him right here in this room. They treated him like an animal.” He swallowed an empty dry mouth. In fact, it felt like he had a thousand cotton balls in it, wrapped around his tongue, and with them, it made it hard for him to talk straight.
“Who, Collins?” She crossed the room and came right up in front of him.
He looked up to her with tears in his eyes, and could only nod his answer to her.
“Who kept him here? Who was holding him?”
“The older man with the white hair and the fine suit.” He crossed his arms over his chest. He started to feel very cold, standing there in that room, and that cold told him that he now needed to leave. He needed to get the hell out of there as fast as he could go, so he had to answer that calling. “I can’t stay here.” He turned and headed back out to the hallway, and didn’t breathe until he was there. That’s when he felt free again. That’s when he felt strong again, and instantly, he breathed with all of it.
She watched him leave her and turned back to the center of the room. She needed to think. She needed to take the time to take in everything she heard. Nothing made any sense. Why would someone be locked up in there, in that room, like an animal? Why would the place that she worked for, do that to another human being? The man that he described, Mister Ross, would never do the things that he accused him of doing. Looking back around the room, she finished and turned back to the doors. She left the room and flipped down the switch, and the door gently closed behind her.
He walked down the hallway to the next intersection and there he stopped. Whatever happened to him, it now seemed over. He felt free again. He knew that he had escaped them.
“Jimmy? Are you feeling better?” She went up to him and stopped just by his side. Everything that she heard made her mind race into a thousand different directions all at once. Mostly, how did this guard, this shy aloof and quiet guard, know about everything that he just said?
He nodded, feeling like himself again, so he took a deep and exaggerated breath. “Good.” He smiled and looked into her beautiful eyes. “Did I help with what you needed?”
“You don’t know what happened with this Collins do you?” She nodded and shrugged her shoulders with a force.
He shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since last week.”
“And he told you everything that you just told me?”
He nodded. “He said that he was nothing more than just a rat, a type of a guinea pig or something.” He turned and looked back up the hallway. “Would you mind if we head back? I don’t like this place.” He turned and started back down the hallway by himself.
She went after him, picking up her stride, and stopped him with the grab of his left arm. “Jimmy?” She pulled him to a stop. “Did you and Collins ever talk about where he goes after he leaves here?”
He spun back around. “No we didn’t.” He stared deeply into her eyes, and with that, he could almost peer into her soul. She looked like such an honest person, he could tell it, and it made him relax all too quickly. “We never talked about anything. He would just head outside. He looked so free. He looked so honest. He looked like he loved it all.”
She sighed when she realized that she wasn’t getting the answers that she wanted. She had to find this Collins. She had so much to ask him that she truly didn’t even know where to start.
“Why is he so important to you?” he asked, staring deeper into her eyes.
What she saw almost caused her to melt some within his stare. He changed. She couldn’t grasp it all at once. He seemed entirely like a different person. The change seemed so strongly complete. Listening to his question, it opened her mind to him with an almost complete clarity. “The blood sample that I have is like nothing that I’ve ever seen before. I’ve been studying some things here at the lab, things about healing, but nothing like this. His cells were the breakthrough that I’ve been looking for. I need to find him Jimmy. I need to find out why he seems to be able to do something that no one else on this earth seems to be able to do.” She turned from him, but couldn’t bring her eyes off his. “Now if you see him, could you tell him that I would like to speak with him?” She felt disappointed. She failed in her search, and now, she had no place to go.
He turned to her solidly, and suddenly, he had other things on his mind. “How about we go out for coffee and breakfast? You tell me what you know and I’ll tell you what I know.” He smiled beyond firmly.
“I thought you told me everything?” She completely didn’t expect what he just offered her, and it made her feel quietly cold. Instantly, it seemed like his voice changed almost without notice, and his bashfulness seemed to vanish with everything else.
“I might give you something that I didn’t know that I knew. If we talked over coffee, we both might fill in the blanks.” His smile grew larger and more proud as it consumed his face.
She couldn’t tell where he was leading her, especially after, not just moments ago; he looked so be completely terrified about where he was. Even still, his offer sounded intriguing. Even so, it still felt like something that she wasn’t sure if she would take him up on or not. “I’m not sure when I’m going to get done. We’ll see.” She smiled back.
“Oh come on. It won’t hurt us to compare notes.” His smile now turned bashful. She smelled so strong. He could feel her hesitation. It felt strong, but he could also sense her want for him too. He knew she felt curious abou
t his offer.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head.
“What is there to know? It might be good to just sit and talk about it. We might be able to help each other.”
“What do you need help with?”
“I won’t know that, until we talk some more.” His smile grew as he came even closer to where she stood. Being this close to her, her smell almost seemed to become a taste to him, and he liked the taste.
She smiled. He’s hitting on me. I can’t believe it. What she wasn’t sure of, was if that was a good thing or a bad thing to have happen like this. She still felt intrigued nonetheless. “Okay.” She bowed her head, but only briefly. She picked it back up again and looked directly into his eyes. They looked almost hypnotic. He also looked so familiar to her, but she didn’t know why. It felt like a haunting. It felt just plain old odd.
“I’ll see you this morning then?” He turned and looked back up the hallway behind him. “Let’s get out of here.”
Together they left the double doors behind them and made their way back through the hallways, towards the front of the labs.
At the double doors, they separated, and each went their separate ways. She went back to her lab, and he went back to his tour.
Whatever he felt before, when he first came to the double doors, now seemed to be completely gone from his thoughts. Everything now seemed replaced with only the thoughts of her. Nothing else seemed to matter to him. When he finished his tour, he went back to the counter and sat back down behind it with a skip in his heart. Now, he couldn’t wait for the night to end and for the new day to begin again.
21
The night did go by fast, and before he knew it, it was a little after six in the morning. He finished his last tour and when he arrived back at the counter, he didn’t even bother to sit. Instead, he paced around the front lobby and waited almost impatiently for her to come to him. He felt like a little school boy all over again, waiting for the school year to end and for the summer to start. He couldn’t wait to see her, and couldn’t wait to be able to smell her again. She felt like a drug. Everything about her felt like everything he ever imagined to find. He couldn’t contain his excitement. When the time didn’t seem to go by fast enough, he went back to the counter to check the clock. Each time, only a few minutes passed by, so seeing that, he would go back to pacing. It all made him feel restless and nervous. When Frank came through the front doors to relieve him, he instantly began to feel even more worried than he already felt. Is she going to come? Is she interested in going out with me? Or, will she stand me up? Either thought made the nervousness only build up within his heart. He did think that she was going to take him up on the offer. He could feel it. He could also smell it. She wanted to go out with him. He knew that, but still, he wasn’t sure.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets) Page 16
