Skinwalker

By the time I’m finished drawing Catherine’s extremely temperamental blood, I’m still not convinced she believes I’m here in her best interest. I need to figure out how I can get blood to her. I doubt there are any donors around here and I’m certainly not offering mine. When the security guards come to take Catherine back to her cell, they once again drag her down the hall and I watch feeling sorry for her. She’s too weak to walk herself and for a princess, there is absolutely no dignity in being drug across grimy floors in a dirty white gown with no socks or shoes.

I take her tubes into the lab for storage because it’s almost time to meet Logan which means I need to set up lab room 2. Anxiety is getting the better of me because I haven’t spent as much time learning about him as I have the others. Yes, I looked at his data sheet, but I hadn’t invested myself in getting to know the demi-demon telepath. I actually knew Catherine, I’d encountered Cassandra, and I was acquainted with Tala despite never actually meeting her. Now I’m about to meet him and I feel ill prepared.

“They sent the demi-demon to emergency medical,” Annamarie says.

“Why, what happened?”

“SII,” she says as if it’s no big deal.

Self-inflicted injury. Somehow, he got ahold of something that had the potential to cause harm and he used it on himself.

“They’re bringing Neut, and they added Colton. Apparently, they’re going to test him overnight, so they need labs drawn before we leave.”

I’m forced to push Logan to the back of my mind when the next patient I’m being brought is walking down the hall. He’s accompanied by the same two guards that brought Catherine but he’s walking without restraints and their chatting.

I had wondered if Annamarie and I only took care of hybrids. It didn’t seem like that was possible when there are only four in-house, to my knowledge and to my hosts’. The theory is confirmed when Neut’s eyes meet mine and his iris is wrapped with a silver aura.

There’s instant recognition in those eyes regarding me; he knows I’m a subhuman as easily as I know he’s one. More importantly, he knows I’m not Brittany. Luckily, for now, he simply glances away from me as if he’s seen dozens of subhumans working in this facility, as if I’m no different from any one of them.

I’m about to face a challenge I hadn’t been prepared for. Neut Kingsley is a shapeshifter who was caught about a year ago. This was before Genetics Incorporated discovered hybrids. They’ve been studying him, testing different variations of the cure on his blood, and so far, they have come up unsuccessful.

He isn’t a normal patient here though. While it’s true he was forced to be here, he has been able to make himself feel like a welcomed guest. He’s earned privileges with his cooperation. Neut isn’t a threat to these people which is why he isn’t chained. He’s willing to be tested, allowing security to drop him off at the room and leave him alone to wait for me.

Other privileges include access to the garden, meals with the staff, and items that make his cell feel homier like real furniture, clothes, and a television. The only thing he hasn’t earned is a cell with an open-door policy. His life is still run on a schedule. There’s only one patient who has that much freedom and that’s because he was a volunteer who turned himself in and has proven to be extremely trustworthy.

I approach him just like I did my last patient. The door is closed behind me, and I begin setting up the room up. When I give him a visual assessment, I notice how much more kindness is given to him than has been to my friend. Unlike Catherine’s arm, his don’t have track marks up and down them. He has had enough time to heal between lab draws and tests. He’s also much more well fed.

Neut’s relaxed in the chair, with his sweater sleeve rolled up exposing the arm he want’s drawn from. Someone this content about being here isn’t someone I trust, nor is he someone I particularly like. He’s a blood traitor against shapeshifters; if they find a cure for him, they’ve found it for every shapeshifter. Their cure could extend to every were-creature as well.

He’s putting the only real family I’ve ever had in danger.

“So, you’re not Brittany,” he states as casually as if he were saying the sky is blue.

I’m not quite sure if I should agree with him or not. He’s one of Brittany’s patients, they know each other, and as a subhuman he knew she wasn’t one.

Obviously, I knew these subhumans would recognize me as one of them, it would have been dense to believe otherwise. It was extremely simple minded of me to believe that everyone here is here against their will and would see me as a beacon of hope.

Somehow, I made it through the morning with no one calling me out, mainly because my first patient was Catherine. Everything prior was just preparation.

Now I’m faced with Neut, a subhuman who wants a cure. He lets them do whatever they want and in return, he gets privileges for his cooperative behavior. He’s a danger to me; he could sell me out in a heartbeat for some type of reward. It may be easier if I just answer his questions as truthfully as I can. It could buy some of his grace.

“No,” I agree.

“What are you doing here?”

I begin prepping his waiting arm for his lab sample. “Looking for a cure.”

“Being a volunteer isn’t so bad. I bet they’d love having you as a patient.” He wants to see if I’ll squirm.

“I’m sure they would.”

He’s playing with me right now; he’s the lion and I’m the mouse. He has the ability to turn my life upside-down right now and that makes him believe he has some sort of power over me.

“Maybe you should consider it,” he suggests when I’ve finished his lab draw and pull the tourniquet from his arm.

It’s a threat. He’s given me a time frame to turn myself in I’m a danger to the cure he’s helping create. If I don’t turn myself in, he’s going to do it for me.

I meet his eyes. “No, I don’t think I will.” The truth is, I can make his life just as uncomfortable as could make mine.

“I think you’ll change your mind before too long.” He says just before I open the door.

I glance back at him to judge how quickly I should worry about his words and decide that for now, he’s just trying to intimidate me. I’m working on a timeline that he isn’t privy to. I’ll be gone before he can make my life his personal playground.

“He’s ready to go back,” I say to the guards who are sitting at the station.

I take his samples into the lab and store them, and by the time I’ve returned to the station, I’m faced with my next patient. This is a man, completely different from Neut, who is obviously not here on his own free will.

Colton Striker, a necromancer, is being guided to room three with different guards than the previous ones. They’re pushing, prodding, and herding him as if he were a cow. If he puts up any kind of a fight, they both have weapons that can be used against him.

He was caught two weeks ago.

The guards strap him into the chair and clip the cuffs he’s wearing around his wrists and ankles to the D-ring in the floor for additional restraint. The moment they’re away from him he begins twisting and squirming in the chair. I wait by the door, leaning against the frame, while he struggles. Eventually he’ll tire himself out. I have to draw his blood so it can be analyzed and compared to the blood I’m going to draw tomorrow.

He’s going to get a treatment tonight, and as much as I want to set him free so that he never has to go through that, I can’t. I must play the part. I must do this. In a few days things will be different but right now, I have no other choice. I’m as much a prisoner to this process as the man in front of me.

Inside the small black box, the queen presented at our meeting, was a flash drive. On it there are two programs installed. One will copy the data while the other will plant a virus I’m no techie, so I have to run on faith.

The initial copying will start and run unnoticed for three to five minutes, depending on human error. Someone will have to be paying attention to the computer to see the warning. From there, it will take an additional two to four minutes to finish copying so long as it isn’t stopped. The virus download will take over and need an additional two minutes to install before spreading.

It’s a total of, up to, nine minutes. Nine minutes for all hell to break loose. Nine minutes for complete success or utter failure.

Once Colton has given up on his struggles, I situated myself in the lab room with him. As uncomfortable as his desperation is to witness and as difficult his behaviors are to work with, I know he’s acting exactly as I would if I were in his situation.

Colton’s somber attitude fills the small room like fog. Angry brown eyes follow me as I do my hosts job and when I attempt small talk, he ignores me. He won’t leave his arms still, he twists them back and forth even with the tight leather restraints on, burning his skin. As much as he wishes to be difficult, I wish he wasn’t. Once the tourniquet is in place and his skin is clean, I grab ahold of his hand, squeezing his knuckles together and pull down. When I press a needle into a vein, I get the distinct feeling he’d like me six feet under.

That’s when I notice no one has fit him with a pair of the bracelets that suppress his magic. Maybe they don’t hold a healthy fear of what the dead could do when summoned? With the right subhuman, that’s a dangerous oversight.

As I fight to hold is hand still against his protest, I idly wonder what he wishes would happen to put me in my grave. I’m sure my death is not simple or painless. Being a necromancer, he’s probably got significant incite on some incredibly horrible ways to die and whatever the worst of those are, he’s undoubtedly running me through them.

If I could reassure him that I’m not what he thinks I am, I would. Right now, he couldn’t believe me even if he wanted to. He’s in a dark place with no escape. Who knows what a place like this does to break someone? To get them to sell our their fellow subhumans and make them as happy as Neut. The thought gives me the chills.

When I’ve finished with Colton, I store his blood with everyone else’s and it’s hard to hide my relief that this day is finally over. But before I can leave for the evening there’s one last thing to do so I sit at the computer, log into the computer charting system, and formally request the transfer of Levi. As part of the request, I write a formal letter to the company. In it, I include the death of the previous mage and the importance of keeping this one alive, he knows who the skinwalker is.

Cassandra knew that I could be one of their targets. My assumption was they were looking for me when they found Levi. Brittany said they were searching for me. It wasn’t until I became Brittany that I learned why they want me. While they would love to cure me eventually, they also want the genetic code that gives me my ability to see if they can recreate it. Being a puppet to Queen Scarlet is child’s play compared to that. The queen didn’t want more of me, she just wanted me. I was enough. If Genetics Incorporated ever gets ahold of me, I’ll never be enough for them.