Skinwalker

“Pipe?”

A smile crosses my lips briefly with the recognition of Levi’s voice. As quickly as it came, it’s overthrown by reality. When I closed my eyes, he was unconscious. Now, he’s awake and his beautiful eyes are looking back at me with intact aura’s.

“You’re okay,” I say and caress his cheek.

His hand grabs my hand and holds it against his face. “You…” Levi’s eyes roll back into his head, his body goes slack, and then he begins convulsing.

“Levi?” I sit up and stare down at him, paralyzed. “Levi?” This time I scream his name and reach for him but stop.

He’s having a seizure and the last thing I should do is hold him.

“Help!” I look to the medical desk, but no one is there. Where are they? “Somebody! Help! Please!”

I push him onto his side and tuck the pillow from the cot under his shoulders, so he’s propped up like that. At least if he throws up, he won’t aspirate on it.

Footsteps round the corner, at least four or five sets. I’m too concerned for what’s happening in front of me to worry about how many people have come running. The door into the cell is unlocked and I’m pulled away from him. Glancing at the door, I remind myself to pay attention. How did they get in here? I didn’t hear any buttons being pressed which means there is a main override somewhere, confirming my previous suspicions.

The mute I made eye contact with earlier falls into position next to Levi, she draws medicine from a vial, measures it, and then jabs it into his thigh, right through the filthy scrub pants. What did she give him?

Whoever collected me from the floor begins removing me from the cell.

“No!” I try to free myself but the grip my captor has is stronger than I am. “No, please! Let me stay with him!” I sob.

A cold swab is brushed over my arm and a needle is jammed into my skin. I look at the foreign object for too long before I realize what’s happening, and by then, I’m too late. Everything was injected into my muscle before I could get the needle out of my skin.

No longer seizing, Levi lies on the floor as the mute lifts one of his eye lids and shines an oddly colored light into his eye. Even without it, the two of us know Levi’s aura is now broken. Whatever version of the cure they’ve given him, is working. It’s the last thing I see before darkness swallows me.

The door into the hallway opens and I get up from the cot to see who is approaching. A different guard than the one I saw earlier presses the code into the etched glass on my door and the lock on my cell releases. I’m surprised that there are guards coming after me again so soon. This one doesn’t give me any instruction. Instead, he grabs one of my hands and cuffs them. His movements are so efficient I wonder if he was anticipating a struggle he didn’t get. What energy I have left needs to be preserved.

He grabs my upper arms and thrusts me into the hallway toward the other two guards who are waiting. Together, the three guide me through the security door in the hall and past the desk where two additional guards sit, watching the security cameras. Either I’ve proven to be a dangerous challenge, or they assume something is about to happen. I’d rather it be the first thought than the one that follows. If they ramp up security like this forever, I’m never seeing the other side of these walls again.

Maybe the accidental capture of me has triggered a sense of insecurity? Have they realized it’s easier to get into this place than they previously thought? Perhaps they underestimated me too much so now they’re overcompensating? I glance at the clock over the security desk, its 9:51PM. Where would they be taking me so late at night?

I’m led back into the geneticist lab and begin feeling my feet getting heavy. I can’t go back into that room. If I go back in there, it’s over. Everything is done. I’m shoved forward and am unable to catch myself before I hit the floor. I’m grabbed by the hair, and I can feel the pain in my scalp, it’s echoed in the scream from my lungs as I try to get to my feet.

When I’m in the room, the two guards put me in a chair and once again, I’m strapped down. I struggle against the leather restraints as they pinch my skin and fear swells in my gut. Why am I back here? What are they going to do to me? I need to get out of here. It’s beginning to feel a lot like it’s too late for an escape; like I’ve missed too many opportunities to get out of here.

The petite geneticist that works in the medical department, the one I saw with the dark hair and red bow walks into the room with a file in her hand, the tab reads Mon, P. It’s mine. The mute sets a plexiglass box on the counter, the walls of the box have condensation on them which tells me it has recently been removed from a refrigerator. Inside there are two brown vials which are pulled from the locked box and set on the counter, along with a third that looks like water.

Meticulously the mute mixes the vials and it’s hard to see what order she does this as she keeps her movements directly in front of her which is outside of my view. When she turns to face me, she has one of the brown glass containers in her hands that she rolls back and forth between her palms examining me. I remind myself she’s here on behalf of the queen, just like I am, which means she’s on my side. She isn’t about to dose me with whatever is in that bottle.

“What is that?” I ask even though I know.

“ShHSW01,” she answers.

“What does that mean?”

Her eyes flicker to the vial. “Subhuman, hybrid, skinwalker, vaccine 01.”

Cusswords swarm through my head and the trust I had in this woman a few minutes ago begins to fade. I struggle against my restraints and make no progress at feeling like I’ve gained any freedom.

“Don’t do this.”

The mute moves around the room collecting things just like I was doing before Logan attacked me. The liquid that comes from the vial is bright red and see-through. Under different circumstances I would consider it pretty. Under these, it’s anything but. Red means danger: red means stop.

They only drew my blood earlier today, how could they already have some form of a cure ready to use on me? Are they just assuming the cure that worked on the shapeshifter will work on me? They’ve been so cautious with the other hybrids, why are they taking this risk on me?

“The geneticists used that on your brother this afternoon,” Annamarie announces when she joins us in the cramped lab room.

I jerk against my restraints harder, putting more force into it than I had previously. They can’t use that on me. I don’t want to be cured!

“He’s taken to it pretty well, so now we get to see how you tolerate it.”

“Don’t do this, please.” Begging doesn’t suit me, but I don’t have another choice. I don’t want that in my system.

“It’s a double dose?” Annamarie verifies.

“Yes. We will be monitor her for a reaction for the next seventy-two hours,” the mute replies.

A wicked smile is on Annamarie’s face when she turns to leave the room. “Have a nice night, skinwalker.” Then it’s just the mute, two of the guards, and me in the confined space.

“Please, don’t do this to me.”

The mute frowns and looks apologetic, like she wants to tell me she’s sorry for doing whatever she is about to do but she says nothing. Instead, she rolls the tray of supplies toward me and sits on the rolling stool. Before she touches me, she pulls on a pair of gloves and that’s when I realize she’s taken extra steps of precaution toward her interaction with me.

The woman is dressed in layers of clothes from top to bottom, even her hair is inaccessible to me. Her face is the only thing that’s exposed, and I couldn’t reach it to touch her flesh no matter how hard I tried. I’m too well strapped down. She’s significantly better at pretending to be one of them than I was.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

The woman ties a tourniquet around my upper arm. “Zuri,” she answers quietly and then begins looking for a vein in the bend of my elbow.

I want to remind her that we’re on the same side, but I can’t say the words for fear that I’d be selling her out. I need to believe that eventually she will prove herself to be useful to me. She can’t be useful if I accidently put her behind bars, so I hold my tongue and let her do the job they assigned her.

Zuri wipes my skin with an alcohol wipe before pressing a needle into my arm. I watch, knowing she’s starting an IV on me. There’s a flash of blood, the needle is removed, and a plastic catheter is left sticking from my vein. She connects a plastic tube to it, releases the tourniquet and flushes saline through the line, checks that blood can be drawn from the device, and then flushes more saline before securing the line with a film and tape.

“In case they need to give you any medication,” she informs me.

In case I have a reaction is what she means.

The wrappers are cleaned up, the tourniquet is thrown away, and she changes her gloves. When she comes at me next, it’s with the syringe that holds the cure. Instinctively I move away from her, but the straps don’t allow for much movement.

Zuri pinches the muscle of my upper arm, wipes it with an alcohol swab, and then darts the needle into my skin. It pinches like a bee sting but as she pushes the medicine it begins to burn. The heat radiates out from the source causing me to clench my jaw so I don’t vocalize my complaint. When she’s finished, she sticks a band aid over the site as if I were a little kid getting a shot.

The burn dissipates and I remind myself to move my arm as much as possible. A trick from my hosts’ memories to prevent worse pain later today. The guards guide me from the geneticist lab into the hallway and to the staffed medical bay I had been in earlier.

Sitting at the station is some medical tech I’ve never seen before, a man whose name isn’t accessible in my hosts memories. There are two additional workstations at the desk that are being used but are currently unoccupied. A guard tells him who I am as we walk by, and he’s instructed to place me in room seven. Once placed in my cell, my cuffs are removed, and I stand still, watching the door shut.

One of the guards that brought me to this cell sits at the desk and a few minutes later Zuri joins them. In the silence I wonder what time it is. It feels late, like it’s after hours. Maybe they’re night shift? It would make sense because I know that’s when most of the trials occur. Lab draws and assessments happen when the sun is up. Vaccines and monitoring occur once the sun has gone down.

There are eight cells on this side of the desk and two across from it. From here, I can see into each of them. It breaks my heart that I’m not in medical alone, that there are as many occupied cells as there are. I sit on my cot and examine one of victims after another.

Levi’s condition hasn’t improved from this vantage point. He’s unconscious on the floor and the only thing in his cell that’s changed is someone finally hosed the old vomit from the floor. I saw his broken aura. I doubt there is any recovering from that.

Somehow, I’d forgotten that Annamarie told me they’d injected Alexander with the cure until I lay eyes on him. I’m not sure how long ago they’d done that but right now he’s sitting on the floor, leaning over a bucket, with pale sweaty skin. How long until I’m vomiting my guts out like my brother is?

Logan, looking less consumed by chaos that he was the last time I saw him, is pacing his cell without his bracelets on. Some of his wounds have been patched. From here I can see the scar from the suicide attempt he made the other day; it’s jagged and uneven across his carotid.

He must hear me observing him because his attention turns to me. From across the room, we just stare at each other. While I resent him from a far, I’m thankful there are several panes of magical glass separating us. I’m stuck in a cell unable to help anyone escape because of his actions. Levi could die. Alexander could be cured. Catherine will always be a prisoner. Who knows what will happen to Tala and Cassandra? I can’t even imagine what has happened or will happen to the other subhumans in this place. How long until they all break, or give up, or give in? How many of us will it take to create enough variations of the cure to eradicate subhumans all together?

Glaring at the demi-demon who put me in here, my heart hurts when his face reflects my pain. That’s when I realize I’ve got the slightest headache.

“Get out of my head!” I scream at him.

Abruptly, everyone at the station looks at me. Zuri is the only one who then glances back at Logan, putting two and two together. She does nothing, though.

Feeling overwhelmed and childish, I sit on my cot and divert my attention to Levi only. I can still see him from where I sit, and for what feels like hours, he’s the only thing I pay any attention to.