Strangers of the Night

That made her feel all kinds of irritable. She’d read the reports, of course, about the nurse who’d been removed from duty when her relationship with Jed had become closer than the Wyrmwood executives decided was appropriate. That had been when he was little more than a kid, though. It wasn’t like what was between the two of them. It couldn’t be. She kept her expression smooth. “We don’t talk about it, of course. I do my job. I leave the room. I wait.”

“Ah, yes. The waiting. Well, we’re all waiting.”

“And why?” she demanded suddenly. “Why not just take him out of there now? There has to be a way!”

“If there was, don’t you think we’d have gotten him out of there long ago?” Vadim fixed her with a stern look. “Even with inside help, Wyrmwood is impossible to break into or out of.”

“Nothing is impossible. I thought that was the Crew’s motto or something like that.”

Vadim laughed without much humor, although his dark eyes did twinkle. “If we had a motto, I suspect it would be more like ‘nothing is improbable.’ As it is, you won’t have to wait much longer. All the signs are pointing to his imminent transfer. Be prepared to hear more as early as next week.”

“If you can tell they’re getting ready to transfer him,” she began, but stopped at the look on the older man’s face. She’d never made Vadim angry with her, and she wasn’t about to find out now what might happen to her if she did. As charming and paternal as Vadim could be, there was a darkness in him that Samantha recognized...and didn’t want to mess with.

“This connection you believe he’s begun. Is it something you reciprocate?”

“Of course not,” she said steadily, getting his gaze head-on as best she could through the computer screen. “He doesn’t deserve to be put down like a dog that’s lived past its use, that’s all.”

Vadim said nothing for a moment or so, studying her. Not for the first time, Samantha wondered what Vadim’s talents were. She wouldn’t have doubted that one of them was reading minds.

“Be ready,” he said finally.

Chapter 11

“How are we feeling today?” Dr. Ransom pushed his glasses up higher on his nose with one hand, tapping his pen against the desk with the other. “Nurse says you didn’t eat your breakfast.”

“Her name’s Patty,” Jed said mildly. Dr. Ransom never knew their names. Jed wouldn’t have been surprised if the doctor barely remembered Jed’s name. He certainly hardly ever used it.

“Was there something wrong with breakfast?”

“I didn’t feel like eating today. That’s all.” Jed used a small push, a tiny one, undetectable, to still the doctor’s tapping pen by making it microcosmically harder to move. Just enough to make the other man feel as though he didn’t want to make the effort, but nothing close to him feeling that he was being manipulated.

It had taken Jed a long, long time to refine that skill. Many hours of having to listen to the doctor’s relentless fidgeting.

“Not hungry? Not feeling well?”

“I don’t like pancakes,” Jed said.

Dr. Ransom looked confused. “No? Who doesn’t like pancakes?”

“Me. Never liked them.” Jed leaned back in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, with a grin. Blank and empty, stretching so wide it felt as though his teeth were the size of dominoes.

“Well. I suppose I can make sure the kitchen never sends you pancakes again.”

That wasn’t going to happen. If anything, now that he’d made his preference known, he’d be served pancakes three or four times a week, and that was because they liked to mess with him that way. The truth was, Jed preferred pancakes to eggs, but although he knew that lies were the devil speaking with his tongue, he didn’t care. He’d stopped caring about that a long, long time ago, about the same time he’d decided to stop playing by their rules. He was simply careful about how he went about it, that was all.

When Jed didn’t answer, Dr. Ransom looked concerned. “Nurse said you didn’t get out of bed at the usual time, as well.”

“Her name is Patty,” Jed repeated.

Dr. Ransom put the pen down completely and laced his fingers together. “Patty.”

“Samantha is the day nurse. Bryant and Carl are the orderlies. Stephen is the janitor.”

“You’ve never interacted with the custodial staff,” Dr. Ransom said.

And the janitor’s name was not really Stephen, but the doctor wouldn’t know that. Jed shrugged. He thought about using his talent to take up the pen and bury it point-deep into the wood of the desk, but didn’t want to give them the satisfaction or deal with the consequences.

“Is there a reason why you overslept today, Jed?”

The fact he’d been unable to sleep last night, tossing and turning after the interlude with Samantha. He wasn’t about to admit that to Dr. Ransom, though. As far as the doctor was concerned, Jed barely knew the nurse, and that was how he wanted it to stay.

When he was fourteen or so, there’d been another nurse. Miss Jean. That was how she’d referred to herself, and how Jed still thought of her. Miss Jean had worn the same uniform as all the other nurses, the same as it had been in all the years Jed had been in Wyrmwood. She’d had pale, short hair and wide green eyes and a smile that reminded him of his birth mother’s, when Mother had been happy. Miss Jean had never looked at him the way the others had sometimes. Afraid. No matter what he did or how he behaved, Miss Jean always stayed calm, friendly, kind. And because she never gave him reason to misbehave, slowly, slowly, Jed had stopped always trying to cause trouble.

When it had become apparent to the unseen—whoever was in charge, the ones he’d learned watched and judged, but never met with him in person—that Miss Jean’s influence was changing Jed from who they wanted him to be into something else, something less violent, well. Miss Jean went off shift one day and never came back.

That was when Jed had started training himself to unlearn all the things they’d taught him.

Eleven years later, and the daily testing had stopped. His sessions with Dr. Ransom had gone from five days a week to twice, each session only lasting thirty or so minutes, since there never seemed to be much to say anymore. It couldn’t be much longer, now, Jed thought. Until they either killed him, or let him go.

“Jed?”

“I was tired, I guess. Had a bad headache.” That part was true enough, though it wasn’t like his head didn’t always throb with the effort of holding himself back from giving them what they’d been after since he was five.

“Your medicine should prevent that. Your vitals haven’t changed. Your blood pressure is fine.”

Jed had learned to control that, too.

“Maybe it’s seasonal allergies,” Jed said, deadpan.

Dr. Ransom didn’t smile. He did, however, lift up the pen again to scratch a few notes on the pad in front of him. “I’m going to prescribe you something new. For anxiety.”

“No! I mean,” Jed said in a calmer voice, “I’m not anxious about anything.”

He was already on some complicated cocktail of pills designed to keep him under control, but it had been years since they’d felt the need to use anything to keep him calm. He wasn’t going to go back to being chemically brain-dead again. He couldn’t. He would die first.

“Just a little something,” Dr. Ransom said in that soothing tone he always employed. He looked at Jed over the rims of his frameless glasses. “It seems to me that you haven’t been yourself lately.”

Himself? Ransom had no idea who Jed was. Nobody did, including Jed.

“Is it because of the tests?” Jed asked bluntly.

The doctor hesitated, cutting his gaze from Jed’s. “Of course not. You know we’ve always made it clear that our concern is for your well-being. Never any test results.”

It was what they said, but never what they’d meant. Jed frowned. “New meds won’t make it any easier for me to do what they ask.”

For the first time since Jed had entered the room, Dr. Ransom smiled. The effect of it was chilling—a stretching of the older man’s lips that in no way resulted in any humor reaching his eyes. Ransom tap-tapped his pen rapidly against the desktop.

“We only want what’s best for you, Jed. We’re your family.”

“The only one I have,” Jed replied, sincerely if not gratefully.

Ransom’s smile stretched wider, showing his yellowed teeth. “You’ve been at Wyrmwood a long time. We’ve worked together for a long time, too. I’d like you to know how...fond...of you I’ve grown over the years.”

Jed shifted in his chair, wondering if the doctor expected a matching response. He couldn’t make himself lie, so he stayed quiet. After a moment, the doctor’s smile faded. He tapped his pen once or twice more, then closed the folder.

“You can go back to your room now. Our session is finished. Unless you have something you need to talk about?”

Jed shook his head and stood. “Not really. Will there be a test?”

“Oh, no.” Dr. Ransom laughed. “No more tests will be necessary.”

Relief and terror in equal parts raced through Jed, who did not react in any visible way. He nodded when Ransom repeated that he’d be sending Jed some new meds, but didn’t protest again. As he left the room, a guard on either side of him, he considered striking out. Surprising them.

They’d kill him without a second thought—he knew that—and wouldn’t suicide by armed guard be a better way to go than waiting, waiting for them to finally decide to end his life by some other method? Wouldn’t it be better to go on his own terms? But of course, he only walked meekly between them without a word and stepped through the door into his cell, where he waited for whatever was going to happen next.

Chapter 12

There was always a way to get whatever you wanted, if you knew how to ask. Unlike her brother, who could simply make you do whatever he desired, Persephone had learned the best ways to ask. A quiet word in the ear of the skater kid on the corner who hooked her up with some weed before passing along the word to someone else, who got the news to the contact Persephone needed. Eventually, a woman pushing a stroller took a seat beside her. The woman bent to offer the toddler in the stroller a lick of her ice cream.

“Word is, they’re getting a little desperate. Losing funding. Need something to get their grants back.” Suburban mom cooed at her child for a second, then pulled a package of baby wipes out of her purse and started to wipe the kid’s face.

“Does that mean they’re actively looking for us again?”

“If they get one of you, they could make a case for keeping the program open. We’ve had no word that they’re doing anything major, but I’d be careful, yes. They have freelancers working on it.”

Persephone sat back on the bench. “Bounty hunters?”

She’d dealt with bounty hunters before. The guy from the other day had sure felt like one. Not a very skilled one, she thought with some relief and a little alarm at how close he’d been to her, even if he hadn’t known it.

“They don’t have the means to put together any kind of teams like the one...” The mother trailed off, looking around, but they seemed to be the only ones there.

Persephone nodded. “I got it. You don’t have to say.”

“The reality is, the organization has been privately funded for a long time, but they’re on the way out. They’re swirling the drain. Without a big benefactor or some kind of breakthrough, they’re going to have to close completely. Look, I’m on maternity leave right now, and the only reason I agreed to meet you is that this is really low priority. You know they don’t have eyes and ears all over the place, they’re not monitoring the entire world or anything. Vadim said to tell you that they’ve assessed the danger to you as minimal, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful.”

“I know.”

The woman studied Persephone. “He said to remind you that you have a place with us whenever you want it.”

“I’m doing all right. Thanks.” Persephone stood.

“Even so, he told me to remind you.” The woman stood, too, and pressed a small square of paper into Persephone’s hand. “Call him on this number when you’re ready.”

Chapter 13

Waking from a nightmare, she realizes all too quickly that this has not been a dream. The ringing in her ears is still so loud all she can do is clap her hands to the side of her head and rock back and forth until it eases. She’s alone. Whoever did this to her has left her for dead, she thinks, and risks running a hand over her body, checking for wounds.

The blood covering her is not hers. The bits of flesh and bone and brain, also not hers. Her fingers clench, remembering the feel of the weapon in her hands, but she can’t remember shooting anyone. Unsteadily, she holds her hands out in front of her, inspecting the nails, grimy with filth.

She has killed with these hands.

The question, with the answer she can’t remember, is has she killed now? Or perhaps not if, because it feels so obvious that she has, but who? She can’t even remember who she was fighting. Staring at the tufts of fur beneath several of her fingers, stroking along the slices in her clothes and the torn flesh beneath, Samantha thinks maybe she needs to ask not who.

What.

Blinking to clear her vision, she makes sure she can stand upright before she tries to go anywhere. She’s in a safe house, not one she remembers, but she recognizes it without too much effort. Bare floors, bare walls, utilitarian furniture. Nothing to show anyone on the outside that there’s anything here but an almost empty house waiting for someone to occupy it. Nothing to stand out to anyone who came to the door.

She hopes nobody does that now. The beige walls are spattered with thick dark fluid that smells of dank earth. The furniture, a brown plaid couch and matching armchair, are overturned, the stuffing torn out. It would be so very clear this house was the scene of something awful.

She doesn’t call out. The ringing has faded enough that she can, if she strains hard enough, hear more than the buzz. Her feet are steady, planted shoulder-width apart. Her fingers ache; she forces them to relax and open. She doesn’t search for her weapon. She already knows it’s gone.

Whatever happened here was recent enough that the blood is sticky, but not dry. Her wounds still seep. She could not have been unconscious for more than twenty or thirty minutes. Listening hard, Samantha waits for some clue to tell her what went on, but she hears nothing but the harsh rasp of her own breathing.

In the next room, she finds him. Eyes wide. Mouth open. He stares at the ceiling, the ribbons of maroon on his throat evidence of what killed him. A familiar face.

Her father.

She kneels next to him without bothering to check for a pulse. You can maybe survive a wound that leaves your trachea hanging out of your throat, your bones poking through the skin, but only with immediate medical attention. It’s very clear that her father went down alone. He won’t get up again.

She tries to cry and can’t. Later, she thinks she ought to have tried harder. He raised her, after all, in the absence of a mother. He did the best he could. But she thinks he wouldn’t have wanted her to weep, not because it was a sign of weakness, but because he’d passed from this life and into the next. The one he’d always taught her was the better one.

The rest of the house is empty. There are signs, left behind by other safe house users. A code—something like the symbols used by transient hobos in the thirties to distinguish friendly homes from those where a man looking for a meal and a hot shave would instead get a serious thrashing. This house, she reads, is no longer safe.

“No shit.” The words leak out of her on a tongue sore from being bitten.

In the kitchen, she finds no signs of struggle. In the fridge, a gallon of milk hasn’t turned, and she gulps it greedily although she doesn’t like milk. Her stomach bucks a protest, but she keeps it down. She spits a few times into the sink. Pink. Again. Clear this time. She puts the jug on the counter and both hands on the rim of the sink, gripping hard as the floor tips and tilts. When she’s once more gathered her balance, she uses the sink to wash her face and rinse her mouth. She watches the water swirl away the blood and bits of fur.

She stands there so long, she realizes the light outside has gone from night to day.

She’s lost time again, but this time remembers coming into the kitchen. Drinking the milk. Going to the sink. She remembers her father is dead, and that someone before her tried to warn them that this house was not safe, but she still can’t recall what brought them here.

She remembers she hadn’t spoken to him in months, though. Before this. How they’d had a final falling-out—he wanted her to keep moving with him, and she wanted to find a place, settle down, keep a job. Have a life. They’d parted on bad terms.

With a gasp, Samantha shakes herself awake again. The faucet is still running, the water ice-cold. She turns it off. Closes her eyes.

Did she kill her father?

No, no, that can’t be. She runs a fingertip over her teeth, careless of the gore still grimed into her skin. She wouldn’t have done that. And it doesn’t explain the fur.

She will never fully remember what brought her to this house, or what happened inside it. She will find the text on her phone from her father asking her to meet him at this address. Nothing more than that. But she does learn what happened to him, and that is because several days after burning that house to the ground in the hopes she can prevent anyone from finding out it had been a haven for the people her father had believed in, a man named Vadim approaches her in a coffee shop two towns away. He sits at the table outside, where Samantha is turning a lukewarm paper cup of shitty coffee around and around in her hands without being able to drink any of it. He says nothing, not even when she recoils as though she might hit him.

“I know what happened to your father,” he says in the calm and steady voice Samantha will come to learn so well. “If you want to know, come with me.”

So she does.

* * *

Jed was dreaming.

He knew it, of course, because in the waking world he would not be dancing slowly with Samantha. Her head would not be on his shoulder. His hand would not be on her hip. He surely would not be moving with her to the strains of some classical waltz, both of them keeping perfect time as he led her around the floor.

He would not be kissing her.

But this was a dream, and he had them so rarely that he was not willing to give this one up. Aware of being watched, knowing they would be monitoring him, it didn’t matter because the press of her mouth on his was too good. The slide of her tongue along his, too sweet.

He groaned when she aligned her body with his. Softness. Breasts and hips and the curve of her ass under his hands. His cock ached. She rubbed herself against him. She slid a hand between them. Stroking.

“Kiss me,” she said.

He did. Then again. She shivered and tipped her head back to give him access to her throat. Her collarbones. She was naked, all smooth skin and warmth. She pulled him down onto a bed—where had a bed come from? He didn’t know. Did not care. All the mattered was moving his lips and tongue over every part of her body.

He found the salty heat between her thighs. He parted her. Found the small spot that made her writhe and sink her fingers into the meat of his biceps. He licked her, soft and slow and steady. When he felt her body tense, he moved up and over her to sink inside her.

It’s a dream, he thought. None of this is real.

He couldn’t stop it, though. Pushing his cock inside her heat was better than anything he’d ever imagined possible. He pushed deeper, deeper, pleasure consuming him.

In the way of dreams, some of the details were blurry. Her face, though. Her smile. Her body, welcoming him. All of that was clear as anything.

He moved faster, and she moved with him. Everything around them faded away until it was only the two of them. Naked, skin on skin. Mouth on mouth. Heat and wetness and friction, building up and up until he couldn’t hold back anymore.

He woke a second or so before his climax. Fingers clutching the sheets, body tense and straining, he gave up to the rush of pleasure. His cock was so hard it had slipped free of the waistband of his scrubs, and hot fluid spurted onto his belly in a series of forceful jets that left him spent and breathless.

Let them watch, he thought, blinking at the ceiling. Let them get their jollies, if they did. Let them monitor him, make their reports.

He was still alive, and his body was still his, no matter what they did to him. They couldn’t take that away. And they could never get inside his head.

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