Shadow's Turning- Part 18

Chapter 8

They left me there to stew.

Or at least, that’s what it felt like.

Holm had made some more notations on his clipboard and then started typing away on the computer.  Detective Patel had left but Alvarez was left behind.

Ostensibly to keep an eye on me and protect the doctor.

The irony was not lost on me.

I watched him until he left, wondering at his utter lack of apparent empathy.  Sociopathy was probably one of the requirements for the job.

I almost missed the distraction of the clacking keys and the sight of him standing in front of the computer when he left.  Even Alvarez’s stare was at least something else to focus on.

Alone again, all I had was the throbbing pain in my arm.

Time seemed to stretch, but it was probably less than an hour before the door opened again and a different uniformed officer appeared with a tray of food.

He couldn’t have been more than nineteen.  His pale skin flushed as he averted his eyes and slid the tray through a slot at the bottom of the door.

He almost ran back out of the room.

I stared at the food warily, thinking about everything they could have done to it.

With a sigh, I realized it didn’t matter if they had tampered with it.  I was hungry and this was my only option.

I picked up the sandwich and took a small bite.  I wasn’t really a fan of tuna, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

It didn’t taste off.  Well, not any more off than fish from a can tasted.

Shrugging mentally, I at the rest quickly and downed the tall glass of water they’d given along with it.

I took up my post on the cot again and stared up at the ceiling.

The drowsy feeling took hold of me not more than five minutes later.

I lay down and closed my eyes, more relieved than irritated that they’d added some kind of sedative to the food.

“Time to wake up, Ms. Evans.”

My eyes shot open at the sound of that overly-cheerful voice.

Dr. Holm was standing right outside the bars, Alvarez next to him.  Patel was notably missing but I didn’t foster any hope that I wouldn’t be seeing him again.

I sat up.  Holm’s excited demeanor putting me on edge.  At least Patel didn’t really try to be nice to me.

“We’re going to be testing separation anxiety now,” he said in that much too upbeat voice, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

Separation anxiety?  What was he going to do, call my mother?

For the first time, I was glad she wasn’t around anymore.

I rubbed at my chest, the slight aching twinge there making me frown.

The door opened again and I looked over, expecting to see Detective Patel.

Instead, a familiar pair of red-tinged eyes met mine.

I stood up and wrapped my hands around the lightly textured surface of the bars, watching as a uniform with a buzz-cut marched him inside.

Birch’s hands were tied behind his back and he was wearing a pair of ill fitting sweats, though his boots were his own.  He didn’t look any worse for the wear, walking in upright, alert eyes taking in the room quickly before settling back on me.

I looked back at Holm to find him watching me avidly, the pen in his hand posed over the clipboard that had reappeared in his hand.

I let go of the bars and stepped back, wishing I’d had the foresight to control my reaction.

“Take him back out,” Holm said to Officer Buzz Cut.

Birch’s eyes narrowed on the doctor, but he didn’t resist as he was turned around roughly.

I felt a low grade pulling sensation, but stopped myself from rubbing at my chest again.

“How do you feel, Ms. Evans?” Holm asked eagerly, leaning toward me.

“Fine,” I answered noncommittally.  Maybe if he didn’t get what he wanted, he’d stop.

I should have known better.

Holm sighed heavily.

“Now, Ms. Evans, I would really like your cooperation.  I’m sure Detective Patel explained to you just how important it is.”

I just stared at him.

“I see,” he said, clearly disappointed.  “Well, if you don’t cooperate, we will simply have to give you a transfusion.  Enough of Birch’s blood and you won’t be able to help giving yourself away.”

His calculating eyes took in my horrified expression calmly.  “Unless…you’ve changed your mind?”

Shit.

If I ever got my hands on him, I would wipe that smirk permanently off his face.

I nodded reluctantly.

“Alright, I knew you were a reasonable person,” he continued happily.  “Now, how did it feel when Birch entered the room?”

I answered all of his questions.  If I hadn’t had the much more severe sensation from that thing we’d encountered last night, I wouldn’t have been able to recognize the feelings so quickly.

As I answered his questions, my mind was working in overdrive.

Birch had broken the connection by building a new one with himself.

When Holm directed the guard to bring Birch back inside, I stared at his face.

I had an inkling when he’d forced his blood into my mouth last night, but now I was forced to confront the thought I’d shoved down as soon as I’d had it.

I remembered feeling that something was off with the entrance to his place when I’d first gotten there.  Now I realized the issue had been that there hadn’t been any protection charms.

Not one.

His ability to fight off those things.  His quick healing, this strange pull I now felt toward him.  The red tinge to his eyes.

I stared at him as he walked back in.

He met my eyes straight on.  His face tightened as he saw whatever expression was on mine as I looked at him.

I was so beyond controlling my face.

Holm asked Birch the same series of questions he’d asked me.  Birch answered shortly, but his eyes still stayed on me.

“Do you feel a pull toward Ms. Evans?””Yes.”

“Do you feel pain upon separation?”

“Yes.”

I sat down slowly, my eyes finally breaking the connection with his.

I answered woodenly as Holm experimented with distance, asking us to rate the sensation on a numerical scale.

I wasn’t really paying attention, feeling as if I was hearing everything from a distance.

Until Holm asked Officer Buzz Cut to release Birch’s handcuffs.

My eyes darted to Birch’s face, but it was set in an unreadable expression, his gaze fixed in the distance.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Doctor,” Buzz Cut said uneasily.

“Leave the thinking to me.  We’re in the middle of a police station and Mr. Birch has been nothing but cooperative.”

“But Detective Patel-”

“Isn’t here,” Holm said impatiently.

The officer slowly took out his keys, reluctance clear in every slow movement.

Birch didn’t react as his hands were freed, just brought his arms to his front, flexing his hands to get the circulation going again.

Alvarez took a step closer, his hand going to his gun.

Shadow's Turning- Part 17

I was left alone in the room.  The back of Officer Alvarez’s head was visible through the small window in the door as he took up his apparent guard station.

I stared at the bars of my cell.  Reaching out carefully, I touched the back of my hand to one of them.

Pulling back quickly, I shook out my hand.

Okay, definitely charmed.

I could try kicking at the bars, but even if I could break them (which I doubted- they were most likely reinforced with steel), I’d still be in a guarded room in the bowels of the police station.

And then they would simply increase security on me.

I lay back on the cot, my head swimming with exhaustion.  There was nothing I could do right now about my situation.  Might as well catch some sleep.

I closed my eyes and started counting backwards from a hundred.

I didn’t reach eighty before I fell asleep.

The sound of the door opening woke me.

As I sat up groggily, Detective Patel came in with another man.

His hair was so blond it was almost translucent.  It was cut short and parted to the side.  Average height and build with pale blue eyes set in an unremarkable face.  He was dressed similarly to the detective in a button down with a tie and some slacks, though his were obviously more expensive.

“Ms. Evans, this is Dr. Holm.”

Holm nodded at me and went over to a closet in the corner of the room that I hadn’t paid much attention to.  He pulled out a white lab coat.

“I trust you’ve had enough time to think about our conversation,” Patel continued as he walked over to stand directly in front of me.

“Where is Birch?” I asked quietly.  I wouldn’t believe he was okay until I actually saw him, but any news was better than none.

“Mr. Birch is making a remarkable recovery.  You’ll be seeing him soon enough.”  He looked over at the open door and waved Alvarez in.  “Now, do you want to cooperate?”

I licked my lips nervously as I looked over at Holm.  He had set some kind of case on top of the table and was in the process of opening it.

“What, exactly, do you want my cooperation for?”

“For now, just a simple sensitivity test.  We can always just secure you and do it anyway.”

“Yes, but damage could be minimized with help from you,” Holm interjected.  He was laying out a series of foot long rods with circular bits of wood attached to the ends.

Okay, it was obvious where this was going.

Resist and be tied down, or submit willingly to being burned.

Choices, choices.

In the end, I came out of my cell willingly and sat down on a stool with Alvarez at my back.  Holm had a clipboard next to him as he picked up the first rod.

My forearm was on the table with the paler inner side facing up.  The sharp scent of alcohol lingered from the little square Holm had swiped across my arm.

“Alvarez, if you could please brace her.  Ms. Evans, please try not to move.  As soon as you feel any pain, let me know.”

Alvarez took a hold on my wrist and my elbow, pushing my arm down on the cool smoothness of the table.

Holm pressed the end of the rod firmly against my skin.

I jerked involuntarily and Alvarez pressed down harder.

“Feel it,” I gasped.

Holm let up, leaving a perfect red circle.

I gritted my teeth as he made some notations on the clipboard and took some close up photos of the mark.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?  Just five more to go,” Holm said absently.

Sure.  Why don’t I brand you and see how you like it?

It didn’t get any easier.  By the end, Alvarez was using all his considerable bulk to hold me still and I had sweated through my clothes.

“Excellent, excellent,” Holm muttered to himself, writing furiously.

He sprayed something on the throbbing burns that took away the sharpest edge of the pain before I was locked back in my cage.

I couldn’t really refer to it as a cell anymore.  Cells were for people.

And they clearly thought I was an animal.

Shadow's Turning- Part 16

I blinked as I hit with a jarring impact, my breath coming out of me in a huff.  I just lay there for a few seconds, waiting for something to happen, the coolness of the asphalt seeping into me.

Warily, I turned my eyes to the side, afraid of what I might find, my heart feeling like it was trying to bust out of its cage.

I stared out at the empty expanse of road and blinked.

Sitting up carefully, every inch of me aching, I looked over to the other side to find the same.

And looked down at my watch.

Fuck me.  We made it.

And then I remembered Birch.

I got to all fours and crawled to one of the windows, cupping my hands on the glass to look inside.

“Birch!”

There wasn’t any answer.

I tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge.  Stumbling to my feet, I climbed to the top and carefully lowered myself inside through the jagged hole.

Birch lay face down amidst splatters and pools of dark blood.

I put my hand on his back and jerked it back at the wetness I found there.  Moving it over to the light coming in from the window, I looked down at the red blood there.

Frantic now, I moved my hands carefully over his back and found slices in the shirt I hadn’t noticed before, made by something sharp.  I pulled up the sodden shirt and found the deep wounds bleeding sluggishly.

I patted his pockets and found the hard rectangle of his phone.  Pulling it out, I stared at it.

This had all happened because Birch didn’t want us taken in by the police.  If I called for help, I might as well be slamming the door shut on our respective prison cells.

I looked at Birch, at how shallow his breathing was, at how much blood he’d already lost.

Better alive in a cell with an inkling of hope than dead and free.

I called.

Chapter 7

I watched as they loaded Birch onto a stretcher, his face too pale, the contrast between his skin and the white sheet too faint.

“You’re going to have to come in with us, Ms. Evans.”

I looked away from the ambulance as they shut the doors.

Detective Patel was tall and thin, with a severe face.  His cinnamon colored skin was smooth and perfect and he had the longest lashes I’d ever seen on a man.

They drew attention to the coolness of his dark eyes as he stared at me steadily.

I nodded as one of the officers cuffed my hands behind my back.

Hopefully this wasn’t going to become a trend in my life.

The drive down to the station was quiet, though the uniformed driver kept giving me quick glances in the rearview mirror.

Maybe he thought I might sprout some fangs or something.

Conversation died at the station as officers craned their necks to get a better look at me.  I avoided eye contact as I was led through to a small room with a table and a few chairs.  Detective Patel waited for me there, a cup of coffee steaming gently at his elbow.

The officer undid my handcuffs before re-fastening them in front of me.  I sat down, feeling light.  Like I was hollowed out and a stiff wind would easily be able to blow away the shell that was left over.

Neither of us spoke as we stared at each other.  I didn’t know what he was thinking.  My mind was completely blank

“You shouldn’t have run.”

“What do you want?” I asked abruptly.

I really had no energy to beat around the bush.  I’d rather know what they wanted right now so I could tell them to go fuck themselves and get it over with.

“We know you’ve been caught out at night before last night.  We also know you went to Birch and his friend for help.”

I watched as he slowly moved the cup to the left.

Leaving myself wide-open.

His right hand clamped down on mine where I’d rested it on the table.

Instant searing pain.

I gasped and yanked myself back hard enough that the chair skidded with me.

He held up his hand, showing me the small spiral-shaped pendant hanging from a delicate silver chain looped around his middle finger.

There was a matching burn on the back of my hand.

Patel raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair calmly.

Bastard.

“You seem to have developed an unfortunate allergy to charms, Ms. Evans.”

I didn’t respond.  What was the point in denying the obvious?

He waited to see if I’d say something.  When I didn’t, his mouth tightened with irritation.

“Now, this is obviously not…a healthy state for you to be in.  Who knows what other quirks you’ve acquired through your time spend out after curfew?  Why, you could be a danger to yourself and society.  We really can’t set you loose on the populace.”  He didn’t have to raise his voice to convey the threat.  That slightly amused tone was more than enough.

I just stared at him some more.

“Now, maybe you could prove this isn’t true.  We would need your full cooperation, of course.  But if you could show that you would be an asset rather than a threat…”

He spread his arms out wide and raised both of those mobile eyebrows.

“If you don’t cooperate, I’m afraid I won’t be able to put in a good word for you.  I’m sure you understand.”

Uh huh.

“Where’s Birch?”

“Your friend is being given the utmost care.  No need to worry about him.  You should be worried about yourself.”  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers, resting the point against his mouth as his calculating eyes read my face.  “Just a few simple tests.”

“And then you’ll let me go, right?” I asked sardonically.

He sighed.

“You know we can’t do that Ms. Evans.  But we can provide you a modicum of comfort.  Or not.”

I looked away, my hands clenching into fists.

“I’ll give you some time to think it over.”

He pushed a button and a different uniformed officer appeared at the door.

“In the meantime, Officer Alvarez will escort you to your cell.  I’ll be along in a few hours for your response.”  He stood up and leaned in close enough that his hot breath brushed against my face, his hands flattened in front of mine to brace himself.  “Resistance won’t make you heroic or noble.  It will just make you miserable.”

With that parting shot, he left the gray little room and Officer Alvarez pulled me to my feet.

I met curious eyes as he led me deeper into the station.  We passed a small cluster of cells with a few people inside, but didn’t stop.

Instead, we went down a well-lit flight of concrete steps into a hallway with a few different doors.  Opening the first one on the left, Alvarez pushed me in front of him.

One side of the room was separated with wooden bars that I was betting were charms.  Very expensive ones.  The rest of the room was a sterile white with a long bench-like table and some stools.  A quiet desktop computer was set in the far corner.

I sat down on the spare cot in the cell.  A glance at the exposed toilet had me hoping I didn’t have to go soon.  The click of the door locking echoed in the small room.

I was really hoping Birch had been exaggerating.

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Hope everyone enjoys the newest installment of Shadow's Turning!

Shadow's Turning- Part 15

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay there.

I jolted back into wakefulness, feeling like I’d been slammed in the chest with a sledgehammer.  Birch was still above me, his mouth smeared with red and his eyes laser-focused on my face.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been hit by a truck,” I said hoarsely.  “And dragged down the road for a few miles.”

He searched my face, looking for something.  He nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Maybe you could get off me now.”

After a second, he slowly slid off me, not looking away.  I sat up and leaned back, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.

“Not that I’m not grateful, but what did you do to me, exactly?”

I didn’t look at him as I asked the question, preferring the distance that staring at the insides of my own eyelids gave me.

My lip was throbbing and I could still taste the coppery tinge of blood on my tongue.

Unsettling to say the least.

“I thought I might be able to break the connection.”

I waited, thinking he was going to continue, but he let the silence stretch.

“Why did you think…that…could break it?” I asked carefully.  I almost didn’t want to ask the question because I was afraid of the answer, possibilities chasing each other just under my consciousness while I refused to look at them.

“Just a hunch.”

I turned my head to look at him.  He stared back at me blandly, almost daring me to question his answer.

A hunch.

I turned away again, stifling the follow-up questions bubbling up inside me.  By not answering, he was almost confirming some of my darker suspicions.

I stayed completely still as fear flared through me.  I needed to get myself under control.  Having a panic attack in an enclosed space with no reasonable way out and away from the source of my fear was a recipe for disaster.

I needed to just agree with him and tiptoe around the elephant in the room.  If we both agreed it wasn’t there, we could ignore it.

I wasn’t having much luck with that rationale, but a heavy roar that was so deep I could feel it vibrating in my stomach echoed through the night outside, sufficiently distracting me.

And then something heavy hit the side of the car, a high pitched gibbering following as it bounced off.  The car skidded a little sideways.

“Sara!” the voice roared outside.

It did not sound happy.

Something else hit the car and I braced myself, against the seat in front of me as the car turned from the impact.

“How much time left?” I yelled as something else pounded into the car, this time in front.

“An hour.”

An hour.  An interminable amount of time.

Things kept pounding into the car, which rocked and slid under the impact, but didn’t roll over.  It was a fucking tank, and I was never so grateful for another person’s planning as I was right then.

Birch moved up between the front seats and sat down in front of the wheel.

“What are you doing?” I called, bracing myself against another impact.

“We have to move.”

“Move!  You can’t see anything!”

Smart observation Captain Obvious.

“I know.  But I don’t think we’ll make the hour if we just sit here.”  He turned the key and the powerful engine rumbled.  “Put your seatbelt on.”

I scrambled for it with my bound hands, clicking it into place as Birch stepped on the gas.

He didn’t inch forward like I would have.

There were a couple of soft thuds and then we were rolling over bumps on the road that I didn’t want to think about.

“Maybe you should slow-”

He yanked the wheel over and the vibrations sounding through the car decreased as we hit the smooth asphalt of the road.

I shut my eyes as he went even faster.

How did he know where the road was?

A few seconds later, the left side of the car scraped against something with a horrible screeching sound.

The railing at the median.

Birch jerked the steering wheel over and the sound stopped.

Guess he didn’t really know where it was.

This stretch of the highway was a straight line, which was difficult enough to navigate.  But there was a turn a few miles down.

Assuming we were even going in the direction I thought we were.

I shouldn’t have worried.  We didn’t make it to the turn.

Something hit us hard.  Hard enough to flip the car.

I didn’t know which way was up, everything seeming to go too fast and too slow at the same time as we tumbled.

With a bone jarring impact, we finally came to a stop upside down, my body hanging from the seatbelt.  The car was still pretty much intact, which was a little scary.

“Sara!  Are you alright?”

Was I alright?  I felt kind of numb, except for the deep pain where the seatbelt was digging into my torso.

I rocked a little as Birch got out of his seatbelt and dropped down.

I should probably unbuckle too.

My bound hands reached for the release, but Birch’s were already there.

I grunted as I dropped, landing against him as he caught me.  I leaned against him as I looked out the window.

“The blinds are gone,” I said slowly, knowing that should really bother me.  But my head felt like it was wrapped in cotton, muffling my thoughts and emotions.

Birch didn’t bother replying as he wrapped one arm around me and reached for something with the other.

I stared at the window, watching as something darker than the surrounding night slithered across the glass, leaving a humid streak.

The sound of tearing metal screeched through the interior as we rocked a bit.  Footsteps on the undercarriage above us followed, along with the gentle clacking of claws or nails.

Birch slapped something in my hand.

I looked down to see a small handgun, the handle already warming in my palm.  He quickly freed my hands.

“Here’s the safety.  Just point and shoot.  It won’t kill them, but it will slow them down.  We’ve got about a half hour left.  I’m guessing it’ll take them about half that time to peel us out.  That leaves fifteen minutes.”  His hand gripped my jaw and turned it so that I was looking into his red tinged eyes instead of the gun.  “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whispered, the shock starting to wear off.

He gave me a hard look and nodded, letting go of my face.

“Back to back.”

I turned so my back was resting against his, trying not to look outside, but focus on where the sounds were coming from.  They seemed to be mostly working above us.

We passed the fifteen minute mark.

I stared at my watch, urging the hands to move faster.

At eighteen, a clawed hand punched through.

“Shoot it.”

I aimed and squeezed the trigger, the target so close, even I was able to hit it.

I watched it jerk back, a spray of dark fluid spraying.  I couldn’t hear anything through the ringing in my ears.

Multiple fingers took a hold of the small hole and began peeling back, widening it.

Something the size of a large dog dropped through and quickly sprouted a bolt through its neck.

It fell over, writhing.

After that, we were overrun.

I shot blindly, only knowing where Birch was because his back was solid against me.  I saw his bolts hit where it count time after time, but it wasn’t enough.

The dark wave finally reached us.

I shot something with gleaming teeth that snapped against my face.

And then clicked on empty.

Unnaturally long fingers wrapped around my wrist, yanking me so hard I thought it would pull my shoulder out of its joint.  I tried to pull the fingers off, short, tough fur meeting my hands.  It didn’t even seem to notice as it jumped up through the hole, trying to take me with it.

A hard hand clamped onto my ankle, preventing me from being pulled out.

I looked down as my body was stretched painfully between two opposing forces.

Birch handed his crossbow up to me as something jumped onto his back, something with a long, sinuous tail and slanted, red eyes.

Take it, he mouthed, his free hand grabbing the thing’s muzzle.

He let go to fight in earnest, and I was pulled through the rest of the way, the jagged edges of the peeled metal gouging my side.

“Sara.”

That voice.  It felt like it was digging into my brain, delicate nails scraping across it.

If I’d seen him walking on the street in the middle of the day, I may not have given him a second glance.  At least, not with sunglasses on.

Tall, but not too tall.  A pale, gleaming bald head.  Jeans and a dark t-shirt over a rangy build.  My eyes didn’t want to go to his face, but I forced them to.

Even features that managed not to be handsome or unattractive, but almost wax-like.  Unmoving.

His eyes gave him away.

Dark pits with the flicker of embers in the depths, they took up more of his face than they should have.  Or maybe it just seemed that way because they were so…eye-catching.

His head tilted to the side in a quick, stilted motion, a slight smile coming to those waxy looking colorless lips as he regarded me.

From the corners of my eyes, I could see a writhing black mass around the car, stretching in every direction, the edges blending into the night so I couldn’t get a handle on where it ended.

Assuming it did.

My hand tightened on the bow in my hand.  The bow I had no idea how to shoot, let alone reload.

I blinked and he was suddenly only two feet away.

“Not to worry.  You just need another dose,” he said, his lips barely moving, those eyes looking even bigger this close.  I stared at them, morbid fascination overcoming revulsion as I realized they were literally pits, lidless holes in his face.

His lip curled up to show a mess of fangs, jagged and sharp.

I wasn’t going to get a better shot than this.

I swung my arm up, my fingers having found what felt like a trigger.  I shot quickly, only a little space between the bow and him.

It went into his side, an end sticking out of his front and back.

I didn’t exactly plan what I would do if I did hit him.  Maybe I was hoping he would just go poof.

He snarled and shoved me away.

I stumbled back, trying to keep my balance as I teetered on the edge, conscious of the teeming mass I would fall into.

I felt my body lose the fight.

I dropped the bow, my eyes wide, mouth open on a gasp as the lightening sky tilted above me.