by Tommi Hayes
I press myself up closer to him now. There's comfort in the clean familiar scent of him, the soft slightly stubbly heat of his neck and chin, the wolf quieted and gone back to sleep, quiescent for now. And I laugh a little bitterly, at how he spares my feelings, is so concerned not to do me hurt. Even though he knows full well now, all the hurt I've done him, willingly enough, or not fighting hard enough against it at least. "A whore, Raj," I say, suddenly wanting to hurt him again, to hurt him for real. Perhaps it will be enough to get me down, to allow me to climb down from the pedestal he's put me on. Even though he really knows me and what I am, in a way that none of the others were allowed to do. “The word is whore."
And I give him that and try to tug away, to give him an out and a point, a means to reject me. To run without me. He lets me get a few inches separate, then holds on tighter. And it's only to look me full in the eyes. "No, honey," he says softly. “The word is beautiful." And I cry a little when he kisses me, and he kisses that off my face too.
It's not as if I think it's a good idea. I think it's crazy. And we're probably doomed if we try it. But going back and submitting, carrying on now I know, now we both know exactly how loose and flexible the morals of the Section are, that seems also like a pretty crazy idea, to be frank, at this point. Or at least, one that would be intolerable in practice. Altering people's minds, when I know now that they might well be perfect innocents, chosen only for suitability, and not as a regrettable cross between punishment and utilitarianism? That would be brainwashing indeed. (I don't even want to think, now, about whether the Section would have perfect targets identified and turned, just on the basis of their suitability for the Unit. I don't want to think of the feasibility of that. About how cynicism usually turns out to be realism.) And for Raj, acting as attack dog and Unit soldier, for a government agency that had that done to him? Warped his life, as if being made wolf isn't warping enough?
And he's right, too. We could go back and make a pretence of co-operation, of fulfilling our duties, playing blind to the machinations and defects of the Section. (And of Amisa, god damn her. How I've been fooled and blinded, this long time. Not to her essential ruthlessness, perhaps. But to the extent of it, and to her true standing in the organisation, and to her effectiveness despite a sweet inconsequential girlish exterior.) We could. Doing the bidding of the Section, but as minimally as possible, doing the least possible harm, and engaging in quiet sabotage where possible? Saving a few innocents here and there? Perhaps scuppering an entire operation or project occasionally? Kidding ourselves that we're planning, working, fostering a future coup, an overturning of the Section and maybe the State into the bargain?
We'd do so much harm, while we were trying to do so much good. Incalculable harm, and, yes, kidding ourselves all the time about how it would be only a temporary state of affairs, we'd put it to rights, we'd do so much when the right opportunity presented itself.
No. It won't do, it won't work. Better crazy, than that level of self-delusion. And anyway, there's a pounding in my heart, and at every pulse point. It's the thought of a taste of freedom at last, first time in three years. Of fighting back, even, if we can find allies and resources enough, however hopeless it might seem. Of regaining my self, my own self, that Raj must have glimpsed, inside. But it hasn't been let out once, really, in these three years of seduction and pruning minds and keeping wild creatures controlled and sedated and useful. Of being nothing more than a tool, myself, creating other tools for the State. I have missed books, I have missed research. I have missed being a mind that's valued for more than just extra-normal powers and functional utility.
I am sick of fake love. I want the real thing.
And it seems that Raj can detect, can sniff out, maybe even can see just how my pulse pounds, at the thought of freedom and love and the dignity of a fight, no more knuckling under for us. He pushes his nose in against the pounding in my neck where I can feel it, then his face presses up against it. He gives me a touch of his teeth there. Not the teeth of the wolf, but his regular human canines, pushing and not quite nipping, up against that point where I'm most vulnerable, most open to his mercy. “They'd follow us,” I say, voice breathy. It's a little desperate. “Do you think we're not tracked, that they don't know what they're doing?” It's the truth.
He just rumbles out a soft laugh against my ear, though. “Do you think I didn't already disable the GPS and every other tracker on this vehicle, as soon as I'd put your driver into a light doze and bought him a pay-by-the hour motel room? Your phone. My phone. The chip in my armpit. I'll have to deal with the micros in your clothes before we go on, though.” I gawp at him, sightless, and it's probably not at all becoming. He isn't supposed to know about his own biochip. And my clothes?
He laughs at me again, rubbing a half-stubbled cheek over my face. “They rely on you guys not bothering to check. Thinking that they trust you.”
I'm a little dizzy, but suddenly I feel quite safe. I feel elated. And I push at him gently. Not that I could move him an inch he didn't want to go, not now with the wolf in him. And probably not before even, when he was a gym-bunny earnest shining beautiful engineering post-grad, on his way to being a worthy do-gooding high-school teacher or public sector engineer, building dams and bridges. "Go take your run," I say. "You wanted to run. Get out there. I'll wait for you here."
He lets me move him around, but he hesitates with it. His eyes fix me, even as his arms loosen. "You'll still be here when I get back," he says. And it's more of an instruction than a question. Oh, what have I let myself in for here, with this one? And still, I agree.
"I'll wait," I say.
"And then," he says, and catches a hold of a lock of my hair, long gold-white hair that he loves so much, "we run together. We'll find a better place, and a different way."
I shiver, because I'm not quite as brave as he is, and I know what the Section is capable of. I know the things my mother feared. "What if they find us?" I ask.
And my love only laughs at that. "Oh, baby. Iz. They don't need to. When we're ready, we'll find them."
So we go for it, we do it. Raj slips out of the car, and his shift is easier now, now he's practised and knows what to expect. Still it's not painless, but he roars through it on the deserted hill, then comes up to me where I'm sitting with my legs hanging out of the open car door. He pushes up against me and there's quite a harsh, almost vicious jab of his muzzle at my mid-section, at my hands and thigh. Speech is gone, and his wolf-mind is strange in structure and gives me only a sense of reprimand and firm instruction, but I can read him well enough just the same. It's Raj telling me that I'd better be here when he gets back. That we belong together now, mates perhaps, lovers certainly, bound by power and the machinations of the Section and choice and maybe fate.
Then he's gone, long haunches bounding over the grassy horizon of the hill, and I watch him go and I wait. I tremble, a little bit, and I braid at my hair to ease my nerves. But I could fire up the car and get out of here. I could return and play at being a good boy for my masters, where I'm as much a prisoner and a conscript as Raj. It would be safe. Or safer, at least.
But I don't move a muscle, I don't even let myself think about it. Instead I watch Raj out of sight, his shining black wolf form wild with speed and power. All the things about him that I should have on a leash, that he only allows me to modify out of love, not compulsion.
We'll never be safe if I stay, if I wait for him. But I sit where I am. And the nerves that are making me tremble, make my hand shake as I play with the strand of my hair, where it's stringy and needs a wash. I haven't been taking good care of myself, the pretty-boy exterior is dulled. The Section supervisors would have my hide for it. All my value is in my power and my pretty, to them. Against Raj, I have neither, powerless tools.
He loves me anyway.
I stay. I know he'll come back, and then it begins. I wait for him.
(Wolf Mind Book 1)