by T. D. Fox
Careful not to lurch her insides in any way, she moved with slow strides across the linoleum. She slipped back inside the bedroom and shut the door.
Changer. The word bounced around inside her skull as she made for the clothes bag. She pulled out another pair of jeans, a shirt, some under things. Pulling them on, she discarded W’s coat on the bed. At least he’d been kind enough to toss it over her before she was fully... herself there on the kitchen floor, vulnerable and exposed. The thought brought her up short.
He was a murderer. A psychopathic, deranged killer who spent his days masquerading as dead men and his nights haunting the backstreets of Orion City. Why on earth would he bother to preserve her modesty? Why bother to pull her off the street at all? If she’d Changed in the middle of downtown, she’d be stuck in some lab right now, or wherever it was the White Coats took the Changers. Getting poked, prodded, or flat-out dissected. W may have saved her life.
Swallowing back that disturbing thought, Courtney moved for the door. Her fingers brushed the doorknob. She paused, and stared at them. They shook. She pulled in a deep breath through her nose, and concentrated on making them go still. They shook harder.
Actually, her whole body was shaking. Her heart drummed in her throat, beating faster and faster. She opened the door. It took all her focus to keep from staggering as she made her way over to the kitchen sink. She ducked forward, turned on the tap, and brought a trembling hand to her lips. After a thorough rinse of her mouth, she swallowed as much water as she could. But she was still shaking. Maybe she needed more than water? Sugar? Food?
She dried her mouth with the dish towel. When was the last time she’d eaten? If W had found her last night, and the sun was already creeping down over the Wall, she’d been here a whole day.
No. Oh no. What would Dina think? And Jasper? She’d left the door to her apartment swinging open, her purse on the counter, her phone on the floor. Dina had said she was on her way over. What would she think walking into an abandoned apartment? And Michael? A horrible weight sank into her stomach when she remembered her little brother. How was he handling what happened to Dad? She hadn’t even thought of him when she’d run out into the night. She hadn’t thought at all.
Her chest tightened as she struggled to pull breaths in. She turned, bracing herself on the counter. The shaking spread from her hands to her core. Her knees knocked together, and her throat began to close in on itself, closing and opening in choking spasms.
“I can’t—” she choked on the word. “I can’t breathe.”
From across the room, she heard a sigh.
“You’re hyperventilating. Slow it down.”
Courtney couldn’t feel her hands. Her breath came in short rasps. In the corner of her eye, W rose from his chair. He started toward her.
“C.”
His voice spoke from somewhere above her head. She was sinking, sliding down from the counter, knees buckling beneath her. W grabbed her quaking shoulders.
“Look at me.” He leaned in close. “Hey.”
She struggled to see him through the haze.
“You’ve got a kid brother, right?” His fingers bit into her arms. “What was his name?”
His face swam. She shut her eyes.
He shook her a little. “Come on, C. What’s your brother’s name?”
“M-Michael.”
“And what just happened to him?”
She reached up, fingers clawing into his wrists for some kind of support. Her knees wouldn’t hold up.
“He just lost his father.” W bit out each word. “He’s going to need a sister. If you let yourself go, you let him go, too.”
Her heart hammered. She clutched his wrists like a lifeline, feet slipping on the floor. His face bled back into focus. It was very close to her own.
“A lot of minds snap under this kind of strain,” W growled. “You’re not going to be one of them. Understand me?”
Yanking air in through her teeth, Courtney fought to pull her thoughts into a coherent form.
Michael.
Michael, Michael, Michael.
He was right. Michael needed her. If she was going to survive this, she needed to pull her shit together. Her brother was eleven. And now, for all intents and purposes, an orphan. She had to be there for him. Which meant she had to make it back with a sound mind. She didn’t have the luxury of losing it.
Her lungs heaved. Each breath was shallow, but the dizziness began to ease. A familiar, strange scent drifted in. Metal and peppermint. She realized she hadn’t been this close to W since he’d threatened her in the alleyway. Only this time, instead of fearing for her life, she clung to him to keep the fear at bay.
Her lungs stopped jerking. W loosened his grip on her shoulders. He stepped back. Pale eyes grazed hers. She pulled in a lungful of air and felt the faint cool scent clearing her head.
Without a word, he turned and headed back for the table.
Courtney steadied herself against the counter. She watched him sit back down and lift the newspaper again, aloof as ever before. Gripping the counter for support, she took a couple of steps. She worked up the nerve to cross the kitchen. W didn’t look up as she passed. Retreating to the bedroom, she shut the door behind herself.
For a moment, she stood there with her back against the surface. She slid down until her knees folded and she sat on the rough wooden floor. Her mind spun.
He’d talked her down. Pulled her back from whatever terrifying ledge she’d stumbled out on. She’d heard stories of people going insane when Quarantine first descended, rumors flying right alongside the stories of a killer virus. She’d never imagined the virus wasn’t a virus at all, and the crazy rumors about shapeshifters in the streets were true. A lot of minds snap under this kind of strain. You’re not going to be one of them.
So he wanted her alive. Why say her brother needed her, if he planned to kill her? And how had he known about her father? He must have seen the news. They’d announced his name. But what did he care? What interest did he have in her brother’s well-being? In her own?
She forced herself to rationalize. This wasn’t W: her bizarre almost-friend from the café. This was the Whistler: killer, mastermind, ghost. Whatever plans he had for her, they weren’t good.
Yet, as she sat against the base of the door, her heartbeat slowed. She laid her head back against the scratched-up wood and closed her eyes. Weariness sank into her like gravity.
Here on the floor, with the most wanted man in Orion City on the other side of the door, she searched for the fear that had loomed a moment earlier. She found only exhaustion.
She’d just sit here a couple more moments. Gather her wits. Then she’d go out, and face him again.
But a gentle darkness settled over her instead.
⬥◆⬥
Courtney awoke with a jolt. She couldn’t believe she’d drifted off. Pushing herself up out of her crouched position, she pressed a hand against the door to steady herself. The room spun. Her stomach growled.
She glanced at the window. It was dark outside. If W was telling the truth about how long she’d been out, that meant she’d been here a full day—at least. Had anyone started looking for her yet? She shuddered to think of Jasper being assigned a missing persons case for his own girlfriend. There had to be a way to get a message out to him. But her phone was gone.
Where was Michael? Courtney tried, for too long, to remember what day it was. Friday. Had he gone to school? Had someone taken him in? Was anyone with him right now?
She had to get out. Even if she had some confidence that W didn’t plan to kill her, she needed to escape for Michael’s sake. She looked around the bedroom, taking stock.
W wasn’t an idiot. He probably expected her to scheme, which meant he’d removed any potentially useful objects from the room. She was too squeamish to try to use the rope as a chokehold, and none of the tools looked sharp enough to use as a weapon. There was the wrench, but she’d either need a precise angle or major force
behind her swing to do damage, and the idea of pitting her own strength against W’s sounded disastrous. That left the scissors. Which meant he either didn’t expect those to pose much of a threat, or he didn’t expect her to have the balls to use them.
She slipped her hand into the coat pocket, closing her fingers around the handle of the scissors. She’d kept them with her like a security blanket. They weren’t long, or especially sharp, but it felt good to have something up her sleeve around W.
But maybe he had something in his coat? He’d pulled out a first aid kit when she’d sliced her hand in the café. That night felt now like it belonged in another lifetime.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she pulled off the coat and turned it over. It was a huge coat, even for a man twice her size. Pockets lined its interior. She plunged her hand into each of them. The disappointment was sharp when her fingers poked against smooth hemlines. They were empty. Every single one.
Refusing to admit defeat, she turned the coat over again and checked the outside pockets. She removed the scissors, turning the hems inside out. A few sugar packets dropped to the bed.
After kneading through each and every pouch of fabric—at least a dozen—and coming up empty, Courtney sat back in frustration. There had to be something, somewhere.
Over the course of the next hour, she scoured every inch of the room. She pulled out the dresser drawers, turned out every sock, shook out every shirt, examined every odd item in the bottom drawer. The syringes were empty. Though sharp, they were too small to be very dangerous without something to inject. She reconsidered the rope. It might prove useful. She looked toward the window.
This one was barred. Out of the question. But the other one, the one above the kitchen sink? She wondered if the rope extended long enough to reach the ground. Unraveling the coil, she scowled to see it only stretched fifteen, maybe twenty feet. The drop to the ground was at least fifty, if not a hundred. Even if she managed to scramble out the kitchen window in front of W, she didn’t trust her uncoordinated self to make the drop to the fire escape. A slight wrong angle would send her plummeting to the street eight floors below.
Okay. That left the door. W had somehow managed to lock it inside and out. He had to have a key somewhere. That meant she’d have to watch him like a hawk until he left. But would he leave? Should she wait for him to go, before she emerged?
Fortunately—or unfortunately, rather—another problem arose before she had to deal with that. Between the dresser and the door, her beating heart began to slam. Harder and faster, sharper and stronger. A deep twist, somewhere behind her gut. She doubled over.
“No,” she gasped. “No, no, no—”
She Changed. A rattling crunch of shifting bones and warping muscles. The pain seared into every inch of her consciousness. And then, more swiftly than before, it stopped.
Courtney sat huddled on the floor. Her brain was fuzzy, thoughts jumbled. But she had just enough clarity to keep her eyes shut. The mess of color and sound wouldn’t overwhelm her this time. She had to keep control. The smells were enough to send her into a dizzying head spin, so she held her breath.
She counted to ten.
The seconds passed. Her heartbeat slowed. Her bones began to vibrate. A deep, shuddering ache reverberated through her frame, as each muscle tightened. She couldn’t swallow a whimper of pain. With a series of sickening jerks, the Change reversed. Soon she was lying on the floor in a ball, half covered in a torn shirt and jeans.
A stretch passed before she was able to stand. When she did, she reached for the bag at the foot of the bed. Luckily, the jeans hadn’t torn this time. Thank God for elastic waistbands; but her shirt wasn’t so lucky. Whatever form her Change took had a bigger rib cage than hip bones. Her t-shirt had ripped from the collar to the seams. She wriggled out of it and tugged on a new one.
Pushing herself to her feet, she stood in front of the door. Her heart thumped, but it no longer felt heavy as a drum. She closed her eyes and counted the seconds between breaths.
No more Changing. Her hand closed over the doorknob. No more Changing.
When she pulled it open, she was met with an empty kitchen. She stepped forward and peered around the corner. Besides the exit, there was only one other door in the tiny apartment. It stood half ajar. No light shone from inside. Courtney stepped toward it and pushed it open.
It was a bathroom. Flipping on the light, she moved further inside. A naked bulb glared from the ceiling. It was strangely... clean. Not that she expected W to be a slob, but it looked as if no one lived there at all. She started to step back out, reaching for the light, when she caught sight of the creature in the mirror. It took her several heartbeats to recognize herself.
The woman in the glass looked like a wild animal. Her hair tumbled over her shoulder in tangled mats, sticking up in all directions. Dirt streaked her face. Her dark eyes were bloodshot, and a thin lash of dried blood marked her forehead. She brushed her fingertips over it. To her surprise, her stomach didn’t shake. A filthy lock of hair—no longer blonde—fell across her wrist.
Courtney paused. She reached up and tried to pull her fingers through the knots. They wouldn’t budge. She tugged a little harder. The tangles bit at her scalp. Dropping her hands, she slipped her fingers into her pocket. They closed around the scissors.
Pulling them out, Courtney watched the harsh light glance off the stainless steel. For a long moment, she stared at them. Then she lifted them to her chin.
Snip. A lock of hair fell into the sink. Courtney sliced again. The second chunk of hair didn’t even fall, tangled so firmly into the rest of her hair. Gritting her teeth, she steeled her resolve and began to chop away at the long copper-blonde snarls.
She’d Changed twice since she’d woken in W’s apartment. Three times in total since last night. Each time, she lost a little more control. Her body shook. Her stomach rejected everything in it. And her hair tangled more and more into a wild, uncontrollable mass. With hunger gnawing at her insides, grime caked under her fingernails, and a primal fear coursing through her blood, she was starting to feel more animal than human. She needed to take back control.
Snip. She cut away the last section of her hair. It fell into the heap in the sink. Sweeping it into a pile, she tossed it into the bin beside the toilet. Then she leaned forward and turned on the tap. The rush of cold water felt like heaven against her skin. Courtney cupped it into her hands and scrubbed it over every inch of her face. The cut on her forehead stung, but she kept scrubbing. She dug her fingers through her hair too, scraping her nails over her scalp. Her hair was so short. The tangles gave under her hands, now they’d lost their anchors. She rinsed her entire head beneath the flowing water. After she’d held her breath for as long as she could bear, she surfaced with a gasp. She turned off the tap.
Straightening, Courtney met her own eyes in the mirror again. Water clung to her eyelashes and dripped down her nose. Her hair hung shorter than she’d ever had it. It stopped at her chin, skimming the curve of her jaw. She could see the copper-blonde again. The dirt was gone. Above her eyebrow, the cut looked smaller—a thin red line. She wondered what she’d done last night to earn the scrape. The whole night was still a hazy, painful blur.
Yesterday felt far away, as if it had happened to a different person. Looking at herself now, Courtney felt the pressure on her lungs ease a little. She felt human again. At least for the moment.
She dried her face on the towel hanging on the wall, and did her best to dry her hair. She ran her fingers through the strands so it hung straight. It was too short now to tie back, and she didn’t have a rubber band to hold it anyway. She let it hang dripping onto her shoulders. Stepping back, she took in her new look.
A sound from behind the door made her jump. She dove for the scissors. Jamming them down into her pocket, Courtney turned, trying to quash the adrenaline that had surged up. She stepped out into the kitchen.
W was closing the door, turning a key in the lock. In the inches befor
e it shut, she glimpsed a hallway beyond. Plain white walls, no windows or signs to clue her in to their location. He turned. His eyes rested a fraction of a second on her hair. No expression on his face, he lifted a plastic bag in one hand.
“Hungry?” he asked.
Courtney’s stomach snarled, giving her away. Her face went hot. “What is it?”
W strode toward the table and set the bag down. “A sandwich from that place on Ninth. You’re not a vegetarian, right?”
“No.” Against her will, her feet carried her forward to the table.
“Good. Those soft-tooth types don’t tend to last long after a Change.”
She was shaking again, but in a very human way. Hunger pushed aside all caution as she ripped open the bag and grabbed the sandwich inside. Tearing off the paper, she forgot W was even in the room.
“Go slowly,” he chuckled as she attacked the sandwich. “Or that’ll end up in the sink too.”
She wanted to ignore him, but she also didn’t want to lose her one meal of the day. She forced herself to pause between each bite. The sandwich was gone too fast. It took all her self-restraint not to lick her fingers.
When she looked up again, W stood at the sink, rinsing something under the water. Turning off the tap, he set something beside him. Courtney’s stomach turned.
A knife gleamed on the counter.
“You didn’t just go out to get food.” She bit her tongue. If she wanted to live, she was going to have to squash this stupid habit of blurting out her thoughts. W remained silent. “What do you want with me?” she asked in a careful voice.
“What makes you assume I want something from you?”
“Are you going to let me go?”
“Eventually.”
“When? Am I some sort of hostage?”
W sighed. “Your predicament doesn’t have much to do with you personally. You’re a Changer now. That makes you my responsibility.”
“Responsibility.” Courtney frowned at the back of his head. “Do you go around kidnapping every Changer you find? How are you not... dead?” She thought of the video clips she’d seen of bears and gorillas.