The Walls of Orion

by T. D. Fox

  A man came around her, blocking her path, so swiftly she had to stop. He was dressed in scrubs too, older, with a stern expression.

  “I don’t recognize you. Where’s your ID badge?”

  “I, uh—lost it.”

  A deeper frown. “I’m in charge of all the nurses on this floor. I’ve never seen you before.”

  Courtney tried to pull away. His hand tightened on her arm.

  “Call security,” he said to a man standing nearby.

  Courtney threw her weight back, at the same time she drove a knee upward. He let out a pained oof and loosened his grip. She jerked away.

  “Security!” someone else cried behind her.

  But she was already running. Sprinting for the double doors at the end of the hallway, too far away.

  Another male nurse lunged forward, catching her by the arm. She tried to kick out at him, but someone else snagged her around the waist. The tote flew out of her hand and skidded across the floor.

  Panic. Sheer, blinding panic. And then... the deep twisting of bones.

  Courtney felt the Change ramming its way through her insides. And—instead of fighting—she reached for it. Embracing the pain, she curled forward, reaching deeper inside herself to pull it to the surface.

  It was the fastest Change she’d ever experienced. Within seconds, the world shifted.

  Brilliant lights, far too bright, blurry, colors dimmed to chrome and gray-blues. The men holding her let go with a shriek. She hit the floor, a scrabble of claws on tile.

  The tote. The tote, the tote.

  It was the only thought in her head. The bag with the smells of home, the only thing that smelled like home in this place of cold plastic and sharp bitter scents and blood. Her paws skidded on the floor. She dove for the bag. Her teeth clamped around it, wolf jaws like a vice.

  Something caught at her legs. Dragged her backward, tripping her. She yelped and tumbled forward. Kicked out to get the tangled fabric off. The stiff blue pants slid off her hind paws, left behind in the hand of the human who’d grabbed for her.

  She tore off down the hall. Toward the scents of her old shoes, her human footsteps. A trail that would lead her home.

  Home, home, home.

  Screams. Behind her, in front of her. Humans in blue dove for her, and she ducked and weaved. Dodged them easily. She made it through the double doors, as they swung open behind a cart with a person on it. A person that smelled of smoke. And blood.

  So many smells. Sounds. Sirens, once she got to the street. Shouts. Cold pavement under her paws. Rain on her fur. Too much. Only one thought now.

  Home, home, home.

  ⬥◆⬥

  For the second time in one day, Courtney woke up with her face on the carpet. She groaned. Slowly, she became aware of the sound of rain pattering outside. The distant trill of a siren. A low, puttering drone as a heater came on. Her old automatic heater, in her apartment. Which meant...

  She lifted her face. She lay practically in the doorway, feet and knees tucked up against the base of the door like she’d dropped right there as soon as it shut. The loose scrub top bunched up around her chest. The pants were gone.

  Her exhausted brain flitted back to the girl she’d met in the alleyway—Strings. That black nylon suit she wore, designed to stretch as she Changed. She’d have to look into something like that. Waking up naked every time she Changed would get old, fast.

  Every time. Implying there would be more times.

  She was too tired to explore that thought. First thing first. She crawled to her feet. Stumbling into the bedroom, she pulled on the first pair of pants in the hamper she could find. Then she caught herself against the wall.

  Dizzying waves of nausea crashed over her. Her knees buckled. Fear sparked only for a moment, before she realized what she needed. Courtney lurched back into the kitchen.

  Her desperation to get the cupboards open caused several things to fall out. A jar of cinnamon crashed to the counter; the flour fell out and poofed open in a cloud. Finally, she found it. She yanked out the little bear-shaped bottle, popped the cap and upended it straight over her mouth.

  Honey. It wasn’t a sugary drink, which might have hit her blood faster, but she didn’t think she could stand long enough to make a mug of hot chocolate. Once she’d swallowed all she could—her throat stung, starting to stick together—she sat down on the kitchen floor. She thumped her head back against the sink cabinet.

  It took a minute, but at last, she felt it. Pure sugar hit her veins, a surge so tangible she could’ve cried with relief. The weight between her ears lessened. Her stomach unknotted. She sat there on the linoleum for several more minutes, letting the worst of the nausea fade away. Then she got up and made herself a proper cup of hot chocolate. By the time she’d downed half the mug, she felt almost human again.

  Okay. With the sugar in her blood, her legs feeling like they could carry her weight, she made her way to the living room. The tote lay where she’d collapsed by the door. She grabbed it, and went to W’s side.

  His forehead burned under her hand. She could hear him breathing now, a heaving, rapid scrape of air down his throat. His lips were parted, head tipped to one side. A smear of blood darkened the corner of his mouth. The rest of his face was white as chalk. Courtney opened her bag with shaking fingers, yanking out first the supplies for the IV drip.

  For the second time in twenty-four hours, she found herself praying to a God she didn’t believe in—begging, in spite of all the lines she’d crossed, that He’d give her the small mercy of letting her remember her training from years ago. She just needed to get this IV right. The antibiotics would do the rest.

  And then... it’d be a waiting game.

  She yanked the shower rod off the wall in her bathroom. Stood it on end, braced it between a coffee table, the couch, and a tall, tall stack of old med school books. Then she hung the first IV bag using a rudimentary strap-support of duct tape. Next for the tricky part.

  She worked mechanically. Hand wash. Gloves. He was just a patient, a volunteer for the OSM program, and she was a student, threading her twentieth IV. No overthinking, no hesitation.

  He was a hard stick. He’d lost so much blood, the veins had collapsed, barely visible even through his translucent pale skin. He didn’t move in the slightest as the needle dug around in his arm. Courtney swallowed her own nausea; she didn’t have the luxury for it. Finally, she got a line. She set up the IV with the antibiotics. If only she had oxygen to give him. But she’d never have gotten those heavy metal tanks out of the hospital. She couldn’t have gotten them up the apartment stairs in her human form, let alone as a wolf.

  She finished too fast. By the time the IV was set, medications flowing with the saline, the needle taped down and secured with the gauze, pillows adjusted under his head, she had nothing left to do but sit back.

  And wait.

  The rain kept up behind the blinds. The sound began to dull her senses, even as the pit in her stomach remained. She found herself sinking back against the couch. She realized she had no idea what time it was. Her phone was across the room, and she was suddenly too tired to get it. If she just closed her eyes a moment.

  Much the same as the night before, she smoothed a spot on the carpet and curled up against the base of the couch. Her eyes fluttered. Maybe she needed more than sugar. A hollowness gnawed at her insides. She should eat something. The Change had drained her, and she hadn’t had any food since W showed up on her doorstep.

  But there were other ways to renew energy. Her eyes fluttered shut. She’d get up in a moment. Just a minute, or two.

  The blanket she’d dropped earlier was still on the floor, near her feet. She pulled it around herself. Listened to the sound of W’s breathing. It was steady. That was a good thing, at least. It didn’t sound like there was anything in his lungs. Although, she could be wrong.

  She could be wrong about everything.

  ⬥◆⬥

  The rain had stopped by the ti
me she opened her eyes again. Courtney lay where she was for several minutes, trying to pull her groggy brain from the recesses where it had drifted. She sat up. Pain lanced up her neck. With a low groan, she dug her fingers into her cramped muscles, and settled herself into a marginally more comfortable position. How much time had passed? It was dark outside—again—so she must’ve slept off the rest of the afternoon. She shoved herself to her feet and padded to the kitchen.

  The glowing green numbers on the microwave read 9:47. Still early. And now she wasn’t tired at all. Just damn hungry. She went to the refrigerator and rummaged through it. A low growl left her lips. Nothing, not even a gummy bowl of leftovers. She rooted through her pantry and finally found a loaf of sliced bread, three-quarters eaten. Her stomach snarled so much she tore it open right then and there, not bothering with butter or the toaster or anything. She was halfway through her second slice when the sound hit her.

  The low tenor of a voice, drifting out from the living room.

  Courtney froze. She waited for the sound to come again, but silence stretched. Slowly, she set the bread down and stretched up on her tiptoes. She could just see the couch over the edge of the counter from this vantage.

  W had moved. His hand—with the IV in it—now rested on his chest, and he’d tipped his head up just enough to peer down at it, chin on his sternum, fumbling with the tubing with his other hand.

  Courtney sprinted to the living room.

  “Stop!” She skidded to her knees, grabbed his hand, and forced it away from the IV. “You’re going to rip that out.”

  He looked at her. His eyes were hazy, hooded and unfocused. The pallor in his cheeks had faded somewhat, the faintest hint of color beneath his sharp cheekbones.

  “Lie back.” Courtney let go. “You have a fever. Try to—”

  A hand shot out and slammed against her throat, jerking her forward. Courtney’s arms flew out to brace herself. One hand clawed at his, the other hit the back of the couch to keep from toppling over him. Cruel fingers dug into her windpipe.

  “You. It would be you, wouldn’t it,” he rasped. Those pale eyes traced her face. They looked straight through her. “Come to finish me off?”

  She choked. No sound came.

  “Of course, I should’ve expected it.” His voice sounded funny: faint, half-whispered, conversational even, not at all like he had her in a stranglehold. “You were the only one who saw me for what I was. From the beginning. Killer. Coward. Runaway. Monster.”

  Both hands scraped at his now. How was he so strong, with a hole in his abdomen and a cocktail of drugs in his system? Her vision flickered.

  “Figures that you’d show up at the end. I put a bullet in you, now there’s a bullet in me. And I never got the chance to prove you wrong.”

  He laughed. A shuddering wheeze that spiraled into a cough. His fingers loosened. Courtney ripped free of his grip, landed hard on her rear, and sputtered into a coughing fit of her own. For a minute, they both fought for breath. When her chest stopped seizing, and she could hear something besides her own scraping lungs, she realized he was still laughing. Between coughs, laughter ripped out of him with a force that drove tears from his eyes.

  “I’m not sorry,” he wheezed. “If you’re back from the grave to make amends before I die, I’ll go to hell. So go on back. I’ll see you soon.”

  Courtney pushed herself back to her knees, daring to lean close again. “W,” she said, grabbing his hand. Both of them, this time—pressing them down so they couldn’t swing up again. “W, it’s me. Courtney.”

  He stilled. His head dropped back to the pillow, and his eyes, still dim and unfocused, drifted to the ceiling. “Courtney,” he sighed. Her name sounded heavier than she’d ever heard it. “Now there’s a mind on a tipping point. Pity I’ll never get to see which way she falls.”

  His hands were hot as a stovetop under hers. She leaned over him, trying to get in his line of focus, and studied his face. An idea struck her. “James,” she said, using the name from the file. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  He stiffened. The laugh rattled out sharper, harsher, before it broke off into another gunshot-like cough. “Why don’t you use the new name?” he scraped out. “You’re the one who gave it to me, after all.”

  She risked letting go of his hand to press a palm to his forehead. His eyes fell closed. “You need another fever reducer.”

  He sank deeper into the couch cushions. The taut lines of tendons in his forearms vanished, the tension easing out of him. For a second, she thought he’d passed out again. She started to take her hand from his forehead. But he reached up and snatched it. She braced herself, ready to jerk back to a safe distance.

  But he only stared. Eyes open again, fastened on her hand. It looked ridiculously small in his. Long fingers curled around her wrist, pressing into her palm. He didn’t squeeze, no hint of the bruising strength displayed a second ago. He just... held.

  “You were never like him,” he whispered.

  She held very still as his thumb caressed the base of her palm. He looked half in a trance, which he very well could be.

  “I should’ve...” The ragged voice belonged to a stranger. “I should’ve stayed. I failed you. I failed both of you.”

  She’d been prepared for his strength. For the threat of a violent W caught in the grip of hallucinations, ready to rip the throat out of whoever touched him. The weakness in his voice scared her more than anything she could’ve imagined.

  His thumb was still running circles over her palm. She pulled it away. His hand fell back, and he closed his eyes with a faint chuckle.

  “Are you afraid of me too, Mama?”

  The breath caught in her throat. “W.”

  The sound of his name—the “new name”—drove a line between his brows. He stilled. No more laughter, no more wheezing coughs. His breathing evened out, with the faint frown still etched on his face. The hand that had held hers hung limp off the edge of the couch.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Courtney picked it up and placed it beside him. He didn’t stir.

  She couldn’t bring herself to get up. For the first time, she looked at him. Really looked at him. Not in fear. Not to measure his face to anticipate his next move, trying to keep up in this crazy river of adrenaline and wits and shadowboxing that was the whole of her encounters with him until now. Not with a medical eye, either. She saw the sunken cheeks, the shadows under his eyes, the way his hair plastered against the heat of his temples.

  He looked younger asleep. When she’d first met him, she’d thought him older than now she suspected he actually was. The sharp lines of his face, all harsh angles and thin skin, might stem from malnutrition. Now that she’d experienced it for herself, she realized what a physical toll Changing took on the body. And a man who Changed as often as he did... No wonder he was always amped up on sugar or some overdose of caffeine. He was a match—just a centimeter away from burning out, but he kept sticking himself back in the flame.

  The files she’d read in his apartment—if they really were his—described a boy born six years before she was. James. James W. Subject W. The name he’d been given, by the scientist who took down those notes.

  His father.

  It took a minute for the realization to sink in. His father. He’d been hallucinating his father, when she grabbed his hand to stop him tearing out the IV.

  I put a bullet in you...

  She’d thought the thought a hundred times, but never had it seemed more prominent and burning than it did at that moment. Who was this man in front of her?

  And by saving his life... how many other lives was she not saving?

  26. THE CHOICE

  COURTNEY CALLED IN sick to work the next day. There was pretty much nothing else she could do. She wasn’t about leave W alone in her apartment, comatose or not. Especially not now that she’d seen him try to rip the IV out of his own hand, so delirious he might even try to mess with the stitches in his side. Besides, som
eone had to be here to administer the doses of antibiotics. And since she couldn’t drag Dina into this anymore than she had... she was on her own.

  “Jessica,” came the voice.

  Courtney looked up from the stove, where she stood cooking a pot of ramen. He’d been saying that name for the last hour. Every few minutes, his voice would drift over to the kitchen, cutting over the faint rustle of boiling water.

  He’d floated in and out of consciousness since yesterday. Not that “consciousness” was really the word for it. He wasn’t comatose, like he’d been the first twenty-four hours, but he wasn’t coherent either. He’d speak. Occasionally, he’d try to sit up, dilated eyes flying around the room. She’d given up trying to figure out what he was seeing. None of his words made any sense. Some of them didn’t even sound like English.

  Which got her wondering. What was W’s nationality? If that wasn’t his real face, he could be anything. Black, brown, white. His accent sounded American, but that could be faked. She couldn’t imagine him looking like anyone else. The sharpness of his features, the stark contrast of the pale skin against the dark hair, the icy shade of his eyes. They just fit. If he’d chosen those features to intimidate, they did the job. But he wasn’t always sharp-looking. Sometimes, on those rare occasions she’d glimpse that boyish grin, with the spark behind his eyes, those harsh angles softened into something almost handsome. It didn’t have anything to do with the features he’d chosen. Maybe that was the real W, under the facade. Maybe that was James. And W was the mask he wore.

  Careful, warned an instinct. Boyish grin or not, he’s still the Whistler.

  Which led her to the other thing.

  What was she going to do with him? This could only end one of two ways. Either he didn’t pull through this, and she was left with a dead felon on her living room couch; or... he lived, and she faced the choice she’d so conveniently avoided until now.

  Before yesterday, her role in this whole affair had been a passive one. She’d met W by accident—he’d probably only stopped by her café to check up on her coworker. She knew now Max had been involved in some sort of drug-related activity with the Whistler’s gang. She still couldn’t connect the dots between W and drugs. With all the influence he had on the streets, maybe he really was just another crime lord, interested in falling in with whatever underhanded scheme brought him the most revenue. But she didn’t buy it. W was a schemer, that much was obvious; but from what she’d gathered of his character, he had some darker, shrewder schemes up his sleeves than looking to make a quick buck in the criminal underworld.