Rowan’s chest tightened, and her hand gripped the back of a chair to keep herself standing, feeling suddenly faint. She had just taken part in the torture of a sick and innocent youth. They could have killed him. He could die. Right there in front of them, he could die, and it would be her fault for not stopping it sooner. She found herself staring at the boy, willing him to rise from his spot on the floor, to show her he was alright. Her breath shuddered further with every passing moment, her heart still pounding away, hard in her throat.
Finally, a movement, and the entire group of doctors flinched simultaneously. At an unnatural speed, the boy shot out his arm and grabbed the bed’s metal foot rail, using it to support his weight as he rose to his feet. Rowan blinked a few times, making sure her eyes were working correctly after what she’d just seen.
She was not the only one to noticed the speed of his movement, either. Shock etched on the faces around her, some twisting to their close colleagues to confirm they were not crazy, a stunned buzz enveloping the room.
The boy stood, more feeble than ever, a bony hand clenching the thick, aluminum bed frame. His sharp shoulders rose and fell with each deep, controlled breath. Rowan, who had been holding her own from nerves, sighed quietly to herself, thankful that he was alright. And, as if he heard, he glanced up from the floor through his stringy fringe, right at her, and her previously relieved breath was snatched from her lungs.
The reveal of his piercing, unnaturally blue eyes surprised everyone. He wasn’t looking at any of them, though. He looked right at her, gaze furious.
His thin fingers flexed around the foot of the bed, and Rowan saw his weight shift. Something about how he held himself was different than before; he didn’t seem thin and feeble anymore. Even with his malnourished appearance, his feet were now grounded, and a muscle tightened in his forearm as he adjusted his grip.
Rowan predicted his next move just before everyone else, twisting her body away as he lifted the whole bed frame off the floor. With a fluid motion he launched it, matress and all, towards the glass.
Screams filled the air, and everyone hurried to hide behind chairs and under desks, preparing for the storm of shattered glass. Rowan had already hid her face behind the collar of her lab coat, but she couldn’t resist glancing back. She saw the bed hit, but instead of crashing through, it simply bounced off and landed roughly on the floor again, resulting in nothing more than a loud clatter as it settled.
To the side, Miller chuckled lightly at their reactions. “No need to worry, friends. That glass is nearly indestructible, and only one way. As you can imagine, he knows we’re here, but he cannot see our face or hear our voices, so there is no need to fear him from this side.” Miller seemed pleased with herself, knowing her method of torture received the outcome she required, thoroughly spooking them all into comprehension.
The others seemed to settle again, some of them even laughing at their own reactions. Rowan wished she could relax as easily as those around her, but it was impossible when the boy in the other room still stared at her with those sharp, blue eyes.
She assured herself he couldn’t see her. Miller said the glass was one-way; it was just an illusion. He stared right at her like he heard her though, like the glass wasn’t even there, like they were facing each other across an empty room. He stared until standing became too difficult, then fell back to the wall, sinking to the floor and curling up, resembling a wounded animal once more.
“He’s strong.” Finally, someone from the crowd broke through the quiet buzz going around, dragging Rowan away from the boy and into her new, overwhelming wonder.
The others were alive with it also, and it fueled the fire in her. She wished she was uninterested. She wished she could say she felt only disgusted by the idea of locking up a young boy for observation, but she could not deny her curiosity after what she just saw. Whatever this boy was, she wanted to know.
She would be the first to know.
“How can he have so much strength, though? He looks like he’s ready to die.” A doctor on the other side of the room posed the question, a notepad and pen in his hand, scribbling a note as he asked.
“Glad you both brought it up. The subject you’re seeing right now is quite underfed. We can only assume that given a proper, diet his strength would increase dramatically.” Miller’s explanation turned excited now that the rest of her team was ripe with the same amazement.
Near Rowan, another member of the group lifted a hand to interrupt. “Why has he been underfed?”
“Another good question, one that brings us to our first task, which we’ll start on tomorrow. Our subject has proven quite uncooperative. We’ve been trying to provide him with different foods, but he refuses to eat what we've given and will not give us any hints on what he will eat. It’s possible he doesn’t know English, but since he’s made no attempts whatsoever to communicate with us, we can’t be sure of anything. We’re definitely not interested in starving him, so our first order of business will be figuring out how to get him eating.”
Miller paused to step a few paces to the side, gathering up a large stack of papers, and splitting them to be distributed around the room.
“Coming to you is a copy of the observation reports from the last few days. Normally it would have a copy of the surveillance video, but we’ve already discussed that. Tonight, you can all get up to speed on the details we already know about him, which are few, unfortunately. Read over them, and we’ll have a group brainstorm in the morning to see if we can’t come up with a solution.”
Rowan took a booklet of papers and passed the pile on, flipping through the pages but finding herself unable to focus on any words. Instead, she stored it away in her bag for later study.
Miller didn’t have to openingly dismiss anyone; her team understood the directions, gathering their belongings and shuffling towards the exit. Many debated and theorized, a new found interest in their tones. A few lingered, glancing into the containment room briefly before following colleagues out. Rowan shared the excited emotion, but mingled with it was a noticeable discomfort she couldn’t shake.
She didn’t want to stick around in that room for any longer than necessary, her thoughts a mess, but when she went to duck out, someone called for her.
“Miss Platts.” Miller crossed the room to meet Rowan as she stepped aside from the exit. When Miller smiled, it was all friendly and unintimidating once again. “If you have somewhere to be I don’t want to keep you, but I thought maybe we could speak more before you leave. I’m quite curious about you, to say the least, after all the wonderful things Robert had to say.”
It took Rowan a few wide-eyed blinks to finally respond. “I would love to talk.”
Chapter Six
“Phelps told me you haven’t been down to these parts of the facility yet, and you’d need a new security card.”
Rowan nodded as she followed Miller into a small room acting as a temporary office. Miller circled the desk in the middle of the space and started rummaging through a drawer. She resurfaced with a crisp, new card and another contract, then sat, and Rowan followed her lead, taking the edge of a chair across from her.
Miller grabbed a pen and started filling out a few blank places on the paper. “Just a standard security agreement we’ll need you to sign. Basically all it says is you understand that misplacing this card means paying for an entirely new security system here,” she explained while recording the long number on the back of the card. When she finished, she turned the papers in Rowan’s direction and held out the pen.
“Right. So, don’t lose the card unless I’m looking to be millions of dollars in debt,” Rowan repeated as she reached for the pen and signed her name, garnering a grin from Miller.
“That sums it up.”
Reminded by the signing of her name, Rowan twisted to rummage in her bag for the folder holding the contract she slaved over the night before, handing over the two signed documents together.
Miller straightened as s
he took the papers, pleasant surprise taking over her face. “Does this mean you’re staying, Miss Platts?” Rowan tilted her head slightly, giving a nervous smile, and when Miller noticed her confusion, the woman offered a tiny laugh and a wave of her hand. “Sorry it’s just, after your outburst… I worried that you thought ill of me. Like Phelps does right now.”
Rowan shook her head, giving another curious expression. “It didn’t seem like you two were on bad terms a moment ago.”
Miller corrected quickly. “Oh no, not bad terms. Never. Rather, simply haven’t seen eye to eye on this project so far.” She paused to give a careful smile as she considered something. Deciding, Miller let her guard down and allowed her shoulders to drop, a sigh and an eye roll as she offered a fairly accurate imitation of worried-Phelps. “It’s not right, Margot. Having him locked up like that. It’s inhumane.”
Rowan couldn’t help the tiny laugh that bubbled from her lips, which she stifled behind her palm.
Encouraged by the reaction, Miller relaxed further, her eyes dancing behind her glasses. “You’re not much like Robert, though, are you, Miss Platts?”
She wasn’t sure what it was supposed to mean, but Miller’s tone sounded like a compliment. It brought a flush to Rowan’s face. “I’m sorry?”
Miller smiled further, like she meant to tease and was pleased it stuck. “No need to get defensive. It’s a good thing. I’ll admit, while I adore Phelps, I was a little worried when he told me he wanted to bring on an assistant. We can butt-heads sometimes, and I honestly didn’t want another mini-Phelps backing him up and undermining my authority on important decisions.” Realizing she had been distracted by her own ranting, she fixed her focus back to her original point. “You’re not like that though, are you? Phelps thinks you are, and you like it that way, but I can see it in your eyes.”
Rowan stared for a moment, speechless at Miller’s forwardness. She didn’t have to ask to know what Miller was talking about, but she didn’t appreciate how easily her intentions had just been read, and chose to act oblivious. “See what, doctor?”
Miller leaned forward onto her elbows, a knowing gleam in her gaze. “Your drive. I see it all over your face. With Phelps, his morals come first. It gets in the way of his success. It’s a shame really, because if he could just put his emotions aside, he’d be where I am. You have a softness to you, there’s no doubt there, but you're still willing to set your emotions aside to succeed. After all, you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t interested in succeeding, would you?”
Left tripped up on her tongue again, Rowan could do nothing but sit silently, unable to deny her very accurate evaluation. While her fear made her apprehensive at first, Rowan had always wanted success, and she couldn’t ignore the fact that this project would give it to her.
Miller took her silence as apprehension. “I could be wrong, of course. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. I guess I just get excited at the idea there might be someone else here seeing this as the opportunity I see, not just senseless cruelty.”
Rowan shot her eyes up, not liking her nerves being so noticed and interpreted as wavering commitment. Rowan respected Phelps, but she didn’t want to be him, letting the apprehension in her gut define whether she reached her goals or not. She wanted to be the person that Miller said she saw: driven to succeed against all odds.
She certainly wouldn’t become a successful virologist by being scared of finding answers.
Rowan knew what Miller wanted her to say. Swearing to her overwhelming curiosity would impress her, and in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to impress her. So, choosing to snub out the lingering doubts in the back of her skull, Rowan embraced success instead.
“Whatever the boy is, it’s obvious he would be a danger to civilians, and maybe even himself if he was anywhere but here. I also imagine he might be treated substantially more inhumanly by the public. To be honest, it’s a miracle he’s not dead, considering his rampage, and his death would have been a shame, because we can obviously learn a lot from him. My outburst today was triggered by what seemed unnecessary torture, before we were shown his unusual nature.”
Rowan punctuated her words with a steady gaze, willing Miller to read her determination. The itching need to prove herself in the other woman’s gaze, and the desire to be the first to figure out this boy’s mysteries, smothered the embers of any previous apprehension.
Miller nodded after her words, glancing down for a moment, as if to hide a bit of shame. “Yes. I admit I can see why you might have thought it was cruel at first. I hope you can understand my actions.”
“However cruel it seemed, you needed something big to get our attention. I can’t ignore the possibilities now. I did work hard to get here, doctor. I have no intention of having that work go to waste. So, I guess you were right with your initial analysis of me.”
From across her desk, Miller’s face stretched into a satisfied grin. After watching Rowan for a moment, she leaned over and held out her hand.
“I look forward to working with you, Miss Platts.”
Rowan dismissed herself, exiting Miller’s office with her new key card and a restored sense of determination. Phelps’ approval was one thing, but Miller’s parting words left Rowan with a fluttering in her chest that she couldn’t shake. She never even fathomed the possibility of meeting Margot Miller, let alone working under her, or even, dare she say it, alongside the woman. The prospect left Rowan feeling like she was in a dream, floating on air, up on cloud nine.
She quite nearly skipped down the hall to return to the observation room, intending to retrieve the pile of observation notes she had forgotten while flustered by Miller’s attention. At the door, Rowan tested out her new key card, and it confirmed its working order with a cheerful beep.
The room was much quieter this time, with the lights dimmed and only the gentle hums of the computers occupying the space. When she realized the wall to her left remained open, allowing her to gaze into the containment room, her stomach twisted, the previous unsettlement leaking back into her chest and making her lungs suddenly tight.
Rowan attempted to not be distracted, letting out a breath and hurrying across the room to gather her papers. She couldn’t deny her curiosity though, and as she slipped the notes into her bag and slung the strap over her shoulder, she felt her eyes gravitate towards the glass.
The boy hadn’t moved. Still sitting tight in the corner like a scared animal, he slumped forward, using his body as a shield. His expression no longer read hard and angry. Instead, he seemed tired. Perhaps he could sense that he no longer had a group of people observing his every move, allowing himself a moment of vulnerability.
She felt a pull in her chest, and her feet moved without permission, giving her a closer vantage point as she neared. When Rowan reached the glass, she leaned against it to watch him closer despite herself. The purple circles under his eyes made his face look sallow and sickly, and she wondered if he was deteriorating so quickly, or if it was just her sympathy playing with her eyes.
He took in a strained breath, and Rowan felt her throat knot. She reminded herself of what she saw him do earlier: his quick reflexes, his abnormal strength, the unwavering rage in his gaze. It was difficult to see past his current victimized exterior, though. She sighed, fogging the glass in front of her.
“What are you?” she said the words to herself, barely a whisper on her lips as she casted her eyes down with a moment of empathy.
When she checked again, his eyes were open.
The fresh memory of his icy blue eyes finding her through the one-way glass caused Rowan to stiffen, a tremor of fear rushing up her spine. She reminded herself that he couldn’t have seen her. It was impossible.
But he proved to be capable of a few impossible things that day.
He wasn’t looking at her this time. He wasn’t looking at anything, in fact. His eyes stared straight forward into nothing, gaze unfocused, one eyebrow turned down just slightly. His tired expression was now
inquisitive, a question on his parted lips. He tilted his head, and Rowan’s breath went shallow when she realized.
He was listening.
Against her better judgement, she tried at confirming the hypothesis, speaking again in another barely-there whisper.
“Can you hear me?”
She felt foolish. Surely her own imagination exaggerated. She refused to believe it.
An astonished breath fled her lungs when he straightened his neck, and his gaze jumped to the exact spot she stood. He placed the location of her voice so expertly she had to question his outward exterior. No human was so good with their ears. He was something else entirely. An animal. A predator.
As if he meant to confirm that thought, he unfolded his gangly limbs like a spider and rose to his feet. Keeping a hand mounted on the wall next to him for balance in his weakened state, he followed it around the room, shuffling towards her.
Rowan held her breath, unsure whether she appreciated him knowing where she stood, or worried that he was heading in her direction. His eyes moved to the floor, searching again with his ears, waiting for another noise to hold onto. As his supporting hand moved from the wall to the glass, he stopped, and a hint of a grin passed his lips. He closed his eyes, savoring something.
“I can hear your heart beating.”
Rowan saw his lips form the words and heard them through the automated telecom, playing through the speakers on her side of the glass. She prayed he only heard her because the telecom was on, but a dreadful terror inside reminded her that the little device would have never picked up her racing pulse.
As her heart quickened in tempo, the barely there smirk spread further onto his mouth. The pale, dry skin of his lips cracked with the motion, his worn-down body even more clear to Rowan with how close he had come. Yet, he stayed upright, moving even closer, managing the smoothness of a snake with each step. More words flicked across his lips, like a serpent tongue.
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