I spent the early morning dwelling on Ruth's death, how it changed things, how I could have prevented it. I spent a lot of time on the last one. Maybe I shouldn't have. Life and death were beyond our control here. At any moment, Matasumi could have decided Ruth was no longer a viable subject or Winsloe could have strolled into her cell and taken her on one of his hunts. Still, I shouldered part of the blame, maybe because it gave me some sense of control in an uncontrollable situation.
Around mid-morning a soft moan roused me from my thoughts. I glanced up. Bauer moaned again. She dug her head back into the pillow, face contorting in pain.
"Doctor?" I said, standing. "She's coming to."
As Carmichael strode across the floor, I leaned over Bauer. Her eyes flew open.
"Hello, Sondra," I said. "We-"
She bolted upright, thin restraints snapping, and slammed against my shoulder. As I fell back, I caught Bauer's gaze, saw something hard and blank there. Before I could react, she grabbed my shoulders and flung me into the air. For a moment, everything slowed, and there was that split second of suspension before gravity took over and I hurtled across the room and crashed into the wall.
Carmichael helped me stand and shouted for the guards. Bauer sat upright, struggling to get out of bed, sheets twisted around her legs. Her face was contorted with rage, her eyes were blank, lips moving soundlessly. When the sheets didn't give way, she roared in frustration and jerked her legs sideways, tearing through the cloth. I ran to the bed and threw myself across Bauer.
"Keep your fucking hands off me!" Bauer roared. "All of you! Get back! Don't touch me!"
"Delirium," Carmichael panted as she raced to the bed with stronger restraints. "You said it was one of the steps.""Right," I said, though at the moment, lying atop Bauer as she flailed beneath me, a medical diagnosis wasn't exactly a priority. "Where the hell are the guards?"
The guards were right there, doing what they did best-holding their guns and waiting for the signal to fire. Carmichael threw the restraints at them.
"Tie her! "she said. "Now!"
Before they could move, Bauer bucked and sent me flying again. This time I stayed on the floor an extra moment to regain my breath. Let the damned guards handle it. Let Carmichael handle it. She was the one who'd refused to properly restrain Bauer.
Bauer stopped struggling and sat still as a statue. The four guards surrounded the bed, tensed, restraints in hand, looking like animal-control officers waiting to throw a net on a rabid dog, none wanting to make the first move. Sweat streamed down Bauer's face and her mouth hung open, panting. She moved her head from side to side, eyes scanning the room. Wild and blank, they passed the guards, me, Carmichael. They stopped at an empty spot to her left, and she lunged forward, held back only by the ripped sheets.
"Get the fuck out of here! "she yelled.
No one was there.
I crawled to my feet, keeping my movements careful as if trying to avoid the notice of a wild animal.
"We have to restrain her," I whispered.
No one moved.
"Give me those," Carmichael said, reaching to snatch the restraints from the nearest guard.
"No," I said. "Let them do it. I'll get closer and run interference if she attacks. You get a sedative ready and stand back."
Oh, sure, give myself the life-threatening job. And for what? No one would notice. No one would care. Still, the job had to be done. If I didn't do it, one of these yahoos would fire his pistol at the first sign of trouble. Then where would my plans be? Dead and buried with Bauer.
Carmichael turned to the guards. "Wait until Elena is beside the bed. Then move quickly, but carefully. Sondra doesn't know what she's doing. We don't want to hurt her."
Which of course, was easier said than done. While I crept across the room, Bauer kept still, staring and cursing at unseen intruders. Yet the moment the guards touched her, she exploded, summoning up the unexpected strength of delirium. All of us working together could barely wrestle her onto the bed.
Once Bauer was down, I helped the nearest guard fasten his restraint. As my fingers worked at the clasps, Bauer's arm seemed to shimmer and contract. I shook my head sharply, feeling the pain inside it bounce around like a red-hot coal. My vision blurred.
"Elena?" Carmichael grunted as she fought to tie Bauer's other arm down.
"I'm okay."
As I worked on the knot, Bauer's arm convulsed, the wrist narrowing, the hand twisting and contorting into a knot. It hadn't been a trick of my eyes. She was Changing.
"Elena!"
At Carmichael's shout, I jumped. Bauer's hand flew from its bindings and tore at the empty space where my throat had been. Webbed fingers and misshapen claws swung through the air. I threw myself over Bauer's chest as she bolted upright again.
A snarl of rage erupted and she shoved me off her. Both hands now free, Bauer grabbed a guard and threw him across the room. He collapsed, unconscious, against the wall. Bauer's back shook and contorted, great lumps moving under the skin. She howled and fell onto her side.
"Sedate her!" I shouted.
"But you said-" Carmichael begun.
"It's too soon! She's not ready! Sedate her! Now!"
Hair sprouted from Bauer's back and shoulders. Bones lengthened and shortened, and she cried out, half-howling, half-whimpering. Her whole body convulsed, clearing the bed, me still clinging to her. Her face was unrecognizable, a hellish mask of writhing muscles that was neither wolf nor human. Fangs jutted over her lips. Her nose had stopped midway on the transformation to muzzle. Hair sprouted in tufts. Then there were the eyes. Bauer's eyes. They hadn't changed, but they were bulging and rolling, agony pouring out in waves. She met my gaze, and for a second I saw recognition. Some part of her had passed the delirium and was conscious, trapped in that hell.
Carmichael jabbed the syringe into Bauer's arm. Bauer flew upright and hung there, with me draped over her lap. Her body jerked several times, then she gave a low snuffle, and her eyes widened as if in surprise. She blinked once. Then she slid down onto the bed.
I tensed, waiting for the next round; then the Change reversed. This time there was no violence or pain to the transformation. She melted peacefully back into human form, like a computer-generated morphing. When she was fully human again, she curled into semi-fetal position and fell asleep.
***
Armen made another visit to the infirmary. Yesterday had been his regular checkup. Today he feigned a migraine headache with such finesse that even Carmichael never doubted his symptoms, though I suppose that wasn't surprising, considering he was a psychiatrist and therefore had a medical degree himself. We picked up our conversation where we'd left off. He had a plan for escaping that involved another medical ruse, thereby bringing him up to the second floor with me, which was much easier to escape from than the well-secured cell block. Again, he worked this into such ordinary small talk that I had to keep my own brain revving to keep up with the subtext interpretation.
The more I talked to Armen, the more I viewed my ploy with Bauer as a backup plan. Armen was an ally far more to my liking. First, he was conscious, which was a definite advantage over the comatose Bauer. Second, he reminded me of Jeremy, which increased my comfort level tenfold. He was quiet, courteous, and even-tempered, an unassuming exterior disguising a strong will and razor-sharp mind, someone who took charge instinctively, yet tempered that authoritarianism with enough grace and wit that I didn't mind letting him take the lead. I trusted Armen and I liked him. An ideal combination.
***
The rest of the day passed quietly, but the night made up for it, plaguing me with strange and disturbing dreams. I started the night at Stonehaven, playing in the snow with Clay and Nick. We were in the middle of a snowball fight when a new dream overlapped that one, cutting in like a more powerful radio station. In the other dream, I was lying in bed while Paige attempted to contact me. The two dreams spliced together: One minute I'd feel icy snow dripping down my neck, the next I'd hear Paige calling me. Some part of me chose the snowball dream and tried to block the other, but it didn't work. I lobbed two last snowballs at Nick, then a wave of snow engulfed me, swallowing that dream and spitting me into the other."Elena? Damn it, answer me!"
I struggled to return to my winter games, but to no avail. I was stuck in the dream of Paige. Wonderful.
"Elena. Come on. Wake up."
Even in my dream, I didn't want to answer, as if I knew that imagining myself speaking to Paige would only depress me more, reminding me that I'd been out of contact with her for three days, a situation that now seemed permanent.
"Elena?"
I mumbled something unintelligible even to myself.
"Ah-ha! You are there. Good. Hold on. I'm going to bring you into my body. Fair warning this time. Jeremy's here. Now, on the count of three. One, two, three, ta-da!"
Five seconds of silence. Then,
"Oh, shit."
Paige's curse faded behind me as I tumbled through bits and pieces of dreams, like someone was flipping channels, refusing to pause long enough for me to see what was on. When it stopped, I was a wolf. I didn't need to see myself; I could feel it in the way my muscles moved, the perfect rhythm of each stride. Someone ran ahead of me, a shape flickering through the trees. Another wolf. I knew that, though I couldn't get close enough to see anything but shadow and blurred motion. Although I was the pursuer, not the hunted, fear strummed through me. Who was I chasing? Clay. It had to be Clay. That degree of panic, of blind fear, fear of loss and abandonment-I could only associate it with Clay. He was there, somewhere, ahead of me, and I couldn't catch up. Each time my paws struck the ground, a name echoed through my skull, a mental shout. But it wasn't Clay's name. It was my own, repeated over and over, beats matching the rhythm of my legs. Glancing down, I caught sight of my paws. They weren't my paws. Too large, too dark-a blond nearly gold. Clay's paws. Ahead a bushy tail flashed in the moonlight. A white-blond tail. I was chasing myself.