Stolen

CHANGES

Once everything quieted down, Matasumi realized I was there. Of course, he'd seen me there earlier, but he hadn't realized what it meant, namely that I was someplace I definitely should not have been. He hustled me back to the infirmary with four of the remaining guards.

I spent the next few hours lying on my cot, staring at the lights blipping on Bauer's machines. Ruth was dead. Could I have done something to prevent that? Should I have? She'd known the risks. That didn't make me feel any better. Now she was dead and Savannah blamed herself. I should have been more comfort to Savannah. I should have known the right gestures, the right words. Ruth's death would be a turning point in her life, and all I'd been able to manage were the most awkward solaces. Shouldn't I have been able to dredge up some deeply rooted maternal instincts and known what to do?

Of course, Savannah hadn't intended to kill Ruth. But had she done it? I feared so. More than that, I was afraid it hadn't been an accident. No, I didn't think Savannah had sent that clock flying on purpose. Absolutely not. Her pain at Ruth's death had been too raw, too real. Yet I was afraid that some unconscious part of Savannah had killed Ruth, that something in her nature, in her genes, something she couldn't help, had made her unwittingly attack those guards and kill Ruth. Maybe I'd seen too many "demon child" horror movies. I hoped that was it. I prayed that it was. I liked Savannah. She had spirit and intelligence, an engaging mix of childish innocence and preteen sass. She was a normal kid, part angel, part devil. Surely there was no more to it than that. But the psychic events revolved around Savannah. As Ruth had trained Savannah, the events had rapidly escalated from harmless to lethal. What had Ruth said about Savannah? Great power, incredible potential… and a mother inclined toward the "darker side" of magic. Was there such a thing as a genetic predisposition to evil? Had Ruth overlooked it? Had she refused to see anything bad in someone so young? In giving Savannah more power, had she signed her own death warrant? Please, let me be wrong. For Savannah's sake, let me be wrong.

With morning came breakfast. I didn't touch it. Carmichael arrived at her usual time, shortly before eight, a brusque "How are you?" the only indication that anything had happened the night before. When I said I was fine, she studied me for an extra second, grunted, and began her paperwork.

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.

I started awake and bolted upright in bed. Leaning forward, chest heaving, I ran my hands through my hair, but it wasn't my hair, not a long, tangled mess, but close-cropped curls. I dropped my hands to my lap and stared at them. Thick, squared hands, nails clipped back to the quick. Workman's hands, yet ones that rarely handled a tool larger than a pen. Uncallused, but not soft. Bones broken more times than I could count, each time meticulously reset, emerging unmarred except for a road map of minute scars. I knew each one of those scars. I could remember nights lying awake, asking, "Where'd you get this one? And this one? And-whoops, I gave you that one."

A door opened.

"It didn't work, did it?" Clay's angry drawl, not from the doorway, but here, from the bed.

Jeremy shut the door behind him. "No, Paige wasn't able to make contact. She thought she did, but something went wrong."

"And aren't we all shocked to hell. You're entrusting Elena's life to a twenty-two-year-old apprentice witch. You know that, don't you?"

"I know that I'm willing to use any tool possible to find Elena. Right now, that apprentice witch is our best hope."

"No, she's not. There's another way. Me. I can find Elena. But you won't believe it."

"If Paige is unable to reestablish contact-"

"Goddamn it!" Clay grabbed a book from the nightstand and whipped it across the room, denting the far wall.

Jeremy paused a moment, then continued, voice as unruffled as ever. "I'm going to get you something to drink, Clayton."

"You mean you're going to sedate me again. Sedate me, shut me up, keep me quiet, and calm, while Elena is out there-alone. I didn't believe it was her talking through Paige and now she's gone. Don't tell me that wasn't my fault."

Jeremy said nothing.

"Thank you very much," Clay said.

"Yes, you're to blame for us losing contact that time, though it probably doesn't explain why we can't recontact her. We'll keep trying. In the meantime, perhaps we can discuss this other idea of yours in the morning. Come see me if you change your mind about that drink. It'll help you sleep."

As Jeremy left, the dream evaporated. I tossed and turned, thrown back into the channel-surfing world again. Snap, snap, snap, bits of dreams and memories, too scattered to make any sense. Then darkness. A knock at the door. I was seated at a desk, poring over a map. The door was behind me. I tried to turn or call out a welcome. Instead, I felt my pencil move to scratch a few words on a pad. I looked at the writing and, with no surprise, recognized Clay's scrawl.

The room swirled, threatening to go dark. Something tugged at me with the gentle insistence of the tide, reaching out to pull me back. I fought it. I liked where I was, thank you very much. This was a good place, a comforting place. Just sensing Clay's presence made me happy, and damn it, I deserved a bit of happiness, illusory or not. The tide grew stronger, swelling to an undertow. The room went black. I wrenched myself free and slammed back into Clay's body. He'd stopped writing now and was studying a map. A map of what? Someone knocked again at the door. He didn't respond. Behind him, the door opened, then shut.

"Clayton." Cassandra's voice, butter-smooth.

He didn't answer.

"A grunt of greeting would suffice," she murmured.

"That would imply a welcome. Don't you need to be invited into a room?"

"Sorry. Another myth shot to hell."

"Feel free to follow it."

Cassandra chuckled. "I see Jeremy inherited all the manners in the Danvers family. Not that I mind. I've always preferred honesty and wit over polish." Her voice drew closer as she crossed the room. "I noticed your light on and thought you might care to join me in a drink."

"Love to, but I'm afraid we don't share the same taste in fluids."

"Could you at least look at me when you turn me down?"

No answer.

"Or are you afraid to look at me?"

Clay turned and met her eyes. "There. Piss off, Cassandra. How's that?"

"She's not coming back, you know."

Clay's hand clenched around the pencil, but he said nothing.

I felt the tugging at my feet again and braced myself against it. Somewhere in my head Paige called my name. The undertow surged, but I held firm. This was one scene I definitely wasn't leaving.

"They won't find her," Cassandra said.

"According to you, we should stop trying."

"I only mean that it's a waste of our time. Better we concentrate our efforts on stopping these people. Save all our lives, not just Elena's. If, in stopping them, we rescue her, that's wonderful. If we don't… it's hardly the end of the world."

The pencil snapped between Clay's fingers. Cassandra stepped closer. When the undertow threatened again, I kicked and fought with all my might.

Cassandra took yet another step toward Clay. I felt him tense and start to step back, then stop and hold his ground.

"Yes, you love her," Cassandra said. "I can see that and I admire that. Really, I do. But do you know how many men I've loved in all these years? Loved passionately? And of those men, do you know how few names I remember? How few faces?"

"Get out."

"I'm asking you to join me for a drink. One drink. Nothing more."

"I said, get out."

Cassandra only smiled and shook her head. Her eyes gleamed now with the same look I'd seen her give the server at the restaurant, only stronger. Hungrier. Her fingers grazed Clay's forearm. I wanted to scream for him to look away, but I was powerless to do anything but watch and wait.

"Don't pull that shit, Cassandra," Clay said. "It doesn't work on me."

"No?"

"No."

Clay looked Cassandra squarely in the eyes. She went completely immobile, only her eyes working, glowing brighter as she stared at him. Several minutes passed. Then Clay stepped toward Cassandra. Her lips curved in a triumphant smile. My heart stopped.

"Get out, Cassandra," Clay said, his face only inches from hers. "Ten seconds or I throw you out."

"Don't threaten me, Clayton."

"Or you'll do what? Bite me? Think you can sink your teeth into me before I rip your head off? I hear that's a good cure for immortality. Five seconds, Cassandra. Five… four…"

The scene went black. No swirling, not tugging. Just a sudden stop. I blinked. Harsh light blinded me. I squeezed my eyes shut. Through my lids, I saw the light swing away. Fingers gripped my shoulder and shook me.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead."

A voice. Unfortunately, not Clay's voice. Not Cassandra's voice. Not even Paige's. This was worse. Ten times worse. Ty Winsloe. From pleasant dreams to unsettling visions to outright nightmares. I clenched my eyes shut.

"Whaddaya think, boys?" Winsloe said. "Does our sleeping beauty need a kiss to wake her up? Of course, in the original fairy tale, she needed more than a kiss…"

My eyes snapped open and I bolted upright. Winsloe chortled and beamed a flashlight in my face, then skimmed it over my body.

"You always sleep with your clothes on?" he asked.

"This isn't exactly a private suite," I said, snarling a yawn. "What time is it?"

"Just past three. We need your help. There's been a breakout."

I sat on the edge of my cot, blinking, brain struggling to get past visions of Clay and Cassandra. Three o'clock? In the morning? Breakout? Did he mean someone had escaped? Who? Why did they need my help? Had there been an accident? Did Carmichael want me?

"Huh?" I said. So much for intelligent and articulate questions. What do you expect at three A.M.?

Winsloe prodded me from bed. "I'll explain on the way."