The Night Has Teeth (16 page)

She nods, silent and waiting for me. Her fingers
wrap around the chrome bars of my bedside and push down. Walking
around the bed, she does the same on the other side so that I’m
completely unfenced.

“Back up a step. How am I not ― I mean ― I was
bitten, right? I didn’t hallucinate that part. So doesn’t that
mean...?”

“There was a time when being bitten by a werewolf
would have had exactly that outcome,” she admits, taking a seat at
the edge of my bed. “Fortunately for you, we recently developed an
antivenin with the backing of a significant investor.”

I prop myself up against the bed pillows, trying to
follow along. “An antivenin. Like for snakebites?”

“Exactly. I was able to inject it right away, but
the recovery period varies from person to person.”

“How long was I out?”

“About thirty-six hours.”

So, it’s Sunday. Back to school tomorrow. Back to my
life, as messed up as it’s become. It dawns on me that I have no
idea what the outcome of the other night was in that werewolf
version of Fight Club at La Pleine Lune. Did the others make it out
alright?

“What happened? Are Josh and Madison
okay?”

“Of course.”

“What about Amara and Arden?”

Her pale eyebrows go up in surprise. “It’s kind of
you to think about them, considering what they almost did to
you.”

“They were protecting me.”

It seems like she’s about to argue the point but
gauges the situation and simply backs down. “Not a scratch on them,
if you must know. My colleagues only distracted them long enough to
cover our escape.”

Escape. Right. Something I should be thinking of now
that I’ve recovered. If I were to take a wild guess, though, a
four-hundred-year-old werewolf doesn’t skimp on security. Judging
from the view, we’re probably in the tallest building in the city,
too. Nobody can hear you scream from up this high.

“What is this place anyway?”

“We’re a research-driven firm that focuses on
scientific innovations,” she explains. “Boguet Biotechnology
employs over eleven hundred researchers and scientists around the
world who cover a wide range of biotechnology, including molecular
biology, protein chemistry, bio-informatics and physiology. Our
primary research is in the field of recombinant DNA.”

She sounds like a brochure. A very scientific
brochure.

“Um, scientistsayswhat?”

“What?”

“English, please?”

“We’re in the business of genetic
engineering.”

Oh, so mad science, then. “What’s your role in all
this?”

“As it says on my card, I’m an
associate.”

“That sounds like code for assassin or
something.”

“It’s more like public relations,” she explains.
“I put out fires.”

I still don’t know what she means. It’s like she’s
talking in circles on purpose. “Am I a fire?”

She leans back on the palms of her hands, ogling me.
“All I can say is Monsieur Boguet believes there’s something
different about you.”

Color me suspicious. “Why?”

She shakes her head. “I really can’t say.”

“You can’t say because you don’t know or because
you’re not supposed to tell me?”

“Aren’t you paranoid!”

“Can you blame me? I
have
been kidnapped and am being held here against my
will.”

“We’ve done nothing of the sort,” she says,
seeming affronted by the accusation.

“So, I can just leave then?”

She hesitates.

“
Uh-huh.”

I throw off the sheet, making to leave, but pause
since I’m only wearing a hospital gown. My eyes scan the room for
my clothes. There’s a metal valet stand nearby where they are
hanging. Before I can make a move, though, Boadicea leans forward,
puts a hand on my shoulder and gently pushes me back. There are
those green eyes again, cutting through me. For the first time
since we met, I notice there are faint freckles beneath her eyes
that somehow make her look younger than she behaves. Her hand
lingers where it lies and I can feel the heat of it through the
thin cotton. The whole situation makes me feel very naked. And my
near nakedness brings a flush to my face.

“You’re still under observation,” she tells
me.

Her hand slides down my arm, and she carefully
removes the gauze that I partially tore off. She inspects my
wounds. Her proximity makes me nervous, but not entirely out of
fear. I watch as she removes the various needles and electrodes
attached to me. Her very touch sends a shiver across my body.
Boadicea’s skin is so pale, it’s almost translucent. She definitely
looks my age, despite her worldly demeanor. Some people just grow
up faster, I guess. I’ve never stopped to wonder why until now.

“Thank you,” I finally say. “For saving me, that
is.”

Her hands fall back to her sides, and there’s a coy
look about her. “I was only doing my job.”

“Well, you should get a raise.”

“You can wash up in there,” she tells me,
withholding a smile as she points to an adjoining bathroom that
looks larger than my bedroom. “Monsieur Boguet hopes the clothes
are suitable.”

Rising out of the bed, I examine the outfit hanging
from the valet and see they’re actually not mine. They’re all new
designer label versions of everything I was wearing.

“What happened to the clothes I had on my
back?”

“You’ve never been in any sort of major accident,
have you?”

“Not a single broken bone in my body.” I’m unsure
of what that has to do with my missing wardrobe.

“If you’d ever been in one,” she explains, “you’d
know that in an emergency a patient’s clothes are cut off. It makes
getting to crucial arteries a good deal easier.”

I try to imagine the scenario. At least I was
wearing clean underwear. Another wave of embarrassment comes to my
face from the knowledge that even that must have been removed at
some point. I gather up my new belongings and slide the frosted
glass door shut behind me. The bathroom is enormous. It’s done in a
reverse color scheme from the rest of the loft. I’m surrounded by
white marble floors and walls with shiny chrome fixtures. In one
corner is an oversized soaker tub. In another is a glassed-in
shower stall. There are plush black towels folded neatly on a
shelf, and a matching robe hangs below these. The toilet is tucked
behind a half wall. Directly across the way I see my reflection in
a full-length mirror. Everything about me is a mess: my disheveled
brown hair, my sunken brown eyes and gaunt face.

I run the shower as hot as I can bear to scour away
the layer of sweat and grime. After tossing the hospital gown into
a hamper, I step into the stall, where I let the heat sink in and
think about nothing but the simple pleasure of the moment. The
remnants of anxiety that linger within my brain finally wash away,
as though they’ve swirled down the drain along with the residual
blood from my wounds. I inspect the scratch marks along my forearm
and the two punctures on the top of my hand. Turning my hand
palm-side up, I see two smaller wounds. How close was I to becoming
one of them? Things might have ended a whole lot differently had
Boadicea not brought me here. Then again, if she and her thugs
hadn’t meddled with me in the first place, I might never have been
bitten.

When I emerge from the bathroom, my sneakers squeak.
Surely my old shoes didn’t need to be cut off. Not that I’m
complaining about being handed a brand new pair of limited edition
Chuck Taylors. As I approach Boadicea, screeching with every
footstep, she folds her laptop and stows it away in a stylish bag ―
the kind that allows girls to carry just about everything under the
sun. I glance back at the sprawling loft for a moment and get a
view beyond the screened-off hospital bed for the first time. A
wide wood-and-chrome staircase leads up to a bedroom with a modern
four-poster bed and a door that leads to a second bathroom. Behind
the staircase is a contemporary kitchen and a small dining set that
matches perfectly with the rest of the decor.

“Nice place,” I remark.

“Thanks,” she replies, getting to her feet and
swinging the bag over her shoulder.

“You live here?” I ask, unable to hide the wonder
in my voice.

“Yes,” she answers with a smile. “The job isn’t
without its perks.”

I take in the surroundings again in a quick scan.
“No kidding.”

Her high heels click smartly against the tiles as
she walks to the foyer, where she stands by a large painting on the
adjoining wall. Framed behind glass is a symbol I’ve seen before on
a family trip to Ireland: the Celtic tree of life. It’s similar to
the artwork on the screen that separates the hospital bed from the
rest of the living area and provides the only splash of color in
the otherwise black-and-white apartment.

“Let me show you around the office.”

Instead of turning toward the main door, she takes a
plastic card from her bag and inserts it into the edge of the
frame, like she would for an electronic entry to a modern hotel
room or ― apparently ― a biotech office. The black wall panel
slides open, revealing a hallway that circles around a glassed-in
central room. Once we step into the hall, the door slides shut
behind us, with no indication that an exit even exists. Within the
hallway there’s an eerie silence, almost like we’re in a vacuum. It
makes the clicking of Boadicea’s heels all the more distinct. As we
approach one of the many glass doors, I scan the contents of the
room. It’s a large office with several workstations, a central
meeting area and an elevator shaft on the far end. When Boadicea
opens the door, we’re greeted by a blast of music. The glass is
soundproof. I have to wonder if it’s bulletproof, too. A
dark-haired guy who looks more indie hipster than scientist bobs
his head to an alternative rock tune. He wears high tops, a
vintage-looking T-shirt and skinny jeans. Although he’s got his
back to us, I notice a wolf tattoo inked on his left arm. He’s one
of them, alright.

“This is my colleague, Attila,” Boadicea yells
over the noise.

Colleague. Like being a werewolf is a job.

Attila waves by way of greeting, otherwise focused
on his dual monitors. From inside, I get a closer glimpse of the
high-tech equipment that fills the room. Instead of a whiteboard in
the central conference area, a touch-screen tablet has been
embedded in the table. There’s a wall of closed-circuit televisions
on LCD screens, looking over a wide assortment of places from cafés
to clubs to alleyways and offices. One of the views is familiar:
Arden’s butcher shop and the apartment above.

“No way!” another guy’s voice cries over the
music.

From the elevator at the far side of the room
emerges one of the thugs from the other night, the blond one. His
arrival would have been announced by the ping and sliding of the
elevator doors had the tunes not been playing so loudly. That’s
when I clue in that Attila is actually the other thug. Their
presence unnerves me. First impressions are hard to shake, and I
have a lasting one of these two trying to kill Amara and Arden.

“I told you, the numbers don’t lie, man,” calls
Attila, who’s still at his desk focused on whatever task he’s been
assigned.

Thug #1 rolls his eyes and shakes his head
dramatically. “Yeah, yeah. Probabilities and statistics. That’s
practically cheating, nerd.”

Attila merely holds out his hand in a gimme gesture.
“Pay up, Tray.”

I cast Boadicea a quizzical look.

“They placed a bet on whether or not you’d
survive,” she explains, unamused.

“That’s ... really nice.” My voice drips with
sarcasm, something I’ve come to understand that werewolves don’t
understand.

“What, did they take away your sense of humor,
too?” Thug #1 asks as he forks over a wad of cash to
Attila.

I stand corrected. These werewolves are different
somehow. Aside from the way they behave, I don’t get the sense that
they’ve been around for hundreds of years. They seem to just be
legitimately very young men. They must both be prodigies, if
they’re holding down steady jobs at a biotechnology firm. I feel
genetically inferior and make a mental note to buckle down at
school. You know, if I get out of here alive, that is.

Boadicea introduces her other so-called colleague.
“This is Trajan.”

“You’ve all got some unusual names,” I
observe.

“Names fit for warriors,” Attila tells
me.

“Yours is the only one I’ve heard of before,” I
admit. “Like the Hun, right?”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?”

“Exactly how old are you, anyway?” I ask, ignoring
the snark.

“We take on new identities when we cross over into
their world,” Boadicea interrupts in a more congenial
way.

“So ... none of you were born
werewolves?”

Suddenly I feel all their eyes on me. Even Attila
has stopped whatever he was doing at the computer to look back at
me. I sense very clearly that I’ve asked the wrong question.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I hazard. “So, that
means you were all bitten then.”

Instead of feeding the conversation, my words have
the opposite effect. Trajan retreats to his workstation while
Attila puts headphones on to silence the music. It becomes
unbearably quiet in the room.