Xenofreak Nation (6 page)

And he didn’t have nearly that long.

Bryn was waiting for his answer. He tried to think of something charming to say, something that would tempt her into giving up what Padme had said about her family. Not that Padme had necessarily told her anything useful; told her the truth even. Still, even mentioning to Padme that Bryn had told him what she said could give him the ‘in’ he needed.

He decided on the sympathy angle. “Padme’s had a hard time of it.”

Bryn’s face softened slightly. “That’s an understatement.”

“Did she tell you everything?”

Bryn nodded. Scott wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake it out of her. Maybe he should try a different tack.

“I heard she deserved it though.”

“What? No one deserves that! What’s wrong with you? Oh, sorry, I forgot, you’re the one who got furry fingers. Ooo, big man, with your furry fingers thinking Padme should get cow ears because her uncle’s a dickhead.”

Scott restrained the urge to show her his claws—barely. New plan: tell Padme Bryn had told him anyway. Not like Bryn was ever going to talk to Padme again to refute it.

He subsided into silence, content with his decision. Bryn suddenly gasped and he looked up.

Her face was contorted, like she’d seen a ghost.

“What now?” he asked.

She’d begun to breathe hard and her eyes darted in all directions. Was she having a latent reaction to the pot?

“Tell me the truth,” she said in a tortured whisper. The whites of her eyes showed all around. “What are they going to do to me?”

Oh, shit, he thought. Nurse Nancy was due any second now, and Scott had just begun to think clueless Bryn wasn’t going to figure it out until after the fact. Now he had to calm her down or it could get very ugly, very fast in this little room.

In a firm voice, he said, “They are going to return you to your father, alive.”

Tears spilled out of her eyes and her chin quivered. “They kidnapped Padme, too.”

The lie was on the tip of his tongue, despicable. But he didn’t have to use it. Before he could tell her that everything would be alright, a knock sounded on the door, like a toll bell ringing. It was the catalyst that set Bryn off into abject hysterics.

“No!” she screamed, scrambling to her feet atop the exam table.

Scott barely had time to get out of the way before the door swung open. Nurse Nancy tromped in, followed by Nurse Vonda. This wasn’t the first time Scott had seen the two burly nurses subdue a patient, but it was the first time he felt absolutely sick about it.

Chapter Eleven

When she was five years old, after a series of unrelenting sore throats, Bryn’s tonsils had been removed. She remembered bits and pieces of the event despite a sedative-induced fog: the reassuring hand-squeeze from her mother as she was wheeled down the hospital corridor, the smiles of the nurses and surgeon, the kind eyes of the masked anesthesiologist as he put something over her nose and mouth and asked her to count backwards.

When she came out of her drug-induced fog this time, she knew there would be no unlimited ice cream or cartoons and video games all day. She opened her eyes to the dark interior of a vehicle. The steady hum of an engine and constant bouncing motion told her they were moving. Right away she remembered this wasn’t the first time she’d awakened. There’d been a grey room somewhere and masked people, and restraints on her arms and legs. Each time she’d come to, she weakly protested against the pain. She’d been scared, angry, and then nothing.

The motion stopped and sometime later, not long, she thought, she heard doors opening. A fresh breeze, the first she’d felt in some time, cooled her hot face. Silent, shadowy figures appeared on either side of her. The dimly lit studded metal ceiling of the vehicle seemed to slide disorientingly over her until the night sky appeared and she realized the figures had pulled her out. She tried to move her head, but it was weighed down somehow. The sound of slamming doors was followed by the revving of the engine. She breathed in a wave of exhaust fumes as the vehicle departed.

“Hello?” she tried to call out, but her throat constricted. She swallowed a few times to lubricate it, but her mouth was too dry. Moving her hands, she found them unbound at last.

Realization dawned. They’d released her. She drew a shuddering breath and felt the sting of tears, but didn’t pause to indulge them. Hands shaking, she reached up to her head. It was wrapped in thick layers of what felt like gauze. She lowered her hands to whatever she was resting on and carefully levered herself into a sitting position.

She was on a sidewalk on a deserted street in the dark space between two orange streetlights. They’d dumped her, stretcher and all. Slowly, she moved first one leg and then the other off the side of the stretcher. Her clothes and shoes were gone, but they’d dressed her in a hospital gown and paper booties. Dizzy and nauseous, she slid to her feet.

Bryn wanted to run, but was physically incapable of more than keeping herself upright. Turning her head was a challenge, so she twisted her torso to look up the street and then down. One way looked more promising than the other; a large, well-lit building beaconed. Walking unaided was out of the question, however, so she gritted her teeth and began pushing the stretcher.

It was a long, slow journey, but soon after she began, a lighted sign came into view and spurred her on: Middleborough Hospital. The shuffling of her feet had long since worn the paper booties away when she reached the emergency room entrance. A man in blue scrubs came through the sliding glass doors and glanced her way.

“Help me,” she said.

Chapter Twelve

Everyone in the Warehouse was on high alert. Dozens of squatters were packing their things and moving on in anticipation of the retaliation that was sure to occur, and probably soon. Like everyone else living there, Scott knew the police looked the other way when they cruised down the sprawling block that was home to the Warehouse and its tumbledown outbuildings. They did so not out of kindness towards the xenofreakish people, but because Lupus ensured it was worth their while to give the block a wide berth. But the big news of the day had everyone fidgeting nervously, wondering when the raids would begin and how bad it would go for them.

Scott watched a Holonews Worldwide broadcast from Abel’s office, which was powered, like the exam rooms, with a portable gas generator. The reporter was young but remained unflustered even when the swirling wind out in front of Middleborough Hospital blew her shoulder length blond hair into her face. She removed a strand that had gotten stuck in her lipstick and began her report:

“It has been confirmed by the FBI that the daughter of Harry Vega, the director of a New York-based anti-xenofreak organization known as The Pure Human Society, who mysteriously disappeared two weeks ago, has been found alive. Although no one has agreed to speak with us in an official capacity, our sources tell us the FBI had no leads on the case and had received no demands from seventeen-year-old Bryn Vega’s captors. She disappeared in broad daylight after the latest in a string of rallies by her father to gain supporters for his cause: regulating xenoalteration in the Legislature. Our sources say the girl was dropped off a block away from Middleborough Hospital, where she was admitted and examined and is in protective custody as we speak. No word on her condition, although witnesses described her as disoriented, with nearly her entire head swathed in bandages.”

So it was something on her head, Scott thought. He hoped it wasn’t her face, and not for the first time felt helpless and frustrated. With Abel in the room, he kept his face blank and appeared to be unmoved by the holocast. Abel, however, was jubilant.

“Now everyone will think twice before messing with us,” he said with a guttural chuckle. “I can’t wait for the big reveal. I heard Dr. Fournier outdid himself on this one.”

Scott nodded, thinking, you’re insane. The general populace already did think twice before messing with xenofreaks. As far as Scott was concerned, this act of stupidity would accomplish exactly nothing towards inspiring fear and respect, and it was more likely to fuel Harry Vega’s fire than shut him up. Once Bryn told her story of how she’d been kidnapped by the XBestia gang, and once they examined Dr. Fournier’s handiwork, swift retribution could be expected from the authorities. A few were responsible, but many would pay, and Scott doubted the flak would be contained within the city of New York.

“People are leaving.” He jerked his head towards the door. “Even Paddy packed up his hotdog stand and took off. Shirley said she and her girls are going to lay low until this blows over. She’s got two strikes.”

Abel threw his hands into the air. “Let ‘em leave! Damned place is too crowded anyway.”

Scott nodded. “Exam Room Three’s been sanitized and the word’s out.” Everyone knew what would happen if they talked. It was said that Lupus’ wolf face disguised one of the ten most wanted criminals on the FBI’s list, and he’d certainly proven himself to be vicious enough to qualify since he’d been in charge of Dr. Fournier’s operation.

Abel shut off the holovision and stood. He reached for the stained and battered cowboy hat he wore in public and settled it over his horns. “My wife has chemotherapy this morning.”

Coming from just about anyone else, the statement would elicit sympathy, but Abel made it sound like an inconvenience and an excuse to leave at the same time.

Scott asked, “What should we do if the cops come?”

Abel looked annoyed. “Run. Walk. Sit on your tuchus. I don’t care; just keep your mouth shut.”

Scott preceded him out the door and watched as he locked the office and set the alarm, a necessary precaution to prevent theft from the Warehouse folks, some of whom had proven desperate enough in the past to risk severe retribution to fuel their expensive habits. The alarm wouldn’t stop the police from breaking down the door, but they wouldn’t find information linking this branch of the facility to Dr. Fournier, much less anything leading them to his location. Scott knew because he’d already searched for it.

Abel took the one elevator in the Warehouse leading down to a very small underground parking lot with four large spots used exclusively by him and Lupus and for the vans that transported patients. Scott made his way to his tent. More and more xenos were leaving; it was starting to look like a mass exodus. As he approached Padme’s tent, he saw beyond the unzipped opening that she, too, was packing.

He’d tried to talk to her after Bryn was carted off, tried to use what he’d learned to get her to open up to him, but if anything, it backfired. Padme had muttered, “Stupid girl,” and walked away. She hadn’t spoken to him since, and he didn’t push it. The last thing he wanted was to give the impression that he was chasing after Lupus’ woman.

But today’s events gave him an opportunity to casually approach her and he wasn’t going to pass that up. He didn’t go so far as to invite himself into her tent however. Standing a few feet from the entrance, he said, “You leaving?”

Padme pressed her lips together in an approximation of a smile. “Obviously.”

“Well, I heard there’s room at Montenegro House.” It was a battered women’s shelter.

She tossed her rucksack over her shoulder. “They require residents to attend counseling sessions and to have a green card. I have a place to go, thank you.”

He wondered if she was going to be allowed to stay with Lupus, but didn’t dare ask.

“Well,” he said in a deliberately casual tone, “If I don’t see you again, good luck.”

“Scott,” she said.

He turned, surprised she’d used his real name. She didn’t say anything right away, like she was deciding if she should. Finally, she began walking backwards. “You seem like a decent guy…which is why they don’t trust you.”

A cold knot formed in his gut as she spun on her heel and disappeared from view. He’d worked hard for ‘their’ trust, done things that he never would have imagined himself capable of doing—all to gain their slippery trust. If his basic decency showed through, it was because the one thing he couldn’t do convincingly was pretend he enjoyed it. That’s why he kept his face as inscrutable as possible at all times—so they’d expect him to show no emotion no matter what was going on.

Padme’s words were intended as a warning, but Scott didn’t have time to contemplate them. Someone ran towards him, shouting, “They’re coming!” Before Scott could even react, a loud, bright series of flash-bangs sounded all around and smoke began belching out of multiple grenades from every entrance along the perimeter of the Warehouse. Armed and armored figures poured in, gas masks covering their faces. Scott hoped none of the panicked xenos fired on them, or there’d be a bloodbath. Just in case, he lay flat on the ground and waited.

The acrid green smoke that burned his eyes and nasal passages had dispersed evenly by the time a team of two agents ordered him to his feet at gunpoint. Scott stood, arms raised, and allowed himself to be frisked, bagged and tagged. He was forced to stand with one of several guarded groups of frightened xenos, hands bound behind his back with a specially-made zip-tie. They’d been told to stand quietly, but Barney was making his way over to talk to Scott, who refused to meet his eyes.