Six rules undying book 2, p.15
Six (Rules Undying Book 2), page 15
“Did you spike my drink?” Paige heard herself ask.
“Yes.”
She could feel the button on her jeans coming undone as her own fingers reached hungrily between their hips to try and set Lorcan free. Just as she had liberated his belt buckle, Lorcan cried out and pushed away.
“We can’t—” he gasped as he wiped the blood from his lips and licked the back of his hand. His eyes widened in horror as he slowly
tasted her again.
“Which one of them did this to you?” he asked. He grabbed her shoulders. “Which one bit you?”
“You’re a—you’re a—” She stammered as the world began to spin. Suddenly she could hear her dad’s words echoing in her skull.
“I know who is manipulating us, baby. I know now that it wasn’t aliens. It was never aliens. There is a dark, sinister force right here trying to control us all, and we have to stop it!”
Paige cried out in terror as her eyes snapped open. This time she was once more snuggled on her mother’s sofa.
“It’s vampires, honey, and I have proof,” Paige whispered, echoing her father’s words.
She scrambled to her feet and ran to the bathroom to inspect the mark on her neck. The red mark had already faded to a barely perceptible purplish splotch, but as she touched it, all of the gut-wrenching sensations washed over her again. She doubled over on the bathroom floor and clutched her sides. As she held on to her ribs, she could literally feel them move and crack in place, while her teeth and fingertips began to throb in pain.
Her neck cracked as she tried to move. In her agony her canines tore into her bottom lip, sending drops of bright red onto the tile. “Hel—help,” she mouthed, but her throat burned and refused to make a sound. By the time she was able to look up, a completely different pair of eyes reflected in the mirror—a pair of shining gold irises all but devoid of pupils or corneas. She reached desperately for the stranger in the mirror, but her hands snapped and cracked as her fingers extended and warped into a monstrous hooked shape.
She whimpered and shook as her nails lifted one by one, and terrifying black claws burst from her now-bleeding fingertips.
She clawed at the T-shirt that was now frightfully taut against her expanding rib cage. Each breath seemed to force her chest out farther and farther as the collar started to tear under the pressure of her neck muscles bursting to get free. She clawed at her chest, shredding the fabric to reveal a newly reinforced sternum and her undulating, frightfully defined abs.
“Help,” she gasped before a seizure ripped through her body and she collapsed into the fetal position. Her ankles snapped and crackled as her feet began to lengthen and the same claws burst through her skin. She watched helplessly as her little toes split away from their brethren and curled sharply into savage-looking dewclaws, all while every pore in her legs forced out thick tufts of hair.
She growled and tore away any of the remaining cloth that clung to her lower body, leaving the shredded, bloody remains of sweatpants as her hips began to snap at a ninety-degree angle, forcing her into a quadruped position. Paige reached her claws toward the bathtub, but as she moved, the entire base of her spine split open, forcing her chest to the floor as blood and skin splattered beside her. Paige whimpered as she became acutely aware of something new and frightening extending from the base of her spine.
In the mirror she could see something matted and bloodstained curling out of her back. A few seconds later, she was wagging her brand-new tail as she could actually feel her jaw breaking and expanding as her ears started to migrate and stretch toward the top of her head.
The next sound she made was a howl.
- 10 -
“Paige? Paige, can you hear me?”
Paige fluttered one eye open to see a hazy landscape of an IV, some bland off-white curtains, and ceiling tiles with lot of little dots punched into them. Her other eye remained covered under a pile of bandages, and an overwhelming smell of blood and antiseptic filled Paige’s nose as she choked on a plastic tube.
She tried to lift an arm but found her progress stopped by a much larger and heavier-than-normal set of padded handcuffs. Her one eye widened in horror as she couldn’t feel her right arm nor either of her legs.
She forced out a whimper of desperation as a bunch of machines beeped at her from all sides. She jerked her left hand violently, shaking the entire reinforced steel bed frame. Now her whimpers devolved into growls.
“Easy, easy,” Kyle said as he slowly approached her. He now wore a lab coat and safety goggles, with his unruly red hair pulled back. He reached a gloved hand toward her face, sending her once more into a convulsive panic.
All of the monitors burst to life, filling the room with a synthesized cacophony of warning alarms. Her teeth tore through the tube in her mouth, and she coughed and choked violently in the remains.
“Jesus, woman!” Kyle cried as he dodged a spray of plastic and spittle. He grabbed a syringe and jabbed it into the feeder line of her IV before daring to lunge at her to yank out the offending tube. Paige didn’t miss the opportunity to chomp.
“Calm down,” he ordered; however, it was the warm happy liquid flowing into her veins that finally made Paige settle back down into a fitful semiconscious state.
Kyle shook his hand as he removed the outer sterile glove.
Underneath was a second layer of what looked like chain mail. He slowly peeled that down to take a look at the painful indentations on his skin. “Thank god this stuff is rated for great white sharks,” he muttered as his skin remained unbroken. “Now I need to know if you can hear me. Are you Paige?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice even.
She looked down at her left hand. Jagged black claws poked through the bloodied bandages on her fingertips. Tears welled in her good eye as she saw thick black hair peeking from under the restraints and dusky, mottled bruising all up and down her aching arm.
“If you are Paige, please blink two times. Blink two times if you understand me,” Kyle said.
She turned her neck slightly and winced as she heard bones crackle and pop. She opened and closed her good eye twice. Kyle let out a deep sigh of relief and pulled up a tablet.
“Oh, thank goodness. I thought I’d lost you,” he said as he tapped the screen with his now bare hand. “I’m so glad you can hear me, Paige.”
She let out a whimper. Kyle hurriedly set down his screen and grabbed a sippy cup from a tray. “Think you can drink this, hon?”
For the next few minutes, Paige choked down a few sips of water. The taste of the plastic and blood continued to haunt her, and she had to stop frequently. Kyle continued to watch her closely, occasionally looking over to a monitor in one of Paige’s blind spots.
Every time she so much as twitched, he jumped a little.
“I know you don’t mean to bite, but we have to be careful,” Kyle said as he slowly moved away. “Your larynx is badly distorted, so it’s going to be a while before you can speak. Try to stay calm and try to stay still. If you need something, flutter your eyelid.” He pointed to a larger black dot on the ceiling. “My sister has a camera trained on
your eye, and someone is watching you twenty-four-seven, OK?
You’re safe, I promise.”
Paige gnashed her teeth and glared at him. He shook his head and pulled layers of gloves back on before approaching. She followed his hand as he slowly, cautiously, sat down at her bedside, careful to make no sudden moves.
“You are safe now, Paige,” Kyle said. “You are totally safe. I know that everything is confusing right now, but you need to stay calm, and you need to listen to me if you want to get better. Do you want to get better, Paige?”
She blinked twice.
He smiled, softening his already boyish and innocuous face. He grabbed a pile of zip-top baggies from the tray table with the water.
“Now, Paige, I’m going to open these bags one by one. I want you to blink twice if you smell anything familiar. If you can’t smell anything, just give me one wink, OK?”
She blinked twice.
The moment he opened the bag, tears welled in her eye. She mouthed the word “Mom” and gave a little grunt.
“You recognize your mother?” Kyle asked.
Paige blinked twice.
“I want you to know that she’s all right. You didn’t hurt her, Paige, OK? Your mom is all right.”
Tears continued to pour down her cheek. As she sniffled, the redhead gently blotted her cheek, keeping an eye on her mouth the whole time. “Mom,” Paige mouthed again.
“Please don’t try to speak, hon,” Kyle said. “Your mom is fine.
She didn’t see anything at all. Your mom is fine, and you’re gonna be fine. You just have to stay calm. Now I can keep you sedated, but it’s going to slow down your recovery. Are you in pain, Paige?”
She blinked twice.
“Is the pain so bad that you want to go to sleep?”
She blinked once.
Kyle nodded. “I’m going to open one more bag. I just need to know if you recognize this smell, and then I’ll ask you some names so you don’t have to try to speak. Do you understand?”
Two blinks.
This time before he opened the bag, he made certain his hands were tucked way back from the eager chompers of Miss Carmichael.
He slid open the seal, and Paige bared her teeth.
“Do you recognize this smell?” he asked over her snarls. “I think I’ll take that as a yes.”
She spat in disgust as she blinked two times.
“I took the liberty of texting your boyfriend to say that something came up and you had to stay at your mother’s for a few days.
Surprisingly, he just said OK,” Kyle said as he resealed the bag.
“Soon we’re going to have to think of a better reason for your disappearance, especially if your mother and boyfriend are close.
Are they close?”
One blink.
“Small miracles,” Kyle said as he put the bags back on the tray.
“I promise that I will explain everything that I can once you start feeling better, but for now you just need to relax.”
Paige winced as a spasm rolled through her lower body. She let out a howl as her legs curled and thrashed of their own accord.
Terrible cracking sounds echoed in the room as Paige’s hips popped at the same time. She screamed as the feeling in her legs returned to her in a single rush.
Kyle tapped a button on the IV stand. Paige continued to arch her back and scream until another merciful round of sedatives knocked her out.
The next time Paige came to, it was to a sound rather like crisp rice cereal. She could even smell milk in the air as her stomach growled.
She opened her good eye to watch in wonder as the bones of her bare feet undulated and popped as they slowly but clearly shortened and thickened into some semblance of human form. Paige watched in drugged fascination as those undulating feet were connected to a close approximation of her legs, though these legs were still tragically hairy and far too long in the shins.
An adult diaper gave her a bit of modesty as cameras watched her otherwise bare body writhe and contort. She could see every rib,
every muscle definition, from her now-nonexistent bust to her frightfully cinched waist. She lifted her left arm as high as she could and even managed to slightly wiggle her right pinky after a few seconds of intense concentration.
A disembodied version of Kyle’s voice echoed from an unseen speaker. “Try to hold still, Paige. We’re trying to get some diagnostic images. Sorry the lights are bright.”
She closed her eyes until the door opened. She could smell Kyle as the doctor paced around her helpless body and made some tapping noises. A moment later a light layer of bedsheets was draped over her torso.
“You really need to eat something,” he said, pulling over the tray.
Paige discovered that the milky smell came from a sixty-four-ounce truck-stop drink jug filled to the brim with a vanilla protein shake. She initially turned up her nose at it, but her stomach growled defiantly in protest.
“All right; I’m going to tilt you up,” Kyle warned as he grabbed the bed remote. “Let me know if it hurts.”
“How?” she choked out. Her eye widened at the gravelly sound that came from her lips.
“Your neck looked normal this morning. I wanted to see if the larynx had reset,” Kyle said. “Excellent progress, Paige.”
She just gave him a withering look. He slowly raised her to a sitting position. She winced, but was ultimately able to endure. “What is that?” she whispered.
“Everything your body needs right now,” Kyle said as he slid the tray in front of her. She took note of his thick gloves and long sleeves. He bent the bright blue straw for her. “It’s not the tastiest stuff on the planet, but right now you need calories desperately. I don’t think you have an ounce left in your fat reserves.”
She started sucking on the straw dutifully, her stomach too desperate for her furious taste buds to overrule. Kyle slipped over and changed a bag on her IV, then took down another set of measurements on his tablet. Once Paige finished about a third of the jug, she was able to lie back with a weak smile on her face.
“Why?” she wheezed.
“Why are you here?” Kyle asked.
Paige shook her head slightly. “Why help me?” she whispered.
“It’s what I do,” Kyle said. “I’m a doctor, first and foremost. Now, you need to finish at least two of these. I want you to consume about twenty thousand calories a day for the next week. Don’t look surprised. After all you’ve been through, you need the diet of an Olympic athlete just to survive, let alone heal. Don’t you give me that look, Paige! I do know what I’m talking about.”
She meekly complied and spent the next hour slurping protein and trying to take stock of her surroundings. Her arms were both secured with heavy-duty chains wrapped around the bed frame and then welded to large anchors bolted into solid concrete. Her legs were unbound but so warped and in pain that she could barely move them. As she shifted her shoulders and back, she became aware of a strange sensation extending from her spine. After an hour of miniscule adjustments, she was finally able to tilt just enough to one side to gawk at a long, hairy tail still poking out of her tailbone.
As she stared at it, the tip twitched. The more she stared, the faster it swished. The mix of black, chestnut, and blond fur made for a close approximation of her natural hair color.
“I see you can move it still,” Kyle said as he looked up from his tablet. “Be careful, though; I’ve heard that playing with those can make you go blind.”
Paige squeaked a bit as her eye widened. Kyle waved his hands in apology. “Too soon for jokes?” he asked.
“Have tail,” she choked out. “I have a . . . tail.”
“Yes, that is more than a little unusual. In fact, I’ve never seen a nonvestigial tail emerge before. You actually created a secondary set of vertebrae, muscles, and nerves. I’m hoping that you’ll gradually reabsorb the tissue, but this is truly remarkable.”
Paige spent the better part of the next hour trying her best not to keep twitching the strange appendage, but eventually the siren song became too much. She swished it back and forth while Kyle measured her shins and peeked under bandages.
“Am I going to be OK?” she whispered as Kyle gingerly lifted the bandage from the right side of her face.
The redhead stared intently at her. He carefully tilted her head to the side. In the light she could barely make out angry red streaks and terrible swelling in her reflection. He adjusted his glasses, distorting the image further. She closed her eyes and let him poke and prod a bit more.
“I think you’ll live,” Kyle said. “Your lacerations are healing. If you keep on eating, you should be back on your feet in less than a week. It all depends on how many of these happy drugs you need in your system.”
“Drugs?” she whispered as she looked at the IV.
“I’m afraid I have to keep you on a pretty potent cocktail of sedatives and painkillers,” Kyle said. “Otherwise you get rather bitey.”
Paige growled weakly as her bandages were looped around her aching head. As soon as he was done, he returned to his tablet and clicked his tongue as he reviewed the latest data. “You basically have the hormones of an army of PMSing teenagers right now, Paige. It’s pretty potent stuff when you think about it,” he said. “I haven’t seen levels like these, well, ever.”
“I guess I’m special,” she grumbled in a half-asleep stupor.
“You are,” he said. “Most people would be dead after breaking nearly every bone in their body. I didn’t think an untrained full shift was even possible. Anyway, you need to focus on the present; get plenty of rest. I’m going to make you another shake, so if you need anything just talk to the camera.”
She dozed off for a few minutes, blissfully enjoying her painkillers until the door opened again. The aroma of the new person in the room immediately snapped her good eye open. She growled at the ungloved hand that set her fresh protein shake on the tray.
“How very good it is to see you too, Miss Paige,” Lorcan said.
The fluorescent lights in the room had drained every trace of color from his skin and made his eyes shine unnaturally bright and pale.
“You’re a vampire,” Paige choked out.
Lorcan smiled to clearly show off his fangs. “And you are a werewolf, my dearest. Now that we have that out of the way, can we talk?”
Paige looked away. As she focused on the shiny chrome of her bedside rail, it became perfectly obvious that her new guest had no reflection. She could still see the flicker out of the corner of her eye, though, as he paced around her bed.
“Can I at least talk to you if you won’t talk to me?” he asked.
