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“He’s going to want to see me. ”
The nurse sighed, rolling his eyes. He’d heard this before. I had to wonder how many others had been in this room before me, and all the different ways they’d attempted to woo these people into letting them go. If I’d had my full strength, I would have tried to enthrall the nurse, I couldn’t pretend otherwise.
He was accustomed to that dog-and-pony show, though, because he wasn’t looking me right in the eyes. Some people who knew how the thrall worked would focus on my forehead so it at least appeared like they were meeting my gaze. This guy was fixated on my chin. If his gaze had dropped any lower, I’d be convinced he was staring at my tits, but I doubted he saw me as a sexual object.
Hard to be attracted to someone when they were bound to end up like a biology class frog. Once you’d seen someone’s literal guts, it had to be difficult to think of them as a hot commodity. I wasn’t offended. I didn’t plan to use my feminine wiles to get out of here.
“He’s seen everything he needs to see from you today. ”
“He’s going to want to see this,” I insisted.
The man turned to go, and I panicked. This plan only worked if I was going to get out of the room, and to do that I needed to convince this guy I wasn’t talking out my ass.
“Wait. He’s a scientist right? You all are. I mean, this isn’t a hospital, so we’re in some kind of lab. Right?”
He didn’t say anything, but he did stop his attempt to leave.
“I get it,” I said, trying to sound calm. “My grandmother, she’s a scientist. Studied genetics and biology. She taught me to respect science, to look for an explanation. I understand why you guys are doing this. I’m different. I defy logic, and you want to make me make sense, right?”
The nurse stared at me, and a variety of expressions battled for supremacy over his face. He looked conflicted and angry but also confused and a little sad. I’d read somewhere making yourself human to those who might want to kill you would at least give them pause. If they stopped thinking of you as an object—or in my case a monster—and started relating to you on a human level, you had a better chance.
“My name is Secret,” I told him. “I live in New York City. I have a boyfriend and a family. I have friends and a job. ” This had been the wrong tactic. He appeared disgusted, either with himself for listening or me for trying something so obvious. I backpedaled. “I know none of it matters. I know you guys just see me as a mystery you can solve by taking me apart. But I can do things. ”
That got him back to me. “Do things? What kind of things?”
In the condition I was in I could perform such astonishing feats as walking, talking and breathing, but he didn’t need to know how limited my current range was.
“I have abilities. ”
“Show me. ” He crossed his arms and stared at my chin.
What I wouldn’t have given right then to be Eugenia. She hit the hybrid jackpot compared to me, by inheriting Grandmere’s witchy skills and our mother’s lycanthropy. I didn’t know if there was a precedent for were-witches, but she could have given this guy a hell of a display with her glowy-handed mojo.
“Only him. ”
“Bullshit,” the nurse scoffed. “You can’t do anything. ”
His dismissal rankled me, and for the first time I got decidedly sick of being treated like pond scum on a microscope slide. This guy was nothing, he was a human and he was not going to stop me from getting what I wanted.
“I am a werewolf queen,” I snarled. “I am the head of the vampire Tribunal. I am the great-granddaughter of the scariest witch I’ve ever known, and I have beheaded a fuc…frigging demon. You listen to me, you pathetic approximation of Darwinism. I want to speak to The Doctor. I will only speak to The Doctor. I don’t care how much power you think you have, because when you leave this room you are just a man. You are a man with a family and friends, and since you’ve chosen not to respect that fact about me, I won’t respect it about you. Your life is disposable to me. You are nothing. And if you think I don’t have a way to show my people your face, you are sorely mistaken. ” I glared at him, never moving or making my threat physical, but putting every ounce of my formidability behind it. I wanted to swear at him, but my words would lose a lot of oomph if I was writhing around on the floor by his feet. In my head I was adding a lot of fucks though.
“You don’t scare me,” I continued. “You can’t intimidate me. As far as I’m concerned, you’re already dead. But I am afraid of him. And I’m asking you to get him for me. So stop jerking off and get me The Doctor. ”
“No,” he replied evenly, before walking out and leaving me alone again, all out of plans, with no bluster left.
Several hours later the door opened, and this time it was The Doctor himself. He’d changed out of the scrubs I’d last seen him in and was wearing a simple dress shirt tucked into gray pants. He wore horn-rimmed glasses I hadn’t noticed before, and his tie was loosened at the neck.
“I understand you wish to speak with me. ”
“So glad you got the message. ”
“A bit dramatic, perhaps, telling poor Geoffrey his number was up. I think you might have done better with kindness. ”
“You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar…that old saying?”
“Precisely. ”
“Where’s your chair?” I asked.
