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Judging by the aggravated sigh the other nurse let out, I assumed they weren’t supposed to engage in personal conversations with us. That made sense, considering I couldn’t have been the first one to threaten an employee’s family.
“Me too,” I told him. “I bet this is your first real job. Good salary? Health benefits too? I’m guessing you’re thinking about how bright your future is with this real medical job on your resume. ” The female nurse grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him towards the door. “But you’re not doing good work here. You think we’re the monsters? Yo
u’re the monsters. ”
They left, and a moment later the door reopened. This time the familiar figure of The Doctor filled the frame. Tonight he was dressed up, wearing a nice pair of slacks and a velvet tuxedo jacket in a rich blood-red color. On another man it might have looked ridiculous, but he owned it somehow, appearing fierce and regal.
He scared the shit out of me.
Before now I’d thought the only person I could be so afraid of was Sig. But what had me afraid of Sig? The idea he had the power to kill me? He and I shared blood. He loved me in a demented way, and I’d spent such a long time being afraid of him I hadn’t really noticed.
The Doctor didn’t love me. Not unless Madame Curie loved polonium. I was a discovery to him, and the awe and adoration on his face whenever he looked at me was nothing more than a gross fascination with what my existence could mean to him.
Fortune and glory. Wasn’t that the ultimate goal?
I was his polonium. His insulin or his skeleton of the first homo sapien. The Doctor had no interest in me as Secret McQueen. He didn’t care about my history or my life. He just wanted to glean what he could.
That made him scarier than anyone I’d ever known. Because I couldn’t reason with him or barter with him. He already had what he wanted from me, and that was my body. I needed to convince him my body was more valuable alive than dead for the time being.
“Are you going to take me to Holden?” I asked.
“We made a deal, did we not? Do I strike you as a man who does not live up to his word?”
“You strike me as the man who held my…heart…” I struggled with the words, suddenly short of breath as I recalled the experience. “Someone who held my heart in his hands while I was still awake. That’s the man you strike me as. ”
“And what a fine, strong heart it is. ”
He was totally unmoved by my words, further convincing me words would not be the key to unlocking my prison. A damn shame, too, since one of my greatest skills was talking.
The Doctor held out a dress. It was the same color as his jacket, which explained why I hadn’t noticed it strung over his arm when he’d arrived.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a dress. ”
He didn’t tell me to wear it, didn’t give me any long-winded explanations of why he wanted me to put it on. He just held it out, and I took it. That might have been the thing about him that bothered me the most. The way I obeyed.
Six years working with the council hadn’t broken me.
Two years with Lucas and his pack hadn’t broken me.
Nine days with this man and I would have come if he snapped his fingers.
I didn’t want to obey. I loathed myself for not putting up a fight, and I knew my wolf was thinking of me as a traitorous coward, but I was doing what I had to do. I’d long believed there were two options when it came to survival—fight or flight.
Now I knew better.
There was a third option, and no one talked about it. Fighting was brave and running was smart. The final choice was neither and both at the same time.
Confronted with the end of my life, I didn’t go down fighting.
I kneeled.
I bowed to my goddamn captor. Rolled over and showed him my belly. It disgusted me how easily I’d let it come to this, but the sad, honest truth was…I didn’t want to be hurt anymore. I was standing on a thin line between sanity and absolute madness, and for the moment I was still myself, but I wasn’t sure how long that would be true if I had to see what my own internal organs looked like again.
Wasn’t I already flirting with a very dangerous version of myself? Who was this woman who threatened strangers for doing their jobs? Who was I to imagine taking a life because someone had measured my blood pressure?
Who was I?
