She Who Sees Through Darkness

Part Fifteen

The next few days blurred into a series of tests and evaluations. They ate meals either in the hospital or in the small cafeteria on the bottom floor of the Eyrie. Either place, the scientists surrounded them. Kyle spoke openly, as he always did. Katrina had to bite her lip to prevent herself from screaming the truth. Priorities. Kyle versus millions. The guilt nagged at her, pushing until she'd give anything to make it go away. It culminated in a desperate trip to the scientists' store on the ground floor and an attempt to swap her watch for beer.

"No, ma'am," said the woman behind the counter. "Dr. Harper would have my head for messing in her experiment."

"Come on," Katrina pleaded. "It's a good watch. Just a little." Just once more time, before they start in on me. Who'll know what'll happen then? She could indulge her weakness for just a little longer . . .

But the woman didn't budge, and a nearby security officers decided Katrina was too far from the Eyrie, and escorted her back.

She spent the night staring up at the ceiling of her suite, eyesight blurring as she slid in and out of sleep. What kind of person was she, to try and drown her feelings of responsibility with alcohol instead of telling Kyle the truth? Why can't they have rehab for selfishness? Logically, she knew her actions were justified—but logic had never driven Katrina too far. She'd chosen to enter Indigo against everyone's advice, and she'd fight to get back in against all sanity.

She wouldn't let them put her on easy duty this time. Forget watching frat parties in Boston for a single werewolf brother. She'd tell them to send her to China or India, where she could keep order in a territory with millions of people and thousands of miles to watch. Or maybe to the Middle East, where she'd blend in better, where agents were desperately needed. Whatever good she'd do there would outweigh what she had to do to Kyle. This fortress must be brought down. It endangers every person in the world. When the time came to escape, she couldn't run the risk of bringing Kyle along. I will do good. Some day. Somehow.

Dr. Harper came for her the next day, right after her scheduled time for psych evaluation ran over. "You're twenty minutes late, Katrina."

Katrina wiped her face across her sleeve and tried to look like she hadn't been crying. Dr. Vasilyev, a tall Russian man with a quiet air, stood. "Dr. Harper, this patient is in urgent need of counseling." Kyle had confessed what had happened on the cliff, and Vasilyev had gently brought it up after the questionnaire, and Katrina had realized she couldn't keep pretending it . . . the suicide attempt . . . hadn't actually happened.

"I don't doubt it," Dr. Harper said. "But the set up is time-sensitive. They won't wait for long."

"You're really going to do this, then?" asked Vasilyev.

"No. I've strung you all along for eight years of research. I'm taking the patients out back and shooting them in the head." She folded her arms over her labcoat. "Have I ever not done something I've said I'd do?"

Katrina glanced down at her body, wondering how she could say good-bye to something she both loved and hated for what it could and couldn't do for her. If this goes wrong, it could be good-bye to everything. She wanted to live, now more than ever. She could fake a panic attack and maybe get Dr. Harper to postpone the procedure. Let them test Kyle first, see if it worked, and then—

No. He'd be waiting for her. She couldn't let him do this alone.

So she stood, bile rising in her throat, and followed Dr. Harper out. Borghild closed in tight behind them, and Katrina knew there was nowhere to run.

They marched her into the elevator. Dr. Harper pressed the button marked 'S-1', and the car sunk downward. "Take these." She pulled a packet containing two white pills from her pocket.

"I'm fine," Katrina said, automatically.

"That was an order."

Katrina swallowed the pills. Her heartbeat sped up. Drugs or nerves? Her head spun. Drugs or nerves?

The world outside her body floated away. When the elevator touched down at the bottom of the shaft, Borghild pushed her forward, and Katrina realized she'd forgotten Borghild was there.

Kyle was waiting further up the stone tunnel with Captain O'Brien. He had a warm smile on; the captain had his fists clenched. Cold wind drifted down from where the garage opened on the outside.

"Ready?" Kyle asked her. He took a step forward and stumbled. She caught him, grabbing on tight to his wrist, and pulled up the tunnel. Bizarrely, she felt like she was walking the aisle at her wedding. Stone-cold air slapped them across the face as they left the garage. Outside, the wyverns waited.

Four of them, she thought, but then her head throbbed and her eyesight swam until all she saw were gray walls of flesh rising up to surround them and the red flash of a caribou carcass. Yellow eyes peered up from above the body. She's massive. This wyvern was only slightly smaller than a Hummer—and Katrina knew she was female. Information radiated from the wyvern's body, each new fact trying to rip a hole in her skull. A bone stuck in her long throat, a mix of curiosity and apprehension, a name ripping through the air like bad static from a concert speaker: Payaa.

Katrina fell to her knees. What's in those drugs? Her hand reached for the carcass. The world tilted sideways. Her fingers brushed something smooth and warm. She slid into darkness.

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