Franco seemed frozen. Angelica remembered the man’s caginess when he told her about the girl in the lieutenant’s quarters. He has a good heart. She held her breath. Somewhere in there.

“No,” he said, and faced the doctor squarely.

“I’m sorry, Franco, I seem to have misunderstood. Did you just refuse a direct order?” Melinda hissed and strode behind the nurses’ station. Franco didn’t move or speak. She stood there a moment, in apparent disbelief. “Are you under orders to work under me? Am I still in charge of your little division here?” She opened a drawer and rooted around, searching for something as she spoke. “Disobeying me means disobeying your superiors; you realize that, don’t you?”

“I will not break her hand.” He spoke the words simply. A polite refusal, though Angelica could see the way the sweat beaded his forehead. “She is unarmed and weak. There is no need for violence.”

“But you do understand...” Melinda said, closing a drawer and looking behind the desk at the cabinets there, though the doors were open, showing empty shelves, “...that you are in dereliction of duty, yes?”

Franco said nothing. He simply stood and faced her.

“Franco,” Angelica half-whispered the words, “don’t do this for me.”

Franco looked at her and shook his head. “I’m not doing this for you, Doctor. I do this so I do not become whatever Batu was. I will not hurt the innocent for the sake of causing pain, any more than I will stand by and watch my people be sold into slavery to fund this...” He waved at the facility, his face twisted in anger and pain.

Melinda laughed. “Franco,” she said sadly, shaking her head, “this is paid for by a private investor. Do you think I’d have anything to do with human trafficking?” Her voice rose on the last, and she made an impatient gesture with her hand. “Your lieutenant was already hip-deep in that before I arrived. He ignores me, I ignore him, and science wins.” She pulled at another drawer and dug around in it. “We save lives, we end pain, we end sickness, and take a good damn swing at birth defects, too. I get first dibs on anyone I want to test but, no, none of this is paid for by... uh...”

Her head came up. When she looked at Franco it was with a strange sort of look. Grim. Terrifying.

Angelica gasped and opened her mouth to scream, though what she was warning Franco about she had no idea. A tone? Something in her body language? She shot a glance at Taylor but the cat was still, tail lashing as he moved back and forth in front of the glass.

Melinda’s voice was deadly calm. “Franco. I ordered you, now I ask you, very politely, please. Go break Dr. Truman’s hand. Or arm. It truly doesn’t matter what. Just do as I say.”

Franco locked eyes with her and drew himself up. From this angle Angelica couldn’t see his eyes, not that she needed to understand his resolve. “No.”

No...

Her cry echoed his, screaming through her mind, but Angelica couldn’t get the word out. No. No. No.

“Fine, idiot.” Melinda sighed heavily. “You win.” She pulled a pistol from the drawer and fired. Franco went down instantly. The cat roared and flung himself at the glass while Angelica finally found her voice and screamed. It was too quick, too real. She couldn’t process it—at least part of her mind didn’t want to believe what it had just scene. “Get up...get up, Franco.”

But he lay still.

Damage to the pectoralis major, pectoralis minor, possible rib fracture, Slight damage got to trapezoids. Considering the approximate angle, the bullet either passed through the musculature or it punctured the lung. There was no telling from where she was. Everything inside her screamed at her to rush to the man’s side.

There was nothing she could do. A man was dying and there was nothing she could do.

“Akisha!” Melinda shouted. The soldier who had shot Taylor with the tranquilizer dart entered. He looked at Franco, his face expressionless, and saluted Melinda.

“That’s much better.” Melinda switched to another language. Something Angelica recognized as one she’d heard the natives speak. While the long string of words that meant nothing to Angelica, they obviously did to Akisha. Angelica sank to the floor, her palms against the glass, watching helplessly as Akisha saluted and picked up Franco, taking him to an empty cell and securing the door. When he returned, he had blood on his shirt.

He saluted the doctor once more.

Melinda spoke again and pointed toward Angelica. Akisha nodded.

“I spent a while here,” Melinda said as an aside to her, “so I learned the language. English is the official language, of course, but there are others. One of which is Bebe.”

As she was speaking, Akisha crossed over to Angelica’s cell and spun the wheel that held the door closed. The cat threw himself at the glass, his actions wild. Uncontrolled. His roaring, while muffled, was heartbreaking to hear. Taylor—the tiger—both screaming for her.

Melinda lifted an eyebrow at the force he used; the glass shook under the assault.

The door opened with a hiss of air and Angelica scrambled to her feet and stepped back despite her resolve to show no fear. It was made more difficult by lack of proper clothing and the inherent feeling of helplessness being naked against her attacker. There was nowhere to run, no place to hide.

Akisha entered the cell, leaving the door open behind him. He pulled a nightstick from his belt. Angelica shook her head at him, pleading with him silently. No. He spoke no English, that was what Franco had said, and she hadn’t even heard of Bebe before today. She looked into his eyes. They were the eyes of a shark. Akisha wasn’t enjoying this, but he wasn’t opposed to it either. He was following orders. Break a doctor’s hand, clean the floor, salute the flag, it was all the same to him.

He managed to get very close before Angelica’s determination to not let anyone see her fear shattered. She was a doctor; all of this was far beyond her training or her experience, and being suddenly at the mercy of someone like this monster...To lose her hand, and possibly her career to something like this.

What about your life? Do you seriously think it will end there?

She screamed. Behind her, the cat roared and the glass buckled but held. Akisha grabbed her wrist and the baton fell, twice. Angelica screamed again but this time the sound was wrenched from her throat already raw and aching. The pain laced through her, white fire starting at her fingers and chasing up her arm as she heard the bones snap. She crumpled to the floor, sobbing, cradling her arm as Akisha simply turned around and left, closing the door behind him.

“Why?” The question came out as a sob, as a demand. She needed to understand. Her brain tried to catalogue what had happened to her, but for once her endless medical dictionary had run out. She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on anything more than the single word. The only question that mattered right now. “Why?”

Melinda walked calmly over to where Taylor was trying to claw a hole through the heavy glass and checked the bottle that the nurse had placed there. She nodded, satisfied, and shut the valve off. She removed the bottle and closed the panel that hid the connection.

“I always get what I want,” she said, sounding pleased. “That should do for now. I don’t know about you two lovebirds, but suddenly I’m a bit hungry.” She picked up her empty cup and started to walk off. “Oh!” She paused at the door. “My manners. Can I get either of you anything? Fresh-caught mouse for example? No? Dr. Truman, can I get you a sandwich? They make a wonderful Rueben, but it takes two hands to hold it, so... I suppose not. I know! I’ll get you some juice. Everyone loves juice.”

Angelica curled into the fetal position. The paper gown gaped at the back. She no longer cared. If she stayed still she could think. Somewhat. Every movement aggravated the pain, ground the bones against each other. She couldn’t look at her hand. The flesh was swelling. Discolored. Strange. It didn’t seem to belong to her, and she couldn’t stand to see it right now. Stomach roiling, she thought how it was a thorough job for all she was only hit once there.

My arm... he hit my arm, too...

She couldn’t move it, didn’t dare. The angle was unnatural. Wrong.

She kept her eyes on Taylor’s cell.

Please stop. Please stop. I need you to stop before you hurt yourself. Please stop.

The cat had become frantic. Aside from the pacing and roaring and hurling himself to the walls, he was shedding at an alarming rate.

If that’s not love, what is? Angelica snorted with amusement, and recognized shock. Tried to dredge up the definition so that she would have something to focus on. She needed the familiarity of her mind.

The main symptom of shock is low blood pressure. Other symptoms include rapid, shallow breathing; cold, clammy skin; rapid, weak pulse; dizziness, fainting, or weakness.

Through her tears she watched as Taylor crouched and his back grew and melted and reshaped and reformed and changed. His rear legs elongated and the knees pulverized and reformed. The hair was replaced by smooth skin and his hands. Angelica felt a laugh that was as much sob as hysteria burst through her clenched jaw, as his hands flattened and broke and reformed.

All she had to do was ask. She didn’t have to make me prove I’m not one of them.

Right now, she wished she was.

“Angelica?” Taylor’s voice called from what seemed a very long way away.

I have to get up. I can’t stay like this.

It was too much work. Besides, movement and pain were the same thing. She decided to remain on the floor, despite the chill and the cold breeze blowing in through the vents. The paper gown fluttered around her, the paper crackling as she shifted.

“ANGELICA?”

Taylor. Taylor was calling for her. He sounded absolutely frantic. Furious. Terrified. She catalogued the emotions as she worked her mouth, trying to find enough saliva to speak, trying to find the words that seemed intent on eluding her.

“Down here.” Speaking required unclenching her jaw, and a gasping sob erupted from her chest, the kind that made it hard to breathe, the kind that came from so deep that it hurt, dammit, but she couldn’t have stopped it if she’d tried.

“Angelica, hang on, we’ll get out of here...”

“Taylor...” She took a shaky breath. Another. She had to be calm to talk. “Didn’t you hear her? She said she got first dibs. Meaning that...” She swallowed a cry as a fresh wave of pain washed over her. She’d moved her hand without intending. She’d thought she could keep it against her as she shifted. She needed to get up. “Meaning that she tested people who didn’t... who weren’t... the ones who shifted, she studied... the ones who didn’t... they’re the ones who ended up sold, Taylor.”

“She said she wasn’t a part of that...”

But his words rang hollow. He didn’t believe that any more than she did.

“No. I’m...” She swallowed. “How much do you think a doctor is worth on the black market?” She bit her lower lip. “Not that I can do much doctoring right now...”

“Angelica, hold on... We will find a way out of here.”

She nodded and shifted so that she was sitting leaned against the wall. It hurt like hell but made her feel at least marginally in control. Not that I am. I’m in a cage, after all. A fucking cage. A way out?

But she answered him all the same, finding enough energy to at least put on the show of courage that she knew he needed right now as much as she did. “I know...”

But they both knew that it was a lie.