“Taylor...” Angelica half-cried, half-shouted. “I’m stuck! I tried to make a turn and...” She braced herself and pulled. The duct held, but she felt a fresh cut along her belly. She cried out. She tried to back out, but her shoulders refused to make the turn backwards. “Taylor!”

The air became too close, too stale. The restriction of her arms, the tightness of her chest... Oh, this is such a bad time to discover that I’m claustrophobic. She slammed against the ducting as hard as she could, but only cut herself deeper. Taylor wasn’t answering.

He can’t hear me. He really can’t hear me. I’m going to die alone in an air duct, naked. WHAT THE HELL! A brisk wind picked up, blowing down on her head and whistling when it streaked past her through the narrow hole she left between her and the corner.

“GET ME OUT OF HERE!” she screamed. She tried to bang her fists on the side of the ducting, but she couldn’t move her arms. “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

Melinda said that, as a tiger, Taylor weighed over 700 pounds.

Angelica stopped. She looked around. The lion was bigger than she was. Cats can get through a hole three-inches wide.

She took a breath. How the hell do I know that? It made sense, in a way. That part of her was created to do the memorization of medical facts. She repeated, by association, every fact that she’d had to remember. It was logical that it would automatically be used on nearly everything.

I think I’m about to do something I’ll regret. If there’s no room for me... But she was well and truly trapped. She took a breath and remembered what it was to be a lioness...

This particular transformation was worse than the others. Without room to writhe, to set her body in different positions, the bones reformed and found there was little room. Her screams deafened even her, but the cat was strong and the body was young and resilient. And despite a hundred more slices where the metal tore into her skin she soon lay in the ducting, catching her breath, thankful for the protection of fur between her and the brutal seams that had torn her human flesh to ribbons.

Now to get out.

Her claws pulled against the metal, but the metal held. Her tail thumped and thudded on the floor of the duct. She stretched her rear legs past the turn and inched her way through the corner. She strained, moving slowly, one centimeter at a time, and managed to slide her rear legs past the corner.

Relief so profound washed over her. She nearly wept, or would have if her new body had been built for such things. She was unstuck, but still unable to move quickly. But slow and steady would win the race, or else she’d learned nothing from fairy tales. She lay down a moment to still her frayed nerves.

That was when she discovered the ductwork wasn’t built to sustain the weight of a full-grown lioness. It crashed, rather spectacularly, falling from its moorings and swinging down as the metal bent. It tore off at the corner and dumped one large lioness onto the top of the nurses’ station. The blow of the fall impacted against her side and slammed her against the office chair behind the desk.

Shattered clavicle, three ribs cracked. Possible traumatic pneumothorax... She coughed. A blob of blood splattered the floor. Make that a definite pneumothorax. The rib must have punctured the lung...

Melinda, I hope you’re right about this.

She could hear Taylor now. He was screaming her name. She tried to stand, to be human, but the pain lacing through her was exquisite. It was impossible to remember what she was supposed to do when white-hot fire lanced through her like that. She lay back down, trying to catch her breath. Okay, that didn’t work... just imagine. That’s what Taylor said, imagine.

This time the ribs moved and mended. The organs shifted, reshaped, reformed, her breath came easier, then easy. Her legs grew, her fur replaced with soft skin. Angelica lay on the floor; the wave of exhaustion made her ill.

I can’t keep doing this.

From far away she heard him calling her name. Why was he so urgent?

Then she remembered. It seemed incredible that she could forget.

GET UP. GET UP. TAYLOR WILL DIE IF YOU DON’T GET UP.

Angelica staggered to her feet, holding onto the desk. It was hard to hang on. She knocked Melinda’s clipboard to the floor. The pen followed.

“ANGELICA!” Taylor shouted. “What the hell happened? Are you all right?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice. Just open his door, that’s all you have to do, just... She walked to his door and spun the wheel, hard. She reached out to do it again and spun around. Akisha stood in the doorway, pistol in hand.

She really wished she’d taken time to find another one of those blasted paper gowns.

Angelica backed off, her back against the glass wall that had confined her for so long. Akisha smiled, cocked the pistol, and took careful aim.

A white streak shot from the cell that held Taylor. The tiger reborn, leaping. He hit Akisha from the side, knocking the gun from his hand. It went off, firing into the ceiling as Taylor tore out the man’s throat.

Angelica slumped against the wall. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see. Just wanting the whole thing to be over.

She heard the bones crack, the sounds of his transformation. In a moment, he was next to her. He’d grabbed the gown from his cell and draped it over her. He had put the cloth back on his hips.

“Did you have to kill him?” she asked, lifting her head to stare up into his eyes, those beautiful eyes she loved so well. One hand came up to cup his cheek, her thumb tracing the line of his jaw.

“He was about to kill you.”

“I know. Batu tried to, too. Maybe...” She took a shaky breath, and glanced over his shoulder at the body that lay just beyond. Two feet that would never walk again. Sightless eyes staring up at the fluorescent lights. He’d been a bad man, but he’d still been a man. “Can you maybe injure? Not kill?”

Taylor stood and held out his hand for her. “Come on,” he said without answering her. “Franco needs your help.”

She looked up him, at his hand. She closed her eyes for a moment, a brief, blissful moment. She nodded and took his hand.

Franco’s wound wasn’t critical, but the blood loss was becoming so. She packed the wound, thankful that at least the medical cart in the room was well supplied. She didn’t want to think about why. She considered the wound itself, wondering how to stem further loss of blood. Right now, all she could do was leave it open. He’d need surgery. “I have to get the bullet out, and for that I need tools, anesthetic.” She looked at Taylor. “I would even settle for a set of scrubs to wear.”

“We’re going to have to leave him,” Taylor reminded her. “Figure out where we are.”

“He’s lost a lot of blood.” She looked back on the bed. “How do you expect me to...”

“There’s nothing more you can do,” Taylor said, with a glance at the door. “Besides, help is on the way.”

She blinked. “What help?”

“Remember when Franco yelled at me about not killing Durand? When I was in the cell there?”

Angelica nodded.

“He had my satellite phone in his palm. He showed it to me. I held up three fingers, my speed dial number for help. He pushed the button and left the phone on. The cavalry should be riding to the rescue soon.”

Angelica looked down at the soldier who had risked his life in an effort to save hers. “And in the meantime?”

“Clothing,” Taylor said, his voice hard. This was the soldier speaking; a man who was trained in survival skills, she reminded herself. “Food if we can find it. Transportation, or at least a way to get back to the camp.”

“We’re probably in an old abandoned building,” Angelica warned him. “The only thing anywhere near the camp was a hospital taken out of service years ago.

“I’m not so sure we’re near the camp. Remember, Melinda wanted to move the coffee pot in here, but couldn’t move the fridge? The question is, why not? The only thing I can think is because it’s a shared fridge. No, this is a working facility of some sort.” He walked behind the counter and looked around. The duct had fallen over the counter and swung like a pendulum, one side still attached to the duct that ran along the ceiling. He looked under the desk and reached for something. He stood again, satellite phone in his hand.

It lay crumpled in his hand. Taylor looked at the pieces and then looked at her. Angelica shrugged. “Sorry, I landed pretty hard.”

He breathed out and dropped the remains. “Maybe someone heard us,” he said hopefully. “But in the meantime, we need to stop this—these experimentation, the slave ring, all of it.”

Angelica held out her gown like a formal. “How?”

He grabbed a fresh gown, the last of the packages, and slipped it on. “Tie me up,” he said with a wink.

***

THE ELEVATOR DOOR OPENED on a busy scene. Apparently, the top floor was shut off from the public. The rest of the building made up for it. They walked through a crowded hallway, patients in beds in the hallways, some simply sitting on the floor leaning against the walls. Angelica took the lead, weaving past nurses too occupied to care about two more patients, though Taylor’s size and their white skin did cause a few double takes.

The universality of all hospitals is that doctors spend their days at hospitals and have no time to do laundry or all the little housekeeping so necessary to everyday life. Thus doctors work in scrubs, easy, soft, universal, and someone else’s problem to launder. Storerooms are filled with them and, despite the press of people, were largely left unguarded. She only had to wait on the floor by the door to the supply closet and wait for an overworked nurse to run out with supplies. She then stuck a finger on the floor in front of the door to prevent it from closing, and she and Taylor slipped inside and changed into scrubs. There were some surgical booties to fit over shoes, nothing useful for bare feet, but at least it covered them from casual observers.

They found an empty gurney and brought it to an elevator unchallenged. Upstairs they loaded Franco and brought him back down to the same floor and left him near the exit.

“THIS MAN’S BEEN SHOT!” Taylor screamed. Angelica let out a wordless high-pitched wail as if she’d just seen blood for the first time.

“What the hell?” someone yelled.

“He’s been shot!” Taylor repeated. The man who had demanded they explain themselves rushed to Franco’s side.

“This man is a soldier,” he stated unnecessarily, frantic in his movements, checking vitals. Already he’d forgotten them in his rush to save the patient. “Get him into the ER, now!”

It was all Angelica needed to hear. She and Taylor fled from the building and into the gathering darkness. It almost felt easy. Too easy.

They ran past the lights, past the rush of late traffic making its way through the dark streets. They were in a little finger of land that split two other countries. The refugees who fled there were huddled now, between two powers who rattled their sabers at each other and barked like two chained dogs while terrorists ran unchecked through the countryside.

Only the fear of involving a disinterested country and the UN kept the two powers at bay, but such things didn’t concern terrorists and guerillas. They marched between all three countries with impunity. Being alone in the dark recesses of an unstable land was a dangerous prospect.

“Now what?” Angelica asked. “We hail a cab and go back to my place for cocktails?” She was tired, frustrated, and more than a little freaked out still. Her look clearly said she needed to not think about what being a lion meant. At the same time, Taylor doubted she could think of anything else.

“We have to get back to camp,” Taylor said, looking at the night sky. “We were taken after dark, so this has to be the next night. I’m not sure how much time we have before the sun comes up.”

“Time. Why? Do we dissolve in daylight?”

Taylor just looked at her.

“Okay, I’m sorry, I just... I’ve never been a lioness before, and it’s starting to hit me.” She shook her hands as if they were wet. “I don’t...” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay, just because I can change doesn’t mean I have to change, does it? You’ve told me yourself that you haven’t changed in years... so, I don’t have to if I don’t want to. Right?” She didn’t wait for his response. He was pretty sure she didn’t actually want to know. “So, how do we get back to camp?”

The mate is cute. Do you want to tell her, or should I?

He said it simply, because there was nothing else that could be said. “We run.”

“Run?” She barked a laugh. “Run? Taylor, we’re miles away, barefoot, and going direct means through the jungle. No. No. No. And no.”

“It’s the only way. We don’t have money, we can’t explain ourselves. We’re out in the middle of the night, about as far from the tourist traps as two Americans can get. They’ll shoot us as CIA agents.”

“You are a CIA agent!” she hissed.

He shrugged. “So, they’ll be right. We have to.”

“Damn it!” She swore some more, half under her breath. Half of it was in Spanish. Taylor looked around, trying to see it as she saw it. They were standing off the road, near a stand of trees. The traffic was infrequent, leading her to question what time it was.

“Fine!” she snapped finally and pulled off her shirt. She opened her pants and looked at him. “You’re not undressing?”

“Well, I thought we’d get to the jungle first, but if you want to...”

“TAYLOR!” She pulled on her shirt, face blazing, eyes snapping with fire. “That is not funny.”

“It is a little bit.” He grinned.

Angelica swatted at his arm and missed. “Fine. I had that coming. Whatever. Let’s just go.”

Taylor turned and led the way into the trees.

The difference between what was jungle and what was possibly landscaping seemed to be which side of the next road they were on. From Taylor’s experiences there was a certain smell to uninterrupted jungle, and this had it. He stepped gingerly off the tar and into the grass, slipping into the jungle’s edge. He looked at her and nodded and stripped.

She gave him a measured look, waiting until he was naked before she took off her borrowed scrubs. In moments, two large cats bounded through the overgrowth and headed to the camp.

Of course, if we’re seen at the camp, they’ll shoot at us, he reminded the tiger.

Then we will not be seen.

The cat was pleased to have his mate beside him. She moved well, her muscles flexed and stretched, her tail held high and proud. She was a lovely golden color, but most of all she was his mate and she could match him now in the run. She could hunt with him. Even stretch and prowl with him.

The jungle stood in hushed appreciation of the two of them. All creatures silenced as they strode past, fear and respect keeping the night life from calling out into the cool air for their mates, for their lands. Each and all paid silent respect to the ghostly pads that clawed the ground and the majestic sight of the cat and his mate.

Oh, brother. Taylor mentally shook his head. The tiger had an ego the size of a small continent.

They spent hours in the jungle, running, resting, and running again. They crossed rivers and forded streams and ran when they had the space, walked cautiously when the footing was bad. Eventually they came to a far-off familiar smell, a certain mixture of oil and gas and blood and despair that could only be the camp.

The cat snarled at his mate. She looked at him and blinked languidly. The other memory... no... Taylor laughed at him. The mate was feisty. That was good. He led the way to the smell and the jungle came to an abrupt edge; the trees and undergrowth had been torn away. Ahead were the shadowed shapes of the equipment and the copse of trees with hole where once lay Batu.

He ran through the opening to the equipment and crouched down, the mate beside him. He felt a sharp jab and spun. She had sunk a claw into his shoulder. She blinked and turned her head away to the far end of the camp, drawing his attention to something she’d seen. He listened.

Crying. A muffled curse and a muffled cry of pain. A running engine.

GO! Taylor yelled. The tiger leaped and ran, the mate behind him.

Ahead were two men. One Taylor recognized as Durand and one he didn’t know, both of them armed. Around them clustered a dozen children and a few women. The refugees were being loaded into a truck. Some of them were crying. All of them smelled of fear. The cat resisted an urge to roar, knowing caution from years of experience. But the mate had no such inhibitions and made her voice known. The men grabbed for their rifles as the cat sprang on the unknown man. The mate reached for Durand.

The children fled, screaming, and the man died under the cat’s claws. Durand and lion rolled in the dirt, fighting for supremacy. The fat man cried out and struggled to get away, but her claws cut deep, and in the end, he covered his face with his arms and sobbed his fear for the jungle to hear. She stood on his back and roared until he cried and the warm smell of urine filled the air.

The mate climbed off of Durand and walked proudly back to him, tail in the air, swishing. She didn’t see what Taylor did, what the tiger did. The fat man reached for his gun, grabbed it, aimed it at the mate.

There was no time to think, only time to react. The cat leaped from a standing position and landed heavily on the man’s arm. It snapped under his weight, Durand screaming loud and long, only to be silenced a moment later.

In the end, Durand died, his blood gushing in the cat’s mouth. He turned to the mate. Her eyes were wide, disbelieving. She dislikes this, Taylor reminded the tiger. The lion disappeared into the night, bounding toward the camp in long leaps that would carry her there in minutes.

He followed, outpacing her easily. Leading the way, finding the hidden dangers she didn’t understand yet. She would need to be taught. Men with bright guns circled the perimeter fence at night. As much to keep people in as predators out.

The tiger’s tail lashed as he slowed to a stop just short of the entrance. He, too, was impatient and just wanted this night done and over with. He still felt the satisfaction of having stopped the bad man and allowing the women and children to go free. But there were still enemies out there that needed to be found.

He crept up on the entrance itself, walking the perimeter carefully, testing the strength of the fence as he walked. The fence was put there to keep the refugees inside, to show them how close to the rest of the population they’re allowed to be. It’s not put up well.

The cat hoped the memory was right and kept walking. He pressed against fence randomly and pulled to see if it held. Eventually, it didn’t. He leaned on that particular spot, moving back and forth until he fell through. The support hadn’t been set very deeply into the ground, and as a result the bottom of the mesh hadn’t been secured properly.

The mate followed, though she’d lost some of the confidence she’d had earlier, and slunk low through the opening, ears flat against her head. She didn’t like the way the light from the buildings illuminated the grounds, and ran from shadow to shadow. He growled low in his throat, a reassuring sound, nudging at her with his head to lead her down the familiar paths, to the place where the mate had her den.

The door to the building was partway open, the first bit of luck of the night. A fresh cigarette butt smoldered on the path, sending up an acrid, unpleasant smell. He sidestepped this, cautioned by Taylor that the smoker likely wasn’t far away. Sure enough, a sleepy woman wearing scrubs moved through the hallway, fumbling with the key to her door. She rubbed at her face tiredly and disappeared.

The tiger nudged the mate again and pushed the door open the rest of the way, slipping inside and blocking it with his body to keep it from swinging shut behind him and effectively locking the mate outside. She fled past him, body low to the ground, and led the way to the door to her own apartment.

He followed, coming to rest beside her. The lion looked weary. She had thrown herself down on the ground, breathing heavily.

He looked at her and closed his eyes.

Moments later Taylor stood naked in the hallway. He stared at the door, one more puzzle needing to be solved. Angelica changed beside him, her hands trying to cover herself as she looked uneasily down the hallway.

“Well?” she demanded as he hesitated. “Pick the lock!”

Taylor smiled. His bare foot splintered the door jamb.