Chapter Seventeen
Harrison
“We’re not taking him with us. I'm sorry.”
I swiped the badge and pulled her out of her cage, holding her upper arm tightly. I could feel her leaning on me for support. She was weak. I didn't know what they had done to her, but it was enough. I wondered if she’d even be able to shift and follow through with the plan. I hoped so.
Her eyes grew wide as we passed by his open cell. Clearly, she hadn't expected to see the aquarium behind the gate, just as I hadn't. “I guess not.” She gave a feeble wave to the shark as we passed.
“I didn't know he was underwater like that. I mean, I assumed that that was his natural environment or whatever, but none of us had our environment, so I figured he didn't either. I guess I really didn't think that through. So what's the plan? How do you break us out of here?”
“That's the thing. There's no us. I've got to keep going with my mission or they’ll figure out who I really am. And if they do that, I compromise my whole team. So this is how this is going to happen. We’re going to go upstairs and I'm going to tell them I’m taking you to one of the labs for testing. You wait for my signal and when I give it, shift. We’re going to fight, and you're going to have to make it look like you overpowered me. Then break out. That's the best I can do.”
“Overpower you? You’re huge! No one is going to believe that my tiger overpowered you. Not to mention I'm not even sure I can shift. All the drugs they’ve been pumping me with mess with my mind. Sometimes I feel only like the cat, other times I don't feel her at all.”
“Well, I hope you feel her now. Because this is our only option. Another thing,” I said as we reached the elevator, “when you leave here you don't go home yet. Go straight to my precinct, the one-twenty-six. They need to have a witness. They’ve been listening,” I tapped my ear, “but they need a real person. With you they’ll be able to get a warrant and break everybody else out. They staged a kidnapping of a very well-known family member, so they're going to assume that they took you for ransom. No one ever has to know the truth about what you are if you don’t want. But if you say that there are other people here, of other highly affluent families, the judge will be forced to give my team a warrant to come in and take them down. Just make sure you give them enough. I understand wanting to keep the tiger side of you a secret. More than you know.”
“But what about when I get out the doors? I can run all I want but they have guns, dart guns. I saw the last girl that tried to escape. She came back in worse shape than when she left.” We rode up the elevator, which gave her just one more moment of panic before I opened the doors.
“Tasha, listen to me. Nothing is going to happen to you as long as you do exactly what I tell you. They won’t find you out. Either of us. And your friends? They’ll be safe in just a couple days. And until then, I’ll be here to protect them. You wait for my signal, are we clear?”
She simply nodded. I opened the doors on the upper level and was met with an empty hallway. It was exactly as I expected, so I began walking right away. I knew some guys were watching from the security tower, so I made a good show for the video cameras, shoving her this way and that. She wasn’t a bad actress either. She attempted to pull away at one point and then try to turn and bite me.
This could work. I just had to get her to the other end of this hallway. There was a back exit near the dumpsters. We were about halfway down the hallway before we saw anyone: a lab tech walked out of his area, looking at a notepad, and hardly noticed us until he almost walked right into us. He looked up and fixed his glasses, which were perched on his nose. “Who’s she?”
“I don't know. I'm just following orders. They said they want her in test area C? I'm so new I don't even know where that is yet. I’ve been walking around here forever. Anyway, can you point me in the right direction?”
The tech flipped some papers on his clipboard. “Yeah, C. Says here it's down the hall and to the left. I've seen her before. You better get her there quickly. She's a mess. Always makes the job harder than it has to be.” He shook his head as he walked past us, continuing to whatever his original destination was. I breathed a sigh of relief as we kept going down the hallway. But he turned around to check on us.
“I said to go in the other direction!” he called to us.
“Now!” I whispered to her. She turned around and shot the lab tech an ugly glare. And then her body began to twitch. I tried to seem surprised, even though I had done the same to change myself a hundred times. Her fingers began to twitch first and her head rolled around her body. The shift was going to hurt her later, and she was having a rough time forcing her body into it. I wondered if she was right about the drugs that they were giving her, trying to keep her calm. But also trying to keep her tiger from taking over completely. I looked back at the lab tech, pretending to be terrified.
“Call for help!” I yelled to him, trying to seem realistic.
But just as I expected, he just stood there looking terrified. He didn't move. I pretended to try to pull my walkie out, but I dropped it as her body continued to shake. When I bent down to retrieve it, I was looking directly into the eyes of a Bengal tiger. She was incredible looking. And she was worried that it would look like she couldn't overpower me? I wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley. She was fucking huge. She put her paw on my chest and pushed me back into the wall. I feigned unconsciousness as I finally heard the tech start to scream. Other people were coming into the hallway, and I heard her growl before the emergency alarm went off. She must have made it to the back door. We were only a few feet away. I kept my eyes shut, hoping for the best. She had to get away and fast. I wouldn't know if it was successful until I heard from the team. But I hoped for all our sakes that it was.
“Code orange code orange,” a systematic voice said over the intercom. I heard boots not unlike my own run past me. Finally someone came to my aid. It was clear from her voice that it was the secretary.
“Mr. Green? George, are you all right?”
I tried to appear groggy, lolling my head back and forth and muttering to myself about how much pain I was in. I tried to pretend I couldn't really hear her.
“George? We’ve called 911. An ambulance will be here shortly. I can’t believe that thing. What the hell was that? What kind of tests are they doing here?” She started to question some of the people around her for the answers, but most people seemed to not have any more information than she did. I heard someone on a cell phone talking to 911 and was relieved. If they were willing to bring ambulance here, then she had gotten away. We had a chance.