Empathy
Chapter 2
by
NYC
Inspired by "Shackled," by Vertical Horizon
For so long my life's been sewn up tight inside your hold
And it leaves me there without a place to call my own
I know now what shadows can see
There's no point in running 'less you run with me
It's half the distance through the open door
Before you cut me down
Again
Let me introduce you to the end.
And I feel the cold wind blowing beneath my wings
It always leads me back to suffering
But I will soar until the wind whips me down
Leaves me beaten on unholy ground again
So tired now of paying my dues
I start out strong but then I always lose
It's half the distance before you leave me behind
It's such a waste of time
'Cause my shackles/You won't be
And my rapture/You won't believe
And deep inside you will bleed for me
So there I slave inside of a broken dream
Forever holding on to splitting seems
So take your piece and leave me alone to die
I don't need you to keep my faith alive
I know now what trouble can be
And why it follows me so easily
It's half the distance through the open door
Before you shut me down
Again
Let me introduce you to the end
Chorus
Though you know you care
Chorus
And my laughter/You won't hear
The faster/I disappear
And time will burn your eyes to tears.
It happened to people, she told herself the next morning as she lay there. She refused to get out of the bed, to let her feet touch the floor, until she could get a grip. It happened to people in enclosed situations. It happened all the time, between captors and captives, between nurse and patients, between any two people thrown together in an intense situation and required them to be completely and openly honest with each other. No holds barred, no barriers, nothing between them to stop the emotions from crashing into each other and then sticking together like chewed bubble gum.
She lay there, staring up at the old, worn ceiling, and told herself that this was not love. It was stupid and childish to call it love. She was not in love with him. And he certainly wasn't in love with her. It was a reaction to captivity. She was the first human female he'd seen, who let him touch her, who wanted to touch him in return. If he had the mentality of a human five year old, this sort of bonding was purely natural. But it wasn't real.
She felt the terrible urge to cry.
If she had met him in a bar somewhere, if they had shared a beer and started talking, then maybe she could believe it. But this was too freaky. He was a half-wolf mutant type, he was a clone of a mad scientist, and he was hardly a prom-date. He would never be able to be like other guys, he would never fit in, act like them, take her to dinner and to the movies and stay up talking with her until dawn. And just to make the thought that much more unpleasantly appealing, she imagined that he'd probably always want to do it doggy style, and none of her sexually active friends had ever had nice things to say about guys like that.
More time passed. She could hear the clock ticking in the main hall. Soon, she heard footsteps, coming up the stairs. She knew who it was. She didn't even need to raise her head when the shadow fell across her from the doorway, or when the knuckles rapped at the frame lightly.
"So much for personal hygiene," Dr. Logan commented dryly as he entered her room.
"I didn't say you could come in," she replied flatly, still staring at the ceiling.
He sighed. "Really, Melody, this won't do at all. Not at all. You're going to have a complete breakdown and not just a little one like last night's if you keep this up. Staying in bed is for people with broken bones and torn ligaments. Not for people like you."
She shook her head. "This rat refuses to run the maze today, Doc," she said. "Forget it, it's not going to happen, no matter what you do to me, no matter what you say. Nu-uh, no way."
Silence descended upon them. She could hear the clock ticking away, heard it go off, counted away the twelve loud bongs and waited as the echo faded. It was noon. A full minute later, she finally turned her head and looked at him. "What?"
He stared at her, thoughtful, dark eyes hazy as his own private visions danced before them. "Amazing," he finally muttered, more to himself than anything. "Simply amazing."
She gritted her teeth. "What?" she said again, more harshly.
He had pressed the fingers of one hand to his chin, and he lowered it slowly, not taking his eyes from her. "I don't really know," he admitted, "and that's a lot for me. There are very few things in this world that I can't figure out. But I'm working on you. I think I have a picture."
"Lovely," she said, turning away to stare at the ceiling again. "Too bad I'm not photogenic."
"You see," he continued, as if she hadn't spoken, "you don't fully grasp your impact on him. I mean, you have no real clue, to put it in modern slang, the profoundness of the effect your presence has had upon him. If you knew the things we have done to him, the experiments, the tests," and he gave a sickening chuckle, "the death or two we've had around here because of the foolish assistants who didn't take the full precautions...if you knew all of that, if you were here, present, watching it all, you would be terrified to go near him, you'd be terrified to be locked in this house with him. The doctor he told you about, her name was Sharon. He liked her in the beginning, too, but she knew about him. He was good with her, but, well, she had every legitimate reason in the world to be terrified when she woke up to find him wrapped around her like a stuffed animal. I believe that if we hadn't arrived in time she might have aggravated him into violent action."
Melody spared him a fleeting glare. "Thanks so much for sharing."
"But it's true!" He leaned forward, hands pressed together at the fingertips, anxious like a little child to make someone believe their wild tales. He smiled, laughed, shook his head, looking momentarily like a real human being and not some crazy whacko, which was the image that refused to leave Melody's head. "Yet he talks to you. He lets you touch him, he touches you affectionately, gently, tenderly. He tried to initiate a mating ritual, you stopped him, and he *accepted* that! I don't think you realize it, Melody, but this last day has been one long miracle."
She did not say anything, simply looked at him in a mixture of disgust and disbelief.
"It's almost like," and he paused, watching her carefully, "you have some sort of power over him."
She snorted. "I'd say Beauty and the Beast Syndrome, but that sounds so cliche, and on top of that, I know I'm hardly beauty."
"Yes, but you don't need to be...if my theory is right."
"Theory?" This got her curiosity tickled. "What theory?"
He leaned back in the chair, looking victoriously satisfied that he'd finally gotten her interest. "There is so much more to explain," he said, "and for the same reasons, I find myself strangely compelled to share it all with you."
"Lucky me," she whispered.
He shook his head. "Now don't be that way, Mel. It's not every day that I get to talk to someone I find to be worthy to hear me speak. You may see that last statement as the product of an overwhelming ego, but by the end of the conversation, you're going to simply accept it as a part of who I am. You'll even understand it."
"Enlighten me," she said dryly.
"I created Ferro," Dr. Logan said, "for more reasons than I can share. But I will ask you this--what do you know about *homo superior?*"
"A mutant?" she gave a little shrug. "Just what I learned in school. That sometimes evolution jumps forward a bit for reasons unknown. But Evolution is a pretty weak theory."
"So says the creationist. But my point is, there are mutants among us. Perhaps you've read in the paper about some particular event that just didn't feel right, that there was no way a human being, a homo sapien, could be capable of certain actions. You see, these people are the product of junk DNA in their bodies, being activated by a mutation in evolution. Evolution is jumping forward in our time--and that's not so unusual, according to the theory. Sometimes when a system isn't moving fast enough, it gets a nudge. Humans are no different."
"So mutants are among us?" she gave a little short. "Sounds awfully comic-bookey to me."
He shook his head again, sweeping his arms out beside him dramatically, palms down."Let me finish, dear heart," he said with strained patience. "Mutants are not only real and among us, but they are going to being to flourish. And my employers want a jump start on it, because these mutants are going to be extremely powerful, and we have to figure out a way to preserve ourselves."
"I get that," Melody muttered.
"Well..." And he looked at her, his face, for the first time, open, honest, forthcoming. "You happen to have one with you. Or rather, two."
He paused to let it sink in. Melody looked at him, raising her head this time, getting up onto her elbows, wanting to jump out of the bed and run from the room. "What do you mean?"
"Healing," he said, raising his hand and showing her a bared arm, to the elbow. He lifted a small Swiss army knife and put the blade to his skin, pulling it along it so that it made a deep, bloody gash. Then, within seconds, it closed before her eyes.
Just like Ferro's had done.
"Do you know how old I am?" he whispered. She shook her head, mute and shocked. "I'm over sixty years old, and yet I look like this." He ran one hand through his hair. "Well, needless to say, this got me some attention that wasn't entirely pleasant at times. So I had to figure out a way to give my employers what they wanted without costing myself too much. So I created Ferro."
Melody was sitting upright now, one pillow clutched to her chest. "You're a mutant that can heal himself?"
He sighed. "Yes, but my ability is sadly limited. I never thought it was until Ferro was born. In fact," he added, his eyes going distant, "I attempted to make Ferro quite inferior to me. I fused my DNA with wolf DNA in the hopes of making my clone weaker, and certainly less intelligent. Instead, I got something completely fantastic." He sighed, pleased with himself. "My greatest creation was born from a mistake. Isn't that remarkably, poetically perfect?"
Mute, Melody didn't even nod in agreement.
Dr. Logan went on, undaunted. "His healing ability is uncharted, and mine is limited to life threatening injuries. I don't think that Ferro can be killed. At least, not by anything human." He chuckled. "And as for his appearance, well, that, I believe, is also part of his mutation. Some side-affect of the process combined with the unexpected advancement of his mutation."
"So he mutated as well," Melody muttered, almost to herself, "but more powerfully than you."
"I think the wolf DNA triggered something. In any case, he is what he is. And I'm uncharacteristically proud of that, whatever it is."
She scowled at him. "Why are you telling me this!?" she finally shrieked. "I don't want to know any of it, not any of it!"
He calmly smiled at her. "Sure you do, Mel," he whispered.
She shook her head, nearly delirious with panic. "No...I don't know why you're telling me. Why tell me? Who am I that I have any right to know any of this?"
Dr. Logan leaned forward and smiled. "Exactly the point, dear. Why, indeed?"
Her eyes locked with his, expectant. "Well?" she finally snapped.
His smile softened. "Because I felt impelled to tell you. Because there is some sort of affect that you have on me, that you have on Ferro, that makes us trust you, that makes us want to tell you things. Because you have some sort of power over other minds, either sentient or not, I'm not sure. But you have it. I would never have shared these things with you otherwise, and yet I completely trust you not to go yelling out my secrets to the rest of the world. Let me ask you something--why do you really think I talk to Ferro like I do? He obviously can't match me in the intellectual department."
"Because you're an insufferable egomaniac who is completely in love with himself?" she returned.
He did not stop smiling. "Yes. But it doesn't bother you to realize that, does it? Just as it didn't repulse you away from Ferro when you saw how violently he reacted to you upon your first meeting. Just as it doesn't repulse you now, knowing the truth about him or me. You understand these things, as surely as if they were a part of your very self." He paused. "Am I right?"
"If you think all of this doesn't bother me," she said, a bit too quickly, "you're nuts."
"Oh, I didn't say it didn't bother you. I didn't say that you liked any part of it. You don't. I imagine you dislike me in the most extreme and ugly sense of the word. But when you stop to think about me, as I am, as to why I do what I do, you can't hate me, because you understand me."
"Understanding and approval are not the same thing," she said.
"No, they aren't," he agreed, "but they both have something in common."
"And that is?"
"Empathy." He leaned back, satisfied with his conclusion.
"Empathy, Melody. You have the power of empathy. It's not like be psychic or having sympathy--any human can do that--but you, although your life experience is very limited--how old are you, anyway?"
"Twenty," she said without thinking.
"In your short years, you empathize with things you have never experienced. It's not psychic because you don't read minds--you simply understand. Empathy, the ability to feel with someone, not like sympathy, which is always second hand. You can empathize with anyone at any time." He paused again. "May I ask you a few questions?"
She felt like she wanted to shrink into the bed. "Sure...why not?"
"Why did you leave your home?"
She didn't know whether to be relieved that he hadn't overheard her conversation with Ferro, or to panic that he was being so forthcoming now. "Because I didn't want to be there anymore."
"And why? They were your family. They loved you, you loved them..."
She shook her head, shutting her eyes. "It wasn't them. It was...everyone else."
"How?"
"People," she said with an impatient wave of her hand. "My friends...well, most of them. Not my closest ones, but others."
"People who kept trying to push themselves at you."
"Yes."
"People who wanted to latch onto you, like leeches."
"Yes."
"People who wanted to invade your life by any means possible."
"Yes." She opened her eyes, dismayed to find tears on her fingers.
"Why was it so unbearable, Mel?" Dr. Logan asked softly, cajolingly. She dared a look at him and he seemed almost compassionate, human. "Lots of people have that happen to them, but they all deal with it. They simply realize that people just want to be listened to, that they don't want their problems solved, they just want an ear to bend. But you...it was different, yes?"
She nodded, silent, choked.
"For you, it was unbearable, being that much inside a person's skin. You could feel with them, painfully so. Happiness as well as sadness. You always took more joy in other people's good fortune than most. But the bad times just were too much, it wasn't worth it. So you tried to push people away. It didn't work."
She shook her head.
"The more you ran, the faster they chased," Dr. Logan finished with a nod. He sighed and leaned back. "Finally, you felt so trapped you didn't have a choice but to pack up and leave."
She gave a little shrug. "Being alone...it's so much better company."
"And Ferro," Dr. Logan said, "his pain doesn't bother you so much?"
Melody considered the question. "I don't have a choice but to bear it," she said, a bit caustically. "Do I?"
Dr. Logan's reply was a little shrug of his own. "I've been watching, Mel," he said, casually, as if he'd known her for years. "I'm hardly blind to human emotions, even if I do think they're not worth much. They can be wonderful when it comes to reading your subjects, though," he conceded. "Your emotions...this is the first time in a long time you've wanted to share. There's something about Ferro that makes you actually want to take care of him. You want to be afraid so you'll have a reason to want to run away, but it's not there. Do you know why?"
She let the silence hang in the air a few seconds before she said, "If you tell me you think I love him, I swear I'm going to puke all over your Italian leather shoes."
He actually smiled--a little half-smile that tugged at the corner of his lip and wrinkled his cheek. "Very well," he said with a sigh, getting up. "I think that's enough for today, anyway. I'll come back later on this evening and check on you." He made it sound like she was a patient in a hospital. "You might want to shower. You've been wearing those clothes for over 24 hours now."
She looked down at herself. True, she had on the same T-shirt and underwear as yesterday. She had slept in them, having no other choice.
Come to think of it, she realized, she hadn't taken a shower in entirely too long. She pulled the T-shirt off, yanked off her underclothes and stepped into the nearby show, turning on the warm water. She closed the bathroom door firmly behind her, even going so far as to lock it as best she could by shoving a towel right into the crack under the door. It was quite effective, she had often found, the many times she had escaped into her bathroom at home escaped from everyone trying to cling so hard to her.
As she bathed, she pondered over Dr. Logan's words. She scrubbed herself down, dried herself off, changed into fresh clothes, made her bed, and even wandered down the stairs over the span of two or three hours, still turning his words over and over into her head.
The scary part was, when she was done, she had decided that it actually made sense. She had always been so sensitive, her entire life. She had never made friends too easily, but not because they didn't come her way--because she didn't hold on to any of them. She would always run away for some reason or another, constantly changing playmates, best friends, etc. Nothing with her lasted very long.
Because she couldn't bear being so close to anyone.
It was insane, she had told herself time and again, to get so wound up and obsessed and involved with other people's problems. People went about their daily lives all over the world, interacted, shared, poured out their grief and pain. Psychologists, psychiatrists, ministers and priests all listened to people pour out their deepest, darkest secrets, yet they did not go crazy with the thought of all these little hands reaching out for you.
What did the hands want? she always asked herself, and never did she have an answer. Until now.
Other people didn't get all uptight over the things she got uptight about, she knew. She was different, no doubt about that. And now, she knew why.
It was almost relieving.
As Melody wandered the hallway, she realized that Ferro was not on the main floor.
Only now, after all this time, did it occur to her that he might be mad at her. And if he was mad, he was probably skulking off somewhere. She sighed, realizing that she would have to find him, make sure he was okay, reassure him, even kiss up to him. Not that Ferro had much choice when it came to her company, either.
The more she thought about that, the madder she got.
Her thoughts turned back to Dr. Logan...Dr. Andrew Logan, the brilliant yet obviously mad scientist who had created not just a clone of himself but had imbued it with wolf DNA. And he had done all of this for the purpose of giving his "employers" something else to experiment on other than him, who they had been originally eyeballing because of his ability to heal himself. An ability that Ferro had much more magnified.
Some of it made sense. But some of it tasted like wet straw in her mouth. She just couldn't swallow it. Something about Dr. Logan's story didn't feel right. Like he was telling a half truth to cover up an even uglier truth. A truth he himself couldn't face.
She had no reason to believe or disbelieve anything he said. And yet, something inside her was able to detect it. Maybe the crazy man was right---maybe she was empathic.
It sure felt like it explained a whole hell of a lot.
Melody collected herself and headed for the basement stairs. She padded down silently-- she wasn't wearing any shoes, and her bare feet made no noise against the carpet of the stairs. When she landed on the cold tile floor the brief sting almost sent her back up the stairs for socks, until she noticed a peculiar smell.
She padded toward the door she had entered earlier, the one with the light on, the one where they had kept Ferro, locked into that upright contraption for only-God-knew what reason. It seemed to her that if this was a lab, there might be other living things down here, like rabbits in cages---
She paused in the open doorway, noticing that the floor looked peculiar. Like someone had smeared red paint all over it.
Sniffing the air, she realized that it was not paint. It was blood.
Frozen, Melody stared down at it. She couldn't get her feet to move--they had jellified and would not respond to her command. She grabbed at the doorframe and yanked at herself, finally turning one foot and getting it to step away. The other followed because it had no choice. She turned all the way around, wanting to head for the stairs, but they felt like they were too far away.
There was a noise. It came from the room where she had originally found Ferro. The door to this room was wide open and she gasped to find herself staring into thick darkness. She felt faint--she leaned back against the door jamb to keep herself from falling over, willing her adrenaline to take over and get her away from this circle of hell.
The noise came again--she realized that she knew it. It was Ferro. She looked in gaping horror at the dark doorway and saw a hand slid out into the light. She saw his claws, long and gleaming, and she saw that they were thick with red--and matted with fur. Then Ferro's head leaned out into the light, the shadows catching in his eyes, making them gleam dangerously, and he looked up at her, all wolf, no man.
There was blood on his mouth.
Melody wanted to scream, but instead she sucked in her breath. This was Ferro. She couldn't think of him as anything less than human and she damn well knew it. She had to be reasonable. And if she was empathic, she was more than capable of understanding this. She could deal with this. She could.
She blinked hard, trying to calm herself, and then looked at Ferro again, who had wiped the blood away from his lips and retracted his claws. He looked up at her again, his eyes still gleaming, but the threat gone from them. He was eating--that was it. Probably just one of the experiment animals. He was half wolf, he had to eat, and this was probably the only way he knew how to do it on his own. She'd run away from him, and certainly he wasn't the kind to come and ask her to cook something for him, not after last night's confusing exchange. So he'd had to fend for himself. Yes, that was it.
She felt so much calmer now. Her legs were able to move. She took a cautious step toward the stairs.
"Full?" she asked, her voice sounding like a squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Any room left?"
Ferro retreated into the dark again, where she couldn't see him, and she heard scuffling. Whatever he had eaten, he was making an effort not to let her see it. When he emerged into the light, he was trying to wipe himself clean.
"I think some of those steaks from before are defrosted," she said, "if it's raw meat that you want."
He nodded, his expression eager. Melody let out her breath and started up the stairs, feeling Ferro following in her wake.
Melody gave him the raw steaks, and he sniffed them, then wrinkled his nose.
"They're cold," he said.
Melody sighed and took the steaks from him. She considered them, and then opened up a nearby lower cabinet, pulling out a cooking dish with a grill plate over it. She laid the steaks out and put them into the oven.
"Just for a bit," she said, turning back to the fridge. "Just to make them warm. It may cook them a little bit, but it'll be better than cold."
Ferro nodded, sighed, sat down on the floor. He looked at himself in something akin to disgust. "You don't eat raw meat," he said.
Puzzled, Melody paused with eggs in hand. "What?"
His eyes wouldn't meet hers. "Only animals eat raw meat."
She considered the statement. "You know, that's not all true. There's a dish called Steak Tartar. It's steak with raw eggs and some kind of sauce. The steak is cooked so rare it's practically raw." She gave him a little smile, hoping to coax a better mood from him. "I don't know about the sauce, but I can add some eggs. How does that sound?"
He nodded, his head still down. She sighed, but went about her business. So he was a moper. That didn't surprise her--canines were mopers in general. But it bugged her, that he continued to sit on the floor and hang his head in shame.
"Ferro," she finally said, her voice a touch sharp. "Ferro," she said again, more loudly, when he didn't look at her. Finally, he did. "Sit in the chair, Ferro," she said, more gently. "Please."
He looked at the chair and slung an arm over it, heaving himself into it. It was sloppy and he had to adjust himself, but after a few seconds of uncomfortable uprightness, he leaned against the back and stretched his legs out. After a few minutes more, he even smiled as he got comfortable.
Satisfied, Melody went back to making their dinner. "After we eat," she said, "we can find some books in the house and practice your reading." She gave him a glance. "If you want."
He lifted an eyebrow in surprise, then nodded, his eyes wide. She nodded back, satisfied. She pulled his meat out of the oven and checked it, slicing it down the middle to make sure it wasn't too cooked. Then she added the raw eggs and carried the whole thing into the dining room.
She wound up spending most of that evening trying to teach him to use a knife and a fork, then cleaning up the mess. She found some magazines and they stretched out on the floor of the living room as she had to read to her the words. She helped him as best she could--she was no teacher, but she knew how to help kids read. A few hours passed and the clock struck eight. Ferro stretched out, putting his hands forward and arching his back---almost like a cat. He yawned.
"I'm tired," he said. He looked around himself, at the couch, at the floor, at her.
Sensing his puzzlement, she asked the obvious: "What is it?"
"I don't want to sleep in the basement," he said, a bit sheepishly. "The floor is too hard."
"Well," Melody said, cautiously, "where did you sleep last night?"
He shrugged. "After you went to bed, I didn't. I just walked around. I didn't sleep at all," he added, sounding distinctly humanly hurt. Like he was trying to make her feel guilty.
She looked at the couch and made a sweeping gesture. "Try that," she said.
Ferro turned toward the couch and got to his knees. He tried to sit down on it like the chair, but when the soft pillows gave under his weight he scrambled up, surprised. Melody tried not to laugh.
"What?" he asked, sensing her amusement.
"Nothing," she promised, calming. "Try again, but go to the middle. This time, when the couch sinks in, lean to the side and stretch out your feet to the end. You'll be fine, I promise."
He seemed skeptical, but he obeyed. As he sank back, he lifted his feet and stretched them out, and then got his head on one of the throw pillows. He shifted his weight a bit and after a few moments he seemed comfortable.
Melody rose up and pulled a nearby throw blanket off its chair. "You want a cover?" she asked.
He turned a bit. "Uh...could you...leave it there?" he asked, pointing to the floor beneath him. She nodded and let the blanket drop. She raised one hand and patted his head. "G'night, Ferro."
He seemed startled by her sudden touch, and reached up to grasp her hand as she pulled it away. For a moment, the two looked at each other, and Melody unconsciously let out a long sigh.
Ferro gave her a gentle smile, and lifted her hand to his lips. Then he let it drop, rolled over, and shut his eyes to go to sleep.
Melody stared at the back door for a long time. She was not tired--she was angry. She had to find a way out of this mess, not just for her but for Ferro as well. She knew that Dr. Logan wasn't bluffing when he said they had done terrible things to Ferro, things that made him dangerous. They had probably tortured him inhumanly, and she didn't want to let it go on. He was going to come with her, to hell and high water with her fears and misgivings about his real feelings for her. He needed her help, and she cared about him, and she was going to make sure he got it.
Dr. Logan had told her everything was secure. Well, she was going to make sure. Maybe they would come and punish her somehow when they saw her, but she didn't care. If they were bluffing it was worth taking the risk to find out, and if they weren't bluffing she was trapped there, so there was little point in making it an easy stay. They could start doing terrible things to her, too, at any time. She had none of it to lose.
She began with rattling every window and testing every lock. She lasted about an hour before she came to the dining room for the second time, back at the large double doors behind the head chair. They had been securely locked, but upon closer inspection, Melody realized that the plates of glass were still in place, and quite capable of being broken.
She smashed one--it was a lovely sound. She glanced at Ferro, to see if he was awake, but amazingly he was still lying on the couch, snoring away. She slipped her hand through the broken pane, only to have it come up against the familiar, unbreakable plastic barricade that replaced all the other windows.
So the security people weren't stupid after all, she thought with disgust as she pulled her hand back through. As she turned around, she came face to face with an unexpected and certainly unsettling sight.
Dr. Logan stood in the dining room doorway, looking like he hadn't slept in days, even though she'd just seen him hours ago. His hair was badly mused, he looked like he hadn't shaved--in this ragged state, his resemblance to Ferro was beyond frightening. If she didn't know for sure that the other was sleeping on the couch, she would have questioned who exactly was before her.
"You," he rasped, coming closer to her. She jumped back, even though the distance between them was still a good ten feet. She ran around the curve of the table, but he followed, grabbing and chairs and yanking them out of his way.
"What?" she screeched, yanking up one of the chairs and jutting its legs before her, like a lion tamer. He glared at her, paused, ran both hands through his hair, straightened his shoulders.
"I want you to stop what you're doing," he breathed.
She scowled at him, baffled. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said.
He slammed one fist against his chest. "You know what you're doing! I want you to stop it!"
She started to scoot back, shaking her head slowly, then more wildly as the panic took its full grip. "I swear," she insisted, "I have no clue--"
"Liar!" He lashed out with one fist and it smashed hard against the thin door that separated the dining room from the living room. He punched a hole clear through it, and through his own skin. The blood ran for a few seconds, then she watched as the wound began to close itself.
He ignored it and came charging at her again. He grabbed at the table, yanking off the cloth, as if somehow that might slow her down. He picked it up and hurled it at her, and it got tangled around the chair in her grip. She let them both go, sending them at his legs, but he made a single leap and cleared them. He landed a mere three feet from her, and she let out a shriek. As she turned to run she realized that the chairs he had knocked over were now in her path, and she tripped, flying in a ball of arms and legs onto the ground. She slammed her head against the other doorjamb and groaned as it dulled her senses. The next thing she knew, the doctor was grabbing her by her shirt collar and yanking her to her feet, using his own chest as a lean as he seized the back of her head by the hair of her nape.
She opened her eyes to see his furious ones boring into hers. She felt a terrible pressure on her temples, wondered if somehow he was doing it, and blinked rapidly, trying to shake it away.
"Make it stop," he whispered raggedly.
She shook her head. "I don't know how!" she moaned. "What am I doing? Please," and her voice broke into a sob, her body no longer able to control itself under his assault, "tell me what I'm doing."
He let his breath out through his teeth--it was hot and wet against her chin. "No one makes me tell them my secrets," he said. "No one. I won't be pressured into revealing anything until I'm damn good and ready!"
Her eyes flew open wide, meeting his again, this time holding. She felt the pressure on her temples ease, not because he had relented but because somehow, some sort of instinct was showing her how to fight back. She looked at him so hard she thought her eyeballs would fall out of her face, glaring into his furious expression with a determination she didn't entirely feel.
Suddenly, it hit her--what he was talking about. "You lied to me," she heard herself saying. "I don't know what about, but something you told me...something important...isn't true." She almost laughed. Almost. She got her feet more solidly against the ground and gave him a little shove. "You lied to me and for some reason it's making you nuts!"
"NO," he growled, "not it. You. You're trying to make me tell you the truth. It's you and that damn empathic gift of yours--it has to be."
She did laugh this time, short, more like a snort through her teeth. "Ever heard of guilt? I'll bet it's a real foreign concept to you, but I--"
"SHUT UP!" he howled, shoving her back down onto the ground. She flew a good several feet before landing in the heap of chairs and the discarded table cloth. Apparently, somewhere along the line they had all gotten turned around and now they broke her fall, thankfully.
Dizziness blurred her senses, and total disorientation set in. One of the chair legs was jamming her in the ribs and Melody tried to turn over to dislodge it. Her air was being cut off by the table cloth, which had somehow found its way over her face. She tried to shove it away, blinking rapidly, trying to clear her vision again. She finally managed to get onto her back, just in time to see Dr. Logan coming at her again, something dangling from his hand.
Melody shook her head and the picture cleared.
It was a whip.
A cat-o-nine-tails, to be exact. For a moment, she wasn't sure that she was seeing right-- she felt like she had tumbled into some bad dream. This couldn't be happening. Who did this madman think he was, anyway?
She tried to get her feet under her but the tablecloth had tangled around her shoes, and there was no time. He was over her, and he swung the whip over his head, bringing it down across her back.
Red pain sliced over her and she let out a scream. She vaguely heard the ripping of her shirt, of her skin, the sound of her own blood running down her back, the crack of the whip as it came up again---
*Flash*
She could see Ferro crouching on the ground, his back a bloody mess, the doctors watching in awe as the wounds began closing themselves as rapidly as the blows could be delivered. She felt it pain, felt it like a sharp, stagnant odor that fills not just one sense but all of them, rocking her skull with its impact, until all the eyes saw was pain-filled chaos.
He could heal, but he felt pain. And she was feeling it too, for some reason. As the whip came down again, she looked at it, feeling that terrible, trapped, helpless feeling she had had since she was a child, the feeling of everyone tearing at you, wanting a piece of you, carrying it away---
"No," she whimpered, shutting her eyes. The inside of her head felt like a twister of emotion. She couldn't tell what was hers and what wasn't. She didn't want to be seeing these things, these things that didn't make sense and yet made too much sense. Scent became touch, sight became hearing, her body was on fire and yet it felt like an icy wave was going through her veins--
And then Ferro was there, lifting Dr. Logan over his head, hurling him through the air toward the dining room doors. The glass panes shattered, nearly deafening her, and then there was a loud crack, like lightening tearing through a seven foot tree trunk---
There was silence. Melody just sat there, on her knees, her feet still tangled, her arms covered with thin streams of blood, her back on fire and her cheeks icy cold. She realized that there were tears on them, tears that were catching a soft current of wind, bringing with it the scent of rain.
She opened her eyes, not realizing that they'd been closed. She felt someone at her feet, yanking the tangling cloth away then gently draping it over her back. The pain was dizzying, but it passed and she suddenly felt warm, safe.
There were arms around her. She turned her head, even though it hurt, and saw Ferro looking at her, his eyes terrified, his jaw angry, his mouth moving wordlessly. One hand cupped her cheek, bringing her face to his, and he kissed her tenderly on her wet skin. Melody wanted to shut her eyes again, lose herself in that sweetness, but she heard the sound of someone moving.
Struggling to get up.
Ferro straightened, then started to get to his feet. Melody sensed his confusion, his panic, and the wave of the emotion was enough to get her to test one leg.
It worked fine. Apparently, only her back was hurt. She could walk--as she looked around her, she realized that there was a large hole in the wall where the doors had been, and the not-so-good doctor was lying there, thrashing a bit, trying to get himself up.
And succeeding.
Melody dragged her other foot under her and finally stood up. As she made the fatal mistake of straightening her back muscles she nearly buckled, and Ferro caught her, trying to be careful not to touch the long, bleeding wounds. The tablecloth was soaked--Melody could smell her own blood and it sickened her. She shifted her weight to get her hands under her on the table, using it as a lean.
Ferro, for his part, turned his full attention to the doctor, who had lost the whip, but was still enraged.
She heard a sound.
*Snikt*
It had come from Ferro. She looked over her shoulder to see his hand at his side, his three claws extended, their bones gleaming dangerously. They were longer than she remembered--more than half a foot, maybe as much as nine inches. He lifted them slowly, threateningly.
She didn't have the strength to turn and look at the doctor, but as she shut her eyes again, she found she could feel him.
To her amazement, he was scared.
"Ferro," he said, his voice gentle, "you don't want to do this."
"Don't I?"
That wasn't the Ferro she knew. He sounded so angry--more angry than she had ever heard come from one being in her life. It was a low, guttural voice, growling and menacing. She wouldn't have liked very much to trade places with Dr. Logan at that moment.
"No," Dr. Logan said, and she heard him shuffling his feet, trying to get a bit closer without getting too close. "Come on, put them away and we can just forget--"
"No."
Dr. Logan let out his breath, a weary sigh. "You know it's just going to be worse for you, don't you?" he pleaded, cajoling. "Come on, I promise I won't hurt you, or her, any more."
"That's right," Ferro said, "you won't."
Melody did not know what happened next. Ferro lurched forward. She tried to turn around, ignoring the ache in her back, but by the time she succeeded it was over.
She heard the tearing of skin, the sound of blood splattering, and then the inevitable drop to the floor. When her eyes caught up, she just saw Dr. Logan lying on the ground, and Ferro standing over him, looking grimly satisfied.
Those lupine eyes turned to her, flashing flecks of golden rage before they calmed back into the tranquil sea of soft brown. He straightened, his claws disappearing, his face gentling. He extended a hand to her.
"You wanted to leave," he said, his voice a gentle whisper. "Let's go."
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