Page 2 of The Beast's Baby
“I’m allowed,” he replied, green eyes briefly meeting hers.
There was no recognition in them at all, as though this was the first time they’d ever met. That flat expression had never gotten to her in the sense that she had taken it personally—it had seemed merely a requirement for their clinical surroundings. Plus, he’d never made any effort to speak to her at all, so his knack for looking right through her had seemed fitting.
But now circumstances were different, and the expressionless look in his eyes got her hackles up.
“So, if you’re allowed, then why don’t you?” she asked.
“I find it’s better not to interact with a subject,” he replied, each word measured, as though he had some form of magical internal scale by which he lived his life.
It was extremely grating. Especially since she’d never been provided with any such scale and had a tendency to say whatever was on her mind. Such as the words that came immediately out of her mouth in response to that emotionless summation.
“That’s crap,” she stated. “You just don’t want to talk to me because you don’t want to hear what I might have to say about being a ‘subject’.”
She felt soft triumph when he glanced at her, as briefly as before, but this time there was something stirring in his gaze.
“Admit it,” she prompted, but the stirring died down again, and he turned from her to retrieve the needle.
It was of the thinner variety—it usually was—and she had never once felt it punctuate her skin. He was a real professional. But that didn’t change the fact that she didn’t want him to keep poking her.
“I want to leave,” she said.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he replied, tone as even as before.
“Why not? Am I a prisoner here?”
He furrowed his brows at her as though he didn’t know where she was coming from, making such a veiled accusation. “You’re a part of a closed trial,” he said. “Any participant leaving the environment in which the trial is taking place risks contaminating it.”
“But I wasn’t told that,” she said, not wanting to beg for understanding but still having a plea sneak into her tone. “I had no idea I’d be stuck in a room without a phone for weeks on end. At least let me call someone. Nobody knows where I am. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing, I just signed up because I needed the money. They’ll be worried.”
“Your family has been informed,” No-Expression Guy said, as though she had died and her loved ones had been notified not to search for a body.
She swallowed.
Who was he, really? Did he believe the bullshit he was spewing? Was he a cog in the machinery or the hand that twisted the knobs and pulled the levers? How much did he know? Because what they were doing—keeping her there against her will—wasn’t legal. She should be able to quit the trial at any moment if she no longer wished to participate. She didn’t know the law inside and out but that much she knew. She hadn’t signed a piece of paper that informed her explicitly that it meant giving away her personal freedom or right to her own body. No. This was all fucked.
“Then I want to talk to them myself. Explain what’s going on. Ask them to come get me when I’m done here,” she said. “It’s been four weeks,” she added, as though the amount of time had any baring.
Obviously it didn’t, or she would have gotten a say in how long she felt comfortable staying in confinement.
“Five,” he corrected, pulling the full needle out and pressing a piece of gauze to the puncture mark. “Fold, please.”
She did as she had done all the other times that he’d taken her blood. Those times had been without instruction of any kind. As if she was a lab rat that he didn’t have to worry about talking to. Was that all she was to him? She couldn’t tell. She hadn’t bothered thinking about it before because she’d figured she was in this by herself. After the first week, she had begun to feel loneliness in her isolation that had been unlike anything she’d ever felt before. There had been fear that had come with it, but even though she hadn’t viewed this No-Name Stone-Faced man as an ally, he had at least been a constant point of human—or whatever he was—interaction.
Even if that interaction meant stealing her blood.
He still had two more needles to fill. She supposed the vials would be put in one of those spinning machines so that her blood could be tested. She didn’t even know what for. She hadn’t been told anything other than what she was doing was important. And she’d signed the slip of paper like an idiot. By the look of him, she wasn’t going to find out anything else from him either.
Then again, she’d never tried to.
“I don’t want you to take any more,” she said when he picked up the second needle.
“That’s all well and good, Ms. Krushnik, but you understand that I’m obliged to take more anyway.” He was so measured and so infinitely polite, and yet she wanted to kick him in the head.
She would have if she hadn’t been just Isobel. But just Isobel didn’t kick people in the head. Wolf Isobel could, though. She hadn’t had enough time to get to know her wolf all that well before signing up for the trial, but she’d gotten that very distinct impression of it. It was always ready for a fight.
Since arriving at the facility, she’d been given something that inhibited her from shifting. She had a feeling it was the tea she drank every morning. Something herby that made her feel drowsy for a minute or two. As though it put her wolf to sleep.
Because of it, she had no connection with the superpowers she’d discovered that came with being able to turn into a wolf, even though those powers had been newly awakened and she had just started getting to know them.
