No! She lost a full minute to the overwhelming despair of. No words, just a choking black fog of denial.
Her eyes went back to the furry lump. Was that Mark? She didn’t think so, but how could she tell? The color seemed lighter, the size smaller, but in this gloom, how could she know? Hadn’t Mark told her that the next time he shifted, he wouldn’t be able to come back? Maybe that was him. Which meant the first step was to get him human again. So they could figure this out together.
“Mark?” she called softly. “Mark, is that you?”
She wanted to reach through the bars to touch him, but couldn’t bring herself to risk that. Not until she was sure it was him. So she crouched next to the bars and called while searching for something to throw.
“Come on, honey. Wake up.”
No response. And the floor was a simple concrete slab. Dirty with clods of dirt and hay, but not with anything large enough to throw.
Okay, try something else. She wasn’t a helpless maiden who needed Mark to rescue her. She might not be GI Jane, but she could try some basic things. First things first. She tested every aspect of her cage. It was depressingly solid.
Weapons next. Anything?
Not that she could see. She peered through the gloom looking for exits, sharp things she could grab or make sharp by breaking, and anything else that a smart person could make into something useful. One exit to her left. Microscope and other science stuff on a far table. Everything out of reach. Not even a bit of water, and she was getting really thirsty.
Damn.
She was about to start screaming in frustration when door abruptly popped open. She looked up with hope only to flinch away from the sunlight. There was a person there. A man with wild hair and glasses. A few more blinks and she figured out he was wearing jeans and a dirty tee.
He flipped on the light, blinding her even further, then shut the door. He hummed quietly to himself—a Beatles song, she thought—as he pulled on a lab coat that had been hanging on a peg. Then he turned to her.
“You’re awake,” he said. “Good.”
Now that her eyes had adjusted, she saw the man who had to be Evil Einstein. Mark had only mentioned him once, but the name had always struck her as funny. Not so much now that she was looking straight at him. Wild hair, middling frame, genial expression, but crazy eyes behind the glasses.
“Why am I here?” She quietly applauded herself for keeping her voice steady.
With the light on, she could see this was nothing more than a large shed. Concrete floor, wood walls, cheap roof. She tried to peer through the grimy window just to get a fix on where they were. Anything would help, but as far as she could see, it was dirty out there. “Because I need you,” the man answered, his tone telling her she should have deduced that.
Fucker.
“For what?” Against her will, her eyes drifted to the furry lump. It wasn’t Mark, she now saw. It didn’t even fully look like a bear but a wrong combination of man and beast. The fur looked clumped and sparse, the joints and body proportions weird.
“For him,” Evil Einstein answered as he went closer to the creature’s cage. He frowned as he peered inside. “He’s unstable.”
Great.
“And you’re going to help cement the shift.”
“I am so not helping you.”
He twisted, jerking his chin toward her arm. “You noticed the Band-Aid, right?”
She looked down, trying to ignore the itch she felt there. “What did you do to me?”
“Probably nothing. I gave you a small dose of what he had.”
She jolted. “What?”
“It’s to activate shifter DNA.”
“I don’t have any.”
He snorted. “How would you know? I think that everyone has some of it. It’s all a question of degree.”
Oh, hell. “So you tested me? You think I can shift?” The idea intrigued her almost as much as it horrified her. She’d been experimented on in God only knew what way, which made her stomach roil with fear. But the idea that she could be like Mark? That she could shift to bear was appealing on a gut level.
