Part 20 (1/2)

Leah couldn't stop smiling.

She had a date! A first date. With a guy she actually was attracted to. The kind of date you should be on time for.

And not show up smelling of formaldehyde, either.

Which meant she had to hurry and finish her dissection of the cat she was working on if she wanted to get back to the dorm, wash the stink off her hands and put on a clean top.

Turning back to the split, skinned and pinned corpse on the dissection board, she reached for her scalpel, her thoughts alternating between the lobes of the lungs and Hank Finn's totally kissable lips.

”Ow!” A sharp, stinging pain brought her attention back to the present. She looked down and saw she'd grabbed the wrong end of the scalpel. The surgical steel had sliced a two-inch gash along her thumb. As she watched, blood welled up and flowed out in a miniature waterfall.

”Oh d.a.m.n.” Instinctively she grabbed her injured thumb with her other hand and looked around for something to pack the wound. Paper towels, Kimwipes, anything. Naturally, there was nothing there.

”s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t!” Now she was really going to be late, doubly so if she had to go to the college infirmary for st.i.tches.

Maybe just some Band-Aids... Praying for a shallow cut, she opened her hand and peeked at her thumb.

Under the red smears, a thin separation showed, with dried blood already crusting over the top.

”Wow.” Leah breathed a sigh of relief. It was no worse than a paper cut. And yet it had bled so much...

I wonder if- The buzz of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. She pulled it from her purse and flipped it open with one hand.

”Leah, are you still in the Anatomy lab?” Kelli Chen's exasperation with Leah's perpetual lateness was evident even through the tiny speaker in the phone. ”My G.o.d, girl, get your a.s.s in gear!”

”On my way,” she a.s.sured her roommate. I can always come in early in the morning and finish.

Lessons and cut both forgotten, Leah hurried for the door.

Leah's first thought when she woke up was that she'd fallen asleep on the couch again while reading, something she did more often than she liked to admit. A cla.s.sic sign of a lonely life. Her dream echoed in her head, and she wondered why she'd thought back to that day in college. Back then, she hadn't been aware how her Power worked on her own cuts and bruises, kept her from catching the flu like other people. It was only after vet school that she'd really looked back and all the little clues came together. After that, she never really thought about it. So why now? She had so much more- Reality came barreling back, driving away memories and happy thoughts in an instant. She opened her eyes, afraid of what-or who-she might see.

Across from her was the table with the computer monitors. She tried to move and found she'd been tied-chest, arms and legs-to a wooden chair, probably the same one she'd sat in when Del had threatened her earlier.

Earlier when? she asked herself, which brought back other memories. The pig. Getting knocked down. Then...blacking out? From the numbness in her arms and legs, and the cold that had her s.h.i.+vering, she had to have been out for a while.

Someone cleared their throat off to her right and she turned her head.

Del sat in front of a computer, smiling at her in a way that immediately set her on edge. He looked as smug as a person possibly could, his grin a sure sign she was in worse trouble than she imagined.

”Hey, Doc. Welcome back. How do you feel?” His smile grew a little wider, like a little boy with a secret he couldn't wait to share.

”Cold. Not that you care.” In no mood to play his game, she let her disgust for him show in her words. Once again her death had been postponed, and she was tired of waiting. Maybe if she antagonized him enough...

”Oh, but I do care. I care a lot. In fact, I'm happier than you can imagine to hear you don't have any aches or pains.”

Aches or... Leah frowned. He was right. Other than being cold and stiff, she felt fine.

The pig.

She remembered it coming right at her. Its hooves. Snapping sounds... Bones breaking? So much pain...

No. It had to be part of her dream. A false memory from hitting her head again. That was it. The pig must've knocked her over, she'd hit her head and imagined the rest.

She looked around again. There was no sign of any destruction, although a faint but suspicious red swatch on the floor had her thinking about the explosion she'd heard just before blacking out. A gunshot? More than likely.

”Doc.” Del snapped his fingers. ”Pay attention here, okay? Remember what you were telling me earlier? How you're no use to me because you lost your powers? Well, I think you'll find this interesting.”

He touched a b.u.t.ton on the keyboard and the monitors came to life. A video started, showing a room Leah instantly recognized as the one she was in. Each monitor showed the same scene from a different angle, and as she watched the video play out, a sick feeling started in her stomach. At the point where the frantic pig charged her, Del paused the clip.

”Now watch this part carefully.” He tapped one of the monitors. When the video started again, she found herself tensing as the animal trampled her. The sounds of screaming and bones breaking filled her ears.

It wasn't a dream. It was real. No, it couldn't- ”This is my favorite part,” Del said, raising his voice over the sounds from the monitors. On one of the screens, the camera zoomed in and she saw two men lift her into the chair. One of them cried out as his hand touched her, but he didn't let go.

Leah's body started to tremble from something other than the cold.

No. Please, no...

The camera zoomed in farther, forcing her to watch as the ma.s.sive damage to her body healed and disappeared. When her crooked nose slid back into its normal shape, Del touched another key and the screens went blank.

”Lost your powers, huh?”

She understood his smile now. He looked like he'd won the lottery because he had. She'd proven what she could do to the people who'd been watching, and now she and John would be prisoners for life.

”What...what are you going to do?”

”That's a good question, and I think you deserve an honest answer. Tomorrow night some very bad men are going to come here, and I'm going to sell you to one of them. Of course, they'll want a live demonstration of your power, so your cop friend might have a few uncomfortable minutes. But if you're lucky, you'll be able to convince whoever buys you that you and your lover come as a pair.”

”You're a real piece of s.h.i.+t.” Leah allowed all her contempt and anger to color her words. He was basically admitting he'd be selling her into slavery, except she'd be raped in a different way. ”Do you know what they'll do with me?”

Del shrugged. ”What the h.e.l.l do I care? As long as I get my money, your next owner can spend the rest of his life having you keep his kids' pets alive. Of course, I'm guessing that what you'll end up doing will be a lot more dangerous, but then I figure you know that as well as I do.”

”And that doesn't bother you?”

Without warning, Del stood up and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her head against the back of the chair. He'd moved so fast she didn't even have time to cry out.

”Listen, lady. You don't know what makes me tick. There's a lot of s.h.i.+t in this world that bothers me, but I know better than to try and get in its way. If these people want someone dead, then that's what's gonna happen. All I'm doing is selling them a new weapon, no different than a gun or a knife. And, trust me, I thought long and hard about this. I know what happens to people who know a secret. I'll be spending the rest of my life looking over my G.o.dd.a.m.ned shoulder.”

He let go and sat down again, his face returning to his normal calm expression.

”But at least I'll be looking over my shoulder in a beautiful beachside villa instead of a crummy New York apartment.”

Leah stared at him. She wanted to scream out her frustrations, tell him what a horrible person he was, but she saw it would be no use.

Because he was crazy.

You wouldn't know it if you walked past him on the street, might not even notice it if you sat down and had a cup of coffee with him. But it was there, a deeply buried nugget of insanity, cloaked by ordinary looks and a friendly smile.