Changes (16 page)

He nodded, looked at the doors, and saw something that completely surprised him suddenly. Written on a sticker with a red background and big white letters, was the word
Restricted
at the center of each door. He never saw them before, and had no memory of ever seeing them. Instantly, he became worried all too quickly. Seeing them, he didn’t know what to think or how to feel about them.

“What’s wrong?” She noticed the look on his face.

“I don’t remember this.” He pointed at the stickers, looking like a showroom model showing off a new and special prize to a perspective buyer.

“This
is
a restricted area.” She stepped in between him and the doors. “Did you meet him out here?”

He shook his head, still looking at the sign.

“You met him inside?”

He nodded his head yes.

“What was he doing inside?” she asked, more than just completely confused, but now completely dumbfounded as well. No one should have been in the room. There were only four people with access to it, as far as she knew, and she was one of those people. The others were Mister Ross and Gary, and of course, Alfred Hayes, their last animal keeper. No one else should have had access to it. No one would have even known what the room was used for.

“I don’t know. It was dark.” He looked from the sign and back up to her.

She could see a fog over his eyes. He looked more than just confused. He looked almost scared. “He was in the room with the lights off?” she asked, feeling concerned. Jimmy wasn’t just acting strange; he also looked completely terrified.
Something happened to him.
He showed all of the signs of someone that was more than just a thousand miles away, but someone that almost seemed completely different from the man he once was. He acted almost as different as night and day.

He nodded again.

She sighed, and now had to see inside the room, now more than ever. She went to the door pad and used her access card to beep open the door, and let herself inside.

He stayed there and watched her pass him.

Inside, the room looked so dark that she couldn’t see anything in front of her face. Her immediate reaction was to turn back to the doorway to look for a light switch, but not finding one at first, it was so dark she couldn’t see anything there; she had to feel for the doorjamb instead. It didn’t take her long to find one, so she flipped the switch up, and the lights came on.

Seeing the lights on, he left the hallway and slowly made his way inside the room. Instantly, he felt uneasy. Instantly, he felt almost afraid of what he would see once he saw it again. Seeing it, he was right. Immediately, his heart began to thunder inside his chest. Instantly, his breathing picked up its pace. Almost at once, his face began to grow red hot with fire. Almost as fast, his eyes began to water and his hands went wet to the touch. He felt scared all right. He felt absolutely terrified.

The room looked far different from when he last saw it. Back then, it was nothing but a prison. He could even still see bars in front of him when they forced him inside the cage. He could see those who brought him food, throw it at him from behind the bars, and then back away, laughing as they did it. He could hear them mock him, and call him names. He could remember all of it. He could remember everything. He saw them coming at him with the cattle prods, jabbing at him to move. Remembering all of it, he felt something else there just as strong. It felt just as fierce. He could feel their fear. He could sense the fear they had for him.

She walked into the center of the room, and there, she stopped and turned back around. “This is where you met Collins?” She looked back at him in disbelief but that faded fast once she caught a glimpse of the look on his face. She saw nothing but horror in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” He looked almost like a deer, crossing the road with nothing but the blare of headlights coming at him fast and furious from the car about to strike him. “What makes you afraid of this place?”

“I don’t like this place,” he answered her with a whisper. He could barely make out what he even said. “This is a bad place. This is a prison.”

Hearing that, she turned back to the room. Off on the opposite side from them, she could see a bed lying up against the far wall. To her left, and to the right of the room as he saw it, she saw a row of cages lining the wall. There were six of them in total, two stacked one on top the other. All of them looked empty. To her right, and his left, she saw nothing but a large counter that ran along the entire length of the wall. That was it. There was nothing else there. Nothing looked like a prison. Nothing felt like one either. “Why do you think this was a prison?” Nothing he said made any sense to her. Why would he feel like it was one? Why would he tell her all of this?

“Because, that’s what it was. They kept him in here. They trapped him right here in this room. They treated him like an animal.” He swallowed an empty dry mouth. In fact, it felt like it had a thousand cotton balls in it, wrapped around his tongue, and with them, it made it hard for him to talk straight.

“Who? Collins?” She crossed the room and came right up in front of him.

He looked up to her with tears in his eyes, and could only nod his answer to her.

“Who kept him here? Who was holding him?”

“The older man with the white hair and the fine suit.” He crossed his arms over his chest. He started to feel very cold, standing there in that room, and that cold told him that he now needed to leave. He needed to get the hell out of there as fast as he could go, so he had to answer that calling. “I can’t stay here.” He turned and headed back out to the hallway, and didn’t breathe until he was there. That’s when he felt free again. That’s when he felt strong again, and instantly, he sighed with all of it.

She watched him leave her and turned back to the center of the room. She needed to think. She needed to take the time to take in everything she heard. Nothing made any sense. Why would someone be locked up in there, in that room, like an animal? Why would the place that she worked for, do that to another human being? The man that he described, Mister Ross, would never do the things that he accused him of doing. Looking back around the room, she finished and turned back to the doors. She left the room and flipped down the switch, and the door gently closed behind her.

He walked down the hallway to the next intersection and there he stopped. Whatever happened to him, it now seemed over. He felt free again. He knew that he
had
escaped them.

“Jimmy? Are you feeling better?” She went up to him and stopped just by his side. Everything she heard made her mind race into a thousand different directions at once. Mostly, how did this guard, this shy aloof and quiet guard, know about everything he said?

He nodded, feeling like himself again, so he took a deep and exaggerated breath. “Good.” He smiled and looked into her beautiful eyes. “Did I help with what you needed?”

“You don’t know what happened with this Collins do you?” She nodded and shrugged her shoulders with a force.

He shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since last week.”

“And he told you everything that you just told me?”

He nodded. “He said that he was nothing more than just a rat, a type of guinea pig or something?” He turned and looked back up the hallway. “Would you mind if we head back? I don’t like this place.” He turned and started back down the hallway by himself.

She went after him, picking up her stride, and stopped him with the grab of his left arm. “Jimmy?” She pulled him to a stop. “Did you and Collins ever talk about where he goes after he leaves here?”

He spun back around. “No we didn’t.” He stared deeply into her eyes, and with that, he could almost peer into her soul. She looked like such an honest person, he could tell it, and it made him relax all too quickly. “We never talked about anything. He would just head outside. He looked so free. He looked so honest. He looked like he loved it all.”

She sighed when she realized that she wasn’t getting the answers that she wanted. She had to find this Collins. She had so much to ask him about, that she truly didn’t even know where to start.

“Why is he so important to you?” he asked, staring deeper into her eyes.

What she saw almost caused her to melt some within his stare. So much seemed to change about him, that she couldn’t grasp it all at once. He seemed entirely like a different person. The change seemed so strongly complete. Listening to his question opened her mind to him almost completely and totally. “The blood sample that I have is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ve been studying some things here at the lab, things about healing, but nothing like this. His cells were the breakthrough that I’ve been looking for. I need to find him Jimmy. I need to find out why he seems to be able to do something that no one else on this earth seems to be able to do?” She turned from him, but couldn’t bring her eyes off his. “Now if you see him, could you tell him that I would like to speak with him?” She sighed again, disappointed. She failed in her search, and now, she had no place to go.

He turned to her solidly, and suddenly, he had other things on his mind. “How about we go out for coffee and breakfast? You tell me what you know and I’ll tell you what I know?” He smiled beyond firmly.

“I thought you told me everything?” She completely didn’t expect what he just offered her, and it made her feel quietly cold. Instantly, it seemed that his voice changed almost without notice, and his bashfulness seemed to vanish with everything else.

“I might give you something that I didn’t know that I knew? If we talked over coffee, we both might fill in the blanks?” His smile grew larger and more proud as it consumed his face.

She couldn’t tell where he was leading her, especially after, not just moments ago, he looked to be completely terrified about where he was. Even still, his offer sounded intriguing. Even so, it still felt like something that she wasn’t sure if she would take him up on or not. “I’m not sure when I’m going to get done? We’ll see?” She smiled back.

“Oh come on? It won’t hurt us to compare notes?” His smile now turned bashful. She smelled so strong. He could feel her hesitation. It felt strong, but he could also sense her want for him too. He knew she felt curious about his offer.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head.

“What is there to know? It might be good to just sit and talk about it. We might be able to help each other?”

“What do you need help with?”

“I won’t know that, until we talk some more.” His smile grew as he came even closer to where she stood. Being this close to her, her smell almost seemed to become a taste to him, and he liked the taste.

She smiled.
He’s hitting on me. I can’t believe it.
What she wasn’t sure of, was if that was a good thing or a bad thing to have happen like this. She still felt intrigued nonetheless. “Okay.” She bowed her head, but only briefly. She picked it back up again and looked directly into his eyes. They looked almost hypnotic. He also looked so familiar to her, but she didn’t know why. It felt like a haunting. It felt just plain old odd.

“I’ll see you this morning then?” He turned and looked back up the hallway behind him. “Let’s get out of here?”

Together they left the double doors behind them and made their way back through the hallways, towards the front of the labs. At the double doors, they separated, and each went their separate ways. She went back to her lab, and he went back to his tour.

Whatever he felt before, when he first came to the double doors, now seemed to be completely gone from his thoughts. Everything now seemed replaced with only the thoughts of her. Nothing else seemed to matter to him. When he finished his tour, he went back to the counter and sat back down behind it with a skip in his heart. Now, he couldn’t wait for the night to end and for the new day to begin again.

The night did go by fast, and before he knew it, it was a little after six in the morning. He finished his last tour and when he arrived back at the counter, he didn’t even bother to sit. Instead, he paced around the front lobby and waited almost impatiently for her to come to him. He felt like a little school boy all over again, waiting for the school year to end and for the summer to start. He couldn’t wait to see her, and couldn’t wait to be able to smell her again. She felt like a drug. Everything about her felt like everything he ever imagined to find. He couldn’t contain his excitement. When the time didn’t seem to go by fast enough, he went back to the counter to check the clock. Each time, only a few minutes passed by, so seeing that, he would go back to pacing. It all made him feel restless and nervous. When Frank came through the front doors to relieve him, he instantly began to feel even more worried than he already felt.
Is she going to come? Is she interested in going out with me? Or, will she stand me up?
Either thought made the nervousness only build up more within his heart. He did think she was going to take him up on the offer. He could feel it. He could also smell it. She wanted to go out with him. He knew that, but still he wasn’t sure.

Frank did what he always did when he came in to work, with Jimmy filling him in on everything that happened over the night. There wasn’t that much to tell him. The night went by quietly with nothing happening, so when they finished, Jimmy left him at the counter, and made his way back to the front doors. He stopped at them, and looked out to the sun-quenched morning sky, and there, he decided to wait for her. He hoped it wouldn’t take long. Thankfully, for him, it didn’t.

Making her way down the stairs, she looked even more wonderful than she ever did before, with the sun coming in behind him and flowing over her like a gentle dove.
God, she is so beautiful. God, she is so perfect.
Seeing her, his heart beat fast, and his hands went moist. The excitement in him only grew.
She looks like an angel. She looks like the sun and more.
“Rachel?” He left the front doors, walked up to her, and met her at the bottom of the stairs.

She looked to him and smiled. “Jimmy?” Surprise crossed over her voice, as part of her expected him to be already gone. The other part of her felt pleased that he hadn’t left yet. However, both parts made her feel somewhat confused. She did like him, that was true, but she seemed more confused as for the reasons why she did. She thought that he was intriguing. She could only confirm that feeling, now, being there, seeing him waiting.

He smiled back to her with glee erupting over his heart. “I’m happy you came.” Seeing her, with the sun so brightly shining in her eyes, he felt so magical. He almost couldn’t stand it, but he also noticed that there was something else there about her too. She looked familiar to him somehow, almost like he knew her from a dream, but he didn’t know what that meant. However seeing her, it made him feel relaxed, almost serene and that’s all he cared about feeling.

“Jimmy.” She stopped at the last step, and her smile vanished from her face. “I’m sorry Jimmy, but I’m kind of too tired to go out for breakfast.” She bowed her eyes to the floor. “Maybe some other time?” It sounded better than she rehearsed it. Saying no, made sense, at least until she could figure out everything else for herself.

Hearing her answer sent his heart sinking deep into his chest and disappointment erupted through his mind. “Why not?” He could feel her heart beat strongly for him. He felt it there. It called to him. “Oh come on? It’ll be good for you to eat something. Get you all perked up and ready for bed?” He wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and his determination showed. “You need to eat?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed.

She showed her honesty, and it made him melt even more. “I promise just food and maybe some coffee, and just some plain ole chit-chat?” He understood her hesitation. God, he loved feeling what he was. “I won’t bite?” He smiled again, peering his head down, trying to look at her face.

She looked up and their eyes met. She couldn’t help but smile at the look on his face. His eyes looked droopy some, and his face looked low. His smile almost looked like a whine. He looked like something between a child and a puppy dog’s face. “Oh, all right.”
What could it hurt? What did I have to lose?
Her smile came back again.

“Great!” He almost shouted with the excitement wanting to explode from his chest. He turned to the doors and held out his left hand out towards them. “Shall we then?”

She laughed slightly, and nodded. She left the bottom step and made her way towards him.

He quickly went to the counter, took his thermos, and made it back to the door just before she reached it. That made him happy. He opened it for her and held it open.

She walked outside, stopped on the sidewalk, and waited for him to join her.       

He did so quickly.

“So, where we going?” she asked.

“I have no idea.” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders with a sigh. He hadn’t planned on anything that far ahead yet.

She laughed as well. It told her that he really hadn‘t planned to ask her out. If he had, he would have known of the place that he wanted to take her, and the fact that he didn‘t know it, made her like him even more. “There’s a small little diner not that far from here, just in town. How about that?”

He smiled. “Sure. You’re car or mine?” He shrugged again. All the while, he couldn’t help but watch her face with the sun coming up behind her. She looked even better in the daylight than she ever did in the dimness of night.

“How about mine?” She smiled. He looked so—well—
cute
to her at that moment, she found it hard to keep her thoughts together long enough to think straight. He felt different, yes, but with his confidence showing through him, she could still see that bashful little boy still there behind it. Overall, it made her like him even more.

“Sounds good to me.” He nodded. He convinced her to go out with him, so if she wanted to do the driving, he wasn’t going to argue with her about it. He held out his left hand again towards the parking lot. “After you?”

She laughed some, before she turned and started walking again.

He followed her, watching the way her soft black hair bobbed on top of her head as she moved. They reached her car quickly, and he walked around the hood of it, stopped at the passenger side, and waited for her to let him inside.

She did, climbed in her car and unlocked his door.

He took his seat.

She started the car and together, they left the lot, heading out to the main access road and drove off towards town. It took only a few minutes to get there.

She found the place,
Dorothy’s Diner
, pulled in front of the building, and parked along the street.

It looked like a small place that felt tucked in along the street. Some might have called it a dive; others would have called it a
mom and pop
style place, but to Jimmy, it looked like something out of the
1950’s
. Outside it looked peachy, almost romantic. The sidewalk ran right along the side of the front of the diner, with two old and cracked steps that led up to the front door. Large windows ran the length of the wall, with several older people, with their gray hair sparkling in the early morning sun, sitting along the windows. As far as he was concerned about it, it looked perfect. This was the place of their first date, so it felt more than just right; it felt beyond special. He reached the front door first and held it open for her.

She walked inside and waited for him by an old looking, long counter that greeted them just inside the door.

A young woman with her blonde hair pulled back neatly in a ponytail greeted them with a smile. “Just two?”

Rachel returned the smile with a simple nod.

Together, they followed her to an empty booth just to the left of the front door, along the outside wall, and there, they both sat down, one across from the other.

“Your waiter will be with you shortly.” The ponytail bobbed, as the young woman nodded and left.

Jimmy couldn’t drag his stare from Rachel’s beauty. He barely even noticed that the hostess was even there. It just felt so magical. It just felt so wonderful to be somewhere with her other than the labs. “So, how long have you worked for Ravenswood?” He moved around until felt comfortable on the bench. He felt so relaxed that it almost made him nervous. He wasn’t used to feeling this way, but at the same time, it felt so right.

She likewise tried to get comfortable, sitting straight back on her bench. “About six years now.” She placed her hands to the top of the table in front of her, and folded one over the other.

“What are you studying again?” He likewise placed his hands in front of him with his eyes never once leaving hers.

“I’ve been working on a research project for curing illness and injuries. We’ve made some large strides over the past year or so.” She smiled. She felt tired, and she was sure that it had to be showing in her eyes. “We’re trying to find the reason behind it, a way to cure it.”

“How did you get into that?” He nodded, completely intrigued by the sounds of her voice. He felt so turned on with the curves of her mouth. Both made him feel more excited than he ever felt before in his life.

Instantly, she became somewhat uncomfortable. She never liked that question. It always felt too painful. It brought out every bad memory back with force, and it made her have to look down to her hands.

He didn’t like what he saw and regretted suddenly that he even asked the question. “You don’t have to answer that, if you don’t want to?” He never intended to make her feel that way. He hated seeing it come from her eyes. He hated feeling it emanating from her heart.

“It’s okay,” she paused some, thinking.
It’s been long enough, I should be getting over this.
It’s been over a year now, almost two really, but the emotion still felt raw like it all just happened yesterday. She could still see his face. She could still feel his warmth. She could still smell his cologne, and could still feel him with her, almost like he was there with her now. When her pause ended and she felt sure that she wasn’t going to cry, she brought her mind back together again. “My brother, Robert, died not that long ago. He was very sick. He fought for his life for a long time.” She smiled and sighed all at the same time. The look she carried and the sound she made didn’t mesh.

Everything made him grow uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.” He sighed, and finally dropped his eyes from hers. He had to look at something else. The shame for asking what he did, just wanted to consume his face.

She nodded and shrugged. “It’s okay, really.” She felt a tear form in her left eye and then her right, and quickly, she rubbed at both of them with a solid swipe of her left hand. “I should be getting used to it by now?” She brought her hand back down with the other one. “It’s just—I miss him a lot sometimes.” She tried to smile again, but failed, so she just gave up.

“You should never get used to something like that.” He looked back up and his mind flashed as his own memories flared. He too lost so much. He too lost everything. “I lost both of my parents when I was really young. I don’t remember them. You can never get used to them not being there though.” He winced some and he was right. He was just a baby when the car accident came and took them away from him. How he survived, no one would ever know. They called it a miracle, the story of his life. His maternal grandmother brought him up and she was everything he knew, but she too died when he was twelve. Foster parents then came and went, and then at eighteen, he set out on his own. He felt left alone ever since. He always
was
alone.

She breathed. “I’m sorry.” She sighed.

“It’s fine.” He smiled to her wondrous eyes as they sparkled. “So you went into research trying to rid the pain?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I came to the labs to study chemistry. When he became sick, I took care of him. I nursed him. I did everything that I could do to help him. He was my life. I spent over two years taking care of him. When he died, I had to do something to make the pain go away. I wanted to make sure that no one else would have to go through what I went through. Ravenswood gave me the chance to research it.”

He nodded as well. “That’s a lot more than most people do? You should be proud of it?”

She laughed some, halfhearted and subdued. “I am.” She sighed again. “That’s why this is so important to me. If I can get to the route of what makes an illness, then I can stop it, if not prevent it entirely?”

He now sighed. “And that’s where Collins comes in?”

She nodded. “Just today, I had a vial come to me to check out for its properties. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. It killed every virus that I could find to infect it. It even prevented them from attacking new cells. It was just what I was looking for. On the vial was just the name Collins written on its side. When we last spoke, you said something about meeting some Collins, so I had to check it out. I have to find him.”

“They didn’t say anything about where it came from? Where he is?”

“No.” She looked down to her hands. “When I looked at it, I found what I was always looking for. His cells have the capability of taking over other cells. They changed them in a way that I’ve never seen before. They not only changed them, but they also healed them when they were damaged. It was just incredible.”