Prisoner (Werewolf Marines) (11 page)

Roy wouldn’t have made repeated, useless
attempts to escape, but would have patiently waited for the perfect
opportunity. Roy would have given them his name, rank, and serial
number, and then shut up for all eternity. Roy would never have
admitted to Echo that he was in pain, let alone asked her for help,
let alone laid his head down on her hand.

DJ wasn’t Roy. He couldn’t be bound by what
Roy would do or what Roy would want. He had to do this his way.

“Your other option is to go to the lab and
help with my experiments,” said Dr. Semple.

“Awesome. I’ve always wanted to be a lab
rat,” DJ said sarcastically. “I choose black ops, of course! Take
off the straps. I give you my word of honor that I won’t kill you
or run.”

Mr. Dowling undid the straps, then unlocked
the manacles. DJ sat up quickly before he remembered why that might
not be a good idea. But this time nothing happened. His body ached
and his skin was tender, but he felt confident that he had the
strength to rip out these assholes’ throats.

And then someone else would give the order,
and Roy would die. DJ had to protect him.

“You shouldn’t hurt Roy. I mean, not just
because it’s fucking sadistic and you’ll burn in hell for it, you
fucking—” DJ caught himself and hurried on before they could
interrupt. “He’s too valuable to screw with. You want a werewolf
Marine? He’s a werewolf Marine. Bring him here. Let him bond with
me. Then you’ll have both of us.”

“We already have a pack of made wolves,” Mr.
Dowling said. “They have… problems.”

DJ could imagine exactly what sort of
problems they might have. Every horror story Grandma Steel had told
him flashed into his mind.

“Forget your fucked-up made wolves,” DJ
argued. “Roy’s more than that. He’s a much better Marine than me.
Seriously, look up our records. Roy has medals. I’ve got nothing
but reprimands. I barely even made it through boot camp!”

“We’ve examined your records,” Mr. Dowling
replied calmly. “And under the pretext of trying to locate you and
Farrell, we also had our operative interview the other members of
your fire team, your lieutenant, and the doctor at your base.”

DJ tried to keep a straight face on the off
chance that Mr. Dowling was bluffing, but his heart sank.

Sure enough, Dr. Semple added, “We learned
that Farrell was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress
disorder. His record does suggest that he was a better Marine than
you.
Once.
But he’s useless to us now. He’ll never fight
again.”

Her words were a double blow to DJ. They knew
about Roy, and they didn’t value him. And though DJ knew that
they’d say anything to manipulate him, hearing that dispassionate
evaluation from a doctor was crushing.

“He could get better,” DJ said, hating the
doubt that he heard in his own voice.

“Highly unlikely,” Dr. Semple said
dismissively.

“Farrell
used to be
valuable,” Mr.
Dowling said, rubbing it in. “And that’s not even considering
whatever problems might have come with his transformation. Right
now he’s not even well enough for us to determine what those might
be.”

“Maybe he doesn’t have any,” DJ suggested.
“Hey! Maybe becoming a werewolf cured his PTSD. You never know.
It’s healing his shrapnel wounds, isn’t it?”

DJ was first excited, then unnerved to see
this idea visibly catch Dr. Semple’s interest.

“What an intriguing thought,” Dr. Semple
said, her eyes glinting creepily. “We’ve tested werewolf healing on
a number of diseases and injuries.”

DJ felt sick imagining how she’d probably
done that. Being forced to be an assassin would be a day at the
beach compared to being infected with things to see if he
healed.

Ignoring DJ’s horror, the doctor continued,
“But it never occurred to me try it on psychological disorders. A
cure for PTSD has been the holy grail of military medicine since
World War One.”

DJ was relieved when Mr. Dowling interrupted
the doctor. “As far as PTSD is concerned, the holy grail isn’t
curing it, it’s predicting who’ll get it so they can be weeded out
in advance.”

“And identifying who’s immune.” Dr. Semple
turned to DJ, so eager that she was practically licking her lips.
“I only asked about combat stress in our initial interview to
distract you. But now I’m curious. You have quite a paper trail.
Demerits, recommendations that you be discharged, recommendations
that you be considered for a medal, and a fascinating set of
medical records. But you’ve never been treated for combat stress.
Is it true that you’ve never had any serious trouble with it?”

DJ’s mind leaped ahead to the likely outcome
of this line of questioning. The only way to test whether someone
was immune to something was to try to give it to them. “I lost my
shit in the medevac helo, remember?”

Dr. Semple raised a patronizing eyebrow. “An
obvious fake to distract the corpsmen from Farrell’s
transformation.”

“Got me there,” DJ admitted. “But everyone
gets combat stress sometimes. Including me. I already told you
that.”

“The difference between combat stress and
PTSD is that PTSD doesn’t go away. Is it true that your combat
stress has never lasted for more than a few hours? And that you’ve
never had any symptoms other than subjective feelings of ‘things
moving too fast?’”

“I’m having a flashback right now. To
Afghanistan. And you know what? It’s a lot nicer than here. I think
I’ll stay there.”

Neither Dr. Semple nor Mr. Dowling looked
amused.

Quickly, DJ said, “Now you see why I have all
those demerits. Me and my big mouth. Look, I was lying the first
time. No one wants to admit that they have PTSD. They think it
makes them seem weak. Like they can’t be trusted. I didn’t want
people to think that everyone who said I couldn’t be a Marine was
right— that I couldn’t hack it. That I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Exactly what symptoms do you have?” Dr.
Semple asked.

DJ couldn’t tell whether or not the doctor
was buying it. But he could certainly provide some plausible
symptoms, based on what he’d seen in other Marines. It would be too
noticeable if he borrowed Roy’s, since they’d already researched
him, so he went with Alvarado’s.

“I’m tense all the time,” DJ began. “Anyone
comes up behind me, I’ll whip round like I think they’re a hit man.
Anyone touches me when I’m sleeping, I’ll attack them before I
realize what’s going on. If I hear a loud noise, I’ll hit the deck,
and when I get up, I’m sweating and my hands are shaking. And I
drink too much.”

“In Afghanistan?” said Mr. Dowling, his
eyebrows raised.

“You can get alcohol there if you really want
it. Foreign contractors can bring it in, or your friends can mail
it to you in mouthwash bottles. And drinking is the only way I can
stop remembering.” DJ shut up, figuring he’d said enough. Besides,
that last bit was getting into territory
he
didn’t like to
remember. He’d never been personal friends with Alvarado, but DJ
had always thought he was a good guy.

Dr. Semple appeared to at least be
considering what DJ had told her. “Stop remembering what?”

DJ showed them his scar. “This. I mean, how I
got it.”

“Tell me about that,” said the doctor.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” DJ said
promptly. If there was one thing everyone with PTSD had in common,
it was that they didn’t want to talk about it.

“I already know what happened,” Dr. Semple
said. “I want to know how it felt to you. Did you think you were
going to die?”

Mr. Dowling, evidently bored by the entire
discussion, went to the laptop and started typing. Probably
checking his email.

“I don’t remember,” DJ said.

“Do you dream about it? Dr. Semple asked.

“Sometimes.”

“How do you feel when—”

A gunshot shattered the still air of the
room. DJ ducked and grabbed for his M-16. As his fingers closed on
emptiness, he spotted Mr. Dowling looking up from his laptop and
realized how he’d been tricked.

“Incoming!” DJ shouted, several seconds too
late.

Mr. Dowling actually rolled his eyes. “Good
thing we’re not recruiting you as an actor. Dr. Semple shook you
awake when we came in, and you didn’t so much as flinch.
I’d
have probably reacted more, under the circumstances.”

“I did go for my rifle just now,” DJ pointed
out, though he didn’t know why he was even bothering. He’d
obviously failed the test. He should have said he had flashbacks.
No one could prove that he didn’t.

“You’re a Marine,” said Dr. Semple. “That’s a
trained reflex any soldier would have. You didn’t hit the floor,
your hands are steady, and you’re not sweating. Hold still.”

DJ forced himself to obey as the doctor took
his pulse.

“Interesting,” remarked Dr. Semple. “If you
did have PTSD, your heart rate would have been elevated. In fact,
it should be regardless, because you were startled. But it’s
below
the baseline we got from you when you arrived.”

“What’s that mean?” The last thing DJ wanted
was to be interesting to Dr. Semple.

The doctor smiled. “I don’t like to speculate
without further data. But preliminarily, it means you’re even more
special than I thought.”

DJ ran through all the words he knew that
expressed fucked-upness— snafu (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up),
fubar (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition), and so forth— before
deciding that none of them expressed the utter fuckedness he was
searching for. He’d need to invent a new one. Fucking Asshole
Sadistic Scientist Thinks I’m Special. Whatever that spelled
out.

It was funny— funny-weird, not
funny-hilarious— how words came so easily to him in his mind, when
they were so fucking impossible on the page. If he’d only known
that some day he’d be trapped in a lab with a doctor who wanted to
traumatize him to see if he was immune to PTSD, he’d have been a
lot more tolerant of all those excruciating sessions of educational
therapy he’d gone through as a kid. At least Dr. Semple wasn’t
going to torture him with cut-out letters.

“And that isn’t the only one of your
neurological anomalies,” Dr. Semple mused.

Of course. If she’d gone digging through his
medical records, she’d learned all about the funny— funny-weird—
way he was wired.

Condescendingly, the doctor went on, “That
means ‘brain differences.’ Like learning disabilities. Why haven’t
you ever been diagnosed with ADHD? That stands for attention
deficit hyperactivity dis—”

“I know what it stands for,” DJ said, then
wished he’d kept his mouth shut and pretended he wasn’t that
familiar with it. Since he’d once again given himself away and it
hardly mattered now, he added, “I’ve never been diagnosed because
I’ve never been tested. Test me yourself, if you care. If I do have
it, it doesn’t bother me any.”

“It doesn’t bother
you
,” Mr. Dowling
remarked snippily.

Dr. Semple ignored him. “But if your medical
records are correct, your dyslexia is unusually severe. Perhaps
there’s some clue in that. Have you ever worked with cut-out
letters?”

At that, the situation became so
spectacularly fucked that it tipped over into funny-hilarious. DJ
laughed. And kept on laughing, until his eyes watered and his
captors stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had.

Finally, he managed to pull himself together.
“All right, you’ve got me. Let’s make a deal.”

There went the “you are totally insane”
stares again. But DJ was used to that.

“You are in no position—” Mr. Dowling
began.

“Actually, I think I am.” DJ went on, faster
and louder, before they could interrupt. “Mr. Dowling, I’m a born
wolf Marine with the power of super strength. I could do a lot of
damage on your behalf. Dr. Semple, you might never find a lab rat
as
special
as me. I’m worth a lot to you both, assuming Dr.
Semple doesn’t break me by accident.”

“She won’t,” Mr. Dowling said, giving the
doctor a warning look.

“So here’s
my
deal,” DJ went on. “I’ll
do whatever you say. Within reason. I won’t murder innocent people
who’re just in your way. But if you want me to go after bad guys
we’re not legally allowed to kill, I’ll do that. If you want me to
cooperate with your creepy experiments, I’ll do that too. Your part
of the deal is that I want Roy here with me.”

“Unacceptable,” said Mr. Dowling. “You’ll
grab him and run. Farrell stays where he is.”

“Then I want to talk to him.”

“Also unacceptable. I can’t risk coded
messages.”

“Fine.” DJ was disappointed, but unsurprised.
“Now here’s the part I won’t budge on. You don’t hurt him. Ever. I
want to see video of him every day, and I want to see him being
treated well and getting better.”

“We can’t guarantee that he’ll get better,”
Dr. Semple pointed out. “You of all people should know that.”

DJ tried not to visibly flinch. Marco must
have told their operative
everything
on the theory that even
the most seemingly irrelevant details might somehow help rescue Roy
and DJ. “I want to see you taking good care of him, all right?”

He wondered if he should say anything about
pack bonding. If they let Roy bond with someone, it would
undoubtedly be someone evil who would fuck with him. If Roy didn’t
bond with anyone, then DJ would have two months maximum to get to
him before the loneliness drove him crazy.

DJ thought Roy would vote for the latter. But
if DJ requested it, these assholes might go ahead with the
bond-of-evil just to spite him. And without talking to Roy, DJ
wouldn’t be able to tell whether he’d bonded or not. He decided to
let that part alone.

DJ recalled the icy calm of combat as he
stared first into Dr. Semple’ eyes, then into Mr. Dowling’s.
Neither broke his gaze, but he saw discomfort creep into each of
their faces. “Hurt him again, and I’ll kill as many of you as I can
before you take me down. I know, then I’ll be dead and you won’t
have any reason left to keep him alive. But that’s the deal. Take
it or leave it.”