Chapter 23:
The Hospital
Kate performed a bit of research before their surreptitious flight from the Tower, and found that this Dr. Height had an office on the fifth floor of Miami Central Hospital.
Emily flew them in with surprising ease and brought them to a soft landing on top of the building because Kate was positive they would have an easier time avoiding security if they broke in from the roof. With the hospital clocking in at six stories high, it also meant fewer floors to bypass while hunting for Height's office.
They landed. Titus dropped to his knees and all but kissed the ground.
"It wasn't that bad," Kate said.
"I rocked this trip," Emily said.
"I was convinced every time you got distracted you'd forget about us and let us fall," Titus said.
Kate refuted him. "Look, I only almost did that once and you barely noticed."
"You did forget about us!"
"I said almost!"
Kate ignored them and found the access door on the rooftop. Locked from the inside, she gave it a solid tug, then put her booted foot against the frame and tried to use her lower body strength to pull.
A familiar outdoorsy smell drifted from behind her. She turned to see Titus in werewolf form, those giant white teeth gleaming in the ambient light of the city. He looked ridiculous, the loose-fitting size-morphing pants Titus had taken to wearing (yoga pants, Emily called them) now stretched tight across the wolf's massive legs. He still wore an oversized hooded sweatshirt, but big enough that it simply appeared one size too small instead of ripping along his back.
"Teenage mutant ninja werewolf," Emily said, laughing.
The werewolf — Titus, Kate reminded herself, for she could see him looking back at her through those luminous wolf eyes — reached past her, grabbed hold of the door, then firmly gave it a yank. Kate half expected him to over-do it and alert the whole building, but he exhibited surprising restraint. There was a clank when some part of the lock snapped, and the werewolf pulled the door open the rest of the way.
"Um," Kate said. "If you can, maybe you should change back to human. You're a little conspicuous."
"You're dressed like Assassin Barbie," Emily said. "And you're picking on him for being conspicuous? I'm the normal one here."
"Titus, if you can't change back, it's okay — you can wait here. We'll come back," Kate said.
The wolf shook his head vigorously. Then, almost comically, one huge, clawed hand reached out and pulled up the hood fastened to his sweatshirt. It did hide his massive ears, but the grayish snout still jutted out into the open.
Emily started giggling.
"The better to eat you with, my dear!"
"That isn't even a little bit funny," Kate said. She reached up and gently adjusted the hood so it wasn't crushing his ears awkwardly, and draped it a little better to mask his jaws.
"That'll almost do. Just don't look directly at any security cameras."
Not that it really mattered, she thought. She was already convinced security knew they were there, and if they didn't now, they would within seconds. Emily did have a point. Showing up in costume wasn't their best idea, though it provided the fringe benefit of hiding their identities if they were caught. Emily's ridiculous steampunk goggles hid her eyes and, because of their size, half her face, and Kate's own mask was intentionally designed for anonymity.
They rushed in, sticking to the fire access stairwell until they reached the fifth floor. Kate stepped out into the hallway first, checking room numbers. Great, she thought. We came in at the wrong end of the building.
"Quickly," she said. She changed to her most confident walk and started following door numbers in the direction of Height's office. Behind her, Emily mimicked Kate in such a way that Kate began wondering if her confident saunter actually made her look like she was nursing a hamstring injury. Poor Titus shuffled along last, arms so long they almost reached the ground, his weirdly jointed werewolf legs bowlegged and awkward under the harsh hospital lights.
They reached Height's office door without incident. Apparently this area of the building was mostly administrative, with no wandering patient families to spot them.
"Follow my lead. We're going to rifle his office, see if he has any documentation we can use to prove his connection to the test subject. If we get lucky, he'll show up and we can ask him ourselves," she said.
"Keen, yo," Emily said.
Titus nodded.
Kate opened the door.
Dr. Height sat at his desk eating a sandwich, which he dropped onto his desk instantly — mayonnaise, oil and bits of lettuce dripped out onto paperwork below.
He reached for the phone.
Kate launched herself across the room, stepped onto his desk on the point of one foot, and punted the phone across the room with enough force to disconnect it from the wall. She then used that same foot to pin Dr. Height in his seat.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked.
Kate decided to try full-on vigilante mode. Her voice grew husky and she moved her kicking foot to his throat.
"You've been a bad man, Dr. Height."
"You can't do this."
Kate let the tungsten tip of her boot dig into his neck a little.
"You're going to tell us about the girl whose death you faked," Kate said.
"I don't know anything about — "
Emily started pulling binders off shelves along the wall with her mind. They spilled out onto the floor sloppily; more than once she left a dirty footprint on pristine white pages.
"Which files are for illegal dealings? Those in the red binders or the blue?"
"Stop it! Those are patient records!"
"There was a girl in a coma. You were paid to fake her death. Who paid you?"
"You're not the police. You've got nothing on me."
This wasn't working, Kate thought. A boot to the throat didn't seem intimidating enough. She'd need to figure out better ways to increase the fear factor in the future — maybe dangling him from the roof? For now, though, she thought of an easier solution.
"I may have nothing on you, but I do have a werewolf. Titus, come along and say hi."
After a deep, rumbling growl, the werewolf's weight — his physical presence — filled the entire room. Titus leaned in so close his saliva dripped onto the doctor's shirt.
"What the hell is that!"
"My friend," Kate said. "He doesn't play nearly as nice as I do. Entropy, close the door so Titus can introduce himself properly to Dr. Height."
Emily flicked a finger at the door and it slammed shut.
Kate grimaced at the noise, but had to admit it projected the right effect.
"Stop! Okay. It was a woman. Don't know who she worked for. They got me out of . . . I was in big trouble for something else."
"What else?" Kate said.
The doctor hesitated, but Titus growled again and he loosened up.
"Okay okay. I was about to get caught diverting drugs. Would have ruined me. They said they took care of it, but would take it all back if I didn't do one favor for them."
"So you sold them a teenager for a clean record." Kate jumped off the desk and grabbed the doctor by the collar, letting the fabric of his shirt dig into his neck.
"She was a vegetable! The family was having trouble letting go. I would never have done this to someone who had a chance of recovering."
Kate pulled harder, memories creeping in of her own hospital stay, of that moment of despair when she knew she'd never dance again. She might have sold herself at that moment if she could.
"What were they going to do with her?" Kate said.
"I never asked," Height said. "Just did what I was told."
"That is so messed up, dude," Emily said. "Can we throw him out the window?"
Titus made a huffing noise in agreement.
Kate hauled the doctor out of his chair.
"Give me something. A phone number. Name. An address. What do you know!"
"I don't have anything!" Height said. He was sweating through his shirt. "She had an eye patch! Like a something out of a movie!"
"What else!"
"She said — when I turned over the girl, she said they just might give her . . . an interesting life! That's all she said! I was convinced they were going to kill me too!"
A knock came at the office door. Kate shook her head at Height.
"Doctor? Security. You okay in there? We heard yelling."
"Don't," said Kate.
"Help! Help me!" Height said.
The door opened, and Kate threw the doctor over his desk and at the security guards when they walked in.
"You've gotta be kidding me," one of the guards said. He looked at his fellow guard, who stared, frozen, at Titus.
Titus moved.
Kate yelled, a barking "No!" thinking he was moving to attack the guards. But instead, the werewolf looped one arm around her waist and bound across the room, scooping Emily up with the other. He roared a challenge at the guard, a horrific, primal scream, and then ran for the office windows.
"Em, close your eyes!" yelled Kate.
Titus's massive body shattered the windows easily, sending all three of them soaring into the night air.
"Fly us, Em! Fly!"
"I can't I'm too busy peeing my pants. What the hell is he trying to do? Get us killed? Oh my gawd!"
"Shut up and fly!"
But instead of flying, she felt Titus's supernaturally strong legs hit the ground far earlier than expected, and opened her eyes to see they had landed on the roof of an ancillary building, only two stories below.
Only
two stories, she thought, werewolf boy can fall two stories and land on his feet carrying a couple of people. Not bad.
And then he jumped again, onto the side of a neighboring taller building. She heard his claws digging into the brick, finding or creating purchase in the masonry. Without using his hands, Titus hauled them quickly up the side of the structure. He ran towards the edge. "Can you fly now, Emily?"
"No! Yes! Yes I got us!"
"You sure?" Kate asked.
"Ya!"
"Good, because — "
And Titus launched them off the side of the building as if he himself could fly.
Kate felt her body go weightless when Emily's powers took over. They stayed level for a few hundred feet, and then Emily regained her confidence and flew them higher and faster, both girls still cradled in his vast, furry arms.
"You can let us go now, sport," Kate said.
"No," Emily said, scooting herself up higher so she was almost sitting on Titus's shoulder. "I kind of like it here."
She wanted to argue, but instead, Kate settled in, letting their monstrous friend hold them tight while Emily carried them across the night sky and home.
Chapter 24:
What we know
So let me get this straight," Jane said, as the entire team sat around the conference table.
"You broke into a hospital and assaulted a doctor."
"Kate barely hit the guy!" Emily said. "Mostly just poked him with her boot."
Jane turned to Doc.
"We can do this? Is it cool? The assault thing? I didn't think we could attack people who didn't have it coming."
"Back in the old days, we all had methods," he said. "One of my best friends was fond of dangling informants off the roof of buildings to get them to talk."
"Did he ever drop anyone?" Emily asked.
"On purpose? No. But, he slipped, once."
"No way," said Billy.
"Accidents happen. In any case, I've seen worse. Scaring people into talking can be effective, but you have to be judicious about it. Your reputation will make or break you. Some people, like my friend, used that fear to his advantage, but he was never loved by the public, and that caused him a lot of problems down the line."
"What was
your
tactic?" Jane said. "When you needed to make someone talk?"
"Magic," Doc said. "And if I'm being completely honest, I think magic is a lot less ethical than using fear to make people talk. It's a slippery slope. I only did it when nobody else's methods worked."
"So, ignoring the fact that Kate is now officially our biggest badass on the team — "
"I was there! I intimidated!" Titus said. "Growled, drooled and everything."
"That's practically cheating. Kate scared him with her voice and she doesn't have fangs," said Billy.
"Some might call it cheating. I call it using your basic assets," Titus said.
"Anyway — what kind of leads did you get?" Billy said.
"Well," said Kate. "Based on the information the doctor gave us and some medical records I stole — "
"You stole medical records?" said Jane.
"Are you worried about HIPAA? Jeez. I was going to put them back, but we got interrupted. Anyway, based on those, I think I know where her parents are. The girl in the storm."
"What's our next move?" Billy said.
"Someone should talk to them," Emily said.
Doc nodded.
"What's the point?" Kate asked. "They won't know anything about the storm."
"But they should know their daughter didn't die," Jane said. "They deserve to know that."
Kate stared at her, but Jane didn't flinch, the two locked eyes while everyone waited for their momentary power struggle to work itself out.
"Kate's right. They won't know anything, but they do deserve to be told what happened," Doc said.
"Who goes?" Jane said.
"I do," Doc said.
Everyone leaned back into their chairs. No one was interested in visiting with grieving parents, even Jane who had so strongly wanted them to know what had occurred. "I'll go. Emily, you'll come with me."
'Why me?" she said.
"Just a hunch. Don't argue."
Emily crossed her arms, anxiety flashed across her face.
"Someone should find Bedlam," Doc said. "If controls were put in place on the girl in the storm, she may be walking around with an explosive device in her head. Even if she doesn't want our help, she deserves to be warned, and the fact is, Bedlam's a walking weapon. If she's been armed in that way they could use her at any time as a living bomb."
"I'll go," said Billy.
Jane rolled her eyes.
Billy shot her a look.
"I was going to suggest that," said Doc. "Bring Titus."
"She punched me in the face," Titus said.
"She head-butted me and I'm not afraid of her," Billy said.
"That is due to all manner of reasons I have no intention of getting into right now," Titus said. "Why send me?"
"I got the impression Miss Bedlam related better to boys," Doc said. "She'll be less defensive around you two than around the others, which is what we need. We don't want to fight her — we hope to offer our help."
"We supposed to bring her in by force if we have to?"
Doc shook his head.
"Let her decide. Tell her we have the equipment here to scan for implants and the ability to help her if they're there, but don't force her."
"Got it," Billy said.
"What about us?" Jane asked.
"You and Kate should review the files Kate's contact was able to salvage. See if there's anyone else we ought to be looking for. Maybe we'll get lucky," he said.
Kate and Jane stared each other down once again.
"This going to be a problem?" Doc asked.
"Nah," Kate said. "We'll get along just fine."