His voice came over the intercom. “Fort Detrick Army Medical Research Command. Congratulations, Miss Grey. You’ve just become a lab rat.”
I looked at him in shock. “You can’t do that! I’m a citizen! I have rights!”
He laughed, I mean gut laughed. “Rights don’t mean shit in a war, Miss. You got bit. You’re either a werewolf we get to study, or somehow you DIDN’T become a werewolf, and that’s even MORE reason to study you. Congress granted emergency powers, Habeus Corpus has been suspended, citizens and aliens can be detained without a warrant or charges. Technically, you’re not even a prisoner of war. Like I said, you’re a lab rat.” I glared at him. “Now, we’ve got about a twenty-four-hour drive ahead of us. There’s a bucket in the corner if you have to go, and a blanket and pillow on the shelf above you. If you behave like a good rat, you’ll get your cheese. You act up, and it’s going to be a miserable trip for you.”
I pushed myself up so I could get the pillow and blanket. Tossing the pillow into the center near the front, figuring that would be the best ride, I kept the blanket in my hand as I tried not so gracefully to lie down. It was even more awkward to try and spread the blanket over me the way I was trussed up.
The ride was miserable. The suspension was so stiff I felt every bump and ridge on the road, and the steel floor was cold. After a few hours, I gave up on sleep. I moved so I was sitting against the partitions with the pillow under me and the blanket on my legs.
All I could think about was what was happening with my Pack. They knew my name, my address. I was sure they were going to go after my house, and if they looked hard enough they would find those hidden in the safe room. Hell, even the contacts could be seen if you looked close enough. I missed my babies, I missed my mate, I missed them all.
I thought back to Olivia; what must she have thought when she came out and found I was gone? Did she get away, or did someone grab her too? She was fully human now, but that only mattered if they took the time to check.
I had a lot of time to think, and the more I thought, the more depressed I became. The best case I could come up with was that they had enough warning to take off… in an RV that was registered to me. For all I knew, they just leveled the whole estate instead. My tears dripped down my face as I watched the trees pass by through the little port on the back door…
We stopped about every five hours; I could hear the sirens and the escorts, so we were traveling in a convoy. The traveling nightmare eventually ended, and the sound changed as we pulled into a building. I pushed my way to my feet, my sore legs protesting, and looked out the small port on the door.
We were in a loading dock; the escorts were parked outside. I saw a half dozen people in lab coats come in with a gurney, it had leather and steel restraints hanging from it. Apparently, that was my future.
“Stand back from the doors and face the front, Miss Grey.”
“Or what?” I had to ask as I turned around.
“You get the fire hose.” No thanks. I shuffled forward to the divider; I heard the door opening, and then something stuck in my leg. I looked back, but my leg didn’t work anymore. I fell sideways, with my hands shackled I was unable to break my fall and I landed heavily on my left side and shoulder. I tried to roll over, but my legs and arms now didn’t work, I couldn’t even feel them. The numbness continued to spread, and my brain panicked when I realized I couldn’t breathe any more. My vision started to go, and the last thing I remember was someone yelling, “Just how much of a dose did you give her?”
I hate Meatloaf Mondays.
Imagine how bad hospital food is. Imagine how bad Army food is. Put them together, in an Army hospital, and you have Meatloaf Monday.
If it was meat at one point, it is now beyond recognition. The ‘sauce’ they put on it tastes like paste, the meat like cardboard. It’s inedible. I eat the vegetables and potatoes, they aren’t good either but at least I can keep them down. I push the rest of the meal into the tray where things are transferred from inside my isolation cell to outside.
It’s not much of a life I have now. My cell is about ten by twelve feet. A thin mattress, sitting on top of a concrete pad in the front corner, and a steel toilet is in the corner behind it. A sink sticks out from the back wall, dividing the toilet from the shower head and drain in the other corner. In the front, opposite of the bed, is a set of shelves where I keep my books and my extra clothes. The walls, floor and ceiling were solid concrete, a single light in the center and a smaller light over my bed are the only illumination from within.
I hated the cell due to the lack of privacy. The wall facing the hallway had a steel door in the center, and on the bed side was a tray that slide out so they could pass food and books through. The rest of the wall was thick acrylic, allowing anyone in the hallway to see me at any time. What they couldn’t see for themselves, the camera in my cell could capture.
I had gotten used to showering and going to bathroom in front of others by now; there was no choice. Most of the guards were decent enough to look away, but there were a few that liked to watch. I hated them.
The only good part of my life now was that they liked me to stay healthy, so my body could withstand the blood samples and experiments that were my main function. It took a full month of monitoring and testing, much of which I was unconscious or tied down for, before they accepted that I wasn’t going to turn into a werewolf. Then the real fun began.
They had identified the virus that caused the humans to change into werewolves by analyzing the saliva of the dead werewolves. The staff at Ft. Detrick had been ordered to develop a vaccine against it, and I was their best hope it seemed. They couldn’t understand how I was resistant to the virus, and they were desperately seeking the antibodies that would answer their questions.