Kitty Goes to War

“That’s what I’m here for. Just take your time.” I tried to sound comforting and authoritative. It was all an act, but it seemed to fool people—they kept asking me for advice. One of these days, everyone was going to see right through it.

“I want to talk about my brother,” he said, speaking quickly, as though he wanted to get it out before he changed his mind. “He was a park ranger and was attacked by a werewolf while working in the back country. He killed himself a few months later. He couldn’t live with it, he couldn’t stand it, so he found a silver bullet and shot himself.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead against a sudden headache. I hated this. I wanted to reach out and hug him, but I also wanted to scream. At least radio—the microphone—gave me a shield. A mask to hide behind.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “That’s very difficult.” I sounded so trite.

“I keep wondering—could he have gotten help? Is there anything I could have done to help him? Did he have an alternative?”

I tried to sound professional, as if I had the ability—or even the right—to serve as someone’s therapist. “I’m guessing that since he was attacked in the wild, he was never brought into a pack. He didn’t have anyone to tell him what had happened to him or help him adjust. In my experience, it’s difficult for someone like that to recover and achieve any kind of stability. Sometimes they do, or sometimes they run away. I don’t know if anyone could have helped your brother. There isn’t a standard procedure for this. He must have felt very alone.” That was what happened—you felt alone, lost, paranoid, helpless. The rage and violence followed.

My caller said, “I’m the only person he ever told about what had happened. And I’m glad he told me, because at least I know why. At least it makes a little bit of sense. I try to tell myself it’s better this way. He was so afraid of hurting someone. Isn’t this better than him hurting someone?”

It must have seemed like the responsible thing to do. He must have thought he was saving more than he was losing. I imagined all that despair. It made me think of Tyler and Walters, lurking in their hospital room.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I like to think there’s always a choice. I can’t put myself in your brother’s shoes. But you’re right, he probably didn’t see any other way out.”

“I wish . . . I just want anyone who’s listening to your show, anyone who’s thinking they don’t have another way out, who thinks that’s a solution—try to get help. Try to find someone, anyone, to help. Don’t give up. Because me—my family—we’ll never be the same. I don’t know that he thought about that.” I didn’t know how he could say all this without sobbing.

“Thank you very much for calling. And again, I’m so sorry. Good luck to you and your family.”

He clicked off without saying good-bye. I wasn’t surprised. I hoped he’d gotten some comfort out of sharing the story and his grief.

“All right, let’s take a break for station ID, and I’ll take more calls when we get back to The Midnight Hour.” I looked at Matt through the booth window. He nodded—he’d already cued up the announcements. He must have known what was going through my mind. I pulled off my headphones and scratched my scalp. I still had half the show to get through, and I had to get back to being positive.

Somehow, I managed.

Chapter 14

TWO DAYS before the next full moon, I met with Dr. Shumacher to discuss her patients. She sat behind her desk, looking harried, her hair slipping from its bun, gray shadows under her eyes. She kept glancing at the pages on her clipboard as if they would start speaking, telling her what to do.

“Tuesday’s full-moon night,” I said. I sat across from her, staring her down, playing a dominance game and putting her on edge. “I’d like to give them the chance to get out, with my pack.”

She blinked at me. “Do you really think they’re ready for that?”

The truth was, I wasn’t sure. The safest thing would be to keep them locked up, but that wasn’t the goal, ultimately. “If they’re going to move on, either to go back to civilian life or to active duty, they’ll have to do this eventually. My pack can keep an eye on them. We ought to be able to keep them safe.” As well as surrounding civilization . . .

“I suppose they deserve to have that opportunity.” She was reluctant. I wondered what she wasn’t telling me.

“I’d like to ask them. See if they feel up to it.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. I got the feeling Shumacher wasn’t used to giving her lab rats a choice. “But Kitty—do you really think they’ll ever be able to lead normal lives? Don’t you think they’d be safer—better off— staying under supervision?”

“What? For the rest of their lives?” I almost laughed. But Shumacher just looked at me, matter-of-factly, as though the suggestion wasn’t outlandish.

Then I realized that maybe she wanted to keep them locked up for the rest of their lives. Not for their own good, but for hers.

“Do you even see them as people? As patients? Or just as an experiment?” I said.

“That’s not fair—I’m trying to do good work here.”

“You can’t keep them locked up forever. They’re not guilty of murder.”

She spoke with passion—desperation, almost. “We’ve never had a chance to study the long-term effects of lycanthropy like this. I’ve never had subjects I could study this closely. It’s too good an opportunity—”

“At the cost of their sanity?” I said calmly. “They’re people, Doctor.”

She looked away.

She’d seemed so different than her predecessor at the NIH, but maybe there wasn’t any difference at all. The only results she wanted were raw data.

“Doctor, you have Vanderman. I’m not going to argue with you about letting him loose. But you have to let the others go. Please.”

She leaned forward, resting on her elbows. “I’ve been to see Vanderman. He hasn’t spoken in days. He paces, sleeps. If we try to confront him, he shape-shifts. He throws himself against the walls of his cell. I don’t know how to bring him back. My only option is to keep him sedated. That’s not a good baseline, even for a werewolf.”

Tyler and Walters I could help. Vanderman . . . I didn’t even want to see him. “I’ve heard stories of werewolves going so far that they don’t come back. I wondered sometimes if it was just stories. The way shifting feels, the way it gnaws at you—it’s easy to believe it could take over.”

“Nobody knows how to deal with him,” she said, shaking her head.

“This is where the bounty hunters usually come in,” I said.

“That’s terrible.”

“Yes.”

She sighed, seeming resigned. “I don’t suppose it’s that much worse than any other violent, mentally ill patient who has to remain confined.”

I said, “Most violent mental illnesses aren’t contagious.” By her frown I could tell that I wasn’t helping. “Can I go ahead and talk to Tyler and Walters? We can help them, I’m sure of it.”

She took me down the corridor to their room, opening doors with her pass key. I straightened, readjusting my mood to leave the grimness of the conversation outside. I didn’t want them to see me frustrated or upset.

The men actually seemed to perk up when they saw me. Walters was sitting on his bed and looked up, interested. Tyler had been at the table, reading a dogeared paperback. He set the book aside and stood, almost at attention, when I came through the door.

“Kitty. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, smiling. “And you?”

He shrugged, Walters glowered, and I had to smile. Those were perfectly reasonable, human reactions to being locked up in a cell. Another step toward normality achieved. Shumacher left us, but I knew she was watching on her closed-circuit camera. My skin prickled at the scrutiny.