David's mind raced as he hiked toward the forest, taking a bit of a detour to ensure that he avoided any detection from the hunter. He still felt that he could get to the general area he intended by taking a different path.
He knew it would be a tough sell to convince Sarah to help him or anyone else now, but he had to try. If all else failed, he would just have to go to Esben alone and see what he could do about getting the child freed.
"Sarah?" He called out her name as loudly as he dared, hoping she might approach him. After nearly twenty minutes of walking around, however, he finally contented himself with sitting down in a clearing that she had indicated to be one of her favorite spots. It was a nice area where a creek ran through the center, providing a fresh source of water and even a few fish here and there.
Barely three minutes passed when he heard footfalls accompanied with a twig snap. He half-turned on the log where he was currently sitting, trying not to make any moves that were too startling. The whiteness of her fur made her stand out like a sore thumb amidst the brown of the tree trunks and the green of the foliage.
She somehow managed a withering look even in her wolf form, one that strongly suggested a minor violation of her territory, a sentiment she emphasized with a low growl that made the hairs on the back of David's neck stand up straight.
"Sarah," David began carefully, knowing he could still speak to her as an individual but knowing full well how dangerous she was-he had already been bitten once, after all. "I just want to talk to you, okay? Here," he slowly moved his hands over to the hastily-packed knapsack he had brought with him. "I have some of your clothes." He held out a sloppily folded pair of sweatpants and T-shirt toward her.
She slowly and tentatively stepped closer, sniffing the air in his direction. David remained as motionless as he could, bravely staying put even as she came close enough to bite him again if she so desired. Her mouth opened in a quiet snarl, making him flinch, but then she snatched the clothes from his hands and sprinted a short distance away, behind a clump of bushes as if to change in private and dress.
David released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
When she finally emerged, she approached him yet stopped short about six feet. She looked like someone who was apparently going to listen, but hadn't quite dropped her guard. She glowered at him, standing there with her arms folded.
"Sarah," David began as he stood, "there are a few things I need to tell you."
Her eyes narrowed, but since she gave no indication of going for his throat or interrupting him, he told her about the hunter and gave her the outline of his and Tasha's plan.
"You see, the only reason Tasha did the things that she did, like pretending to free you and showing you that article back at the house is because Dr. Hansen forced her to do that. He has her son, Sarah, and has threatened to harm the child if she doesn't do what Hansen wants."
"So Hansen wants me back," Sarah stated, speaking for the first time in a couple minutes. "What do you want, exactly?"
"Right now, I want to do everything in my power to see that Tasha's son is freed from potential harm."
"Oh sure, so I'm supposed to risk my life and freedom for you, her, and some kid I don't even know." Sarah shook her head venomously and began to stalk off. "I'm not helping anyone who played any part of making me what I am… David Banner." She practically spat his name.
David snatched the knapsack and followed her, rummaging inside until his fingers found the piece of paper he was looking for. "Sarah listen to me. The article that Tasha showed you was a lie. Dr. Hansen tried to use the press to put pressure on me a few years ago to help him achieve his goals. But if you want to believe the press, maybe you should have a look at this one, too."
She stopped, eyeing him as he held a different article out toward her. "Is that another article she conveniently had lying around?"
"I stopped at a library on the way over to try and find you," he admitted, "will you please read it?"
Her hand crunched it up a little as she took it, but she at least smoothed it out to read it. After a couple of minutes, she handed it back and sighed, though her expression had softened a tad. "So it says you got Hansen discredited and removed from the Institute for what he was trying to do. Well, guess what? He still used your research-"
"In a way that I never intended for it to be used! Sarah, I never offered anything to him freely. He gained access to a lot of that after I was presumed dead. Some of it was already freely available to the public anyway."
"But you still helped him make me a werewolf…"
"Sarah, there are a lot of things in science and nature that are always waiting to be discovered, whether they be theories or proven facts. If I hadn't formulated the building blocks that Esben twisted and used for his own purposes, someone else would have."
The only response to that she gave was a low growl. It didn't sound quite the same in human form, but it was a tad menacing nonetheless. "What about all those notes Tasha said you jotted down about me? And I heard you both talking… you were just interested in seeing if my condition could help you understand yours better, maybe find a cure for you. "
"I was curious if I could correlate any comparisons between our conditions, yes," David admitted readily. "But I really wanted to understand you in order to see if I could help cure you."
"Ah, so it was all very noble then, was it?"
"Can you blame me, Sarah? Think about it this way: If you spent years without really knowing anyone with a condition like yours, and you finally met someone who not only had something similar, but you could also read how it was done among other things, wouldn't you be curious? Wouldn't you feel a spark of hope?"
"I don't know, considering I can't read any of those notes. I don't have the education or the brain for it."
David caught the thinly veiled resentment toward him being a doctor and a scientist. "Look, Sarah-"
"No, you look. You went around letting me think you're just some average guy who wanted to help, but it turns out that all along, you change into a pretty mean creature too." She clenched her teeth, causing David to fear for a moment that she might be entertaining the notion of transforming and taking a chomp out of him.
Apparently it just stayed in her head, however. When she spoke again, he could see and hear more sadness and hurt than anger. "You could have told me we had something in common like this. Didn't you think I might find it interesting, too? Why didn't you tell me? I thought we were at least sorta… you know, becoming friends."
David sighed. "Sarah as far as I was concerned-and still am-we are friends, at least I would like to think so. But that doesn't mean I'm going to tell you everything about me."
"So it's okay for you to poke and prod me, do some tests on me, even let me transform in front of you… but you don't have to tell me anything about you."
"It didn't seem to matter before."
"YOU STILL COULD HAVE TOLD ME," she shrieked so loudly her voice echoed throughout the woods.
"Sarah." David boldly closed the space between them and placed a gentle yet firm hand on her shoulder. "Calm. Down. Remember, there is someone looking for you even as we speak."
She permitted him to stare her down a tad, taking in deep breaths and letting them out slowly. If David were to wager a guess, he would assume she had been moderately close to enough anger to trigger another transformation… almost.
"I can understand why you feel hurt," David went on, looking her in the eye and giving her shoulder a light squeeze. "But you wouldn't go around telling someone you barely knew about your condition, would you? I mean, would you have let me anywhere near you if Tasha hadn't been there to vouch for me?"
"I don't know about that anymore. Seems like everybody is a damn traitor. You and your green creature, Tasha and her son, Hansen and his big buck discovery and experiments…"
"Sarah, we really don't have much time. We need to get out of here."
"Yeah, you say you want us to go to Texas to try and find the kid."
"We do need to get out of here, Sarah. Esben will be after me now as much as you, and we might be able to locate the child." He indicated a bag just inside the knapsack. "If you could get a hint of the boy's scent-"
"So you want me to go back to the place I got out of, risk my life and risk being recaptured… David, do you think I'm stupid or something? How do I know all of this isn't just some ploy to set me up again?"
"Is that what you really think?"
Silence.
"...I don't know what to think about anything anymore." Sarah hung her head. Somehow, it seemed like she had talked herself out a fair bit and was completely at a loss now. But at least she'd had a fair chance to vent her emotions and state her mind.