The tests seem satisfactory to him. Reading the latest results on the way to his office inspires Dr. Rice new steps in experiments on current subjects. Eyes on the tablet he holds in his hand, he stops when an unexpected presence appears on the edge of his vision as he enters his room.
"Mr. Pierce?" he asks, tilting his head in surprise. "I thought you were on a mission. Unless ..."
"Dr. Rice ..." Pierce says hurriedly, looking up, hands behind his back. "We have tracked down the last fugitives."
"All right, all right," Rice says, skirting Pierce, raising his eyebrows as he sits down, taking a quick glance at the documents on his desk; almost all reports about the beast. "And what can I do for you?"
"This has arrived for you," Pierce answers, popping up a cardboard folder full of documents from behind his back, which he filed in front of Rice, trying to support his gaze, "the lab ..."
"Yes thanks." cuts Rice, clasping his hands on the pile of documents. "Anything else, Mr. Pierce?" he questions with a falsely detached air.
After a brief silence of hesitation, Pierce asks "Progress with the new subject?"
Rice leaves the question in suspense for a moment, while a vague smirk is formed on his face, and gives Pierce a conciliatory look, a sign that he suspected the reason for the visit.
"Sara, do you mean?"
"Sara? You gave her a name?" Pierce asks, sincerely stunned.
"No, Mr. Pierce, that's her name." Rice opens a drawer and pulls out a new cardboard folder, more worn than those scattered on his desk, opens it and hands it to Pierce. "A newborn was left at the door of St. Mary's Church in San Antonio on February 27, 2004. He was entrusted to St. Joseph's Orphanage and named Sara." He summarizes.
"Female, Hispanic type, yellow eyes and teeth like little fangs, ..." Pierce reads before closing the file and handing it to the doctor, nodding his head knowingly.
"Sara then, her lack of reaction to the mention of this name suggests to me that she has deliberately overshadowed this part of her life, which is admirable since she spent the first fourteen years of her life there" says Rice resting the file from where he had taken it.
"Our little wild thing has spent more than ten years in the woods?" Pierce notices, trying to contain his astonishment behind a contemptuous smile.
"She's exceptional, very promising. I might need you soon, though." Rice says, getting up.
Pierce freezes, fearing to ask the reason for this request given the nature of the tests Rice routinely did to his subjects, and responds with a perplexed frown.
"You are her trigger, Mr. Pierce, and her catalyst. The mere mention of your name won't soon be enough to trigger her transformation. And things should soon accelerate."
Rice waves toward the door without waiting for an answer, meaning it was time for his visitor to leave. The enigmatic expression on his face had not escaped Pierce who, once in the corridor that leads him to the exit of Transingen, hastens with a sigh to remove the document slipped on his back under the belt to put it in the inside pocket of his jacket.
The purring that envelops her body soothes her and, most of all, the smell. It warms and reassures her. It is a little diffuse, musky, sometimes supplanted by the smell of oil which, once dissipated, leaves it the entire place.
It had been weeks since she had felt so good, that she had not felt her own body, her weight, her warmth, her presence. No doubt it was a new product, a new test to define her limits. She had never begged, never even spoken. He had cracked it a couple of times, though. She had felt her reason collapse and her body burn from within, as if all the rage of the world was consuming her, and when she opened her eyes, everything was devastated, broken and lacerated, and he smiled. And yet, he continued, this doctor, this monster. The more she resisted, the more he seemed to take pleasure in what he was doing to her, the samples and other analyzes, the external stimuli and the methods of restraint, of confinement sometimes.
He was trying to reach another stage, the one where she would be nothing more than sheer fury, gaunt, but she had no idea how to do that, she had no control over that state. She just wanted everything to stop.
So, if it is a new method, she welcomes him with open arms, as long as it makes her feel so serene.
After weeks of alternating drowsiness, daze, sleeps without dreams and brutal awakenings, her mind is exhausted. She does not understand where the soft heat that warms her skin at times comes from, or the whirlpools that rock it. She hardly realizes that she is dreaming now, and in her dream she sees Pierce. He turns his back on her, his silhouette against the dazzling light. He drives, his bare arm stretched out in front of him, his mechanical hand holding the steering wheel, and he looks at her. His blond hair is plated back and his blue eyes are indecipherable behind sunglasses. But he smiles. Not the grimace he makes when he threatens her, that sneer-smirking smile, but the one who reassures her, sincere, and that makes all her fears disappear. She dreams that this sleep never stops.
But she does not dream. Her blood, still saturated with tranquilizers and other drug cocktails that she has been given all this time, is struggling to regenerate, to purify itself. They have been driving for hours, the day has come after dark, and the sun is warming her face when, by chance, the angle of the vehicle allows it's rays to make their way inside the vehicle, right up to the bench in the back where she is lying, dressed in clothes she does not know, her wrists caught in a black plastic handcuff.
She does not move, for a long time. She is not sure she can trust what she sees or feels. Yet it is the smell of Pierce that fills the cabin and reassures her, beyond all reason. This is his voice that she recognizes in his punctuated mumblings when he hums what looks like a song, without leaving the road. But she waits.
The vehicle stops and the engine stops running. Looking back, Pierce checks that the beast is still asleep and then gets off the vehicle. On his return, it is only by closing the door that he stealthily sees two angry yellow eyes in the rearview mirror. He would want to turn around to check that he did not dream but two arms come out of the back and fall back on his neck, pressing his head against the headrest and clasping his neck between wrists attached.
"Hey, slept well baby?" Pierce launches, as happily as the pressure on his neck allows.
The beast hesitates; her mind still confused does not know where to start.
"If you want something, just ask, baby, I just made provisions" he continues without hesitation.
Pierce tries to meet her eyes in the rearview mirror, clumsily dropping his glasses. The beast displays an anxious look, looking for something to hang on beyond the empty, dusty parking lot in front of them. He knows that by confronting her right in the eyes he has more chances to get back on top. No doubt she knows that too, so she keeps her eyes off his face.
"Where ..." she stammers, her voice hoarse, "Where are we?"
"Everything is fine baby, calm down." Pierce grabs her wrists flexibly but does not hold them, trying to calm her down. "We crossed the border, we are on the American side."
"What ?! Why..., where are you taking me?" she gasps, visibly disoriented.
"In a safe place, everything is fine now, I got you out of the lab ..."
"Are you gonna finish the job, you didn't have time to do last time?" she cuts with a pressure on his throat.
"Come on, I'm not going to hurt you, baby ..."
"It's already done, asshole." She spits furiously, pulling again.
His body is stretched in his seat. Clenching his jaw and his grip on the wrists of the beast, he shouts: "STOP!"
At first petrified, as every time he raises his voice, her anger still picks up on her "You loved what you saw, that atrocious thing that killed your men? It was worth it, right?!" she hisses with bitterness.
"It's not what you think ..."
The situation was getting complicated. The warmth and tension of Pierce's neck against the skin of her arms, his scent intensifying as she tightened her grip and as the temperature in the cockpit increased, the perspiration beading on his mustache and temples, his pulse quickening every second and his hands holding her. Everything could overwhelm her at any moment. And why didn't he stop it? She had felt it the first time he had mastered her, his artificial hand could break her bones like little wood if he wanted to.
"I saved you, you hear me?! They were going to kill you, if I did nothing they would have killed you!"
Determination in his voice seems too sincere to be feigned. He can see from her lost gaze again that he has created doubt, that she tries to keep control but has difficulty in gathering her ideas.
He betrayed you, she repeats to herself constantly to remember why she does that, why he deserves it, why she must be furious with him. And yet, if there was not this seat between them, if his eyes met hers, she knows she could not stand up to him. She hates herself for the weakness he has revealed in her. She adds that to all the good reasons to blame him.
"But ... you left ..." she breathes.
"Looking for my things! I didn't know they would arrive so soon ..."
"SHUT UP, that's one of your fucking tricks again!" The beast suddenly tightens her grip on Pierce's throat and bangs her forehead against the headrest, hiding her face from the sight of Pierce, not knowing very well if it is to hide the tears that fill her eyes, or to hide the sight of him suffocating.
"No ..." he tries to pronounce, out of breath from his crushed trachea, "I promise you ... I ... will put you away ... even ... from me ..."
