Chapter 16

When the man opened the door, I hadn't expected to hear the loud explosion of a gunshot and see drops of mercury spurting on the walls. I got up quickly, not really aware of what was happening, and when I saw Peter standing in the frame I sighed softly of relief. He looked quite messed up, there was a large cut on his cheek, blood was splattered everywhere on his swollen face, and one of his eyes was reduced to a small slit in the hurt flesh.

'God, what did they do to you?' I whispered, although I knew he wouldn't believe my concern to be genuine.
'It doesn't matter,' he quickly replied, looking a bit frantic. 'You take this,' he urged, putting a gun into my hand, 'and give me the keys of the car.'
'What?' I asked, not understanding what could drive him so stressed. 'I...'
'Just give me the fucking keys, dammit, we don't have time!' he cried out, exasperated.

I nodded, and quickly fumbled for the keys in my pockets. It was a chance the shapeshifter hadn't searched me and I found the bunch of keys in my cargo pants. He almost snatched them from me and got out of the room, only turning on his heels to tell me that there was another shapeshifter in the next room and that I'd better go and keep a watch on him. He finally started to run in the corridor toward the exit, and I only got the time to rush after him and yell :

'Is Olivia alright?'

He didn't answer and I stopped dead in my tracks, that awful feeling of being kept in the dark helplessness crushing on me all over again. I sighed and brushed the back of my hand across my forehead, and then remembered that I had to keep an eye on the shapeshifter. When I entered the room he was in, he was slowly beginning to rise on his feet, but I dissuaded him by putting the barrel of the gun on his shoulder. He grunted and his back slid against the wall as I closed the door behind me. I could notice some of the signs revealing events that had happened in here minutes ago, like the drops of blood on the floor and the chair overturned. I put it back on its leg and sat down, watching silently the man sitting in front of me. His hands were crossed on his knees and he seemed quite calm, given the circumstances. I studied him, trying to determine what kind of man that body could have once belonged to. His face had soft features, and if it was not for the gleam of mischief and wickedness shining in his eyes, he would have looked a lot nicer. This body wasn't fit to do the things a shapeshifter does, those strong hands hadn't been made to kill, that mouth hadn't been made to whisper threats in innocents' ears, those eyes were not meant to be the last ones to be seen by a dying man. And yet, there it was, right in front of me, mastered by an emotionless machine which had no other purpose than to do the world harm. I looked down, unable to bear the sight of him anymore. I knew I wasn't perfect either, that I had hurt many people and that I would never be as good as Olivia, or any other good guy I had had the opportunity to meet, but I thought – and begged – that I would never be as bad as that monster sitting against the wall.

It was hot in the room, and I rolled my sleeves up to try and cool down a little. My eyes were instantaneously drawn to the little drop of blood pearling on my forearm, and I looked at it suspiciously, beginning to wonder what they might have gave me all over again. I had tried to resist when the other man had come to me with the syringe, but I had simply been unable to prevent him from pricking my arm. He hadn't told me anything and I didn't what it was about, nor what effect it was going to have on me. I wiped the blood with the tip of my finger, but of course the drop I had just cleaned was soon replaced by another one. I sighed and leaned back in the chair, fiddling the hem of my long-sleeved tee-shirt, lost in my thoughts flooding my brain.

'What is it?' I finally asked, needing to get rid of them. 'That thing you gave me, what is it?'
'You'll see by yourself when the time comes,' he answered with a cocky grin. 'Or I should say, you'll feel it.'

His smile grew wider as he said those words lowly, as if he meant to speak to himself and yet wanting me to hear. He arched his eyebrow and flicked his tongue across his lips, and the simple move was so obscene that my heart missed a few beats at the simple thought that maybe...

'What do you mean?' I asked, my mouth drier that a desert and my hands suddenly sweaty.
'I heard it was pretty hot,' he whispered with a gleam of lust in his eyes, winking as if he had just shared an awesome secret with me.
Blinded by a sudden flash of intense rage, I dashed to him, grasped him violently by the collar of his shirt and pinned him against the wall.
'How do you know about this?' I eructed between my clenched teeth.
'Don't pretend you didn't know you were observed...' he said, squirming uneasily, still smiling. 'Those videophones are so easy to hack into... A chance they turned it on right in time.'
'How many people have seen this?' I barked, shaking him so violently that his head banged against the hard surface.
'Officially, only three...' he smirked, blinking to chase the stars in front of his eyes, probably. 'The two officers from the control room, and the Secretary. But unofficially...'
'How many?' I repeated, my face inches from his, my heart already sinking in my heart.
'I don't know. The record was quickly made confidential, so not as much as you may think, I suppose. Still, enough for me to hear about it. It is said to be one of the best porn movie of the last decade, is that right?'

I hit him hard with the butt of the gun, not to punish him for what he had said, because I was quite unable to make sense of it, but not to stay aghast and do nothing. He fell back on the floor with a grunt of pain, and I could only watch him slid against the wall, trying hard not to go to pieces. I hid my face in my palms, feeling my cheeks hot under my fingers, and crouched, not even bothering to sit back on the chair to grant me some kind of composure. I felt sick, ashamed, and the only thing I wanted was to disappear through the floor and never see him again. I knew I shouldn't feel that way, but the only thing he had done was to make me despise myself. He had turned the hate I felt toward him into self-hatred. Because I knew that I should have realized anyone could spy on me at any moment, particularly when I had done it that way many times. Scenes of what had happened in my apartment with Olivia were flashing behind my eyelids and it only made it all worse. Those things we had done, the way we had behaved, that was not something I would have wanted people to see and I should have been aware of the risks such a behavior could lead to. The Secretary, and probably dozens of men must have seen that video, they had watched me in a very personal situation that was supposed to have never happened. I just couldn't be cool with the fact that most of them compared me to a freaking porn star playing dirty games with an alternate version of myself. That didn't feel right at all. Of course, I knew that's how it looked like from the outside, but I couldn't help thinking they shouldn't judge what they saw when they had no idea what was going on. After all, it wasn't my fault. I hadn't want it to happen, it just did for a still quite obscure reason. They should have realized any sane people would have never done such a thing on purpose. No, it wasn't my fault. And they could think of me in every way they wanted, I didn't mind. Whatever they believed they knew about me, they could only be wrong.

Or maybe the Secretary knew what really happened? He was the only one clever enough to realize that it was a consequence of something, and I wouldn't doubt his finding the origin of it, just like the Walter from this side did. Well, I wasn't a hundred percent sure he was right, but at least his assumptions were some kind of proof convincing me that a scientific explanation could be found. It didn't matter what others were thinking as long as I believed there was rational fact to justify what happened. Plus, I didn't regret it. I felt no remorse regarding what we had experienced back in my apartment, because it had led me there. I loved Olivia and I was more than happy to be on her side. That was why I shouldn't have been ashamed, and I shouldn't have cared that much about scatterbrained men that I would never meet anyway.

I glanced at the shapeshifter with that thought in mind, but when I saw that nasty grin of his and the way he stared at me, I felt my cheeks going on fire once again. It was above my forces to pretend there was nothing to be ashamed about – although he said he hadn't seen anything, I didn't believe him – and that was one of the few feeling I couldn't deal with. I rose on my feet and turned my back away from him, unable to look at him in the eyes. He only wanted to destabilize me, and it was working. I wiped my hot forehead with my palm, finding a spot on the wall to concentrate on. I could feel his eyes on me and I could perfectly imagine the kind of smile he was wearing. I tried to think of what Olivia would have done in such a case. Would she have shaken it off as if she didn't care or would she have killed him the second he told her he'd seen her having sex with her alter-self? After a few seconds of reflexion, I realized I didn't know. I guessed she would simply have sat in a corner of the room and died of shame. If I couldn't take it, she couldn't either. Or at least I thought so. I still didn't know her that well and I would have found it hard to answer any other personal question about her. I brushed my nose with the back of my hand, hoping I would get to know her better than I did. I wanted to know her, I wanted to learn every single detail that made her so different from me. I was hoping to get nicer, better living on her side, and that would start by finding out how I could improve observing her.

But now wasn't the time to think about that. I checked the time on my watch and made a quick calculation. Peter had been gone for twenty minutes, more or less, and he should have been at the hospital already. Fear tugged at my stomach, I was hoping so hard that he would get in time to prevent any more problems that my fingers had curled in a strong fist, my knuckles becoming white pale.

'Tick... Tock...' the shapeshifter started, and I could even hear his smile as he talked. 'Tick... Tock...'

He had probably seen me look at my watch, and found another way to drive me nuts. I was usually quite patient when it came to resist this kind of atrocious methods to fly people off the handle, but I was so stressed and scared that the worse would happen that I couldn't take it. I rushed to him and pinned him once again against the wall with my forearm and pressing forcefully the gun on his temple. I hated it so much at that moment that I would have wanted to put a bullet through his damn brain, but that was the only thing he wanted and I would certainly not give him the pleasure. I was on edge, all the hatred I felt toward him, all that resentment grew into a bubbling cacophony in my chest and I felt so tensed that I wouldn't have been surprised at all if I had burst into tears. I stared at him for a long moment, my eyes probably dark an my hands trembling so much that I thought more than once I had actually pulled the trigger. It would have lasted long if I hadn't been interrupted by a sharp pain in my shoulder that I didn't know where was coming from. I almost dropped the gun and for a second I saw a flash of victorious pride in his eyes – probably because he thought he could jump on the occasion to get away – but I was quick to grab him by the collar and push him back against the wall. I had no idea why my shoulder was hurting like that, and I didn't understand it any better when my stomach became suddenly painful too. I was sure I had already experienced this kind of pain once, and after a few seconds of reflexion it popped in my head. A gunshot wound. I made the connection instantaneously and stared even deeper into the shapeshifter.

'You know what's happening, don't you?' I whispered, trying to ignore the growing pain.

He waited a moment, savoring with an unbearable attitude of contentment his victory.

'It worked.' he said with a smile, looking down at my shirt. 'The drug worked. Bishop didn't get there in time. You're doomed.'

I don't how I got the inspiration, but I've never written this fast ! ^o^

Next chapter will still be from Fauxlivia's POV, I think, but I haven't got the tiniest idea of what's going to happen, so this time it may take a little longer before I update this story ! :)

I hope you still like it, and I promise there will be some Olivia/Fauxlivia soon ! =)