NON REVERSABLE EFFECTS

CH13

"Oh my god!" Daniel exclaimed as he saw me. He scrambled over to me, clearly in shock. "Look at you. Are you okay?" he demanded, reach out to touch me.

I jerked away from his touch. "You can't be here!" I yelled at him.

He was still wearing his BDU's and black T-shirt just like he had in the kennel-cages. "Nick." he said, giving me a look. "You're really hurt."

"I'm fine." I lied, because I knew that if I thought about it I would feel it, and it wouldn't be good at all if I felt it. "You can't be here." I told him again, standing up and walking over to the closest door. There was no handle on this side and after checking I realized that the seal were air tight and there was no chance of me ripping it off it's hinges and getting Daniel out of here.

"Talk to me." Daniel had fallowed me.

I should have been keeping track of him because the next thing I knew, his hand was on my shoulder. Even though the touch was light and gentle, warm and wanted I ducked out of it as quick as possible. I backed away from him, keeping at least four feet of distance between us. His expression was hurt—as was expected—and determined.

"Bad things happen in this place." I said tightly. "People get hurt and people die. The person that captured us is no good, I don't know what he wants but he's horrible, Daniel." a lump formed in my throat; "I've killed people, Daniel—tore them to shreds."

He paled, taking a good look at me and then the surrounding area. He turned green then.

"I didn't want to." my voice was slightly pleading. "The Doctor-guy cut me open and put something in the back of my neck. It makes me do things, and I can't control myself. And if you're in here, than that mean's that one of us is going to die." I could feel my vision blur slightly.

"Nick—" Daniel started softly, but I cut him off with a violent shake of my head.

"No." I told him. "You have to kill me, Daniel. You have to."

"No." Daniel said epically in return. "No one is going to die."

"Daniel—" I cut off as I felt the electrical charge in the back of my neck.

I fell to me knees and reached up for the collar around my neck, Daniel rushed to me—which was the last thing that I wanted. I shoved Daniel away as I felt the charge start to go down my spine, and I grabbed for the collar around my neck. I got a shock from it, but it wasn't as powerful as it had been when I first tried to get it off. I pulled at it, trying to tear it away from my neck. I had to fight this, I told myself. I had tried to fight it with the man and the girl, but it hadn't worked. But it was different now, this was Daniel we were talking about, there was no way that I was ever going to harm a hair on his hair.

So I fought. The charge grew stronger and I knew that this had to do with mental strength as well as physical. I knew that if it left my spin and shot up into my head that I would be a goner and so would Daniel. I also knew that if I could get the collar off, then I could stop this.

I gave the collar one last yank and it actually came off—later I would come to the realization that the only reason that I did get it off was due to the fact that it had been damaged during my fights with the man and the girl that I had killed. I gave a yell of relief and triumph as I threw it to the ground. That was a mistake on my part as my concentration slipped slightly and the charge traveled back up my spine.

I could feel the sharpness of it in the back of my brain and yelled out in pain as well as frustration and anger. The need was coming again, the instinct to defend myself from a threat, trying to block out my actual thoughts. Daniel stayed where he was this time, knowing that now was not the time to screw around. He backed up from me as I fell to all fours, a roar leaving my lips.

It was in my head and in my muscles and nerves. My vision was starting to get a pink tint and I knew that I was losing this battle. The more I fought, the stronger the charge seemed to get. I was exhausted and I wanted to give into the need to Change. But if I couldn't do this for myself, then I had to fo it for Daniel's sake and life.

I could feel the stretch and pull as my body started to Change. My senses growing sharper as well as my teeth. I growled, grounding my teeth together. It cut my lip, but that just seemed to help—which was good news for me finally. I clenched my hands into fists, the slight pain of my sharp nails digging into the flesh of my palms helping my get my mind back. But I knew that I couldn't keep this up for long and that there was no way to fight this. So the only thing that I could think of was, that in order to get rid of this problem, I had to get rid of the source.

It was in the back of my neck—whatever it was—and that meant the it was probably in some way connected to my cerebral cortex or something or other. All that meant was that it was in a dangerous spot that could leave me paralyzed or leave me dead. Either way, I wasn't going to kill Daniel.

Without thinking to much into it then I already had, I reached for the back of my neck. My sharp nails tore into the flesh and broke the stitches—I thanked allot of people for the fact that the wound was still actually pretty fresh. I reached into the wound, frantically feeling around for whatever might be in there. My nail caught something and I pulled, hoping that I wasn't tearing anything important.

I literally screamed my face off in bloody murder at the pain that it caused. It felt like the paddle from a defibrillator were being held to my chest while they were on max, and behind my eyes there was such a bright flash of white light that it was like the sun was right in front of my face. I was sure that my heart had stopped for a second and that my corneas were fried as I collapsed to the ground.

"Nick!"

The next thing I knew Daniel was next to me, shaking me in a panic.

"Stop." I told him and he did instantly. I rubbed my eyes, squeezing them tight before opening them again and looked around myself—all the while swearing loyalties as I still had my sight. Daniel helped me sit up and I leaned against him for support as I rubbed my soar chest. Actually that wasn't the only thing that was soar, my whole frigin' body was like one big hurt. Before I could ask what the hell had just happened, one of the steel doors was shoved open and in came Bill and Bob.

Daniel was up in an instant, standing protectively in front of me. I stood up too, though much slower as I was starting to feel my injuries. But as I finally stood and looked at Bill and Bob, I realized that they were ready for a fight. As i came to that realization, a shot of adrenaline coursed through me and I stood up straighter, coming to stand beside Daniel. He gave me a weird look before he turned back to B-squared.

"Look, guys." Daniel said, his voice reasonable. "If you just let us go, there won't be a problem."

"That's not going to work, Daniel." I told him as Bill and Bob stayed silent. "Not this time."

"I know." Daniel gave a disappointed sigh. "But you know that I hate confrontation."

The corner of my mouth twitched. "It can't be avoided forever."

And that was when it started. Daniel went for Bob and I went for Bill, or maybe it was the other way around. I wasn't sure how they fought, seeing as the were fucking huge and that was all they probably needed. Daniel was a good fighter, he had to be after all of the training that SG-1 put him through. And I was a good fighter as well, though probably not at the moment. The only thing that I knew that I had going for me was the fact that I could Change into a big-ass feline.

But when I charged at Bill, I didn't feel the stretch and pull as I Changed—quite frankly I didn't feel much. Not until Bill swatted me away like a fly and I hit the surrounding wall, hard and with a grunt. Now I was definitely feeling something. I struggled to my feet quickly as Bill approached, I knew that I couldn't freak-out quite yet on the fact that I didn't Change, that me ripping whatever it was that had been in the back of my neck screwed me up.

I lashed out, racking my sharp nails across his face. And unlike with the girl, my nails hit his eye. There was blue and clear fluid, as well as gross stuff under my nails. I tried to ignore it, and was pissed when Bill didn't seem to be affected at all. I couldn't tell how Daniel was doing, but since Bob wasn't over here with Bill, I assumed that he was doing pretty good. Bill reached out and before I could duck, his hand wrapped around my throat and my feet lifted off of the ground.

I gasped for air, my hands clawing at the arm, but it was no use. My breath was leaving me, and so was my consciousness. Spots formed in my vision as Bill continued to crush my wind-pipe. With one last spur of adrenaline I used the fact that I was handing in the air to my advantage. I pushed back from him, and using the momentum of that and my weight came back with my legs stretched out stiff in front of me. I squeezed my eyes tight in anticipation of the pain to come as my feet connected where all men breathe.

Apparently Bill was Human because he let go of my neck and fell to his knees, a pain filled noise leaving his lips. I dropped to the ground too, landing on my already majorly sprained ankle. I was sure I blacked out for a second form the pain, but the instant I came back I scrambled to my feet. Daniel was struggling with Bob and I could understand why. I also knew that we only had to delay Bill and Bob for a second so that we could get to the door and shut it, making it so that they would be stuck here for a while like I was.

So I ran towards them—despite the pain in my ankle—and dived, sliding in the sand. Unknowingly, Daniel moved out of the just in time as my raised fist touched down in the same place that had taken down Bill. I knew that any other time in may have been a cheep shot, but at the moment I wasn't above anything. He went down like a sack of potatoes, just like Bill had—but not a dead or unconscious sack of potatoes, just a very pained one.

Daniel took a second to look at me with wide eyes and a slack jaw, before he got it together and rushed over to me. "Are you okay?" he asked, not even waiting for my answer as he grabbed my arm and pulled me up, all but dragging me through the door. Together we pulled the foor shut again, twisting the lock tight.