Chapter 13 – What Dreams May Come

Tess burst into Catherine's hospital room, gun at the ready. She had no idea what she would encounter. She didn't, however, expect it to be the sight before her. Cat was thrashing in her bed, moaning, looking for all the world like she was caught up in a horrific nightmare. "Cat! Cat wake up!" Tess urged as she shook her partner, being careful of her injured shoulder. Catherine jolted awake, looking like a deer in the headlights. Her terror was palpable. "Cat, what is it? What's wrong? Why did you call us down here?"

Catherine pushed herself up in the bed, breathing hard. "Dr. Alex. Someone's taken her. I.. I don't know who.. some guy with a gun... stuffed her in his trunk in the parking garage.." Her voice trailed off as another pain speared into her head.

"Wait – Cat, how do you know this?" Tess was feeling more than a little confused. But her body was still tensed, ready for what, she didn't know. All she was certain of was that her partner had never steered her wrong yet.

Catherine wasn't about to launch into a full-blown discussion of something she didn't even understand herself. All she could hope for is that Tess would trust her. "I can't explain it right now, Tess. Is anyone outside covering the grounds? We can't let them get away with her!"

Tess radioed Joe and told him if anyone was in the vicinity of the garage to stop and search the trunk of any vehicles leaving the hospital complex. That accomplished, she sat down on the edge of Catherine's bed. "Talk to me, Cat. Something is going on with you and it's clearly got you shaken to the edge of hysteria. " She held her gaze steady until Catherine had to look away.

"I meant it when I said I couldn't explain it," she said weakly. She closed her eyes and lay back into the pillows, trying to relax. "Ever since I woke up from the surgery I've been… different. It's like, I know things. Things I don't really want to know. I can feel how other people are feeling sometimes. Or see things I shouldn't be able to see – like now."

"So… what? You're psychic now? Girl, I think you hit your head a little harder than we thought. I just hope Joe doesn't demand his pound of flesh from both of us, after the way I woke him up this morning to drag him out on a wild goose chase." Tess got up and walked over to look out the window, just in time to see Wolanski running after a car that was racing away from the hospital. "What the hell-?"

Wolanski's voice came over the radio. "Got a black sedan speeding away from the garage. Heading North on Madison. DC Plates Mike-Uniform-India-Romeo eleven. Repeat, M-U-I-R dash 1-1. Available units in vicinity of Mt. Sinai pursue." Tess looked back over her shoulder toward the bed, her brows knit together in disbelief. Could Cat really have had some sort of… vision? She heard the squad car sirens as they pursued the vehicle in question, but her attention was riveted to her partner. Cat had lifted her stare from the radio that lay at the foot of her bed and met Tess' gaze. Tess suddenly felt a frisson of fear creep through her at how pale and terrified Catherine looked – right before she leaned over the edge of the bed and emptied her stomach onto the floor.

Vincent tossed violently in his sleep, caught in the grip of a PTSD-worthy nightmare. Only he wasn't dreaming about being trapped in Afghanistan. In fact, it wasn't him in trouble at all. It was…a woman. Why couldn't he see her face? A man. A gun. A car trunk. He could feel the stress pressing on him, screaming at him to change…

Bolting upright and instantly awake, Vincent dragged great gasping gulps of air into his lungs – and stopped abruptly. The sound of his own breathing was… wrong somehow. Oh, no…no! Not now! He looked at his hands, horrified to see his claws starting to show. He tried to calm himself, remember it was just a dream – but was it? Why, then, did he feel this overwhelming terror crushing his chest and restricting his breathing?

He jumped up and started staggering around the room, trying to clear his head so he could reason what he needed to do. But something primal was eating at him, trying to get him to react instead of respond to the strange and terrifying emotions he was experiencing. Emotions that weren't his own… were they? It was like he felt them but they made no sense to him. Was that the beast in him obscuring his reason or was it real? He slammed his hand against his forehead, trying to jar thoughts loose. He stumbled a few more steps then tripped on a chair, which he threw across the room.

JT woke with a start and lay completely still in the darkness, his senses on full alert. Something was wrong… again. The sounds of Vincent raging upstairs and the heaviness of his footfalls drove JT to reach for the tranquilizer gun next to his bed. He kept it there religiously now, in case he ever needed it in an emergency. Apparently he had been wise to. He climbed out of his bed and walked as quietly as he could to the stairs leading to Vincent's loft. He winced at the sound of furniture being thrown and knew that they were in trouble. Were the blackouts making a reappearance? And why, in the middle of the night, when he knew Vincent had actually been sleeping for once?

His heart slammed against his chest, and he knew Vincent could hear it. The element of surprise was not going to be on his side, so it was wasted effort to try for it. He yanked open the gate at the bottom of the stairs and cautiously ascended them, alert for signs of Vincent's beast. Squinting into the semi-darkness, he saw Vincent silhouetted against the moonlit windows. Keeping the dart gun at the ready, he spoke up. "Dude… everything ok up here?"

Vincent spun toward the stairs, and JT could see his eyes glowing amber in the darkness. "JT – what's happening to me?" he asked in his half-transformed husky beast voice. "Something's wrong… I think it's Catherine… I need to go!"

"Uh… no? Not such a good idea, big guy. Every time you beast out around her, people die. You better stay put."

"NO!" Vincent roared, his beast yanking at its chains, demanding release. "She needs me!" He started to charge the stairs and JT took aim and hit him in the leg. As he fell he moaned, "JT she needs help. Please go to her…" And then he was out like a light.

Now JT had a real problem. How was he going to keep Vincent under control and take care of Catherine? It suddenly hit him – how would Vincent know Catherine was in trouble, anyway? Things kept getting weirder and weirder by the day with those two.

Inspiration struck and he ran to grab his wallet and cell phone. He couldn't go check on Catherine, but he knew someone who could.

"SONOFABITCH!" Harris slammed his hand on the steering wheel. He was stressing to the max as he sped through the streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side, with NYPD in hot pursuit. How the hell had this happened? He'd planned everything so carefully, and told no one of his plans. So there was no one to "leak" the information. He was sure the hot doctor wasn't on to him; she'd been too surprised when he nabbed her. So she couldn't have alerted anyone. How, then, did the cops show up just in time to ruin everything?

He rounded a corner just as a cop car spun sideways to block his path. He jerked the wheel hard trying to avoid colliding with it, opting at the last moment to run up onto the sidewalk before crashing into the side of a building.

The two officers that had trapped the sedan climbed from their cars and approached the wreck, guns drawn. They weren't sure what this guy was wanted for, but apparently it was more than a parking ticket given the way he had attempted to evade them. Officer Venuto yanked open the car door to reveal the driver slumped over the steering wheel, moaning. "Call it in," he told Murphy, as he holstered his gun. "We're gonna need an ambulance." The other officer went back to his squad car, and Venuto turned on his flashlight to examine the sedan's interior. Without warning, he felt someone clock him hard on the back of the head just before everything went black.