Chapter Twenty-two

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ANGELA AWOKE AND her entire body hurt. Her head was spinning. Her heart was pounding. She was aware that she was trying to move, but that she couldn't.

"It's all right," came a voice. "You're disoriented, of course, but give yourself a moment. These restraints are for your safety. Once you've calmed down, we'll remove them."

She realized she was tied down to a bed. She opened her eyes, and she was in a hospital room. There was a window, and she could see the sky outside, a city skyline in the distance. "Where am I?"

"Los Angeles," said the voice.

She turned to look at him. "It's you."

Anderson Scott smiled, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "It's me. How are you, Angela? Are you in pain?"

"I…"

"If so, I'm told that will fade." Anderson Scott tilted his head this way and that, looking her over. "Undoing your transformation was significantly easier than undoing Luther Thompson's, of course. I still can't understand why it affected the women in half-measures and the men so completely. Very strange."

"You… you sent the chopper," she said.

"I did," he said. "I decided it was time to intervene, I suppose. I was afraid you were all going to end up dead if I didn't. There are a number of acceptable casualties when you're making significant scientific breakthroughs, of course, but if everyone dies, well…" He shrugged. "I don't have to tell you that's out of the bounds of acceptability."

"But you didn't know. You weren't in contact—" She broke off, understanding going through her. "You've got that entire place under surveillance, I bet."

"Of course I do," said Anderson Scott, laughing. "As if I'm going to put that much money into something and then pay no attention to it? I have cameras and microphones everywhere. Usually, I pay someone to review the footage and then I just watch the highlights, but I've been in it, lately. This has been exciting as all hell."

"So, you've just been spying on us all the time."

"Oh, don't act offended," he said. "You signed off on it in your contract, of course."

"Of course," she echoed.

"And don't even think about trying to sue me for turning into a salamander or whatever," he said. "First of all, there shouldn't be any evidence left on your body, and second of all, there were a lot of clauses in your contract, and third of all, even if you get around the contract, I will bury you. I have the money and the lawyers, and you don't."

She blinked at him.

"All right," he said, reaching down to undo the restraints on her bed. "Well, that's good, then. Luther Thompson wants to see you. I said you have final say on that. I won't stand for any sort of sexual harassment or rape charges against him, of course—it'd make me look bad, since it happened on the job. If you don't want to see him, you don't have to. If you need therapy, we're happy to pay."

"I-I'll see him," she said.

"Oh, good." Anderson smiled. "I like the two of you, I have to say. You're my favorite of the couples."

She swallowed, sitting up in the bed. "The couples?" she echoed. "Oh, so you mean Jonathan and Riley. Are they here, too?"

"They are not." Anderson took out his cell phone, touched a few things on the screen, and then showed it to her. It was a video feed of the lab, Jonathan and Riley there, heads together over a pile of eggs. Jonathan looked the same as he had, but Riley's skin was covered in more scales than it had been. She was losing her hair as the scales traveled up her neck and over her ears. "We all decided it was better if we continued our experiment. We all want to do it, of course, to really make it happen. My money, their expertise, and it will be a reality, I think. We're going to create a new species." He smiled, taking the phone back. "They seem really willing and eager to take the experiment to the next level, I think. So, I'm leaving them there."

"Not us, though," said Angela. "And it's really… undone? You changed us back?"

"It wasn't easy," he said. "It took my best minds a lot of work, but yeah, we figured it out eventually. You've been under sedation for a month, though. I'll leave you, so you can check out your body and see that it's all been put right back, okay? I'll send Luther in."

She gaped after him as he went to the door.

"Oh," he said, stopping on his way out, "Angela, thank you so much for your hard work." Then he was gone.

She scrambled to pull up her hospital gown and took in her genitals.

Oh, he'd done it. She was back to normal, no strange, scaled skin, nothing.

She touched her human skin, tears forming in her eyes.

A knock at the door.

Her head jerked up. "Yes?"

"It's me." Luther's voice.

"Come in," she squeaked, tugging down her gown.

Luther was in a hospital gown too. He was pulling along an IV. And he was entirely human again.

She let out another squeak.

He gave her a half-smile. "I just woke up, too."

She climbed out of bed—oh, she was hooked to an IV, too, could she take that along?

But he was there.

She put her hands on his chest, tentative.

He touched her face, searching her gaze.

She went up on tiptoe and captured his lips with her own.

He wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss.

Then, she pulled away. "We're going to be okay."

"I think so," he said.