A Different Kind of Animal

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Arabelle’s eyelids felt as if they were made of lead. She tried a few unsuccessful times to open her eyes, and finally managed to hold them open a crack before they fluttered shut again. Opening them that much did little good, though, since the place where she lay was too dark to make out much of anything.

She moaned, trying to lift herself from the haze of confusion that still coated her mind, feeling trapped in that place of near-wakefulness.

“Arabelle?”

The person who voiced her name sounded urgent, maybe even relieved. After a second, she picked through her groggy thoughts and recognized the voice.

“…Leo?”

“I’m right here. Are you all right?”

She didn’t know the answer to that question, so she asked, “Where are we?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he breathed, only confusing her more. She had no idea why he felt the need to apologize, especially when he wasn’t the one who’d attacked her. “We’re inside GenLabs.”

Her memory and senses were gradually returning, coming up out of the chemical fog in her brain, and she suddenly gasped, jerking upright. The motion only caused her to sway unsteadily, and she sunk back down onto her elbows.

“Oh my God, Leo. Someone…someone was trying to take you away! I saw him out my window. I tried to stop him, but he—” She gasped again. “He shot me!”

Suddenly she wondered if she was hurt, because she couldn’t tell. Maybe she was in shock and couldn’t feel the pain. She started checking herself over, hastily feeling along her torso with her hands as she tried to locate a gunshot wound.

Leo said quickly, “No, no, he didn’t shoot you with a bullet. It was a tranquilizer dart.”

She was dumbfounded. Shocked, she exclaimed before thinking, “Like for animals?” Then she sucked in her breath and clamped her mouth shut, her face growing hot in embarrassment.

She couldn’t quite make out Leo’s features, but she thought she saw him grimace. All he said aloud, though, was, “Fortunately, they weren’t bullets.”

“Yeah,” she agreed stupidly.

Her current situation only now decided to catch up to her, and she felt her heart begin to race.

Oh. My. God.

“We’ve been…kidnapped?” she squeaked, her eyes going wide. Lifting one of her hands to clutch at the collar of her shirt since it suddenly felt too tight, she whispered, “But how can they do that? How can’t they be caught?”

Then, more importantly, she wondered, “How are we going to escape?”

She heard Leo sigh. He sounded frustrated, but anxious, too. “I wish I knew how to answer those questions. If I could, I probably would have been able to escape long before now.”

She grabbed at the small shard of hope he’d revealed. “How did you escape? Can’t we just, I don’t know, do the same thing over again?”

As her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting—the only light came in from the tiny glass window in the door to the room—she began to frantically search the small space for an out. There wasn’t much to look at: one tiny cot-like bed against the right wall, a narrow window high above their heads, and, over in the far left corner, a toilet. That was it. And the window would probably only fit her arm up to the shoulder.

“I didn’t have anything to do with my escape. All I did was run for my life when the door was opened,” he said.

Turning her attention back to him, she stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean? Someone let you out?”