"I'm asking you--"
I strained against my bonds, locking eyes with her. "Listen to me, Sondra. Give me a minute and let me explain what'll happen to you if you use that. It isn't the way you think it is. You don't want to do this."
Her eyes glittered then. All mania gone. Ice-cold. "I don't?"
She lifted the syringe.
"No!" I shouted, bucking in my chair.
She buried the needle into her arm, shoved the plunger down. And it was done. One second. One split second. As much time as it had taken Clay to bite me.
"Goddamn you!" I yelled. "You stupid bitch--Call the infirmary. Now!"
Her face was preternaturally calm, lips curving in something like bliss. Blissful relief at having done it. "Why, Elena? Why should I call the infirmary? So they can reverse it? Suck the gift from my veins like snake venom? Oh, no. We'll have none of that."
"Call the infirmary! Guards! Where the hell are the guards?"
"You heard me send them away."
"You don't know what you've done," I snarled. "You think this is some great gift. One prick of the needle and you're a werewolf? You did your research, didn't you? You know what happens now, right?"
Bauer turned her dreamy smile on me. "I can feel it coursing through my blood. The Change. It's warm. Tingling. The beginnings of metamorphosis."
"Oh, that's not all you're going to feel."
She closed her eyes, shuddered, reopened them, and smiled. "Seems I've gained something tonight and you've lost something. You're no longer the only female werewolf, Elena."
Her eyes widened then. Bulged. Veins in her neck and forehead popped up. She gasped, choked. Hands going to her throat. Body jerking upright. Spine snapping rigid. Eyes rolling. Rising to her toes, pitching forward and back, like a convict on the end of a hangman's noose. Then she collapsed, pooling to the floor. I screamed for help.
CHAPTER 22
WINSLOE
"What did you do to Ms. Bauer?" Matasumi asked.
Guards had collected Bauer soon after I started shouting. Twenty minutes later, they'd returned with Matasumi. He now stood there accusing me without a trace of accusation in his voice.
"I told the guards." I sat on the edge of my bed, trying to relax, as if this sort of thing happened every day. "She injected herself with my saliva."
"And why would she do that?" Matasumi asked.
"The bite of a werewolf is one way of becoming a werewolf."
"I realize that. But why--" He stopped. "Oh, I see."
Did he? Did he really see? I doubted it. None of them could understand what was coming. I could, and I was trying very, very hard
not to think about it.
Matasumi cleared his throat. "You claim Ms. Bauer injected herself--"
"The syringe is on the floor."
His eyes flickered to the needle, but he made no move to pick it up. "You claim she used this syringe--"
"I don't claim anything. I'm telling you what happened. She injected herself in the arm. Look for the needle mark. Test the contents of the syringe."
The door opened. Carmichael hurried inside, lab coat billowing behind her.