Prisoner (Werewolf Marines) (21 page)

“We’ll make it look like I tried to stop
him,” Echo assured her.

Charlie’s mouth fell even wider open. She
never did trust Echo to be cautious.

“I don’t care about DJ,” Echo said firmly.
“I’ve never cared about anyone but my sisters. You’re my last
sister, and I’ll never care about anyone but you. Believe me, I
won’t do anything that could rebound on you. And if you want me to
keep living, you’ll just have to keep on living, too.”

Charlie kept on staring, then suddenly
laughed. “I’ll do my best.”

Echo was only somewhat reassured. And she had
no intention of falling in with her handlers’ plan, like a
perfectly conditioned lab rat. Fury simmered beneath her skin when
she thought of how close she’d come to doing so, if Charlie hadn’t
tipped her off. She’d not only had that sexual fantasy about DJ,
she’d actually liked him!

She still liked him, much as she now didn’t
want to. She was certain that he had no idea of her handlers’ plot
to attach them to each other. Like her, he was a pawn on the board.
A rat in a maze.

But now that Echo knew what was going on, she
didn’t have to follow the path laid out for them. She could see all
the possible end points, and she didn’t like any of them.

The best-case scenario involving DJ was that
she’d be stuck with him for a while, and then he’d leave and she’d
never see him again. But it was just as likely that he’d be killed
trying to escape. The more attached she was to him in either
outcome, the more painful the inevitable end would be. In the
worst-case scenario, Echo got so attached that she missed DJ making
some ruthless plan to save Roy at any cost, and Charlie got killed
in the crossfire.

Echo needed to be cool and detached. DJ ate
away at her cool detachment like flames licking at dry wood. The
only solution was to avoid him as much as possible.

***

To Echo’s relief, DJ didn’t spend much time
in the apartment. He was gone most of the time getting intensively
trained in assassinating and so forth, and when he wasn’t doing
that, he was at the lab, getting tested and examined by Dr.
Semple.

They were still stuck sleeping in the same
room, but there was an easy fix for that. She took to going to bed
early, so he always returned to a darkened bedroom where she lay
pretending to be asleep, and was gone before he woke.

It was impossible to avoid him entirely, and
in the brief times when they ran into each other in the apartment
or the corridors or the cafeteria, he gave her an earful, talking
as if he intended to cram an entire day’s worth of reports into
five minutes.

The first week, it was mostly worry about his
family and worry about Roy. Then the powers that be let him send a
message to his family and get a message back, so the second week
consisted of worry about Roy, asking her personal questions that
she evaded, quizzing her for info he could use to make his escape,
and playing music and trying to discuss it with her.

Echo wanted to discourage the “What sort of
music do you like, Echo?” and “Wanna hear classical cellists
playing Metallica, Echo?” and “Listen to this, Echo, it’s a rock
band covering the Korean National Anthem,” so she made
non-committal noises in response. But some of DJ’s music was so
annoying that she was forced to either leave or ask him to turn it
off. And some of it she couldn’t help enjoying, though since she
was trying to not to interact, she couldn’t say so.

After two weeks of successful avoidance, he
came in while she was feigning sleep. But instead of going to his
own bed, he turned on the lights and said, “I know you’re not
asleep. Stop pretending.”

Echo sat up, perplexed. “I was breathing
exactly as if I was. I even set my heart rate to mimic sleep. How
did you know?”

DJ smiled briefly, leaning in the doorway and
tapping on it with the fingers of his left hand. “I didn’t. Now I
do.”

She scowled, irritated at him and irritated
at herself for falling for his trick. “What do you want?”

“I want you to stop avoiding me.” DJ sat on
his bed, earnestly facing her. “I get why you’re doing it, but
we’re going to have to interact anyway once they’re done training
me, and they’re pretty close to done.”

Echo froze, horrified at the thought that he
knew exactly what she was afraid of feeling about him. “Why do you
think I’m doing it?”

“You’re afraid that if the powers that be
think we go together like peanut butter and chocolate, you’ll be
stuck rooming with me forever. You’re hoping that if they see that
throwing us together isn’t doing anything to make us get along
better, they’ll let you move back in with Charlie. Right?”

“That’s right,” Echo said, immensely
relieved. “Sorry. It’s nothing personal. I’ve lived with Charlie my
entire life.”

DJ sighed. “I know. But I don’t think your
plan is working. And it’s driving me crazy. Anyway, the apartment’s
not bugged. Right?”

Echo glanced around the room again, even
though she’d done so when she’d come in earlier that night. “No,
it’s not.”

“Then what about acting like we hate each
other in public, and acting however we like in private?”

Echo wanted to object, but she couldn’t think
of a good reason other than her actual one. “Well— why’s it driving
you crazy?”

DJ’s gaze was straightforward, but his voice
held the faintest tinge of hurt. “Because it feels like you really
do hate me.”

Guilt made Echo’s stomach clench. “I
don’t.”

“I know that. But it doesn’t feel like
it.”

Feelings! With no further recourse, Echo
said, “Fine. From now on, we just hate each other in public.”

DJ’s smile turned on like a light. “Great!
Want to listen to some music?”

Resigned, Echo said, “Sure.” It was better
than talking, anyway.

He threw himself on his bed and flipped
through his iPod, cheerily telling her that he’d once gotten hooked
on a Norwegian death metal band and only belatedly learned that the
members were white supremacists.

“Oops,” DJ said, laughing. “It was
embarrassing, I’d been enjoying the neo-Nazis for weeks before
someone tipped me off. At least I hadn’t played them in clubs. By
the way, if you ever want to hear some incredible stories, look up
Norwegian black metal. Murder, suicide, arson, cannibalism,
lawsuits over a guy getting hurt when the band flung a decapitated
sheep head into the audience, you name it. Anyway, the song I’m
going to play is by the group I got into as a substitute. They have
a similar sound, but they’re not evil.”

He paused. “I may have phrased that wrong.
They’re Satanists. But they’re not Nazis.”

While Echo was still trying to figure out if
the entire story was an elaborate leg-pull, DJ started the song.
The shrieking, head-banging, headache-inducing sound made Echo wish
she’d kept a bug around. If anyone deserved Norwegian Satanists, it
was Mr. Dowling.

She tried to tune it out, but that only made
her focus drift to DJ, who had sprawled out on his bed with his
hands behind his head, the picture of contentment. What did he have
to be so happy about?

Echo leaned over and stopped the song.
“Sorry. I hate it.”

“I could play something more peppy,” he
offered, already rifling through his song lists. “How about some
J-pop?”

Echo didn’t want peppy, she wanted to know
why
he
was so peppy. “Is Dr. Semple still hauling you into
the lab for experiments?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What’s she doing?”

“She thinks the funny way I’m wired might
make me immune to PTSD.” DJ rolled his eyes like it was the
stupidest thing he’d ever heard, then shrugged like maybe there was
something to it. “Well— It would be nice if she was right. Then
it’d be good for something, instead of just being an endless
fucking hassle and annoying everyone around me.”

“What do you mean, the funny way you’re
wired? You mean being dyslexic? What difference would that
make?”

“It’s not just dyslexia.” DJ tapped his
temple. “It’s lots of stuff. I could give you a whole list. But
here’s the interesting part. Dr. Semple says her tests show that I
have trouble learning from experience—”

Echo started laughing. She couldn’t help
it.

DJ leaned over and thumped her in the ribs.
“Shut up. She means on a neurological level.”

“Even your
nerves
don’t learn from
experience,” Echo gasped, still laughing. “I believe it.”

“Very funny.” DJ thumped her again,
considerately selecting a different spot. “Anyway, she says that
people learn by seeing similarities between different situations.
If you touch a flame once, you learn that all fires burn. It
doesn’t matter whether it’s a candle or a campfire, all the
flickering orange things hurt if you stick your hand in them. With
PTSD, you learn too much. You get blown up by an IED in the desert,
and you learn that everything around you at the time is dangerous,
down to the song you were humming when the blast went off. So
whenever you see sand or hear that song, you feel like you’re about
to get blown up again and you have a panic attack.”

“And she thinks you won’t do that?” Echo
asked, intrigued.

DJ nodded. “Apparently I have trouble seeing
similarities. The same cut-out letter looks completely different to
me if she pins it to a different board. So I don’t see sand and get
reminded of being burned, because the sand anywhere but where the
IED actually blew up seems completely different to me. Anyway,
that’s her theory.”

Since DJ seemed undisturbed by the subject,
Echo asked the obvious question. “
Were
you burned by an
IED?”

“Yeah, that’s what the scar’s from. Put me in
the hospital for a month.”

“And it doesn’t bother you to remember
it?”

“Ah.” DJ glanced around. “There’s definitely
no bugs in here, right?”

Echo double-checked. “No.”

“Stuff that’s only associated with what
happened doesn’t bother me. She can show me video of Afghanistan
and burn victims and IEDs till the cows come home, and I’m never
going to give a shit. I even still like the song I was humming when
I was hit. It was Dessa’s ‘Crew,’ I’ll play it for you some time.
But…” DJ fell silent, his lips trembling and his teeth
clenched.

Grief
, Echo thought. She’d seen that
expression on her sisters’ faces, the mirrors of her own, so many
times before.
And guilt.
Maybe DJ felt guilty for having
lived when someone he cared about had died. Echo knew all about
that one, too.

Finally, he said, “When I let myself think
about what actually happened, yeah, it bothers me. Just because I
don’t have PTSD doesn’t mean I don’t hurt.”

That hurt was so raw in his voice and eyes
that Echo wished she hadn’t asked. He wasn’t even trying to conceal
it, like it had never occurred to him that his pain could be used
against him.

As if he’d read her mind, he said,
“Obviously, that’s the part I don’t want Dr. Semple to know.”

He shook himself, like a wolf shaking water
out of his fur. It seemed to successfully shake out the feelings,
because he continued with seemingly genuine enthusiasm, “But I do
think her theories are interesting. When I was in educational
therapy, I was too frustrated to care why I was the way I was. But
now it’s cool to learn what makes me tick. And like I said, it’d be
nice to think I’m getting something worthwhile out of the rat’s
nest up here.” DJ again tapped his temple.

“But what are you actually doing in the
lab?”

He began rapidly thumbing through his iPod.
Norwegian death metal blasted from the mini-speakers, making Echo
jump.

“Sorry. Sorry.” DJ hastily turned it off. His
fingers drummed jerkily against the headboard. “Sorry.”

“What’s with you?” Echo demanded. “What are
you so nervous about?”

“Nothing. Must’ve drunk too much coffee.”

“Coffee doesn’t make you jittery. It makes
you relaxed.”

DJ stopped tapping and peered at her, looking
oddly pleased. “You noticed that?”

“We’ve been stuck together for two weeks. Of
course I noticed.”

“Most people don’t. Not even when we’re stuck
together for an entire deployment.”

“Most people aren’t very observant.” Echo
realized that DJ had deftly shifted the topic. He could evade all
he liked, but she’d yet to catch him lying in response to a direct
question. “DJ. Answer the question. What exactly is Dr. Semple
doing to you?”

“It’s not as bad as I expected,” DJ assured
her. “I was afraid she was going to try to
give
me PTSD. But
it hasn’t been like that. She hooks me up to machines that measure
my heart rate and brain activity and so forth. And then she has me
play games and try to read and watch news footage of combat and so
forth.”

“What else is she doing?” Echo asked
suspiciously.

“Having me shift. Measuring my strength and
endurance.”

“What else?”

“Pain threshold,” DJ said, after a moment’s
pause.

“She’s testing your pain threshold, and it’s
not as bad as you expected? What’s she using?”

“Ice water.” DJ shrugged, as if to underline
“not so bad,” then looked away and muttered, “Electric shock.”

Echo’s belly knotted. “You should complain to
Mr. Dowling. Tell him she’s endangering your mission fitness.”

“I will if she goes too far,” DJ promised.
“Honestly, I can take it.”

“And she’ll find out exactly how much you can
take,” Echo said grimly.

DJ scooted to the edge of his bed, propping
his chin in his hands, his face creased with concern. “Did she do
that to you?”

“A long time ago. Years.”

“Did you complain to Mr. Dowling?”

“No. See, she wasn’t doing those tests on
Charlie, and I didn’t want to give her the excuse of not having
enough data on me.”