Crimson Claws & Fangs ch.19

   In front of the Labs Samantha has once more assumed a human form, she attempts to type in her pass code on the door’s security, and unsurprisingly it doesn’t take. With a shrug she remembers the lesson Versa taught her and phases through the front entrance. She immediately spots a rotating camera and instinctively learns a brand new ability, invisibility.

 

    Samantha stops and notices her own ghost like state, “that’s useful, wish I knew how to do that before now.” She looks up at the camera, “When did they put in those?” she wonders.

 

    As she stealth fully moves through the hallways she hears a voice, “Sam Smith?” she thinks.

 

   She stands outside the room she heard the voice watching him going over some notes, which she recognizes as her notes about the samples she collected from Pine Ridge. Nearby sits a television with the news on. She is about to continue on her way when she hears the news man say her name, “Dr. Samantha York, who was believed to have been killed in a car accident while on the run for a triple homicide charge and acts of terrorism a year ago has been spotted alive in the San Diego area. A search is currently underway and anyone with any information as to her location should call the Police immediately.”

 

   Samantha not thinking utters out loud, “What a bunch of bull-shit.”

 

   Sam Smith jumps up startled, “Whose there!”

 

   Samantha walks back outside the door out of his line of sight and becomes visible again. She walks back in and says, “It’s just me Sam.”

 

   Sam is a bit confused and relieved at the same time, “What happened?” he asks, “You didn’t really kill anyone did you?” before she can respond he says, “I know you didn’t. The day you go around killing people is the day I find Bigfoot in my back yard.” He chuckles a little at his own joke.

 

    Samantha thinks, “At least Sam is the same.” She asks him if they still have the samples.

 

   “Sorry.” He says, “Someone broke in awhile back and stole the samples, that’s why they put in all these security cameras and they even overhauled the pass codes, apparently we had people still in the system from years ago who could have come in at anytime.” With that it dawns on him, “How did you get in here?”

 

    “You wouldn’t believe me.” She says.

 

   “Try me” he says leaning back on his lab desk.

 

  “Can you keep a secret?” she asks cross-armed.

 

    He shrugs and says, “There is nothing you could show or tell me that would surprise me.”

 

   “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She says as she causes her tail to grow and swishes it around her right leg.

 

   Startled he nearly falls from his lean and says in a shaky voice, “let me guess, those hair samples came from a were-wolf. I knew they couldn’t be from a normal animal. You need help Samantha, a cure or something, tests; we have to be able to do something about this.” As he walks over to the office phone he thinks, “my God, she really did kill those people, a werewolf just like in the movies before gaining some control over herself.”

 

   Samantha has had yet another ability manifest, thought reading. She heard what Sam was thinking just now, apparently only needing for her to focus on a specific person and watch them closely, little comfort as one side of her mind realizes that and the other side the implications of what he thought exactly.

 

    Samantha smashes her fist on a nearby metal lab table denting it and breaking some equipment in the process. “I am not a werewolf!” she says with a growl, “Those samples didn’t come from a werewolf, I am not a killer, I thought you would understand. You think I need help?” She takes out the sheet of paper Versa handed her and shakes it at him, “These are the only people that can help me with this, not some experimentation and accusatory people like you thinking I’m some wild animal.” In that instant she becomes invisible, to Sam appearing to have vanished into thin air.

 

     The next day the head of the Lab Prof. Johnson with a security team are looking over the cameras from the night before with great confusion trying to figure out how Samantha was moving about the office unseen, especially with how she vanished at the end. One of the guards even cracks a joke about government cover-ups. Prof. Johnson has them zoom in on the paper Samantha was holding, due to the camera angle they couldn’t make out her tail. However they have some of the best cameras around and can make out the address on the paper. Prof. Johnson says to the team, “That must be where she is meeting her terrorist associates, I wouldn’t doubt they have been selling all sorts of top secret technology or something, I bet she was here to try and find something to take back to them. I really wish we had been allowed to put in microphones too.” He shakes his head and says, “We better call the police and show them this.”