Runaway with Faye

Chapter 20

The lynx, now a man, fell to his stomach, his pale-brown hair covering his face. Jyri landed on top of him, arms still around his body. "Get him clothes!" Jyri shouted to the two doctors, both of whom stared in surprise. From the door, Roark wolf-whistled.

"We don't have any," Dr. Kirksen said.

"A gown!"

The two doctors continued staring. Faye hopped down from the table to help look for a towel, but Jyri took off his own shirt, and handed it to his brother. She turned away for a second as he pulled it on. The two stood up. Jyri was a head taller, so the shirt fell past his brother's thighs, covering him almost as well as a gown would. Jyri scowled at the two gawking doctors. "Now that you've created your precious potion, can you let him free?"

"Let a shapeshifter free?" Dr. Hekell let out a laugh. "Do you know how hard they are to find?"

"And catch," Dr. Kirksen added. "I heard this one put up quite the fight."

The brother looked down at his feet, shivering. Jyri wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "We're leaving."

"You can't," Kern called out from the door. "King's orders."

Jyri let out a groan similar to the one his brother made as a lynx.

"He's a valuable subject," Dr. Hekell said. "The closest thing we have to a human-"

"He is a human!"

Faye remembered the window, and slowly inched toward it

"That we can test cures on," Dr. Kirksen said. "And we'll know for sure they'd be effective on humans."

"And don't you want to know more about shapeshifters?" Dr. Hekell added. "Why he's one, but you're not. Is anyone else in your family a shapeshifter?"

"Not that I know of." Jyri folded his arms across his bare chest.

"You don't want to know why?"

"Not this way."

Faye studied the closed window. Opening it shouldn't be a problem. Her eyes swept the room. Dr. Kirksen and Dr. Hekell gestured wildly, while Jyri shouted something about patient rights. The brother cowered behind him, his jaw-length hair hiding most of his face. Roark and Kern sat at the door facing each other, hands held as they gazed into each other's eyes, oblivious to the outside world. This was her one chance. Part of her wanted to stay behind and find a way to escape with Jyri and his brother. But she could always come back for them when the time was right.

The window was too high for her to reach, but there was a chair next to it. She tiptoed to the chair and stepped onto it. Carefully she slid the window open, worried that the sound would bring attention to herself. But at that moment, Jyri shouted as the two doctors grabbed his brother. She plunged out the window, and onto the ground, feet crunching on dead leaves. Before she could register her surroundings, a group of guards closed in on her.

King Lyon stepped in front of the guards. "And what have we here?"

Faye gaped at him. He snatched her by her bad wing, and half-dragged her back inside, the guards following.

Lyon banged his fist against the door of the huminal room. "Let me in, you imbeciles!"

The door opened, and Roark peered through the crack. "Is something the matter, your majesty?"

Lyon shoved the door open, nearly knocking Roark over in the process. Hand still gripped on Faye's wing, he swung her in, and she fell into the middle of the room, wincing as her knees thumped on the concrete floor.