The silence stretched across the minutes creating a void that consumed the entire bunker.  In the darkest hours of the night, it was easy to get lost in the stillness of words unspoken.  The glass between them was never entirely forgotten and formed a symbol of their united solitude.

"Why don't you want to talk about this?"  His voice snapped both of them back to the present and left a taste of rancid vinegar in Jamie's mouth. 

As soon as the words were out, he heard them as an echo.  They were not his own.  They were the same ones used by the Doctor earlier, and he felt betrayed by his tongue for using them.

She had confronted him in his lab, while he was monitoring the progress of the HiSeq 2000 DNA Sequencer.  The massive piece of machinery was churning through Amy's sample.  Soon he would have a map of her genome.  And the first step to developing her genetic profile would be completed.

Eight days to achieve what used to take months or even years.  Having the DTAA's state of the art resources was one small perk of working here.

Jamie tried to stay focused on the stats scrolling across the large LCD display and block out Barbara Gracie.  But it was proving impossible.  Her presence was filling the room like a drizzle filled fog drifting from the mountain valleys in the depths of winter.

"Why don't you want to talk about this?"

"There's nothing to talk about."  Jamie cycled through the options of the self-diagnosis menu.

"You got into a fight with him."

"It wasn't a fight."  He selected a scan of primary system functions.  There was no real need to run it, but it gave him an excuse to keep facing the monitor.  "What does it matter anyway?"

The answer was it didn't.  But that didn't stop his nerves from twisting his insides and turning his voice into an untuned instrument that left him sounding evasive.

"If it wasn't a fight, what was it?"  For some reason, she wouldn't let it drop.  She was like a Rottweiler with its teeth in raw meat. 

Jamie left the diagnostic to run and made to leave the lab, but Dr. Gracie blocked his path.  Even with heels, she was shorter than him.  And she was easily eighty pounds lighter, but her malice gave her formability.  And the rumors about her past swirled around her like a demonic aura.  The look she gave him made it clear that there would be no ignoring her.

Without any hope of escape, he said, "A misunderstanding."

"Explain."

"Tray..."  How should he explain Tray's insecurities and bitchy attitude?  "Tray had a thing for Emily.  And he thought I did too.  So he got in my face about it.  It was just stupid.  He was completely wrong and was just making an ass out of himself.  She didn't want anything to do with him."

"How would you know that?  Was it because she had a thing for you?"

"No, because it was obvious to anyone with eyes.  Except Tray."  And maybe you, Jamie thought.

Gracie seemed to move in closer but her feet never budged.   Jamie stepped backward and bumped into the machine.

"So she wasn't into either of you?  But Tray was right: you had a thing for her?" 

"No."  Jamie was shocked by the suggestion.  How could she be so wrong?

 He examined her face as if for the first time.  She exuded a coolness that mimicked calm.  But she wasn't as composed as he had first thought.  She was agitated.  Her skin of carved alabaster was broken by the red of her lips.  The color came from them being pressed tightly together, not from lipstick.  Her eyes were as cold as an arctic sky, but the corners were crinkled with a squint, as she peered at him trying to read his every facial expression. 

This is about more than just my fight with Tray.

Strangely, the intensity in the woman's face undercut her fierceness.  It made Jamie feel sorry for her, even though he didn't want to.  It melted his anger at the questions and the insinuations.  Was she one of the devils guarding this place, or just another of the lost souls condemned to it?  He was no longer certain.

"Look.  I have a spouse.  And just because we may never see each other again, it doesn't change the way I feel.  When Tray told me to stay away from Emily, I laughed him off.  He was an idiot.  If he really wanted to make some dumbass macho play for her, he should have confronted Wiley.  It's Emily and him that have eyes for each other.  But Tray would probably be too scared to do that.  Wiley would eat him for breakfast."

Gracie gave him a curt nod.  Without saying anything else, she let her eyes caress every contour of his face one last time, before abruptly walking off.  Apparently she was satisfied with the explanation.

Jamie shifted uneasily in the leather chair.  The music was turned down too low to make out the lyrics.  Amy sat in her pajamas with one foot on the seat of her chair.  She didn't look at him through the window.  She stared off to the side like there was something there other than a blank pink wall, just as she always did when she was uncomfortable with the conversation, which seemed to be more frequent these days.  Between her visions and the question of her adoption, there was a lot she didn't want to talk about.

R.J. had discussed the question of her parentage with Jamie.  He told him all about Wiley's assertions, his secret conversation with Amy, and the pictures of her family that he'd found.

"They do look awfully alike," Jamie said examining the siblings.  "But perhaps they were adopted together.  Or it's entirely possible that it's just a coincidence.  Without a genetic test, we'll never know for sure."

R.J. pointed to the adults in the photo.  "Hypothetically, could those people be her biological parents?"

"Of course.  But again, without a test..."

"No.  I mean, she killed them when she changed into the lycanthrope.  If they were the same species how could that be possible?  Why didn't they change with her?"

"The simple answer is that there was no direct relationship.  But assuming there was one; maybe people like Amy learn to control it over time."

"I thought the same thing.  But if that's the case, how would their offspring have gotten the better of them?  Surely they would have known how to usher their young into adulthood without being killed.  No, it has to be something else.  Could the species have dormant and active members?  Could they have been her parents without ever knowing about the transformation ability?"

"You mean like a latent gene?"   

"Precisely."

Jamie dropped the picture on the desk and ran his hand across the back of his neck, expelling his breath through his teeth.  R.J. had a true passion for his work, and his excitement was infectious.  "Sure, I suppose.  It's feasible."

"How do we prove it?"

"With what we have.  We can't."

"I thought you said we'd have a genetic map by next week?"

"There's a huge difference between having the genome and knowing how to interpret it."  He folded his arms.  R.J. needed to understand that he couldn't perform miracles.  "It's like I said before.  We need samples from a wider subject group.  We need some kind of baseline for the species.  Right now, all we can do is compare her results to human DNA and note the differences.  Isolating the gene that controls the transformation is like finding one particular grain of sand in all the beaches of the world.  Even if I did find it, to then determine if it is a unique attribute passed on from the exact genetic makeup of her two parents...  It's impossible."

R.J. seemed to wilt in front of him.

And there it was again: that odd feeling that there was no separation between prisoner and guard.  They were all equals in their frustration and misery.  Well, there was one person who wasn't equal—one true prisoner.

Amy still hadn't said anything.

"You know I'm not here to judge," Jamie said.  "You mentioned the other night that you'd tell me all about her some other time.  It obviously upsets you, why won't you tell me more about this woman?  Maybe I could help."

"It's just..."  Amy's gaze traveled down the wall to the floor.  The light flickered off the sheen on her eyes as she looked around wildly as though the answer could be read somewhere in the white tiles.

"It's like I remember her."  She was struggling not just with the words but also with her thoughts.  Even in profile, the strain could be seen on her face.  "But I don't.  Not really.  She's like a ghost—both there and not there at the same time.  Sometimes I think she's whispering to me.  I can just hear her over the sound of the fans in the vents.  We talk—I know we talk for hours, but I can never remember about what."

Amy shifted in her chair.  Her position changed but she stayed looking away from him.

"Other times we're someplace else."

"The forest?"

She nodded.  "There is something about her that makes me think of trees.  And pain."

"It must be a dream."

"No."  She turned to face him.  Offence was etched across her features, and her eyes dared him to doubt her.

"What does this woman look like?"

The certainty on Amy's face vanished.  Her pale lips puckered with the effort of searching for the memory.

"What about the trees?  What do you remember about them?"

Her lower lip disappeared between her teeth.  Her eyelids were pressed so tightly together, Jamie was certain she was about to start weeping out of frustration.

"It's okay.  It's not important.  You'll remember it when you remember it.  Have you said anything to Horus—"

"It's always winter."  Her voice sounded far away—feeble and lost.  "I'm walking through a thick patch of fir trees."

She opened her eyes and looked at him.  "Isn't that strange?  I've never been anywhere with snow or trees like that before."

Without waiting for an answer, she dropped her head, pressing her face into her hands.  Amy began to recount her memories as though she were in a trance.  "At first, I'm happy.  I like the woods.  I'm comfortable there.  The air is clean.  There is room to move.  But then I sense her.  The woman is near and I want to get away. The sun sets.  Not the way it's supposed to.  It drops suddenly like a weight.  And it's night.  I start to run, afraid she's going to find me.  I feel like I'm swimming through the trees there are so many of them.  They're all around me."

"Then what?"

"She's there in front of me.  She's standing there completely still like one of the pines, but she's no tree.  She's warm.  Heat is radiating from her body.  I manage to stop just before I run into her.  I want to leave this place."

"What does she do?"

"She yells at me.  Her shriek blows my hair back and makes me stumble.  It hurts my ears, but I can't understand what she's trying to say.  Then she grabs me."  Amy's hand moves up to her chest, just below her throat, and shapes itself like claws.

There's a hitch in her throat—a sob beginning to work its way out.

"She grabs me and pulls me into darkness."

***

Author's note (Oct. 31, 2014):

Happy Halloween everyone!

I was really torn about the order of parts 4 and 5.  Last week, I really liked the idea of ending on Amy and her description of her vision.  Now I'm thinking it would have been better to end on the Maxwell/Emily revelation.  What do you think?  Is it good the way it is, or should they be reversed? 

And what did you think of this chapter?  How did you like Barbara the detective?

The picture I've added to this chapter is the HiSeq 2000.  A very real DNA sequencer that would have been cutting edge in 2012.

If you're enjoying the story please—please vote.  It's what gets the book noticed by new readers.

Starting next week: Chapter 7 "The Ring of Fire."  It's a big bold chapter that kept knocking my socks of as I was writing it.  We skip a couple of weeks in time to the day of the lunar eclipse, and things begin to heat up in more ways than one.