Had he looked over his shoulder, he would have seen that Proteus was rapidly returning to do battle, but he did not even think of that. He reached out and seized the animal by the back of the neck, tore it loose from her. He saw blood on its claws, matted in the thick fur of its paws. Her toga was stained crimson where it had had hold of her. Screaming, not aware that he was and wondering who was making that ungodly noise, he grabbed the head of the rat with his other hand and simultaneously attempted to crush its skull and strangle it.
It wriggled loose and leaped at his chest where it gouged its nails into him, struck upwards toward his neck with its deadly teeth . . .
He grabbed its head again, pulled it away from him just in time, though it still held onto him with its rear feet, claws dug deeply into his flesh. He wrenched at it, ruthlessly unconcerned about what such an action would do to his chest, ripped it loose, turned, and slammed it into the wall. It screamed, wiggled and kicked to get free again. But he clenched it tightly, ignoring the dozens of scratches it inflicted on his hands. He slammed it again, again, twice more until its back was broken, its spine shattered. Its blood ran down his fingers and dripped onto the floor.
He was no longer screaming, but he found himself mak-ing heavy, rasping breathing sounds as air rushed raggedly in and out of his lungs. And he was whimpering, deep inside, like a child. And he was squeezing the lifeless rat as if he would squash it beyond recognition, would compress its very bones into powder . . .
He looked up at Leah, who seemed not to notice the slight wound on her own shoulder. She stared wide-eyed at him. He wondered if she realized what had happened, understood the depth of his actions in these last few minutes. He had risked his own life to save hers, had broken the conditioning of his social training and had resorted to violence. He had not even thought to wait for Proteus, to summon the machine to the task, for her life had been too precious to endanger for even the briefest of moments. In that first instant when he had seen her blood, he had ceased to think in terms of “you” and “me” but, instead, in the sense of “us.” Her blood suddenly seemed as valuable as his own, and he had acted swiftly, insanely, without hesitation to protect this new extension of himself. Which meant it was not lust, as he had been working so hard to convince himself.
He dropped the rat.
He tried to say something, anything.
He choked and fell forward into unconsciousness . . .
Later, when she had finished using his speedheal ointments and bandages on their wounds and they had eaten a light lunch she prepared in the kitchen of the aviary where he was living, she leaned her elbows on the table, smiled at him, and said, “Can we go someplace special now, like I’ve been wanting? It will make the day seem a little happier after all the ugly things that have happened.”
He did not much feel like pursuing the research plan he had outlined for the day. His nerves still trembled from memory of the rat squirming and screeching within his hands, striking for his throat. And his mind was plagued with the realization that things had gone too far with Leah, entirely too far. They would have to be brought to an end before the silent attachment he felt for her—and, he thought, she felt for him—was brought into the open and made turning back impossible.
“Where do you want to take me?” he asked.
“To the temple,”
“Temple?”
“You’ll see.”
And when he got into the grav car to make the drive, she said, “Oh, I so wish you could fly.”
“So do I, Leah,” he said, pulling the car into the drifting leaves that settled from the yellow trees onto the rough, black road. “So do I.”
The car hummed down the tree-shrouded lane.