Beast

"Seventeen more days!" Etienne announced pleasantly, drawing a large, red X on her calendar. "It's kind of scary, no? I don't think I'll be ready by then. I mean, I'm definitely not ready now," she said as she got out a spoon and a bowl for cereal.

Sophie shrugged, "I don't think you'll ever feel ready, not until we get our first assignment. The unknown is always scary."

Etienne rolled her eyes. She never got away with complaining in front of Sophie, whose 'things could always be worse,' attitude got on her nerves after a while.

Brandy emerged from her room, yawning and stretching widely.

"Fuck these morning sessions," she mumbled tiredly, making herself a cup of coffee. Sophie couldn't argue. They had to be at boot camp by four in the morning. It was brutal. Prior to training, she had thought that she was physically fit. She went to the gym every day, and had even run a full marathon, but the Fortis was proving her to be very, very wrong. A day hadn't passed when her muscles weren't sore and aching, and the soles of her running shoes were beginning to wear out.

"Hopefully we'll be done before the sun comes up. It's supposed to be in the eighties today," Sophie said and sipped some orange juice. It was the beginning of September and the weather was showing no signs of cooling down.

"Ugh!" Etienne groaned, "What are they trying to do? Kill us from heat exhaustion?"

"Maybe that's why they have these workouts in the morning, you know, before it gets too hot. Preparing like this might make what comes next seem easy," Sophie suggested.

"You sound like Dalca," Brandy said as she poured sugar and cream into a coffee mug.

"Well, he's right," Sophie said defensively.

"You were a teacher's pet in school, weren't you?" Brandy asked with a smirk. "You just love rules and institution."

"A teacher's pet?" Etienne asked. She wasn't well versed in American idioms.

"Someone who kisses up to teachers," Brandy explained.

Etienne still looked confused.

"It's not a very nice way of describing someone who respects their teachers," Sophie said.

"Yeah, exactly," Brandy said, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.

Sophie frowned at her, "You don't like Dalca? I think he's a good teacher."

"He is, he's just a little..." Etienne struggled for the right words.

"Up tight," Brandy suggested.

"Yes!" Etienne smiled, "Up tight. He's very up tight. He's nice though."

Brandy nodded in agreement.

Sophie pressed her lips together, feeling awkward.

"Come on, Sophie," Etienne said, nudging her shoulder, "you know we're just teasing you."

"I-" but before Sophie could say anymore, the alarm went off, not the fire alarm, the alarm. It was like a siren, but much, much louder. The buzzing filled their apartment, making Sophie's eyes water. Etienne had let out a scream the moment the alarm had gone off, but it had been drowned out by the noise.

"Let's go," Brandy yelled, but no one could hear her, so she gestured towards the door. It was a moment before Sophie came to her senses. She looked around, as if she had just come out of a daze, and saw Brandy slip out the front door. Etienne grabbed Sophie's wrist and dragged her in Brandy's wake.

There was a stream of people in the hallway, all pushing and shoving their way towards the staircase. In the confusion, Etienne lost her grip on Sophie.

"Ow!" Sophie exclaimed as someone large and clumsy knocked her to the ground.

"Sorry!" Max exclaimed, helping her to her feet. His usually haughty, but handsome, face looked worried.

"Where's Brandy?" he asked, gazing down at Sophie with his eyebrows knitted together.

"What?" Sophie yelled, cupping her hand to her ear.

"Where's Brandy? Max bellowed, moving in closer to Sophie.

"I don't know," she said at the top of her voice, "She left before me."

Max nodded and said a furtive, "Thanks," which Sophie didn't quite catch, and ran away through the crowd, taller than everyone else except Dorian.

Sophie followed the panicked group down the stairs, wondering if it was a drill, hoping it was and knowing that it wasn't.

The alarms had been installed nine years ago, when Sophie was a teenager and they went off whenever there was a local sanguinarium warning. Usually it was nothing. Sophie had only heard the alarm one other time in her entire life.

She was fifteen years old, right after the war against the sanguinarium had begun. It was Christmas Eve, and she was sitting with her parents and her brother in the back pew of their church. Lydia Marshall, one of her mother's friends, was leading them in singing hymns at the front of the church, when, quite as suddenly as a bolt of lightning, the Fortis alarm went off. Sophie jumped, looking around as frantic parents clutched their children, and families grabbed hands, sticking close together. Sophie's father grabbed her arm, even though she was more than old enough to react on her own, and they made their way down to the basement with the other church goers. Sophie's mother was right behind them, clinging to Sophie's other arm so that they wouldn't be separated.

"It's alright, Soph," her father had assured her as they took a seat in the corner.

Julius had gone off to help Lydia Marshall and Father Sullivan lock the doors and pull bars down over the stained glass windows.

Sophie's mother had gone quiet and terribly pale, all the while examining the steady stream of people coming down the stairs, trying to see if Julius was among them.

After five minutes, the alarm stopped and Father Sullivan stood at the front of the crowd, saying as loudly as his old, dusty voice could carry, "I apologize for the inconvenience, everybody. There was a sighting nearby and we've been asked to go into lock down for the next two hours. I understand that this is not how anyone wants to spend their Christmas, but please, understand that safety has to be our main concern..."

"Where's Julius?" Marion asked her husband worriedly, "Patrick, do you see him anywhere?"

He shook his head, standing up to gaze out upon the crowd. Sophie followed his example, and was just about to call out for her brother when a loud snarl came from upstairs. The sound echoed in the basement, and everyone looked up, terrified by whatever had made that noise.

Marion gasped, looking faint as crashes and yells, followed by more animalistic snarling, could be heard. Sophie bent down to comfort her, while her father charged towards the basement door, trying to wrench it open.

It took a few moment for everyone to realize what was happening, and when they did, Lydia rushed over to Mr. Bayer, unlocking the door for him, then quickly jumped out of his way as he bounded up the stairs two at time. Sophie ran after him. Someone grabbed her wrist, perhaps her mother, trying to hold her back, but she shook them off quickly.

As she stumbled up the stairs, she could hear more people running after her, but she was more focused on the sounds of pews being knocked over and glass being smashed.

She rounded the corner at top speed, taking in the scene in front of her, almost paralyzed by what she was seeing.

Julius was on the ground, sprawled out on his back. His shirt was torn and he was bleeding profusely from gashes all over his arms, neck, and chest. His hair was red with blood and stuck to his face in places, and his mouth was ajar, like he was surprised. His eyes were wet, and his chest rose and fell rapidly, trying to draw in breath. Someone screamed, followed by a gut wrenching sob. It was probably Marion.

What Sophie saw next terrified her. A man, taller than anyone she had even seen before, with ghostly white skin, long, stringy white hair, jet black eyes, and wearing rags was being pinned against the wall by her father. Sophie was shocked, utterly shocked, to see her father, who had always been a kind, gentle person, pummeling this man with his fists, punching every bit of flesh he could find. Her father was trying to kill him, she knew it, and she knew that this was the angriest she had ever seen her father, and that she would never see him in such a rage again.

She was amazed that Patrick, who was easily dwarfed by the sanguinarius by at least a foot, was putting up such a fight. She supposed that it was just blind hatred that fueled him.

But all that happened in seconds. Someone behind her had pulled out their cell phone and was calling 911 as Sophie ran toward Julius, ripping off her sweater as she did and pressing it against the wounds in his chest to staunch the bleeding.

She couldn't see what was happening behind her, but there were suddenly more snarls, followed by someone screaming, and then her father let out a slew of curse words she had never heard him use before.

Later on she was told that another sanguinarius had jumped through one of the smashed windows, wriggled easily through the bars and had torn Julius's attacker from Patrick's grasp, escaping through the window with his injured friend. A few men had held Mr. Bayer back to keep him from running after the sanguinarium. Sophie was glad that they did because her father was in no fit state to make any decisions.

A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived and Sophie was asked to step aside while they lifted Julius onto a stretcher. One of the medics commended her for putting pressure on the wound and gave her father something to calm himself down. Sophie's mother insisted on going to the hospital with her son, and it was agreed that Patrick and Sophie would meet her there later.

After a few minutes of arguing, Mr. Bayer allowed one of his friends to drive Sophie and him to the hospital, finally admitting that he shouldn't be the one to drive.

Sophie sat in the backseat, wearing a jacket Lydia had given her since her sweater was now saturated with Julius's blood, crying silently, as they drove down the dark, deserted road. No one else was out on Christmas Eve.

Julius had spent three anxious weeks in the hospital, during which he had multiple surgeries and was stitched back together. He spent another month on bed rest, and although his wounds healed, he never forgot the sanguinarius who had almost killed him, spurring Julius's, and Sophie's, fascination with the Fortis.

When she had reached the bottom of the stairs, it seemed that no one was quite sure where to go. Sophie looked around, craning her neck to see over the heads of her colleagues, trying to see the exit.

"Sophie!" she heard a voice behind her. She turned around and saw Dalca waving to her. "Come on," he said, grabbing her hand, "we're meeting in the lecture hall."

"What's going on?" she yelled over the alarm, which was still blaring loudly.

"I'll explain in a minute," Dalca yelled back, "once the alarm stops." He elbowed his way through the crowd, dragging Sophie behind him. Once other people realized who it was, they began following him, assuming that as one of the captains, he knew where to go.

Outside, the sound of the alarm was a little softer, but only just. At any rate, Sophie's ears weren't ringing anymore. When they were a few yards away from the lecture hall, the alarm stopped abruptly, leaving Sophie with a pounding headache.

"Zane?" she said, looking up at his prematurely lined face.

"We got a call from headquarters a few minutes ago. Three days ago, Cain Hammedy went missing, along with one of the nurses at the sanitarium he was in," Dalca said quickly.

"Yeah?" Sophie said, not understanding why that warranted the alarm.

Dalca sighed, "Well, now there's been a mass break out from one of the research facilities where a huge group of sanguinarium was being kept."

"When you say huge..." Sophie began, feeling the knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach tighten.

"350," Dalca told her sadly. "Only 170 of them actually escaped, but still, that's a lot to be out in one area. We don't know if Hammedy had anything to do with it, but there's still the possibility of more break outs either way."

"Oh," Sophie said, her voice higher pitched than usual.

"Yeah, not only that, but about a week ago, one of the sanguinarium being kept in our San Diego branch attacked the researcher studying it. They're supposed to be too heavily sedated to do that. This has never happened before. I mean, these could just be some really bad coincidences, or..."

"Someone's sabotaging the Fortis," Sophie finished for him.

Dalca nodded, "In so many words, yes. And all arrows are pointing to Hammedy right now."

"But what are we doing here?" Sophie asked as people streamed past them into the auditorium.

"Rita's going to explain that once everyone's here," Dalca said, with the same quickness as before. "I need to go see her and Martin. I'll meet up with you later, okay?"

Sophie nodded as he dashed inside. She felt like the ground had been ripped out from under her. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she felt unsteady, like she had been tossed out onto a tightrope with no net beneath her.

A moment later, she saw a worried looking Etienne pass by her into the lecture hall.

"Hey!" Etienne exclaimed, turning around and making her way back to Sophie. "Where'd you go? I thought you were right behind me, but then you were gone."

"Oh, I ran into Max... literally. He was looking for Brandy," Sophie explained as they took seats in the back of the room, watching as people filed in. "And then I was with Dalca."

"Dalca?" Etienne said in surprise. "Did he tell you what's going on?"

"Yeah, or at least part of it," Sophie began as Reed sat in the empty seat next to her. She explained everything that Dalca had told her, and to her surprise, instead of looking increasingly panicked, Etienne was fuming.

"Escaped? What do you mean escaped? The Fortis is supposed to be keeping people safe and their most dangerous prisoner as well as a mad band of sanguinarium are on the loose? That's an outrage!" Etienne said, looking furious.

"Well, Cain Hammedy isn't exactly a prisoner. He's technically a patient in a hospital," Sophie reasoned.

"I know!" said Etienne, snapping her fingers, "But if he wasn't crazy, or whatever he is, he'd be in jail, so he is a prisoner as far I'm concerned. And 170 sanguinarium? Oh mon dieu!" Etienne pressed her palm to her forehead.

"What I'd like to know," said Reed quietly, in a sinister voice, who had clearly been listening in on their conversation, "is where they're going to get the agents to deal with this mess. I mean, are they gonna take some off of their current assignments? But then there's us, and we only have two weeks left of training."

"You don't think?" Sophie asked nervously.

Reed raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders, as if it didn't make any real difference to him.

"Don't think what?" Etienne asked irritably.

"Shh," Sophie said, holding up her hand for quiet, then pointing at the stage, where Rita Bishop was turning on a microphone.

Dalca could be seen on the side of the stage doing a head count of those in the audience. He gave someone a thumbs up, and Sophie turned around to see Martin Lu close the auditorium door behind him before making his way over to the stage.

Rita cleared her throat, making the speakers whine, before she began, "Hello everyone. As many of you know, or may have guessed, there has been some unusual activity in the Fortis lately."

"Unusual my..." Etienne mumbled, but Sophie placed a hand on her arm, urging Etienne to be quite so that they could hear Rita.

"Cain Hammedy has gone missing from the institution he was being kept in, and there has been a mass break out of sanguinarium at the research lab in Washington D.C. Due to these extreme conditions..."

"They're not even going to mention the attack?" Reed hissed in Sophie's ear, but she ignored him, focusing on Rita alone.

"... we require a greater number of agents to be assigned to this case..."

Sophie could hear Etienne gritting her teeth.

"...therefore, we're reassigning several agents currently in the field and..."

"Wait for it..." Reed muttered, sounding almost excited.

"...we're cutting training short this session."

"Bingo," Reed said, slouching in his seat and looking satisfied.

"Excuse me?" Etienne said loudly enough for many of the people around them to hear.

"Tomorrow morning you'll all receive your assignments. The train will leave the station at noon, so please be ready to leave by then. Thank you," said Rita, handing off the microphone to Dalca.

"Is that it? That's all she has to say?" Etienne asked turning towards Sophie as if she was the one with all the answers.

"Does anyone have any questions?" Dalca asked, looking harassed. Sophie felt her respect for Rita drop by degrees. After giving them the bare minimum of information, she was awfully quick to get off the stage, leaving Dalca with the task of answering people's question, knowing full well that her explanation of recent events had not been enough.

Etienne's hand flew into the air. She was waving it so earnestly that she almost left her seat.

"Etienne?" Dalca pointed at her, and everyone turned their attention to her as she spoke.

"When are we going to complete our training?" she asked. There was a murmur of agreement amongst the crowd from those wondering the same thing.

"Right now, there's no set date. You're going to be issued temporary badges, and you'll resume training when the situation is under control. When that'll happen, I can't really be sure," Dalca explained calmly.

Etienne nodded curtly, and crossed her arms, but did not look pacified.

"How many sanguinarium are missing? When did this happen?" Michelle asked.

"Earlier this morning, 170 sanguinarium escaped," Dalca said quickly, his whole body stiffening as if the words pained him.

"What?" burst several people.

"How did this happen?" Max asked calmly from a few rows in front of Sophie. Brandy was seated next to him, sitting poker straight. She was rigid and unblinking, as if she had been frozen in that position.

Dalca sighed, "I'm sorry, but I really don't know. We only got this information ourselves seconds before we sounded the alarm. They were in a mad rush at the research lab and wanted to alert us as fast as possible, so we only know the most important information. They should be keeping us posted, though. By the time we leave tomorrow, you'll all be completely up to date on what's happened in D.C."

This news was not welcome to the crowd. Like Etienne, Dorian Matthews and Niel Tocci were angry. Niel was glaring up at the stage, as if Dalca had orchestrated this whole mess on purpose, and Dorian seemed unable to sit still. Michelle Nguyen was anxious, whispering rapidly to Alex Robitielle beside her, while Martin Lu was pacing on the side of the stage with his hands folded behind him, shooting nervous glances at the trainees, like he was expecting them to revolt against him and the other captains. Even Max, the cool and collected wiz with all the right answers in the classroom, appeared unsettled. In fact, Reed alone seemed to be at ease.

Dalca cleared his throat and the crowd quieted once more, "I understand why this news is disappointing to you. I get that. But I didn't open the a gates for Hammedy, or the sanguinarium, and neither did Martin or Rita, so I'd really appreciate if you didn't direct your anger towards us because we're in the same boat you are."

Etienne opened her mouth to interrupt, but Dalca raised his hand, signaling for silence.

"Exactly what disservice has the Fortis done to you? You mean asking you to do your jobs? Because this is what you signed up for, and frankly, I'm extremely disappointed in the way you're all reacting. Instead of throwing tantrums, your time might be better spent preparing for your assignments."

Everyone was quiet, looking down at their feet, as if Dalca had offered some new perspective that none of them had yet thought of. It was like being scolded by your favorite teacher in school, who you wanted so much to like you.

"This is a part of your job and if any of you have a problem with that, I suggest meeting with Martin Lu to break your contract," Dalca took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "This meeting is over if none of you have any more questions. Remember, be packed and ready to go by noon tomorrow. You'll receive your assignments from your designated captains tomorrow morning. We'll call each pair of you to our offices separately," With that, he turned off the microphone and walked off stage.

The chatter did not pick up again until they were outside, walking back to their apartments.

"Do you think it will be long before we come back to finish training?" Etienne asked as she walked back to the apartments with Reed and Sophie.

"Oh, definitely," Reed said, his dark brown eyes fixed on the distant horizon where the sun was just beginning to rise. "I mean, 170 sanguinarium on the loose in Washington D.C? Then you've got Hammedy, and God knows what he's up to."

"And don't forget the attack in San Diego. If the sanguinarium are getting more aggressive, more of them might escape, and they could be getting help from the outside," Sophie added.

Etienne raised her eyebrows. The news of the attack was just as surprising the second time she heard it as the first. "How do you think they managed to break out though? I mean, with all the security measures, that's just..."

"It's scary is what it is," Reed said confidently. "If that many are out there, I can guarantee that they're gonna try and help some of their buddies escape. We haven't seen the worst of it yet."

"That's the spirit," Sophie said.

Reed laughed.

"He's probably right though. If they're pulling us all out of training, the director of the Fortis must think so too, no?" Etienne asked, looking nervous.

Sophie nodded in agreement.

"You know what," Reed said, stopping suddenly, "I'm gonna hit the track and do some laps before it gets too hot out. I'll have plenty of time to pack my stuff later. See you around," and he jogged off in the other direction.

Etienne grimaced, "Good for him. I'm so glad for the opportunity to skip a training session."

"Me too! There's no way..." Sophie began before she heard someone calling her.

"Sophie!" Dalca said from a few yards behind them.

"Hey," Sophie turned towards him and smiled weakly. Etienne took it as her cue to leave.

"Is Etienne still breathing fire?" he asked jovially. "The beauty of the acoustics in the auditorium is that even when you're whispering way in the back, we can still hear every word on stage."

"Oh," Sophie tried to remember if she'd said anything offensive. She was pretty sure that she hadn't.

Dalca laughed and said, "Actually, I was wondering if I could talk to you? In private."

"Yeah, sure," Sophie said and Dalca took her by the hand and led her back towards the captains' offices, which were right next to the lecture hall.

Sophie felt a little self conscious walking hand in hand with Dalca, like everyone was looking at her. However, in reality, everyone was far too absorbed in their own worries to notice them. Well, everyone except Brandy, who shot Sophie a knowing look, as she walked past them towards the track, where she was going to join Reed running laps.

It was a short walk to Dalca's office, the morning air was cool and still as they entered the building. The passed a frantic looking Martin Lu in the lobby, and it was then that Sophie realized what a nervous man Martin really was.

"Zane, do you know what time the..."

"Can it wait, Martin?" Dalca asked apologetically.

"Oh, sure, uh..." Martin looked at Sophie, as if he were seeing her for the first time.

"Rita's still in the auditorium. She could probably answer you better than I could," Dalca suggested as he opened the door to his office.

"Right," Martin nodded, and went to find her.

Once Sophie had stepped in the room, Dalca closed the door and shook his head.

"One day, Martin is going to give himself a heart attack," he said.

Sophie didn't respond. She stood pressing her lips together with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

Dalca leaned against his desk and looked at Sophie's anxious face, as if that would help him figure out where to begin.

"They're putting you and Etienne on the Hammedy case," he said bluntly. Sophie wasn't sure why he was telling her this, and was even more unsure of why they had to be cooped up in Dalca's office in order to have this conversation.

"And you don't like that?" Sophie guessed, because why else would Dalca tell her ahead of time?

"No, I don't," Dalca said, shaking his head. "They shouldn't be putting new agents on it. Especially not... Anyway, just be careful. Hammedy is a smart guy. If you come in contact with him, he'll have a lot of crazy things to say. Don't believe them."

Sophie nodded. Dalca could have easily told her and Etienne this during their briefing the following day.

"Is that it?" she asked tentatively.

Dalca shook his head. "No. Listen, Sophie, I..."

There was a knock on the door.

"It's open," Dalca said, taking a step back from Sophie, looking stoic as ever.

Max walked in, stopping when he saw Sophie. "Oh, hi Sophie. Dalca, I was wondering if you still had that copy of The Sanguinarius Index?"

"Yes," Dalca answered, looking around his office for the book. "Um, it should be... oh, here it is," he said, picking up a heavy, leather bound book from the shelf beside his desk.

"Thanks," Max said, taking the book and leaving the office.

A few moments after they heard the door close, Dalca, his eyes focused on the ceiling, said, "You should probably go."

Sophie hesitated. She didn't want to leave, but didn't know how to say it out loud. She pushed some of her hair behind her ears, buying herself some time.

Dalca looked down at her. She couldn't tell if the expression on his face was annoyance or sorrow, but it clearly said, Why are you still here?

Sophie gulped, looking at him sadly, then turned and left, replaying the scene over in her head, thinking of what she could have done, what she should have done, all the while a small voice inside her whispered, It would have been a mistake.