We trot down the hallway, trying to be silent. It seems dimmer here than in the entrance hall, but I can’t tell if it actually is or if the dimness is just a result of my headache. The pain throbs like a siren, but I focus on Alma, Yaya, and Jaquot, who are peeking in at the edges of the doorway. The whitecoat who came to fetch my father is standing squarely in the entrance, his back to us. I move to Alma’s right to peer into the research room.
There’s blood everywhere, coating the floor behind an exam platform in a thick puddle. Behind the platform is another whitecoat, her coat stained deeply red all along one side. She breathes shallowly, motionless, staring at my father, who dominates the center of the room, a tranq gun held in both hands, aimed at the woman in the bloody coat. At first I don’t understand: why is he aiming a gun at her? But then I look again.
A tusk protrudes from the front of the woman’s thigh, a coat of blood tinting its bluish point with red. The tufali is behind the whitecoat, unmoving as if frozen. Its tusks are easily a foot long, the one that has impaled the whitecoat’s thigh the longest.
For a moment my brain can only process the color of the blood—bright and wild like the philax’s feathers that day in the Beak. My legs tremble, but my muscles are confused about what direction they want to go—part of me wants to run forward to help, and the rest of me wants to flee the scene before me. Rondo’s hand shoots out to steady me, but his fingers are shaking so much he almost misses. We stare at the animal, only its tusk and feet visible.
She, I think, not it. The blood doesn’t affect me now: I’m distracted by a smell. And I gradually realize it’s the same tufali I saw that day in the hall with my mother. I don’t know how I know: something about her scent—the same unique combination of odors. I wonder if she recognizes me too.
“Be careful, Dr. English,” the whitecoat in the doorway murmurs. With his back to us, all I can see of him is his neck, shining with sweat.
My father takes a tiny step to his left. He’s looking for an angle to shoot the tranq gun, but the tufali has positioned herself directly behind the whitecoat, as if to use the woman as a shield. The woman’s leg looks bad, blood seeping from the wound like lava from a volcano, even with the tusk somewhat plugging it. Every time my father moves, looking for a shot, the tufali has to move too. The shuffling, I’m sure, causes the woman excruciating pain.
The words come to my mind without bidding. I don’t know why they’re there, but here they are, floating from the silent oath to the front of my mind. I don’t say them out loud, but hold them in front of me like an object.
Do no harm.
Things happen very quickly.
The tufali rips her tusk out of the whitecoat’s leg in one smooth motion, and the woman cries out as she tumbles to the floor. With her out of the way, we in the doorway have a clear view of the tufali’s face: her long, wide head, her flaring snout, the orderly rows of tusks, one of the front spines shining with human blood. But it’s her eyes that I see above all: gleaming black, impossibly deep, drilling into my core.
Look away.
I hear the command, not in actual words but in some mental impression of them. I feel it, and I obey, whipping my head away and back, squeezing my eyes shut and turning back into the hall. Behind me goes the zip-zip of the tranq gun releasing two darts, the dull thuds of them finding the tufali’s body. She doesn’t make a sound, but I hear something anyway: a rippling cry tearing through my brain. I am dizzy. I will not pass out, I will not pass out, I command. I will not. I open my eyes, willing myself to remain upright. I focus on the shining floor. More blood, spots of it bright and red at my feet. At first I don’t understand. Had it leaked into the hall from the room? I look around, perplexed. It’s not until Rondo is in front of me, his face serious and almost sad, extending the corner of his white coat to my face, that I realize the blood is coming from my nose.
CHAPTER 15
We make it back to the containment room before my father, the five of us scurrying back down the hall, me holding Rondo’s coat to my face. Once inside, the buzz that’s been simmering in my brain heightens again. With my father out of the room, I don’t feel the need to hide how much it bothers me. I put my hands over my ears, the blood from my nose already mostly dried, trying to drown out the racket. It doesn’t help.
“Octavia, what happened to your face?” Jaquot says. The others hadn’t noticed the blood until we returned to the containment room, and now they crowd around me, concerned.
“I don’t know,” I say. I can still see the tufali’s eyes, like spots in my mind after staring at the sun. The sense of something nameless and whispering remains. There aren’t words for these things, and I’m helpless as my friends stare at me, waiting for answers. If only it weren’t so loud in this room! The dozens of caged animals surround and squeeze in on me: it’s almost as if their fear has a distinct language.
“I just wish they’d be quiet,” I say, swinging my head to look at the cages. “I don’t know how you guys can stand it!”
I finally glare at the animals, the first long look since we were brought into the containment room. I’m suddenly angry at them, for their fear, their clamoring. But my anger fades almost as soon as it rises. I see their faces: another tufali, a cage of three kunike, several marov, a long striped animal I can’t identify, its ears huge and pointy. They’re beautiful, but they’re also asleep—all of them.
“They’re . . . they’re . . .”
“Tranquilized,” Alma says. “Your mom said they keep them asleep in the containment to keep them from being too agitated.”
“But who—where is all that noise coming from?” I cry, looking back at Alma. Yaya and Jaquot look on with furrowed brows, Yaya’s mouth half open as if to diagnose me.
“Octavia, I don’t hear anything. What is going on?”
“How can you—” I start, but at the end of the room the door has slid open and my father has reentered the containment room, conversing with a whitecoat in low tones. Rondo takes this opportunity to reach out his hand and wipe what must have been the last of my blood from my top lip. He takes the corner of his coat and stuffs it into his other pocket, to hide the blood on it. I wonder if my father knows we followed him down the hall.
My father rejoins us, the whitecoat he was talking with exiting the way he came. My father looks unflustered, giving no indication that he had to tranquilize a tufali after it maimed a woman only three rooms away.
“Now,” he says, folding his hands in front of him and eyeing us. “Where were we?”
“Collection,” Rondo says quickly before anyone can say anything else.