CAUTION: This story contains implied sexual activity between minors, mild violence, and profanity. Reader discretion is advised.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Masala Chai
by IndigoNeko and TaintedThylacine
Chapter 1
Wednesday, January 6th, 2016
Special Agent Marissa Wilson passed two plane tickets over to a pigeon wearing a Delta Airlines uniform, then held out the flip wallet with her FBI identification card and driver’s license. The airline had already been informed that Agents Wilson and Riley were going to be escorting an unidentified minor that was in federal custody.
The pigeon took the tickets and wallet and ran them under the scanner. The machine took several seconds before the indicator light on the side changed from red to green. “Welcome aboard, Agent Wilson,” the airline employee said, motioning for them to head through the gate.
The serpent nodded, then tugged at the tiger cub’s paw in her hand as she started forward. Agent Wilson had half-expected the pigeon to give them trouble. If not for being a federal agent, she would have been sure of it. Snakes were practically second-class citizens and were treated with barely concealed disdain at best and outright hostility at worst, especially by birds. Marissa had no idea why, either. Maybe it was something genetic, she mused.
After heading down the ramp towards the plane and stepping aboard the aircraft, Agent Wilson stopped at their assigned seats in first class, marveling at how spacious they were compared to economy class where she normally sat. She took the catatonic cub’s shoulders and turned them to face the seat, then pushed against the child’s back until they walked forward, turned the kid again to face the cabin, and finally pushed on the kid’s shoulders until the young tiger sat down.
Marissa shook her head at how bizarre it was dealing with a child that only responded to touch, then buckled the tiger cub’s seatbelt before she sat down and did the same for herself. She nodded to her partner, Agent Riley, as the rottweiler walked past and sat in the seat behind them. Dealing with the akinetic child had been the strangest thing she’d ever had to do at the agency thus far. For all intents and purposes, the kid was effectively a robot and wouldn’t move unless prompted. They didn’t speak and didn’t respond to speech or gestures, but would move when given touch-based cues to do so.
Since she and her partner, Riley, had been given the assignment to take the kid home, they’d only had one mishap. Marissa had been mortified that they might have to put the child in diapers or something, before determining it was a non-issue. After the initial shock of finding out that the kid was a hermaphrodite, they had found that ‘shi’ had been surprisingly easy to take care of, and would do ‘hir’ business when prompted, despite being catatonic. Marissa had made sure to take the kid to the restroom inside the airport before getting on the airplane.
At least the agency was now absolutely confident that the child was the same one that had been reported missing from Colorado. There couldn’t be more than a handful of hermaphroditic tigers in the entire world, much less of the same age and markings as their target. The biggest question now was whether the cub was catatonic as a result of trauma or brain damage, since either was completely possible. The child had been recovered at the scene of a mass shooting and had suffered a severe concussion, according to the emergency medical technicians who had been at the scene. It was obvious that something was wrong, but they had no idea what. The child’s mismatched eyes saw everything, yet responded to nothing.
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Wednesday, January 6th, 2016
Alex instinctively shifted hir jaw, feeling the pressure in hir ears vanish with a crackle and pop. Taking a deep breath seemed to help ease the ache in hir chest, but did little for one in hir head. Everything since leaving the restaurant with hir grandparents last night seemed like a blur. Alex vaguely remembered flashing red and blue lights, an empty hotel room, sitting in an office...
Blinking in the futile hope that hir left eye would start focusing again, the young tigress looked around, realizing that shi was on a commercial airliner, like the planes shi had ridden to and from Oregon. Fluffy white clouds were visible through the half-open window to the right, bright enough to make hir eyes water. Alex looked away before the headache got any worse, searching for the custom aviator shades that Mrs. Oliviera had given hir.
A long-necked reptile in a blue skirt suit occupied the seat to the left, listening to music with a pair of earbuds fitted in the tiny ear-holes on the side of their head. Alex stared at the patterns on the side of the woman’s head, wondering what it was like to have scales instead of skin and fur. As hir gaze traveled downwards, shi admired the iridescent sheen of the snake’s scales. The young tigress squinted as shi noticed that the woman had hir sunglasses hanging from the inside pocket of her blazer.
Special Agent Wilson was mentally reviewing the details of her latest case while listening to Mozart. As happy as she was that this case had been a success, one of her first since joining the FBI’s CARD team, it had turned out to be a bittersweet triumph when they realized just how badly traumatized the victim was. The serpent jerked, yanking her scaled hand to her chest in response to the feather-light touch against it. “Jesus!” she swore, looking down at the tiger cub next to her. The creepy child’s mismatched eyes stared back, sending a chill up her spine.
Apparently scales were just as sensitive as bare skin, Alex noted. Also, reptiles could move surprisingly fast when startled. “May I please have my sunglasses?” shi asked, breaking the awkward silence.
The serpent’s mouth gaped as the child’s muzzle moved, realizing that the young tigress had actually spoken for the first time since they’d picked them up the night before, and quickly turned off the music playing from her phone. “I’m sorry,” Agent Wilson said, then remembered the protocol and took a small notepad and a pen out of her coat pocket. “I’m Special Agent Wilson, with the FBI,” she introduced herself. “What’s your name?”
Alex sighed and closed hir eyes, hoping it would help with the headache, then leaned back against the seat. “Alexandrea Valentina Kaminski-Andreyev. Are you taking me home?”
“That depends. Can you tell me who your parents are?” the agent asked, making a note that the child had confirmed their presumed name.
“Raenne Kaminski Andreyev and David Alexander Andreyev,” Alex replied, growing irritated that the serpent had ignored hir first question. “Is giving me a headache part of your enhanced interrogation techniques, or can I have my sunglasses?” the young tigress asked, pointing at the snake’s jacket.
“Sorry,” Agent Wilson apologized, a little taken aback by the child’s biting sarcasm, but nonetheless pulling the pair of Ray-Bans out of her blazer and handing them over. She was glad that one of the other agents had noticed that the lenses were non-uniformly tinted and concluded they must belong to the tiger cub. “What’s wrong with your eyes? Are you hurt?”
Alex opened her eyes just enough to see the sunglasses and quickly took them and put them on, fumbling with getting the temple tips over hir ears. They wouldn’t help with focusing, but would still help with the headache. “I’ve got anisocoria. Unequal pupil dilation. From the concussion,” shi said, recalling how Mrs. Olivia had explained the condition. The young tigress swallowed as hir throat tightened with grief. An image of the pacific parakeet slumped in a pool of blood and feathers against the restaurant wall appeared in hir mind’s eye and shi turned to look out the window, now that the clouds weren’t blindingly bright.
“How’d you get a concussion?” Agent Wilson asked, scribbling in her notepad.
“From when Henry threw me against the car door, after I clawed his eye out,” Alex replied, hir voice oddly flat. Yet another vision flickered through hir memory, of the horse sniffing at hir and making that weird face, followed by the frantic struggle in the back of the SUV. Shi felt sick, remembering having to scrub his blood from the skin at the base of hir claws and later finding out what happened to him.
The serpent quickly jotted that down too. “Who-”
“He was a horse. With white fur with a silver mane. He was mentally handicapped; A brute,” Alex interrupted, hoping to stem the tide of questions. “They didn’t know why he tore my skirt off...” The young tigress went silent as tears began to fall down hir muzzle again. Shi pulled hir legs up, wrapping hir arms around hir knees and stared out the window at the clouds, trying to forget that he was dead, because of hir. They were all dead, because of hir.
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David parked in one of the parking spots on the small guest lot outside the security gate. The Denver FBI field office was one of the most strictly utilitarian office buildings he’d ever seen; A huge rectangular building covered in different shades of blue-tinted glass and surrounded by a tall fence of black-enameled metal bars.
The black and white-furred tiger turned off the engine of his Nissan Rogue and turned to the purple and orange-furred rodent sitting in one of the seats behind him. “I don’t know if they’ll let you inside,” David said. “I’ll leave the car unlocked in case you need to wait out here.”
“I’ll wait here. This building gives me the weirdest of creeps,” Azalea replied, looking over the building. The half-squirrel’s tail tip twitched nervously, hoping it had been worth the nearly two hour drive from Winter Creek to Denver to see Alex once again. Her girlfriend’s father was polite, but his sheer size made him intimidating.
“Okay,” David said. The tall tiger stepped out of the vehicle and shut the car door behind himself, careful not to pinch his tail, then flipped the collar of his bomber jacket to fend off the falling snow. He looked around, trying to see if there was a way inside the fence, but didn’t see anything. Down at the beginning of the visitor parking lot was some kind of building, much bigger than a security kiosk, but too small to house any kind of offices. That must be the reception office the FBI agents had mentioned. He quickly strode down the sidewalk towards the building.
As David approached, the door to the building opened and a snake in a navy skirt suit stepped out, holding the door for him. “You must be David Andreyev,” the woman said, looking up at the white-furred tiger and holding out a brown scaled hand. “I’m Special Agent Wilson.”
“Yes, ma’am,” David replied, shaking the reptile’s hand while meeting her eyes. Her dark scales had a faint iridescent sheen to them, barely visible in the late afternoon sunlight. He glanced down at her legs, reminded of the extreme morphological differences between evolved and unevolved snakes. At least she had legs, unlike some serpents that he’d met.
“If you don’t mind, we’ll need to see your government-issued ID and have you sign a few forms, then we can release your daughter back into your custody,” the snake said, gesturing inside the building.
Fifteen minutes later, David leaned his back against the door, pushing it open from the inside with his daughter in tow. At least the extra clothes he had in the car weren’t needed, as Alex already had on a brand-new black skirt and hoodie. Whoever had dressed hir probably assumed shi dressed as a girl, but Alex rarely wore skirts; not since the incident at hir last school where shi was outed for being a hermaphrodite, then bullied and eventually beaten half-dead.
The reason for Agent Wilson’s advice to seek out a child psychiatrist who specialized in trauma counseling was rapidly becoming very apparent. David was starting to get very concerned, as Alex hadn’t said so much as a single word in response to anything he or anyone else had said. All shi had done was hold his hand and refuse to let go.
As David stepped back out into the falling snow, he knelt down to face his daughter, looking at hir mismatched eyes through the sunglasses shi was wearing. “Want me to pick you up and carry you to the car?” the tiger asked, hoping for a response. After a moment of awkward silence, David put his arms around hir waist, picking hir up and holding hir against his chest anyway. He was surprised at how heavy shi was, despite being so slender.
As he walked away from the FBI’s field office, he started mentally reviewing what they’d told him. The FBI’s current working theory was that after the Kaminskis had kidnapped Alex and come out of hiding, the Russian mafia had discovered that they weren’t dead, then sent mercenaries or enforcers to kill them. If not for the severity of his daughter’s trauma, the FBI wouldn’t even have revealed that much, as the investigation was still ongoing.
The description of the scene where they’d recovered his daughter was like something out of a mafia movie: A total of eight dead, including the Kaminskis, four armed bodyguards, and two people in body armor with assault shotguns... and his daughter silently sitting next to a lamp-post, apparently unharmed.
On the flight back to Denver, Alex had also implied being assaulted by the dead horse that his wife, Raenne, had found. His daughter definitely had a concussion from whatever happened, and he was going to need to take hir to an optometrist... though the fact that shi already had custom-made sunglasses was strange. There were a lot of unanswered questions that the FBI had, and he’d been given a card with a number to call if Alex said anything about the incident that might help them figure out what happened.
As David carried his daughter past the empty parking spaces towards his car, the back door of the tiger’s white SUV popped open. Azalea jumped out, sprinting down the sidewalk towards him. “Your friend Azalea’s here. Want me to set you down?” David asked, hoping in vain for a response. He sighed as the squirrel-hybrid approached within walking distance, wondering how he was going to explain psychological trauma.
As Azalea skidded to a halt next to them, David said “Alex isn’t speaking yet. Apparently shi went through some pretty bad, uh, stuff over the past few days. They’re worried that shi needs to see a therapist.”
Azalea nodded. She had to see a therapist regularly, ever since she’d swallowed all those pills, trying to escape the misery of being a girl trapped in a boy’s body. At least she’d learned that suffering in silence was the wrong way to deal with it. Talking helped.
As the squirrel looked over her friend, clinging to hir dad’s neck, she noticed the sunglasses. Alex never wore sunglasses, much less the kind that airplane pilots and police officers wore in old television shows. “What’s up with the sunglasses?”
“Alex has a concussion. One of hir eyes isn’t working right. We’re going to have to see an optometrist. Hopefully they can fix it,” the tiger said as they approached the car. “Okay... Alex? I’m going to set you down so we can get in the car.”
As the tiger squatted next to the car, his daughter’s arms squeezed his neck for a moment, then loosened slightly. Tears were running down hir muzzle, though he couldn’t tell whether they were from sorry, joy, or pain. “Are you okay, love?” David asked, once again getting no response. He frowned, but pulled hir close for a quick hug. “Azalea’s going to sit in the back seat with you. If you need anything, we’re both here.”
He gestured at Azalea, who pulled the car door open and climbed in. He turned Alex around and hoisted hir into the back seat as well. Almost immediately, Alex reached out and clasped Azalea’s paw. David sighed and checked to make sure his daughter’s tail was inside the car before closing the door.
After walking around the SUV, David climbed into the driver’s side, fitting his tail into the gap that ran down the center of the seat before shutting the door and hitting the ignition switch. The car’s engine hummed and he turned to check on Alex... who had apparently laid down sideways with hir head in Azalea’s lap. The jerboa-squirrel hybrid met his gaze and shrugged. He shrugged in response and turned back around, figuring that seatbelts probably weren’t strictly necessary this one time.
David backed out of the parking lot, then slowly drove away from the building. With any luck, he would never have to come out here again. Not that he minded Denver, as the city wasn’t that bad, but it was a heck of a drive from Winter Creek to Denver.
Figuring that Alex probably hadn’t slept well over the few days, he turned the radio on and flipped it to a classical station, keeping the volume low. Traffic was pretty bad and required his full attention since it was the middle of rush hour and dusk was approaching. By the time he reached the outskirts of Denver, heading towards Prairie Flats, it was pitch black outside.
Azalea smiled to herself as Alex snored in her lap. Without thinking about it, she brought her paw up and stroked the tiger’s cheek as if shi was a feral kitten. “Um, David? I really do think that Alex seeing a therapist would be good. Having someone that shi can talk to that won’t judge hir and can be impartial... I can get you the name of the one that I see.”
“That would definitely help,” David said, glancing in the rear-view mirror. “I’ll call them and find out if they can provide trauma counseling. Are they in Winter Creek or out in Prairie Flats?”
“They’re in Prairie Flats. It’s a small office; I think there’s like maybe five people that work there,” Azalea said, gently petting Alex, rubbing her paws along hir whiskers and under hir chin.
“Thanks,” David said, relaxing slightly as the traffic finally eased up. “Um, is Alex doing okay back there?”
“You can’t hear hir sawing logs? Like, I thought my sister was a loud snore-er,” Azalea said, smirking. “Shi’s been asleep for about half an hour now.”
“Good. Let hir sleep. Shi probably needs it,” David said, smiling slightly, hoping Alex would continue to sleep after he dropped Azalea off at her mothers’ house.
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David awoke with a jerk. For a moment he thought he’d imagined a scream. The house was completely silent. The white tiger’s ears turned to and fro as he listened for anything that could have caused the noise. It was entirely possible that he’d heard a feral (unevolved) cat outside, since supposedly bobcats and mountain lions had screams that sounded almost like a person. There was no doubt there were mountain lions in the area; his daughter had been attacked by one while hiking during the first few months they’d lived here, needing over a hundred stitches to sew up hir shredded arms and the few cuts on hir legs and forehead.
The white tiger suddenly remembered his daughter was upstairs, where he’d put hir to bed after getting home... alone and traumatized from whatever shi had gone through over the past three days. He quickly rolled out of bed to check on hir, double-timing it down the hallway from his bedroom and up the stairs to the second floor. When he reached his daughter’s bedroom, Alex was sitting upright, hugging hir knees, still wearing the hoodie and skirt that shi had been wearing when he picked hir up earlier.
“Alex?” he asked, flipping on the lights. “Are you alright?”
When shi didn’t respond, he walked over to the bed and leaned down to meet hir mismatched gaze. Shi was staring straight ahead. As he watched, a tear rolled down hir muzzle and landed on hir arm. He waved his hand in front of hir face, with no reaction at all. The last shreds of hope that he’d had for a quick recovery from whatever shi had gone through vanished, like a tattered sail in a hurricane.
With a queasy feeling in his stomach, David finally came to accept that his daughter desperately needed therapy. First thing in the morning, he was going to call the school, then the therapist that Azalea had recommended. For now though... He flipped off the lights, then nudged his daughter onto hir side and climbed into bed with hir, pulling hir back against his chest. Hopefully his presence would give hir some comfort.
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Thursday, January 7th, 2016
David sat at the table with a half-empty bowl of cereal in front of him, wearing a bathrobe. Alex stood next to him and held his hand, silently staring into the distance like a creepy doll, wearing the sunglasses and oversized t-shirt he’d dressed hir in earlier, knowing his old t-shirts were hir favorite things to wear while lounging around the house. With his other hand, the white tiger unlocked his iPhone and pulled up the contact for Scott Carpenter Middle School and hit the call button.
It wasn’t long before the secretary answered. After he explained that his daughter had gone through a traumatic experience and would probably need to take an extended absence, the secretary said that it would probably be better if he spoke to the school Principal, to which he agreed.
After waiting on hold for a little under a minute, the phone clicked and a man with a surprisingly deep voice answered. “Principal Martin speaking.”
“Uh, Hi. This is David Andreyev. I don’t know if you were aware, but our daughter didn’t show up to school on Monday...”
“I’m aware,” the principal said. “I saw the AMBER alerts on Monday. I was going to call today to ask if there had been any news regarding Alexandrea.”
David took a deep breath, unsure just how much he should say. It was probably best to keep it brief. “Um... The FBI recovered hir on Tuesday night in Philadelphia and flew hir back here on Wednesday. Shi’s not responding to anything and hasn’t spoken yet...”
“Philadelphia? And she’s unresponsive? What happened?” the principal asked, sounding stunned.
“We don’t know exactly, but...” David took a deep breath, decided to stick with just the facts they knew, without any speculation. “My wife found the body of a man who’d been shot in the head on the side of the road where Alex walks to the bus stop, and later the Winter Creek police found an SUV with his blood and my daughter’s clothes in it. The next day, Alex called from a hotel in downtown Philadelphia, but shi was gone before the FBI could get there. They found hir that night at the site of a mass shooting in front of a restaurant in north Philadelphia,” the white tiger explained, hearing rapid keystrokes on the other end of the line. “Besides being unresponsive, shi has a concussion and one of hir eyes is dilated. I’ve got to make an appointment with a therapist and optometrist. Until shi snaps out of it, we’re going to keep hir here at home.”
“If Alexandrea is non-responsive, then it’s probably best that you keep her at home,” the principal agreed, still tapping away on a keyboard from the sounds of it. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a counselor here, just an advisor and a nurse. For therapy, you’re probably going to need to look for a child psychiatrist who can handle... My God.”
“Pardon?” David asked, wondering what had prompted the exclamation.
“Oh, sorry,” Mr. Martin apologized. “I just found the news report. ‘Eight people dead in the aftermath of a shooting in north Philadelphia’. It even mentions there was a survivor, a child. I assume that’s Alexandrea. ‘Two tigers found deceased at the scene, presumably the child’s parents’.”
“Grandparents,” David corrected. “On my wife’s side. At least, that’s who we suspect they were.”
“My condolences,” the principal said after a moment of silence.
“I never knew them. Apparently they were... not good people,” David replied. “The FBI suspect that they’re responsible for the kidnapping, but nobody knows for sure and Alex isn’t talking yet, obviously.”
“I’ll inform Alexandrea’s teachers about what’s going on, and ask them to assist in any way they can. We’ll say a prayer for her swift recovery, and I’ll get them to put together a study and homework packet that you can pick up on Monday. If there’s anything else we can do to help, please let me know,” the principal said.
“Thank you,” David said, waiting for a moment before hanging up and setting the phone down. The white tiger looked over at his daughter, standing silently next to him, and raised a paw and wiped at the tear that was falling down hir muzzle.
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Paper rustled as David used a claw to flip the page of the book he’d been reading in silence for the past two hours. Alex hadn’t left his side all day, holding his hand and following him around like a robot. Eventually he’d set her on the sofa and sat down to read. The creepy doll act was deeply troubling, and the longer it went on, the more afraid he became that it would be permanent. At least the psychiatrist that Azalea had recommended seemed positive they could do something about it, if Alex didn’t snap out of it before their appointment tomorrow.
The weight of Dad’s arm across hir shoulders and his warmth against hir side was soothing. It helped to loosen the tightness and ache in hir chest. Flames danced in the fireplace across from the sofa. Alex blinked, realizing that shi must have been home for a while now and that mom hadn’t said anything... or wasn’t home. “Where’s Mom?” shi asked, realizing as the words left hir muzzle that the answer might be something shi didn’t want to hear.
David jerked at the sudden noise, almost dropping his book. A flood of relief washed through him as he realized his daughter had finally spoken. “Mom’s at the hospital,” he answered after a moment.
“Why?” Alex asked, looking up at hir father, suddenly very frightened. Shi didn’t want to lose someone else shi loved. Not again. Not ever.
“She’s taking care of your brother and sister,” David answered with a gentle smile. “She gave birth yesterday.”
The thought of having a brother and sister was so alien that it took a moment to process. Alex knew that Mom was pregnant, that eventually shi would have a baby brother and sister. The reality was somehow different. They weren’t due to be born for a while, though. Had shi lost track of that much time? “I thought they weren’t supposed to be born for...”
“Not for another month. They were born premature. Your mom was so stressed about you being kidnapped that she went into labor prematurely,” David explained.
“I’m sorry,” Alex apologized, feeling miserable that shi was the reason for it.
“It’s not your fault you were kidnapped, love,” David said, squeezing his daughter’s shoulders. He resisted the urge to ask the questions that were on his mind, taking the FBI agent’s suggestion that he let Alex open up on hir own rather than interrogating hir. “Speaking of... Other than the concussion, are you hurt?”
“No. I’m fine,” Alex said, then went silent for a moment, letting the idea of being an older sibling sink in. “Can I see them?”
“Well, the doctors suggested that we wait a few days before we go see them, since you’ve been on an airplane recently. They’re worried you might get sick and in turn get them sick,” David explained. After a moment, he set his book down and picked up his phone. “I’ve got a video of them, though,” he said, pulling the video up.
Alex stared at the phone screen, watching the two tiny pink and brown-striped cubs who were barely moving. “Where’s their fur?” shi asked, worried they’d get cold.
“It won’t come in for another week. So they’re in an incubator to keep them warm and they’re on ventilators to help them breathe.”
“Oh,” Alex muttered, watching until the video ended. Then shi looked up. “What are their names?”
“Nicholas and Katherine,” David said, smiling.
“So... We’ll probably call them Nick and Kate?” Alex asked, mulling over the names.
“Yep. Those are the names we’d originally picked out for you, before we found out you weren’t a boy or girl. After you were born, we decided to pick a name that could be either male or female, depending on what parts you chose to use, like Lex or Andy.”
“They could choose to be Cole and Erin,” Alex said, after thinking about that for a moment. “Like I used to go by Lexi...”
“Exactly. If you wanted to use your middle name you could be Val, Alen, or Tina. I suppose we’ve been calling you Alex for so long that it’s kind of stuck, but if you ever decided to use something different, you’ve got lots of options.”
“Hmm.” Alex had never considered using hir middle name, or parts of it. “What are their middle names?” shi asked.
“Gregory and Natalya,” David answered.
“So... Nicholas Gregory Andreyev and Katherine Natalya Andreyev?”
“Yep,” the white tiger confirmed.
Alex sat silently for a moment, thinking that over. They were good names. Hopefully the cubs would like them.
“Are you hungry?” David asked after a few seconds, remembering the failed attempts to get hir to eat earlier.
“Yes, please,” Alex said, realizing shi was starving. “But first I’ve gotta use the bathroom.”
Five minutes later, David set a pair of hamburgers down on the dinner table. At least now Alex wasn’t a total zombie, looking around and acting mostly normal, albeit not very talkative other than asking about how they were caring for the twins. He suggested that Alex call and ask hir mom about that after they ate dinner; Raenne would be relieved to hear from hir.
After sitting down, David took a bite of his hamburger and watched as Alex bit into hirs, chewing and swallowing with surprising speed. After a few moments he took the second half of his that was sitting on the plate and passed it over, figuring shi probably needed it more than he did. He smiled at the “Thank you,” that shi mumbled through the mouthful of food.
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Friday, January 8th, 2016
Snow crunched under the tires of the Nissan Rogue as it pulled into the small parking lot in front of the white office complex. The building was styled to look more like a Victorian era home, but the facade did little to disguise its purpose.
David stepped out of the driver’s side of the SUV and carefully walked through the snow to the passenger side, pulling the door open and hoisting his daughter out of the passenger seat, hoping that shi was warm enough in the hoodie and capris that he’d dressed hir in. After taking Alex’s paw, he walked across the parking lot with hir in tow. Luckily the rest of the lot had been liberally salted and was mostly free of snow.
The office entrance opened into a reception room with several vinyl covered chairs and even a few couches. A field mouse wearing a beige coat and a knit cap sat behind the reception desk on the far side. Along the walls stood several doors with frosted glass panels, clearly leading to individual offices. The one on the far left read ‘Everett DeLeon, DO’. As David was wondering whether to walk over to the office, the mouse spoke up.
“Hello! You must be Mr. Andreyev,” the woman said, surprising him by correctly pronouncing his last name. “Here for the eleven o’clock appointment with Doctor DeLeon?”
“Um, Yes,” David confirmed, walking towards the desk with Alex following along behind him.
“Excellent. I’ve got some forms for you to fill out for Alexandrea,” the secretary said, setting a clipboard and a pen atop the desk. “It’s the standard medical history type stuff. While you’re filling that out, I’ll let Doctor DeLeon know that you’re here. He’s currently with a patient.”
“Okay. Thank you,” the white tiger said, turning back around and walking towards a sofa near Dr. DeLeon’s office door. A few minutes into filling out the paperwork, the entrance door opened and a poodle in a puffy coat stepped in and took a seat near them. Perhaps a minute later, the office door opened and a younger poodle stepped out, followed by a potbellied skunk in slacks and a sweater. The skunk smiled at the older poodle and waved them both farewell before turning in David and Alex’s direction and adjusting his gold-rimmed spectacles.
“Mr. Andreyev... and Alexandrea. Or does she prefer Alex?” the skunk asked, stepping over to them while holding one paw out as the tiger stood up.
David shook the doctor’s hand, then turned to face his daughter, who was standing silently and staring straight ahead. “Shi normally goes by Alex, but right now shi isn’t responding to anything.”
“No change, then?” the skunk said, frowning.
“Actually, a couple of hours after I called yesterday shi came to and started talking and acting almost like normal. We talked for a while, had dinner, watched a movie, and went to bed. Then shi woke up screaming, same as the night before. Shi’s been like this since. Completely unresponsive-”
The skunk held out a paw. “Here, hand me those forms and let’s head inside my office. Can you carry her?”
“No need. Shi follows me around if I hold hir hand,” David said, handing over the clipboard.
“Interesting,” the skunk said, holding the door open as David took his daughter’s hand and gave hir a tug. The tiger cub followed them into the office. It was surprisingly cozy, with a recliner, couch, coffee table, and a small computer desk facing the wall with a laptop and notepad on it. There was a bookshelf with a few medical references on it but it was mostly filled with an eclectic assortment of young-adult fantasy, sci-fi, and mysteries. The throws on the couch and the colorful rugs on the floor gave it a very homey feel. An old CRT television with a dated video game console sat in a small entertainment center that was cluttered with all sorts of nicknacks, ranging from balls to board games.
David led his daughter over to the sofa and turned hir around, then gave hir a nudge. Watching hir sit down was... bizarre. Like watching an animatronic or something. He turned back around. “If you’ll close the blinds I can take hir sunglasses off. The optometrist we saw earlier said shi has something called anisocoria, or unequal pupil dilation. It’s probably the result of a concussion. There’s nothing they can do about it. We just have to wait and hope it goes away on its own.”
The skunk quickly closed the blinds at that suggestion, then sat down at the computer chair and picked up a notepad, quickly jotting down several notes while David took Alex’s sunglasses off and then took a seat next to hir.
“You said she ‘came to’ yesterday, but then woke up screaming last night... and she’s been in this state ever since?” Doctor DeLeon asked, waiting for David’s nod. “Is this behavior the same as what she exhibited before?”
“Yes. Completely non-communicative, but docile. All shi does is follow me around if I’m holding hir hand. Otherwise shi just sits or stands wherever I leave hir,” David explained.
“That’s a... very extreme form of catatonia. I’ve never actually witnessed anything this severe myself,” the doctor said, setting down his notepad and walking over to the sofa. He waved his hands in front of the child and snapped his fingers close to hir eyes without any reaction. The mismatched eyes were disconcerting. “Was her eye this badly dilated before?”
“Worse, actually. There was no visible iris when I picked hir up on Wednesday evening.”
“Well, that’s one good sign,” Everett pointed out.
David gave a brief smile. “That’s what the optometrist said.”
“Alex... If you can hear us, please blink,” the skunk said, waiting for a moment without any response. “Well, it’s not locked-in syndrome, and she’s not on any other drugs so it’s not NMS. The rapid onset means it’s not Anti-NMDAR. Right now my best guess is Akinetic Mutism or Elective Mutism.”
The doctor stood up and walked back over to his computer chair and sat down. “I went over what you said about the abduction and the horse, and when she was picked up in Philadelphia. There were several news articles about a shooting in Philadelphia on Tuesday night that matched what you told me. A few even mentioned Alex here and another pair of tigers...”
“Her grandparents,” David said. “We believe they were behind the abduction.”
“Did Alex know them?” Dr. DeLeon asked.
David shook his head. “No, shi never met them before. I certainly never did. My wife didn’t even tell me about them until last year, and from what she told me, she had very good reasons to keep Alex away from them.”
The doctor sighed and sat in silence for a few moments after he finished recording the child’s case history. After a few moments the skunk looked back up at the white tiger. “This degree of catatonia isn’t usually triggered just by witnessing a shooting; It’s usually indicative of extreme emotional or physical trauma. Elective mutism is the result of emotional trauma. Akinetic mutism is closer to what she’s exhibiting, and is usually the result of physical damage to the brain. Given that she obviously has a concussion that caused damage to the brain stem, and the circumstances where she was found, it could be either.”
“When shi was, um, awake yesterday-”
“Lucid,” Doctor DeLeon interrupted, offering a better term.
“When shi was lucid yesterday, shi said shi wasn’t hurt other than the concussion. The FBI agent that picked hir up said that shi told them the same thing on the flight home,” David said.
“We can assume that’s true then,” the doctor said. “Could she have formed some close emotional attachments to the people who died that night?”
“How? Over... what, two days, tops?” David asked. It didn’t seem likely to him that someone could form close emotional bonds with someone who’d kidnapped them in under two days. “What about Stockholm syndrome?”
“It’s possible. Unlikely, but possible,” the skunk confirmed. “Now, you say she was lucid yesterday, but became unresponsive again after she woke up screaming last night?” he asked, waiting for the tiger’s confirmation. “Night terrors are a much more common symptom of emotional trauma, especially from violence. Was she alone while sleeping?”
“Yes,” David confirmed, nodding.
“Well... usually night terrors will fade over time. Being there to comfort her after an episode will help her get back to sleep much more quickly, if you’re willing to sacrifice some of your sleep for hers. Whether the night terrors will continue to put her back in a catatonic state, I don’t know. Speaking of...” The doctor turned back around and pulled a small pad out of his desk and started scribbling on it.
“Lorazepam is a sedative that’s commonly used to treat certain forms of catatonia. I'll write her a prescription for it. Two pills to start, then one pill every three hours while she remains in a catatonic state. If it’s not working by Monday morning, it’s most likely Akinetic Mutism as a result of whatever caused the concussion. If it does work, then it’s probably Elective Mutism from emotional trauma and we can start therapy on Wednesday evening.”
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The tiny orange pill bottle rattled as David held it up, reading the label under the bright kitchen overhead lights. Just as Dr. DeLeon had said, the instructions recommended two pills to start and one pill every three hours as needed. The big question was how the heck to give a pill to a catatonic child with sharp teeth.
The white tiger glanced down at his daughter, standing next to him and holding his hand, and frowned. He set the bottle down on the kitchen island and carefully removed his paw from hirs, then opened the bottle and shook two pills out onto his paw-pad. David glanced at his daughter, wondering how to do this. Maybe a water bottle would help...
Five minutes later and a water bottle at the ready, David carefully pried his daughter’s muzzle open by wedging his claws between hir teeth. Then he stuck the spoon with a pair of pills into hir mouth, tilting it just enough to make them fall onto hir tongue. So far, so good. Next, he picked up the water bottle and held it up, squirting a stream of water into hir mouth and then clamped his paw around hir muzzle. Surprisingly enough, shi swallowed.
Relieved, David leaned against the counter. Now it was a waiting game to see if the medication would work. In the meantime, he should probably fix himself something to eat. The tiger turned to the refrigerator and pulled it open, deliberating on what kind of sandwich to make.
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The clash of swordplay made Alex’s ear twitch. The tiger cub glanced up at the television, instantly recognizing the familiar choreography of the fight in the smithy between Jack Sparrow and Will Turner. Movement against hir paw drew hir attention and shi looked down at hir waist, realizing shi was holding hir dad’s hand and was dressed in hir favorite nightie, one of his old t-shirts. The weight of hir father’s other arm across hir shoulders was just as comforting now as it had been yesterday.
The movie drew hir attention once again as the young blacksmith tumbled about while dueling with the pirate. As the fight ended with Jack Sparrow laid out on the ground, shi smiled to herself; Waking up to Pirates of the Caribbean was a great way to start the day. Maybe they could make it a marathon and watch all four movies. Alex squeezed Dad’s paw and squirmed around to lay sideways on the couch with hir head on his lap, settling in to watch the rest of the movie.
