Sarah was dumped back in the room with him. He wondered what had happened to her parents, or why they'd moved them inside from outside in the first place.
There was a faint burning smell around her, and he could see more marks on her body. Her limbs were contorted around her torso in ways he wasn't sure would normally be possible.
She looked up at him. "I'm hungry," she said, in a raspy voice. Her teeth...the missing ones, seemed to have grown back..if that was even possible.
A few minutes later, another fox woman came in. This one looked younger than the other one, but he wasn't sure. She wasn't wearing the white lab coat the other one was wearing, and instead was wearing a dress. She sat by Sarah and stroked her back gently, and soothingly.
Jon rounded on her. "I know you can understand me."
She looked at him. "Of course I can," she said.
"Then why have you all been ignoring me?"
"Because it would corrupt the experiment. I don't really care," she said. "Well, actually I do care. But I've only just started caring. Mother is busy with the others of your kind. I don't even see the point of you being here, except to see how you react to what's happening to her."
"What is happening to her?" Jon asked. "Why are you torturing her?"
The vixen looked at him. "She'll be better than new, soon enough. Do you have a name?"
"Jon. Jon Madison."
"I like that name. Madison...You can call me Madison." He frowned, but accepted it. "I don't really understand how all the science works...I'm only a teenager...to put it in terms you'd understand."
"But..you're a talking fox..."
"And you're a talking human," she said, rolling her eyes at him.
"Food," Sarah insisted suddenly.
Madison got up, and headed toward the door, which somehow opened for her. She returned with a basket of hay and a bucket of water and began to feed Sarah.
Jon stared at both of them, watching Sarah gobble it up. "What did you do to her?"
"They turned her into a plant-eater...an herbivore."
"Why?" He demanded.
The door opened before Madison could answer. It was the other fox, who Jon gathered must be the Mother she'd mentioned. "Young one, what are you doing in here? You should be resting after your imprinting. Not feeding the subjects."
Madison's face fell. Clearly she did not like how stern her mother was. She let her mother usher her out of the room.
Sarah seemed oblivious to all this, more concerned about the food. He tried to engage her in conversation, but, while she seemed aware she couldn't stop eating, she was too consumed by it to tell him much about what she was feeling.
