by Lisa Beeson
The room had changed. She was no longer in the windowless green dungeon. This one looked more like a small dorm room with its own bathroom. Sparsely furnished, the room had a twin-sized bed, a small desk with a lamp, and the chair sitting by the door.
There was an adhesive bandage on the inside of her left elbow and on the back of her left hand where they must have taken her blood and attached her to an IV machine.
Her hands moved to survey the high quality of the grey sweat pants and the white cotton t-shirt she was wearing. They were a bit large, but much better than the paper-thin, pink jumpsuit that she had on before.
Lovely natural light shone down over her from a high, rectangular window that spanned the wall opposite the door. The shadows of foliage swayed behind the frosted glass to the music of bird song and droning insects, making the light move and flicker. She held her hand up to let the muted sunbeams illuminate and caress her skin. Val nearly cried with the simple joy of it, having thought that she would never see the light of day again. The pain passed. I survived.
Diana had been right. They hadn’t let her die. They needed her. They wanted to use her.
Asa healed me, but he’s one of Them… She wouldn’t let herself dwell on how much that fact stung.
…Shake off the dirt and step up.
The cup of water dripping with condensation sitting on the desk by the bed called to her. Though her thirst was not as bad as it was before, the inside of her mouth still felt coated with sandpaper. Carefully grasping the cup, she brought it to her mouth with an irrational fear that it would somehow disappear. Once the brim touched her lips, her fears melted away as the cool, precious water filled her mouth.
When she had swallowed the last drop, she placed the empty plastic cup on the desk, then stood up on her bed to get a better look at the glass of the window. Once the world stopped spinning as the light-headed dizziness passed, she noticed the diamond-shaped wire mesh running through the frosted, most likely tempered, sheet of glass. Still in a prison.
The sound of two high-pitched beeps preceding the opening of the door caused her to instinctively curl up and cower. Go away. Go away. Go away.
“It’s all right, Val. It’s just me,” Asa said as he cautiously stepped into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. He looked just as he always had, white beard, shiny baldhead, kind and curious eyes.
He’s one of them… That knowledge should have changed him somehow. She should have suddenly seen him for the monster he truly was. She should have seen the evil hiding in his eyes, the sneer at the corner of his lips. But there was nothing. He was the same. A fact that scared her more than anything else could. She’d had no idea. A wolf amongst the sheep… just another predator.
He crossed the room towards her, reaching for something inside his lab coat. When he pulled out the penlight she flinched, and hated herself for it. She did not want to be the cowering little girl. She was better than that. To fear something only gave it power over you. No more! She would not be the victim any longer.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured her in a soothing tone. “I just want to check on how you’re doing.”
He reached for her wrist and she flinched away, not wanting to be touched. When he calmly tried again, she forced herself to sit perfectly still while he checked her pulse. “Are there any noticeable gaps in your memory? Do you know who I am?”
“You’re one of Them,” Val said, hating the hurt in her voice. It was her own fault for trusting, for becoming complacent in her security at Scion’s Keep. She knew better. Nowhere was safe. No one can be trusted. She was on her own and always would be.
His shoulders slumped with a pitying sigh, which made it easier for her to hate him. Thanks for that, at least.
“What is my name?”
“Dr. Asa Solomon. And I remember everything.”
He averted his eyes from her icy glare, while he gently peeled the tape holding the gauze away from her face. She blinked as the vision in her left eye adjusted to the light. Something had changed. She closed each eye in turn, comparing the difference between the two.
“What’s wrong,” Asa asked. There was concern in his voice.
Val did not want to cooperate, but his worry was infecting her confidence. “It’s like my left eye sees things differently, sharper, like in high definition.” It almost seemed…digital, like she was watching the feed from a hi-res camera. But that didn’t make any sense.
His brow relaxed. “Is that all? Nothing else is bothering you?”
Besides being held prisoner by a bunch of psychopaths…? She grudgingly gave a small shake of her head in response.
He turned the pen light on and shined it in her right eye and then her left. He flicked it away a couple times, checking the dilation of her pupils. Satisfied, he smiled. “Good. You are a very special girl, Val. Anyone else would have died of sepsis long before I was able to heal you. The change in your body chemistry saved your life.” He turned the penlight off and held it up vertically in front of her face. “Now hold your head still and follow the pen with only your eyes, please.”
He moved the penlight from side to side, but she ignored it. “What do you mean the ‘change in my body chemistry’?”
He cleared his throat. “We did some tests while you were still sleeping, and saw that your cells have changed since you first came to Scion’s Keep. They are more efficient at removing toxins and can regenerate at a much faster rate.”
Val kept her features still, trying not to betray her whirlwind of thoughts and emotions.
“You had said that Ari disappeared after healing you…”
He believed what she had let slip to Schweinhardt, and now he was fishing for information with an open-ended comment.
She remained silent and fixed him with a cold, condemning glare.
You will get nothing from me.
“How did Ari heal you? Was it like how Claudia does it, promoting healthy regeneration with sound waves?”
It was more like how you do it, she thought, but kept silent. She would not betray Ari again.
“We’re not your enemies, Val. You need to try to understand th–”
“You’re right,” Val interrupted. “I do need to understand. I need to understand how the people who kidnapped me, beat me, and left me to die… are not my enemies. Can you explain that to me, Doc?”
“What Dr. Schweinhardt did to you was inexcusable.”
Yet that’s exactly what you’re going to try to do…
“We left him out here in a place of authority with no accountability for too long. That messes with a person’s sense of right and wrong. And believe me; he’s been dealt with accordingly.”
People are so damn predictable, she thought in disgust.
“I know what it’s like to have everything stripped from you – your home, your family, your dignity.” A shadow of old pain passed across his face. “I am heartbroken over what you’ve been put through.” His eyes passed over her shaven scalp with tangible remorse.
“But not enough to let me go…” she said, her tone fatalistic, but she held the slightest hope that she could play on his sympathies.
“Val…,” he began, with another pitying sigh, as if she was a poor, stupid child who didn’t know what was best for her. “Where would you go?” In essence, telling her that she was still a minor and no one else would give two craps about her – which wasn’t completely untrue.
Ari cares about me. She’s still out there somewhere. Val had to believe it.
“If you had followed the rules and hadn’t run off, none of this would have happened,” Asa softly rebuked. “Things will go so much smoother for you if you’d just cooperate and try to understand the scope of what we’re trying to do,” he said, almost pleading with her. “We’re your family, Val. And we need your help-”
“How dare you,” she shouted. It was now Asa’s turn to wince. “You are not my family! You are evil monsters that kidnap and torture and murder anyone who gets in yo
ur way!”
Asa held up his hands as if to try to calm her down. “We don’t mur–”
“Liar! You killed the twins’ father!” she said, cutting him off again. “And you killed my mother,” she seethed through gritted teeth, anger sizzling just under her skin.
His eyes widened. “How do you know about Trent? That was an unfortunate necessity… And we didn’t kill Anita…what happened was an accident…,” he sputtered in agitation.
“I know your dirty secrets, Dr. Asa Solomon. You’ve been complicit to all kinds of sins, haven’t you? Who knows how many people have suffered and been sacrificed in the name of your damn Cause!”
“Our Cause is just. It will elevate us to our true potential so we can make a better world not just for us, but for everyone.”
“You’re deluded if you think I would ever help the evil scum-suckers that justify the murder of my mother as an ‘accident’ or an ‘unfortunate necessity’!”
He jabbed his finger at her chest. “You have no idea what true evil is!” Spiteful wrath rippled beneath his composure. “And I’m not trying to justify the murder of your mother because we didn– ”
“What did you do to my left eye,” she asked, changing the subject before her rage got out of control and she ended up shocking herself. It also had the added benefit of setting the doctor off balance. “Why does it see differently than it did before?”
“What? Oh… uh...” He blinked at the abrupt subject switch. “Well, I was able to heal and treat the rest of your injuries. However, unfortunately, the damage to your eye was left untreated for too long. The retina had detached, and the infection from the wound damaged the tissue around it.”
“What are you saying?” The pity and remorse on his face was too much for her to stand. “Just say it plainly dammit!”
“The injury to the eye was beyond repair. We had to remove it. And we took the opportunity to replace it with one of our bio-modification models.”
Val launched off the bed towards the mirror in the bathroom. Switching the light on, she immediately had to hold on to the stability of the cool porcelain sink as another spell of dizziness passed. When her mind cleared, she slowly looked up at her reflection and gasped. This was the first time she had seen herself since she had left Scion’s Keep. She may still be alive, but she looked like death.
Val had never been a vain person. In fact, she had actively tried to downplay her looks as a means of protection, but she did not even recognize herself now. The bitch that had sheared her hair off had not even bothered to make it even. Tufts of bristly dark hair stood up in random patches on her scarred head. They had taken out all her piercings when they had first brought her here, so her ears were speckled with empty holes and divots where the piercings had healed up.
She looked practically skeletal. Her cheeks were sunken, skin sallow, and her eyes were shadowed with discoloration. There was a small scar on her right cheekbone and one at the top corner of her mouth where they had split her lip open. Following the jagged scar at the corner of her left eye, she finally let herself take in the mechanical monstrosity that sat where her left eye should be. The robotic orb moved in perfect synchronization with her right eye. There were lines intersecting the chrome where the different pieces fit together, and the part that served as her iris glowed with an unnatural blue light. The whole thing was alien and instinctively repulsed her.
“What have you bastards done to me?” she whispered in revulsion.
Asa walked up behind her. “With what we learned making Ari’s prosthetic leg with Myles and Joshua’s nanobots, we were able to make you a functioning cybernetic eye. Granted, it’s not very aesthetically pleasing right now. This model is still a prototype. But in time, we hope to make it indistinguishable from a natural eye.”
Val turned back to look him in the face. “You surgically implanted this thing,” she motioned with an impatient flick of her hand, “without even asking if I wanted you to.”
“It didn’t cross our minds that you wouldn’t want your vision restored. You said yourself that your vision seems to be better than it was before.”
“What I want is to be asked before you start bio-modifying me!” She turned back to her reflection in disgust.
The blue light of the iris winked off as the sight in her left eye cut out. Her hand reflexively went up to it, as if that would help anything.
“Until you start showing some gratitude and respect, we’ll gladly take back our generous gift…”
Val spun around at the unexpected voice, pressing her back against the solid stability of the sink.
Gordon stood in the middle of her room, holding a small tablet in his hands, which somehow had access to her mechanical eye.
Murderer…
“Well, that isn’t a very nice hello, Valencia.” Blake said as he strolled into the room to stand beside Gordon. “I’d be careful throwing around a word like ‘murderer’ if I was you.”
Gordon’s brow furrowed with consternation as his eyes shifted between Blake and Val.
“Glass houses and all that…” Blake continued with a knowing smirk.
Blind rage overtook her. “You killed her, you bastards,” she screamed, as she launched herself at the two men, ready to tear them apart. Asa grabbed ahold of her before she could reach them. She fought against him, but she was still too weak to break free. “You killed my mother!” she said as she continued to struggle against Asa’s hold on her.
Gordon’s brow furrowed even deeper, confused. “We didn’t kill your mother.”
“Liar!”
“Oh please,” Blake scoffed. “Even if we had killed her, her death would have been a favor, honey. From what I heard, Anita was an absolute train wreck. If it wasn’t for us, she would have sold you in a hot minute just to get another fix. You were better off without her.”
“You sonofa-” She tried launching herself at him again to beat the smug look off the entitled prick’s dumb face, but Asa continued to hold her back without much effort. She hated her state of weakness. She was small, but she had always been a vicious fighter.
“Stop antagonizing her, Blake, or you’ll be asked to leave,” Asa chided, his tone clear that the repercussions would be worse than just being asked to leave.
Blake immediately deflated like a chastised puppy, and a small thrill of triumph soothed a bit of Val’s rage.
“Who told you this about your mother,” Gordon asked.
Val shut up tight. She already betrayed one friend, she would not narc on another. Diana had been through enough.
Blake tilted his head like a curious dog. “Ah,” he said after a moment of concentration. “So that’s what sister’s been up to. Diana has found a way to bypass the chip to go on walkabouts. She’s been telling tales and hatching escape plans again.”
“Get out of my head, you stupid ugly freak! Nobody likes you!” Val knew the taunt was dumb and childish as soon as it left her lips, but luckily, it had hit on one of his insecurities.
For a brief moment, Blake’s eye twitched and his mouth puckered slightly at the hurtful jibe. He looked as though he was mentally listing all the horrible things he wanted to do to her.
Val arched her brow in challenge. Just try it, mama’s boy. I dare you.
Blake turned his attention to Gordon instead and resolutely carried on. “She’s convinced Val to try to use her ability against us so they can steal one of our transports and watch the place burn as they leave it behind.”
“If you hurt her I’ll kill you myself! I swear to god.”
Blake turned back to her with an infuriating smirk. “Oh honey, she’s hurt herself more than we ever would.”
“Call me honey one more time, asswipe,” Val warned.
Gordon focused on his small tablet, swiping his finger and tapping the screen. Pulling something up, he turned it around and held it out for her to see. It showed the security feed of a room a lot like the green dungeon she had just been imprisoned in. Except it was Diana lying on t
he hard shelf bed, her body shaking with violent, uncontrollable tremors. Even though she was hooked up to a feeding tube, she looked emaciated and weak. Her body was wasting away. Diana wasn’t even strong enough stand, let alone try to escape.
Would that happen to me if I tried to bypass the chip?
“There are always consequences to your actions. She managed to use her ability, but at what cost?” Gordon asked. “She’s always been defiant to the point of her own detriment.” He sounded legitimately mournful, as if he actually cared about Diana.
Val’s heart plunged into the familiar quicksand of disappointment and despair. She had been stupid and weak enough to give in to false hope. Asa must have felt the fight flow out of her, because he loosened his grip. She yanked her arms out of his grasp. “Get off me,” she demanded, before she tottered over to sit on the bed. She felt fatigue settle deep into her bones.
“Take it easy, Val. You must be starving,” Asa said. “I’ll go get something prepared for you to eat.” He hurried out of the room, but Gordon and Blake remained.
Blake leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed and eyes sharp. Gordon grabbed the chair by the door and brought it over so he could sit across from her. Val could not stand to be anywhere near the monster in the guise of a saint. She scooted back to sit against the wall, erecting a fortress of hostile distain around her. The man had such a genuine, open face. He was too charismatic. It was too easy to want to trust him. She had trusted him. She couldn’t get over the fact that she had once seen him as benevolent father figure. Just another predator amongst the sheeple…
“Don’t follow in my niece’s footsteps, Val. You’re smarter than that. Besides,” he said, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees, “we are on a private, unnamed island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is surrounded by a warren of deadly atolls and sandbars that will tear a ship to shreds if you don’t know how to navigate them. So, unless you know how to fly a helicopter, there is no way to get off the island. There’s no point in even trying.”
The quicksand of despair sucked her down even further. What was Diana thinking? How the hell were we going to escape an island in the middle of the damn Pacific Ocean?