“I don’t think so,” I whisper. “I can’t remember much before right now. Is that normal? Am I okay?”
A small smile crests her lips, and I know I’ve won this battle, though she’s the one feeling victorious.
“You’re absolutely fine. We’re going to take good care of you, Forty-two.”
“Forty-two?”
“Do you remember your name?” she asks with a quirked brow. Another test.
“It’s on the tip of my tongue. I feel like if I heard it, I would remember,” I lie easily.
“You had no identification on you when your body was found. This is the case with most of our patients, so we give them numbers. It allows our patients to feel ordered and assists us in our treatments. If you would rather give yourself a name, you’re free to. But all of the other patients have been content to keep their numbers up to this point.”
I nod at that weird ass shit. This woman is wacked the fuck out.
“What if I have a family looking for me? You still haven’t told me where I am.”
I need to push to make this believable.
“No one came to claim you. Your picture was all over the news after the accident. Not one person knew who you were. And the only people that tried to get you, were the same group that had initially abducted you.”
“No one? I don’t have one person who misses me?” I ask in a pained voice.
If my face were in the news, Chann and Caelan would have me right now. She doesn’t know about them. I know she’s fucking lying now. I want to spit in her face. I want to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze the life out of her. But I don’t. I remain hunched over in a depressed pose.
“I’m very sorry,” she soothes with a hand on my shoulder.
I nod and drop my face into my hands, so I don’t attack her.
“You’re here in Canyon Nine to keep you safe. You’re special, Forty-two. We don’t know the extent of it yet, but soon you’ll discover you have a gift. I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much. Our patients are housed together, but I think you should be on your own for a little while. It will give you time to adjust and me some time to help you through your transition to life here.”
I ignore the gift part of her little speech. I know that’s why I’m here. I still have to push though.
“What if I don’t wanna stay here? Can I leave or am I a prisoner?” I ask, looking into her lying brown eyes.
“You’re not a prisoner. But you have no family. No memory. No way of supporting yourself. Where would you go?”
Manipulative as fuck.
I shrug sadly.
“Let’s get you back on your feet and then we can talk about what’s best for you moving forward,” she suggests as she moves away from my bed toward the door with no handle. “I’ll leave you to rest for a while. If you need anything, just press that button.”
I look at the red button on the rail of my bed and nod my agreement. She smiles broadly, pushes the door open and leaves. When the door swings shut, I hear the lock click into place. Not a prisoner my ass.
I flop backward onto the bed and crack my neck from side to side. Then I go about examining the room I’m in. There’s only this bed. The walls, floor and ceiling are all white. The only color in the room is my call button. There’s one door in the room, which I suspect leads to a bathroom. I spy ten cameras recessed in the walls and the ceiling. The light overhead is a long rectangle with no light bulbs in it. That’s fucking weird.
I’m in a padded cell with no padding.
Alone with my thoughts, I begin to track through everything that happened. Sorcha being shot because I’m the shittiest son ever. Her pale skin covered in bright red blood before she took her last breath. The screams that filled the forest where I sent Bert to die alone. I didn’t have his back when he always had mine. Alannah’s tortured blue eyes as I beat dead men. The pain on her face as I was grabbed and drugged with some kind of chloroform.
I left her there alone to die.
I killed everyone I love other than Chann and Caelan. At least they’re safe. One tiny bright spot in a world full of death and destruction. I have no choice but to play this game with these people.
I’ll learn everything I can, and when the time is right, I’ll fight. I’ll destroy everyone that had a hand in this. And when I’m covered in their blood, I’ll mourn the loss of my family. Until then, I’ll use their memories as fuel to drive me forward. I may be alive, but I’m dead inside.
My body just doesn’t know it yet.
I tossed and turned most of the night. I paced around the tiny prison-style bathroom for a few hours by my count. I struggled through rage and pain with each breath. The restlessness is new for me. I’m not a patient man. I’ve learned that since I woke up here. I crave action and lying in wait is going to be a test for me.
The lock on my door clicks and Dr. Slone breezes in wheeling a cart with a tray of food on it. I didn’t eat a bite of the dinner that was brought to me last night by a large man in white scrubs. They have a thing for white here. I hate it. I want my black cave back. My womb.
“You didn’t eat last night. Are you struggling with nausea?” she asks as she reaches my bedside.
“No. I’m struggling with trust,” I grumble.
She smiles before examining me, shining the light again, pressing around my head and neck, checking for who knows what. Then she grabs the plastic spoon off the tray and scoops up some oatmeal before popping it in her mouth.
“I told you, you’re safe here,” she announces, pushing the tray at me while handing me the spoon.
I take it and wolf down the food as she watches me with satisfaction on her face. Her hair is grey, but her face doesn’t look much beyond her late thirties. That’s strange. I note it and move on in my perusal of her person. She’s maybe five and half feet tall with a slim figure. She’s wearing a lab coat again over a white turtleneck, a white pair of slacks and white flat, slipper-like shoes.
It’ll be fun to splash this place with crimson blood.
“That’s better,” she croons in a motherly tone that turns my stomach almost making me puke up my food.
“How did you sleep?” Dr. Slone asks over her shoulder as she pushes the cart to the door where anonymous hands retrieve it.
“Not well,” I huff.
“That’s understandable. Would you like me to give you something that can help you relax?”
“No.”
“All right,” she says through a smirk.
She has to stand next to the bed because there’s still nowhere for her to sit. I guess they don’t want anything in the room I can use as a weapon. It’s smart. I know I could kill her in all of two seconds, but it wouldn’t do me any good at this point. I’m locked in this room. Seeing her dead body would make me feel good, but it won’t help my end game.
Dr. Slone shocks the shit out of me when she pulls a scalpel out of her lab coat. My eyes flare at the sight. I can’t help it. I want that in my hands now. I have to fist the sheets to keep myself from divesting her of it.
She mistakes my want for fear.
“I won’t hurt you.”
No shit.
Then she drags the blade across my forearm. Of course, nothing happens. I have a role to play though so I gasp, pulling away from her.
“What the fuck?!” I shout.
“Look at your arm, Forty-two,” she instructs.
I look down where I’m holding my faked wound and suck in a huge breath when I find my skin unharmed. This is somewhat reminiscent of my childhood experiments on myself. That memory hurts my chest, making the fake confusion on my face believable.
“I don’t understand,” I mumble.
“You’re special. A miracle. That’s why those men had you. They wanted to experiment on you. We’ve rescued many people from a group called Sage Development. They’re an engineering company currently creating biological weapons. They want to use people like you to create super soldiers through DNA and genetic
manipulation.”
“What? I don’t…this is…Why am I like this?” I pretend to stutter through my thoughts until I get my real question out. The essential one that’s plagued me my whole life.
“I don’t know the answer to that. I would like to do some testing on you to try to answer that very question though. If we can figure out the source, maybe we can safeguard it.”
I almost believe her. But there’s deceit in her brown eyes. I can hear it when she speaks. An underlying falseness is seeping into her speech. She did unwittingly explain to me why I’m here though. Whomever she works for is creating super soldiers and wants my impenetrable skin.
Those moments of sitting around our cluttered living room as a kid race into my mind; Sorcha always thumbing through some weird book while Bert cleaned a gun. All of us talking through their conspiracy theories. They were more right than I gave them credit for. It makes the guilty weight on my shoulders that much heavier.
The government wasn’t after Sorcha for her powers or Bert and his Vietnam craziness. They were after me, and I led these motherfuckers straight to the people who tried to protect me from the time I was born.
“So staying here and letting you run tests on me is ultimately for the greater good?”
“Absolutely,” she breathes out with relief.
“You said there are other patients here. I’d like to meet them. Maybe bein’ around other people will make all of this a little easier to take in.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
Dr. Slone walks to the door and gets it to unlock somehow. I still can’t figure the doors out. But I will. Then she indicates I should lie back on the bed before she wheels it out of the room. I study every single thing as I roll down white, non-descript corridors lined with white doors. I don’t see any exits. There’s no natural light anywhere, only bright fluorescents.
The further I move, the stronger an urge to manipulate and deceive worms its way through me. What I’m now craving. What I will get no matter how long I have to wait.
Vengeance.
I’m a killing machine. There’s nothing I won’t do to get the people that killed Sorcha. I keep focusing on her, the way she loved me. She believed in me. I was her miracle and not because of my skin. I was the child she could never have. I was the way she was able to spread her wings. That’s what she used to tell me.
And now that I clipped her wings and ended her life, I have a new purpose. A battle that Bert would be proud to watch me wage. I can almost see an innocent pair of electric blue eyes pleading with me not to give up. I won’t stop until I avenge them.
Dr. Slone pushes my bed into a room that’s filled with conversation, voices calmly interacting. I swing my head from side to side, finding men and women dressed in white sweat suits. A few glance at me, but no one seems bothered by the man in a bed rolling through the area.
We go through another set of doors and come into what I would describe as a bunkroom. There are thirty or so beds lining the area in two rows. She pulls up to a stop and begins explaining things to me.
“This is the common ward. You’ll stay here when you’re not being tested or treated. Meals are served in the dining hall. Sometimes your appetite suffers in the beginning. If that happens, please tell one of the attendants.
“Your uniforms are in the trunk at the side of your bed. Feel free to speak to the other bearers and interact as you normally would. The more comfortable you are with your surroundings, the easier this process becomes. I’m looking forward to working with you, Forty-two.”
I push to a seated position when she stops speaking. Thinking about Sorcha, Bert and Alannah has sparked fury within me that I need to calm before I make a mistake. I have no idea where I am or what I’m up against. I need to do reconnaissance.
Dr. Slone places folded clothes on the bed next to me. I’m still only covered in a thin white sheet. If I thought using my body would work on her, I’d do it. But I can tell that’s not an option. There’s no heat in her gaze as her brown eyes trail over my skin. I’m her science project.
I snatch the sweatshirt and yank it over my head, ending her perusal. Once my feet are through the sweatpants, I stand and pull them up my hips. I loom over the much smaller woman, gauging her reaction.
There’s the fear I want to see. It’s tiny, but there, in the back of her eyes, is terror. Good.
“You’re here for your own safety. I know this can be difficult, but everyone is here to help you. Keep that in mind.” She tries to sound authoritative, but it comes out meekly.
She clears her throat to say something else, but decides not to. Turning on her heel, she hurries out of the room away from me. I crack my neck from side to side as I study the space. My eyes travel over every inch of the room. Every bed looks the same. A plastic wheeled white frame topped with a single mattress and white bedding.
There’s a white trunk next to each bed. I open mine to find more uniforms and toiletries. I could kill a few people with a toothbrush, but it’s not much as far as weapons are concerned. There’s nothing sharp on the trunk. They’re made of foam covered in fabric.
Every wall is completely flat. There are no handles on the doors. I can’t see any hinges but suspect they can’t be used as weapons either. I’m still in a padded room with no padding. It’s just bigger with more cameras. They’re surely wireless. It would be stupid to have wiring we could get our hands on. I’m not an electrician, but I guess the lights don’t have wiring either. I thought they were florescent, but upon further inspection, they’re not. There aren’t any light bulbs. Just the same boxes on the ceiling filled with light like the one in my original room. What the fuck?
The door swings open, and a guy walks in. He spots me and stops on a dime.
“I’m sorry. Did you need some time alone?” he asks kindly.
He has short almost white hair and inky eyes. It’s a strange sight…creepy. He’s barely five and a half feet tall and very thin, but his voice is almost as deep as mine. If it weren’t for his voice, I’d think he was a kid.
“If you need to cry, that’s okay. We all understand.”
“I’m fine,” I respond coolly.
He studies me for a moment before walking toward me with his hand extended.
“I’m Thirty-nine,” he introduces himself.
I shake his hand briefly.
“You’re Forty-two. Welcome to Canyon Nine.”
I nod.
“What’s your shield? I’m a fish,” he says easily, leaning against my bed.
“A fish?”
He nods while looking at me with sympathy.
“I can’t drown. My lungs don’t fill with fluid of any kind. You could hold me under water for days, and I’d be fine. It’s my shield. We’re all bearers. There are nicknames to make it easier. I’m a fish,” he explains slowly as though he’s speaking to a child.
I’m not the only one. All the air whooshes from my lungs as I collapse against the side of the bed. Dr. Slone wasn’t lying. At least not about this. Shit.
“It’s okay,” Thirty-nine says tenderly, squeezing my forearm.
I take slow, steady breaths for a long while, the whole time staring at his black eyes. I miss my black home. My womb. The churning in my stomach increases with that thought, dragging Sorcha’s pale skin covered in her blood into my mind.
“Fuck,” I huff, scrubbing my hands over my face. “What else?”
“What else, what?”
“What other shields are there?”
“There are three dragons here. They can’t be burned. Four blades. They can’t be stabbed. Six vests. They can’t be shot. Five neckties. They can’t be strangled or choked, and their necks can’t break. Two blizzards. They can’t freeze. Three deserts. They can’t overheat. One vampire. He can’t bleed. And five of us fish. That’s all the bearers here now.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
My brain is spinning in so many directions, I’m surprised I’m still conscious. How the fuck is
this possible?
“How?” I rasp.
He shrugs. “We all woke up here. We don’t remember anything before waking up. Doctor Slone says we were all found in danger and brought here for safekeeping. They make sure no one gets us that could use our shields as weapons.”
“And you believe that shit?” I scoff, forgetting I’m not supposed to be affected by the lies.
“Why wouldn’t I? They treat us well. We never want for anything. Imagine if another country got a hold of me and found a way to make other people like me. They could fill a navy with men and women that can’t drown. A weapon like that would end the world,” he says clinically as though he’s reciting a script he’s learned.
I want to tell him how fucking stupid that is, but I can tell if I do, I’ll alienate him. I don’t need enemies in here. I need allies.
“That would be bad,” I agree.
He nods.
“So what’s your shield? You look like a dragon. They’re all really big too.”
“I’m not sure,” I answer honestly. I’m not any one thing Thirty-nine described.
“That’s okay. Doctor Slone will tell you once she starts her testing. I didn’t know for a few days. But I bet you’re a dragon. You wanna come meet the other bearers?” he asks, climbing to his feet.
“Sure.”
I stand up and will myself to remain calm. None of these people know why they’re here. How is that possible? How can twenty-nine people wake up here and simply forget their lives? I know Canyon Nine tried to wipe my memory, and it obviously worked on everyone else here. All of these people have been ripped from their lives and lost their families. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that they don’t remember. My memories are torturing me right now. But they’re also going to keep me alive and fighting.
Thirty-nine leads me into the common room where he introduces me to everyone. Each person is polite and welcoming. No one seems nervous or antsy to leave. There are board games, puzzles and books on tables. The bearers seem to keep to their own shield groups, but it’s not in a judgmental way. My guess is they do it for comfort. Knowing someone else understands them makes for a stronger bond.
Misunderstood Miracles Page 7