I forced my muscles to relax from where they’d started to tense up as soon as my foggy mind had cleared enough. No need to alert anyone to the fact that I was back among the living. At least not until I had a few more minutes to try to find out where the hell I was—or for my legs to start moving.
The harsh fluorescent light made more tears well up in my eyes but I forced myself to blink them away slowly, trying to see beyond the floor and wall without moving too much. The wall ended a few inches past where I guessed my toes were, only to meet a pane of glass. Beyond that more of the same, although the floor looked darker—concrete. A sloping floor, with a drain right in the middle of the room. That was all I could see and focus on, but I got the sense that the main part of the room went on way beyond my very limited field of vision.
“Are you sure that you didn’t use a dose that was too high? What you had in that syringe could knock out an elephant.”
A male voice, higher, sounding nervous but trying hard not to.
A second male voice answered the first, this one deeper, gruff. Confident.
“If she’s not awake yet she will come to within the next ten minutes. Don’t trust me or the blood results? Why don’t you go in there and check for yourself? But don’t say I didn’t warn you when she’s choking the very life out of you.”
A sadly rather apt assessment, I had to admit. So much for hoping that wherever I was, whoever had brought me here would sorely underestimate me.
“Nah, I’m good,” the first guy said, his voice even higher. Heck, I knew that voice from somewhere. Only not that scared-shitless cadence. Just where had I—
“See that twitch? She’s awake,” the second voice confirmed. “Told you that her metabolism is fast enough to get the drugs out of her system within the hour. Keep that in mind if you need to shoot her up again. Just because she looks harmless like that doesn’t mean she is. Thought you’d have learned that lesson with that wildcat over there.”
So I wasn’t alone in this… cell? I still hadn’t had a chance to make out what was behind my back, but the partition I was in didn’t have the feel of much space. Curled up as I was, I would probably hit my head on the back wall if I pushed my toes onto the glass panel.
“But why isn’t she moving?” Twitchy Guy protested. “Are you sure that you didn’t paralyze her? What are the side effects of that drug—“
“She’s not moving because she’s listening to you piss your pants,” the other guy jeered. “And she’s trying to learn as much about her environment as she can before she has to give away that she’s wide awake, just as she’s been taught. She’s probably still a little sluggish or else she would have tried to keep her breathing under control. See how the side of her ribcage expands?”
I immediately held my breath, realizing that I was a hint away from hyperventilating, but the damage was already done. Taking a deeper, more measured breath helped clear the last of those cobwebs from my mind. Not that it improved my current situation any—but when Twitchy Guy responded again, I could finally match that voice to a face. Ethan, one of the scientists from Aurora.
Shit.
I debated with myself what to do now, but seeing as my playing possum had already been debunked, there was no sense in continuing this. I briefly flexed my muscles, trying to get a feel for how well they responded, before I pushed myself up, needing only a single sidestep to steady myself. The cotton that I’d felt before turned out to be a typical hospital gown—if atypically short, barely hitting the tops of my thighs. And on top of that it was only held closed in the back by the single tie at the back of my neck. My uselessly unbraided hair hung into my eyes and I pushed it away, but let my hand fall back to my side as soon as I could see moderately well. It cost me a lot not to assume any kind of defensive stance, but staring outside with what I hoped was a blank face was easy. Panic roared through my mind but it was that same kind of fright that I’d gotten all too used to over the past year. Fright that let me mobilize my full strength and speed, adrenaline ready to punch my body into action.
My assessment of my prison had been too accurate for my liking. I could have easily touched the walls to either of my sides, the longest dimension of the partition being the vertical one. It was all tiled walls except for the glass pane, and that looked sturdy enough that I didn’t try kicking it in—yet. Not with the two assholes standing right in front of it, staring at me. At a first glance I couldn’t tell whether it would swing into the room or the cell, and it seemed to seal on three sides except for the bottom where it ended about two inches from the floor. That was likely the reason why I could hear them well enough, if somewhat dampened.
As I glowered through that glass, I did my very best to take in the details of the large room beyond, just like that second guy had assessed. He was wearing standard combat fatigues but no armor, his knife and sidearm the only weapons I could see. But he was tall, buff, and well-fed, and the fact that he knew about my increased metabolism made me guess that there was a good chance that he was speaking from experience. He wouldn’t need any weapons to be more than a match for me, and he knew it. As he kept watching me watch him, he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, cocking his head to the side, yet he remained mute. The name tag on his uniform read “Taggard.”
Ethan looked exactly like I remembered him, down to the lab coat and shirt he was wearing, if with an extra healthy dose of respect toeing the line to fright. I felt a sick kind of amusement well up inside of me, and I was tempted to bounce at the glass just to see him shrink back. Well, that impulse was new, but then it had been some time since someone had locked me in a glass prison. Story of my life.
As senseless as this staring contest was, I was not going to be the first to back down. If they were waiting for me to cower at the back of my cell, this was going to be a long day. Or night. I had no idea whatsoever how long I’d been out, and with my body incapable of feeling hunger or thirst I couldn’t even go by that. Not that I would have given in to either urge had there been anything provided. From what I could tell there was nothing but me in my cell, not even a toilet or bucket. I thought I’d seen a drain in the corner, making me wonder if they intended to just hose everything down—probably me included—every once in a while. But hygiene standards? Not exactly at the top of my list of priorities right now.
While the lengthening silence didn’t exactly leave me warm and cozy, it did start grating on my nerves eventually, making my eyes wander as much as they would without strictly looking away. With a better vantage point now that I was standing I could tell that the room beyond the glass was indeed large, with a vaulted ceiling overhead. It was far longer than wide, and I still couldn’t see the other walls besides the one opposite from me. What I could make out were a few more white-tiled cubby holes let into the walls, some empty with the glass panes retracted. I couldn’t see directly into the two cells that were occupied, but in one I spied a pair of legs, dirty and bruised, and in the other someone huddled at the very back, the body too small to belong to anything but a very slight woman—or a child.
This was so not going to end well.
Deciding that cold rage was better than giving in to my very active imagination, I focused on Taggard, ignoring Ethan for now. Whatever the junior scientist was here to do, he was obviously not in charge.
“Open the door and let me leave, or I swear to God, I will paint the walls with your blood.” My voice was steady and suitably scratchy from lack of hydration, but that only lent my threat some much-needed conviction.
Ethan gave another nervous twitch, while the soldier next to him just grinned at me, showing too many teeth.
“You and what army?”
I imitated his stance, at least as far as cocking my head to the side. “I don’t need an army for that. Want me to prove it? Open the door.”
Taggard’s smile widened. “The only time that door gets opened is either when he needs something, or it ends with you choking on your own vomit, with my cum dripping out of
your useless cunt. Are you that eager to get your ass handed to you? I’m always happy to oblige.”
There was a good chance that he was just trying to provoke me, but I was realistic enough to know that he could very well follow through with that threat. I wondered if he’d realized that he’d basically given me my game plan on a platter, only that after how I’d started this senseless stance with bravado I couldn’t very well back down now and switch to appealing to Ethan’s sense of what was right and wrong—or failing that, his scientific curiosity. So more posturing and shooting shit it was. What a coincidence that I’d gotten a lot of opportunity honing that craft since last year.
“You don’t have the balls it takes to follow through with that,” I jeered.
Taggard raised his brows in mock surprise. “Oh, you mean because of that tramp stamp you got? I’m not afraid of a bunch of washed-up traitors.” Yet try as he might to sound like he meant it, I could see a ghost of unease tense his muscles.
“You were at the factory?” I guessed, letting my fake smile widen when he tensed even more in response. “How many of you were there? Two hundred? Three? Against only twelve of us. And we got away, unlike you not getting chewed up by zombies. Exactly how great does it feel when your own trap backfires like that, leaving you with massive losses and without the target you set out to get? Just imagine what damage we can inflict when we set out knowing what we’re going to face down?”
I deliberately kept it to the plural. I myself might be neither in the position to be a real threat, nor have the physical capabilities to pose one on my own, but I had no doubt that by now Nate had started tearing the world apart trying to find me.
Too bad that Taggard seemed to think along the same lines, and while I could tell that my statement had flung some salt into open wounds, he knew that he was the one in charge here.
“If only anyone out there knew this bunker even existed,” he mused, his previous humor returning. “You see, command isn’t stupid. Unlike your proposed network of scavengers, we know that restricting the flow of information is key. Only those who absolutely need to know are aware that we have this facility set up, let alone what we’re doing here. Even if anyone out there looking for you knew where to start hunting down anyone who’s associated with us, it would take them months to track down someone who had any useful information. And let’s be real here—you won’t hold out that long, even if you think you’re such a tough bitch. You’re only alive because there are a few people around who are morbidly curious about why you’re still alive, if you can call it that. The moment they get bored of you, my boys and I get to have some fun with you one last time, and then you’re done. There won’t be a body to find, a corpse to bury or burn. You’ll simply disappear, and before long no one will remember that you existed.”
I hated how much I believed his claims, but it wasn’t hard to guess that he was telling the truth. He was gloating too much for it to be all lies. It took me a lot not to let it show just how much the thought of that happening scared me. Less so the—without a doubt unpleasant—physical parts of it, but the sheer insanity that there was a good chance that Nate would never know what had happened to me. As much as losing so many of our people still left my soul bleeding, at least we’d had some bodies to burn, or with Cho and Bailey we’d had closure of a different kind. But the alternative was even more grim than just plain ol’ dying.
Just as I’d known that my goading had hit, Taggard could tell that the blow he’d delivered had struck home. With a last glance at Ethan he stepped away and walked off to the left, his steps soon gone even on the echoing concrete. More rooms that way, I figured, somehow separated from this part of the installation. Ethan hesitated, but then followed, leaving me standing there feeling more than just vaguely uncomfortable.
With the pent-up unease gripping me it was hard not to find a physical outlet for that, but rather than attack the sturdy glass pane, I studied the seams where it met the wall. I wouldn’t know for sure until I saw it in action, but it looked like the glass would retract into the ceiling. I couldn’t see any cameras in the main room but I was sure that someone was surveilling my every move. Turning around, I looked at the drain in the corner next, but it was just a hole in the middle of a slightly downward sloping dip in the floor, not even a metal grate over it that I could have tried prying loose. I was tempted to call out to try to talk to any of the other prisoners, or find out if there were more out of my very limited field of vision, but I figured that they would have tried to contact me if they’d thought it made any sense. So all I could do was either stand around, pace, or sit down on the floor. Considering that I was well aware that I’d need every ounce of energy my body had stocked up, I dropped down, forcing myself to relax. No food, no water, and the lights would do their own to keep me awake—they didn’t even need to torture me if they wanted to wear me down. Suddenly, Nate’s warning that I only had a limited amount of reserves and that I would likely drop dead once they were spent wasn’t all that scary anymore. Chances were good that I could probably punch myself into a coma if I just kept hitting the walls of my prison long enough.
I somehow doubted that Taggard and his “boys” would make it that easy for me.
Chapter 21
For endless hours, nothing happened. That, more than anything else, made me guess that I’d woken up in the evening, just hours after they’d nabbed me in Yuma. It was also consistent with the bruising that started to bloom across my stomach as time passed. Just staring at the white, tiled walls, trying not to go insane from boredom, took more strength than I’d anticipated. There was the added matter of my gastrointestinal tract and kidneys still working, but I tried to hold out until what I hoped must be morning. The only distraction were the sounds of occasional whimpers or someone clearing their throat. Twice, armed guards passed through the room, but they only had cursory glances for their prisoners. Their gear was as nondescript as it came, giving me nothing new. Soldiers, yes, but what faction was pulling the strings here had been obvious before.
The clattering of items on a cart tore me out of that mind-numbing stupor, but I refused to get up. Unless someone gave me an incentive, energy conservation was my main interest. I watched as a group of six soldiers passed through, four guarding while two distributed trays that they shoved through the slits at the bottom of the glass panes. I tried to count how many times I heard that sliding sound of the plastic tray on tiles. Six or seven times, I wasn’t quite sure. On the tray there was an empty plastic cup and small tub, a reused bottle of water, and something that was probably porridge—soggy oats with what might have started out as a shredded apple. It absolutely looked like what I knew it would taste like. Even if I could have tasted something I wouldn’t have wanted that gruel anywhere near my body. I debated grabbing the bottle of water, but I’d decided that until I felt the first severe signs of dehydration—dizziness, parched mouth, headaches—I would hold out. I wasn’t exactly concerned that the water and food might be poisoned as I was sure that Taggard had other methods to shoot me up with whatever chemical mix had knocked me out in the first place. I was making a statement here, and unless I got an incentive to break that stance, I saw no reason to switch up my methods.
The guards remained in the room, giving me something to concentrate on while the low sounds of the other prisoners not making a stand filtered through the glass. I tried to memorize their gear—the type of armor they wore, the weapons I could see—and judge exactly how well-trained they were. None of them made any rookie mistakes, making my heart sink. Not that I’d doubted Taggard’s claim but the personnel here seemed to know what they were doing. That left Ethan as the obvious weak link, and possible exception. I had to admit, the fact that someone from the Aurora lab was here wasn’t that much of a surprise, but I had expected someone with a little more experience. But maybe that was the entire point—they needed highly specialized worker bees here, someone who would follow orders, not a visionary that could be influenced.
The other two soldiers returned and started gathering up the trays. The one passing by my door just glanced at it and left it where it was, untouched. I’d expected them to remove it to give me hours of ruing the fact that I’d refused the water, but then I realized that not doing that sent an entirely different message. Not only had they locked us in like animals, no. They also treated us like animals, who were sometimes too stupid to accept food when it was offered. Just peachy.
I knew something was about to happen when the soldiers were joined by two figures wearing scrubs, complete with latex gloves, face masks, and protective googles. They collected the plastic cups and tubs from each cell, and under the watchful eyes of the soldiers went into the cells, one by one. A growing collection of blood vials on their cart made it obvious what they were doing. Nobody spoke a word, so if they were checking on the prisoners, it wasn’t an examination that included any feedback.
And then it was just me who was left where I was still sitting with my back against the wall opposite the glass pane, my legs slightly bent to get the maximum amount of privacy from that damn hospital gown. The two nurses—or whatever they were—looked at each other, but no one was stupid enough to raise that glass pane and duck inside.
“I’m not going to cooperate,” I told them in as even a voice as I could manage. My throat was starting to get really scratchy, but I could take a little more of that if it meant that I didn’t have anything left to fill that plastic cup with.
I fully expected Taggard to show up again, ready with more details about how he would rape me, but it was Ethan who stepped up to the glass, trying to look very put-together but about a step away from shitting his pants.
“We need a urine and stool sample from you. And some blood. The sedative contaminated the samples we took yesterday to the point that they don’t qualify for a good baseline.”
Resurgence: Green Fields book 5 Page 24