Into The Fire (The Ending Series)

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  Following Camille into the warehouse, Mase took control of his strength and speed. He felt it pumping throughout his body, making him an unstoppable force.

  “Stop!” Camille cried out as Mase eased the door shut behind them. The tiny woman turned the gun on the Re-gens, and the second the man was no longer in her sights, he rushed her.

  Mase got to him first. He slammed the man against a crate, and the wooden boards cracked behind him.

  “Don’t kill him, Mase,” Camille said calmly.

  Mase held the man up by the neck, but managed to restrain himself from squeezing hard enough to crush his throat. “Don’t fucking move,” he growled.

  The normal made a choking noise, and when Mase released him completely, he slumped to the floor.

  “Are you alright?” Camille asked the tiny woman. Mase turned to watch them. Camille was holding her hands up, looking completely harmless. She wasn’t harmless. “Did he hurt you?” she asked.

  The woman shook her head as she lowered the gun she’d been aiming at Camille.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice shaking. She cocked her head as she studied Camille. “You feel…different.”

  Camille smiled. “I’m Camille, and that’s Mase,” she said, pointing to him. “We won’t hurt you.”

  “Whatever you say,” the woman said as she glanced at the other normal and then at Mase. When her eyes met his, he thought she suddenly seemed taller, less fragile. There was a fierceness in her eyes, and he truly began to believe that Camille was right about her. She could help them.

  “We should take care of this,” Mase said, nodding at the normal groaning on the floor.

  “Oh, right.” Camille fished a small vial out of the secret pocket she’d sewn inside her coat and handed it to him. It was the forgetting medicine she kept on her at all times, just in case someone witnessed them acting different from the other Re-gens. She refused to tell Mase where it came from, no matter how many times he asked, but he was pretty sure she got it from Dr. Wesley.

  “Open your mouth,” Mase told the injured normal. When he didn’t respond, Mase kicked his side, and the normal cried out. It looked like he definitely had a few broken ribs. Mase grinned.

  “Don’t hurt him!” the tiny woman shouted.

  Astonished, Mase stared at her.

  “It’s not his fault! He doesn’t know what he’s—” She clapped her hands over her mouth and started backing away, her eyes full of terror.

  “We know,” Camille told her. “We won’t tell. We watched him bring you in here, and we wanted to help you.”

  “How do you…is it the neutralizer? Was it given to you, too?” the woman asked. Her iron-hard eyes were still wary, but she stopped backing away.

  Camille shook her head. “Mase and I…like you said, we’re a little different. Not like him.” She motioned toward the normal at Mase’s feet. “And, we’re not like you, either. I guess you could say we’re…special.”

  She was right about that. Mase and Camille had made sure of it, as had Dr. Wesley.

  “Um, okay.” The woman glanced around her. “It’s a church,” she muttered. “I almost get raped in a goddamn church? Isn’t that effing poetic?”

  Mase wasn’t sure how to answer her question, so he looked at Camille, who shook her head, equally baffled. Sometimes normals said the strangest things.

  “Well, thanks for, you know, helping me. I’m just going to, ah…go.” The woman started for the door.

  “Wait!” Camille called after her. “What’s your name?”

  Halfway out the door, the woman looked back at the Re-gens. The dull sunlight from outside glinted off her hair, turning it a coppery red. “Dani. My name’s Dani.” And then she was gone.

  Mase watched the door for a few more seconds, then looked down at the injured normal. “I told you to open your fucking mouth.”

  That time, he did.

  “Do you want me to move him?” Mase asked Camille after the man had lost consciousness, either from the medicine or from the pain. “To make sure someone finds him?”

  “Yeah, but just somewhere else inside this place. We can’t risk anyone seeing you carrying him.”

  Mase hauled the injured normal up and flung him over his shoulder, waiting for further direction.

  “How about that platform up there?” she suggested, pointing toward the other end of the building. “There’s even a nice long table you can rest him on. Someone’s sure to find him, and then they’ll be able to fix him up. Dani doesn’t want him to be hurt anymore. She would probably be unhappy if he died.”

  Mase followed Camille up to the table and gently set the normal down. “You like her, don’t you?”

  Camille smiled shyly. “Yeah.”

  14

  DANI

  MARCH 17, 1AE

  Though every cell in my body was urging me to sprint the two blocks to Gabe’s lab, I forced myself to maintain a slow, steady pace. I kept my head down, my hood up, and I walked like my life depended on it.

  Eventually, out of breath despite having only walked a few blocks, I pulled open the glass door leading into the building housing Gabe’s lab. I rushed through the doorway and stepped to the side, out of sight from anyone outside. As far as I could tell, the building was empty. I leaned back against the wall, giving myself a moment to breathe.

  What the hell just happened? And who were those people? Camille was little more than a teenager, delicate and still filling out, with brownish-black hair and a mixture of Asian and Caucasian features that lent her a doll-like appearance. And the big guy—Mase—had chocolate-brown skin and was scary as hell, and, well…huge. The man was built like a tank, and I thought he might’ve been able to give Jason a run for his money in the World’s Deadliest Man competition. And then there was their minds; they were just…different.

  A piercing scream shattered my inner monologue, and goose bumps rose under my sleeves. It was the second time I’d heard such a terror-inducing scream inside this building. I knew the stupidest thing I could possibly do was investigate, but it was also what I had to do. I couldn’t, in good conscience, just ignore the fact that somebody was apparently being tortured nearby.

  The last time I heard it, I’d been on the second floor, and it had sounded like the scream was coming from the stairwell. This time, it sounded louder, closer. I figured the screamer must be somewhere on the ground floor with me.

  Silently, I crossed to the right side of the empty, undecorated lobby and waited. And waited. And…waited.

  After ten minutes had passed and I’d heard nothing other than the bumblebee hum of electricity, I decided to pick one of the hallways blind. There were only two options, so my odds could’ve been worse. I chose the one with a hard-to-miss RESTRICTED sign. According to the smaller print, only personnel with white cards and something called “Re-gens” were allowed access.

  Taking painfully slow steps, I inched down the hallway. The walls were white and devoid of any hanging pictures or inspirational posters, with only blue-gray doors breaking up the monotony. The floor was composed of polished industrial floor tiles in various shades of off-white, and the air smelled faintly of ozone. I was thoroughly creeped out. Dumb idea to investigate, Dani. Really dumb.

  Ahead of me, a door swung open. Before I could turn and bolt, a small man with thick glasses poked his head around the edge. I froze. Crap.

  “Oh! You must be my ten-thirty. You Re-gens are so punctual. I can always count on you to be on time!” he exclaimed, rushing toward me and reaching for my arm.

  What’s he talking about? “Um…”

  “My last subject crashed a bit earlier than planned, so we can go ahead and get you set up now,” he said as he guided me toward the still-open doorway. The room beyond looked like a normal-sized classroom that had been converted into some sort of lab-meets-doctor’s-office. There was only one door into the room. Three of the room’s walls were covered in whiteboards filled with line after line of precise handwriting, while the
fourth was a wall of windows, every single one shut.

  “I’m not…I have a…” …a nothing, I thought, recalling that my red card was still at my house.

  The small man led me toward what looked like a dentist’s chair and situated me in it. Nothing fun ever happened in a chair like that.

  “Is this your first time, er…” He picked up a clipboard from atop a nearby medical cart and glanced at the top sheet of paper, which appeared to be a schedule printout. “JD-two?”

  First I was a “Re-gen” and then I was “JD-two”? What the hell’s going on? The day was really starting to suck. How I’d managed to get myself into not one but two precarious situations so early in the day was beyond me. Not knowing how to respond, I nodded, fearing arguing with or disputing his assumptions would land me under the General’s radar—the one place I really couldn’t afford to be.

  “I’m called Dr. Maxwell, but most of you just call me Dr. Max.” Dr. Maxwell was talking to me like a young child. “It’s very nice to meet you, JD-two. Are you familiar with your”—he glanced down at the clipboard again—“telekinesis? Have you noticed that you can move things without touching them?”

  I stared at him, wide-eyed. If I was supposed to be telekinetic, then Dr. Maxwell was going to be mightily disappointed in my Ability, or lack thereof. “I, um…no?”

  He sighed. “Fortunately for you, that’s where I come in. I’m going to hook up some electrodes, and then we’ll strap you into the chair…”

  Wait, what? Strap me in? I glanced down and noticed padded straps dangling from the armrests and along the sides of the chair. Oh, crap. Why does he need to strap me in?

  “The process is painful, but you’ll find that it’s very effective in strengthening your telekinesis,” Dr. Maxwell told me.

  I was getting the impression that it was time to make a run for it. I was pretty sure I’d discovered the source of the screams, and I really didn’t want to be the next one to emit them.

  While the doctor’s back was turned to me, I quietly shifted so my legs dangled over the side of the chair. I was preparing to make like a tree and get the hell out of there, but as soon as my feet touched the floor, another, much larger man entered the room—Mase.

  Unlike Dr. Maxwell, who was wearing a white lab coat, Mase had changed from his street clothes into light blue scrubs. Under the florescent lights, I could see that his irises were an unusual grayish-brown. He narrowed his eyes when he looked at me, and I knew he recognized me from our recent encounter in the church-warehouse. Maybe he’ll help me—or at least let me leave.

  But Mase seemed to read my intentions and, after flicking his eyes to the doctor and back, shook his head the barest amount. For whatever reason, he wouldn’t let me go, or couldn’t. And he was blocking my only exit. I was stuck with a new, awful decision—torture, or death. First rape, then torture…damn it all to hell! Internally, I screamed, being sure not to lace it with any telepathic power. If I let on now that I wasn’t the telekinetic “Re-gen” Dr. Maxwell had been expecting—that I’d been pretending and therefore had been wandering around a restricted area of my own accord—the jig would be up. Damn it! I can’t believe I left that damn red card at the house!

  Dr. Maxwell shot the briefest glance at Mase. “Ah, there you are. MA-one will help you get situated,” he told me without looking my way.

  Optionless, I scooted back on the chair while the dark mountain otherwise known as Mase approached me. I sat quietly, watching his face as he strapped me in. He met my stare multiple times while he worked, his smoky-brown eyes intense and pitying. Pitying was bad…really bad. Whatever was about to happen was going to hurt—a lot.

  Then I had a realization that made me want to hit myself, except my arms were restrained. Oh my God, I’m such an idiot! I can talk to him in his head! I focused on Mase, on his not-quite-right mind. Camille’s had felt the same, almost like it was somewhere on the scale between animal and human, but not belonging to either group.

  “Please help me,” I said to him silently.

  He’d been focused on the restraints he was fastening just above my knees, but he froze for the briefest moment and glanced up at me.

  “You can talk to me silently by thinking at me.”

  I had the impression that he was trying to respond, but no words were coming through the mental connection. Instead, I heard bursts of white noise and, in my mind’s eye, saw something that reminded me of television snow.

  Panic and frustration were doing a pretty good job of overwhelming me. What about…animals’ communications always came through as images, not words. “It’s not working. I can’t hear you. Try thinking in pictures,” I told him. It was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had.

  Mase resumed strapping my legs down, but images began to flash through my mind. Though they started out indiscernible and choppy, they quickly formed into recognizable scenes.

  Me, sitting on the chair, strapped in and cooperating while Dr. Maxwell stood beside me.

  Mase, running down the hallway.

  Mase, talking to Camille.

  Camille, talking to Dr. Wesley.

  Did Mase and Camille know Dr. Wesley? What the hell is going on?

  Mase tensed his face in concentration, and one last image appeared in my mind.

  Me, smiling up at Mase and then hugging him tightly.

  I pursed my lips, trying to understand his meaning. He was saying I would be happy with the result of what he had planned, that I would be grateful…assuming I was interpreting the final image correctly.

  Mase looked up at me, raising his eyebrows and nodding. He wanted me to agree.

  Happy and hugging him was determinedly better than whatever form of pain Dr. Maxwell was preparing to use to supposedly enhance my Ability. I locked eyes with Mase and nodded.

  “I am finished. May I be excused for a few minutes, Dr. Max?” Mase asked. Unlike in the warehouse, his speech sounded odd, stilted.

  “What?” Dr. Maxwell glanced at him. “You just had your lunch break.”

  “I feel wrong…here,” Mase said, patting his abdomen.

  Studying Mase, the doctor took a deep breath, then expelled it slowly. “Fine, but make sure you talk to your Domestication Officer about whatever pains you’re feeling, okay?”

  Mase nodded, maintaining eye contact with the doctor.

  “Be quick about it,” Dr. Maxwell said. “I’ll need you once she starts to fight it.”

  That sounds really, really bad. Without sparing me another look, Mase left. I desperately hoped he found Camille quickly.

  For once, my hopes were realized. Mase returned minutes later, before the doctor had paid any further attention to me. He met my eyes and nodded minutely, and I allowed myself a single, relieved breath.

  “Alright, JD-two, let’s begin. We’ll start small and work up, so it’s not too painful to begin with,” Dr. Maxwell said, turning his attention to a small, high-tech switchboard. “MA-one—the bite protector?”

  Mase moved to my side and gently tapped my chin. Fearful, I looked up at him. He nodded and tried to smile, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it; pity had filled his eyes again.

  Pressing on my chin, Mase opened my mouth and inserted a rubber mouth guard. My fear quadrupled, and then multiplied exponentially when he secured one last strap over my forehead. I felt like I was in an electric chair.

  Dr. Maxwell turned a dial on the switchboard. As an uncomfortable staticky sensation passed through my body and all of my hairs stood on end, I realized I hadn’t been wrong about the electric chair. I shifted my focus back to Mase and implored him with my eyes. I tried to speak to him telepathically, but the moment I reached for my Ability, a searing pain ricocheted in my skull and singed outward to my nerve endings. Groaning, I bit down on the mouth guard.

  “See, it’s working already,” Dr. Maxwell said.

  I hated him. He turned another dial, the electrical current increased, and I hated him even more. I felt like I was floating in a b
athtub filled with stinging jellyfish. When I whimpered, he turned it up again. My lungs seized, paralyzed by the electricity coursing through my body. I couldn’t breathe.

  “One of the straps is tearing, Dr. Max,” I heard Mase say. His voice sounded far away and fuzzy. “Do you want me to hold her down?”

  “Yes, yes—it would be counterproductive to stop now. Are you wearing your gloves?”

  Though the doctor was fiddling with the dials on the switchboard, increasing the current further, my agony suddenly decreased and I was able to catch my breath. I glanced down to find Mase crouching beside the chair, one hand encased in a thick, black rubber glove and covering part of the strap holding down my hips, the other wedged between the chair and my lower back, the flesh of his palm pressed flush against my bare skin. As I stared into his grayish-brown eyes, I understood. He was absorbing the electrical current, sharing my pain by diffusing the current with his much larger body.

  Holding his gaze, I screamed into the mouth guard, pretending my agony was so great that I couldn’t possibly take any more. I hoped the show would finally convince the doctor that it was time to end the electroshock session. It didn’t.

  Instead, Dr. Maxwell made another increase, and I jerked and screamed again, no longer pretending. I couldn’t believe Mase was holding still of his own accord, his clenched jaw his only sign of discomfort. Tears streamed from my eyes, and I shook my head back and forth as much as my restraints would allow. It wasn’t his pain to bear, and I didn’t want him to be hurting for me. He doesn’t even know me.

  The door opened and a tall, dark-haired woman in a white lab coat strode into the room.

  “John, stop this at once!” she demanded. “This isn’t JD-two! She’s a special project of mine and you might be ruining her with your tests!” Through the white haze clouding my vision, it took me a few moments to identify her as Dr. Wesley.