by Ann Atkins
“Remarkable!” David said.
And without asking, I stood up and walked to where Matt lay on the floor. My wrist was already starting to close, so I bit into it again and pressed it to his mouth. He was barely conscious and tried to turn away, but I held him still. Finally, his eyes fluttered open, and I helped him to his feet.
I felt my fangs begin to retract, and I turned to look at David. “As long as both of them stay safe, you have my complete and total cooperation.”
I awoke lying on the floor of a small cell that wasn’t much different from the others I’d seen. There was a brief moment of confusion before I remembered where I was, and then I quickly scrambled to my feet and looked around.
The only two things in my cell were a cot and a toilet, but it was much cleaner than anything else I’d seen. Unlike the cellblocks outside, the walls in this room were blindingly white. Rows of white cabinets hung on one wall, and the room was filled with medical equipment. There was an operating table in the middle of the room and a tray of shiny metal instruments beside it. My heart lurched in fear as I imagined my blood splattered on the walls and staining the surface of those shiny silver instruments.
I swayed on my feet as black spots danced before my eyes, so I stumbled backwards, sat down on the cot, and struggled to calm myself down. I would not pass out! I had just woken up; I needed to remain alert.
My little “nap” had not been voluntary. As soon as we made it to this room, I’d been strapped to a chair with metal cuffs holding my wrists and ankles. David had taken vial after vial of my blood for analysis, until I’d finally lost count.
I’d barely managed to stumble into my cell before I fell to the floor, and now I felt completely lost. I didn’t know if I’d been here for one hour or two or several, but things were definitely much quieter than before.
Matt had screamed and fought as they’d dragged me away, before being shoved roughly into a small, dirty cell with some elves. Snowflake had reared and hit the iron bars of his cage with his golden hooves, and all the other creatures in this section had lent their voices to the cacophony as well. I’d still been able to hear Matt shouting and Snowflake squealing as the blood had been drained from my body … but now there was nothing.
How long had we all been here? Were they both okay? Would David really keep his word about not hurting them, or was I a fool? Had Mason realized we were missing yet? Would he come? Could Bella sense what had happened? Was she scared? Had Matt’s mom figured out we were gone? Had she called the police yet? Were we doomed to die down here, or could Mason set us free?
I didn’t want him or Sarah hurt, but they might be Matt and Snowflake’s only chance for survival. I hoped and prayed he would not come charging in here as foolishly as I had, but I was certain he would come, and I didn’t know quite how to feel about that.
I was hopeful that he would accomplish what I had not—setting the peaceful creatures free—but I was also terrified that he would fail and end up in the same predicament as me.
My thoughts and emotions were all over the place, but it was better than thinking about being dissected like a frog. I wondered if there were any pain meds or knockout drugs in this place, but I immediately dismissed that idea—because even if there were, he wouldn’t give them to me. My tolerance for pain was very low, and I knew my endurance would be pushed to its limit, but I could withstand anything to keep those I loved safe; I had no choice.
I had hated going to the doctor as a child, and if I knew in advance I would always hide, so it was usually sprung on me when we pulled into the parking lot of the doctor’s office. The nanny usually had to drag me from the car kicking and screaming, but this was so much worse. I had landed in my worst nightmare times ten!
I curled myself into a tight little ball on the cot and stared at his instruments of torture. If I was lucky I would pass out—sparing myself from the worst of the pain, but I knew I would eventually wish for a more permanent escape—one that could only be achieved in death.
I knew he was trying to freak me out by leaving me locked up in this torture chamber all alone—and I’m ashamed to say, he was succeeding. They say that fear of something is usually worse than the thing you’re afraid of, and I prayed that that was true—but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
The worst part is his insistence on giving his victims choices. I knew he drew some perverse pleasure in making his victims dig their own graves, and then lie in them. I suspected it was his way of escaping culpability for his despicable crimes as well. It was also a form of mental torture—making his victims agonize over the choices that they ultimately had to make—wondering if they’d made the right one. I’ve heard that there is a fine line between genius and insanity, and he had crossed it long ago. I wondered how I could have missed all the signs; I’d lived with him my whole life, but I’d never really seen him—he had hidden in plain sight. So did that make him insanely smart, or was I just incredibly stupid?
I didn’t have very long to ponder the answers to these questions as the doorknob started to turn. I quickly stood up, not wanting to be perceived as weak. My whole body tensed and my heart lurched as the door opened and he walked in, but my fear was quickly swallowed by anger when she walked in behind him.
It was the same despicable woman from my dreams—the one that had betrayed my mother and father. I gripped the bars so tightly that my knuckles turned white, and my fangs burst through my sore gums once more. I was also pretty sure that my eyes were doing that freaky glowing thing. The only thing that mattered right now was justice for my parents, and if I got half a chance—I would kill her.
I felt my lips pull back in a snarl as I watched her, and then she turned to look at me—and smiled. A sound of rage escaped my lips, and she walked closer, stopping at a safe distance that was just beyond my reach.
“She looks just like Alexandria, doesn’t she David? I swear it’s like stepping back in time,” she laughed.
“Don’t even say my mother’s name, you backstabbing bitch!” My voice sounded kind of raspy and scary, but she didn’t seem to be affected by it.
“What a temper,” she scolded. “Now, that comes from your father. It got him into a lot of trouble, so you might want to work on that,” she smirked.
I hated that smile, and I wanted so badly to wipe it from her face, but since I wasn’t close enough to slap it off, I thought of another way. I sneered at her as I said, “And you might wanna work on your fashion sense, because a woman of your age definitely shouldn’t be wearing a short, clingy, spandex dress like that, but I imagine the cellulite in your thighs and the dimples in your fat ass help draw attention away from the bags under your eyes and the wrinkles on your face.”
The smile fell away as quickly as if I’d flipped a switch. “Why you little—” She was cut off by a loud scream—her own—because she had inadvertently gotten close enough for me to reach her.
I grabbed a large handful of her hair and dragged her closer, but just before my fangs punctured her skin, she was jerked away. I was left holding a big handful of black hair, but it was better than nothing.
She rubbed her head and glared at me as David glared at her. “If you’re not smart enough to keep from being drawn in by her little games, then you need to get out!” he bellowed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It won’t happen again,” but the look in her gray eyes did not match the docile words coming out of her mouth.
“See that it doesn’t,” he said coldly, and my attention turned back to him. He walked to the sink and began to scrub his hands and arms up to the elbow, and my heart sank when I saw him putting on his mask and gloves. He also wore his scrubs and had one of those things that kinda looked like a shower cap on his head; they were also stretched over his feet. He was preparing for surgery.
He reached for a needle that was lying on his silver tray of instruments and began walking towards me. “Give me your arm,” he instructed.
“What’s in that needle?” I asked suspiciously,
taking a step backwards.
“It’s a very high dosage of Succinylcholine,” he answered.
“You know I don’t know what that is!” I said hatefully.
“It will temporarily paralyze you and keep you from flailing around everywhere.”
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked taking another step backwards.
“I’m going to do a series of biopsies on your skin and bones and bone marrow as well as a few of your internal organs,” he told me, and this time he smiled.
All the blood drained from my face and my voice trembled as I asked him, “Why?”
He was starting to look annoyed, but he answered me anyway. “Because I need blood and tissue samples to compare with your father’s. You see, I ran the same battery of tests on him long ago.”
I was momentarily at a loss for words. “And what do you hope to accomplish by all of your slicing and dicing, Dr. Demento?”
“I’m trying to figure out how your father absorbed powers, and once I’ve compared your results with his, I’ll be one step closer to doing that,” he said proudly.
“You’re hoping I’m like him? That I can do it too?”
“I know you can do it, and your mother and father knew it too. That’s why she drank from him every time he ‘obtained’ a new power, so those powers would pass on to her unborn child. It was one of their many foolish attempts to protect you, but arming you with so much magic only made you that much more of a hot commodity,” he explained. “Now, give me your arm, because I am done with this conversation!”
I wanted to ask more questions, but since he was in no mood to answer them, my attention returned to more immediate concerns.
“I don’t suppose there’s anything in there that’ll knock me out?”
“My supplies are running low; you’d be surprised how much anesthesia it takes to bring down some of these creatures. You understand, don’t you dear?”
I forgot to be brave and not show any weakness as my eyes filled with tears and my body started to shake. I forgot that Matt’s life could be in jeopardy if I didn’t cooperate with them. I forgot about Snowflake. I forgot about the kind faerie and all the other creatures in here. I forgot about everything as I was consumed by terror.
“You are not sticking me with that needle. I won’t let you do this to me.” I told him calmly, but the slight quiver in my voice belied my words.
“Oh, really?” he asked darkly. “Whose head would you like delivered to your cell first, the boy or your little pony?”
“Are those my only options, because I was thinking yours,” I said as anger mingled with fear. “I promise you, if you hurt them—”
“You are in no position to be making idle threats, little girl!” he roared. Then he walked away, pressed a little red button on the wall, and spoke into an intercom.
A moment later, Matt was shoved into the room and strapped into that horrible chair. I stared in shock and fear as he struggled and cursed at them, but I did nothing; I just huddled on the cot with my knees drawn up to my chest and my arms wrapped around them.
A voice screamed in the back of my head to do something, but my mind and body would not cooperate with me. My breath was coming too fast, my heart was pounding, and my world was spinning again. I felt like I was locked inside myself, and no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find the key.
A flash of silver, a spray of red, and a cry of pain: this is what finally woke me up. I jumped up and ran to the bars to see what had happened. Both of Matt’s wrists had been slashed, and blood dripped and pooled on the floor around him.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” I chanted. “Please, please, heal him, and you can do whatever you want with me,” I begged.
A cold, cruel smile was my only answer, but he held up a small syringe full of dark red liquid—that I could only assume was my blood—and plunged it into Matt’s arm.
Just like magic, the wounds on his wrists closed and the bleeding stopped. I closed my eyes and sighed in relief.
“Give me your arm! Now!”
My eyes snapped open to see him standing right in front of me.
“Allie, no! Don’t do it!” Matt yelled.
“Get him out of here!” David screamed.
I watched as Matt was forcibly drug from the room, fighting and screaming the whole way, but when the door closed behind him, my attention was reclaimed by that needle; it was the only thing I could see. I didn’t want to be completely, helplessly at his mercy, because he had none, but what else could I do?
“Tick tock, Allison. You are running out of time! Give me your arm, or the next thing I slash will be his throat, and I won’t waste another vial of blood on him!”
“Why do you need my consent for something that you could easily achieve by force?” I asked tiredly.
“Because anything else would be uncivilized; everyone deserves a choice,” he answered smugly.
“The sad part is, that somewhere in your warped brain, you actually believe that!”
His face darkened with anger as he reached for my arm. I started to stick my arm through the bars, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward, slamming me against the cold metal. He stabbed the needle into my upper arm, and I stumbled back and sat down on the cot.
The drug took effect pretty quickly, and my limp body was carried from the cell, laid on the operating table, undressed, and covered with a sheet. The bright lights from overhead blinded me, and the coldness of the room wrapped around me, but I could not turn my head away from the brightness; I couldn’t even shiver from the cold. I couldn’t move or fight back at all; I couldn’t scream, but I could cry, I realized, as hot tears ran from my eyes. I wondered if this was how my mother and father had felt and if I would share the same fate as them.
“We’ll start with a skin sample,” he said holding up a shiny, cylindrical blade. “Then we will extract the cells from you liver and kidneys and so on. We’ll save the bone and bone marrow for last, but don’t worry too much about that, I’m sure you’ll lose consciousness long before then,” he said with a smile and patted my arm. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to terrify me or comfort me in his own sick, twisted way, but no matter how you looked at it, he was nuts!
I felt the first bite of the metal as it sliced into my arm, and I understood why he’d given me that drug, because if I’d been able to move, there is nothing that could’ve kept me on that table.
The blade tore through the flesh on my arm two more times, twice on my legs, and then he moved to my stomach. He said something to me then, but I couldn’t understand him; the noise in my head was too loud; there was nothing but pain, and the screaming in my mind wouldn’t allow me to focus on anything else.
He produced a long needle and continued talking to me, but the only word I could make out was liver, and then there was nothing but white, hot pain and blackness.
I floated in and out of consciousness on dark, burning waves of red. There was nothing but pain, and even in the dark it still found me. I wished my heart would just stop beating and release me from this hell, but like me, it was stubborn.
I awoke once to find myself face down and felt a burning pain in my lower back. Everything echoed and sounded far away, but I heard two words that filled me with terror—bone and marrow. A piercing, glowing, red-hot coal of fire was being shoved into my spine, and I was gone again. This merely muted the pain, but I was still grateful. Too soon, I crept back towards consciousness and the pain returned to a deafening roar.
I was lying on my back once again, drowning in agony, but one single sound sent my heart racing, and I prayed for death once again. I could hear a faint drilling sound, and I was certain that it was a bone saw. My hands clenched around the sheet that covered me, and my legs twitched. I caught my breath; I could move. My head slowly turned to the side, and I could see a bloody scalpel on the tray next to me.
With a shaking hand, I reached out and took it, concealing it underneath the sheet. I was no longer capable of rational
thought; I was a desperate, wounded animal who would do anything to escape.
I closed my eyes and waited until the sound drew closer, and when I opened them once again, he was standing above me. He lowered the drill toward me, and the buzzing of that little blade filled my head like a swarm of angry bees. It was about two inches away from me when I raised my arm and plunged the tiny scalpel into his chest.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Leverage
He stumbled backwards with a look of shock on his face as the saw fell to the floor, and I tried to summon the strength to get up off of this table, but it was no use. Every breath was agony and actually trying to move my body was excruciating, but I still had to try. Unfortunately, all I managed to do was roll off into the floor. I cried out on impact and my vision started to blur, but I gritted my teeth and clawed at the floor as I tried to crawl away.
I don’t know where I was planning on going when I couldn’t even walk, but I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet, I just wanted it to stop. I had barely moved an inch when two feet blocked my path. I looked up into David’s murderous eyes as he pulled the scalpel from his chest, and it clattered to the floor. Apparently, if he even had a heart, I’d missed it.
“Sheridan!” he bellowed. “Get in here!”
She came running in on her six-inch heels and quickly assessed the situation.
“Help me get her up,” he growled.
She lifted my arms and he grabbed my legs, and I immediately closed my eyes and allowed my body to go limp, hoping they would believe I’d passed out again—they did. They threw me back on the table like a sack of potatoes, and I struggled not to grimace or cry out in pain. I was still fighting to stay conscious; because there was no way I would let them give me another one of those shots. The moment they stepped away, I grabbed another syringe and went right back to playing opossum.
“What are you doing? I told you to watch her!” he growled.