“You can twist my words all you want, Reid, but it doesn’t alter the fact that you are an arsehole! How long were you planning on giving me?”
He blinked at me, all the humour disappearing and the usual stern expression returning. “As I pointed out earlier about your obvious skill . . .”
“Will you stop!” His eyes widened as my tears surfaced and I fought desperately to blink them back. “Just give me a straight answer.” I fisted my hands, annoyed with my weakness. “Please.”
“I have no idea . . .”
“Janice!” I spat out. “I heard you with Ruben. How long until you planned to give me back?”
He opened his mouth to say something but snapped it closed again. Anger contorted his face but I was used to it now and it didn’t have the same effect on me when I was as angry as him. “So that’s why you ran. You really shouldn’t eavesdrop, little girl. I should spank your arse fucking red for that!”
I shook my head in amazement, my jaw slack at his blatant taunting. “Stop with the games. What does she have of yours that has you willing to send me back to Hell?”
More tears pooled in my eyes when he grabbed my throat and pushed me back, my spine cracking on the wall as fury poured from him. He seemed to treble in size, his already huge mass towering above me. “You need to realise you are nothing to me. Nothing. If I was going to, and by the way I AM NOT, use you as payment for something else, then there is fuck all you can do about it.”
I stared up at him, hurt and humiliation choking me. I blinked back the tears and nodded when his furious eyes battled with mine. “I understand.”
“Reid!” Jonah hissed as his hands covered Reid’s that were still embedded into my throat. “What the fuck are you doing? Let her go!”
Reid blinked then stepped back, his eyes wide. “Shit!”
They both stood staring at me, Jonah with concern and Reid with . . . well I had no clue as to his dark expression. My whole body ached. It was then I realised this was it for me. This shit was my life. No one cared about me, everyone was willing to use me in an effort to enhance their own lives and as lonely as it was, it was to become even lonelier without Judgement, as much as I despised them all.
I swallowed, clearing my throat, and bit back the hurt as I looked at Reid. “You can tell Janice I’m all hers. Whatever she has, she gives it back and I will go willingly.”
I flicked my gaze to Jonah, giving him a grateful smile. He sighed and shook his head. “It’s not you she’s after, sugar. And as much as Reid appreciates . . .” he gave Reid a stiff glare, “ . . . your offer, Janice doesn’t have a clue you’re here.”
I stared at him in confusion. “You haven’t told her?”
“No.” He smiled at me, his eyes full of warmth. “Reid isn’t a complete prick!”
I nodded, still hurt by Reid’s words, and refusing to give him any attention I voiced my query to Jonah. “Then what do you have that she wants?”
Jonah gulped, his eyes flicking to Reid.
“Don’t!” Reid warned but Jonah shook his head.
“She needs to know!”
“No, Jo, she doesn’t. It has nothing to do with her,” Reid bit back with a cautionary tone.
Jonah stared with incredulity at him. “Are you kidding me? This has everything, everything to do with her!”
“What does?” I switched my eyes from Jonah to Reid, getting dizzy in the process.
“She doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to the plan, Jonah. And involving her puts her at risk. As much as I don’t want that, I definitely know you don’t!”
“What the . . .” I began and sighed, shaking my head when I was ignored again.
“What the hell did we start out to do, Reid? It seems to me that you need reminding ‘cos you seem hell bent on destroying everything. I know,” Jonah scrunched up his face as if in pain, “I know how delicate this is, but if we have any chance of getting her back then we need Elina.”
“You need me for what?”
“But we have to think long term, Jo. Once Janice has it, then it’s game over.”
“FOR GOD’S SAKE!” I screamed, exasperated at their arguing. “What the fuck do you have?”
Jonah turned to me. Reid growled and took a step towards Jonah, warning him.
“A cure!” Jonah spat out. “A cure for all of you.”
The only sound as my legs gave way and my body hit the floor was the wheeze in my lungs again.
I STARED FROM ONE to the other as I allowed my mind to absorb Jonah’s revelation. My gaze finally settled on Reid.
“What?” I asked quietly, afraid that if I spoke too loud Jonah would retract what he said and take away all the hope daring to build inside me. “What? There’s a cure . . . a way out?”
“No!” Reid barked out as Jonah nodded. He narrowed his eyes at Jonah and huffed. “See, now you’ve given her false expectation. You have no idea what this . . . life is like, Jo!” He turned his furious stare back to me. “You need to forget what Jonah told you. There isn’t a cure and there never will be.”
“You’re lying,” I whispered, the ache inside coming back and making my chest hurt. “You’re lying. Jonah told me, he just said . . .”
He grabbed my arms, pinning me down with his grip and his glare. “There—is—no—cure, Elina. Get used to being a freak!”
I flinched and flicked a glance at Jonah, ignoring Reid’s tight hold and cruelty.
“Jonah?” He lowered his eyes, his loyalty to Reid bringing on his silence. Realisation brought my top teeth into my lip. I winced at the pain when they sank deep into the flesh, my lip popping and splitting under the harsh pressure. “You think I’ll report back to Judgement.” I swallowed back the hurt and shook my head sadly.
Reid scowled at me, his fingers still digging into the tops of my arms. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like?”
My mouth dropped open. “What? I . . .”
“What it took for me to actually get out of there?” he persisted, cutting me off. “What I had to do while I was in there?” He shook me, making Jonah step forward, warning his friend. “Do you have any clue as to what they did to us all?”
“Reid . . .”
He scoffed. “Oh, don’t tell me you know, Elina. You’re Janice’s princess, the queen’s fucking progeny. There’s no way any mother would do to their child what she did to the rest of us.”
He blurred in my vision as tears climbed from inside me, the agony of them clamping my throat closed. But he continued with his tirade.
“They wired us up!” he hissed vehemently, spit spraying my face. “They tortured us until every single hair on our bodies was fried, our brains humming with the static racing through our bodies. They made us watch our friends take volt after volt until they couldn’t stand up!” He leaned further into me, his face an inch from mine. “And when we didn’t comply, they beat us until even our broken bones broke.” His eyes raked my body as his lip tilted with disgust. “Look at you, you’ve never been beaten in your life! You have no idea!”
My heart rate peaked, my breathing shallow as he persecuted me for my mother’s sins.
“Your mother didn’t break you, she birthed you. But the rest of us paid for your luxuries. We took the torture for you, little girl, while you sulked and demanded a rest until your twenty-first birthday! So don’t you dare assume I have to share anything with you.”
He made the mistake of resting his forehead on mine. He whipped backwards so hard, his body punched through an adjoining wall, the cheap plasterboard proving no barrier against the storm of my rage. Dust and debris poured into the room as my skin crackled with anger.
I took a few steps until I stood above his shocked body, his eyes as wide as his mouth. “While I sulked and demanded a rest? How fucking dare you! You have no idea. You think you had it hard, Reid?”
“Elina,” Jonah spoke softly when he saw my skin crackle and my hair lift around my head like a halo.
“Move, Jonah, befor
e I hurt you by accident.” I was aware that for the first time, I had control. I’d never felt like this before, empowered, hungry to deliver pain and justice. I wanted Reid to hurt just as much as his words had hurt me. I flicked my fingers when they twitched, a flash of electricity spitting from them and a jolt of pleasure firing up my arms.
“Do you have any idea how many times my heart has stopped? How many times I cried at the pain only for the tears to scald my eyes and forge my eyelids shut? How many times I have screamed in pain when my mother not only plugged me into the nearest outlet but even took me to electric fences and wired my fingers to it, my skin melting into the metal while I was subjected to a current that could fry the biggest animal?” The tears fell, burning and cooking the flesh of my cheeks as my fury morphed into energy. “But you know the worst thing? It was not being dead after every single one. It was waking up every time knowing I was only breathing so my own mother could create a puppet. You say you lost friends, and I believe you, but don’t ever think I never lost as well. I’ve lost friends . . . people I have loved so dearly that I offered up my own life for them, Reid.” I screwed my eyes closed as Lettie’s pleading wet eyes filled my head and my heart.
He clambered up, his hands reaching towards me. “Elina.”
“Don’t,” I whispered. The power feeding my system was delivering so much pain to my body I was frozen to the spot, the matrix of my blood system not accommodating blood but concrete energy. My heart rate tripled, forcing the thick substance to feed my strength as my brain sharpened and my lungs cleared.
I let my head fall back as a scream tore from me. I fought with everything inside me to release it before I killed him. The battle inside was intolerable as I refused its need to create anarchy. What the fuck was happening to me?
The hairs in my ears vibrated as my nostrils picked up a chemical aroma. My head snapped to the side, my eyes narrowing on the window.
Reid followed the direction of my attention, his brow furrowing.
“Move,” I breathed as I took a step back. Reid and Jonah continued to stare both at me and the window. “Move back,” I repeated slowly.
“Elina?” Jonah whispered.
I narrowed my eyes, concentrating on the hum in my ears, the robotic buzz sounding like a swarm of wasps conversing. The sound intensified until it became a constant drone. “They’re here.”
“Fuck!” Reid hissed as he made a grab for my hand, pulling me back despite the shock he got when he touched me.
“Go!”
“What the fuck?” He pulled at me again but I spun around and pushed him, taking him to ground as the window shattered and a pain shot through my shoulder, the bullet skimming my skin and leaving a deep graze. My teeth clenched with the sting but I scrambled up, pulling Reid with me.
“Get out!” I shouted as the front door crashed open. “GO!”
“Come on!” Reid growled as he yanked at me.
Shaking my head, I pulled my hand back. “Please, just go!”
“No, Elina,” both he and Jonah argued.
“You have to go. They’ve come for me, so let them have me. Go! I promise I’ll be right behind.”
“Not—a—chance, little girl!”
“Fuck.” I growled when the door gave way and the space around us filled with Judgement soldiers, closely followed by Ruben.
He stepped in front of his army of eight as I stepped in front of Reid and Jonah.
Ruben’s eyes scanned me slowly, the depraved smirk he tried to pass off as a smile contorting his ugly face. “Well, well.” He sniggered. “You’re out past your curfew, Princess.”
“Go back and tell Janice you didn’t find me, Ruben. I won’t warn you again.”
He laughed, his head falling back as his body shook with hilarity. “You’re warning me?” His smug expression made me shiver as memories assaulted me and twisted my stomach. “Now, now. Let’s not get hasty.”
I lowered my eyes to watch him pull out a T4, a weapon created to bring wayward subjects into line. It was loaded with enough electricity to take down an entire football field, and that coupled with what we already had in our system usually succeeded in shutting us down—painfully.
He twirled it in his fingers. Reid stepped around me, his own body humming in rage. “I suggest you go home and play with the smaller boys, Ruben, the ones you always had a thing for.”
Ruben laughed cruelly then pursed his lips, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Oh I don’t play with boys, Reid. Only the whore in the room. She needs to come back to Judgement, me and the others are missing her sweet little ways.”
I stiffened, nausea rising along with anger. Reid made a move towards Ruben, a loud growl spilling from him as his skin crackled suddenly. What the hell? I had wondered if he had any energy in him. I’d never witnessed even the smallest of sparks from him but now he was vibrating with energy.
He stopped short when Ruben directed the T4 his way, warning him to back off. “Don’t think I won’t fry you, McCallum. You know me better than that.” He sighed as if bored then turned back to me. “Now, are you ready? Your mother is waiting for you.”
Reid stepped forward at the same time as Jonah. Each guard slipped out their own T4’s, their fingers wrapped tightly around the only thing they knew could take us down.
Ruben threatened Reid again. I hid my smile and looked to the floor, appearing terrified as I closed my eyes. Allowing the warmth to flow, I hunted for him. Feeling me, he didn’t put up a guard, letting me in immediately and greeting me with as much warmth as I spread through him, relaxing us both.
“Get Jonah and get out.”
“You have no chance.”
“Please, trust me. I have a plan but I can’t do it with Jonah in here!”
“Elina . . .”
“Reid! I promise, you have to trust me!”
He flared a red shot through my mind, showing me his anger, then slipped out, his huff loud in the suddenly silent room as Ruben waited for him to back off.
He inhaled deeply and held up his hands. “Fine! She’s all yours. She’s nothing but trouble anyway.”
I watched as Reid moved towards Jonah and Ruben grinned arrogantly. “You always made such loyal friends, El.” I bit my lip, allowing his words to anger me instead of hurt. “But I always sorted them out for you. I was always so good to you. Loyalty is everything in this life, Princess.”
I glared at him, cursing when his words brought memories and tears. “But there’s no one left to hurt me with, Ruben. So this time you have no choice but to take me.”
“Oh, I’ll take you alright.” He chuckled. “Just how I know you like it!”
And that was the vision I needed, the pictures of him and his friends’ cruelty breaking the barrier inside me as I, for the first time, allowed the hatred to surface. My soul seemed to fracture into millions of pieces as the power inside me surged towards my prey. My eyes snapped from Ruben to the soldier beside him, then to the next and the next, linking their T4’s with the stream of lightning bursting from me.
I moaned with the pleasure that rode me, my body trembling with bliss as each of their screams filled me with rapture, their agony feeding my delight. The feeling was euphoric and energising as my power stopped their hearts, my wrath taking from them what they had taken from me so many times.
I was beyond the realms of sanity now, my system invigorated and relishing in the pleasure of death and destruction as I gave myself over to it and permitted what I had so often denied.
I blinked when my mind tingled. Shaking my head, I refused him access but my concentration was taken by the devastation I was generating, my mind not alert enough to deny him.
“Elina!” His voice soothed me, the pleasure he seeped into me making me shiver. A huge sigh echoed from me as he poured more and more ecstasy into my nervous system. “Let them go, baby. You saved Jonah. You saved me. You did so well, Elina. I’m so proud of you. But you need to stop now, you’re endangering your own life.” I shivered when he so
aked my brain in warmth. “Let them go. Good girl.”
I gasped when everything snapped back into place, my body jerking as small jolts still fired randomly.
“Good girl,” Reid said softly from behind me. I didn’t turn to him though, my eyes were fixed on the nine dead men. The nine dead men I had killed.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, horrified at the evidence of my lack of control. “I only meant to stop them,” I choked out. “I . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
Reid caught me before my body hit the floor, my legs giving way when the realisation of what I had done hit me. “Oh God, Reid. Oh God!”
“Sshhh, Sshhh,” he muttered as he scooped me up into his arms. “It’s okay, Elina. I know, I know you didn’t mean to hurt them. It’s okay.”
I fought with the need to sleep as tears tore from me. Exhaustion won and took me from my devastation, providing me with the bliss of nothingness.
6 months earlier
I PALMED THE WALL when a split second aftershock tore through my skull, my brain still jolting and firing shots of agony around my system. I swore I could actually smell it cooking; the organ some liked to call a delicacy fried to mouth-watering perfection.
Blowing out a fortifying breath, I pushed off the wall and struggled down the corridor to my room. It was late afternoon and quiet, the rest of the lab rats were in the dining area but tonight, like any other night Janice had me for the day, I couldn’t stomach even a sip of water.
Nausea threatened sickness before I reached my room and I bent forward, grasping my knees as I fought against its need for release. Oh God, not here, Brenda would make me lick the floor clean. She was a mean bitch; the supervisor for the dorms, and nothing gave her greater delight than when she could rain her unique punishment on me, The Princess, as they liked to call me. Everyone in the building hated me, blamed me, and to a certain extent, they were right. However, their spite had no limits and many times they’d hurt me more than my mother ever could. They all presumed I got off easy because I was Janice’s daughter. If only they knew the truth.
Judgement 8 (Subject Alpha #1) Page 6