He laughed at her then rammed the car into gear and led us into battle.
THE ROOM WAS FULL of smoke, the lights already popped in the room and shrouding me in darkness when I opened my eyes. I didn’t move; I couldn’t, the straps were still holding me down.
A small light above the door flashed with a red glow as sirens pierced the air around me. This wasn’t Heaven. Far from it. I was still in the depths of Hell.
I didn’t understand. I had died, I was sure of it. Yet, something inside me felt different. My mind felt lighter; free and untethered. It belonged to me now. The heavy drag that used to pull on the back of my head had gone, the slight haze to one part that I’d always tried to access had gone. Memories from my childhood and through the years at Judgement had been liberated and as much as I wanted to study them, I didn’t have time. The place was on fire and I needed to get out.
Closing my eyes, unsure whether I was relieved my veins still held energy, I snapped the restraints holding me and scrambled off the bed. I blinked, looking back at the sizzling straps, amazed at how easy it had been to break them.
I smiled, I couldn’t help it, even in such a dire situation. I had control and fuck, if it wasn’t time to use it.
The door to my room had been left open in Janice and Blaine’s eagerness to escape. By the looks of it, I’d not only blown the server, I’d rebounded all the power back into the building and caused the place to fry.
Subjects and Judgement employees raced along the corridor in their need to escape, causing them to fall over each other, leaving children and women laid on the floor as people trampled over them.
After helping them up and directing them out, I scanned the corridor. Smoke billowed from one end, so choosing the other, I made my way along, checking each room to make sure they were empty.
Pulling my shirt over my mouth, I made my way to the exit, my eyes constantly checking for people but I sighed in relief when I entered the front foyer and the place was deserted. If I had caused any more deaths, I wasn’t sure I could live with it.
As I moved across the lobby one of the side doors opened. I knew it was Blaine without having to look. I sensed the evil in the air.
I spun around. It was eerie; the smoke-filled area made him almost shimmer in front of me. His eyes widened as if shocked to see me then his lips twisted into a cruel grin, the vice in it making my heart stutter. He was radiating so much malevolence that it seemed to thicken the smoke before me, his repulsiveness blending in with the choking atmosphere.
“Well, well. Aren’t you a surprise?”
I turned, making for the exit quickly but he was on me in seconds, my body hitting the floor with a painful blow, his huge frame falling onto mine.
“Oh there’s no rush, Princess. The fire’s in the main building. Let’s chat for a while.”
“Let me go, Blaine,” I hissed as I struggled beneath him.
He tutted in my ear. “Your mother was somewhat . . . disappointed in you.” He laughed. I winced when he grabbed a handful of my hair and snapped my neck back. “Me? Well I’m quite shocked you were that clever.”
Grabbing my throat with his other hand, his fingers tightened, pressing on my Adam’s apple.
“Unfortunately for her, her failures had to be dealt with.”
I stilled, my eyes snapping to his. He smirked and then shrugged coldly. “Such a shame. She really was quite something, always willing to go that extra mile to get the results we needed. Even with her own daughter.”
I managed to speak when he lightened his grip on my neck. “How could you do that? She . . . you were more important to her than I was. What kind of monster are you?”
He laughed. “Aww, Princess.” He shook his head sadly, his bottom lip pouting dramatically. “Have you learnt nothing about Judgement during all these years? Every single person was only in it for their own selfish reasons. Your mother would have done the same to me given the opportunity. We were all promised different things, and faced with such wealth or the promise of biological enhancements, then hell, even you would have done the same.”
“No, I and most of the others still have values. You might be surprised at how moral some people are, even after witnessing so much selfishness and hatred!”
His eyes widened in amusement then he barked out a laugh. “You really are quite stupid. You’d be surprised what some of us are capable of.” He leaned into my ear causing my stomach to revolt at his scent. “Even toying with people’s memories, and blocking them. You should ask your precious boyfriend about that, Princess!”
I froze beneath him. “What?”
He shrugged again, his hand slipping around my throat. “Enough talking, let’s get down to business.”
I noticed the heels of someone’s boots walking towards me. From the angle Blaine held me I couldn’t look up but I didn’t need to to know it was Heather.
“Well, this looks fun,” she mocked when Blaine slipped his hand over my mouth and nose, restricting my input of air.
I tossed beneath him, trying to flip him off me but he was too strong. Everything seemed to still around me, especially my heart rate when he flipped me over easily so I was looking up at him, his large bulk straddled mine. He tore at my shirt, ripping it off.
I shook my head, begging him. I couldn’t do this again. Heather laughed, thoroughly enjoying the show as Blaine started to pull down my sweatpants.
“Please,” I managed to voice around his hand.
“Don’t sweat it, Princess. Just a little something to remember you by.”
He smirked and my energy prepared to fight him, my body vibrating beneath him as my emotions went haywire and started to feed my power. I whimpered when Heather built a shield around me with her own energy, completely locking me down and allowing Blaine to carry on tearing off my clothes.
He leered at me as he unzipped himself. “You’ve heard of the term ‘fucked to death’ I presume?”
My throat closed down in horror as I stared up at him. I wouldn’t allow him to do this. The times before would forever haunt me, but this time it all seemed so much worse because for the first time I had hope and a chance of a real life. My life was now my own, yet I knew Blaine’s cruel greed would destroy it again. He would send my mind into Hell before he sent my soul to follow.
All I could focus on was Heather’s spiteful laugh and Blaine’s leer as he shoved his knee between my thighs and parted my legs.
I shook my head, denying him as my heart rate calmed and my blood started to morph into the fuel that fed the ravenous darkness inside me, but this time I consented to it, welcomed it. I needed to use what had always poisoned me and allow it to cleanse me. It needed to accept it was part of me now, of who I was. It would never abandon me; it was me, and I was it.
My eyes locked on him as I seemed to shift away from myself. I felt the shift in the air around me, nature almost speaking to me as the oxygen around us started to hum. My eyes rolled back in my head and my body went completely lax beneath him.
I called it, the energy in the atmosphere. Reaching out with my mind, I seized the small sparks that ignited the sky and fed it with everything inside me, giving it food, seducing it and encouraging it, nurturing it as though it was my child.
Bright flashes blinked through the windows as I manipulated the air and brought forth my own personal storm.
I heard both Heather and Blaine’s gasps when every single window shattered around us, the explosion of glass making my lips turn into an evil grin as my minions fought to get to me. My body became a master to the elements as the air did my bidding and each strike of lightning became my servant, their need to destroy that which was hurting their guardian a craving that needed to be sated.
Blaine tried to scramble off me but he flew through the air when a bolt of lightning hit him, throwing him against the wall. Heather screamed as my body bowed in ecstasy and I called on it more and more, surging her body into the broken glass by the windows, each shard embedding into her flesh as she screamed in ago
ny.
“Don’t do it, Elina.”
I growled like a caged animal when Reid slipped inside and flooded my mind with warmth, the bliss he dripped into me calming my raging need for damage and carnage.
“Go—away!”
“No. This isn’t you, Elina. You do this and you will never come back from it. You’re not a killer, no matter what your body needs right now.”
I felt his comfort becoming stronger. He was near.
“He killed my mother. He tried to rape me, Reid!”
“I know and I’m nearly there. Just wait for me. He’s mine, baby. Let me take the responsibility for this. You don’t deserve to have this on your conscience.”
I jumped to my feet when Blaine raced across the room, the hate in his eyes telling me time was up. It was me or him, and after everything, I was determined it wouldn’t be me.
I laughed when his feet skidded to a halt as my arms rose by my sides. The air around me sparked and ignited. I could practically feel the energy stand still, waiting for my signal, its own need for destruction as consuming as mine.
“You belong in Hell,” I whispered as I locked him in my stare.
I gasped when his body flew backwards, a stream of lightning hitting him in the chest and sending him back the way he came. Another force hit him, and another. The air around me shifted again, making it clearer and thinner as one by one Reid, Petra, Ruben, Logan and Jonah came to stand beside me. Reid was furious, the air around him shimmering with a deep red hue as he pushed Blaine farther back.
His electricity disappeared when he came to stand over Blaine’s jerking body, the current riding him giving his body seizures.
When Heather screamed I turned to see Petra lifting her off the floor with her own talent. “You’ve never been my sister, Heather. And now, you never will be.” With a simple cry, Petra forced so much energy into Heather that she shattered before us, her body overrun with a blast of electricity that would have taken down a dinosaur.
Logan ran over to her when she dropped to her knees before her dead sister and wept. However, my attention was snatched back to Blaine and Reid when Blaine started laughing. “She has no idea, does she?”
I watched as Reid’s shoulders stiffened. “And she never will,” he whispered viciously, but I heard him.
Blaine snapped his eyes to me, opened his mouth, and just as he was about to say something Reid smashed his foot into Blaine’s face, the heel of his boot connecting over and over until Blaine no longer had a mouth to voice any secrets.
I watched, gobsmacked, when Reid annihilated him. He not only tore Blaine’s body to pieces, he obliterated him. His rage was so shocking that I took a step back when he turned to me.
“He will never touch you again.”
Jayson, sensing my shock and horror, scooped me into his arms just before my body hit the ground.
Reid blinked at me, looked back at Blaine’s remains, and then back at me with a mix of horror and guilt.
“I . . .” He shook his head, at himself or me I wasn’t sure, but he moved towards me.
“Don’t.” I shook my head. His feet stuttered on the floor, bits of Blaine’s brain flicking to the side and making the lining of my stomach tear up my throat.
“He deserved it!” Reid defended.
I nodded. “Yes. But he also deserved to tell me what I needed to hear first. His secrets . . . your secrets deserved to be aired first.”
I didn’t miss the way every muscle in his body tightened and his eye twitched when a nervous tic ravaged the lie covering his features. He stared at me, begging me but I turned away and buried my face in Jayson’s chest. “Get me out.”
He nodded, giving Reid an apologetic look before he walked away, leaving Reid staring after me with so much agony it was painful to look at him. Yet another part of me wanted to take his ache and soothe it. I wanted there to be an us now Judgement was massacred. The freedom of that was too much to think about. The feeling it brought was overwhelming and my mind was only just hanging on by a thread. It was too dangerous for me to think about. So when Jayson found us a hotel, I climbed into one of the twin beds, completely refusing to interact with him no matter how much he tried, and I slept. For the first time, my mind unlocked memories that had been veiled in a part of my mind that had had restricted access. And now, now the program that ruled my brain had been destroyed, the door unlocked and those memories came back to me. One devastating memory after another.
“ELINA,” MUMMY SAID IN her soft voice as her hand rested on my shoulder and she smiled down at me. “I would like you to meet someone very special to me.”
My eyes grew huge. Mummy had never called anyone special before. She had friends over, always men, but she had never called any of them special.
I shifted nervously into Mummy’s side when a tall man with jet black hair walked in. He smiled down at me, his grey eyes mesmerising me as they glinted in the light. He crouched down, his face level with mine, and held out a hand.
“Hello, Elina. My name is Iain. I’m very happy to finally meet you. Your mother has told me lots of lovely things about you.”
“Has she?” I looked up at Mummy and smiled. She never said nice things to me and I was happy she said them to others. It gave my tummy a warm squiggle and I smiled at Iain.
“She has.” He nodded. “And she tells me you’re a very, very special little girl.”
Reaching behind him to the table, he picked up a box I hadn’t seen. It was covered in bright yellow paper with huge pink stars. It was really pretty. “This is for you.” He held it out to me and after looking up at Mummy and getting her agreement, I took it from him.
Pulling off the paper, I gasped when the prettiest dolly ever lay in the box on a pink pillow. She wore a pretty yellow dress that had blue flowers stitched into it. Her hair was like mine, long and yellow, and her lips were as puffy as mine and as pink as my own.
“She reminded me of you,” Iain said as he watched me take her from the box and draw her to my chest.
“She does look like me,” I replied quietly, my cheeks heating. I felt silly, taking a dolly from a man I had never met and instantly loving her.
“What do you think we should call her?” Mummy asked.
“I’d like to call her Charlie.”
My mummy lifted her eyebrow but smiled and nodded. “What do you say to Mr McCallum, Elina?”
I looked at Iain, squinting at his name but I was always told to be polite. “Thank you, Mr McCallum. This is very kind of you.”
He smiled. “That’s okay, Elina. I’m sure you can do me a huge favour to say thank you.”
I nodded eagerly. It was good to be able to do nice things for others. “I would like that.”
I flinched when his big hand came to rest on one of my cheeks. “Good girl.” I shivered when his eyes seemed to darken and his smile turned a little scary. “Good girl.”
Mr McCallum was cruel today. I couldn’t hold my sobs back when he played with my mind, sending images in that horrified me; mutilated bodies, women raped and tortured, animals ripping each other apart, men forcing torture devices into women who were on the brink of death.
I screamed, my teeth rattling when my body started to convulse, a raging fire ripping through my veins as my sobs heightened with yet more images. I vomited as one particular horrifying scene burst behind my eyes, filling me with visions of a man towering over a little girl and twisting a knife so far in her that I could see her heart throbbing inside her chest when he tore her open.
The lights in the room blinked as my head started to shake, my psyche trying to push out the images that tortured me. I drew my legs up as far as they would go in their restraints as a torturous pain coursed through me.
“I’m getting readings, Iain,” my mother rushed out excitedly. “But she’s going into shock. We’re going to lose connection.”
I winced when a sharp scratch pierced my upper arm and ice flowed through my veins, sending my blood rushing into my organs in
attempt to keep warm. I couldn’t seem to breathe when the chill solidified the air in my lungs.
Darkness gave me a reprieve when my own mind took me to a greater place.
I pushed at the creamed potatoes in my tray with my fork, the sight of them curling my gut. My head was still smarting after mother had lost her temper with me this morning and beat me when her testing had once again proved futile. I instinctively rubbed my head where she’d ripped a clump of my hair out.
“Hey.”
I looked up, squinting when the light behind him blinded my already sore eyes. Dropping my gaze to read his security tag, I ignored him and let my eyes fall back to my plate. The guards in this place all wanted the same thing—to find the space between your thighs, and although this one was new, I knew he’d be exactly the same. Janice only hired the lowest of the low, her need to keep us in line with fear worked every time.
I tensed when he slid onto the bench beside me. “Are you okay? You look like you need to see a medic.”
I frowned, looking at him again. He was young; maybe five or so years older than me. He was good-looking, I’ll admit, his masculine features were pleasing to the eye, the soft gaze in his eyes soothing. His cheeks were covered in stubble and his hair was a messy nest on top of his head. His lips were the palest of pinks, the bottom one slightly thinner than the top. He was simply stunning, but it was the fact that he was a Judgement employee that stole away his beauty and gave him the appeal of a monster.
“Leave me alone.”
He blinked, appearing shocked by my hostility. He’d learn. “I’m sorry.” He spoke well but quietly, the tone of his voice a little gruff and doing something to the lower half of my belly. “You just looked like you needed a friend.”
He pushed upright his large hands palming the table to give him leverage.
“I have friends,” I hissed. “You’re not one of them.”
I stilled when he started to laugh and I turned to look at him. “You’re really quite brutal aren’t you, little girl?”
Judgement 8 (Subject Alpha #1) Page 19