by Jade White
“Dammit, what the hell happened!” he shouted as his panicked team rushed to contain what blood Alexia had lost. He saw bits of broken glass on the floor, and he began to wonder how A129 had been able to smuggle glass in, when objects like those were banned from test subjects in the first place. He saw a large shard of the drinking glass that had been bloodied from her foolhardy attempt.
“We were going for her routine-” he stopped, seeing Alexia’s pupils constrict as he held a penlight against her eyes. A stretcher was brought in as four other staff covered the slit on her throat. They could all hear the sound of gurgling coming from her throat.
Dr. Wallace knew they were going to lose her unless they got her to the emergency room, stat. Someone had been smart enough to inject her with a dose of epinephrine to keep her heart pumping. Her head lolled around lifelessly as the stretcher ran down the hallway and into an operating theater. Dr. Wallace stood back, watching his team work in a frenzy to save the multi-million-dollar test subject.
Sigurd Wallace was gritting his teeth as he willed for A129 to live. He hadn’t seen this coming. He had thought she was in a fugue state, not caring what happened to her as long as she was given books and a small view of where she was. Was that not comfort enough? Were the sedatives not enough? Something had triggered this actuation of self-harm, and he wanted to find out soon enough – as long as she was alive.
He saw her vitals dropping at an alarming pace, and the transfusions weren’t doing their job as fast as everyone would have wanted to. “Get the steroids,” he instructed them. “And someone patch up her neck.”
His word was law, and he saw the doctors under his team work faster than ever, aided by nurses. The team had blood all over their smocks—such a waste of blood when it could have been useful for another batch of the hit-or-miss steroids.
Dr. Bartholomew was helming the machine that held a laser pointer to cauterize the wound. He willed for Alexia to survive. His teeth were gritting. “Come on, don’t die,” he muttered to himself underneath the surgical mask. The whys would have to be asked later; for now, she had to survive what she had done to herself.
Dr. Wallace’s jaw slowly unclenched when he saw that her vitals were no longer at peril. She would pull through, and he told himself he would teach her a lesson soon.
*
She was placed under intensive care as Caliban stood outside the one-way glass, looking at her medically induced sleep. Her face seemed restless, as if she was going through a nightmare, and he couldn’t help but want to wake her up.
The moment he had heard about what had happened to her, he had quickly asked for an early dismissal, and it had been approved, much to his relief. It had taken three hours to see her, following standard military and laboratory protocol, yet he couldn’t even be as close to her bedside as he wanted to be.
Caliban wanted to comfort her; he wanted to reassure her, even if she was asleep. For a split second, he wanted to take her out of the lab, just as Ryker had done before. Maybe that idiot had been onto something when he had forcibly dragged her with him… He closed his eyes, remembering his immediate superior’s words.
Lt. Caledon knew that Caliban had been enamored with Alexia, even if he hadn’t said it aloud. It was probably in his file, all that attachment to her as a child. Why did you do it, Alexia? he wondered over and over again. Had they tortured her to the point of her suicide attempt? It had been a foolhardy effort, he knew. They would never allow her to die, but she had been close to death, so close that it had taken near superhuman effort to keep her alive.
As there were no closed-circuit cameras inside her room, she had been afforded the luxury of that attempt. How she had managed to smuggle in the glass, no one knew. Dr. Wallace wouldn’t tell him anything, of course. He was only a mere soldier, doing his superior’s bidding and that of the president’s. Maybe Alexia had thought there was no more escape. Maybe she’d remembered what had happened to her. How could that be? Dr. Wallace had made sure she would forget everything…
This was still all Ryker’s doing; it was all X014’s fault in the end. He had taken her out and put her system into shock. He had managed to corrupt what innocence she had. Caliban had sworn to protect Alexia, to marry her, and yet that dream had failed to materialize. Were they going to be prisoners of fate forever? Were they not destined to be together? They had gone through so much as children; it was only right that they end up happy.
He could hear the machines hiss and beep, keeping up with her battered body. He saw the rise and fall of her chest, saw the blood seeping through the thick bandage around her neck. She had slit her throat well enough to damage many nerves, Dr. Bartholomew had shared with him right before Dr. Wallace arrived. At least that doctor had had the decency to tell him how she was. The glass had nearly punctured her vocal chords, and she had successfully hit a major artery. She could have bled to death in that room, were it not for the doctor’s quick thinking.
Alexia’s neck hadn’t healed as quickly as they had all thought it would, with all of the modern technology available. He had overheard that Alexia had been injected with the steroids made from her blood. Was that why blood was still seeping out of it, despite it being cauterized? He felt at one with Alexia every time he was given a dose of the steroids, even though he knew it had a lot of complications. He began to wonder if Alexia was just a walking biological weapon and that they were just going to kill her in the end, even if they had been desperate to retrieve her.
He shuddered to think that Alexia had that much power over his senses, over his shifting. Would she be able to control it if ever they ended up together? He had a duty as a soldier to protect the President and the country’s law-abiding citizens, and he couldn’t very well turn his back on them when Caledon had been kind enough to give him a proper upbringing and income. He knew he needed his current status so that he could support Alexia, if ever he had the chance to marry her.
Caliban felt consumed by Alexia, and he wondered if he was the only one feeling that way. The manifestation of affection for her could be brought about by her blood… he shooed the thought away. What he felt for her was real; what he felt for her was eternal.
*
What had made her think it was necessary to kill herself? Wallace thought. He was about to face an inquiry, in the presence of General Caledon and the rest of the board. A recent $30 million-dollar experiment had nearly died by her own hands. Sure, the weresoldiers committed suicide sometimes; sure, the children died if they couldn’t take the tests any longer, but Alexia had willfully done that act to escape.
Had she awakened from her drug-induced amnesia? He had made sure to give her a potent dose, a formula he had successfully improved from Dr. Barrett’s concoction. The president’s two sons had shown no sign of recollection from the past events. He had been younger, eager to prove himself as a great scientist, perhaps the greatest in the country or the world.
Was he failing now? After forty years of service to the Caledon government? He wouldn’t allow that to happen. He had worked too hard for this, and he enjoyed the benefits too much. He hadn’t always enjoyed seeing others in pain. It had started late, around high school, but it was something he knew would last until his dying breath.
There was power here, and he could wield it against Caledon if he wanted to. Only, he wasn’t interested in politics. He was interested in werebeings. It consumed him that he could have control over them, that he could cut them open and experiment freely, to his heart’s content. Having met Alexia years ago had opened doors for his tests and for his medical leverage. She had been the first human to actually possess that type of ability, and despite a stagnancy of a few years, her body was back on track to deliver results imperative to his experimentations.
He had hoped Alexia would survive long enough for a reversal of her sterility. Werebeings couldn’t be cloned, but humans gave birth to them. Perhaps Alexia could be the start to that. Her suicide attempt would only be a setback. As soon as she was well enou
gh, in vitro was the next course of action for her. It was his payback. She was still young; she could birth a litter for all he cared. He had toyed with the idea of using Caliban as the sire, but the young soldier had psychological concerns that might not transmit well with the first werebeing children of its kind.
Ryker would have been perfect, an alpha werebeing. Only, he was dead, and if he wasn’t, he would be severely handicapped by now. The Alaskan winters had been harsher than ever after the secondcivil war, and what military soldiers were there had been ordered to kill him on sight. He didn’t want to settle for probable donors for the first scientifically induced werebeing birth. That someone had to be like Ryker. That was the whole purpose of the WereGames, after all – to weed out potential super soldiers.
He had only allowed Caliban to be saved because he had been an expensive test subject from the start, and he hadn’t expected a neophyte to win the games. Caledon had certainly been surprised as well, taking an interest in the werebear.
Sigurd wondered if he could produce a werebear via Alexia’s womb. Only then could he feel the worth of all of those years of toil.
The moment she felt that unmistakable physical pain, Alexia knew she had failed what she had set out to do. She didn’t want to open her eyes. Perhaps there would be some miracle, and she would be struck dead the moment she opened them.
She felt the rawness on her throat; she had cut it deep enough, but they had been quick to save her. She should have barricaded the door; she could have jammed the sensors. Alexia had timed their visits. She had known the doctors’ and nurses’ routines, but that one day when she had chosen to kill herself, there had been a surprise visit.
Alexia couldn’t move. Every muscle in her body ached, and the pain went all the way down to her bones. What did they force into her this time? They made her take so much; it made her feel unstable, like she was in some terrible dream. That attempt was for her to wake up into a better reality. She breathed in through her mouth and found that stabbing pain rise up with her breath. Her palms clenched loosely in an expression of agony; it was the best she could do.
She felt groggy, but she forced her brain to think. How many days had it been? How many days until her next attempt? Her first attempt, she assumed, was to be her last. They would never allow that faux pas to happen again. Alexia didn’t remember much, but every time she slept, her dreams had plagued her.
It was a trigger; it was the only trigger. She was trapped in a place she had no recollection of, and she was kept in isolation most of the time. How had she thrived before? They had told her she had been helping them for quite a while. Shouldn’t she have lost her mind early on? She’d chosen to lose her resolve mere hours or days ago. It had been too much, those dreams. She’d kept seeing faces, hearing voices.
A young man’s face never left her mind, and almost every night, he invaded her dreams—or more aptly, her nightmares. Had Dr. Wallace given her sedatives, she would have turned out better than expected. How long do I have to last again? she asked herself.
Had they tried to kill her before? Had she tried to kill herself before? Every time she woke up, she asked herself who those people were and why they seemed so important to her in her dreams. They were her family, she became convinced—even if the staff tried to dissuade her, telling her that she had grown up in the lab, that it was the only world she had ever known, and that she was safer than most outside of these walls.
The world is a cruel place, one had told her. Alexia knew it was a lie. Anywhere could be a cruel place, and to be injected and poked and opened up was as cruel as it could get. Her mind wandered off to the beaker she had smuggled into her room. A careless orderly had forgotten to take it away while she was in one of those sterile labs. She had quickly pocketed it in her smock, thankful that her pajamas were loose enough and that she was conscious enough to grasp it.
It had taken some breathing in and out before she’d broken it against the wall, picking up whatever large piece she could before slicing her neck with it. The moment she’d felt the warmth spread down to her chest, she’d thought she’d had it made. Apparently, it wasn’t so. They had found her less than five minutes after she’d begun to drown in her own blood and lack of oxygen.
She willed for her blood to pump out faster, purposefully elevating her heartbeat. Waking up was punishment enough. She would never have another chance like that, ever. Someone was staring at her, she knew. Someone from across the room. Her senses had become more acute, and she felt a fear grow in her that those senses would be the cause for another mental breakdown. Dreaming about people every day was already traumatizing enough.
She could smell him all of a sudden, her watcher from across the room. It was Caliban, wasn’t it? Caliban, the soldier who had promised the world to her, despite her not having any recollection of him. There were instances when she tried to conjure the idea that she had fallen in love with him. It was a thought she could not muster. Instead, she fell in love with the stranger from her dreams.
Alexia could see snippets of his face. His eyes were what she remembered the most. They were an icy blue, but she could still see the warmth he had felt for her. She remembered his smile; of all the things she remembered, it was the way he smiled at her. She remembered his scar, that thin scar on his upper left eyebrow, and the way it snaked down to his eyelid.
Why would she remember this and not remember everything? Sleeping forever was no better than waking up. She had never felt this sense of despair before—well, from what she could recall. The feeling of remembering and not knowing—it tortured her. She was half-convinced that the young man in her dreams was the one she loved. How can you love someone you don’t know? How can you think you have family if they said otherwise?
Awake or asleep, I’ll still be haunted, she had thought before taking the glass beaker and breaking it apart. The moment her hand had held onto the shard, she had told herself it was now or never. Death was apparently not on her side. Even suicide had failed. That failure had manifested in the pain she felt now. How long had she been asleep? How long had Caliban been looking at her?
Alexia didn’t dare open her eyes, unwilling to see anyone. She wanted to curl up in a ball, in some room, and suffer alone. It was better than having people check on her; it was better than being poked and opened once more, better than being forced to do some good all for a country that she could not find herself to love. What was in it? What had she seen? She only remembered walls, and medications, and people who barely spoke to her unless it was necessary.
There was no outside world for her, except when she dreamed about it. She remembered feeling cold in her dreams and that the stranger she loved had been there with her, protecting her. He had promised something to her, and it was something she wanted to hold onto.
“You mean it?”
“Which part?”
“Making our bit of paradise. Together.”
“Of course, I mean it. Like I said before, I’m not leaving you.”
“Things could happen…” her voice trailed off.
“Have I ever let anything harm you since we left that wretched hell-hole?” Ryker asked her.
“No.”
“There you have it.”
“Maybe you’re too attached to me,” she found herself saying.
“ I am attached to you. I wake up seeing your face every day.”
“Maybe things will be different if we get to be with other people, other werebeings.”
“It will be different, but my attachment won’t change. And I don’t think this is part of your magic touch-” She heard his pause, and she remembered how they had touched each other earlier. She heard him take another breath. “As long as I’m alive, I’m here for you…”
It was a conversation she held close to her heart, and she had dreamed of it a couple of times since she’d woken up nearly a month ago. I’m here for you. It meant something to her, even if it was just a figment of her imagination.
There was nothing
for her here, and that was a good enough reason to end her life. The idea had come to her, a momentary thought that had lingered long after her last blood transfusion and removal. She was going to be used and used over and over again for a country she had never seen or explored.
What she was doing was for nameless people, faceless citizens, and it dawned on her that she couldn’t keep doing this. They had told her that she had been selfless, a proper citizen, as she had done it for years. How could she have allowed this to happen to herself? She hadn’t recalled being that subservient. It seemed that there was a wellspring of defiance in her, and she told herself that she would take it no longer.
She could feel Caliban move away from her, and the lights dimmed around her. That was when she opened her eyes. There was glass in front of her, and it was probably where he had stood. She couldn’t move, but she could feel something tight around her neck, not necessarily constricting. She reached out to touch the right side of her neck and felt cloth.
She took a deep breath, feeling the sting on her throat from the movement of her muscles. She told herself to sit up, but she couldn’t. She held one hand up, as high as she could, and saw bandages there, too. It must have been from when she had held onto the glass tightly. There were wires on her arms and chest, and Alexia knew she couldn’t move.
She bit her lower lip, and she began to cry in silence.
*
“He has repaid this country’s kindness and generosity with betrayal,” President Caledon said on state television, “and an act like that cannot go unpunished. He is among the select few who have chosen to turn his back against our cohesion as a people. Ryker Locklear has manipulated his storied past. He is actually the great-grandson of that traitor who threatened to ruin our country a hundred years ago. He is the reason why so many of our werebeing brothers and sisters are suffering.