The Harvested (The Permutation Archives Book 1)

by Kindra Sowder

  Cato stood in front of me with his arms outstretched, tears streaming down his face, and his chin trembling. He didn’t want to die. I knew that, but he felt that I could do more good than him. Was that something he truly thought or something they brainwashed him into believing it? Only he knew the answer to that, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t tell me, even if I asked.

  Sobs began to wrack my body as I let the power build within me. I felt as if I could explode with it as it hovered like an invisible ball in the palm of my hand. It was becoming hard to hold in, but I didn’t want to release it. That meant Cato would be gone from the world forever, and I wouldn’t be able to exonerate myself for it. It didn’t matter to me if I saved the world from what the human race was doomed to become because of experimentation and hate. I just wanted Cato to live.

  I felt Ryder’s eyes on my back, but I wasn’t going to look at him. I was only going to do it because of Cato’s pleading eyes. Pure and unadulterated anger boiled beneath the surface of my sorrow, and I decided that King would pay dearly for what he was making me do.

  I knew Cato could see my hesitation. He nodded as if letting me know everything would be all right, but I knew nothing would be right from then on.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  I continued to stare at him, wavering over the decision to end his life. With a silent, solitary tear rolling down my cheek, I began to release what had built up inside of me as we stood there in stillness.

  Behind me, I could hear Doctor Aserov’s stifled tears and sniffs. I chose to ignore them. All she was going to do was stand there with her clipboard and observe what happened while not even raising a hand to help us. She was a part of what was wrong with the whole situation. Her and Ryder both.

  I let the power trickle out and had to fight the urge to send it all away from Cato and toward someone who truly deserved it. Cato closed his eyes as he began to feel its effects. He had made peace with his fate, and I was the one who wanted to fight it.

  There was no need to use those invisible hands to hold him still. He wasn’t fighting against me as the others would have. He stood with his arms outstretched, eyes closed, and head slightly tilted back. He wasn’t resisting the feeling of his death and he accepted how his life would end. He was selfless that way and always had been. When we were children he had protected me from so many scrapes, broken bones, and hurt feelings, and I would end his life.

  I didn’t want to think about how painful it was going to be for him, so I only focused on the power trickling from my fingers and flowing into him. Cato opened his eyes and looked intently at me. He knew I could do better than that, and he was about to let me know that.

  “Mila, they want a show. Let’s give them one.”

  That was the push I needed from him. I needed his permission.

  I let the energy seep out a little bit faster, meeting his body with a jolt that even I could feel. It hit me in the gut, and I could feel its chill spread into the rest of my body, reaching out until I was shivering with it. Everything else was gone. Cato and I were the only ones in the room, and all of my attention was focused on him. Even though my power had hit us both like a tidal wave, we had both only stumbled back a few paces. His eyes locked on mine as a grimace began to take shape on his lips. The look of pain began to spread across his face as I locked my attention onto the red blood cells and then to the atoms that made up their structure, causing them to vibrate and rub against one another as I had only done three times before.

  His veins began to turn black as his blood died within him, spreading like a railroad across his skin. He hadn’t made a single noise, but now he was screaming in pain and agony. I made a move to drop my hand.

  “Don’t stop!” he yelled.

  That startled me into submission. He had never once shouted at me.

  I watched in terror as some of the veins broke underneath his skin, leaking masses of purple bruising like small lakes of black and dead blood. Just like the dream I had had. I wanted to stop right then and there, but I was already riding the power. Once that occurred there was no going back. Plus, Cato wouldn’t let me stop. I knew that. So I had to keep going until he was a dead husk on the floor.

  He fell to his knees, and even though the high of the power flowing from me was strong, my knees gave out, and I fell with him. Despite the power, I still felt a menagerie of emotions that I couldn’t keep bottled inside.

  Cato’s screams were echoing through the room, bouncing off the walls and filling my ears with the sound of a constant ringing. I knew I would hear those screams in my dreams for years to come. The image of him dying by my hand wouldn’t be one quickly gotten rid of. He would always haunt me, and I had King to blame for that.

  Streams of dark and rich blood began to pour from his eyes, a side effect of it I had never seen. The shock and terror I felt was indescribable at best. Cato was on his hands and knees, the blood pouring onto the slick and white floor in rivers. The blood was black and thick like molasses as it spread over the tile, reaching out toward me.

  He was still screaming as he began to crawl toward me, looking for amnesty from the person who was causing him such pain. I couldn’t give that to him because he had asked it of me and had given me no other choice but to do as he wished. The power continued to flow from me and into him and I couldn’t leave him like that, no matter how badly I wanted to stop the assault on his body. With a grimace, I pushed even more energy into him to end his suffering as quickly as possible. It was the least I could do.

  Then something happened. Cato rose onto his knees, and his cries grew louder and shriller. Inside my mind, I saw the atoms do something I didn’t even know was possible. They began to split apart.

  I dropped my hand, but I had already started a chain reaction that there was no way to end. I watched in absolute horror as his cries ripped through the air and assaulted my ears with their ferocity. He sounded like an animal, and I had to clasp my hands over my ears to muffle the sound, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sight of my fading friend. He was dying, and I definitely couldn’t stop it.

  His skin began to redden, causing the purple and black undertones to deepen and then blister. A bright light spilled from his eyes and from between his lips, and feminine screams mixed with his. It took me a few seconds to realize they were coming from me, not Doctor Aserov. I couldn’t stop myself. Terror was building within me, and my screams were its only escape from its fleshy tomb. I couldn’t hold them back, and sobs racked my body as I watched Cato die in agony that I had caused.

  A pit of darkness, terror, and his suffering ripped into me as I was forced to look on, my hands still over my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut, and his screams stopped. My remaining shriek echoed through the air. As I opened my eyes, another shrill cry forced its way from my throat.

  Cato lay in a puddle of black blood, his skin red and purple and burned beyond recognition. The black lines of his veins still stood out amongst the color of his dead flesh. His eyes and mouth were still gaping open, and my hand instantly flew to my mouth as I felt the bile rise.

  I vomited all over the clean white floor in front of me that was marred with spots of Cato’s blood, causing me to be able to taste acid in my throat once more. I felt empty and broken. Then Doctor Aserov’s hands were on my shoulders, and I could hear the familiar beeping of my heartbeat on the computer that our screams had covered. It was beating frantically, and I heard it skip when her gloved hands touched me. I jumped slightly but didn’t move otherwise. Sobs and cries of sadness and heartache caused my shoulders to shake underneath her touch, and I let my tears fall until I could no longer cry.

  I felt the good doctor’s hands on my shoulders, and all I wanted to do was crawl away. I shrugged away from her and skulked toward Cato’s lifeless form, watching as my hands slid through dark black blood, white slick tile peeking through as my fingers moved through it. I swallowed back another bout of vomit and moved until I could see Cato before me.

  His eyes were
wide and bloodshot, but the lines within the white orbs were black and purple. His mouth was still open, and I could see the blisters behind his gleaming white teeth that somehow remained free of his blood.

  I took him in my arms and sat in his warm blood, rocking back and forth as I let my tears fall on his red and blistered flesh. There were still fresh tears staining his cheeks as he stared lifelessly back at me. At that moment, I knew his life was over, and I was going to change the world for him.

  Chapter 21

  I silently walked toward my cabin, being led noiselessly by Ryder. I felt Cato’s blood beginning to cool on my pants and shirt as it soaked through to my skin. My hands were bound in front of me, and all I could see as I stared down at them was the sludge his blood had become on my flesh. I wanted desperately to rub it off on my pants but knew that would be useless. The handcuffs were chafing the skin at my wrists, which had already been rubbed raw. The urge to scream and cry was one I had to swallow down and hold in the pit that had formed in my stomach.

  An empty shell was all that was left as we walked. Not even Ryder’s military issued boots made a sound. It was as if they were afraid to make noise and set off another crying spell. My tears had dried to a salty crust down my face and in the corners of my eyes.

  Before I realized it, we were standing in the doorway of my living quarters. I sighed with relief at the prospect of finally being able to be alone with my grief. When I turned to him he removed the cuffs with a flourish, putting the key back into a special pocket made for it and slinging the cuffs onto his belt. All I could manage were the robotic movements of the bereaved.

  Once all of that was taken care of, I stepped over the threshold, and the aura fell behind me with the usual electric zap. I turned toward the glowing light, and my glance caught Ryder’s. What I saw there almost made me gasp. I saw sadness and compassion in those green orbs the color of the brief glimpse of trees I saw outside of the compound. It was too hard to focus on any one thing. My thoughts kept going from Cato to the outdoors, and then to Ryder’s piercing green eyes. He still looked so familiar that I was almost breathless and struggling to place his striking face.

  Ryder stood there for a few seconds, staring into my eyes before he turned, hands clasped behind his back in his regular place. Across the distance, I spotted Nero, and his eyes widened when he saw me. He seemed to notice the blood saturating my clothes, despite the color and the wide-eyed expression on my face. He knew something had happened. He did not know the specifics of it, but he knew something on some level.

  I spun away from his judgmental eyes as quickly as I dared and took a quick step away from the aura, my soiled shoes almost slipping on the tiled floor beneath me as they left footprints. Both of my arms instinctively jutted out to the sides to keep me from falling. I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding and noticed clean clothes sitting undisturbed on the corner of my bed. They, of course, were crimson red.

  Brand new shoes were nestled neatly on the floor by the bed, but I didn’t want to touch any of it. Not while I still had Cato’s blood coating every inch of my body. Blood soaked the fabric of my pants from the knees down, and my shirt was sticking to me. All I wanted was to rid myself of it, but I knew my hands would never be clean.

  I walked gingerly to the bathroom and turned the shower on to its highest setting, smearing dark and thick blood on the shining metal. As I stood there, I watched steam billow from the spray, and I began to lose myself entirely in the rivulets of pure water. I wouldn’t be pure ever again, no matter how many showers I took.

  I was numb as I reached out to touch it, barely feeling its warmth flow over my skin. Cato was gone. I knew that, but that didn’t stop the lingering feeling of his presence surrounding me. His spirit and will were there. I could feel it.

  His blood was turning the water a dark red that no words could describe, making the blue tiles beneath it appear royal purple. I began to take off my clothes, slipping off my shoes first and tossing them into the shower so the water would run over them.

  The shower was so open I could’ve put at least twenty pairs of shoes inside of it and still have plenty of room for myself. There were no shower doors or a curtain. Just the open space.

  I peeled off the pants, shirt, and underclothes, throwing them into the shower next to the shoes. It looked as if the shower was bleeding, and the sight sent a shudder through my entire body and a chill up my spine.

  I lunged into the water and stifled a yelp as the heat stung my bare skin. Once some of the blood began to fall away from my skin, it looked like a massacre had occurred in my bathroom. The droplets surrounding the shower on the white floor looked nearly pink, and dark, deep red spiraled down the drain.

  I wasn’t sure how long I stood in place and watched it before panic began to rise in my throat, threatening to choke me. My breath was coming out in shallow gasps, my ribs expanding and collapsing so fast I could barely feel it. I turned to the dispenser housing body wash and a two-in-one shampoo and squirted soap into both hands, rubbing it across my body furiously to rid myself of all the blood. I wanted it off. I needed the blood gone.

  My skin had already been slightly pink from the water, but the friction was turning it bright red. The smell of the body wash was sterile and medical, and it was the same color of the tiles surrounding me. Suds were mixing with the blood, turning them pink and running down my skin in rivers as well as down the drain. His blood all over me made me feel dirty. I felt like a traitor. I had to tell myself that I hadn’t betrayed anyone. Cato had begged and pleaded for his death. He had wanted it to mean something, and it would. I would make sure of that.

  I took a moment to wash my hair and then the tears began to fall again. I put my face underneath the water and let the pellets hide them from the world. Only I would know of their existence.

  Nero and Julius would know what happened soon. That was something I wasn’t ready for. I knew they would blame me, but I wanted so desperately for them to understand. Once that thought crossed my mind, I felt my foot slip on the slick tile. A shrill scream escaped me as I landed on the floor hard. My backside seared with pain. The floors in the compound weren’t the forgiving kind I had gotten used to at home. There was no carpet to save me. At that exact moment, I had had enough. Tears began to spill from my eyes yet again in a mixture of sadness and frustration that I couldn’t stop.

  The sound of cumbersome and quick footsteps followed the electric zap of the aura. Ryder appeared around the corner, astonishment crossing his features along with a slight blush on his cheeks. Heat rose into my face, draining completely from the rest of my body despite the hot spray of the shower. My arms shot up to cover my chest, and I pulled my legs in against my arms, almost perfectly hiding myself from his lingering gaze. If only I could melt into the water and flow down the drain to hide.

  A sound escaped from between his lips that I couldn’t interpret before he pushed his gun to his back and took a fluffy white towel from the rack behind him. He reached out, turned the shower off by pressing one bright red button, and came toward me with the towel held out. I shrunk away from him. The thought of him coming anywhere near me after he had watched me kill Cato disgusted me. He was compassionate now, but where had that been thirty minutes before?

  I had needed someone to stop me and tell me that I didn’t have to do it, and to convince Cato that he was meant to live. I couldn’t have done it on my own. The compassion I had needed so badly then was in his eyes, and it made me want to spit with rage.

  “You don’t have to be scared of me,” he said.

  His voice was sweet and soothing like the tone used when comforting an infant. Even the melodic bass of his voice softened. That wasn’t what I required. I snorted at him, and he looked surprised at my reaction.

  “What?”

  “Don’t mistake that reaction for fear, Ryder. I’m not scared of you.” I practically spat the words at him, jerking the towel as hard as I could.

  He wouldn’
t let go as he stared into my eyes. My gaze didn’t waver. I wouldn’t be the first to back down. Not today. Not after everything. He leaned down in front of me, almost with one knee touching the wet floor of the shower. I could feel his warm breath on my chilled skin, and goose bumps were beginning to form.

  “Then what do you feel when you look at me?”

  The question caught me off guard, but I didn’t let that show. I would let him know what I thought of him whether it hurt his feelings or not. Heat flared between us, or was that the lingering effects of the shower? Or anger?

  “Disgust.” I let the word linger in the air before I continued. “You could’ve stepped in before anyone had to die. You’re a coward.” My words never rose above a whisper, but they still made their mark. I had hit my target. His pride. I was irate, and he would know it and his ego would deflate as a result.

  His eyes fell and his grip loosened on the towel, making it so I could jerk it away from him. I stood and wrapped the towel around my naked body as I backed away from him, the cooling tiles against my shoulders almost causing me to shiver. He was still in the same position like my words had paralyzed him. I watched him as if he was a predator about to pounce, but he never moved.

  His jaw only clenched and unclenched as he stared at the place where I had been. I let my breathing slow once I realized I could feel my heart beating in my temples. My hands were gripped tightly onto the edges of the towel, and the fabric felt soft under my fingers. My instinct was to look around the room, not glowering directly at his perfect face, but I kept my eyes on him so he knew I meant what I said, which I did.

  “You’re right,” he murmured as he turned his face up to look at me. He stood in one fluid motion and took a few brazen steps in my direction.

  I pulled my arms against me even tighter and tried to back up to the wall almost to the point of walking through it. He smirked and turned to walk away, taking his gun in his hands and pulling the strap to straighten it against him.