Her brow creased with pain, Silver separates herself from their embrace and rolls onto her front, propping herself up on her forearms, hanging her head.
“Not again!” she groans, feeling the now familiar effects of biological tampering, her vision graying out, dizziness taking hold.
“What’s wrong?” Elena rubs her back.
Silver doesn’t get to answer. She passes out on the polar bear skin rug as the door to Elena’s office swings open, flying back on its hinges, the odor of cigarette smoke giving away the identity of the intruder even before Elena turns her head.
It’s Doctor Montgomery. He’s standing at the threshold of the room, flanked by two orderlies, and Elena panics.
“Daddy!” she shrieks, snatching up her robe to conceal her nudity. “What are you doing here?!”
“I’m preserving your respectability and putting an end to this nonsense.” He stomps into the room, instructing his orderlies to retrieve Silver from the floor. “Take her.” He points to her unconscious body.
“Where do you want her, sir?” one of the orderlies asks, hoisting the comatose inmate over his shoulder with ease. “Back to her room?”
Doctor Montgomery shakes his head. “I want her medicated for the rest of her stay here.” He regards Silver’s limp form with an intense medical interest, his hungry eyes lingering on her pregnant belly. “And have her moved to the Delta ward immediately.”
“The Delta ward?” Elena scrambles to get her robe on without revealing too much flesh. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? She’s my patient!”
“And what kind of therapy is this?” Doctor Montgomery gestures to the room. “Are you trying to fuck the gay out of her?” He ushers his orderlies out of the room, hauling Silver away like a piece of trash.
“Don’t take her,” Elena snivels, clasping the silk robe to her chest, tears cascading down her face. “I was about to sign her discharge papers. I—”
“You don’t have to worry about that now.” Doctor Montgomery steps forward, the toe of one polished shoe catching in the gusset of Elena’s discarded thong. “She’ll no longer be a problem for you.” He kicks the soaked undergarment away. “Nor should she ever have been. You know well that she’s carrying a Delta child, and she ought to have been referred to my care as soon as she was brought into Bishopsgate.”
“She doesn’t deserve this.” Elena’s shoulders heave with sobs.
Seeing the look of hurt and shame in his daughter’s eyes, Doctor Montgomery approaches her with his hands outstretched, cupping her tear-streaked cheeks. “Why are you doing this to me, Elena?” He sounds almost sympathetic. “The treatments worked!”
“I’m not sick,” she whimpers softly, lifting her gaze to meet his cold, unfeeling eyes. “I’m gay.”
Slap!
Doctor Montgomery strikes her so hard she tumbles to the floor.
“You’re weak!” He towers over her. “You’ve let this woman undo years of therapy. And for what? A few minutes of twisted indulgence.”
Elena tucks herself into a ball, trembling from head to toe.
“You should’ve come to me if you felt like you were relapsing.” Doctor Montgomery’s tirade continues unabated, despite the suffering of his only child. “Perhaps you need to be reminded of how naughty girls are punished.”
“No! Please!” Elena lunges at his legs, latching onto his trousers, bowing her head in supplication, pressing her face into the coarse fabric. “I’ll be a good girl from now on. I promise.”
“You know what to do?” He stands rigid, offering her no comfort.
Elena nods, her body racked with tremors. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Then pull yourself together.” He steps back from her, letting her flop into a heap on the floor. “You stink of perversion.”
Left alone, Elena’s tears flow in torrents, her wails of abject misery muffled in the shag of the polar bear rug, her breaths coming in short, sharp draws.
She can smell Silver on her fingers, and the taste of sex lingers on her tongue. Her pubic hair is matted with their combined fluids, her labia still swollen, her cunt throbbing from Silver’s vigorous penetration.
Desperate to smother all echoes of the pleasure experienced with Silver, she reaches between her legs and feels out her engorged, hypersensitive clit, pinching it hard between her thumb and forefinger, causing her to stifle a squeal and clamp her thighs together, the pain sharp and intense.
She needs to be punished.
When her tears dry up—when she’s thoroughly numb and has nothing left spill—she picks herself off the floor and steps barefoot into the hallway, making her way silently to the ice bath room.
Inside, she locks the door and unties the robe, letting it slide to the floor, the smooth, shimmering fabric pooling around her feet. Steeling herself for the sensory assault on her body, she sinks into one of the baths, completely submerging her body in the freezing water, her nerves stinging.
And so the cleansing begins.
Present day …
EPILOGUE
Upper D10
Delta Territory, North
The Kingdom of Great Britain, 2349 CE
Bip, bip, bip, bip, bip. After a minute or two, Silver realizes the rhythmic beeping she’s listening to is a heart rate monitor. She tries to open her eyes, but her lids are crusted shut.
Uck.
She brings her hands to her face and rubs away the gunk, finally able to peer out into the bright room, squinting in the glare of the lights.
Giving her eyes a moment to adjust, she looks around, finding an IV in her arm and a pulse monitor on her finger. She moves her feet under crisp, starched bed sheets and inhales the scent of industrial cleaning fluid. Glancing upward, she watches a ray of sunlight spill in through an ornate stained glass window.
This isn’t Bishopsgate.
She knows where she is.
This is the infirmary where Ria stitched up her shoulder. This is the infirmary where she was told her unborn child was a Delta.
She’s back at D10.
There’s something else here that she recognizes, too. In a chair beside her bed, there’s a familiar face. His dark hair, flecked with gray, is ruffled and untamed, his face unshaven. Around his neck, there’s a pair of dogtags. On his wedding finger, a ring.
It’s Alex.
Slumped in the chair, a cup of coffee growing cold on the bedside table, he’s snoring lightly, his chest rising and falling with comforting consistency.
“Alex?” she calls out to him, her soft, raspy voice rousing him.
He lifts his head, his warm brown eyes locking on her, relief apparent. In a second, he’s wide awake and he moves to the bed, settling on the edge of it, scooping her hand into his own.
“Silver.” He kisses her fingers. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shit.” She tries to sit up, but her body feels like a dead weight and she gives up, staying propped on her elbows. “What happened? Why am I here?”
“Don’t worry.” He squeezes her. “You’re safe.”
“That’s not what I asked.” She looks up at him, finding his eyes misted with tears.
His brown eyes.
The last time she saw him, his naturally chocolate eyes were shockingly violet, the unharnessed virus from their homeland causing them to turn.
“Alex, what’s going on?” Suspicion creeps into her voice. “Your eyes …”
In answer, he fishes something out of his back pocket: a brand new Authenticard.
“I’m a citizen now,” he explains succinctly, his voice lacking any hint of discernible emotion.
Silver doesn’t need to hear any more; she knows what that entails.
The Human Betterment Package.
The nanites.
“You turned yourself in to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration?” She swipes the card from him, examining it as though she half expects it to be a clever forgery.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he responds matter
-of-factly. “I needed to finalize my citizenship before I could discharge you from Bishopsgate.” An ounce of bitterness breaks free.
He’s disappointed.
Silver can see it in his face as he banishes the small piece of plastic back into his pocket, and she knows how difficult this must be for him.
Unlike her, he’d come to embrace the virus, and now the nanites are overriding its effects, suppressing all its benefits and enhancements until such time as he can afford to be activated. For all intents and purposes, he’s as he was before he was first infected: nothing more than human.
She runs her hand up his arm, distracting him from his despondency, reacquainting herself with the muscular contours of his form. “Thank you.”
He captures her hand as it reaches his shoulder and presses her palm to his stubbly cheek, nuzzling her, his emotions coming adrift. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Silver can’t bring herself to say the same, but being near him again does ignite something within her. As he leans forward, burying his face in the hollow of her neck, sobbing into her pillow, she brings a hand to the nape of his neck, weaving her fingers through his peppery hair.
“How did you find me?” She drops a kiss on the side of his head.
“Doctor Lavergne contacted me.” Alex wipes his eyes on his sleeves. “She told me where you were.”
“Elena?” Silver perks up. “When?”
Alex notes her raised spirits, but doesn’t fixate on it. “She sent me a letter after Doctor Montgomery had you committed to the Delta ward.”
Silver shakes her head. “That’s impossible. It takes weeks for a letter to make its way out to a Delta compound. Months even. Border security is a bitch.” She cranes her neck, looking around the room for another face. “Where is she?”
“Who?” Alex frowns. “The shrink?”
“Elena.” Silver nods. “How is she? Is she okay? Last night we—”
“Last night?” Alex cuts her off, shaking his head. “You’ve been here for two days, El.” He uses a shortened version of her first name, as he always does when he’s trying to be tender with her. “Doctor Lavergne helped me arrange special transport for you, since your condition was so delicate.”
“My condition?” Silver arches an eyebrow. “I’m pregnant, not dying.”
“It was too risky.” Alex kisses her palm, caressing her fingers. “You were drugged up to your eyeballs, and we couldn’t chance you regaining consciousness and going into labor en route.” He kisses her wrist, not sure if he should dare make a move for her lips. “It would be too dangerous for our baby to be born outside Delta territory.”
Silver snorts. “Yeah? Well, last time I checked, human babies take nine months to cook. You needn’t have hurried.”
She watches concern spread over his face, his brow furrowed.
“What is it?” She narrows her eyes, wondering what he’s holding back from her. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Alex glides a hand over her stomach.
Her firm, round stomach.
“Silver …” He draws her attention to it. “It’s been months.”
Silver glares down at her heavily pregnant belly, suddenly realizing why she feels so bloated and weighted down.
“You’re eight and a half months pregnant.” Alex beams, rubbing her bump.
“Oh, god.” Silver collapses on the bed, slapping both hands over her face. “This is bullshit.”
Her last memory is lying naked with Elena in her office. She felt unwell, she passed out, and … she remembers nothing else.
Her heart pounds behind her ribcage, her breathing accelerated. She’s vaguely aware of Alex trying to calm her, but the sounds of the world are drowned out. There’s a pressure deep inside her abdomen, followed by an indescribable tightness and cramping.
She can feel movement inside her.
A dampness between her thighs.
The bed covers are yanked back.
Nurses rush over.
Doctors follow suit.
Alex is leaning over her, his face inches from hers. He’s grinning.
“Are you ready to have a baby?”
How dare he be so happy! Venting her frustration, she cracks him in the nose, knocking him backwards onto the floor.
“Fuck you!”
A nurse pulls her onto her back.
Someone else spreads her legs.
Like it or not, this baby’s coming.
COMING SOON
The Outlier Trilogy
Volume Three
SILVER: Mea Culpa
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Keira Michelle Telford is an award-winning author with a love for the gruesome, the macabre, and the downright filthy. She writes dystopian science fiction, erotic lesbian romance, and other lesbian fiction.
Website: www.keiramichelle.com
Twitter: @mylostanddamned
Facebook Page for KM Telford
Goodreads Author Page
Amazon Author Page
Works by this author:
The SILVER Series
The Amaranthe Chronicles
The Outlier Trilogy
www.ellacross.com
www.facebook.com/thesilverseries
The Prisonworld Trilogy
www.carmenwild.com
Standalone titles:
Cadence of My Heart – an erotic lesbian romance
The Housemistress – an erotic lesbian romance
Hoar & Rime (A Short Story) – lesbian fiction
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
Bedlam Page 12