Waiting a Lifetime (The Waiting Series Book 1)

by Samantha Peterson

  He will be so angry he will see red, want to storm in, and make sure Captain Michael King can’t hurt me again. Maybe I should have Mary tell him this is my fault. I just hope she can help him think straight, and keep him away from here. For his own good.

  I push everything out of my head for now. I need to sleep. I know it will just make the next horror come faster, but I won’t be able to handle it if I don’t try to rest. I don’t want to think about what else he has planned for me.

  Still, I close my eyes and I am asleep within seconds. I don’t recall dreaming, but I know that I toss and turn throughout the night. No rest for the tortured, but I bet there is plenty of rest to be had with the wicked. I imagine Captain King is sleeping like a baby.

  I’m awakened by the lights flickering back on. They are so bright, it’s nearly impossible to ignore. I try to sit up in my cot, but my body is sorer and stiffer than it was last night by tenfold. I can’t move a muscle without my entire body wanting to just give up on me.

  I hope to everything that is holy that they don’t put me back on that rack. I don’t even know what sort of information he got from it, but I do not want to do that again. Not if this is what it’s going to do to me every day.

  My captive’s voice comes over the speaker bidding me good morning. He sounds bright and chipper, which makes me worry about what he has planned. Clearly, he was able to get a good night’s sleep after yesterday. I can’t really be mad about it since I knew it would happen, but it’s still super annoying.

  I force myself to stand, though I’m very wobbly. The door opens and Natalie walks in with, what looks like, a hospital bed from the Living World. It makes me wonder why I have a cot if they have a bed like that laying around. I guess they don’t want their experiment to get too comfortable.

  She stops next to the control panel and pushes the sequence of buttons to make the casing disappear again. She motions for me to get on the bed without speaking a word, and I do as I’m told without arguing.

  Or, I do as I’m asked?

  I do what I think she wants me to do. I gingerly get off the platform and make my way to the bed. Extremely slowly, though. My knees threaten to give out on me at any second. I haven’t been here long, but I’m already afraid of what the Captain might do to me if I disobey either of them, so I obey like a good little rat.

  The second I lay down, Natalie straps me to the bed, not even acknowledging the purple already circling my wrists and ankles. They know I’m not going anywhere, I’m too afraid of what they’ll do to me or Degory if I were to even try to escape, so the fact they feel the need to strap me down is, yet again, not a good sign for me.

  I tug on the leather straps to test their strength, but they aren’t budging. There isn’t any slack or stretch to them at all. They are just as strong as the ones on the rack. Which is, also, extremely terrifying.

  She makes sure the straps are tight before pushing the bed out of the door and down the hall again. I winch from the pain, but she doesn’t seem to notice my discomfort. This time, we pass the hall from yesterday, continuing straight ahead.

  She pushes the bed for a couple of minutes before turning and entering through a door. It looks much more like a laboratory than the room we were in yesterday. There are a bunch of test tubes, beakers, and other contraptions scattered around the area. I don’t recognize a lot of the devices compiled in this room, just like the one that contained the rack.

  Oh, look, another bad sign for me…

  The Captain is standing near the middle of the room when we enter, looking at a small bottle filled with a pink-ish liquid. Natalie pushes the bed further into the room towards him and stops so he’s on my side with only a little bit of wiggle room in between.

  A table covered in more small bottles stands on his other side. He puts down the bottle in his hand, looking dissatisfied with it, and picks up one with a dark green liquid inside from the counter. He selects a syringe and pokes the needle into the bottle, gathering liquid into the cylinder.

  I watch, wide-eyed as the syringe slowly fills up. I was terrified before, but now I’m so much more. I don’t even know if there’s a word to describe how scared I am. There could be anything contained in that liquid.

  “Whoa,” I gasp. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “What does it look like I’m going to do with it,” the Captain answers, a bit condescendingly.

  He sounds impatient and annoyed.

  “Honestly. I know you’re just a human, but I thought you were more observant than that.”

  He takes the needle out of the bottle and without another thought, pokes my skin and empties the contents of the syringe into my arm. He holds my arm down to make sure I won’t move with the needle under my skin. I start pulling on the leather straps, trying to get them to loosen enough for me to get out and run.

  I have no idea what he just injected me with, all I can think about is getting free. He keeps the syringe in my skin for several moments after the liquid is gone. He smiles before he removes the needle, taking his arm off me, and setting it on the table. He turns to me, waiting for the outcome.

  I continue pulling at the leather, but it isn’t doing any good. The fire that I can constantly feel within my body starts to burn hotter. I can feel it begin to burn my veins and create holes in my organs.

  Screaming, I’m unable to hold back at all with how much pain is flowing through me. I can hear myself echoing off the walls within the small room. It’s as if my very blood has turned to flames. The longer it flows within me, the more my insides burn.

  I struggle against my bindings, pulling and tugging as hard as I can. I don’t feel anything besides the fire within me. I arch my back, and pull at each of my limbs trying to squeeze my hands and feet out of the straps. I scream and pull, and do everything I can to escape for hours that never end.

  The pain never dulls, it only continues to increase exponentially. My screams get louder until my voice becomes gravelly and hoarse. Tears flow freely from my eyes, even after I pass out from the pain.

  Chapter 21

  I wake moments later gasping for air. I can see the Captain leaning over me with another needle in my arm. I would be traumatized if I weren’t trying so hard to breathe. I cough from the rush of oxygen to my lungs but I can’t get what I need fast enough. I’m scared the oxygen will just ignite the fire again, but I desperately need to fill my lungs anew.

  When I catch my breath, I sit up on the bed searching for the holes I felt burning through my entire being, but there are no marks whatsoever. Confused, I lay back and stare at the ceiling, shaking from the memory of the pain.

  I can still feel a sizzling inside me, but not nearly as bad as what it had been mere minutes ago. It is closer to the temperature I have become accustomed to since learning that I have fire powers, but a little more intense.

  This is not the last time I pass out from some strange looking liquid that Captain King injects into my arm. There are seven others he tests on me, and I’m unlucky enough to find out that they all do something different.

  He takes his time with the order in which he tests them on me, carefully analyzing their affects. Not all of them are harmful to me, but none of them are soft and easy to take. They all make me feel like there’s something crawling inside me, trying to mess with my organs and bodily functions.

  The next injection he tests on me freezes all of my blood, nearly killing me before he uses a smaller dose of the first vial to thaw out my blood again. I’m a little curious about why he needed to test that on me to begin with when it’s likely that’s the one that he used to revive me when my insides felt like they were burning me from the inside out.

  Another vial causes me to lose my hearing and sharpen my eyesight, but again it’s too strong and hurts my eyes. It feels like I’ve been looking at the sun for far too long. Closing them doesn’t help either.

  Other concoctions range from stopping brain activity, to making the hair on my feet and toes longer and
thicker. He keeps testing different ones on me for several hours. Once he has tested them all, he allows Natalie to take me back to my platform while he stays to reorganize, analyze the data he acquired today, and clean up his work area.

  My body is so weak that I can’t even get off the bed by myself, she has to pick me up and place me on the cot before enabling the casing and exiting the room. I pass out immediately, exhausted from the tests.

  The next morning is strange. I’m awakened by Captain King pounding on the glass casing before opening it. I can’t hear what he’s saying though, because of the barrier. When he sees me sit up, he goes over to the control panel and pushes the buttons so the case disappears, mumbling something incoherently.

  Once the barrier is gone, I catch the tail end of his nonsensical babbling.

  “…only gone through two days of experiments and already it’s ignoring my attempts to wake it up for the day.”

  Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Strange, since he slept perfectly the first night after enjoying the torture he inflicted on me. Still, that can’t be a good sign for what I’m going to deal with today. Especially since I mean so little to him that he considers me to be an ‘it’ now, rather than human.

  Am I lower than a rat to him?

  Yep, I’m lower than even a lab rat to this maniac. I’m a lab it – a tool for him to play with just like everything else in this stupid dome. He’s not even speaking to me, just about me.

  “COME!” he yells, stomping his foot on the ground like a toddler, and storms off out of the room before I even get up from the cot.

  It causes me to jump hearing him shriek like that, and lose his cool. I kind of want to fight back and say it’s not exactly my fault I wasn’t able to wake up the first time he tried, but that seems like a terrible idea to antagonize him. He’s perfectly okay doing unspeakable things to me right now, pushing him might make him want to do something worse.

  So, instead of making a fuss, I get up and jog to catch up to him. He’s already out of the room and halfway down the hallway by the time I reach him. I don’t know where we’re going until we turn the corner.

  We’re on our way back to the room that holds the rack. I have to force my legs to keep moving. They stiffen up once I realize where we are headed. I want to freeze and not go anywhere near that room, but I’m more afraid of what King will do to me if I stop.

  He opens the door and gestures for me to go inside. Natalie is prepping an upright table-looking device with leather straps.

  More god damn straps.

  It looks remarkably close to something I’ve seen in movies depicted in old insane asylums, and the type of table they would use to do an exam on an invalid in order to show it to other psychiatrists and doctors.

  Does he plan on showing me off to his mad scientist friends? Does this guy even know what a lobotomy is?

  I really hope not. I like me, I don’t want to become a vegetable so soon after becoming a test subject.

  Of course, then I wouldn’t be aware of what’s happening to me...

  With the Captain at my heels, I go up to Natalie and await my next instructions. King pushes me hard towards the machinery and I take the hint. I walk up to it, turn around, and lay back on it with my feet standing on a small portion of metal.

  Natalie immediately grabs my arm, the one closest to her, and yanks it up to the strap above my head. I’m trying to remain calm and collected, but fear is starting to make my body tremble. She fastens my arm to the device before walking in front of me to fix the other, jerking my arm upwards again.

  I bite my lower lip to avoid making any noises that will let on that she’s hurting me. She makes sure my feet are secured before backing off to where a tray of wires is sitting. She attaches one on my chest right above my heart with a sticky circle that reminds me of heart monitor stickers from a hospital.

  I know it isn’t a heart monitor, though, because she places another one on the back of my neck, both wrists, the right side of my stomach, and one on my lower back. I can’t see what they are attached to, though.

  When she finishes, Natalie walks to something somewhere behind me.

  I take a deep breath to try and calm my nerves for what’s about to happen. Which is really difficult because my body is shaking. I look up and see that there are more wires attached to the top of the table. I try to follow them with my eyes as they twist above me, but they end up somewhere behind me.

  I hear some machinery turn on in the background, and realize that is what the table is connected to. There is a whirring and the spinning of gears coming from the contraption. Natalie comes back into view, taking her place on the Captain’s side while he watches yet another monitor.

  “Are we all set, Natalie?” King demands, not looking up from the bright screen in front of him.

  He punches a few buttons waiting for her response. This guy is all about data and numbers, which doesn't bode well for the living folk. Mainly me.

  “Not quite, Captain,” she replies in her strange monotone. “The Discourser needs time to charge before it can be of use.”

  “Rats…” he groans, pounding a fist on top of the monitor like a toddler again, but less so than earlier.

  It shudders under his weight, but doesn’t break which surprises me. I flinch seeing King hit it. Nothing’s happened yet and I’m already jumpy.

  “How long?”

  “Five minutes, Captain,” she informs him.

  “Well, then, I might as well tell you what’s going to happen here while we wait,” he says at me.

  He’s not looking at me, but he raises his voice a little to make sure I can hear what he’s saying. He doesn’t seem interested whether I’m actually listening or not, though. He’s more trying to pass the time than making conversation with something he considers a tool for him to use and abuse in the name of science.

  I’m starting to think that he likes the sound of his scratchy, nasally voice, too. Ew.

  “Today,” he continues, “I am going to send currents of spiritual energy through your body, along with electricity as a lubricant, and into your system to bond with your DNA. I am curious to see what sort of affect it is going to have on you and your powers, if at all.”

  “What?”

  I didn’t mean to say anything, but the word slips out before I can stop it. King doesn’t acknowledge my reaction, though. He continues to stare at the screen while he waits for the machine to charge.

  I’m relieved – I half expected him to smack me across the face for an unwelcome outburst like that.

  I want to fight the instinct to pull at the straps because I know better than to think it’s going to help me get out. Plus, it’ll just make my wrists even worse. But I can’t keep instinct from taking over my actions. I’m terrified.

  I’ve never come into contact with electricity in a way that it could cause me harm. I’m so scared that tears start falling freely from my eyes, and rolling down my cheeks. I’m even whimpering, but the Captain doesn’t seem to notice. This man is really, truly heartless.

  “It is ready, Captain,” Natalie announces with indifference.

  “Excellent,” he breathes with excited anticipation.

  Whatever he’s hoping to accomplish with this, it’s definitely put him in a better mood than a few minutes ago. He actually takes a moment to look up at me before starting the machine. His eyes shine with amusement seeing me crying and shaking from terror. I can almost see drool forming on his lips from watching me suffer.

  “Good,” he whispers, just loud enough for his voice to float through the air to me. “You should be scared.”

  I feel like I’m in a horror movie. Except I can’t just stop the movie, or change the channel and watch something else. This is really happening.

  “Natalie,” King calls to his Lieutenant, “give it the mouthpiece so it doesn’t bite off its own tongue like that last specimen.”

  Now, I’m flailing meagerly. I pull as hard as I can, but all I
feel is blood start to trickle from my wrists and down my arm. I keep looking back and forth from King to my wrists to see if I’ve loosened them at all but I haven’t. He just keeps smiling at me, pleased he’s found a way to make up for my inability to wake up this morning.

  In fact, the harder I tug at the leather straps, the more entertained he becomes. It gets to the point where he’s laughing maniacally while I struggle to free myself. Natalie uses her ridiculous super human speed to get a piece of cloth into my mouth and ties it around the back of my head so I don’t have time to fight back.

  There’s no countdown. No warning. I don’t even know what happened until it’s finally over with. King pushes a button on the keyboard in front of the monitor that causes the electrical current from the machine to travel through the wires and to me.

  I can feel my body shaking and convulsing as the electricity and spirit energy pass through me, but I have no control over my movements. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. My heart aches from the shock. The current even momentarily stops my heart from beating.

  When I come out of it and the electricity is out of my system, I’m gasping for air and slumped over as much as my bindings will allow. I feel drained, and sick to my stomach. I don’t even know how long he had the machine pumping electricity and spiritual energy into me.

  With the first trial out of the way, I’m not as scared anymore. I’m not pleased with having to go through that however many more times he wants to torture me, but the shock has passed. I stand up straight again and look at King who is analyzing the monitor. I can’t tell if he’s pleased with the results, or disappointed. His expression is blank.

  I don’t see him or Natalie move at all, but my vision blurs and my body begins to tremble from the current flowing through me again. What is only a few seconds, feels like several minutes waiting for the current to stop.

  When it finally ends, I’m slumped over again, breathing heavily to fill my body with oxygen. More so than when I almost died after King tested the first vial on me yesterday. I can, also, feel my face soaked from tears I’m unable to control, along with drool and snot dripping down my front.