by Bob Dattolo
“I don’t know. I can’t even tell. I shouldn’t have magic.”
“But you do. That’s what my spell is saying.”
I don’t know what to say to that. No idea.
He found a sheet for me and wrapped me, then led me to a chair and had me sit while his men ransacked the house. They found six bodies in another room. I hadn’t even known they were here. Three other young girls, like me, that were ravaged to death in horrific ways. Three guys. The guards found the recordings, and none of them were here for more than a month.
Reggie’s been taking in and killing five or more people every month since I was taken. Based on what they were seeing, I was the only one to give in. To show him that he was dominant. It was the only reason I didn’t follow any of these people into the grave.
Other-me? You in there?
No response.
Other than growling. Low, angry growling. With a self-satisfied twist to it.
Integration. Why am I thinking that’s the word of the day?
Chapter 6
The latest doctor left the room, leaving me by myself. Honestly, that’s a strange feeling. It’s been a week since being rescued by the cops, and I swear it’s been nonstop medical testing. Not to mention magical testing.
I’m not entirely sure they haven’t checked every part of me a dozen times. Blood work. X-rays. MRIs. CAT scans. Other things they didn’t even bother trying to explain to me. Injections. Blood being drained. Cheek swabs. Nose swabs. Bone marrow samples. OB exams. Multiple of them. Six rectal exams.
I’m not even kidding.
Six of them. Why? I’m not sure. Including a colonoscopy. That was a new one for me that I had to ask about.
Psychological exams. I’ve had three sessions a day with a therapist. Three different ones. They all came at me from different angles, and I’m just not sure why. They wouldn’t explain. They would ask questions, as you’d think, but they wouldn’t really explain what they were aiming for.
They each had spells running to tell when I was lying. They didn’t seem to understand that I knew that. Not that I tried to explain it to them. At all.
The magical tests?
Confusing. Very, very confusing.
The cop that I talked to, Captain Garrison, has been with me at least part of each day. He’s been the person to help me through introductions. To ask questions to. He’s my liaison…I just don’t know why.
Most of the time they don’t tell me anything at all, but I did manage to learn a few things.
First, the magic they were picking up that had them hunting? Yeah, that was coming from me. They said it was incredibly powerful yet had a signature that they couldn’t place. Magic has a fingerprint, I guess. A spell for light, when sensed by the right spell, will feel like a spell for light. It’ll return that functionality, basically. The magic they were picking up? No clue. None of them had one. Since I wasn’t sure, I didn’t try to guess. Nor did I tell them about the voice. Even though it’s missing entirely.
Second, they picked up seven different sperm samples from inside of me. The past week has been busy with Reggie’s friends, so I’m not shocked by that.
The therapists were shocked by my responses to their questions about what took place. They don’t seem to feel that I should be so calm about what happened.
I didn’t bother explaining to them that I’m not calm at all. Not in the slightest.
There’s no horror in my mind about what happened. Not any longer. There had been, but since the integration, I think I have the thoughts of the voice in my head. Or at least how she dealt with things.
They’re matter of fact, for lack of a better way of putting it. The me that I was was horrified at what was taking place. What I took part in, seemingly willingly. Yet now that feeling is washed out. I’m more horrified at the fact that it was needed at all.
I’ve learned enough about the supernatural world. The world runs on strength. Power. When you’re powerful, you can do what you want. That being said, there isn’t a rape culture out there. Do that, and people will come out of the woodwork against you. That’s taken very personally, although I’ve heard dragons have a different viewpoint about it depending on what happens.
I’m not sure I get it, yet I have these new thoughts in my skull about what took place, and I’m not terrified of being around people. I’m not up in arms about the doctors and nurses seeing me naked. Looking inside of me. Even the colonoscopy. None of that bothered me. Maybe because I spent so long blind? I don’t have a clue.
All of that being said? I have the people’s scents, and I will find them. When I find them, I will kill them. That, right there, is using strength in the supernatural world. Challenge and kill, and people let it go if it’s for a good enough reason. They will die. They’ll all die. Even the nice ones. The ones that I arguably liked. They represent a time that I was at everyone’s mercy. Ultimately vulnerable. And I won’t be vulnerable again if I can help it.
Especially now that I can see and do for myself.
Wait, that’s the third thing. My eyes. They healed. Sort of. I can see. I can see better than I could ever see before. I have decently normal looking eyes. They’re not what I had before when I was human. I remember those. From before my inducement ceremony. They’re not them. They’re also not…crap, I don’t remember what I should have been. Either way, though, they should have turned some color to match. Red for people with fire magic. Dark blue for water magic. Brown for earth. Silver for metal. Gray for air. Light blue for ice. Even dragons have the same colors, although they have a visible pupil in the shape of a dragon scale that’s a darker color than the overall eye color.
My newly regrown eyes are white. No visible pupil. That should mean that I’m a mage, which is impossible after having mortmagi in place. They’ve tested them every which way. They’ve tested me. My eyes. My magic.
They don’t have a clue what’s up with me. I don’t read like a mage. I don’t read like a dragon. I haven’t been able to cast any spells on purpose yet to help them narrow things down, so that is out.
So I’m a mystery. The doctors and supernatural investigators are at a total loss. Mages and dragons have been in and looked me over, and they’re just as stuck. My injuries healed. I should have scars, but I don’t. I should have break lines on my bones, but I don’t.
Wait, no, let me rephrase something I said. About my scars healing? Yeah, no, almost every scar healed. Things that definitely should have stayed with me. Mages just don’t heal as well as dragons do, yet even dragons will scar if things are bad enough. For me? I do have one set of scars.
The scars from the mortmagi.
I have a ring of circles all around each eye from where the spikes and screws pierced me. Pierced the bone.
Except the bone is healed, too. It’s just the skin left showing that I had them in. They’re not large. They’re not jagged looking or anything like that. Yet they’re still there. 12 around each eye. Larger marks in the corner of each eye and then top and bottom middle. That’s where the screws went in. The other marks are smaller from the spikes.
It all adds confusion to things that are already confusing.
The fourth thing that I’ve learned from them is that at least one of them knows who my parents are. Were. They won’t tell me, though. They won’t even hint at it. Tell me what affinity they had. Nothing. By making me a stricken, it has the rule of law behind it. They’re nothing to me. They won’t even be notified that I was picked up. What happened to me. Nothing.
They’ve been added to my internal list. If I ever find them, I’ll die trying to kill them for throwing me away like this.
Fifth thing that I’ve learned? This one came about when someone was talking a little louder than I think they realized. They shut up the moment one of them thought I might be able to hear them. I’ve managed to hide, at least a little, some of my differences. Just not all of them. I have a feeling they know I’m sandbagging some of the tests. I’m not about to tell the
m everything, though.
What did I overhear?
I turned 18 months and months ago. Apparently. That means that, since I obviously have magic, I am going to be sent to the academy.
My minimal alone time was destroyed when someone knocked on the door. I could tell within the first two days who this knock belonged to. There’s something about how he does it that stands out to me.
“Come in, Captain Garrison.”
The door opened, and the tall officer stepped in. As always, his sharp eyes look me over from head to toes within maybe a half second. His demeanor changes the slightest bit when he’s done, as if what he’s seeing matches what he was expecting. I have no idea what he’s looking for. I’m dressed this time, unlike so many other times that he’s been in the room. I haven’t been kicking him out for many of the tests and things. Some doctors have, but I’ve asked for him to be there the other times.
Yeah, I talked to one of the therapists about it. She thinks I connect him with being saved and freed. I feel safe with him. Maybe I do. I can’t really tell from this side. I will say it’s a possibility, though. They thought that was why I was okay with him seeing me naked and during the tests and things. I’m not too sure about that part.
Honestly, they think I’m broken. Humans, most of them, don’t think like I do. Or like I seem to. Now. I haven’t even been telling them all of it, either. Only dragons think like this. Does that mean I’m a dragon? If so, maybe that explains why my parents did what they did and threw me out? I know they were mages, that I should have been a mage. So if I somehow ended up a dragon, how would that happen?
Given my spotty memory, it’s hard to say for sure, but I’m pretty sure I’ve learned it’s impossible for a mage to have a baby with a dragon and have the baby be anything other than human. Something about the genetics results in a mule, basically, which is what a human is. Mage and mage make mage babies. Dragon and dragon make dragon babies. Mage and human? Mage babies maybe 75 percent of the time. Same percentage for dragon and human. So, if I am a dragon? No idea. Unless I was switched at birth? That’d suck.
“Good afternoon, Maddie.” His eyes twinkle as he greets me. He caught that I picked up the slight pause in his greeting.
“Right. As if you don’t know what my birth name was.”
He shrugged as he sat, “You know that we do, but you’re not her any longer.”
“Yeah, that’s where you’re wrong. I am her. My parents decided to throw me away. Take my memories from me. Take my name. That doesn’t mean I’m not who I’ve always been.”
He spread his hands, “Legally, it does.”
My smile turned cold, which he picked up on, “Maybe it does, but now I’m in an interesting position. I’m stricken, with the last name and everything. Yet I have magic. I might be a dragon. That means that I have more options going for me than most realize.”
His hands dropped, and I felt magic flow out of him. “How so?”
Hmm, a spell to tell if I’m being honest. Interesting. He doesn’t do that often. If only he knew that I could tell when he does stuff like this. “How so? I’m legally a stricken. I’m nothing in the supernatural society. I’m worse than a human to most people. I don’t fall under the supernatural laws since I’m a stricken. Yet I have magic. Which means in the human world, that I fall under the magical laws. That means that when I find out who my parents were? Challenges are still possible.”
His lips pressed together just the tiniest bit, “That’s an interesting viewpoint.”
“One others share. Don’t even think to tell me that I’m wrong.”
“Who else shares those thoughts?”
“No one worth telling you about. I know I’m right. I know they’re right.” He didn’t respond. “Now, why’re you back?”
It took him a minute to start talking again. He spent the time looking from eye to eye, as if trying to dig into my head. I kept expecting his spell to change, yet it didn’t. I also expected him to sit forward when he eventually started talking again. He did not do that. “I have two things for you.”
“Okay? What are they?”
“The first is Reggie Thomas.”
“What about him? You said he died?”
“He did. Dead and gone. You were there at least for part of the research the teams started. We have more information about him.” He took a deep breath, then shook his head as he released it, “Mr. Thomas was a bad, bad dragon.”
“I knew that. What’d he do that you figured out?”
“You saw the bodies they found?”
“I did.”
“You were there for more than four years. From age 13 to last week. You were there when we figured out he had been bringing in people and killing them while you were there. It’s worse than we thought. During the four plus years you were there, he brought in and killed 312 people. All abused to death.”
Holy hell. My mouth fell open, I couldn’t even stop it.
He nodded, “That was about my response as well. We’ve had the videos reviewed. Every one of them fought. Every one of them tried to escape. We’ve had dragons on staff review the first video of you in the house. They’re in complete agreement. You recognizing his dominance was the only reason you survived.” He paused for a moment. “Did you realize he tested you periodically?”
“What do you mean?”
His head tilted to the side, “He would set up tests to see if you’d break his rules?”
Oh! “Yeah, or, I figured that’s what he was doing.”
Surprise from him this time, “You knew that?”
“I’m not sure I knew all of them, but I did notice that he would do certain things at times. The first time he did that I knew of was the second day there.” My mind flashed back. “He left the door to the space slightly open. He had told me to never leave the space without his approval. I was feeling the space to get used to everything when I realized it was open. Needless to say, I didn’t try to leave.”
He nodded. Is that respect in his eyes? “You’re right. He was on the other side, waiting for you. He was impressed that you listened and didn’t even touch it again after that.”
“I didn’t know he was there, but I kinda figured he was. To an extent. He would do things like that periodically. The door unlocked. Leave his phone there. Leave a gun there. Drop a knife. All sorts of things. All things that I could find, which isn’t easy to do with a blind person.” Hmm, “Twice, friends of his asked me if I was being held captive. I just had to tell them that, and they’d help me escape.”
“I know they caught one of those, I haven’t heard of a second.”
“Needless to say, I didn’t tell them that.”
“You were perfect. More than perfect. I’m far older than I look and have taken any number of psychological courses about human, mage, and dragon thinking. Humans don’t understand it, typically. Mages aren’t much better. Yet dragons? What you did and how you acted was perfect for a dragon. You were being forced into an agreement, but you held firm to it…until you didn’t.” A huge smile broke out, “I’ve watched the last video of you any number of times. The entire team has.” I knew that, so I didn’t bother making a big deal about them seeing me being raped and beaten. They watched videos of the others being murdered, I’m thinking what happened to me doesn’t really stick with them in any kind of detailed way. “I swear you’re a dragon. I don’t know how that would be possible, but I swear it’s true. We can’t tell. Your magic doesn’t show as being either, and that’s not normal.”
Let’s bypass that. “Have you looked into whether or not I was switched at birth? Maybe a dragon couple has a mage girl out there somewhere?”
Another smile, this time smaller, “We have. There were no dragons in the hospital to give birth when you were there. Not for a week prior and not for nearly two weeks after. There were no babies in NICU. No babies in ICU. No babies admitted at all while your parents were there that we can tell.”
“You checked all of the records?
What hospital was it for again?”
This time I got more of a real smile from him, “Good try. I won’t be sharing that information with you.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“True. I can’t.”
“Fine. Reggie was a big, bad dragon. Not that I knew the specifics, but now I have more details. Unless he was doing other things?”
“Other things? You could say that. Those 312 people were just the ones he killed in his house. Over the same timeframe, we believe he killed somewhere close to 500 more people. We’re not sure there. Outside of those four plus years, he’s not any better. There were countless hundreds of others from before you arrived. They’re still working through the feeds they have and checking other records. At a guess, we’re talking thousands and thousands of people going back more than 100 years.”
That’s horrific. “Yeah…he didn’t seem like the type to give up on something he liked.”
“No, he really wasn’t.”
And yet I made it through. I have to take pride in that.
“Fine. That’s number one. What’s the second thing?”
He didn’t speak for a bit, continuing to stare at me. He has a tendency to do this, so I just let it go. A few times, I swear he expected me to interrupt him or jump in, but I’m not about to do that. He really should look at the last few years of my life if he thinks I’m going to do that. Reggie may have treated me well, especially in comparison to the others, but I was still his, and that meant that I didn’t push him. For anything. Even something he promised me that he didn’t deliver. Especially since he remembered it. Which I know he did. That was another part of the testing, or so I think. A possession doesn’t pressure, you know?
Then again, it’s not like I’m not willing to do it. If I’ve learned anything from the past massive chunk of my life, it’s that you get what you pursue. I was successful with Jean because she taught me to be adventurous. To reach out. To try new things. To not be afraid to fail. Yet to not be foolish.