by Terina Adams
I curled to the side, gasping for air, my jaw throbbing from his fist. The pain, the shock, the suddenness, and destruction lagged behind. But with the sound of boots smacking nearer, I remembered; destruction remembered. I slammed a palm onto the floor—I couldn’t let it loose. It welled up my throat with such force I rolled to my stomach, thinking I would vomit. Coughing, gasping, I curled my fingers inward with the effort to claw it back down, drawing my nails along the concrete.
A hand clasped my shoulder, yanked me onto my back.
“I can’t,” I gasped.
On his knees, the sweeper leered down, shoving his helmet-covered face into mine. His shield wrapped around his body, skimming the surface of my body. “You’re right about that. And you won’t ever again. We’ll see to it.”
It slipped out before I could snatch hold. Destruction powered forward and slammed into the wall of his shield with the force of an explosion, and it sent him airborne backward into the lift where he collided with the far wall, his weapon clattering to the lift floor. The barrel of five weapons filled my view with inches to spare from my nose.
“Do it. One. More. Time,” a sweeper dared.
The sweeper in the lift rose from the floor, rolled his neck, then scooped up his weapon. “This is why I love my job,” he said as he stomped toward me. The others in the huddle surrounding me spread, creating a runway for him to follow.
By the time he reached me, he ripped his helmet from his head so I could see his eyes, now soaked red. He kneeled down beside me again, clutched the front of my shirt, and pulled me off the floor to meet his face. Nose-to-nose. “You have nothing,” he whispered over my face. “Nothing compared to me.” His breath worked its way into my mouth, sweet, spicy licorice. His free hand made its way into my hair, fingers curling inward to scrape across my scalp as he grasped a fistful of hair and pulled it down, arching my head backward, tugging farther until it hurt. “You are nothing compared to me.” His breath dusted along my cheek.
Something pricked at my temples. Intensifying, it stabbed like needles on my brain, jabbing and jabbing, then it won through, piercing inward, down and down, funneling through the center of my mind, dragging with it a searing pain.
Oh, god. I lashed out with my hand, clipping him on the side of the shoulder, only because he moved in time. He still held my hair, my head at a painful angle, but I thrashed out with both arms regardless, punching wildly at his face while he laughed.
I knew what he was doing. I knew what he was capable of. But it didn’t make sense.
He let me go by throwing me to the ground as he stood. I fell back, curling my knees up, fists to my eyes as the radial spiral of pain in my head ebbed away.
“Girls need lessons,” he said as footsteps approached.
“What is going on here?” A woman’s voice.
“Reeducation.” The sweeper grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet, limp muscled and floppy. “She’s ready for you now.” He pushed me toward the woman.
Reeling from what happened, I staggered forward like a blind person. Once again, the shock subdued destruction, leaving me empty, feeling like I didn’t even have a skeleton to hold me up.
Beautiful green eyes framed by long black eyelashes, but that’s where her attractiveness ended. Her vitriolic stare cored me through. She dismissed me with a tilt of her head, spun on her heels, and clomped away. I watched her go. Which was better, her or the sweepers?
The woman’s shoes smacking on the floor blanketed the sweeper’s approach. “You should follow,” he said over my shoulder.
I walked after her, casting a glance over my shoulder to see the sweeper had returned to normal, eyes now their usual color. He winked at me, licked his bottom lip, and that was all I bothered to see before I hurried after the lady.
She stopped in front of a vacant station receded into the wall. Long nails strummed on the smooth countertop as she tapped out an agitated tune. She looked sideways at me then shifted to face me, taking my chin between her fingers and turned my head to the side. The shield surrounding her flowed with her outstretched hand. When she spied what she was looking for, she recoiled her hand as if I’d bitten her and screwed her lips into a puckered O.
Another lady appeared from behind a partition. Without a word, she focused on the monitor in front of her, fingers feathering across the screen. “D4,” was the first thing she said. “She’ll have to be taken through for now. We’re not ready for processing.”
She disappeared behind the partition again, but the lady standing next to me stayed put. The other woman returned with a set of what looked like handcuffs and slid them across the counter.
Before we went any farther, the woman next to me cuffed my wrists. With the soft mechanical click of the lock engaging, she said, “Now let’s see how brave you are.”
“Anyone would fight if provoked.”
“Only the foolish would try once in those.” She nodded toward my wrists then turned and marched away.
The other woman disappeared behind her partition again.
“I’d hurry if I were you. There isn’t much time left,” she spoke over her shoulder but slowed, allowing me to catch up.
Why put the cuffs on me now, after I already walked through half the facility to get here? The sweepers left us. It was just her and me. “These suppress my factional nature.”
“As if you were any match for me.” She stopped in front of a door. Not bothering to wait for my reply, she faced the panel next to the door, placing her hand on the black screen and staring into the rectangular box above it.
The door slid open. “You don’t have much time left.”
“For what?”
“To reach your cell.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can stand here and find out.”
I didn’t, because her face, for once, took on the jubilant expression of anticipation. Something bad was going to happen, and she couldn’t wait to see it.
Chapter 23
It was bright—fluorescent, fake-light bright—the sort that highlights all your facial flaws and makes you look sick. That was as welcoming as the place got. Rows of open doorways ran the length of the room. A metal balcony dissected the second story from the first. Piping tangled along the ceiling. No windows, no hope of seeing natural light, no way of marking the days from the nights. Austere, quiet, smelling like someone dumped a bucket of ammonia, this was my home. I moved farther into the space, peering inside the closest rooms as I passed. This was the cell block, and somewhere amongst these doorways I would find cell D4.
There were ten rooms downstairs, matched by ten upstairs. Above the first doorway was a plaque etched with C1. Through the metal grille of the landing, I read the plaque above the first doorway on the second story, D1. I didn’t have far to go.
The woman had not removed the cuffs, because they suppressed destruction. How long was I expected to wear them? Although I’d never been great at anything, now that destruction was truly chained, I felt totally useless. Once they grafted me, it would be permanent. And would I be prepared to risk reversing the graft, if I ever managed to get out of here?
Ignoring the women’s preemptive order, I explored downstairs. There was one bed in each room, wide enough you could fall out during the night if you rolled over. The walls were white, not gray like the rest of the place, which was something. This was the sort of place that would have you climbing the walls in boredom ten minutes after entering.
A single doorway opened to a passage at the opposite end of the large room. I headed over, casting glances into the rooms as I went in a futile hope that it wasn’t just me in here; isolation was a good way to foster despair. Every room looked the same, empty except a cot.
In the passage, I found two doors; left was the toilet block, right the showers. That was something, at least. I turned back and looked down the length of the room and stared at a whitewash of emptiness. I’d felt hollow in the courtroom the day Dad was led away. But that was nothing
compared to now. Fully clothed, I felt bare. I wouldn’t last in here alone.
I marched down the length of the room to the only exit. Perhaps there was an intercom system, a way of connecting with someone in case of an emergency, maybe a camera that monitored my movement.
“Hello?” I banged on the door. “Anyone?” If I made enough noise, someone might’ve come. And then what? I could’ve asked why I had to be locked away alone. Maybe there were other women I could be put with. Anything was better than this. I used the cuffs to clunk a dull, reverberating tune against the door, but after forever, no one came.
The cuffs became suffocating, more suffocating than the room, the isolation. Not only was I trapped within a room with no possible chance of escape, but I was physically bound. I blamed everything that happened to me so far on my factional nature. I’d grown to hate its constant presence. Without it now, the void I felt within grew like a chasm. Without it, I felt utterly alone.
A blaring sound punctured the quiet. Short, sharp bleeps pitched to pierce your eardrums. Handcuffed, I could only cover one ear. Was this an indication something was wrong? A warning for me to back away from the door?
Then the tingle in my wrists started. Light at first, increasing with each bleep, until it swept up my arms and into my shoulders. There, it rested. I shook my hands, rolled my shoulders. What the hell? It had to be coming from the cuffs. Moments later, the tingle was off across my chest, engulfing my upper body, morphing from tingles into a vibration.
I staggered from the door with no intention of heading somewhere, just doing something that wasn’t standing still. The pain slammed into my head like a bat across the skull, sending me stumbling backward onto my ass. When I hit the ground, bum first, the jar hammered up my spine. I fell sideways, one elbow spearing the floor as I curled into a ball, squeezing my temples between my forearms. Endless waves of agony radiated from my wrists to my head.
The bleeping stopped, but the pain did not. And my crime for this punishment was dawdling. The only way to stop my torment was to reach D4. As if infected with a migraine, times ten, my vision tunneled and wavered when I unfurled my head from the protective cover of my forearms, searching for the stairs.
They were meters away but closer to miles. That’s how long it would take for me to reach them the way I felt. I was Daddy’s little girl, so Elva taunted me, which meant I was made of the same steel. I gave myself one deep breath and one more weak moment before I got to my knees. Halfway to standing.
The pain, the wavering vision, made me squint at the stairs. They seemed to ripple and stretch farther away from me, which was impossible. I closed my eyes, another deep breath, and then I pushed to my feet, hunched but standing all the same. My first step and my foot felt like it didn’t belong to me. The vibration, which claimed my upper body, had spread throughout, making my legs quiver.
I looked at my feet and willed them to move, take another step, and one more. Ahead, the stairs stayed at a distance. I closed my eyes and shook my head. This was an illusion, a product of the agony in my head. Concentrating on my feet again, I forced more steps. My whole world became those steps. An explosion could decimate this room, and I would still be looking at my feet and willing my legs to make those few steps.
Eternity came and went, and I was still walking. A moan of relief escaped when I glanced up and found the rail within reach. I grasped for it, leaning over too far, and tumbled forward. Mind slowed by pain, I realized I’d fallen once I felt the sharp stab at my hip, which then jarred through the rest of me.
It was like starting again. I had to pull myself from the floor, had to find the mental willpower to drag my heavy, unresponsive body to stand. Lagging limbs meant when I grasped for the railing, looking for help to stand, my coordination was out, and I ended up tipping forward and banging my face on the metal. I reeled back and landed on my ass then tittered to my side.
My yell sprung the lid on my tears. It ratcheted the pain, but screaming felt good, because it drove fire into my veins, buried my despair under a blanket of rage. I was on my knees without willing it. I knelt and screamed throaty, hoarse screams that flushed raw emotions out of every possible hiding place. For those few seconds, I was immersed in something more powerful than my pity.
When done, I crashed back into reality and hunched forward, so my forehead rested on the floor. The only way out was to reach my room. A climb was all it would take. I lifted my head and found a small pool of blood on the floor. Using my tongue, I found blood on my top lip. Soon, it ran into my mouth, coating my tongue with a metallic taste.
In one push, I reached my feet. Hands white-knuckled on the railing, I took my first step. Don’t look up. If I did, the wavering stairs would send me back on my ass to the bottom. Keeping my head down, I took the next step.
With every gain I made, the agony would intensify as if it sensed I was nearing my destination and wanted to make the most of the time it had. My legs still quivered and threatened to collapse. By now, though, I found my rhythm, two breaths for every step. It became my challenge to keep to those two breaths and not let my pacing slip.
Risking a peek, I found only a few steps to go. This buoyed me on. One more step and then the next, when a sudden noise behind me made me lose the step. The front of my boot banged into the grille stair, and I staggered forward. I had a hold of the railing, but my partially disorientated mind wasn’t strong enough to enforce the grip, and I lost my hold. My knees hit the step. Next, the clank of the cuffs on the metal, and I was falling. Hip, elbow, head, most parts of me met the stairs on my way down, tumbling, rolling until I bumped into something soft. Terrified there was yet still falling to be done, I stayed in my semi-curled position like a corpse.
Someone rolled me onto my back. A man leaned over me as he scooped his hands under my knees and back then hoisted me up to his chest. His boots thunked heavy on the steps. It could not have been easy, carrying me up the stairs, but he kept going, powering up without breaking a sweat. At the top, he stomped across the landing and entered the door of a cell. The moment we crossed the threshold, the pain in my head and body stopped. He laid me down on the bed then stood back, hands on hips, and assessed me with analytical eyes.
“You’ve had a bit of trouble, haven’t you?”
I rolled to my side and pushed myself up, gingerly at first in case the thumping agony came back. When it didn’t, I pushed all the way up and shuffled on my ass to the wall. No one in this place was trustworthy.
He was dressed like a sweeper, minus the helmet and the accessories they hung from their belts, in particular a weapon. His faded gray eyes reminded me of a multifaceted crystal. Penetrating, they dissected everything. Without a blink, confidence kept his gaze on my face, made me feel like a peculiarity or a lab experiment. His short, military-style cut failed to obscure his tattoo. Set. A liar. The friendly smile had to be deceit. The sleeves of his uniform covered his wrist, so I couldn’t tell whether he was a liar in full control of his factional nature. What else were Set masters of? Jesus, I couldn’t remember.
“I think we can dispense with these.” He knelt at my feet. Knelt like he was about to pray or beg for my forgiveness. I pressed farther to the corner. Set, remember? A display of compassion was likely a forerunner to a stab in the gut.
He opened his hand, revealing a slim, silver device. “If you wouldn’t mind.” Palm held out, facing up, and a welcoming smile. Did he really expect me to give him my hands? Set would slice them off at the wrists. Wouldn’t they? This was a ruse to win me over. Like the good cop/bad cop routine, send in someone caring and I’d cave.
He quirked an eyebrow. I didn’t want to suffer again if any alarm went off, so I stretched out my hands. Turning it into a magical stunt, theatrics and all, he flicked his wrist then waved it over the base of the cuffs. There was a small click then the cuffs disengaged and fell to the bed.
Because he was kneeling, we looked eye-to-eye. “That should feel more comfortable. I will have a word with intake ab
out your treatment. These cuffs were unnecessary. They should never have been left on while you were alone.”
He held my eyes the whole time he spoke. Instead of dark and surly like Jax, he was blond and full of smiles with a nose too big for his face and wide lips.
I arched away from his hand as he drew it near to my face. At first, his smile dropped, and he genuinely looked worried as he withdrew his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I was going to clear some strands of your hair, which were stuck to the blood on your face. How’d you get that, anyhow?”
“I fell down the stairs.” Now that he’d drawn attention to my injury, my nose throbbed, which it had likely been doing all along, but I’d been distracted with other more life-threatening issues to notice.
“I’m sorry you had to experience that.”
Was he for real? “You keep apologizing.”
“I’m appalled at your treatment.”
“I’m a prisoner, so why do you care?”
“It’s not our way to treat anyone like this.”
This is all a lie. “The lady who brought me here was under a different impression.” I wasn’t going to bother mentioning the sweeper. They would treat anyone like that, regardless of who they were.
He heaved a sigh, like it had been the hardest thing in the world to hear. “I’ll take care of intake. Perhaps some retraining of protocol is in order.” He fished around in his pocket as he spoke. “Would you like to go to the bathrooms and clean yourself up? You’ll find towels on the shelving to your left when you first enter. I’ll see to it some clothes are sent down the chute before you get out of the shower. Soon, we will have a chat.”