To my shock, there was a slight pulse.
I leaned closer, hearing the pained breath that tripped over his teeth.
I leaned my head against the wall of the trench and let a few tears spill down my cheeks.
Gradually, the sounds above the trench decreased.
We had been defeated.
Even though there were some who still stuck their head out of the trench far enough to shoot at the soldiers, we all understood that we were finished. The realization hung over us. I clutched at my arm, trying to keep the pain from completely overwhelming me, but the pain was intense as I sat in the muddy trench, trying to keep myself from curling up and crying next to Mykail’s unconscious form.
I looked over the experiment in my arms, his wings badly mangled with bullets and broken bones. I wasn’t sure he would ever wake up. After the noise that had come from his hitting the ground at the speed he did, I didn’t know if he was going to survive.
But for now, he was alive. Barely.
Night fell, and the dark trench soon became encased in impenetrable black.
I could still hear the sounds of the fighting and the angry voices yelling above us, but I could not do anything but sit next to Mykail, hearing the sounds of fighting lessen as we were systematically annihilated. Bullets flew over the trench to embed in the rock. There were shouts and cries as people were mowed down. In the trench itself a lot of people were sitting against the side of the muddy walls, shivering.
It had been foolish to think that we could ever defeat Dana. It had been delusions of grandeur that made us think we could ever stand a chance against him, or that we could work without his knowledge and mange to topple the powerhouse that was the Commission of the People before he found a way to retaliate.
And we were going to pay for our naiveté.
A body dropped into the trench, barely avoiding a round of bullets. He looked around the narrow space, his eyes frantic and wild, realizing he was trapped.
“Mark?” I whispered, my voice weak.
He whirled around and ran forward, dropping to his knees next to me and placing a hand on my face.
He wrapped his arms around me and held me for several long moments as I cried. He was trying to find a way to get us out of this mess, as I had pled for him to do, but with the way he was holding me I could tell that he had run out of ideas.
There was a triumphant shout above me and I yelped, startled, but Mark pulled out his gun and shot the solider in the head, causing him to fall into the trench with a gurgle and a thud.
I began hyperventilating. They were getting to the trench now. The battle was over.
Mark opened the clip of his gun and rotated it to see how many bullets he had left. With the way he stared at the magazine, I knew it was not good. He took my hand and squeezed it before darting back across the trench and moving to the ammunition. I could not even raise my voice to tell him that there was nothing left, so he continued to rummage around in the muddied supplies.
The sound of bullets died down and the sound of voices could be heard moving steadily closer.
This is it…
I sniffed back my tears and held Mykail closer, my brain frozen, waiting to see what they would do to us. I was not sure if we were going to be taken prisoners or if we were simply going to be executed. I did not know how many were still alive or how many had already been captured. All I knew is that my fate had already been sealed by Dana, and I could not begin to imagine what he had planned for me.
I glanced at Mark, who looked at me and held up his hand, telling me to stay still.
There were beams of light that shone around the trench and the voices began to get louder as people approached.
“Take the dead out and identify them!” one man ordered.
“Any of them that look like they’ll survive, load them into the Commission van. Put the others ones out of their misery!” another voice added.
I swallowed hard, feeling the sick, twisting fear in the deepest part of my gut. Their footsteps sloshed closer in the mud, the beams moving over the huddled people in the trench. Two gunshots caused me to jump, wondering who they had killed.
They were coming closer and I could see Mark’s silhouette further down the trench as the lights drew closer. He was watching them, his eyes hard and defiant, even now, despite everything.
When the footsteps got even closer, the light fell to the ground, allowing my eyes to focus on the faces behind the beam. Horrible nausea caused me to feel light-headed as I saw the man standing next to the soldiers, dressed in his impeccable three-piece suit, eyes uncovered and locked on me as I held Mykail.
Dana took another step forward, his eyes holding mine when he stopped, slowly turning to Mark, who was crouched on the ground, glaring at Dana. For three agonizing seconds, the two shared the most intense glare I had ever seen in my life—the look of a furious dictator and a defiant subject when both had come to realize who was going to win their battle.
Dana’s mouth curved upward at the corners and he reached into his jacket.
He pulled the gun out, pressed the barrel to Mark’s forehead and, without blinking, he pulled the trigger.
My heart stopped, my eyes focused on the way the bullet ripped through Mark’s skull, exiting through the back with a torrent of blood. His head snapped back and then rolled forward as his body fell limply into the mud.
Dana replaced the gun in the holster as I stared at Mark’s dead body, the tears caught somewhere between my churning stomach and the horrible agony that ripped through me.
Dana stepped to me, crouching with a heavy sigh as he shook his head.
“Poor Little Lily…” he whispered. He reached a hand out, which finally caused me to pull my eyes away from Mark’s lifeless body. “Don’t fight me anymore…just come with me…” Dana hissed, his voice dark, commanding, showing that he had total control over me.
I stared at him for a long moment, trying to decide what I could do. I looked at Mykail’s pained expression, at Mark’s dead body, and then back to Dana’s piercing gold eyes.
“Come with me, Little Lily…”
It was then that the gravity of the situation settled over my head. I was trapped. There was nowhere else to go…
I took his hand.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Dana carried me up the hill, through the forest, and to his car, where Sean was silently sitting in the driver’s seat. I had no will to fight Dana or ask him to spare the others. I was petrified of the repercussions coming my way. No one would help me this time. My parents had abandoned me, the rebellion had failed, and the Commission had been sure to spin our deviant behavior so that the public believed we were dangerous, pegging anyone who sympathized with our movement as traitors to the nation.
It was all over.
Dana slid into the backseat after me and closed the door, causing me to jump, frightened, understanding the finality of the sound.
Sean pulled away from the dirt clearing where the other vans were busy loading others who had survived only to be taken back to the Commission—some were going to be in the back of the Commission for the first time.
Dana wrapped an arm around me and pulled me to him. I followed, my brain numb and tired. He turned my body, holding my shoulders to his chest as both of his arms wrapped around me, holding me as though to provide comfort. My head remained pressed to the smooth fabric of his tie.
Everything moved around me. I could hear Dana’s steady heartbeat and feel his chest rising and falling as he breathed but, otherwise, I did not feel movement, or register the scenery changing. I replayed Mykail falling to the ground, hitting with a sickening thud, the pain that shot through me as the bullet pierced my shoulder, the way Mark and Dana stared at one another before Mark was shot in the head so unceremoniously.
Dana scooped me back up in his arms and walked me through some hallways in the Commission that I had never recalled seeing before opening a door to a bedroom. I blinked slowly, confused, unsure how
I had gotten to the room.
Dana gently set me on the bed and went to his knees in front of me, pushing the jacket from my shoulders, hesitating when I cringed in pain.
“Daniel, get one of the doctors in here,” Dana called to one of the guards who had, apparently, followed us.
“Yes, sir.”
Dana extracted my arm from the jacket and grabbed the hem of my shirt, moving my uninjured arm through the sleeve, positioning my useless limbs as he wanted, pulling the fabric gently from my body, being mindful of my injuries.
He looked at the wound, carefully pressing his fingers to the blood dripping down my arm as I cringed.
We were silent even when the doctor got there, treated, and wrapped my shoulder.
I could only stare at the carpet meeting the wall as I sat on the bed, replaying the memories of the past few months and how quickly, and violently, everything had ended.
The doctor pushed some pills past my lips and then held a glass of water to my mouth that had magically appeared in his hand. I swallowed mechanically, my eyes never wavering from the spot I had found on the floor.
He left and Dana stepped forward again. He gently pushed me back on the bed, reaching for the button on my jeans and shimmying them off my hips. I was still, not registering the possibility of being raped.
Dana stripped me down completely, my body deadweight, before scooping me up in his arms once again and stepping to one of the doors. Toeing it open, he turned on the light with his elbow and walked to the bathtub, carefully setting me down on the cold porcelain. The tears began to fall down my face and the sobs rose in my throat, though they only rocked my body back and forth as Dana turned the silver knobs of the faucet, slipping his jacket off and rolling up the sleeves of his somehow-still-pristine white shirt.
He went to his knees next to the bathtub, reaching for a washcloth and rubbing some soap on it.
His hand, wrapped in the cloth, moved over my entire body as I cried, cleaning the mud, sweat, and blood from my skin. The urges I had in my body would have frightened me if I had been in my right mind. I had half a mind to grab the cloth and rub my skin completely off, trying to get rid of everything I had done over the year I had been in Central. I wanted a razor to slice at my skin, bleed me dry, and wash everything away down that drain so I was left hollow.
Instead, I was being washed like an infant, quietly turning over violent thoughts.
I was crying, though I could only tell because the water on my face was hot and the droplets of water that clung to the other areas of my skin made me shiver from the cold.
Dana cupped water in his hand and poured it over the soaped areas of my body, cleaning me and unplugging the drain to let the browned water swirl away as I watched through blurred eyes.
He waited for the tub to empty completely before he started on my oily, matted hair. He took a bowl out from under the nearby sink and used that to rinse, using his fingers to massage the shampoo and conditioner through my hair, taking great care to be sure I did not get anything in my eyes.
When the drain was, once again, unplugged, Dana’s large hands hooked under my arms and pulled me to my feet before he pulled me out of the tub, setting my feet on the cold tile. I flinched and a shiver racked my body.
He grabbed the towel hanging on the wall and wrapped it around me. Just as he had done when he washed me, his hands passed over every area of skin, drying me before placing the towel over my head and rubbing my hair to dry it.
The tears were still falling steadily…
We had yet to speak to one another.
Tossing the towel over the sink, Dana placed an arm around my shoulders, guiding me as I walked with heavy steps back into the bedroom, ignoring my naked state and the tears spilling freely over my face.
He turned me around and sat me on the bed, grabbing some folded clothes from the top of the dresser. Setting the clothes on the bed next to me, he fell to one knee and grabbed my wrists, pulling me to stand and placing my hands on his shoulder, allowing me to step into the panties he was holding for me. He slid the soft cotton up my legs and placed the elastic band around my hips carefully before grabbing the baggy blue pants and holding them open for me.
He then wrapped the big, button-up shirt around my shoulders and fastened each button carefully, starting from the bottom and working his way to the top, where he fixed the collar before lovingly placing a hand on the side of my neck and kissing my forehead, which only caused my tears to fall faster, fear rocketing through me.
He gently pushed me back on the bed, grabbing my ankles and lifting them before adjusting my head on the pillow.
Dana ran his hand over my wet hair, down my neck and over my shoulder before leaving the room, closing the door behind him.
That was when I broke down, crying from every cell in my body, my chest heaving and my stomach turning sickly as I came to the realization of how many different directions my fate could go.
For three days, I did not see Dana.
The only people I saw were the guards who brought me food and the doctor who came to treat my wound. My arm was not broken, and the pain lessened with pills, but the pain I felt was so much deeper than anything physical. Even though my brain had gone in a million different directions about what Dana could do to me, the actual reality had not hit me. I was still in the trench, holding Mykail as Mark tried to comfort me while I cried.
The replaying memories turned into nightmares, making it impossible to differentiate when I was asleep and awake. The pain radiating in my ribcage made me feel as though I was constantly awake; however, my constantly changing positions on the bed made me believe I was drifting in and out of sleep.
On the third night, my food was brought in and set on the desk in the corner of the room as usual. I turned to look at it as the guard exited, locking the door behind him. Like the other times food had been brought to me, I was not interested in eating. However, I was very thirsty. I crept over to the tray and grabbed the paper cup of water that had been in the same place every time the tray was brought in. Sipping the water through the straw, I savored the cool liquid, glad that it brought some relief to my burning throat from my violent sobbing.
I crawled back on the bed, curled on my side with the paper cup in my hands.
I drifted to sleep.
My eyelids were heavy when I woke and I groaned, feeling a soreness in my shoulders. I forced my eyes to open, cringing as I tried to move my arms and assess what was wrong with my shoulders.
Only my arms would not move from their position above my head.
My eyes shot open and I craned my neck to look at my hands, which were fastened to the headboard with padded cuffs and long leather and chain straps. Fear bolted through me at lightning speed. I pulled myself further up the bed and tucked my legs under me, trying to pull my wrists out of the restraints, burning my skin and straining my muscles and joints. My body was weak, and I shivered from the cold air against my exposed skin.
The door opened and Dana stepped inside. My eyes focused on him as he walked forward, unbuttoning the buttons on his suit jacket, smiling.
“You’re finally awake.”
His voice sounded foreign. I shivered from the sentence, but shifted to defend myself, preparing my legs to kick at him, even though I knew there was no logical way I could escape.
Dana was slow, meticulous even, measuring his steps as he walked toward the bed. My heart was threatening to break my ribs and my stomach knotted. I knew what was coming.
“Stay the fuck away from me….” I growled, baring my teeth.
“Now, Little Lily,” he said, finally reaching the bed and looking me over, shaking his head, “you caused quite a mess out there. It’s going to take years before the people will be able to simmer down, and it’s all your fault,” he pointed at me with a wicked smile.
“Fuck you…” I bit back. “If the people actually agreed with what you were doing, that revolution would have never gotten off the ground.”
“True, but there will always be that group of people that you will never please, who think that they are higher than everyone else and that their opinions are close to that of God’s will.” Dana leaned forward on his hands, his weight pressing into the mattress as he leaned forward. “Allow me to let you in on a little secret,” he whispered, leaning even closer as I tried to back away, hoping to melt into the headboard and through the wall behind it. “God would have approved of what the Commission was doing, if he was still alive. In the past everything was so open to interpretation and government use that even the laws that were supposed to be absolute, ordained by God himself, were used to serve politics.”
“So…aren’t you doing the same thing?” I asked. “Saying God would approve?”
“Up to your interpretation,” he shrugged. “That’s not the point I’m trying to make. I’m telling you that the Commission of the People has become the new bible—the new all-powerful law that people acknowledge even though they choose to ignore the parts that make their skin crawl.” He smiled. “You went and threw all those nasty little bits in their faces and, at first, they were angry and wanted change…until they realized that you were the one who brought all this dirty information to them, and their anger turned to you.” He shook his head. “You should know better than that, Little Lily…never make a society realize that what they’re doing is wrong. It’s too uncomfortable to change.”
He let out a laugh before standing straight.
“Now, because of the trouble you’ve caused me, I think it’s time we start your punishment.”
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” I warned, though my voice was trembling.
“Where are you going to run, Little Lily?” he whispered, smiling dangerously. “I don’t see your little army of rebels or that sneaky fuck of a chink around anywhere to help you out of this one.” He cocked his head to the side. “I told you long ago…one day, I would take you and there would be nothing you could do to stop me.”
Inside Page 133