Confusion swirled in my head and a terrifying set of thoughts ran through my head.
Dana was more dangerous than anyone I had ever know and, unlike the television villains in horror films and late-night programs, he was terrifyingly real and currently laying on top of me, gently touching me with his mouth locked around the pulse in my neck. He could kill me so easily as I was laying there, still chained and helplessly at his mercy. However, he had not. There was something he wanted from me, something carnal and dark, and because of that, he was being gentle with me for the moment, despite his power.
That made me feel surprisingly powerful, even in my state.
My resistance made me powerful. I could drag this on and on. Dana did not want me to submit to him, to enjoy sex with him as everyone else did. He wanted the challenge, the tease that whet his pallet for more.
And I could control that.
I wondered what scars and flaws Dana was filling for me. What did I take away from him?
As his mouth moved down my belly, his lips locking just under my belly button, I thought back to the previous interactions I had had with him. The times he had touched me and lit my body up like dynamite, the gentle whispers against my ear, the way he had promised to change me from a virgin into a powerful woman who could get what she wanted.
Without me knowing, he had already changed me. He had hardened me and made me unafraid to stand up against something I did not agree with. He had pushed me to grow into a woman, strong and willing to fight.
Did he know he had changed me? Did he mean to do so? Or had he been chasing me and waiting to see how I would change on my own before he picked the right moment to capture me, knowing the precise moment when it would break me down the most?
What had my flaws been? What had I needed from him? What had I taken from him?
Or maybe I was the one person he could not mold to. Perhaps my wounds and flaws matched his, and no matter how he tried to encase me and harden around me to fill anything that was missing, that was the one thing he could not give.
When he entered me, the fear that rocketed through me was more painful than the penetration.
We were the same.
That was how he knew he could break me. Our connection to one another was much deeper than blood. Young and stupid, we had both fought for the idealistic world we had imagined the globe to be, only to be caught, ripped from the ones we loved and torn down. I was on one side of this transformation and he was the mirror looking me in the eye, showing me what I would become.
“Are you afraid?” he whispered, still, seated inside my body, connecting us.
I nodded slowly, my eyes locked on his.
He smiled and began moving, slowly, but with strength and power that I could see and feel from the flexing of his muscles and the intensity of his eyes as he looked at me.
Was there any way to fight his influence?
I had tried to go against the Commission, tried to rally the people behind me, but the Commission was much stronger. It was a living, breathing organism that quickly shifted to overcome the opposition, crushing anything that dared to get in its way. It was far too large to be toppled, just like Dana.
Dana was the Commission of the People, and the Commission was Dana Christenson.
The tears began to fall from my eyes as I felt the walls closing around me, the room spinning rapidly as he moved above me, his eyes locked on mine. Everything was moving quickly as I stayed in one spot, helpless and overwhelmed.
My eyes shut and I pulled against my restraints, my body bowing under him as I let out a choked sob. He stilled for several long seconds before he pulled out and took my face in his hands, his lips pressing to mine, causing a small sting to radiate from the cut in my lip and tears to fall from eyes clenched tightly shut.
This was the end.
No words needed to be exchanged. He knew that I understood my situation, and I knew that he could see the realization I had come to.
I opened my eyes again when his weight lifted and dipped the bed next to me. He unbuckled my wrists and then rested his head on the pillow next to mine. I looked at him, sniffing and trying to clear the blurry tears from my eyes, though they refused to shake free from the welling against my eyelashes.
He smiled and closed his eyes as I continued to cry.
There was no way out of this, was there?
If I was weak against him, succumbing to what he wanted and what the tests did to me when I was on the table, then I would be surrendering everything to him. It was possible that he would simply lose interest if I stopped providing such entertainment for him and I would rot away in the back of the Commission. If I fought against the testing…then I would become like Dana.
Could I fight even more and avoid both?
My eyes snapped open.
I carefully turned my head to look at him. His eyes were closed, his breathing even and slow. I guess he really did sleep, maybe in the same way Mark did, only twenty minutes or an hour a day, just to rest his body.
I watched him carefully, looking for any confirmation that he was completely asleep.
He did not shift, even as I counted each second for five full minutes. His breathing remained at exactly the same pace.
Moving so slowly I almost thought I wasn’t moving, I slipped my legs over the side of the bed, watching Dana with unblinking eyes. He did not stir.
I moved at an agonizingly slow pace, rising to my feet, standing next to the bed, watching the motionless leader of the Commission of the People. As I watched him, I reached down to touch the cold metal that was wedged tightly under the mattress. Having to pull harder than I wanted to, I finally freed the heavy gun from its hiding place, holding it in both hands, glancing back at Dana to be sure he had not moved as I had struggled freeing the weapon.
He had not moved at all.
I glanced back down at the gun, not even moving my head, worried that the sound of my muscles shifting under my skin would wake him up and cause him to see me with a gun. My fingers gently pressed the safety switch, being sure to keep my eyes on Dana when the switch actually slid to the other end, unlocking the trigger.
I dared not to open the clip to be sure there were bullets. I was going to assume that Clark had given me a loaded gun, particularly since it was Sean’s gun. I should have put some thought to the original possessor of the gun, but for the moment, I was intensely focused on the sleeping figure on the bed.
My whole body was shaking with anticipation and I knew that would make my aim worse. I had one shot, and I needed to steady myself and make that one shot count.
Carefully lifting my left knee, I pressed it into the bed, steadying my weight and extending the gun, one hand supporting the other, remembering how Mark had taught me. I took a deep breath and slowly let it out to steady my shot, aiming directly at Dana’s forehead.
My hands were shaking too much. I tried to draw in another breath to center myself, but the air was suddenly thin and the deep breath only made me light-headed and caused my shaking to worsen.
I swallowed hard and forced my hands to still as much as I could, pointing the gun at Dana.
His eyes opened, locking on me in an instant and my body went weak with terror. I let out a small sound that could barely count as a pathetic whimper, but my arms did not waver from their position, still pointing the gun at the leader of the Commission of the People.
Five seconds passed like years where we both stared at one another, silent, the gun between us.
The corners of his mouth curved into a confident smirk and he closed his eyes once again, laying his head back against the pillow, resuming his apparent slumber.
The actions spoke for themselves.
I know you’re not going to shoot…
I had never felt so insignificant.
The terrified sobs rose in my throat and I looked frantically around the bed. My arms were weak, the heavy gun was slipping from my hands as I began hyperventilating.
Dana’s eyes opene
d again and he took a deep breath, slowly letting it out, the smirk fading from his face as he sat up and reached out to take the gun. The panic grabbed at me and I steadied the weapon, pointing it at his forehead again and pressing the barrel to the spot between his eyebrows, the tears falling free from my eyes as I shook like a leaf in the wind.
He hesitated only for a moment, his eyes calm and understanding as he looked further than into my mind. The golden color reached to the deepest pit of my stomach, to the core of me, and held me there.
His hand went to the gun and he carefully pulled it from my fingers, moving slowly as I panted, my eyes wide and frightened, caught in his stare. The gun dropped to the bed between us and, as soon as I heard the sound, all the tension in my body released, moving out of my toes and into the floor. My eyes darted around the room, and I began to collapse to the bed. He caught me and gathered me in his arms, holding me tightly as I sobbed and cried out loudly, nearly screaming as I broke down, only feeling the warmth of his body against mine and the small bite of cold metal as the gun pressed between my hip and his.
* *** *
Dana returned only an hour after he left me dazed and frightened on the bed. He secured me in my restraints again only because he left the gun in the room. I stared at the cold black metal, not sure why he had left it lying on the bed.
When he returned, he had brought some folded red clothes. It was my uniform, symbolizing I was an experiment.
Dana released me and slapped my hip.
“Get dressed,” he ordered.
I could not move.
“Do you really want me to dress you again?” he groaned.
Two seconds later, I finally rose from the position I had fallen into and reached for the clothes, pulling them on slowly as Dana supervised. When I was covered, he offered a hand and led me out of the room.
My head was low as I walked. I did not want to see where I was going. I already knew.
Holding my hand, Dana led me, barefoot and shaking, through the front security of the Commission. I ignored the snickering of the guards when they saw me. The tiles beneath my feet were very cold and caused my toes to tingle as I walked through the hallway of the termination cells…through the middle of Ward Three…then Ward Six…and finally turning to the lab.
There was a group of three men and two women in the lab, all wearing their white coats and looking over a single clip board.
“Mr. Christenson,” one of the women greeted.
“Jeanie,” he grinned back, stepping forward with me in tow. I dared to look at Jeanie, who had dark blonde hair that was tied neatly out of her face. Her brown eyes were looking at Dana with adoration that made my stomach flip.
“Is this her?”
“Yes, it is.” Dana pulled me forward.
“Alright,” Jeanie said. “Barry, put her on the table.” As the man named Barry stepped forward and took me away from Dana, I heard Jeanie continue speaking with her boss. “Will you be staying?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dana sighed. “I have some business I must attend to.”
I was picked up and set on the table as I heard Jeanie make some show of pouting that Dana wasn’t going to be there for my first time on the table. He chuckled.
“I was there for all of her other firsts.” My head snapped in his direction, my eyes wide, ignoring the way Barry was rolling my right sleeve up. Dana’s eyes glanced in my direction and he smiled as if to say ‘yes, I was there. You should have been paying more attention.’
“Oh, Mr. Christenson,” Jeanie giggled. “You shouldn’t say such things!”
“What can I say?” Dana teased, smiling broadly and leaning down to her, playful. “Sometimes, I kiss and tell.” Jeanie giggled again and it took everything I had in me not to roll my eyes.
Dana ran his thumb over the scientist’s cheek, still smiling.
“I apologize, but I really must run.”
“Alright,” Jeanie consented. “But it really has been too long since you were present for an experiment that wasn’t Eyna.”
“Eyna’s fascinating.” Dana shrugged.
“But he’s not my project,” Jeanie pouted. Barry grabbed my ankles and moved them onto the table, strapping them down with metal cuffs. The cold metal barely hit my skin, allowing me just a little bit of room to move if I needed to. Pushing me down, he strapped my neck and arms as the other scientists moved toward me, pulling on blue, latex gloves.
“I know, darling, but the last time I watched one of your projects on the table, you and I got distracted,” Dana teased, pretending to scold her.
“That was a good day,” Jeanie breathed.
“A very good day,” Dana agreed. “Take care of her.”
“Will do.” I heard the door open and then close as Dana left.
“So, this is the famous little terrorist of the Central Angels,” one of the men mused, shaking his head as he looked me over.
“Apparently,” another sighed. “She looks pretty dull to me. How could she have gotten all those experiments and people out?”
“You cost us millions of dollars,” the other female scientist told me as if she was scolding a five-year-old for breaking a toy. “There’s a lot of money that goes into each of those experiments and you took over twenty of them, not to mention you got the Eight Group killed. They were expensive.”
“If you count all the work we’ve had to do calming the people down, it’s over a billion,” Jeanie sighed, stepping to a rolling table and pulling two gloves out of the dispenser. “She’s quite the busy bee…”
“She seems pretty tame now,” Barry chuckled, grabbing a swab of cotton and soaking it in something before rubbing it on the inside of my right elbow. “Seeing all her friends killed must have calmed her down a little.”
“Either that, or Dana has tamed her,” the final man smiled darkly.
“She only entertained him for two and a half weeks,” the woman pointed out. “She must not have much to offer if he’s already had his fill of her.”
“Or filled her,” the man laughed, causing a round of taunting to surround me before I caught sight of the needle coming toward me. Barry laughed when he saw me try to flinch away.
“What? Afraid of a little needle?” he leered. He pushed the needle into my skin and I turned away, clenching my eyes shut and biting my lower lip. “Don’t be a little bitch. We’re just drawing blood.”
“What if she’s pregnant?” one of the men asked with a horrible smirk on his face. “Wonder if Dana will want to keep it? It will slow down testing…”
“Dana is infertile.” Jeanie rolled her eyes.
“You would know,” the other woman laughed.
“Don’t be a bitch,” Jeanie teased back. “You were the one who freaked out when he fucked you in Ward Seven because you thought you were pregnant.”
“That gossip rocketed around in no time,” Barry recalled with a laugh.
Their voices floated to me gently, barely brushing my ears as I tried to ignore the needle drawing blood.
“Fuck you, Barry,” the girl laughed. I heard a sound and then Barry let out an indignant snort.
“Watch it, Tamara!” he snapped. “I’m working with a needle here!”
“Oh, who cares?” Tamara groaned. “Corbett,” she said to one of the men. “Ready for a vitals read?”
“Yep.”
“We might as well check her for internal injuries, too,” the final man said.
“Smooth, George,” Tamara chuckled. “You say that all the time. Anything to see a girl naked.”
“That’s why I love my job,” George grinned darkly. He was an older man with a large, rounded belly and a salt-and-pepper beard surrounding his thin lips.
“The boys, too,” Corbett added.
“Fuck you,” George snapped. “I’m not some fucking homo.”
“Except when you want to suck Dana’s cock,” Corbett corrected.
“To be fair, who doesn’t want to suck Dana’s cock?” Barry said, removing t
he needle and taping something over my elbow. His eyes moved from my arm to my eyes and he smiled sickly. “I’m sure even this little whore did it at some point over the last couple weeks.”
They moved around me, halting their conversation as Corbett and Tamara took note of my vitals, feeling my pulse, checking blood pressure and a bunch of other things that never happened when I went to the doctor normally. I could not take note of everything, slowly slipping in and out of consciousness. Sleep was easier than reality.
However, when they suddenly began fastening my left foot into a vice, I began to pay attention. I was about to be marked with my experiment number.
“Are you going to do it?” Barry’s voice asked near my feet.
“Yeah,” Tamara’s voice responded. “Greg is busy right now.”
“You know, Jake wanted to get a tattoo,” Barry said. I could not lift my head to look down to identify the mechanical noises at my feet.
“Did you let him get one?” Jeanie chuckled knowingly.
“I told him when he was twenty, he could do whatever he wanted,” Barry sighed. “Denise told him that if he got a tattoo she would never let him back in the house.”
“I wouldn’t mind if my children wanted tattoos,” George said. “I mean, unless it was a really stupid one, then I would have a problem with it.”
A wet cloth rubbed the bottom of my foot, cleaning my skin. I shivered at the thought of the little needle going in and out of my foot, tattooing the number that would seal my fate.
“One of my classmates in med school got a really stupid tattoo, a tramp stamp,” Jeanie laughed.
“What was it?” Tamara asked.
“It was a really elaborate design, like a letterhead, and the text read ‘Connor Was Here’ right above her ass.”
The scientists’ booming laughter echoed around the lab.
“Was Connor her boyfriend?”
“No!” Jeanie laughed loudly. “She meant Connor North, the actor! She had never met the man in her life. She was high as a fucking kite. In the end, she married a man named Paul!”
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