by Aella Black
“What were you doing, Phoenix?” Oscar demanded. “You know that guy has anger issues.”
“You think? By the way, is he really a werewolf?”
Oscar’s head snapped in my direction. “No. But that doesn’t mean you should antagonize him.”
“He was beating up on my roommate. I had to do something.”
“The situation was under control,” he said. “You just made it worse for yourself.”
“Under control? You sound like Luther,” I hissed.
I felt Oscar’s grip on my arm tighten, the only sign he’d heard what was clearly an insult. We reached my cell, and he opened the door for me. I stepped inside with a sigh. “I would be dog meat if you hadn’t tased him. So… thanks.”
Oscar didn’t respond. He closed the cell door and locked it. “Just try to stay out of trouble,” he muttered before walking off.
But it was too late for that. After that fiasco, I knew “trouble” was practically printed on my forehead.
When Rocky arrived a short while later, she cast a seething look in my direction. “I didn’t need your help,” she snapped.
I’d been stretched out on my stomach, so I sat up and leaned against the wall, the book in my hands wide open. Being sent to my cell was probably the best punishment they could have ever given me. I hadn’t had this much uninterrupted reading time in weeks. I found myself reading a line aloud:
“For the men of Wu and the men of Yueh are enemies; yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to each other's assistance just as the left hand helps the right.”
Rocky stared at me, and I stared back. Then she collapsed on her bed and fixed her stare on the ceiling. “Thanks, I guess.” She jabbed her finger in my direction. “But this doesn’t change the fact that I dislike you.”
“Didn’t expect it to.”
She reached under her pillow and pulled out a magazine. I went back to my book, pleasantly surprised that I received a ‘thank you.’
And grateful that I’d stumbled upon Sun Tzu and his Art of War.
15
At breakfast, that indescribable feeling hung in the air once again. My stomach dropped to my feet, and my appetite instantly vanished.
Testing day.
I knew I’d dodged a bullet the week before when Oscar let it slip that Dr. Venn was out sick. And I wasn’t even the least bit ashamed that I hoped she never came back from whatever ailed her.
As we all sat in silence and ate, it occurred to me that I hadn’t been half as afraid of Wolf yesterday as I was of the thought of spending ten minutes alone with the evil doctor again. If I were to measure my fear on her stupid number scale, yesterday I was at a five. Today was an eight.
And poor Birdie was at a ten.
Her eyes haunted, she sat staring at her bowl of cereal as it got soggy. Her lips were pressed together, and it appeared she was trying—and failing—to keep them from trembling. What I hated most though was that she wouldn’t look anyone in the eye. As if she felt guilty for what they forced her to do.
It’d made me sick when Cathy confided in me that Birdie’s previous session wasn’t the first time she’d had to kill an innocent creature.
I reached across the table and gave her hand a squeeze. It was all I could do. No words would come, because I couldn’t even reassure myself.
After mealtime, we were sent to our cells to await testing. Rocky was taken first. I waited alone, pacing the length of the small space, rubbing my hands up and down my thighs. I couldn’t even read. Though getting lost in a book would have been a good escape, there was no escaping this—mentally or physically.
By the time the guard came for me, I felt lightheaded and could barely catch my breath. It wasn’t from the physical exertion.
My heart pounded as the guard opened my cell. “I can’t do it,” I said, my breath becoming more rapid by the second. “I can’t go there.”
The guard’s expressionless face didn’t change. “Can and will,” he said, pulling out his taser. Honestly, it would probably be less painful to get tased than what waited for me upstairs in that room.
No sooner had I thought that than a pain similar to Zapper’s touch—only about a hundred times worse—surged through my entire body. Every muscle clenched, and then I went boneless.
I must have passed out for a minute or two, because the next thing I knew, I was being carried down the hallway toward the staircase. When we reached the bottom step, the guard abruptly dropped me to my feet.
Glancing up, I saw Woody standing on the stairs, his rounded eyes bloodshot, his mouth gaping wide open. It must have looked strange. A guard, of all people, carrying a prisoner like a groom crossing the threshold with his bride. I shivered at the thought.
Or maybe that was a side effect from being tased. Jerk!
I took a step forward on shaky legs, then another, eager to put as much distance as possible between myself and the trigger-happy guard. Woody lurched forward, a guard at his back, and I wondered what personal hell he’d just been through. Since there was no escaping mine—not today anyway—I shuffled forward.
At the top of the stairs, the guard grabbed on to my arm and pulled me to a different room than the previous one. This was bigger, filled with more beds and much more equipment. All pretenses were gone, apparently. They didn’t even attempt to make it look like a doctor’s examination room.
My heartbeat quickened, and then it took off on a full sprint when my gaze locked on Dr. Venn. She stood by a computer, waiting.
“Hello, Phoebe,” she said.
I couldn’t speak. I was too busy fighting my body’s fight-or-flight response. It would have been happy with either.
“Today we’re going to run a few tests again. But don’t worry, these won’t hurt.”
I didn’t believe her. Why should I? Not to mention, I distinctly remembered cancer treatments that doctors assured me wouldn’t hurt. They were trying to get me to cooperate, and so was she.
The guard still gripped me tightly, blocking my blood flow. The tips of my fingers were ice. Dr. Venn gestured to a chair. “Please, sit.”
I didn’t move. The guard dragged me over and pushed me into the chair. I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat as my wrists were latched in place.
The door opened and several nurses entered the room. Good… witnesses. Then my heart stopped cold when two guys in familiar black uniforms strode in after them.
I recognized them as the SCC’s paramedics, the ones who kidnapped me and brought me to this house of horrors. Blood rushed to my head, making me dizzy. I was beginning to panic again. Only this time, I doubted the guard would make it stop by tasing me.
Not that I was under any illusion he did that for my benefit.
Dr. Venn pulled on a pair of latex gloves and approached. “Phoebe, we at SCC pride ourselves with top-notch research on supernaturals.”
That halted my panic attack in its tracks. This woman could not be believed. “Oh yeah?” I said. “Do you publish these findings? If so, where can I read them?”
She continued without acknowledging I’d spoken. Unless you counted the surprised look that flashed on her face, followed immediately by one that promised a slow, painful death.
“We like to push limits. See how far we can go. But for you, we need a baseline of data. Don’t worry, this won’t hurt. We just want to monitor how long it takes you to revive and what your symptoms are like. It’ll be a quick injection.”
My brain was working double-time to try to comprehend what she was saying. “Revive me?” I croaked. “What are you going to do?”
She fixed me with a blank stare. “We’re going to test your power, of course.”
But my power was—
Oh no. She was going to give me a slow, painful death.
“You’re going to kill me?” My voice had shot up a full octave.
“There’s no need to worry,” she said. That only made me worry more. “We have eviden
ce you will revive.”
“What if I don’t?” I yelped.
She gestured to the paramedics. “They will resuscitate you if there are signs you fail to regenerate. Nothing to worry about.”
“Quit saying that! You would worry too if someone was playing God with your life.”
“I’m a scientist. I don’t believe in God.”
“Yeah, well, so was my dad, and he did,” I told her. “He said it was a miracle I survived the cancer, and maybe it was another miracle I survived the fire. Maybe I’m all out of miracles.” My breath came out in harsh pants.
“Those weren’t miracles, those were science.” If I hadn’t been so close, I would have missed it. Not only did she believe what she said, there was something else behind her words. Something she wasn’t telling me. “Now sit back and relax,” she said.
Easy for you to say.
Dr. Venn leaned over me and used the stethoscope that hung around her neck to listen to my heartbeat. Then she jotted down some notes. Afterward, she checked my blood pressure and documented that as well. I could have already told her it was through the roof.
“Try to relax, Phoebe,” she said. “Your nerves will affect the data.”
If she told me to relax one more time, I was going to bite her. Maybe the guard would tase me again and put me out of my misery. I’d have done it if I thought it would only postpone the inevitable.
Dr. Venn began to prepare a syringe. And that’s when it hit me with full force.
These “doctors” were really going to kill me in the name of science. And if I died and didn’t come back? Oh well.
Last time, I’d been dead for forty-five minutes! If they waited that long, there was no way the paramedics could save me. I would die here.
This was just too much.
I pulled on the straps and kicked my feet. “Last time was a fluke!” I shouted. “Please don’t do this.” My frantic gaze locked on one of the nearby paramedics. “What are the chances I come back a second time?”
“Very good,” he responded. Heartless. The lot of them.
Did Warden Will know what was happening? Would he stop them if he knew?
Words I’d read just last night came back to me. “In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign.”
Sun Tzu was a general, so he should know. Here, the evil doctor was the general and Warden Will was the sovereign. He had to know. And he didn’t stop them.
That made him as much an enemy as the doctors, the guards—to include Oscar—and the whole stinking SCC.
A rage unlike any I’d experienced filled me. They were murderers if they followed through with this. And even if, on the off chance I did come back to life, it was still murder.
Screw science. There was no justification for this whatsoever.
I recalled AP World History class, our teacher detailing the many experiments the Nazis performed on prisoners at the concentration camps. That was also in the name of science.
This really was a war.
And that made me a soldier. Which meant I wasn’t going to beg for my life like a coward.
Dr. Venn moved the tip of the syringe inches from my exposed arm.
“Please, I’m begging you!” I gasped. “I don’t want to die.” Weakling.
She let out an exasperated sigh, as if my terror were merely an annoyance in her otherwise perfect day. “You already have, Phoebe. And look how healthy you are now.”
Watching the syringe move another inch closer, I let out a blood-curdling scream. “Stop! Please!” Struggling against my bonds, I whipped my head around, trying to make it as difficult as possible for her to stick me.
Nurses rushed over. A hand slapped against my forehead, pinning my head back against the chair. “No,” I whimpered. “Please don’t…” Then I felt the sting as the needle pierced my skin.
This was it. I was going to die.
Dr. Venn pulled out the needle. “There,” she said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
If looks could kill, she would die right alongside me.
I became hyperaware of the fatal poison now mixing with my blood. I tracked it as it traveled through my veins, taking the direct route straight to my heart. While the toxin coursed through me, I stared ahead, tears tumbling from my eyes.
I’d never see Dad again. I hadn’t realized it until now, but I really had been holding onto the hope that he’d return.
Mom, not so much. But it would have been nice to see her once more.
And, oddly enough, I thought of Xander. Why hadn’t I had the courage to talk to him after we moved away? I wished I’d told him how I felt about him. Although, at this point, did it really matter?
The edges of my vision faded, and I felt my heartbeat slow. Closing my eyes, I could feel each breath becoming more difficult. My sense of smell was the only one that seemed to be fully functioning, the combined scent of bleach and antiseptic surprisingly strong. It was a shame, I thought. With so many wonderful scents in the world, those were my two least favorite.
A tear hit the corner of my mouth, and I tasted the salt that reached my tongue. I inhaled once again, and just before succumbing to darkness, I heard Dr. Venn call out the time of death.
My death.
16
I gasped, a huge gulp of air rushing to my lungs.
“Forty minutes. Her time is getting better.” Dr. Venn.
My eyes blinked open. I didn’t like the thought of being vulnerable with her in the room. Then I realized. I was always vulnerable when she was in the room.
I breathed heavily, and it felt like my chest had been crushed. Blood rushed through my veins, hot and pumping. My wrists throbbed with pain. I could hear my heart beating against my eardrums.
I glanced around the room at the nurses and paramedics. Unmistakable shock was evident on their faces. Then my eyes landed on Dr. Venn, who simply smiled. “See? Nothing to worry about.”
Nausea heaved up my throat. I was going to throw up.
“Can I have some water?” I croaked.
A nurse tilted a paper cup to my lips. I gulped it down greedily. She stared at me like I was a freak of nature.
I realized she was right.
They’d murdered me. In cold blood, no less. Dr. Venn had injected me with something lethal that stopped my heart from beating in my chest. Forty minutes later, it restarted again.
On its own.
Based on the still stunned faces of everyone in the room—except Dr. Venn, of course—no one had intervened to bring me back. It wasn’t lost on me that their obvious surprise meant they hadn’t really believed I would come back.
The first time hadn’t been a fluke. I could no longer deny that I had a supernatural ability. Which meant I couldn’t claim that I didn’t belong here with other supernaturals.
That didn’t mean we should be here in the first place.
Dr. Venn checked my heart rate and blood pressure again, then took another blood sample. After typing up some notes on her computer, she looked up at the paramedics and nurses still standing nearby. “You may go,” she told them. Then she turned back to the screen in front of her.
Slowly, they filtered out. More than one watched me until they were out the door. Then I was once again left alone with the evil doctor and her minion.
I spotted the nametag of the guard who had tased me earlier: Yancy. No wonder he was in such a bad mood. What kind of name was Yancy?
Listening to the sound of typing fingers and the humming machines, I allowed them to ground me.
I was alive. Maybe it was a miracle, or maybe it wasn’t. Either way, I felt grateful. No one’s ever ready to die, but I could confirm that without a shadow of a doubt. Being seconds away from it actually happening brought a clarity that only those who’d experienced it could know.
And, to my knowledge, I was the only one who’d lived to tell about it.
What did this mean? Apparently, they couldn’t kill me, but could I die of natural causes? If I did, would I
still come back again?
Was I immortal?
A shudder ran through me at that thought.
Also, why was I like this? And why me?
I looked at Dr. Venn. She’d said before she was testing me to help others. Help who… and with what? As a cancer survivor, of course I wanted a cure for those patients still battling the disease. Would testing me help them?
Even if it did, that didn’t give her the right to torture and kill me without my consent.
Again, it seemed to be a lot like the Nazis’ “greater good” ideology. But this was the United States, and though crumbling as it might be, we still didn’t do things like that here.
“We like to push limits. See how far we can go.” Dr. Venn had also said that.
The “we” was evidently the SCC. Were they trying to recreate my ability? Knowing what little I knew about them, that made the most sense. And if so, I definitely didn’t want to subject myself to these tests. That wasn’t the for greater good, that was for their good.
Finally, Dr. Venn turned to me. “Today’s session went well. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Right. If that’s what she wanted to call it.
I didn’t want to think about the way I’d begged and screamed in terror. I’d been weak with fear.
“… and the stupid man has no fear of death.”
Recalling Sun Tzu’s words, I felt a little less ashamed. Just a little.
Dr. Venn nodded at the guard, and he released my hands. I lifted them off the arm rests and felt around my wrists. They would be bruised within the hour.
“You may go, Phoebe.”
I stood, and the world around me spun. For the hundredth time today, I thought I would throw up. But the dizziness subsided, and I walked on spaghetti legs to the door and staggered down the stairs. Yancy followed me to my cell and then locked me in and left.
Rocky wasn’t back yet. Concern twisted in my gut. What kind of testing was she going through?
She’d probably think my session today wasn’t so bad. They’d given me an injection. So what? It wasn’t like they’d tested my pain tolerance to its limits.