He opened the cage, and she immediately went after them. But she was no match for them. They grabbed her legs, pulling her out of the cage until she was lying on the cold cement floor. The one who called her a name rolled her over roughly, slamming her face into the floor. She grunted as he put his knee into her back, pulling her arms behind her. She let out another soft cry as he wrenched her arms.
I couldn’t sit still and watch this. I pushed up, ignoring the nausea. “Stop it! You’re hurting her!”
The one on her back looked over, frowning as he saw me. “Look at this, Ramirez. This one’s awake.”
“And that one needs to be left alone,” Ramirez replied. “We’re getting paid enough money to pretend she ain’t here, Williams. Get the stuff on her, and let’s get out of here.”
Williams climbed off Mo and approached my cage, kneeling down so he was eye-level with me. He wasn’t very old—maybe mid-twenties. The look in his dissipated blue eyes scared me more than the cages. Put what on me? “She’s a pretty one.”
I scooted back, wanting to cross my hands over the thin material of my tank top. “Why am I here?” My voice wavered even though I met his gaze.
Williams laughed as he glanced over his shoulder. “Listen to this one, asking questions.”
“Leave her alone.” Ramirez hauled the silent girl to her feet. Her head hung low, face shielded by hair. “We’ve got to get this one back to the center. Come on.”
“We could always Windex her brain. Have a little fun.”
I shrank back from the suggestion. Could they do that? Wipe away my memories? All I had were my memories. My eyes darted between the two men.
Ramirez swore under his breath. “Just do it, Williams.”
When Williams started to stand, I scrambled backward. “Wait. Wait! Why am I here?”
Williams opened the cage door with a small key and grabbed the chains. He yanked hard, and I fell backward. “I really don’t know what he wants with you, and I really don’t care.” He pulled on the chain again. “Now be a good girl.”
Showing how much I appreciated his suggestion, I kicked. If I could just get past him… My foot caught him under the chin, snapping his head back. Williams retaliated with a punch in my stomach, doubling me in half. I wheezed as he grabbed my wrists while he retrieved the handcuffs from the top of the cage, pulling so the chain attached to them reached the floor.
“No!” screamed Mo. “No!”
The fear in her voice increased my own, and my struggles renewed. It was no use. Williams clamped the handcuffs around my wrists, and the world exploded in pain. I started screaming.
And I didn’t stop.
…
My screams only died off when I could no longer make anything louder than a raspy whisper. My throat felt scraped raw. Only uncontrollable whimpers or moans escaped me now.
It had been hours since the men left with Mo. Hours of nothing but scalding, blistering pain that shot down my arms, bounced off my skull. It felt like my skin was continuously being flayed, torn apart to get to something underneath.
I faded in and out. Those moments of nothing were pure bliss, a short reprieve that ended too soon. I’d wake, thrust into a world where pain threatened to fray my sanity. Many times over I thought I’d die from it. That there had to be an end somewhere in sight, but the waves of hurt just kept coming, rolling over me, suffocating me.
My tears had also ended when my screams stopped. I tried to not move or jerk when the pain spiked. It only made it worse. I was no longer cold. Maybe it was because I couldn’t feel anything other than the hurting that was inflicted by whatever was encased on those handcuffs.
But through it all, I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live through this.
At some point, the doors opened. Too exhausted to lift my head, I stared blindly at the metal beams through the bars. Would they take the handcuffs off? I wasn’t holding my breath.
“Katy…”
My gaze lowered, taking in the salt and pepper hair, the handsome face, and the smile that had charmed his way into my life and right into my mom’s bed. My mom’s boyfriend—the first man she’d even paid attention to after my dad’s death. I think she loved him. That was what made all of this so much worse. I didn’t care about what it meant for me. I had my suspicions before, and there was the general dislike of the fact he had been taking Dad’s place, but Mom… This would kill her.
“How you hanging in there?” he asked, as if he truly cared. “I hear it’s painful—the coating—to those like you and the Luxen. It’s pretty much the only thing that can completely incapacitate both the Luxen and those they mutate. Onyx mixed with a few other stones, like rubies, inflects such a strange reaction. It’s like two photons bouncing off each other, looking for a way out. That’s what it’s doing to your mutated cells.”
He adjusted his tie, loosening it around his neck. “I’m what the DOD calls an implant, but I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now. You’re a smart cookie, but you’re probably wondering how I knew? The night you were brought into the ER after you were attacked, you were recovering way too fast. And the DOD was already keeping an eye on you because of your proximity to the Blacks.”
And being a doctor—wow, he’d know right off the bat if someone healed abnormally fast. Disgust seeped through me like a disease. It took me several tries to get the next raspy words out. “You started…to date my…mom, just to keep…an eye on me?” When he winked, I wanted to vomit. “You son…of a bitch.”