Chapter 2
A Stereotypical Villain
A door slammed, stirring her from a dreamless sleep. Something told her to keep her eyes closed, so Willow kept her breathing slow and steady, making it look like she was still asleep. Straining her ears, she listened for the sound of people moving around or talking. When she didn’t hear anything, the young woman had to fight the urge to open her eyes and look.
After a few seconds, she heard muffled talking and movement nearby. However, it wasn’t in her room.
They must have brought the guy back. When they leave, I need to check on him and try to help if I can. Maybe he knows where we are and what’s happening. Hopefully, he isn’t too hurt because I really don’t know much about first aid and healing.
That thought made her shiver – Willow had always had a hard time with wounds and blood. It had been her first great failure, as her parents had wanted her to be a doctor. When she wasn’t able to handle working as a volunteer at the hospital, they had decided she needed to become a lawyer. Her actual skills and desires were never taken into account. All that mattered was making the family look good and building better connections to improve their standing. Ironically, had she been able to power through the gore, it would have been beneficial in her current situation.
When the door slammed again, Willow began counting in her mind, just in case they came into her room next. She didn’t even reach ten when she felt the air shift in the room and heard the sound of metal hitting the wall. It was almost as if the people in this place had no ability to open the doors without slamming them. As they had done before, people began poking and prodding her, and Willow wondered how much time had passed. Had it been a day since they had last been in the room, or just a few hours? What were they hoping to learn by checking her vitals? Were they looking for something else during these visits because she couldn’t see any medical need for some of the things they were doing? For example, they opened her mouth and pushed it open as wide as possible, then crammed an instrument into it. The only thing she could think of was that they were measuring her mouth. They pulled out her tongue, stretching it to the point of pain, then released it.
All of this strange exploration of her was followed by them running tools over her body. It was becoming increasingly difficult to act like she was asleep, especially when they attached nodes to her and started sending electrical currents through her body. Sadly, Willow learned a long time ago how to keep herself under control, acting in a way that was entirely opposite to how she was feeling. Physical torture in her old home was just a part of her life. Even though some of the things they were doing were new, Willow knew how to keep from reacting to whatever was happening. And in this case, she had no desire to let them know that she was awake.
The fact that she wasn’t waking did seem to cause concern, and someone mentioned bringing the doctor to the room. That didn’t stop the others from whatever they were doing, and nothing changed for a few minutes.
A slight breeze moved through the room, letting Willow know that the doctor had finally arrived. However, she didn’t think that this one was there to take care of her health. Even before the man spoke, Willow got the sense that he was not the kind of person who cared about the Hippocratic oath. He spoke with a very condescending tone to the people who had previously been testing her, and their replies were very deferential.
“Why did you call me here?”
“She isn’t responding to anything, but her vitals are fine. Is it possible that the chemicals adversely affected her?”
“The chemicals are designed to cause an adverse effect,” he said curtly.
“Yes, sir, but…”
“Doctor,” he said, spitting out the word harshly, leaving the impression that this was not the first time the man had not been properly addressed.
“Yes, Doctor.”
Willow imagined that the response was from an underling, and the way his voice wavered would have inspired sympathy if not for the fact that they were treating her like a test subject. “What I meant to say was perhaps it did something worse than just knock her out. Is it possible that it could have caused brain damage? She didn’t even open her eyes when we used the Edison on her.”
“Ah,” she felt a cold finger push on her cheek, roughly shoving the skin into her teeth. It was all Willow could do to keep from turning her head and biting the finger as it ground her cheek against the bone. “Hmm. It is a possible result. We still have so much to learn with these things that we may be rendering them useless before I get a chance to really experiment on them.”
The finger was finally removed from her face, and he began asking questions of the group about what they had done and what the results were. Willow didn’t entirely understand what they were talking about after they stopped talking about the usual vital signs. All of that was pretty normal, although her blood pressure was lower than it should have been. Once they covered that, they started talking about things they had tried that failed to stimulate any kind of reaction. Unlike their previous discussion, Willow knew that the reactions they were looking for went beyond simply waking her or messing with her biorhythms. No, they were talking about things like not getting any kind of aura, electrical stimulation, or physical reaction that went beyond what a normal human would do under similar situations.
“Hmm,” the doctor said and began drumming his fingers near her head. “I wonder if some of their abilities don’t present when they aren’t awake. Marcus, you were there when she was taken. Tell me again what happened.”
Someone cleared their throat, and then started speaking. “I was in the alley, Doctor, when it happened. There was a flash of light, and all of us were knocked down. However, I don’t think that it came from her. I think the man she was told to target was behind what happened there. She just seemed shocked, and from what I could see, she pretty much just froze.”
“I saw the data collected by the Mora family before their facility was destroyed, so I can assure you that they have incredibly protective abilities that keep them alive. When they are unleashed on the world, they pose a significant risk to everyone. So, no, I don’t accept your theory that it was Woodward because it sounds exactly like how one of these creatures would react to a difficult situation.” He made a sniffing noise that almost made Willow cringe. The doctor couldn’t have made it any more obvious that he was an insufferable fool if he tried. “So, tell me about what happened next.”
“Well, sir, I mean, Doctor, I wasn’t in a good position to see what happened next. Perhaps you should talk with Kim or Todd since they actually caught her.”
“Someone has gotten far too confident. I don’t need you telling me what I need to do when you have no idea what gaps I’m trying to fill.” There was a noise that punctured this before the doctor continued to speak, “I’ve already talked to them. All I want now is your recounting of events.”
“I’m so sorry, sir.”
The sound of skin contacting skin echoed around the room. “Doctor!” The second time, it was clear the doctor had slapped Marcus and had drawn a cry from him. When it happened a third time, Willow heard someone starting to cry. “Anyone else want to disrespect me?” The anger was clear in his voice, and it was met with murmurs of apology. “All of you, get out. Marcus, go to the room and wait.”
No one else spoke as a slight breeze went through the room. It was almost unsettling because it meant the people leaving were too afraid to bash the door against the wall. Willow made sure to keep her breathing the same as she listened to people filtering out of the room.
Even after the door shut, she didn’t feel comfortable looking around her. She noted two things after everyone left. First, the door was likely made of something heavier than the walls because of the sound it made when it closed. That was something to remember for when she escaped – passing through doors would likely require greater concentration. Second, they had not taken any of their supplies with them because they left far too quickly. When they had been testing her, Willow heard the distinct sound of something trundling around on wheels. This sound was absent when the room cleared.
Willow waited, keeping her breathing and movement constant. After a while, a voice spoke near her ear, “Come on, wake up. I won’t wait forever.”
A finger pulled up on one of her eyelids, but she managed to keep her eye from focusing. There was a fuzzy-looking figure looking down at her, his face framed with a dark color. She realized that was his hair, although she wasn’t sure of the color since she was working to keep him from realizing she was awake. To her shock, he flicked her open eye.
“Come on, you worthless creature. I know you must be faking it.”
It was perhaps the first time that Willow appreciated the horrible home life she had. Her parents may not have messed with her eyes like this, but they had tormented her in many similar ways, which allowed her to keep from reacting at all.
The doctor did make a few more attempts to stir her, but they were far less shocking. This was enough to convince him that she was, in fact, unconscious. That led to something that was invaluable and terrifying. He decided to start talking to her, believing that she wouldn’t remember anything.
“I have no idea where they found you, but I’m very glad they did. It’s been a few months since the last one died, and it’s put a real damper on my research. You are young and hopefully healthier than the last few. How old are you?” He walked across the room, and then Willow heard paper flipping. There was something in his tone that didn’t sound right, but Willow couldn’t see what he was doing as he studied his notes.
When he spoke again, there was a cruelty to his voice, “Surprising that you look so … poor. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. What happened? Did Mommy and Daddy realize what you were and discard you?” The words were followed by a cruel laugh. “What did you have to do to end up discarded by the ladder-climbing Addlers, huh? Was it drugs and gambling? Did you swear your love to someone they didn’t approve of? Oh, did you get pregnant out of wedlock? Because if that’s the case, I will definitely – oh, no. You definitely aren’t pregnant. That’s a shame since I could have really used an infant for my tests. And I would take great relish in watching you suffer.”
Willow had no idea why he seemed to be singling her out as if he actually knew her. Soon enough, the doctor resumed the same cold, impersonal tone that he’d used with his underlings. He walked around asking her more questions, then answered some of them as he looked over what she imagined was a file about her. Although he was still walking around her, the man had stopped touching her. The more he spoke, the lower her opinion of him became. The fool was acting like he was in a bad action movie or something, skulking around the room and monologuing at her. Even though he had verified that she wasn’t awake, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t hear him and potentially register what he was saying. Research has long recommended that people speak to their loved ones when they are unconscious in case they hear. The apparent lack of concern that she might hear him wasn’t a deterrent, leaving the impression that he wanted her to know what was coming. From that, she inferred that he didn’t think that she had a chance to escape from the facility.
Finally, the air around her shifted, and an organic stench drew close to her. The surface under her shook a little, and his breath wafted unpleasantly under her nose. For a second, she was afraid he was going to kiss her or something equally distasteful.
Instead, the doctor spoke right next to her ear. “You can’t sleep forever. Eventually, you’ll wake up, and then I’ll get a chance to study you. With the Mora family out of the way, we have no competition. It’s been far too long since I was able to work, and these incompetent people don’t seem to be able to properly keep me supplied with test subjects. Once you wake up, I’ll finally get back to work. Hopefully, you’ll be able to handle what I have in mind. I have so many theories bottled up over the last few months of waiting.”
The surface moved a little, and the smell dissipated. “I suppose I shall just have to run some tests to see if you are brain dead. That will make my work a lot more challenging, and it may make it impossible to tell what you are capable of doing. It will be disappointing after having to wait so long. I suppose I shall need to make the incompetents pay for having used too much of my mixture to knock you out.” He sighed. “I suppose I’ll need to put together some tools to see if your brain is still working properly. That will tell me what I need to know so I don’t have to keep waiting.”
His footsteps moved across the room, and the air shifted when he opened the door. Even after it slammed shut, Willow refrained from stirring. The doctor seemed like the kind of man who would stand at the window and watch to see if she reacted. Relaxing a little more, she tried to feel the reverberations of someone walking down the hallway away from her.
It was there, faint, but still, she could feel that he was leaving. That didn’t mean that she felt comfortable getting up just yet. She hadn’t really had a chance to explore the room, so it was possible that he would be able to see her moving around the room if he decided to turn and monitor her from a distance. It was equally possible that there were cameras or other indicators that were monitoring her activity.
That would certainly make it harder for her to explore.
There was a much bigger problem that she needed to face. While she felt she would be able to escape without too much trouble, the idea that they had experimented on people was upsetting. That one sentence kept echoing in her mind – And we are out of test subjects since the last one died . How many people had they killed? And did it mean that there were other people like her? People who also had some abnormal abilities?
And if so, did it mean that she might have a real family out there?
There was a lot for her to consider, but she was also very aware that she needed to get moving soon. The doctor told her that he was going to collect some supplies and then would return.
She was just starting to form a plan when there was a familiar slamming sound. Thinking she may have taken too long, Willow worried about what she should do. Then she realized that the air in her room hadn’t changed.
The person in the room next to her was being returned.