26. Ripley
CHAPTER 26
RIPLEY
END OF A GOOD THING – CORY WELLS
I’m trapped in a nightmare. A terrifyingly realistic, lucid dream. One pulled from the depths of my traumatised memories. That’s the only explanation for this scene. There’s no way it can possibly be real.
Wrists chained above me, I battle to clear the fog from my struggling brain, hoping my surroundings will change once I wake up. I must be on death’s door to be imagining this place.
A scratched, ancient, padded cell.
Blood streaks marking the concrete floor.
Dusty air vents high above me.
Alone and shackled.
Slamming my eyes shut, I will the nightmare to be over when I reopen them. It’s no good. Nothing changes but the worsening ache in my head. It feels like it’s on the verge of rupturing.
Small details filter in like trickling tar. Like the fact that I’m wearing the same clothes I had on while watching the news reports spill in over morning coffee. It’s tacky with dried blood now. I’m covered in it.
Wiggling my toes, I try to decipher any injuries. The steady throbbing in my skull sure feels like a concussion. I can remember my head smacking into something hard when we flew through the air.
Fuck!
Realisation hits in a heady wave.
The car crash. Being rammed. Flipped over until our armoured vehicle was little more than cotton wool. Lennox slumped over me. Raine’s shouting. Smoke and fire all around.
I was conscious when a balaclava-wearing figure wrestled me from the wreck. My neck aches as I shift, testing my theory. It’s a familiar pain. The result of being jabbed with a syringe.
“No,” I whimper in pain. “Fuck… Xan! Lennox! Raine!”
My shouts are pitiful, barely permeating the old padding that wraps my cell. This can’t be happening. There’s no way I’m back in Harrowdean, locked in a cell. The concussion is fucking with my head.
Yelling their names at the top of my lungs, nothing but abandoned silence answers me. The padded cell absorbs my cries, playing them back to me in a sickening taunt.
When I notice the tally marks that have been painted on the cell walls in crusted blood, my sobs turn to screams. This isn’t the same cell I was previously in.
It’s dirtier, scarred from years of battling to escape by any means necessary. Each day trapped in hell marked in mortality. Perhaps the same cell Patient Three and countless others were held in.
I cry myself to the point of almost throwing up, falling into petrifying hysteria. Any comfort that surviving my last trip here should offer is short-lived. Escaping the Zimbardo wing was a miraculous feat.
One I can’t repeat.
And this time, I’m alone.
For a long time, I simply float. Exhausted and riddled with pain. When I find the energy to rouse myself again, I tug on the shackles pinning my arms above me at such an awful angle, it feels like my shoulders are being ripped from their sockets.
Solid. Immovable.
My tear-logged eyes catch on the black, chain bracelet still secured around my wrist. I haven’t taken it off since that night—our makeshift first date. Not even to shower. Seeing it only increases my hysterical panic.
I have no idea if they’re alive.
No. They have to be.
I don’t want to live if Xander, Raine and Lennox aren’t in this world with me. Not after all we’ve seen together. I’d die right here just to be with them before taking another step alone.
Time holds no meaning in the cell. Like before, it could be passing in minutes or hours, and I’d have no concept of it. I don’t even have Lennox here to keep me sane this time around.
All I can think about is their twisted, broken bodies trapped inside that wrecked car. Lifeless and bleeding. The thoughts become reality in my solitude until I’m convinced the guys are dead.
Gnawing stomach pain degrades into nausea, but it fails to rival the fierce burn in my throat. I’m painfully dehydrated—the only measurement of time passing. My arms have gone numb too.
When the door to the cell opens, I don’t move. I can’t summon an ounce of will to defend myself against whoever has come to greet me. Revulsion stirs in me at the sneering grin worn by my captor.
“Isn’t this a familiar scene?” Elon saunters into the cell. “Nice to see you again, Ripley.”
Not real. Not real. Not real.
He crouches down in front of me. “You’re looking a bit peaky. Can I get you a refreshment? Glass of champagne? We do like our guests to be cared for.”
“E-Elon,” I somehow manage.
“Yes, stooge?”
Licking my crusted lips, I draw saliva into my mouth. “Please…”
“Ah, the begging stage. Perfect. Please what?”
“P-Please…”
Smiling maniacally, he slaps me across the face. A dull throb radiates across in my jaw, causing my eyes to water. I blink aside tears to look into his cruel eyes.
“Do spit it out,” he commands impatiently.
“P-Please… go f-fuck yourself.”
His grin pulls down. “Always such a disobedient bitch. You never learn.”
This time, he punches me in the face. My neck snaps to the side, wrenching agonisingly. The pain increases tenfold, racketing through my bones and teeth, making tears spill over.
Elon watches my reaction, his knuckles red from hitting me. The look of satisfaction on his face is fucking repulsive. He looks genuinely thrilled by my tears.
“You’ve been a monumental pain in the ass, Ripley. Running away to join the super spies like that… Tut tut. Poor choice. They couldn’t keep you from ending up back here.”
Rising back up, he brushes off his jeans and shirt. Seeing him out of his all-black uniform is unnerving. This isn’t Elon the overpaid thug. I could handle him.
Now I’m dealing with Elon the rogue ex-con. Unhinged and without a master to answer to. All bets are off.
“Killing Harrison was a low blow but rather impressive, I’ll give you that.” He inspects the cell with a look of disgust. “Never thought I’d see that tough bastard get snuffed out.”
“Like your b-boss,” I cough out.
“We have your new buddies to thank for that. Though we all saw it coming. Bancroft got sloppy; he allowed too much evidence to slip past him. We were prepared for his demise.”
“W-We?”
He nudges my leg with the tip of his boot.
“Turns out, there’s far more profit in protecting the underdog. It’s easy to sit atop an empire and dictate the world. But the real power lies in those who fund the man on top.”
Dread sinks into me faster than a knife into butter. I knew we were in trouble the moment Warner turned up at our door. Blood is irrelevant when decades of wealth are burning all around you.
My uncle has millions tied up in this investment. There’s no way he’d let all that money simply go up in smoke. To him, this madness is just another business decision.
“The boss wants you quiet and secure like a good patient for the plane ride.” Elon sighs exaggeratedly. “If I didn’t need this job, I’d happily slit your throat and call it done.”
Pounding roars between my ears.
“P-Plane ride?”
Elon grins down at me. “We’re all going on a trip.”
“I d-don’t understand.”
“Killing you would create a martyr. Another evidence trail. You’re going to take your medication and be a docile little freak.”
With a sudden adrenaline rush, I buck and fight, attempting to reach him. If I can just slip these shackles, I’ll fight my way out of here. Kick. Punch. Stab. Anything to escape.
Watching me struggle, Elon simply laughs. “You’ll spend the rest of your life in a drugged-up haze until your brain cracks open like an egg. He needs you complacent, Ripley. Silent.”
“No!”
“Now, now. No need to make such a fuss. I’ll get your meds, hmm? That’ll make you feel better.”
Strolling from the cell, Elon hums a tune under his breath. The shackles tear into my wrists, reopening old scar tissue in my desperate attempt to pull free. Even if I have to dislocate my limbs to do it.
Blood trails down my forearms, joining glass shards buried deep in my skin, dirt and ashy streaks. The words carved into my skin are obscured, the eternal brand covered by my fresh blood.
“Lennox! Xander! Raine!” I wail helplessly.
Elon returns, a zipped pouch in his hand. “Oh, they’re dead. Nasty wreck that was. I did tell my men to be gentler.”
“You’re a fucking liar!”
He rolls his eyes. “Again with the yelling. Let’s get those lips sealed tight.”
Elon unzips the pouch, pulling out a glass vial and hypodermic needle. I can’t read the label through my swimming vision.
He moves onto one knee beside me, pinching the skin above the veins at my inner elbow. That goddamn humming. It’s like nails scratching my brain apart as Elon draws clear liquid into the syringe.
“Stop,” I beg uselessly. “Don’t do this.”
“Ah, now she changes her tune. It’s too little, too late.”
“No! I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Just… Please, don’t do this.”
“We have a long way to travel to meet your uncle, Ripley. This was just a pit stop. And I don’t want to listen to you for the entire ride.”
I scream out at the pressure of the needle slipping in, plunging deeply into my vein. Blood wells up, spilling around the entry wound. Elon doesn’t bother to be gentle.
“You know, Craven once told me this is the good stuff,” he says conversationally. “Trialled and tested by his colleague, Professor Lazlo. An old friend, I heard.”
Elon depresses the plunger.
“Let’s give it a go, shall we?”
I watch in terror as the clear liquid is pushed into my body, a chill quickly spreading through my vein. He squeezes out every last millilitre then tears the needle from my arm.
“No,” I moan, my lips thick and rubbery.
“We may as well make use of their stash now that the institutes are toast.” He stands back up, rezipping the pouch. “Consider it payment for your role in destroying all our hard work.”
I frantically try to fill my lungs. For every second he watches me, I can feel my bodily functions slowing. Woollen numbness is rushing through me faster than a heart attack.
He squints while watching me. “How interesting.”
My fingers soon stop responding. Not even a twitch. Then my legs and toes. My tongue becomes an immovable mass, trapped in my mouth. Even breathing shallowly feels like it takes great exertion.
“I believe the drug has a paralysing effect,” Elon muses. “You can hear and see everything… but you’re powerless to move. Can’t even say a word. How fascinating.”
No, I want to scream.
But my vocal cords have been severed.
Pinching my chin between his fingers, Elon peers into my eyes. Whatever he sees causes satisfaction to stretch his smile into a clown-like caricature.
All I want is to claw that fucking sneer from his face and leave him in fleshy ribbons. The will is there, but nothing responds. I can hardly blink.
My body has been stolen from me and locked in a mental cage, the key dangled out of reach. He could do anything. I can’t fight back.
“I enjoy seeing you like this.” He trails a finger along my jawline. “Immobile and trapped in your own mind.”
Vomit swells in my belly and throat, unable to expel itself. Not even at the nauseating feel of his touch coasting over my face.
“No one is coming to save you. Harrowdean is abandoned, and believe me, it’s low on the list of priorities right now. We’ll slip away while the world is busy arguing over blame.”
The drug hasn’t paralysed my tear ducts which seem to function perfectly well. Stinging rivers stream down my cheeks, making my skin ache where he punched me. Elon catches a tear and lifts it to his lips.
I watch him lick up the moisture, tongue flicking out to taste the proof of his victory. My stomach lurches again. I’d take choking on my own vomit over going anywhere with this maniac.
“I think we’re ready to go.”
His laugh bounces around the cell.
“This all could’ve been avoided if you’d just kept your mouth shut.”