Chapter 20
SAMPLES
BAZ
My head spun, and I lost my balance—the go-to warning of the oh-so-enjoyable oxygen dips.
I dropped to the floor. It was second nature after several weeks.
Damien would press the deprivation button on his phone every time someone came to get samples, feed me, clean up, or do any other possible thing.
I was hoping to develop auto erotic asphyxiation just to keep things upbeat.
The confusion wasn’t my least favorite part about slowly suffocating, but it was definitely annoying.
Without enough oxygen, I could barely think.
I struggled to keep up with what was going on, even though it was the hundredth time this had happened.
The door opened and promptly shut. A blind scientist shuffled into the room, wearing a respirator and a full-body cleanroom suit.
I looked at the tank strapped to his back.
No one came in here without their own oxygen supply.
All my brain power went to clutching onto consciousness as he used my gasps to locate me.
Once he found me, he dropped beside me with his basket of needles, beakers, and tubes. The thick extraction needle pushed into my neck, and I inhaled, deep and desperate. The man was efficient, but it never felt fast enough. The oxygen wouldn’t go back up until he was done and out the door.
Several tubes were filled. He took precisely the amount of blood determined as the maximum allowed for each day.
It was just enough that I remained mildly anemic without ever recovering.
Ironic they’d bleed me dry when the vampire I’d been fucking hadn’t.
I’d come to realize Bree barely took anything at all from me.
A splash on the tongue, just a taste to soak in.
The edges of my vision went black. We were hitting the dangerzone. Five minutes. That’s all they got unless I passed out early. After five minutes, brain damage was risky, and Damien wanted me weak, not defective.
If this scientist guy didn’t hurry, I was going to lose consciousness, and if that happened, they couldn’t extract all the samples. Which meant someone else would have to come back later, and I’d be slowly suffocating on the floor an extra time today.
All the extractors they sent in here were blind.
It kept them safe from unintentionally looking me in the eye and dying on the spot.
I couldn’t tell the difference between them.
I’m sure there were easy tells, but when your brain is operating at bare minimum power, and the room is spinning, the finer details of my needle-wielding captors went unnoticed.
Hell, I didn’t even really know if it was a man.
The extractor pulled the needle from my neck. Cold ointment was wiped on, sealing it immediately. His hands linger there a moment, his gloved thumb circling the closed wound longer than necessary. His fingers slid up from my neck, tracing my jaw on the way to my mouth.
These people got handsy sometimes. Nothing blatantly overt, especially when they used their hands for sight, but I could tell.
Even with their special gloves, in all its many layers, lingering could lead to enough exposure for a fatal venom poisoning.
And yet some chose to flirt with that option and lose.
Extractors: zero.
Baz: Uh, eight?
I couldn’t remember exactly how many had died, but this guy was on the way to death, too.
“You’re too slow. I’ll get the rest of the samples,” Damien said. I turned my head, seeing him in the glass room next to mine. He’d been observing the entire process, like a pet owner at the vet. I continued to gasp for air.
The extractor peeled my lips back, exposing my teeth. His gloved finger pressed against my gums for a moment, flirting with disobedience.
“That's enough … he’s turning blue,” Damien added. The extractor finally pulled back. I managed a smirk at Damien, despite suffocation. Yeah, sure, my blue lips are the reason you’re calling him off. Not the fact that he was about to kill himself.
The extractor collected his equipment and got up.
I watched my door open. A small burst of oxygen came into the room.
Not that my lungs could tell, but the oxygen meter by the door showed a slight increase.
My focus stayed there as I began to grow nauseated, waiting in distress for the numbers to go back up.
The door closed, sealing tightly. The oxygen climbed rapidly, back over 95.
The confusion peeled back slowly as I finally caught my breath.
Damien was smiling at me as he slipped his phone back in his pocket.
The relief of his giving me breathable air brought a sick sense of gratitude, despite Damien being the one who caused it.
I stood swaying, and the edges of my vision went black again.
This time it was from anemia. After I managed to get to my feet, I stumbled to the bed.
I needed to rest. I was always tired. The moment I flopped on the covers, the lights dimmed and switched to a warm yellow.
Damien had control over every aspect of my room, and he used it liberally.
Make me fall to the floor gasping for breath, or make me more comfortable to fuck with my head.
The whole spiel about negative pressure rooms and airflow was true, but stealing my ability to function was absolute asshole behavior.
It was completely unnecessary to drop the oxygen that low.
Maybe I could have bought his bullshit about needing to keep his employees safe from an untrustworthy killer if he didn’t play mind games with me.
Dimming the lights, acting like he was saving me from the very situation he made, offering prizes for being good …
I could smell a sick fuck from a mile away.
Damien wanted absolute, utter control. Worst yet, he wanted me to like him while he gained it.
Unfortunately, he knew exactly what he was doing.
And I knew what he was doing too, yet … I felt my logic deteriorating with every interaction.
It was hard to fight when he was the only person I could interact with.
So yeah, I was being Stockholm Syndrome’d. Yipee.
What else had I learned in the past couple of weeks?
Damien liked to wear browns. He could sit at a computer all day with complete focus.
He was a reasonably normal boss despite his company being completely evil.
He gave every decision full consideration, and I was suspicious that he might be the most intelligent person I’d ever met.
That’s it. So yeah, that was my life now. Damien D’Bolique.
I fell asleep to the sound of him typing and woke up to his voice.
“Make sure the extractors are changed daily, and I don’t want one visiting him more than once a week.
Fire today’s.” Damien sighed. I heard the chair creak as he adjusted.
“We’re losing too many scientists. Can it be subdued in him?
… Well, try. I can’t have half the team obsessed with him.
The death toll is climbing instead of stabilizing.
” He hung up and looked at me lying in bed, staring at him.
“Can’t imagine you know how to control it, do you? Or if you’d even want to.” His eyes slid down to my chest, and then he sat back with a sigh, rubbing his eyes.
“Control my venom?” I asked.
“No.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a pair of round, red-tinted glasses. I swallowed thickly as he slid them on. Shit.
When he was behind the wall, my gaze didn’t kill him. But when he was in my room with me, he wore a special pair of glasses that protected him from my gaze. They were the only pair I was aware of.
I ran my hands through my hair and gathered my breath while Damien pulled on gloves.
He didn’t suffocate me when he came into the room.
Logically, I should feel relief when it was him in here instead of someone else.
Why it made me nervous instead was beyond me.
He grabbed his air tank and left his room.
I had to shake out a slight tremor in my hands before climbing out of bed and shuffling to the table.
There were two chairs now. One for me, one for him.
I flopped down. My eyes slid down to Orson’s watch as the door to my room opened. I pulled my sweater sleeve over it. I knew they were aware of it, but I still felt the need to protect it. It was the only thing I still had from them.
Damien set a glass beaker in front of me and took his chair next to me. The lid was a thick elastic material. Saliva collected in my mouth as I stared at it. My tongue brushed over my gums, feeling my fangs sliding out without any prompting besides the collection container.
I gripped the table. Shit, I was trained like a dog—jumping up and running to the chair, my body reacting without effort. Was this really who I was becoming? Suddenly, I wanted to refuse to give him anything. Fuck your samples. Fuck your control.
“Something wrong?” Damien asked.
I could kill him. He was trapped in here with me. It would be so easy. Just pull off those red glasses and make him look me in the eye, man to man. Then we’d see who really had the power here. He’d see just how easy it was for me to have control, compared to him with his fucking mind games.
The rubber texture of Damien’s gloves gripped the back of my neck. My muscles tensed. He leaned in close.
“That cabin is cute, the one in the woods,” he whispered. I closed my eyes.
Damien roughly pulled me towards the beaker. My fangs slid out and broke the seal. It was like sinking into skin. His fingers bruised my neck as he held me down. Clear venom dripped out, plopping into the bottom of the glass.
Now I knew why I hated him in my room. Because I couldn’t hide from how well-trained I’d become. I’d followed my dad’s orders because I wanted his approval and love. And because I was too young to know I didn’t have to. However, I killed my dad in the end because that’s my nature. Basilisks kill.