Chapter 22 Green Blood
GREEN BLOOD
BAZ
Out of all the people to hallucinate, Doreen, my group therapist from Verfallen Asylum, was the most spiteful.
Despite her being burned alive, here she was, as pristine as she had ever been in life.
Her blonde hair was twisted up, and a heeled boot bounced as she sat on the chair in front of me, fiddling with her pentagram necklace.
“They’re taking more blood. Baz!” She leaned forward and clapped several times. “Are you even paying attention?” She asked me in that southern drawl.
“Shut up,” I snapped at her. The very real extractor twitched, causing the needle to jerk from my neck. A warm trail of blood slid down from the wound. Once it hit the metal collar locked around my throat, I heard a hiss. Then an acrid scent bloomed, causing me to cough.
“Shit,” the extractor gasped.
“Leave the room immediately," Damien said from next door. The extractor didn’t need to be asked twice. He gathered his tray and ran. Damien sighed in annoyance.
I wasn’t being suffocated so much that I was left gasping on the floor anymore. Who knew I’d miss that? Not me.
“Why do you think you miss it?” Doreen asked.
I groaned. It was obvious why I missed how things were before I left my room and saw Levi’s rotting corpse.
Now, not only was I left with the visual of Damien tongue fucking corpses, but I also had metal shackles on each wrist and a metal collar around my neck.
Each was attached to chains that disappeared into the walls.
Usually, they were loose enough that I could move around the room.
However, whenever anyone came in, Damien picked up his phone, clicked a button, and the chains were pulled tight.
At this time, my arms were held wide apart, only able to move a few inches.
The neck shackle was attached to the ceiling and was slightly looser.
Also, the oxygen levels were now kept lower at all times. Just enough to be out of breath. No more fluctuations. Just a steady state of mild deprivation. I always sounded as if I’d been running. Panting and inhaling through conversations.
Now, as far as Doreen, my new roommate. It could be the consistent oxygen deprivation. Maybe it was the anemia. Hell, perhaps I’d just had a good old-fashioned psychological break. Either way, Doreen had shown up in my room yesterday and had not stopped with her questions since.
When my chains didn’t loosen after the extractors escaped, I swung my glare to Damien, watching me in his own plexiglass room next door.
“I’ve got some good news,” Damien said. Apparently, this news required me to stay chained up tight.
I took a big inhale. “Yay,” I mumbled.
Damien smiled. Doreen, however, was less entertained by me. She rolled her pale eyes and recrossed her legs in the chair.
“Your partners are on the way here,” Damien said. My mouth dropped open, and my legs gave out. The collar became a noose as I hung from it. After flailing around, choking myself for a few seconds, I finally got my feet underneath me again.
Bree, Nemo, and Orson flashed in my mind. A slow smile spread over my face. I’d see them.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Doreen asked.
Oh, shit.
She was right.
They couldn’t see me. Not only was I looking pathetic, but there was the issue of being deathly toxic. They weren’t supposed to ever be here. Not to witness me barely able to hold myself up, or to, ya know, die by my hand.
“You said you’d leave them alone,” I said.
“I’m not bringing them here.” Damien’s eyes slid over the chains holding me up. “They’re on the way here to rescue you. Isn’t that nice of them?” Damien flashed me a smile. “Let’s see, there is a mutated half-vampire hybrid. That’s interesting.”
I glared at him. Hearing him describe Bree like a specimen made me angry.
“A mutated werewolf. That one’s exciting. Injected with the serum in utero—I’d love to figure out his abnormalities.”
I swallowed thickly.
“The vampire, though.” Damien shrugged. “Worst test subjects there are. Although Doctor Orson is still technically an employee.” He tapped his chin.
“Tell them … to leave,” I ground out. Damien refixed his attention on me. My face itched as he looked on. If I had more breath, I’d remind him of our deal. That I was here, willingly. That I never tried to escape. But he knew all that. Damien didn’t forget things.
“Try thinking like Damien,” Doreen said. I sighed. “How are they useful to him?” I shot her a look of surprise. Who knew Doreen could actually be helpful?
“You need them.” I paused to catch my breath. “To control me.”
“Mmm,” Damien hummed. “Lately, I’ve been thinking, why keep reminding you of your past? It’s time to think about your future here at Supra.” Damien walked right up to the separating wall. “You need to let go of them. They hold you back.”
My gut felt tight. “What?” I asked, appalled.
“I’m doing you a favor. Because you’re right, I won’t be able to control you as well anymore. I’m doing that for you.”
“For me?” My eyes widened. Oh, no. He’d fucking lost the plot. “I’m not you,” I rasped, thinking of what he did with his own partner.
Damien chuckled. “ Oh, Baz, you just can’t see it. But you will. After this.”
I pulled on the chains. They rattled.
“When will they be here?” I asked. Damien walked over to his computer and moved the mouse.
“They’re about two hours out. We plan to let them walk right in.”
My thoughts swam.
“It’s okay, Baz, “ he assured. Like telling a child there was no reason to be scared of monsters under the bed. “I’m doing the hard part. You won’t even know when it’s happened,” Damien said.
“You’ll capture them?”
“Too risky, unfortunately. I’m going to kill them.” Damien grabbed his phone, slid it in his pocket, and went to the door. He was leaving.
“Wait!”
“Bise,” he said before leaving. I watched him circle the hallway and go to the elevator. Then he was gone. Two hours. Two fucking hours.
“Baz, how does it make you feel when Damien says your partners are on the way?” Doreen asked. My mouth dropped open. Only I would be forced to endure hallucinated therapy in the middle of a fucking crisis.
“Go away,” I hissed at her. I shook the chains, but there was no way I could break them. What did I do?
“Baz,” the Doreen hallucination snapped. “How do you feel knowing Bree will be here soon?”
No reason to be dishonest. “I’d give almost anything to see her again.” When Damien said they were coming, at first all I felt was excitement.
“Very interesting,” Doreen said. I closed my eyes and tried to think.
“Now, tell everyone how you felt when Damien said he was going to kill your partners.”
“Furious,” I hissed, popping my eyes open to glare at her.
“Because?”
“Because if anyone has the right to kill them, it’s me,” I seethed. Doreen’s smug smile dropped.
She blinked a few times. “What?”
“Their the whole reason why I’m here. It was either I kill them, or they live a wonderful, long, everlasting life.
That was my choice. Damien doesn’t get to pick what happens to them.
I’m in control, and I’m going to fucking show him that.
That his fucking chains and his fucking glass box are nothing to me.
I’ve been playing this game for them, but now he wants to take them from me? ”
I looked at the chains. They disappeared into holes. Having peered into them before, I knew that inside the holes were the cranks Damien controlled to tighten or loosen them. But right now, I couldn’t get to those holes.
But that’s okay, because I knew how I was getting out. I could still smell the sharp scent from where my blood had hit my metal collar.
“Well, okay, you wanna kill ‘em. Good for you.” Doreen rolled her eyes.
“I won’t … but I could,” I said, smirking. All I needed was a few seconds. Then finally, all the anxiety and dread would vanish. Orson, Nemo, and Bree would be dead, with me, forever. Ah shit, I was hard.
“You’re smiling.”
“I’m not going to kill them,” I sighed.
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll never feel their warmth again,” I mumbled as my fangs slid out.
“Orson ain’t very warm, honey.”
“He’s warm in other ways,” I said distractingly as I leaned towards my arm.
“Go on,” Doreen drawled.
“It’s none of your business. Do I really need to talk about this?
” I pulled away from my wrist and looked at her.
“If I kill them, they won’t be themselves anymore.
They’ll be fuck puppets who I butcher mimicking.
” I sighed and closed my eyes. “And no matter how hard I pretend, dead dolls aren’t the real thing.
I’d never really hear Nemo growl after purposely pissing him off.
Never hear Bree whisper how much she loves that I’m a basilisk after the others go to sleep.
And I’d never walk away from an interaction with Orson knowing that despite all his judgmental looks and seeming annoyance, he listened to everything I said.
” I swallowed thickly and bit down on the shackle.
Venom slid from my fangs, sliding against my wrist and the metal. Nothing happened.
“Shit,” I sighed. Whatever was in my fangs, it wasn’t the same as what was in my veins.
It was going to have to be blood. I swallowed thickly and looked at the shackle.
My arms were raised. Blood was only going to flow down.
I bit my hand, the bottom of my palm. I groaned through the pain until blood slid down to the cuff.
“You’re hurting yourself,” Doreen said with annoyance.
“It’ll be fine. It’s not like it’ll kill me,” I said. The blood wasn’t burning through the metal. There wasn't enough. I pressed my fangs to my wrist, wincing as it slid directly into the vein.
“After all this, you still don’t want to die?” Blood welled up from the wound and started to eat through the shackle. This was going to work. But it was too slow. More. That’s all I said to myself while biting and tearing. My head swam.
“I’ve never wanted to die,” I said, watching the blood eat through the metal.
I looked at my other hand and took a deep breath.
“Maybe it’s just who I am. Maybe it’s genetic residue from phoenix DNA.
But dying feels unnatural. It doesn’t even feel real.
” I bit into the other wrist, not fucking around as I tore into it.
Sour, warm blood filled my mouth, and I spat it on the metal as I bled onto the shackles.
“Baz, you’re hurting yourself too much.” It’s never good when hallucinations sound worried. Nor when they ask about dying.
“It’s fine.” One shackle burnt through, and my arm dropped. I reached up and gripped the collar’s chain. It was thinner than the collar itself. My blood-slickened hand burned through it fast. Then my other hand was free too.
“You know it’s not fine.”
Yeah, I knew. I dropped to my hands and knees. There was blood everywhere. My arms shook. Lying down sounded perfect right now. It’s all I wanted to do. But if I did, I’d wake up to Bree, Nemo, and Orson being dead. They were strong but not like Damien. Actually, I didn’t think I’d wake up at all.
Suddenly, Doreen popped into my vision.
“AH!” I flinched. She was bent down beside me with a smile.
“I’ve got a great exercise for you.”
“I fucking hate myself sometimes,” I sighed, trying to ignore my own absurd hallucination as I began to crawl towards the door.
“When you think about killing everyone in this building—” Doreen started. I paused and looked over at her. “What does it feel like?” I snorted and shuffled to the door. My fingers slid through the handle, and I pulled myself up.
“When I tried to kill everyone at Verfallen. That was pain.” I looked over at Doreen as the smell of the burning door filled the room with toxic fumes. “I thought I’d killed Bree. It’s nauseating remembering that.”
Doreen was growing blurry. The edges of the hallucination were wavering.
“What about here, Baz? Give me an analogy.”
“Killing all of Supra? Hmm.” The handle burned through. I shoved the door open and took a deep lungful of air. For the first time in a week, I finally caught my breath. My eyes closed as I savored it.
“An analogy for the feeling?” I blew out a breath.
She wasn’t talking anymore. The hallucination was fading.
“Like sex. Killing them is going to feel so good, Doreen.” I gave her a little wave goodbye and stepped into the hallway.
I swayed a little, and the vents turned on. Not that they’d help now.
I stumbled to the elevator. Little drops of dark green blood plopped to the floor as I pressed the elevator button. A moment later, I was inside, running my hands down every button. I didn't want to miss anyone, now did I?
Alarms started to go off. The grating noise banged around in the elevator car with me.
My head dropped on the wall. Then, with a sigh, I ripped off pieces of my shirt and tied them around my wrists.
Thank god I was still wearing my old stuff.
It had enough holes to make tearing possible in my current state.
It probably didn’t make a difference at this point. I’d seen the trail of blood I’d left behind me in the hall. I’d been exhausted since I’d been here, but nothing like the hollowing out I felt right now.
But who knew? Not me.
Plus, there were a whole lot of people I wanted to kill before I was allowed to lie down. My hands started to tremble, and a smile spread over my face. A sudden burst of energy made my heart pound. By the time the doors opened, I was practically giddy.