2. Simon
The chill of recirculated air brushes over my skin, and the sting of harsh chemicals burn my sinuses as I claw my way out of the murky swamp of unconsciousness. I keep my eyes closed as my senses all come back online, the irritating tingle of pins and needles in my hands and feet distracting me for only a moment. Behind the astringent stench of bleach and ammonia lies the taint of blood both old and new, pain, fear, and—most frighteningly—malicious glee. There’s a low buzzing coming from overhead, as well as the hum of numerous machines. I’m lying flat on my back on a surface that is cold and unyielding, and as I finally crack my eyes open, dread pools in my stomach.
I’m strapped to a metal bench in what can only be some sort of medical facility.
A muffled whimper reaches my ears the same moment that I scent the salty tang of misery, and I force my eyes to focus on my surroundings. My eyes stream in protest at the stark brightness beaming down over me from an overhead ring of fluorescent light, and it takes me a moment to adjust to the stabbing glare.
I tilt my head to one side, relieved to find it unrestrained. Swiftly glancing around the room, I take note of the large size. As I don’t want to alert anyone that I’m awake and aware, I keep still and inhale as deeply and quietly as I can. Tál is woozy inside me, almost like he’s drunk, but he still helps me out by boosting my senses. Pain throbs from my arms and legs, and it—along with each new inhalation of clean air—helps to clear my mind from the drugged haze.
I’m tucked away in an unattended back corner of the room. My gaze is drawn over to two other circles of light across from me, both of which alight on two other people. They’re in the same predicament as me, although I am currently unattended. Leather straps—studded to cause pain and damage if they’re anything like the ones tearing into my flesh—pin their bodies to the metal benches they’re prone upon, but where my bench gleams under the harsh lights, theirs are painted with blood and other fluids. They are partially surrounded by people in lab coats and scrubs, the medical personnel talking about the procedures they’re conducting as though the three of us pinned to the benches are nothing more than specimens to be dissected and studied instead of living, breathing, sentient beings.
The medical personnel are a mix of both human and shifter, I think. They’re wearing some sort of cologne that muddles their scents enough that I can’t tell their specific species. The other two males strapped to the tables are…
Wait, what?
I take another surreptitious breath and filter their scents. No, I was right, they’re both shifters of some kind. I can smell the feathers, open ocean air, and sea spray on one, although I can’t really see much of him. The other smells of eucalyptus, coastal scrub, and salt, and he’s in my direct line of sight. He’s staring straight at me, his eyes glazed with tears streaming over his cheeks as he jerks and grunts in response to whatever they’re doing to him. His dark auburn hair is stuck up in sweaty spikes, and his freckled skin, blanched pale from the pain he’s enduring, is speckled with dried blood.
My attention is diverted as an asshole in a lab coat—one of several standing over the redheaded shifter—murmurs a question to another across the room with the other shifter. “Is the subject demonstrating any signs of response?”
“No, Doctor O”Hare, the EEG is showing no unusual activity as yet,” comes the swift response.
Doctor O”Hare’s low grumble has the hair rising on my arms, and he points toward a tray covered with different implements and snaps his fingers. The latex gloves covering his hands are coated with blood and gore, and I dread to think what he’s doing to the shifter on the table under him.
“I want them both injected with five cc’s of the serum. Two obviously weren’t enough, and I’ll be damned if I walk out of here today without any results to show for it. The directors want an outcome that they can market, and I for one won’t be the idiot who disappoints the Bassatnes.”
Tálstrom fully awakens inside me at the barked order, and the implications of what is going on in the room set my teeth on edge. Having him alert and ready eases some of my tension, although I’m really fucking worried about not being able to feel our bonds, especially since it’s not of our doing.
A flurry of activity around the two restrained shifters follows O”Hare’s order, and syringes containing crimson fluid—almost like blood, but also wrong—are passed over. I know the moment the redheaded shifter is injected because his body goes taut, bowing upward off the table as though he’s been electrocuted. Even from this distance I can see the veins and tendons straining in his throat, his jaw clenched in a grimaced rictus of pain.
A strangled cry precedes a harrowing wail from the shifter I can’t see, the agony of his torment ringing in my ears, growing shriller and more piercing by the second. I glance back over to the redhead only to witness blood gushing over his chest, Doctor O”Hare’s gloved hand buried inside the abdominal cavity of the shifter.
Blood rushes through my ears, drowning out Tálstrom’s enraged roars, but it doesn’t prevent me from hearing the monster’s gleeful announcement:
“The serum works! We’ve created a fated bond between two abominations. Now, let’s see just how deeply their bond runs. Collins, pass me the spreaders, will you?”