Chapter Twenty-Two
Brock
Coldness seeps into my awareness with a hard bite. So. Damn. Cold. My eyelids flip open to the burn of bright lights. Pain piercing my cornea, forcing my lashes downward as if weighted with cement, granting me the comfort of darkness. Yes. Darkness. I like the darkness. It was all I could feel. All I could see.
The room shifts around me, its shadowy movement almost enough to entice me into another attempt to open my eyelids. A soft voice shifts through the empty space of my mind, a sensual, sweet voice, an angel come to help me.
My lids scrape across my eyeballs, and I blink into the bright light that splinters through to my brain; it turns the coldness into blistering pain that travels a fast track down my spine. Muscles twitch in my face and across my eyebrows. I inhale and force myself to focus.
White ceiling. I was staring at a white ceiling. My vision fades; spots glisten like water droplets above me, disorienting me. Desperately, I fight for something to hold in my line of vision, but there is only that damn white light. It is all over, surrounding me, consuming me.
Panic expands in my chest and rises to my throat with suffocating precision, and I jerk upward. A sharp tug on my wrists draws a gasp, pain wrenching them and soaring up my arms. I pant several times, my mind a whirlwind of foggy images that I can’t make out.
I lift my head and look around—small sterile room, white sheets, hospital bed. Sharp pains shoot through my wrists as restraints dig into my flesh. Desperately seeking freedom, I jerk upward again, finding nothing but more resistance, more pain.
Clarity comes to me with the realization that the pain came from the steel pinch of needles—IVs—running through my legs, chest, and arms. I glare down at myself, at the tubes and needles around me and in me, and memories weave a taunting path through my mind. The bridge. The gorgeous female. The injection.
“Lawrence, damn it! Get the hell in here! Lawrence!” Over and over, I scream; no concept of time, but there is no response to my demands. I scream until my throat rasps.
“Easy,” comes the soft, female voice I recognize from the van. “You’re okay.” She speaks over her shoulder. “Get Dr. Chin, please.” A gentle hand settles on my arm a second before her piercing gaze blinks into focus.
Jocelyn , I thought. Her name is Jocelyn. “You bitch! You tricked me! You were supposed to be giving me the injection, not bringing me here.”
She recoils as if slapped. “No. I didn’t trick you!” She leans in closer again. “Brock, sweetheart. The secrecy of our location is a necessity. I know you understand this. You’re a military man.”
“Then use a blindfold,” I snap back. “It doesn’t require needles or straps. I read the GTECH reports. Don’t jerk me around, lady. They weren’t tied down. They didn’t even know what was happening to them.”
An answer slid quickly off her tongue. “Their transformation was gradual. Yours will not be. You’re tied down so you won’t rip your IVs out as your body transforms. A few days from now, when we take them out…”
“A few days!” I shout, trying to jerk free again. I didn’t care about the pain. I wanted free. “I can’t stay like this for a few days. I didn’t sign up for this. Get the needles out. Let me go.” A small Chinese man enters the room, and I glare at him. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Dr. Chin,” he stated, reaching for the chart at the end of the bed and then speaking over his shoulder to someone I can’t make out. “Push two milligrams of Ativan.”
“Give me that shot, whoever you are, and I promise you, when I get up, I will remember and kill you.” The blur of white cloth hangs back without approaching, taking heed of the warning. Wildly, I swing my gaze from Jocelyn to Dr. Chin. “I’ll kill you all.”
Jocelyn reaches behind her to whoever the white blur is and says, “Give it to me.” She speaks to the doctor. “Is he okay otherwise?”
He gives her a nod. “I checked him thoroughly before he awoke.”
“Then leave us so I can explain everything to him,” she says, and turns back to me.
“Give me that shot, and you’ll regret it,” I warn.
Unshaken, Jocelyn’s full lips lift into a smile, and she reaches for an IV attachment. “You’re very tough for a man tied to a bed.” She pumps the syringe into the tube and empties it.
“Next time, you’ll be the one tied to the bed, and I’ll have my way with you.” She owes me some pleasure for her deception.
She arches a brow. “Promises, promises. But right now, I doubt you could manage to tie your shoes, let alone tie me down.” She tosses the syringe into a trash can and then settles comfortably beside me, resting her hand on my chest. It was warm against my cold skin. “So why don’t we talk about what’s happening to you, shall we?”
A sudden heaviness thrums across my eyelids, fusing with the heat of her palm, dragging me into lethargy. “Tell. Me.”
“You’ve been given the GTECH serum—a special serum formula no other man has ever received. You will be the strongest, most capable GTECH—as you should be as their commander.”
Strongest . The word rolls in my drug-laden mind. I like that word. I like Jocelyn’s voice—all rich and womanly. She continues, “There will be some pain with the transition as your muscles and fluid levels adjust. But when it’s over, you, Brock, will be the most powerful man on Earth, and we will begin building your army.” She inches closer, that crazy exotic scent of hers spiking in my nose as it had in the van, despite my fading senses. “You’re going to be a hero, Brock.”
Hero , I thought, smiling. I was going to be a hero. The most powerful man on Earth. Satisfaction slides into my mind, and I allow my lids to shut, allow darkness to overcome that bright light.