Chapter 1 #2
For the past six days, Ethel and I have been getting drugged and taken to the lab.
It only happens once a day for her and four times for me, but she’s gone much longer than I am each time and comes back looking absolutely wrecked.
Once they realized I would no longer fight the transfer, they stopped knocking me out entirely, favoring a relaxing sedative that makes me feel like I’m floating.
I can’t do anything to rescue myself in that state, but at least I’m awake as they hook me up to the machines.
The first time that they only sedated me instead of knocking me out, I was shocked to find myself hooked up to a machine with more wires than I have ever seen in my life.
I had an IV in each arm, and I watched as my blood came out of one and passed through a machine.
The same privileged man who has been in charge of me since day one sat at a computer, typing and clicking rapidly, the machine making all kinds of ungodly loud noises, as I watched the blood re-enter my system through the other arm.
Sometimes, an older man shows up, asking questions and snatching paperwork from his hands, but mostly it’s just him and me. The bowling alley guy doesn’t show up again.
Maybe if I ever get out of here, I can walk Icarus through what they’ve been doing and see if he can help me make sense of it.
I always thought when I watched shows or read books about women getting kidnapped that I’d fight until my nails were bleeding and my throat was raw before I lay down and took it.
But it only took me a day to give up.
Maybe it’s something in the cocktail of drugs they’re shooting into me.
The medical treatments feel like what I’ve heard people describe as dialysis or plasma donation, but I don’t think it’s that. They wouldn’t go through all of this trouble if it were.
I also get several shots of a vibrant yellow liquid while hooked up.
It makes my head hurt.
It makes me feel like I’m floating outside of my body.
Maybe this isn’t the body I was supposed to be born in.
Maybe it doesn’t belong to me anymore.
I think my body is theirs now.
I don’t think I’ll ever get it back.
After one of these sessions, when I’m being gently carried back, like I am something precious, into the warehouse-like room I’ve been living in, I find someone else passed out in the cage beside mine.
“Where’s Ethel?” I’m slurring my speech; the sedation has still not worn off, but my need to know what happened overrides it. “Where’d she go?”
“Omega subject twenty-four is no longer your concern. Get some rest.”
He deposits me in my cage and locks it up. The man across from me has big, sad blue eyes.
“Where am I?”
Two weeks.
Fourteen days.
And Ethel never came back. I lost her.
There have been several other test subjects in the two weeks since I lost her. Some are Omegas, most are Betas like me. But none of them are Ethel.
My treatments continue. I’ve heard the doctors talk about what a success story I am and how the other subjects are a disappointment.
Should I feel proud?
I don’t.
They sound proud.
They put a new person in the crate beside me while I slept. I woke up about an hour ago, and he’s still out, so I take the time to look him over.
He’s achingly handsome. Dark hair and tan olive skin, and if his eyes were open, I’d bet they’d be dark, too. He’s got a thin beard on his chin and jaw and a trim build, and, judging by how curled up in there he is, he must be pretty tall.
As he wakes, I push back against the edge of my cage. It takes his eyes a few minutes to focus, and I can see the gears in his brain turning.
“Hi,” he says quietly when he finally spots me. His eyes are dark, like I suspected, and his voice is rich and deep. “Where are we?”
They always ask that.
“Dunno,” I say with a shrug. Even though I know what they’re going to do to him, I have no idea what the goal of this place is or where we are. “But they’ll be back soon.”
“Who are they?”
“The doctors.”
He narrows his eyes at me suspiciously. “Real conversationalist, aren’t you?”
That pisses me off. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know what I’ve gone through since I got here.
“I’ve been here for three weeks, asshole.
I know you just arrived, so you don’t know what happens here, but I fucking do.
Forgive me for not wanting to get attached to you when chances are your cage will be empty tomorrow. ”
Fear flashes across his face.
Finally, he seems to understand how dire a situation he’s found himself in.
He swallows audibly. “How many people have been in this cage?”
“I don’t know. Nine? Twelve? I try not to think about it, honestly. Regardless of how many there are, I’m still going to end up traumatized. Well, if I make it out of here alive.”
I have long since accepted that I won’t make it out of here. Whatever they’re saving me for eventually, they’ll be done with me, and there is no way they will let me go. I’ll know too much, have seen too much.
They’ll kill me.
A hysterical laugh bubbles in my throat.
This whole situation is ridiculous, like something out of a cop show.
“If my brother were here, he’d tell me that playing Tetris can help with trauma and PTSD, so he’d make sure I play it for at least twenty minutes a day, but we got in a fight before I was taken, so he’s probably not even looking for me so I’ve got no one to give me Tetris to play.
” The laughter is replaced by sorrow that chokes my voice. “I just want to play Tetris.”
He adjusts himself in his crate, trying to get more comfortable.
It’s futile. These things look like they are meant to hold large dogs, not full-grown men.
I can’t ascertain his designation, but he’s taller than me, and I’m uncomfortable, so even if he’s only a Beta, he’s going to be miserable soon.
But he doesn’t seem to be worried about that. “Okay, honey, listen. Will they ever get us out of our cages at the same time?”
I click my tongue, trying to think back on what I’ve been overhearing from the doctors lately. “Maybe. There’s an experiment that they’re trying to do. Apparently, I’m ready for it, but none of my ‘friends’ have been. So if you are ready for it, I think they’ll take us both out.”
“That’s good to know,” he says gently. His voice is so soothing. “I’ll make sure I comply with everything so we can get out of here together, okay?”
The momentary lull his words had me in is overridden by pure cynicism, and I laugh.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
I shove some of my ragged hair behind my ear. “Athena. Athena Valentine.”
A sensual chuckle slips out of his lips. “Well, Athena, my name is Atlas, and I promise you, we’re going to get out of here.”