Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Four months ago
Rain hammered incessantly against the wall of windows all lined with crisscrossed wire. The din outside, heavy gray sky, and miles and miles of ocean surrounding them cast the room in low light. Personally, Kenna would flip all the lights on and make things in here as bright as she could.
Maybe Dominatus didn’t want to have to pay a huge light bill on their deep-sea platform in the middle of… She had no idea where they were. It wasn’t the Caribbean, that was for sure. Not with this constantly gray weather.
Kenna stared at the bowl of stew in front of her, the rain swelling in her ears until it was all she could hear. She pushed a couple of carrot chunks that were still hard around the bowl with the plastic spork they’d given her. As if she didn’t know how to use it as a weapon.
Mystery meat popped to the surface.
Kenna held her breath and stood. One foot over the other off the bench seat. Down to the end of the row. She just about made it, narrowly missing the edge of the trash bag stretched to its limits over the rim of the plastic can.
Bye-bye, bread roll.
That was the best part of the meal, usually. It was hard to mess with a basic roll, even if it was bland. Butter made everything better.
Her stomach heaved again, but nothing came out, even though she gagged.
A cup of water appeared in front of her.
She looked over at Dr. Marcus Buzard—one of them anyway. Kill one, and another pops up. She tried not to think about Dominatus and their science experiments. Especially since she was one of their science experiments currently.
“Drink it.” He shoved the cup at her.
Kenna took a sip. The water tasted like salt—like the rain hammering against the windows. When it was empty she chucked it in the trash can while trying to swallow the taste out of her mouth.
Buzard stared at her, his eyebrows heavy under the smooth skin on the top of his head.
No lab coat today, which only made her wonder if it was covered in blood from a horrifying experiment on someone else captive in this place whom she hadn’t met yet, and now someone had been tasked with bleaching out the stains.
Two pens and a pair of reading glasses in his shirt pocket. She could use both to injure him. She could use his tie to strangle him. But what was the point in all that effort? The room was rimmed with guards, all of them armed with stun guns and batons—and syringes.
Kill one, and another pops up.
“Since you’re finished eating…” He snapped his fingers, and two guards pushed off the wall, striding toward them. “You have an appointment.”
She held still, and they stopped a few feet away.
Noise erupted from the loudspeaker on the wall beside the double doors that led to the hallway. “Doctor Buzard, the retrieval team has returned.”
Kenna shuddered. The voice. It was the same woman from the videos.
Her mind flashed with images of war. Uprisings. Genocide. Mass graves. Things that happened unless Dominatus controlled the world. Unless they created humans to their specifications, trained them, and set them in positions of power across the world.
Those who don’t fall in line are cut down in their prime.
She knew they were brainwashing her. They’d started the first day, pushing her to exhaustion and keeping her hungry and thirsty. Forcing her to “earn” food and water so the baby stayed safe within her.
She’d tried to resist. To comply outwardly and yet, within her mind, retain her sense of self.
She’d tried.
Failed.
Tried.
Failed.
Who cared what they wanted to tell her, or what she had to say she believed. She had to protect this baby growing in her womb until she could either escape or was rescued. There were no other options.
Lord…
What was the point in praying? He hadn’t answered any of her pleas yet.
She hadn’t felt the peace she was supposed to possess, or a sense He was with her.
It felt more as if Dominatus had claimed this place for their purposes and He was not welcome.
Like they had shut God out of their domain, and no matter how much she prayed, the requests didn’t even get through the shadow of darkness that hung over everything here.
Seconds later, the doors at the far end flung open. Two familiar faces whose eyes she wanted to scratch out. The retrieval team were two men she had met months ago. Researched. Hunted. Now they were here.
“We got it, Doc.” One of the men from that retirement home came over, lifting a tackle box to show them. Four—she had since learned his name was Linus.
The other was Five, but she didn’t know his real name. He had pale clammy skin and hung back behind his friend.
“Good,” Buzard said. “Take it to the lab. I want to get started with the tests this afternoon.”
She moved without thinking, aiming for the tackle box.
Linus swung it back out of reach, laughing. “Got your boyfriend’s juice right here. Shame we had to hurt him.” He cackled. “Actually, it was fun.”
Buzard pushed her back. “Give it to me. Take your friend to the infirmary and get him patched up before he keels over and makes a mess.”
Linus spun, shoving Five in front of him.
Buzard turned to the guards and motioned with his chin. “Section four.”
She inhaled a sharp breath through her nose. I don’t want to go there.
She could still taste the bile in her mouth as one of the men grabbed her arm and dragged her between two tables and their bench seats.
She focused on keeping her feet, staying upright and not thinking about what she would be forced to watch for hours.
Until her eyes stung and she could barely keep them open.
They would inject her with something to keep her awake, push her past her limits, and then test the baby’s vital signs.
If you kill my baby…
She had no recourse. No power here. She couldn’t fight them off or defend herself.
There was no way out.
Buzard pushed out the double doors into the hallway.
She’d tried to plead with the men who worked security.
There weren’t many, and none had been sympathetic.
Far as she’d been able to tell, there weren’t more than a couple of dozen people who lived and worked on this platform.
Some kind of deep-sea research station, or it used to be an oil well.
She had no idea, and all the signs on the walls were in Russian.
At least it gave her an idea of the neighborhood they were in.
Focus on that.
At least until a scream echoed down the hall. A high sound that cut across her threadbare nerves and left her senses raw.
The tight grip of the guard’s hand on her arm got her attention. She stumbled along the hall, trying not to let go of what little control she had over her emotions, her thoughts, and her actions. It wouldn’t last. She knew that.
She also knew she had to fight until she couldn’t fight anymore.
A door swung open at the end of the hall, and a woman stumbled out of the room there, blood on the scrubs top over her torso. Blood on her hands. Her face. Stringy hair hung down either side of her head. She spotted them and froze.
“Brandon!”
Kenna jumped at the shout so close to her ear.
The man holding on to her yelled again. “Get her out of here.”
Another man appeared at the door, holding a knife with a three-inch blade.
“Take your toy somewhere else.”
The woman started to turn. Brandon grabbed her from behind, one hand over her mouth, and dragged her back into the room.
The door slammed shut.
Bile rose in Kenna’s throat, even though there was nothing in her stomach. The woman didn’t scream again, but as they passed, a puddle of blood seeped out from under the door.
“Guess that’s one case you don’t need to solve.”
The two guards laughed like that was actually funny.
Kenna’s ears rang. One of the men hit the button for the elevator and then rolled the door up like a garage. Not the first time she’d thought of jumping down into the shaft. Taking her chances with the drop and the stationary horizontal surface at the bottom.
But ending two lives in one shot wasn’t how she wanted to escape this. It seemed far too much like a gamble that she could end it fast and as painlessly as possible. She had no idea if it was far enough down that the chance she’d die would pay off with a swift end.
She also didn’t want to spend her last moments regretting what her death would do to Jax when he found out they were both gone. She wanted to see the joy in his eyes when he found out about their baby.
That meant figuring a way out of this hell.
And never giving up the fight until she did.