14. CHAPTER 14 #2
“The testing will show how much you believe your own words. It'll be worse for you if you lie and we must repeat the test. Then I won't be able to leave a pocket of air.”
The moments of silence panged with her heartbeat.
Faint traces of red drifted through the water on the screen while the boy twitched, the stain over his wound growing. He only wanted to save an innocent girl.
That poor boy.
“You must genuinely surrender. I'm not sending you back to waste the Rivens time in the capital if you don't. We'll put you to the test here, and either you'll die or return to the prison prepared to cooperate.”
Never had a greater temptation existed than to lie or even to convince herself that she would give up innocent lives.
But if he hooked those monitors to her now and asked her if she'd sacrifice Elijah's life to save herself, then she couldn't give the answer he wanted.
At least she had the choice to give in. Had Dr. Cooper offered any escape to Zayne?
If that young boy survived this tank, then she would too.
Suddenly, water drained, and her tears turned to those of relief, until hot water blasted the back of her legs. She heard herself scream before realizing she was doing it. The heat burned over her frozen, numb skin, melting everything it touched. At least, it felt that way.
“Don't worry. It isn't really scalding. It only feels that way because of thermal shock. It won't kill you right away. We can do this several times before you're at risk.”
Heat fried the nerve endings the cold had tortured. How did shock hurt so badly?
This couldn't be real. None of it. Not the prison, not this place, not this torture. There had to be a way to escape. She clawed at the window, breaking her fingernails. The panic dominated all else. Made her crazed.
“Your oxygen, Kira. Please. Be mindful.”
Hot water and hyperventilation tugged on her consciousness. She tried to look at the boy in the tank, but her vision blurred too much to see him.
Kira needed to find control. How could she though?
No one had ever prepared her for anything like this.
That masked man saved her the only time she came close to such danger.
A naive part of her must have thought Zayne would save her, too, even though he threatened her.
Would he object if he were here? Or would he be relieved if she died, so he didn't need to deal with her?
As desperately as she fought for courage, the terror kept control of her. When the water drained, and she understood what was coming next, wild desperation ripped at her mind. Would she do it? Would she sacrifice her friends and escape? Kira would do anything to get out of here.
She wept bitterly. Not anything.
Not that.
Never that.
Having a choice made it all worse.
The screen went blank, and Dr. Cooper stole that boy away from her. Left him all alone in the past, suffering for doing the right thing. She begged him to turn it back on so she could see if Zayne was okay. So, neither of them would be alone.
The second round of freezing water hurt far more than the first. She couldn't even scream. Couldn't beg or vow to sacrifice the entire empire if it meant escaping. When her will faltered, her breathlessness saved her.
The water surged over her mouth, and she jolted up enough to take in a full breath before it fully engulfed her.
“I have long told the Phaedra our greatest resource is the spirit of the rebel,” Dr. Cooper said.
Kira bit her cheek until she drew blood to keep her mouth shut. She shuddered violently from the shock of the water.
“The spirit it takes to defy the insurmountable power of the Phaedra… What a miraculous thing indeed. That's far more powerful than the PXI. Too bad it is so hard to tame either one.”
Black dots popped over her vision, and her body floated listlessly in the tank. If he didn't help her soon, she'd pass out. Then what? Would she die?
“If you've had a change of heart and want to end this test, knock on the tank four times. You don't have long before you can no longer do this.”
Kira's hands twitched into fists. Fear pleaded with her knuckles into the heavy lid until they were bloody.
But the numbness from the cold and the delirium from lack of oxygen sparked a hint of peace. If she reached for it, gave in to it, then she might do something that she wasn't strong enough to do. She might let him kill her.
Wouldn't that be a mercy? Zayne warned her about fighting a war she couldn't win. Dying now might save countless lives if her mother gave up the Followers or if Kira broke later.
With her remaining energy, she lifted her fist to the top of the tank, the darkness pulling at her, and she spread her palm over its surface, holding it against the glass for Dr. Cooper to see.
Strength and reason fled, and she fell limp.
She was drowning.
Dying.
And she wanted final words. A final feeling. Sunlight against her skin one final time.
But she only convulsed in that freezing water while her life crystallized into ragged shards of ice. While she lost everything but the hope that death might make her sharp enough to cut free the chains binding and choking those innocent people the Phaedra worked so hard to hurt.
When the darkness engulfed her, agony ripped across her tender skin. She raked a breath so deep into her lungs it ripped her open. She expected water to rush into her lungs, but instead she gasped for air.
Kira rolled to her side and coughed up lungs full of water, sick from the battle to breathe versus to purge her lungs. Hot water burned its way over her body in a new cycle. A new level of shock.
Her body tried to curl in on itself, but she lay listless in the tank. Her own weak sobs echoed back at her.
Kira didn't even feel human. Didn't feel capable of thinking. Only one thing filled her.
Despair.
Because she'd done it. She let herself die rather than give in to the Phaedra and Dr. Cooper. She did that! How had she found the resolve?
And now she'd have to do it again.
Again.
Again.
Again, again, again.
How many times could she welcome death? How many times could she endure suffering so great she longed for the end to come?
As the hot water battered her body and spirit, she saw Zayne twisting toward her in the darkness last night. Every scar on his body shone gold. How many times did he wish to die?
Yet here he was. Serving the Phaedra.
Did Kira really have any hope if someone like Zayne Riven couldn't break free?
No matter what she thought of him, he exuded strength and control.
And he hadn't earned the snake mark for reprogramming.
Only prisoners of war who kept their mouths shut during torture were given that mark.
It stunned her to see the fangs of the snakes on the back of his neck.
Kira didn't know he'd gone through that.
Just like she'd known she was drowning, she sensed the surrender approaching. Not yet. Not this round. At some point, she'd lose herself and give in.
She wasn't prepared for this.
And she hated herself for that.
The water drained, and all her hope and ideals washed away with it. Cold that burned like fire needled into every fiber of her body.
A body could only withstand so much shock.
Dr. Cooper didn't talk to her anymore. He simply waited for her to swear her soul to the Phaedra.
The icy water rose slowly this time. Very slowly. Kira was too weak to lift her head to breathe. Soon, there was nowhere left for her. She was buried in a grave of freezing water.
Her hand curled into a fist as her consciousness waned. She lacked the strength to knock. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
No surrender.
Black pulled her within the depths of the sea, so deep that her mind played cruel tricks on her. She heard Zayne's powerful voice, and he wasn't calling her prisoner or a problem or Ms. Stiles.
His deep voice called out her name.
“Kira!”
She must have been dead.
Fleeting thoughts clawed for the surface of her mind, but those were drowning with her. When the water rushed out of the tank, light washed over her, and she looked into death, surprised by how bright it was.
A shadow fell over her.
Blinking, she struggled to make out the face, but her eyes slid closed.
“Zayne…?”
Did he come back for her? Was this real?
Strong arms lifted her from the tank and ripped her from the clutches of death.
Kira landed against hardness and tenderness, the softness of skin over muscle.
Of humanity and vulnerability over strength.
She wilted into the warmth of the man holding her and drifted back to that chilly night.
Back to the masked man who held her close.
It felt so much like him, she wondered if he'd come to take her home.
Wondered if she died and only imagined him.
Thoughts clashed as she rode the line between reality and the depths of the icy water. She grasped consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open, but everything felt different than in her stupor.
The man holding her didn't feel like the masked man. And he was too warm to be Zayne.
“Hang on. I'm getting you help.” The voice wasn't right either.
Kira made out the blurry image of a stranger with warm beige skin and dark whiskers.