Chapter 12
Farah
My eyes burned and my throat ached from crying and screaming.
It had done me no good; I felt like shit, and I was still trapped in the clutches of this disgusting flesh-covered robot.
Its fake white scales were flaking off on my arms and it felt horrible and disgusting.
The only thing working in its favor was that it smelled mostly like the engine of an old car, not rotting flesh, though it looked like that was what covered him.
“Please,” I begged hoarsely, “Where are we going? What do you want with me?” I had already asked it a million times to take me back to Zeidon, to turn around, or to let me go.
It had responded to each of my questions with a short hissed retort, but I did not think it was being mean, it was just telling me it did not understand.
“He could be dead,” I said, my breathing shuddering with a suppressed sob as I voiced that thought.
I could not picture Zeidon dead, he was so intense, so passionate and so very very sweet to me.
I wanted him to be alive so badly, and something inside of me kept insisting that he would never go down that easily.
He was a fighter, and he was a caretaker, he wouldn’t want to give up when I was in danger. I knew it.
The robot did not respond this time, its red eye focused on the hallway ahead with single-minded focus. The golden orb rolled down toward me, but that was all he did. Had I worn out a robot with my begging? I did not think that was possible.
We’d traveled through hallway after hallway, lit only by the lights on the machine’s body.
They were straight and narrow, some of them dripping with water down the side in steady, maddening rhythms. Wherever we were, I kept thinking that there was a river nearby, I’d hear the sound of rushing water, but then it would fade again as our tunnel made a turn.
Buzz was curled against my chest, a warm, steadily breathing bundle. He did not move, and his previously broken wing was crooked once more. I feared for him, internal bleeding could get the best of my poor little friend, and even if he survived, what about his wing? Would he ever fly again?
We turned so suddenly from a dark hallway into a brightly lit room that my already aching eyes whited out.
I squinted, trying to make sense of what I was seeing through my lashes, and then wished I hadn’t.
There were tubs and vats, pipes with bubbling colorful liquids, and a long desk filled with all kinds of devices and materials.
It was as if a mad professor's lab from hell had met a robotic zombie freak.
When the Naga robot laid me down on a metal table I balked.
I fought against his iron grip so hard the skin tore on my wrists and my nails broke on his metal frame.
I screamed in his deranged, terminator face, and I cursed him so loudly the air turned blue.
To no avail, my flailing body was no match for his manacle-like grip.
I was a sick, exhausted heap, still recovering from a bad trip in stasis, but I tried my hardest anyway.
Soon, he had me pinned to the surface, strapped down by bands around my arms and legs.
He was talking to me, but all I could focus on was that glowing red eye in the metal half of his face.
All kinds of terrifying options flitted through my mind about what he was going to do to me.
The injector-like thing he pressed to the side of my neck fit right in with those.
A warmth spread through my limbs as the chemicals he’d dosed me with spread through my system. They became weak to the point of paralysis, so heavy that I could not move them no matter how hard I tried. My mind remained frighteningly clear during all of that, which only sent my terror skyrocketing.
The robot took Buzz’s prone and barely moving form, lifting his slight shape from where he’d remained on my chest. I could only watch from the corners of my eyes as the monstrosity slithered to another table to lay my little buddy down.
He moved precisely as he spread Buzz’s wing, pulling out the membrane and thin bones to inspect them.
Then he returned to my side and started interfacing with the glowing screen of a machine next to my table.
I could not see what was on it, just saw the flickering of light against the robot’s damaged chest. I traced each piston, cog, and cable inside the visible half of his metal rib cage.
Anything to keep myself distracted from what might happen next.
I was down to counting all the gashes in the scale-covered side of him when something finally did change.
A machine hummed and buzzed beyond my left shoulder, I couldn’t see it until a white robotic arm suddenly extended above me.
It did not calm my frayed nerves to note how much it looked like a medical healing device.
One of those surgical robot arms they used to heal the badly injured.
That was what Zeidon needed, not me, I was just a little weak from the faulty stasis pod. I didn’t need surgery!
The machine hummed and buzzed as it angled over my torso and started doing things.
I could not see any of it, and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to know.
Now I was starting to think it was a blessing that he’d at least put me under some kind of anesthetic.
I was going to have nightmares about this, anyway, if I even made it out of here alive.
Oh, poor Zeidon. His image filled my mind now, the furious look as he attacked, the pain and desperation as he tried to crawl after me despite his injuries.
All the blood, everywhere. The floor had been covered with it, his body had torn to shreds, and I’d seen the splatter on the robot’s tail, a vivid reminder of what had happened to my friend.
Friend? Who was I kidding, I had never been more into a guy than I had been into Zeidon.
He was scaley, and a hoarder, but he loved animals and he was so sweet in his own slightly gruff and growly way.
I felt like I could just be myself around him and he liked it because he was so unapologetically himself too.
He did what he wanted, said what he wanted, and kissed me like there was no tomorrow.
My breathing hitched in my chest. There really might not be a tomorrow—not for either of us, and not for Buzz.
I didn’t think the day of my sham of a trial and subsequent execution could be topped, but here I was.
This was definitely far worse. Tears stung the corners of my eyes, my throat burned, and my heart ached for all the things I was losing.
New things, precious things that I didn’t think I’d ever have.
Then the robot leaned over me, his one red eye and one gold eye locking with mine.
The still somewhat Naga half of his face looked almost pretty and comforting next to the demonic, metal half.
He smiled in a grotesque way—I had not thought of him as anything but a ‘he’, though I wasn’t quite sure why.
It had to be something in the way they’d built his robotic shape, wide shoulders, square jaw, though he did not have a horn on the chin like Zeidon had.
He said something, his hisses and growls more enunciated than what it sounded like when Zeidon spoke without touching me.
I couldn’t figure out what he wanted from me, but it was obvious he was trying to communicate.
Well screw him, he had me strapped to a cold metal table while doing medical experiments on me.
That was no way to start a conversation, and I was never going to forgive him for what he’d done to Zeidon and Buzz.
It wasn’t like I could respond either, my mouth refused to obey. I could barely move my eyes to focus on the creepy, intense expression in his ravaged, metal face. That red eye looked to me like the reflection of pure evil, even though it was simply a red light inside a metal socket.
The robot gave up with a furious hiss, he spun away and moved out of sight.
I felt a hint of relief spread through me, but the machine was still humming over my chest, doing God knows what to me.
It was still better than looking at his creepy face.
I told myself I just needed to hang in there, if Zeidon had survived, he would come for me.
If he had survived… Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, I could not feel them as they ran down the sides of my face but I knew it anyway.
Zeidon had to be alive, I could not accept any other outcome.
I knew it in my heart; he lived, because he would not allow himself to perish when I needed him.
So I needed to do the same, I needed to hang on so I could be there for him when he came.
***
Zeidon
I woke in a rush, my body surging with the urge to fight.
My eyes opened to the soft glow of crystals, common to any ancestral cave though they only worked on rare occasions.
Only one of my eyes seemed to see with perfect clarity, the other felt blurry, and it ached.
That was a big improvement over not working at all and I drew in a relieved breath.
A hunter with only one eye would struggle to adjust, and I needed all my senses when I went after that revenant.
I did not recognize where I was, but I recognized the type of room: a medical chamber like any good Shaman had.
Had they brought me to Artek? I did not think so, this room was smaller than I recalled.
Touching my chest, I discovered that I had been covered with bandages, they were wrapped around many parts of my tail too.
They hid the damage the revenant had done, but it still ached.
I was not back to full strength, but I had survived and that was good enough for me.
If I could get up and move, I only needed my trident and I was ready to go after that monster who stole my precious female.