Chapter 28 Scarlett
Scarlett
I remained motionless when my brain finally woke up. I felt like I was underwater at first, clawing towards the surface just to get a breath of air, but it didn’t take long for the fog to clear.
I kept my eyes shut, I didn’t squeeze them, I didn’t twitch a single finger, I didn’t even inhale.
That had been a strong tranquilizer, and Azrael had only spent a week training me on tranquilizers, but I knew I hadn’t been out for long.
Three hours, maybe. All I had were the references from my training, the only problem was that different tranquilizers elicited different responses.
It could have been a day for all I knew, but falling back on my instincts was all I had, so three hours was what felt right.
It had to have been less than a day.
When the heaviness had lessoned enough, I strained every sense I could, focusing on each one individually. It was the first rule Bishop had taught me if I was ever taken. Mentally take notes of everything I noticed because even the smallest of details could be what saved me.
My tongue felt like sandpaper, but there was no strange taste in my mouth, just thirst.
I was laying on my back on a metal table, shackles around my wrists and ankles, a cool breeze drifting between my legs, but they were still down, flat on the table.
I could smell damp concrete and metal, a stench of cleaning solution, but worst of all, I could feel the presence of two people in the room with me.
One of them had their back turned, but the other was watching me. Their gaze cold and weighted.
“She’s awake,” I heard one man say. “Open your eyes, Chosen One,” he ordered.
I loathed that name, but I wasn’t going to lie here and pretend that I was asleep when I wasn’t. Lying was only advantageous if I used it correctly, and there was no advantage in keeping my eyes closed now, so I opened them and quickly took in what I could, which was the ceiling above me.
Concrete, pocky holes, LED white lights that burned my eyes and nothing else except for the horrible sensation that I was underground.
I hated being underground. Rooms without windows were fine, I didn’t care about rooms without windows, but underground? It was like every nerve in my body could feel the earth moving all around me. I could feel it getting closer, closing in, stealing all of my oxygen.
It was an effort not to inhale deeply, not to try and absorb all the oxygen I possibly could, but I could feel every muscle in my body tensing.
Why underground?
A man appeared above me suddenly. He was wearing a white coat, just like Doctor Manson, and a mask. He was standing beside a tall rod with a bag hanging from it, the tube from that bag going right into my arm.
Goddamn, I hated needles.
“Don’t worry, you’re not feeling anything because I made sure you wouldn’t,” the man hummed gently, as if he was doing me a favor.
“Everything went well. We’ll keep you on the medication while the cuts heal, there are quite a few of them,” he explained, glancing over my body slowly before meeting my eyes again, “and some of them required stitches, but you are in great health, so I don’t think it will take them more than two weeks to heal right back up. ”
Cuts? Why would they cut me while I was unconscious? The whole point of being tortured was to be aware of the torture. Why give me medication? Why any of this?
“You’ll be on antibiotics and morphine. Not too much though, we can’t risk you getting addicted. She won’t appreciate dealing with that.”
“I don’t think she knows what that means,” another man said, this one younger.
I knew what the word addicted meant, but there was only one thing my soul was addicted to and he wasn’t here. He would be here soon though, and I needed to make sure he knew that I had been alive when I was taken from this place.
I turned back to the ceiling and carefully lifted my finger, testing the strength of it before I dug my nail into the metal and scratched a little. I pulled my finger away and rubbed it against my thumb. Not a medical grade table, which worked in my favor.
“Not in the talking mood, fine. We should give her another sedative. He’ll want her there before nightfall.”
“Yes sir,” the other male agreed as I started to scratch the table again.
Two men, one younger than the other. The older one had brown eyes, but the younger one had his back to me until a moment later when he turned around with a needle in hand.
I quickly took in his eyes too. Lifeless brown eyes, not an ounce of warmth to them, just tar. He was wearing a mask too, and looked just enough like the older one that I guessed they were father and son.
Everything was a family business.
I turned back to the ceiling, feeling the slight pinch as the needle went in, causing my muscles to tense and my nail to dig into the metal a little too deep.
Azrael had taught me far too well over the last few months to ever allow myself to be afraid of tiny little nobody humans like this. I was more. I would always be more. More than them, more than civilians, more than the fear.
I had to be more.
But this fear terrified me. It was colder, thicker, than any fear I had felt before.
I had always known what I was walking into.
Even in the church, I always knew there was a chance things would escalate, that the ‘rules’ wouldn’t protect me if they did, and even if they didn’t, I knew Azrael was there.
Watching like the ghost he was, but this?
Absolution was an unknown to me. Azrael wouldn’t know where I was.
There would be no rules to protect me, no Azrael to watch me. I was completely and utterly alone.
I felt the second the sedation started to affect me, but by the shuffling and muttering in the room, I knew my training had done me well. It was taking longer than they wanted for it to take effect.
Good.
Let everything I do shock them, cause them to pause. Force them to rethink what they were doing. Let them wonder and think and fret.
Let them think I couldn’t be swayed while their fear grew. I continued to scratch into the table until I heard the door open a few moments later.
“Give her more,” another voice said. “She’s been trained by him. She needs more.”
“Sir,” the younger man hesitated, “whether she’s been trained by him or not, her body weight is still what it is. It could kill her if I give her more.”
“Are you questioning me?” the man asked quietly.
It was the voice of authority. The voice that commanded respect. A voice that didn’t expect to ever be questioned.
“No sir, my apologies.”
Malachi was here then. His voice sounded so much…less than I expected it to be with the way his sons and daughters talked about him. They had made him into this all-powerful monster of a man, but he wasn’t. He was just a man with an ego problem and far too much money.
The more powerful they thought they were, the louder they screamed when you cut their flesh.
My eyes fell, trying to catch a glimpse of the man who betrayed his own family.
From the way they had me laying, I saw only a black fedora tilted down at first. It looked like he might have been checking his phone. Azrael had said that he had been away on business for quite some time, maybe he was still handling that business.
The younger man came over again with another needle. “This will make you sleep a little longer. Don’t panic when your heart slows, this shouldn’t kill you so long as you relax.”
“Stop acting as if you own a single inkling of compassion,” Malachi said, lifting his head. “She’s merchandise, a ripe little fruit, ready for the plucking.”
His icy blue eyes locked with mine and he smiled. “If I said you could have a taste before sending her off, you wouldn’t waste a second.”
The man was silent for an entire second before he spoke again. “Can I?”
Malachi chuckled.
My entire world fell away and suddenly I was ripped from the present and tossed right into a past I never wanted to remember.
I was a kid again, lying on a cold operating table with a mask on my face, tired and dizzy and absolutely terrified.
I was waking up, groggy and sick, and I could see my mother standing in the corner talking to a man.
I was getting my ovaries removed, that’s what they were saying. I would be the purest of the pure. The inside of my tummy would never hurt. I would be safe to use as they saw fit. He was reassuring her, touching her arm, when his eyes found mine.
I was ripped from the past back into the present, his eyes still watching mine.
His smile stretched across his face, but there was nothing kind or warm about it. In fact, I could have sworn I saw that black tar dripping from his teeth. “It’s good to see you again, Scarlett. It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?”
I allowed the chill to seep into my eyes as a sharp smile split my face in two. It was all I had now. My smile. It was my only armor.
Malachi’s smile tightened, his eyes flicking to my lips and back. “Do I amuse you?”
I laughed, letting my head fall back, my eyes trained on the ceiling as another sharp prick slid under my skin.
“She should be out in less than a minute,” the man said. “I don’t know why she’s laughing. It’s not one of the side-effects.”
“My son trained her,” he hummed, clear disgust in his voice. “If he trained her well, her mind snapped like an old rubber band, to be molded by his hands alone.”
“Meaning?” the younger boy asked as the drugs finally started to pull me under again, forcing my eyes closed, my body getting heavier and heavier.
“Meaning that casualties are a small price to pay to keep her away from her dear mentor. Her mind has been broken and molded once,” he went on, stepping up to my head, “it can be done again.”
Malachi leaned in until his hot breath touched my ear. “Don’t worry, Chosen One, my darling El will know exactly how to recreate you.”