CHAPTER ONE #2
“Oh, I’d love a ship,” I beamed and turned to grab one of his fellows.
His skull gave a satisfying crunch as I slammed it against the wall.
Dark blue blood coated my hands and I resisted the urge to rub it into my skin.
The one beside him was next, his screams so sweet I made sure to prolong it just a little, just enough to really feel it.
Maker, I wasn’t sure the last time I’d felt this good. I lifted a hand, letting the crackling energy in my veins flick out. Three flew upwards, slamming into the ceiling above before falling to the ground in a heap.
“He’s a monster,” a male crouched in the corner sobbed.
That one was a member of the team I saw on a daily basis, though before now my mind had been such a fog I’d barely recognized him.
But I knew his scent and loved the way it smelled mixed with the death crawling through the room.
I knelt in front of him, pushing back his light blonde hair from his brow.
“I am a monster you made,” I murmured. “Aren’t you pleased?”
The scent of piss cut through everything else and I sighed, my fingers shooting forward to plunge into his abdomen. It took me a moment of rooting around to find what I wanted and I yanked out the center of his vascular system, his blood running purple down my arms and mixing with the rest.
“Hm…I suppose not.”
I turned back to Hollumum in time to see his mouth open, then close, his throat bobbing with another thick swallow. A pile of vomit laid at his feet. “F-fifteenth level is a hang…hanger. Plenty o-of ships. I can sho-show you.”
“How many are there?” I asked, wandering through the group before I found the body of a Quili male who seemed to have a similar shaped foot to me. I crouched down, unlacing his boots and tugging them off—it wasn’t as if he’d need them anymore.
“All of us were gathered here,” the male answered in a rasp. “Except for five on level fourteen in room six.”
I laughed while I slipped on the shoes, lacing them up.
“You would only think about those privileged enough to be in this room.” I tucked the bottoms of the bloodied, black trousers they’d given me maybe a quarter of a cycle ago into the tops of the boots and straightened.
“How many security guards or mercenaries are on this satellite?”
He shook his head, or maybe his entire body was shaking, it was a little hard to tell.
Now that he was the only one remaining, it was a little difficult to focus.
Every cell in my body screamed at me to close my hands around his throat, to tear his limbs, to sink my teeth in, though I couldn’t get the muzzle off, not yet at least.
“No mercenaries…Just—there are ten…ten security guards on this level and a few more scattered throughout.”
I sighed in disappointment. “Not too many then. Now, before I go, I’d like to give you a little advice.”
As I prowled closer, he stumbled back, falling over the body of his fellow researcher. He squeaked and scrambled away only to face plant into the chest of another. Soft cries slipped through his lips and I shushed him, gripping the back of his collar to lift him off the ground.
“Are you ready to hear what I have to say?” When he didn’t answer, I shook him, but when there was still no response, I used my free hand to make him nod. “‘Yes, Orion, I am so very ready.’”
I chuckled at my attempt of his accent. Despite being born on Keva Um’plem, the starship that orbited the class one planet, Silomen, I’d never gotten the hang of it, something about the rounded vowels always tripped me up.
“Twelve cycles is too long to experiment on one being to create the perfect soldier,” I growled.
My free hand thrust into his belly, my jagged nails easing the way through the fabric of his tunic and soft flesh.
I gripped whatever organs were within reach and pulled, his digestive tract spilling onto the floor.
“You should have killed me a while ago.”
A small dribble of golden blood fell from the corner of his mouth, tears mixing with the sweat on his face. But I did no more, only watched as his breathing hitched, stuttered, then stopped as the light left his eyes.
His body fell to a heap on the floor and I sighed, rubbing my hands together and finally allowing the doors to slide open.
I made my way back through the halls to the turbo lift, picking up the tune of the Haptium music playing over the speakers.
It wasn’t a song I recognized but it paired nicely with the one in my head and in my veins.
The lift was clear to my disappointment but I made my way inside, hitting the button for the floor I wanted and leaning against the wall.
Before I’d been brought here I’d been strong—it had been a requirement of the job.
No one wanted to hire a fragile mercenary.
But that strength was now a pale shadow of whatever this was and whatever they’d done.
And that wasn’t even to acknowledge the abilities they’d somehow given me, abilities I barely understood and yet my body knew perfectly.
The lift came to a stop and I stepped out with a frown.
This didn’t look like a hangar. But I made my way down the hall, whistling just enough to hopefully tip off any security guards.
A scream, so loud it drowned out the sound of the song in my head slipped from beneath a door at the end.
Another. Then another, before muffled sobs filled my ears.
I looked around, finding one of the markers beside a halo orb.
Fourteenth floor. I’d hit the wrong button.
Rolling my eyes at my carelessness, I turned to head back to the lifts.
Another wail pierced the metal and my feet stumbled to a stop.
I tried to take a step forward but my body turned itself as if of its own accord, my feet carrying me right to the door marked six with a small plaque underneath reading XCW8626.
My hand lifted and I watched with fascination as it opened.
Was this a part of this new power? Did someone else have control of me?
The room was bright, brighter than mine had ever been and filled with the five researchers all crowded into the center of the room. Whoever had screamed before sobbed a little quieter, a broken, animalistic sound that for some reason had the corner of my eyes pricking with heat.
“Wider, Bran, I can’t get to her like this,” one of the researchers said.
The one he’d spoken to, Bran, shifted and my knees felt weak.
A tumble of tangled dark hair spilled over the metal table and stuck to the wet cheeks of a female with pale gold skin.
Her eyes squeezed shut and I found myself drifting to the side just in time to see her legs pulled wider apart.
One of the males hummed in approval while the obvious scent of arousal filled my nose.
Their arousal at her fear, at her body on display.
“It’s been cycles since I’ve seen a cunt like this,” the male said and around him the rest chuckled.
“Don’t you have a wife, Aten?” Bran asked, securing the female’s ankle straps.
The male, Aten, laughed. “What does that have to do with anything?”
My blood boiled in my veins and it was as easy as breathing to lock the door.
Just like before, my body moved without conscious thought, breaking the spine of the male closet to me and then reaching for the next and the next and the next.
I roared, throwing the final male against the wall and impaling him into one of the instruments affixed there.
He gasped, hands flying up to touch the mechanical arm now sticking through his chest as if he might pull it out before his body went limp.
I panted, my lungs burning, as I watched his dark red blood—the same color as mine—drip onto the ground. The back of my neck prickled and I turned to find a pair of violet eyes staring at me.
The world shifted.
No, not the world. Just me.
And I feared I would never be the same.