Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“You’re going to help me with one of my procedures, daughter,” my father says, a dark glee in his voice that makes the bottom of my stomach drop out.
“Like hell,” I snarl.
“Oh, you think you have a choice in this? Trust me. You do not. Now, clean yourself up. You look pitiful.” He passes me his handkerchief, and I nearly gag at the scent of sandalwood and yew.
Still, I scrub the blood from my latest vision casting from my face before handing him back the handkerchief.
He seems amused by the dark marks of my dried blood, which only chills me further.
A Soldier comes and removes the cuff from the bedrail, keeping the other attached to my wrist.
“You have no idea how easy it is to set up a clandestine facility like the one in New Jersey. Of course, I had plenty of practice when I was locking your magic.”
The same thing he said in my peculiar vision.
I shudder but follow him when the Soldiers shove me out of the room.
Like I did then, I bite my tongue, despite wanting to lash out at him.
If he only knew how easily I could take him to his knees…
I stare at the back of my father’s head, longing to use my affinity on him, but there would be no point.
I’m guarded by two Soldiers of Saint Aldous who would strike me down if they thought I had assailed my father.
“But now you’ll see what we’ve built here. What you’ve been so curious about. You flew all the way to New Jersey just to find out what I was up to. Honestly, I’m flattered.”
The two Soldiers guiding me come up to my side and each take one of my arms. Wherever they’re leading me, I won’t want to go willingly. If it follows my vision, I’ll be taken into an operating theatre…
“Now to show you what I’ve been doing. I’ve achieved a fifty percent success rate. You should know what my work entails, and you will, now that you’ll be helping me.”
Saints. My father intends to have me help him butcher an omega. Is that where my vision was leading me? I saw myself handing him a scalpel too.
“Watch, Juniper, as I make history.”
He pushes open the double swinging doors to the operating theater, and I fight against my guards, elbowing one in the gut before the other tightens his grip on my upper arm, strong enough to bruise.
I cry out, and my father delights in it. His crooked smile makes me sick.
“I told you not to fight, daughter, or I’ll kill your pathetic pack.”
The fight goes out of me, and I duck my head, staying where my guards position me beside a metal operating table.
I hear an omega’s shrieks, first down the hall, then coming closer, and then I feel her.
Pure animal panic consumes her, and her emotions consume me, dragging me under until I have no space for thoughts of my own.
The doors burst open, and three Soldiers of Saint Aldous wrestle a naked omega into the operating theater. I jerk my head up, though it’s pounding, to see her thrown down on the operating table. A serial number is inked on her shoulder. A hospital bracelet graces her wrist.
The Soldiers strap her down, and still she fights. She bucks against the leather bonds holding her in place until my father comes up behind me and jabs a needle into her neck. She goes still, sedated.
I flinch away from the bed, bile rising in my throat.
I can’t. I can’t bear witness to something so heinous.
I reach for my affinity, but it’s barely a flicker inside my body, drained from me by the omega’s fear.
Saints, I’m tapped out. I won’t be able to call on my affinity to save me, to save this omega prisoner.
“I may not be hurting for test subjects, but you know we’ll find those omegas you stole from Radcliffe Industries, don’t you?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I grit out. “Omegas aren’t property to be stolen.” Just how many test subjects does my father have access to? Are they coming from Rose Pharmaceuticals’ laboratories or coming to him through more sinister means?
“Aren’t you, though? You’re bought and sold every day.”
I say nothing. My father is trying to get a rise out of me, trying to taunt me into doing or saying something damning.
I watch as he dons a surgical gown, shoving his hands through the sleeves.
He doesn’t bother to tie it behind him. He dons a pair of gloves and passes me a pair, staring me down until I put them on.
“What you’re about to witness is exactly what will happen to you once my success rate improves,” he says, his voice sly.
“I’ll give your affinity to Baphomet’s Prince, and he’ll use it to take over this pathetic world.
I’ll do it just like you’re going to see.
Maybe I’ll succeed; either way, you won’t live to see what happens, to witness the world the Prince envisions.
You should know, taking your maginalus will kill you. ”
Saints, I’ll only live until my father has butchered more omegas, until he’s mastered the procedure of removing an omega’s maginalus without destroying it in the process.
I ball my hands into fists, wishing I could dig my nails into my palms to jolt me out of this horror, but it’s of no use in the gloves.
He’s so sure he’ll take my affinity. He’s so sure the Prince will win this war.
It would be so easy to root out traitors and dissenters with an affinity like mine…
No. I can’t think about that now. I have to pull it together.
I can’t let this all be for naught. If I am rescued, I need to be armed with every last detail needed to take my father down.
That thought sobers me, pushing my fears to the back of my mind.
“And just how many omegas have died so far?” I ask, my voice hard.
“Enough. They died for the noblest of causes, giving worth to their otherwise worthless lives. I’ll butcher as many of your kind as I need to.
You’ll see. You’ll see it all, daughter, as I claw my way up to an acceptable success rate.
All for you. For that affinity hiding in your unworthy body.
It’s a flaw in nature that such powers were given to omegas, not alphas, and I intend to rectify that. ”
He picks up a tray of surgical instruments and rips off the plastic covering before setting it down on a small rolling cart beside the operating table.
“Funny how you’re missing my class at that precious academy you hold so dear, but you’ll be part of something far more important.
Your life is pitiful, your goals, your desires, all of it.
You cling to your schooling like it’ll ever mean something, but it won’t.
Not in the future Baphomet’s Prince is building. ”
I exhale sharply through my nose but stay silent. If I’m to give my life, I’ll go out fighting against that future, against what I’ve seen in my grim visions.
My father clears his throat and begins to dictate. He reads off the omega’s serial number, then states her affinity: fire. I’m jolted back to the vision where I saw an alpha Soldier wielding fire leading an army, all for the glory of Baphomet’s Prince.
“The scalpel, Juniper.”
Like it did in my vision, the scalpel weighs heavily in my hand, the weight of it more symbolic than physical. Handing my father this scalpel means admitting defeat, and I won’t do that. Not when I can still fight. Not when my pack truly believes I can change the future.
I slash out at him, aiming for his neck, for the artery there that’ll surely kill him if I cut it just right.
But I don’t have my father’s surgical precision, nor do I have his alpha reaction time.
He dodges, and the scalpel cuts his cheek instead, drawing blood, but not enough to end his life. Not nearly enough.
I clutch the scalpel in my fist and make a run for it as the two Soldiers close in on me.
“I’ll handle this,” my father barks.
He catches me around the waist, slamming me down onto the cold linoleum floor. He yanks the scalpel from my hand and tosses it aside. His blood drips down onto my bare neck as he binds my wrists with a muttered spell. He whirls me around and drags me up to my knees.
There’s fury in his pale blue eyes, the very last thing I see before he backhands me hard across the face and stuns me into the dark oblivion of unconsciousness.
I float between sleep and wakefulness, drifting between one and the other.
The vision comes on slowly, like a dream.
A nightmare. I’m in the operating theater again, seeing through my own eyes like I have in my recent visions.
There’s a telltale weight around my neck—a collar.
I fight against the Soldiers who have me in their grasp until the collar activates.
I sag, trapped in my mind by the spell in the collar, able only to shuffle toward the operating table…
A Soldier shakes me awake, and the vision dissipates like smoke. I wake to a collar around my neck and a scribe held to the fluttering, racing pulse point in my neck. I startle, jerking away from the Soldier, but he follows, digging the cool metal of his scribe deeper into my skin.
Then he does something unexpected. He takes out a phone and starts a video call, capturing both of us in the shot.
On the other end? My bruised and battered pack, each of them flanked by two Soldiers holding their arms
I surge up in bed, and the Soldier twists my arm until I yelp. Saints, they’re alive. All of them. Cassian. Luca. Ian. Simon. Marcus. They’re all alive. Worse for wear, clearly beaten, but alive.
I want to burst into tears at the sight of them, but I know we’ll only have this one chance to speak.
The Soldier with his scribe to my throat digs the tip deeper once more. “Comply, or we kill her.”