Chapter 10 #2
“They’re already dead,” Cassidy breathes the words out.
Not a question.
I gape at them, my lungs burning, reminding me I’ve been holding my breath.
“Yeah,” I answer, robotically.
Something in her seemed to shut off.
“We were too late.”
For the first time, her voice wavered. The admission looked like it cost her something to say.
The nurse starts shaking, tears forming in the corner of her eyes, “You don’t understand! “
“I understand enough.” My voice comes out clipped.
Cassidy can’t seem to make herself move, her eyes never leaving the tables.
I let myself take a full breath.
But Cassidy doesn’t step back.
She doesn’t look away, imprinting every detail into her memory.
I close the gap between us, allowing my arm to brush hers.
Reminding her I’m here.
She doesn’t react.
That alone is what gets me, since I’ve seen her furious.
I’ve seen her lose control and take it back twice as hard.
I’ve watched her turn into something deadly in a heartbeat.
But this, this still, locked down version of her.
Something inside her absorbed all of this.
Filed it away, kept it.
And deep down, I know without having to ask, this one didn’t just hit her.
It sank in, and it’s not going anywhere.
Cassidy finally acts, lowering the bodies by herself from the tables with care, as if this final act of dignity belongs to her alone.
“Ghost, help me shift the tables so that they are facing each other.” Cassidy directs me.
We both grab the first table as metal shrieks across the floor while hauling it into place.
She’s already turning back to them.
“Have a seat.” She gestures to them with her hand outstretched.
The doctor shakes his head and retreats a step. “We didn’t do anything wrong, you don’t understand.”
Cassidy laughs but there’s no humor in it, only grief and madness colliding.
“Sit,” she grinds out through clenched teeth.
Neither seems inclined to move.
The knife she’s holding in her hand moves so fast I’m only able to see the metal flashing as she slams it onto the tray table between them.
“Now.” The word flies from her lips.
The nurse collapses into the chair. The doctor fumbles after her; his hands jitter uncontrollably, and he misses the seat the first time.
After they are seated, Cassidy paces back and forth with her hands folded behind her back, deciding what to do with them.
“You know what I hate?” she bites out, still pacing with restless energy. “People like you always think there’s a version of this where you walk out.”
She stops behind the nurse.
The woman goes stiff.
Cassidy hovers near her ear, her presence impossible to ignore.
“There isn’t.”
Cassidy pauses, then gently reassures, “But you can make this easier on yourselves.”
She lifts her head and meets my eyes. Then she looks away, her attention settling on them with renewed purpose.
“Or,” she adds, voice dropping, something darker leaking through, “I can take my time.”
The air in the room constricts, the walls closing in.
Cassidy smiles again but it doesn’t reach her eyes, dark and vicious.
I locate the nearest seat.
The doctor looks like he might be sick. The nurse already is, swallowing back bile attempting to come up with her shoulders shaking and uneven breaths painfully loud.
Cassidy takes her time. She drags her fingers across the table as she moves, a soft, rhythmic scrape that sets my teeth on edge.
“Such a small room,” she murmurs deviously, eyes drifting over the surgical machines and tools. “And still, there’s so much to choose from.”
Neither of them dares to speak.
Cassidy catches my eye, a silent cue. We lunge forward together, she takes the nurse, and I handle the doctor. Each fastening the wrist restraints before cinching the thigh straps.
They thrash, but they’re outmatched.
The doctor still fights the restraints, but it’s useless, and the nurse begins to sob, heaving in deep breaths.
With them confined, Cassidy crosses to the instruments she singled out, solid blade eye speculums, eagerly collecting them with excitement, relishing the choice.
She returns and sets them on the tray with a clink. Recognition lands, and both squirm on their tables.
Cassidy claps once, the crisp sound bouncing off the concrete walls. She lifts one of the speculums, turning it.
“Let’s start,” she croons. “I want you to pay attention.”
She strides over to the doctor first; he squeezes his eyes shut and writhes on the table.
I leap from my seat and put my Glock at his temple, “Hold still.”
He makes a small, desperate noise before submitting.
Cassidy closes the speculum jaws and pulls one of his lower lids as she inserts the bottom part of the speculum inside the eyelid and slides the top part under his upper eyelid to lock his eye open. Then she does the same to his other eye.
She moves over to the nurse and does the same thing. The nurse doesn’t struggle and lets it happen.
I drop my gun from the doctor’s temple and stroll back over to my seat.
Cassidy lets out a crazed laugh.
“Now you’re going to start talking.”
The doctor caves immediately, his throat works around nothing, sweat beading down his temple, “We just follow orders.”
Cassidy chuckles, “Everyone keeps saying that here.”
Cassidy snatches up the heart monitor cords from the floor and attaches them to the doctor and the nurse.
“Now I get to hear every little spike.”
She prowls closer, standing to the side of him as she plants both of her hands on either side of his head, leaning in.
“Let me help you,” she breathes, “You cut. You take what you’re told to take. You package it. No questions asked.”
His lips quake as he stares at her. “Yes.”
“Wrong answer.”
He freezes, baffled. “What do you mean?”
“You think I care what you were told to do?” She berates him, venom creeping into her voice. “You think that makes you less of a monster?”
She rises to her full height, pacing again, quicker now, adrenaline surging.
“I saw the room, I saw what you did to them.”
The doctor shakes his head frenziedly. “They were sedated; they didn’t feel anything.”
Cassidy halts so suddenly her boots squeal on the floor. She whirls toward them, her gaze razor-sharp.
“You’re still downplaying it.”
She moves back into his space, closer than before.
“Listen carefully,” she snarls, each word measured now, her control only barely restored, “The only thing keeping you breathing right now is how useful you are to me.”
Her eyes flick to the nurse.
“Names,” she demands. “Who runs this?”
The nurse is trembling, with tears seeping down her face. “I don’t know. Please.”
Cassidy exhales through her nose, staring at the ceiling, a quiet, almost disappointed sound.
Then she shakes her head, clicking her tongue like you would to a naughty child as she strolls over to the other side of the room.
“Interesting. What’s this?” She inspects, almost thoughtful, tracing her hand over the IV stand. Attached at the top is your typical IV bag filled with clear fluid, and on the other two full pouches of blood, all feeding into the machine mounted in the middle of the stand.
The doctor stutters, “It’s a rapid infuser machine,” then he rattles off, “They are used during organ transplants because they manage massive blood loss.”
Cassidy springs over to him, unsheathing her knife and pressing it under his chin, “And where do you hook these up on a patient?”
The nurse doesn’t let a second go as she scrambles to answer, “The femoral or subclavian vein.”
“Hmm, isn’t the subclavian vein right beneath your collarbone?” Cassidy wonders aloud.
Silence greets her.
She goes back to the IV stand and wheels it over.
She checks the machine, finds the double tubing, then selects needles from the tray and fits them into place.
“That was easy,” she mutters, visibly unimpressed, laying the tubes aside before grabbing the scissors and cutting their scrub shirts down the middle in one clean line, pushing them to the side.
Without warning, she snatches the first tube and pierces the needle through the doctor’s chest, directly hitting the vein.
He lets out a guttural cry.
The nurse loses control of her bladder, urine soaking her pants, and wetting the floor.
Cassidy tilts her head, “You didn’t enjoy the show?”
In an instant, she jabs the other needle into the nurse’s chest, connecting exactly where she intended.
“One more time,” she huffs, standing next to the machine, “Give me their names.”
“They don’t use real names, just screennames, I swear!” The nurse screeches.
Cassidy singsongs, “Wrong again.”
Then she smacks the palm of her hand down on the button of the machine, and the blood rushes through the tubes straight into their chests.
They don’t get a chance to scream as their bodies start convulsing and blood gushes out of their mouths, choking them.
I can only watch, dread curling through me even though I know they deserved to suffer.
Glancing at Cassidy, she doesn’t react, completely unbothered, with the corner of her mouth quirked.
She stands there drenched in blood, alive in a way that twists my gut. I can see the pieces of her stitching back together, and it’s something that draws me to this side of her.
I know what it’ll take to bring her back to me, but there’s one more person we have to deal with before I do, jackinthebox149.