Page 47 of Brainwashed

I’m in the bathtub, holding them. My ears are ringing.The electric carving knife whirrs and blood spatters across my face while Blue Monday pumps in the background.

My cackles toll through the room, stomach aching from the rampant giggles.

“Stop, stop.” I sigh, thrashing in the chair while tremors of raucous howls sweep me up.

I’m laughing so hard my eyes are watering and I can’t see anything. For all I know, they could be showing me more of my victims, but I wouldn’t know.

I can barely breathe.

When I finally compose myself, I spot Templeton and Figueroa scribbling frantic notes on their clipboards. Johansson is gaping at me in a way I’ve never seen before while I rush out a tired breath of remaining chuckles.

Powering down the projector, they all sort of mull about, and the only one who isn’t doing anything is Dr. Love.He’s still just gawking at me, and the way he’s doing so works to effectively cut off my giggle fit. His eyes are intense, severely contemplative, as if he’s wishinghecould slicemeopen, to poke around at my insides.

I chomp down on my lower lip.

Figueroa removes the electrodes from my head, then my chest. And it occurs to me when his rubber-gloved fingers brush my skin that I’m shirtless. My eyes hold on to Dr. Love’s as chills sheet my flesh. I can feel how hard my nipples are, all bunched up and sensitive to the cool air of the room. I shift my hips, confused by the sensation in my gut, the strange thrumming in my balls with his eyes on me.

A clunk on the floor pulls his gaze from mine. He looks at something down there, then back up at me. His eyebrow arches.

Claude removes my straps, unbuckling me from the chair. But before he can do anything else, Dr. Love says, “That’s enough. I’ll take it from here.”

There’s silence in the room. Everyone has stopped moving, like they were put on pause.

“Uh, that’s fine, Doctor,” Johansson says hesitantly. “We’re used to getting him—”

“What you’reused tois irrelevant,” Dr. Love cuts him off, his eyes still on mine. “Leave us.”

It takes them a moment. They’re all seemingly shocked at his ordering them around, obvious from the stunned looks on their faces and the tense air suddenly suffocating the room. But they do what he says, puttering out in a somber single-file line, leaving me alone and shirtless withDr. Love.

I decide to stand up slowly and stretch out my arms, all the whilefeelinghis gaze on me like a heat lamp.

“How do you feel?” He speaks quietly, and I spin to face him.

“Hungry,” I mumble the first word that comes to my mind. It’s true, though. I was already pretty hungry before, but that little experiment has left me famished.

Dr. Love cocks his head, and it almost makes me smile. He seems to do that a lot. And paired with the scrutinizing glimmer in his eyes, it makes him look less like an intrigued doctor and more like a curious animal.

“What about what just happened has made you hungry?” he asks, reaching for my shirt on the counter, eyes never leaving mine.

Thrown off by his question, my brows zip. “I’m not sure it has anything to do with that. I’m just… hungry.”

I’m a bit wound as he hands me my shirt and I slip it over my head, adjusting my glasses.Dr. Love stares at me for a few more seconds before bending down. My chin drops to watch him as he picks something up off the floor near the base of the chair.

And maybe I’m imagining it, but it looks like he pauses to peek up at me from down there.

Something throbs inside me.

I swallow hard while he stands up, in slow motion. That’s how it looks to me, anyway.And then he’s standing right in front of me,close. So close that I can smell him some more… My breath lodges in my throat.

He hands something to me, and I hesitantly look down at it.

It’s my book.I gape up at him. It must have fallen out of my pants.

Slowly, I reach out and take the book from him. Our fingers brush. More throbbing.Then some shivering. All on my end, I’m sure.

“Follow me,” he instructs, while I let out a secretly shaky breath. He sounds like a robot… Like the Terminator.

Come with me if you want to live.