Page 70 of Finding Her (Lore of the Fields #1)

My eyes snapped open to the blinding white light of fluorescent bulbs.

I lay on my back, staring at a blank ceiling.

It reminded me of the nothingness of my nightmares.

Was I sleeping? No, I could see the outline of light fixtures themselves, which was more detail than my dreams ever allowed.

I rubbed my fingertips together to confirm with sensation that I was alive, awake, and aware.

I was light-headed from… what was I light-headed from?

I remembered running from the house, then getting into the car with Cassius.

After that? I was too groggy to care. My body felt heavy, and it required serious effort to roll on my knees and push up into a seated position.

Clear walls caged me in, and a simple sink and toilet sat in the corner.

The faint outline of a door was barely visible, betrayed only by the golden locking mechanism on its rim.

The room outside of my transparent prison was mostly empty, barring some cameras situated in the ceiling corners.

I didn’t even realize camera technology existed in Trebianna.

“Good morning,” a deep, feminine voice greeted coldly.

I whipped my head around, seeing my enclosure wasn’t the only one.

There were three identical cubes filling the space, one of which was inhabited by another woman.

Another woman with blonde hair . She sat cross-legged with her hands cupping each knee, a thin medical gown doing little to conceal her muscular shape.

Her face had pale scars slashing across her deep umber skin, the worst of which seemed to have sliced through her plump lower lip.

The coils of her pale-yellow hair ended shortly below her jawbone and formed a broad halo around her head.

“Hi.” I scanned her carefully, though she didn’t seem to be a threat. After all, we were both contained in thick acrylic cages. The same predicament.

“You look familiar.” She lifted a hand to tap at her strong jaw.

“I guess you were one of the escapees? But you hardly look like you’ve been surviving in the forest all this time.

” Her finger traced a scar absentmindedly before she quickly retracted her hand, like the movement had been unintentional.

“The forest?” I rubbed my eyes, grateful that my vision had fully returned on the left side.

“What forest?” She couldn’t mean Eitrea, it was paradise.

The only woods I could think of that would match the descriptions of “ forest ” and “ surviving ” were the ones I’d awoken in last summer.

I was so removed from who I was then, the memory felt imagined.

A loud beep was all the warning we got before a metal door lifted behind her back, across the empty room.

It clanged as braided wires pulled its weight to the ceiling, a crimson-haired woman in a lab coat ducking under its edge.

She pushed a cart covered in bottles and medical instruments.

Following her was a large Quadmos with a metallic rod in their lower hands who stationed himself by the open gate.

“Dia, I see you’ve met Faeryn,” the female Pyran stated softly, the emblem on her neck and unnaturally warm eyes revealing she was in a heightened state despite the genial greeting. She pulled liquid into a syringe from a small vial.

The facial expression of the blonde across from me was consumed by shadows. There was not an ounce of humanity in her face. It was a menace not unlike what I’d seen on Graysen as he killed.

“Are you going to work with us today? I really don’t want to see you knocked out again. This doesn’t have to be difficult.” The Pyran’s voice was practically pleading as she stepped up to the glass of the woman I now knew was called Dia.

Dia stiffly rose to her bare feet, which were caked in thick scarring and loose skin.

Mine had looked similar the night Graysen brought me home—the feet of somebody who had walked through thorns.

She stood on the other side of the thick glass, shoving her arm through a hole I hadn’t seen before.

I could only see her back, but I knew her baleful expression was now staring down at the Pyran in the lab coat.

“You know, Faeryn is the last living defector from your little stunt,” the guard called, lacking all the discordant compassion of the woman in the lab coat. “Once we get you both settled, it’ll be like it never happened.”

Dia said nothing, withdrawing her arm after a moment and returning to the middle of her cage. She stood and watched as the cart was moved towards me.

“Don’t let her scare you,” the woman said. “We just want you healthy.” She filled a fresh syringe.

“It’s why she wants you healthy that should scare you,” Dia stated bluntly.

The woman waited by the hole in my own glass.

My face went cold and pale as I realized what she wanted.

Had she said something about Dia being “ knocked out ” when she didn’t comply?

I just woke up from my last drug-induced coma and wasn’t eager to return, but surely receiving a mystery injection wasn’t a good thing.

“Do I have to?” I asked quietly.

“Yes.” The woman’s face twisted empathetically. “It’ll help you feel better.”

My eyes darted to Dia shooting daggers at the back of the woman’s head. If looks could kill, Dia and I would be the only living things left in the room.

“Do it.” Dia’s lip curled up in disgust.

I stepped to the acrylic wall and shoved my arm through the opening. Its sharp edges pressed into my skin, followed by the pinch of the needle. All that remained as evidence of the injection was a drop of blood on my forearm.

“Thank you both. We appreciate your compliance.” The woman’s voice was so soothing, so genuine, as she silently exited the room with the guard.

“ Fuck! ” Dia screamed once the door thudded back to the ground.

She paced the cage’s perimeter, kicking at the walls, which gave not so much as a wobble in response.

She pounded with her fists. Slammed her elbows into the glass.

Shoulder checked each corner. All while screaming bloody murder.

My body would be bruised and bleeding if I put half the energy into my own assault.

There was no hesitation in her strikes. No recoiling in pain when they failed.

“How long have you been in there?” A chilling sense of neutrality washed over me. I must be in some sort of shock. That, or my physiology was trying to balance out the chaos that ricocheted in the enclosure across from me.

Dia panted, a tight curl falling over her honey-toned eyes. “If they’re providing us three meals a day, then I’ve been here for over two.” Her pearly teeth were bared in my direction, although not explicitly at me.

“She said I was the last of something—the last living one. I don’t know what that meant.” I found my way to the sterile floor, tucking my legs underneath me.

Dia chuckled without humor and came to the closest wall, taking a seat across from me.

“I managed to blow their power grid to shut the factory down. Every woman in those damn pods woke up and fled. The majority died before leaving the building. Of those who made it out, most died in the woods. The unfortunate survivors are now all back here. So, welcome back.”

“Who are they ? What do you mean by pods ?”

“I guess you wouldn’t remember. The pods did a number on the others’ memories too.

” She pouted with more inconvenience than empathy.

“The program is called E.A.R.T.H ., a fucked up play on our world of origin. Turning that deplorable planet’s name into Energy Alternatives: Resource —it doesn’t fucking matter.

They want to harbor our fucking energy to fuel society with a hefty price tag attached,” she was saying words, they seemed to be sentences, but I couldn’t piece together their meaning.

“Energy?”

“A blood gift from our bitch of a mother.”

Our mother? I stared at the beautiful woman across from me. We didn’t look like we could be sisters… other than the hair color. Although differing in texture and tone, she was the only other blonde person I had seen on Trebianna. Did I have family? Here ? Not on Earth?

“Are we related?” It felt like such a silly question given the circumstances, but it was a start.

“Half sisters.” She didn’t seem to care. “Same mom. Presumably different dads.”

The idea of having family provided me with some comfort despite the shitty situation. I can’t wait to tell Graysen…

Oh no . Graysen . His paranoid behavior suddenly seemed appropriate given there was a secret society of…

something , that seemed to be out for me and my sister(s) ?

He had killed somebody—maybe multiple somebodies —yet I wanted nothing more than to be curled up in his arms. I wanted to go back to the way things were before his past…

my past… our pasts came back to haunt us.

“What’s our mom like?” Despite the desperate situation, the thought of having a family twisted the corners of my lips into a hesitant smile.

“A fucking cunt,” Dia sneered. My smile fell. “A whore of a goddess with a taste for shitty human men and the inability to use birth control to stop producing tenuously powered blonde babies.”

I nearly choked. “Goddess?”

“How does it feel to be a demigod?” She snidely grinned. “You have just enough magic to heal and be used as a human battery. Congratulations.”

I blinked the statement away, unable to process it in the moment. “Did you say all of us are blonde?”

“I guess the goddess of vitality has strong genes in the follicular department. Fuckin’ Goldilocks.”