Page 13 of His Asset
My eyes stayed open as colors blazed through them one after the other, bright, relentlessly vivid neon lights that coalesced into one dazzling glow before the powerful jolt switched off and I collapsed back onto the gurney.
“Again,” the pockmarked scientist said to his colleague.
No!But my scream was all in my head as I was jolted yet again with agonizing pain.
“Stop!”
The commanding voice pierced my consciousness simultaneously to my pain disappearing, the voltage blast replaced by a blessed absence of suffering.
I made out prowling footsteps before I became aware of a man in a gray suit and ruby tie standing over me, his raven-dark hair glinting under the lights while his golden-brown, verging on black eyes barely repressed his rage.
Adam.
Was this what power smelled like?Sharp and warm with earthy undertones I couldn’t quite place.His clothes fit him too perfectly, like they’d been stitched just for him.That kind of attention to detail...I’d never known it existed.
That was when I comprehended the warm, sticky blood streaming from my nostrils.
He pulled a white cloth from his jacket pocket and gently wiped away the blood, leaving a bright crimson stain on the fabric.Shame flooded through me at my exposed torso, at my vulnerability, and I experienced a strong urge to clutch my gown together and pretend I wasn’t hurting.
I couldn’t even lift my chin as I held his stare that softened ever so slightly, as though he’d read the insecurity beneath my pride.Then he swung away from me to focus on the scientists.
“Who authorized these tests?”he growled.
“Professor Swan,” the dreadlocked scientist answered.“He signs off on all our experiments and research.”
“You fund much of what goes on here, Adam,” pockmarked added.
“I donotfund torture and exploitation of another species,” Adam gritted out.“That was never my intention.”
The dreadlocked scientist clucked his tongue.“We’re doing the best we can in the short time-frame we have with these GMs.”He nodded at me.“Though Q27 is unique in that she appears to be getting stronger, unlike the others of her kind.”
Pockmarked added, “The chiropterans aren’t as strong as many of the other species in these connected labs.”
I let this new piece of information sink in, renewed rage and desolation filling me like toxic swamp water.There were other genetically modified species?But of course there would be.Though I’d only ever been aware of my family of mutated bats, there would doubtless be many other species meshed with humans.
People—experiments—who were suffering just like me.
“Release her,” Adam instructed in a harsh, no-nonsense voice.
“We’ll have to run it past Professor Swan—“
“I’ve paid a princely sum for her, money that no doubt helps pay your wages.You will take off her bindings and have a nurse check her over and clean her up.She’s coming with me.”
“But w-we have so many more tests to run on her.The others are too weak—“
“Now,” Adam reiterated softly, but with such an inflection of power behind his voice I might have drawn back if I’d not been strapped down.
That I was leaving this place, this prison, didn’t register at first.Not until the scientists unbuckled my restraints and a nurse came in with a washcloth to clean me off.I was too weak to resist.I was limp and fatigued, all my energy zapped out of me.
I did manage to look up at the windows, making eye contact with many of the other prisoners.
R17, the oldest of us.It wasn’t that long ago he’d been strong and virile.Now his once lustrous sky-blue eyes were foggy, his skin papery thin and yellowed.Even his shoulder blades stuck against his gown like angular blades.That he didn’t even have wings to try and escape made him seem much more human.Either way, he was family to me, but he probably wouldn’t last another week.
I inhaled sharply, my gaze automatically lifting and seeking out my best friend.S21.The beautiful but fragile woman I called Angel.Not just because she had a heart of gold.Her wings were huge for her petite frame, angelic to look upon despite their leathery look.
Her green eyes glowed as she pressed the palms of her hands against the glass high above me.I lifted my trembling hand toward her, stretching as far as I could reach through the impossible distance between us.Thanks to my heightened sight, I could make out her mouthing,remember the ocean.I pressed my palm to my heart, then pointed up at her, knowing I’d never see her alive again.
Then Adam bent and lifted me.I folded in my wings before I lost all sense of myself, my body suddenly alive in the cradle of his arms.His warmth surrounded me, earthy and solid, laced with something sharper on his breath, unfamiliar, expensive.Definitely not anything we were ever given here.