Page 4 of Milk & Malice: Vadik (The Caged Hearts Pet Play #6)

Lena

My lips were dry and my head was pounding. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids were too heavy. When they finally flickered open, everything was blurred. My eyes felt drier than my lips. Slowly, as my vision cleared, I saw wooden beams above me.

I tried to turn my head, but it didn’t budge. So I tracked my eyes instead.

I was in a hospital room. All white—except the doorway, which was a pale grey. Something had happened.

An earthquake?

A car accident?

I blinked again.

No…

It wasn’t a hospital recovery room.

It was an operating room.

Was I paralysed?

My work.

The school.

My pupils.

Did they know?

Where were my parents?

“There you are, moy sladkiy,”

a man’s voice crooned soothingly.

My sweet.

“You won’t be able to move yet. Only rest. It is very important you rest.”

“Wh—what… happened?”

I whispered.

“I’m Dr Novikov, your surgeon. I’ll explain everything soon. Sleep for now,”

he said, pulling out a needle.

I felt something in my neck.

“You have an IV in your neck. I’m giving you something for the pain.”

In my neck?

Didn’t IVs go in the arm?

I managed to turn and look at my arm. It was bandaged. I began to pant.

I only had a stump. An elbow.

Where did the rest go?

Where was my hand?

The doctor.

I tried to think, tried to focus—

But whatever he gave me was fast-acting.

His smiling face blurred.

There was pleasure in his cold grey eyes.

Wrong.

All wrong.

***

The next time I woke up, my head felt heavy from the medication and—something else.

My arm!

I lifted it up.

It happened in slow motion.

I had an arm again, but where my wrist should have been there was metal. Where my hand had been was a wide hoof. Split into two and black. As wide as my palm had been. My eyes travelled up the metal to see a white prosthetic attached to my elbow.

What the fuck was this?

“Remain calm, Lena. I will explain. I cannot have you stress and mess up your endocrine system.”

The doctor.

“Novikov,”

I whispered.

“Ah, you remembered. Good girl.”

“How…long have I been asleep?”

“Seven weeks,”

he said.

“It was easier to induce a coma so your surgeries could be completed. You still have a long way to go in healing and me adjusting your prosthetics.”

Plural.

I blinked.

My heart jumped to my throat.

No. Surely not both.

Maybe just one. Maybe the other—

I slowly turned to see my other arm. It was the same.

The white and black tipped hoof was attached to my elbow.

“Aren’t they beautiful?”

My head snapped back to his voice.

He wasn’t a doctor. He was a fucking butcher.

“What the fuck did you do to my arms? Where are my parents? You—You can’t do this,”

I said but my voice trailed off.

I had no hands.

No arms.

What else did he do to me?

“You sick evil bastard,”

I screamed.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MEEEEEEE?”

My shrill scream did nothing.

He stood there looking at the nails on his hand.

His fucking hand.

He had his fucking hands.

Both of them.

I glared at both of them.

“Are you done?”

Oh, this evil depraved sick cunt—when I—

He shoved something in my mouth. A rag. It was dry and I could feel the fibres from the cloth against my tongue.

“You’ll listen, because if you don’t. I will need to remove your tongue. If I remove your tongue I won’t be very happy, because then I would need to get you a voice box that only Moo’s. You need your tongue to moo for me.”

His lips were tight and he didn’t look very pleased.

Those dead grey eyes looked like thunderclouds.

He pulled a wheeled chair close to my bed, sitting beside me.

“As you know. I am Dr Vadik Novikov. Your new owner.”

The word rang in my ears.

Owner.

I could feel my heart thudding in my chest. The beat matched the throbbing pain in my head. I glanced at my right hand again and began to scream.

I screamed and screamed.

Uncaring it was a muffled noise.

I needed to scream.

Anything to free me from this madness.