Number Thirty-Eight
Elara POV
I was ten the last time I saw my parents.
All I really remembered from that day was the horrible screaming as they pulled me from my mother’s arms. She tried to hold on as they ripped me away, but even a Luminar could not stop them. Especially when they outnumbered her twenty to one.
Another twenty surrounded my father as he roared at them, demanding they get away from his mate and child. He fought, but they wrapped him in magically reinforced chains until he couldn’t move.
Not that I knew that at the time. That was information I learned later. When they used the same chains on me.
It was ironic, really. Human hunters using tools obtained from witches.
Years had passed since that day. The doctor who came to visit once a year made sure I knew how much time had gone by, how long I’d been their prisoner.
The other doctors were whispering about him now. About how he’d be here in just a few weeks. I could hear them through the vents in the wall, through the gaps in the doors. They thought they were safe, that they’d soundproofed everything.
They were wrong.
You see, that’s the problem when you’re experimenting on a race that’s barely begun. When you take evolution and…speed it up. You have no idea what the outcome will be.
You have no idea what you’re unleashing into the world.
I lay back on my cot, the hard mattress that’s been my bed for the past ten years. One thin blanket, an even thinner pillow, and one set of clothes were all they allowed in my six-by-eight cell. The walls were bare concrete; the floor regular tile. It was cold and spartan, just like my life had been since they’d ripped me from my parents. So I closed my eyes and escaped into sleep.
Dreams were the only place I found warmth. Where I found peace. Where I was able to leave the despair of my existence behind. Dreams were where I’d found him.
I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening when the dreams first started. I didn’t understand that I was leaving my body behind and traveling to another plane. I just knew there was comfort in them, and once I found him, they were the only place I wanted to be.
He still thought he was just dreaming. He didn’t understand that I was real. But that was okay. One day, I’d find him. I’d escape this place for real and burn it down behind me. And I’d go to him, have a life with him. Maybe I’d even heal.
But that day wasn’t going to be today.
The door to my cell swung open, and I opened my eyes to see the doctor I’d named Ghost standing there. His pale face, pale eyes, and pale hair combined with his white lab coat had earned him his nickname. He had a clipboard in one hand and a cattle prod in the other.
“Get up, number thirty-eight. Time for more treatments.”
When I didn’t move fast enough, he clicked the button on the prod. I could hear the current running through the stick and got to my feet, assuming the posture they’d beaten into me. My arms were behind my back, my head down, and my feet together. He let out a “Hmph” and I heard him turn and start walking.
Briefly, I thought about attacking him from behind, wrapping my arm around his throat and cutting off his air until he died. But there were too many others here, and if I’d learned anything, it was that one person couldn’t fight alone against many.
So I followed along behind him, the picture of submission even as I catalogued the area and built and discarded escape plans in my head.
He led me into an open examination area. There were four different tables, each of them with those magical chains attached to hold the test subjects down. My heart sank as I saw Allie, one of the newer prisoners, strapped to a table. They’d shoved a leather bite block in her mouth and stripped her down to her underwear. Chains draped over her stomach, and her arms were bound above her head. They had secured her legs to the table near her ankles.
Doctor Snake—so named for the snake tattoo that twisted up and around his neck—was busy scribbling notes on a tablet as they pulsed electricity through the twin metal spikes they’d inserted into her torso. Her skin glowed with each pulse. “Interesting,” he muttered.
Doctor Ghost pressed the cattle prod to my back. The pain was white-hot and immediate. “Get on the table, thirty-eight. Quit gawking.”
He shoved me forward, leaving me no choice but to climb up onto the cold metal slab. He secured me almost exactly as they’d secured Allie. The only exception is he spread my legs apart, where hers were together. He put my heels in stirrups and shoved my knees up, attaching chains to keep them in place.
While I wasn’t worried he’d rape me—so far that seemed to be their only limit—I was terrified of what it meant. In all my years here, this was new. He rolled a machine over. There was a long, thin wand attached to a monitor, and he snapped gloves on before he settled between my feet. I shifted once, trying to get away, and he grabbed the cattle prod.
“Don’t make me use this. You won’t like where I put it,” he threatened. I settled, fear coursing through my veins.
After a few more moments of unnerving silence and preparation, he pressed the probe into my vagina. I felt a piercing pain. My mouth flooded with copper as I bit my lip to keep from screaming out. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
Thankfully, it was over quickly, though my entire abdomen throbbed. He grabbed a vial and noted the details on the label, then smiled. It was a predator’s smile.
Doctor Snake looked over at him. “Successful?”
“More than I could have hoped. We have multiple eggs here.” Ghost slipped the vial into the nearby refrigerator. He released my legs, then secured them flat like Allie’s. “She’s all yours.”
My thoughts spun. They’d harvested my eggs. What reason could they have for that? It couldn’t possibly be good.
Snake looked at Allie, who was lying there with tears tracking down her face, completely checked out. “Get a tech to put this one back. She’s done for the day.” Ghost nodded, stripped his gloves off, and left.
“You handled that pain so well, thirty-eight. What would it take to really make you scream?”
He cracked his neck, and the snake tattoo shifted over his skin as if it had a life of its own. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
