“Go,” Father emphasizes, and when I finally enter the door, it quickly snaps shut in my face.
Fuck.
Reluctantly, I go back to my cage and stand near the glass, watching his every move and keeping an eye on her. I don’t want him to touch her. I don’t want him to do anything to her, but I have no choice in the matter.
I’m just as much of a prisoner in this place as she is.
He gazes at her with too much interest.
“Don’t,” I tell him, but he ignores me completely.
Then he presses the button and gas fills her room again.
“No!” I yell.
“Silence!” Father screams. “Don’t you dare forget your place.”
“She’s mine!” I growl, pounding on the glass, but I can’t break through, no matter how hard I punch.
She shivers as she struggles to breathe. Soon she begins to cough, and it doesn’t take long for her to fall to the floor. He walks out of the room and comes back with a wheelchair. I watch helplessly as he goes into her cell and picks her lifeless body up from the floor, stuffing it in the chair like a puppet before pulling her out of my sight.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because she’s bleeding, that’s why,” he answers then goes through the black doors. When he comes out again, he stops to say, “Make no mistake … this girl is my property, and I will take care of it as I see fit. I brought her here, just as I brought you here. Don’t forget that.”
I grimace and lean away from the glass, fury raging through my body as I watch him wheel her away. When she disappears from my sight, I roar out loud, feeling the loss of my mate to the bone.
Accompanying Song: “Don’t Worry Baby” by The Beach Boys
Ella
When I wake up again, the first thing I feel is a pang in my belly. The bright light above my face makes me squint. Where am I?
Music blares in my ears, making me want to plug them. A radio is playing “Don’t Worry Baby,” and the sound is what pulls me back to reality.
I can feel cold metal beneath me, and leather straps run across my body, making it so I’m unable to move my limbs. I look around and notice Graham standing near a desk with a computer on it. I don’t recognize this room, though. It’s not the one I was in before. This is much bigger … and it looks like a lab.
“Oh, you’re awake,” he says. “Good.” He picks up a tube and stares at it then shakes it. He grabs two thin photographs and plasters them on the wall. Only then do I realize they’re not photographs … They look like ultrasounds.
“I bought my own equipment. Beats having to go to the hospital every time. Neat, don’t you think?” He smiles as if he’s actually proud of his accomplishment. As if it’s not at all an invasion of privacy.
The stinging sensation inside my belly—and between my legs—interrupts my thoughts.
“If you’re in pain, I can give you painkillers,” he muses. “You’re probably experiencing some irritation due to the swab that went up there.”
Swab. Up there.
My eyes widen.
Did he … perform a pelvic exam on me?
Bile rises in my throat as the tears spring into my eyes.
I suffocate on my own emotions; the horror that I feel bursting to the surface. But no matter how much I try, I can’t move. I can’t bring myself to fight and scream.
“Relax,” he says. “Otherwise, it’ll only hurt more.” There’s that wretched smile again. I want to punch him. Cut him. Stab him. Kill him.
I’ve never had these thoughts before, but now I definitely have them. He took something from me that I never wanted to give away. And for what?
He can’t even look me in the eye as I fall apart. Instead, he’s busy looking at the ultrasound pictures stuck to the wall. “So …” he mumbles. “The good news is, everything seems to be working perfectly, which I’m thankful for, seeing as how that other girl was completely useless.”
Other girl … does he mean Syrena? Or the ones who came before me?
Not knowing eats away at me, but I have no time to think about it because he keeps telling me more. And every little bit of information is crucial right now.
“The bad news is … well, I suppose it’s not exactly bad news,” he says, chuckling as if any of this is even remotely funny. “But the blood is normal. You’re on your period.”
Period. The idea seems so farfetched if I think about it because I used to get that at home. In the safety of my own bathroom. I wasn’t examined by some creepy man or kept in a dark, damp hole. Periods meant pain, but I could live with that pain. In fact, I’d do anything to have just that pain.