“I’m going to unshackle you,” the doctor says. “And then I’m going to take you somewhere nicer than this, and we are going to talk.”
“Are you fucking stupid?” My temper spikes.
His eyes narrow just a fraction, but I don’t pay attention to that.
“I seriously hurt a lot of people today, and you want to talk to me? Somewhere nice? You should be putting me in the deepest dungeon this place has. You should be putting me down.”
“You need to stop talking like that,” he interrupts me bluntly. “I’m in charge. I decide what I do with you. And right now I’m letting you go.”
“I’ll hurt you.”
“Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t.”
That’s not the response I expected. Most men laugh at me. They make me show them what I’m capable of, but Doctor Ares has seen what I’m capable of, and he’s not scared of me. There’s no tremor in his voice. There’s no dilation of his pupils. He’s not strutting in the way men do when they are worried about getting hurt but don’t want to seem weak.
I sit there as he removes the shackles on my ankles. Anyone else, and I’d kick them in the throat. But my feet stay where they are, and he stands up and uncuffs my hands.
I’m free.
I shouldn’t be free. I don’t know what to do with free. It’s something I’m supposed to fight for, but never actually have. My body wants to break into a blind run, but Doctor Ares is in front of me, and I don’t want to push past him.
“Come on,” he says, gesturing to me as he walks away.
“Where are the guards?”
“Wherever they usually are,” he says. “Come on. I don’t like these cells.”
“Can’t say I like them much myself.”
I follow him out of the locked down area. It’s one of the rare times I’ve ever made this journey without having hurt someone, or planning to.
I study the back of him as we walk. I’m usually looking for a weakness. Men have so many. Backs of the knees. Kidneys. Neck. Why was the human body formed with a neck? It seems like a ridiculous design decision, one point of ultimate fleshy weakness located far from the limited defenses of the rest of the body. Attack the neck, and all is lost. The head should just be bolted onto the shoulders. It would make far more sense.
I find my eyes drifting from those points to the whole of him. He is a very well-built man, broad shouldered and powerful even though I’m sure he doesn’t see action, and I find myself doubting him being a gym regular. More of the physical form is determined by genetics than most people are comfortable admitting. They think if they just work out, they’ll be as strong or as fast as they want to be. They’re wrong. We’re all defined and limited by our code.
The doctor leads me out of the secure area and out into a more general open landing where the various parts of the facility can be accessed. He stops, looks around, suddenly aimless now we are out of the confined spaces of the cells.
“You don’t know what to do with me, do you?” I slip up by his side and look at him.
“Well,” he says, scratching his chin. “I wasn’t exactly thoroughly briefed.”
“She just dumped me on you. What a bitch.”
His brows dip for a moment. “That language…”
“Is accurate,” I say, before he starts giving me any kind of misguided lecture.
“I’d prefer you didn’t speak that way.”
“I’d prefer I wasn’t stuck inside this concrete lunch box, but you have to play the cards you’re dealt.”
His lips quirk in a hint of a smile. “You’re a smart girl,” he says. “But language is one of my pet peeves.”
“Is it?” I push my lower lip out. “Does it make you gwumpy when a giwl swears?”
Doctor Ares shakes his head at me, his cheeks dimpling. “You are going to get yourself in trouble.”
“I’m already in trouble.”
“Mhm,” he raises his head. “I’m going to find Ken. He usually knows what’s going on.”
“Ken?” I snort. “Like Barbie’s boyfriend?”
“My brother,” he clarifies.
“Ah.”
“Mhm.”
An hour ago, I was trying to bust out of this place. I knew escape wouldn’t be possible. When they make an enclosure for an animal in the zoo they make it so that the animal can never get out. This place feels like that to me, a stinking concrete bowl in which we’re all pissing our lives away.
When I broke out with my razor, I was going to find the Head and cut her up. I suppose I had some idea she might let me go in exchange for her life, but I didn’t really care. I just wanted to remove the Head from her neck.
Now I find myself traipsing around after the doctor. I guess I’m curious. I don’t often get curious. My world is largely made up of the same people wearing different faces. Meat head assholes, some of them smart enough to keep up with me for five minutes, none of them ever able to understand me. Maybe he will be different.