by Joey W. Hill
Wolf…
But there was nothing. She suddenly realized why they were all in here, but he wasn’t responding, despite the indications from the team that he wasn’t being tortured. It must be past sunrise. The strain they’d put on Wolf would have depleted any energy reserves he had to stay awake to reach out to her. Oh, Goddess.
She was relieved he could get away from them for awhile, but she was terrified, because for the next few hours, she was truly alone.
The woman left the cage, and the wailing cries poured through the headphones again. But now there was a new horror to face. The male scientist, the tall one with the creepy eyes, took off his lab coat and rolled up his sleeves. He spoke a word to the others, and they left. To her credit, one of the women hung back a second, gave him a hard look, said something, and he shrugged her off, pointed to the computer as if to say, “Holliman ordered it.”
All while people in torment screamed in her head, as if she was in the midst of hell. And she guessed she was. The scientist calmly fished in a supply cabinet and came back out with a jar of oil.
When she’d been a prostitute, there’d been nights she hadn’t been in the mood to work but, as she’d told Wolf, she’d needed to eat more. She’d made it work. Hollow had made his first serious mistake if he thought a guy shoving his dick inside her without her enthusiastic endorsement was something that would traumatize her, help her “conditioning” move along faster. The only thing she felt when she saw what the Gor guy intended was relief that he’d decided to use lubricant. She preferred that to him trying to arouse her, turning her body against her the way Hollow did.
But she made her expression appropriately pleading, shaking her head as he came toward her. Though he tried to look “professional,” she knew the signs. He was getting off on her powerlessness.
All she had to do was find her moment. Send a one-word text to her phone. It became the goal of all goals, and she held it to her when her cell door opened.
She thought of Wolf. For the next few hours, she had to figure out ways to help them both. But oh, Goddess, she missed hearing him in her head. If she could have meditated, maybe she could find that thread of connection between them, even when he was sleeping. She would wrap it around her like ropes during a suspension session, let it keep her spinning above all this.
But now all she heard was screaming.
Chapter Thirty-One
Twice more she went through “conditioning.” She cried, vomited, passed out, was brought back with buckets of ice water. The scientists came and went, but for most of them it was too much. They eventually left and stayed gone, indicating they would only be present for the actual “scientific” part of things.
But her Gor-fan and the cold-eyed woman scientist persevered. The woman checked her phone a lot, sending texts back and forth with the other team members.
So Ella had her target. If she could hold onto enough of her mind to get an opportunity to strike.
This latest time, she’d fallen forward, slumped over. She was slick with sweat, and she’d soiled herself.
“We need to hose her down,” the woman said. “Fuck, I’m tired of this mask.”
“Take it off,” the male said. “It’s not to protect our identities.”
“Holliman said it was important for the conditioning.” Though she sounded edgy about that.
They’d moved inside the cell. She mumbled something, her head down.
“Now, now, be quiet,” the woman said, almost kindly. “Speak only if spoken to. We’ve wasted enough time waiting on you not to be stubborn or deceptive. I think Holliman’s being a little overly paranoid.” That to the other scientist. “She’s barely more than a child. That’s what’s making the others so uncomfortable with all this.”
She unlatched the wrist restraints while the other scientist squatted to distastefully unlatch her ankles, since the chair was in a pool of her own waste. Ella whimpered, shrank back.
“It’s okay,” the woman said in her authoritative voice. “If you cooperate with us from here forward, there’s no reason for any other conditioning. Hell, hold on. Got her?”
“Yeah. She’s out of it.”
The woman’s pocket had vibrated. Now she withdrew the phone, tapped in the password and viewed the text. “They’ve downloaded some interesting results on his bloodwork. We’ll take a look at it in a minute.”
She pocketed the phone and bent to Ella again. “Remember what I said. Cooperate, and no more pain.”
Goddess help her, it almost swayed Ella from her course. Because what she was about to do would start it all over again. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t.
Then she thought of Wolf, the things they might do to him or had done. She’d thought he’d get a respite at sunrise, but what if they’d figured out a way to torment him, even during daylight?
She put aside everything else. She moaned a little as the woman started to help her up. She concentrated on making her every movement docile, submissive, disoriented. The laptop started beeping, and she vaguely saw a bubble onscreen, a message.
“He’s warning us to be careful,” Gor-scientist said. “Said she might not be as out of it as she seems. The third mark, even with the conditioning, still makes her dangerous.”
“Good God,” the woman snapped. “She’s barely moving on her own. She’s lost control of her bladder and bowels. We’ll be lucky if we can get any useful data out of her today.”
“We’ve acquired some proof from simple observation. Her eardrums should have ruptured from the headphone treatment. We also should have seen far more physical neurological degradation from the conditioning thus far. I think it’s best that we take his advice. Let’s cuff her to her cage bars while we clean her up, clean the cell. We need to bring more support staff here. I’m not a damn janitor.”
“We can’t bring in lower level staff until we get the data we need. We have to prove these aren’t delusional humans pretending to be vampires. Here, turn her, I’m losing my grip. Ah shit, I don’t want her leaning against me. She’s filthy.”
Ella stumbled against her, almost went to her knees. Then she wrapped her arms around the woman and bulled forward, slamming them both into the cage door. She rolled to the ground outside it, hitting the counter that held the computer. It teetered and fell on them, striking Ella on the back. She punched at the woman, screaming, and then stumbled to her feet, throwing herself at the male.
He’d been right about one thing. She was like a floundering fish, but the added strength the marks gave her meant she managed to land a pretty solid hit to his face, busting his lip below the rat mask. If the mask hadn’t been rubber, she would have broken it, revealed his face fully. Instead, he grabbed her, threw her toward the cage door. She caught the frame, launched herself forward and tried to scramble past him, but he shoved her back once more. She tripped over her own feet, landing inside, then screamed in frustration when he slammed the door.
“Christ, Robert,” the woman swore.
“It’s fine. She’s back in.”
Ella had scrambled to the back corner, her eyes wild and angry upon them, her lip curled in a snarl, knees pulled to her chest.
“Damn, Syd, he was right.” Robert rubbed the back of his hand on his bloody lips and glanced at himself. “Fuck. C’mon. Let’s go over here to the bathroom. I’ll stand in the doorway and keep watch on her while you clean up, then we can swap and you do the same.”
They moved to do that. Robert stood at the threshold and kept glancing at Ella, as he’d said. However, as she kept rocking, her head down, he would look back at the other scientist for a longer stretch of time. The computer was on the ground, but she didn’t discount the possibility there were other cameras focused on her, the same way they were watching Wolf. So Ella turned away, curled in a fetal ball, but sitting up, her forehead pressed to the bars, one arm up against her face, hiding it, with the other curled protectively in toward her chest.
A position that allowed her to cup the woma
n’s cell phone close against her chest, unseen by anyone else. The password screen came up, and she typed the four-number code the woman had been close enough to reveal to Ella, several times. She prayed she’d seen it right.
She had. Slowly, so slowly, not wanting to reveal anything suspicious about her movements, she entered her phone number, and then the one-word text.
Holliman.
Send.
She shuddered, said a mindless prayer that someone had her phone, that it was in Anwyn’s hand, or Gideon’s. Chantal knew her password, as did Lars.
She had her arms folded before herself, her head down and body cringing against those back bars. It was a good clamshell position which gave her the ability to hold the phone between both her concealed hands. She thanked all the powers that be for the third mark strength, depleted though it was, that allowed her to twist the phone in her hand, break it, so the woman wouldn’t be able to check her texts.
Now to the rest of it. She actually was hurting everywhere, so it wasn’t too much of an act to crawl forward in a hunching, halting manner, holding her ribs. When she reached the cage door, she had the device under her as she sat on the ground and grasped the bars.
“Let me out of here,” she said. Then she screamed it, shaking the bars back and forth. As she moved so violently, she shifted her feet, sent the phone spinning across the floor so it ended up under the counter, beside the upended computer.
With any luck, anyone viewing the cameras had been focused on her behavior, not the phone. They would think it had been lying next to the computer the whole time, thrown there during the scuffle. Or they would think the phone had been lying next to the bars and Ella had sent it spinning away with her actions, oblivious to its presence because of her wild state of mind.
Robert returned. He kicked at the bars, sending her scrambling back to the chair. She wanted to glare at him, but she’d just used up the last energy she had. She’d done what she could think of right now, and she had to hope…to hope…
She laid her head against the frame of chair. I can’t do anymore right now. Oh, Goddess, I can’t bear anymore. I’m going to answer their questions. I don’t know if that’s the right thing.
They put her through another “conditioning.” This time they added electric shock, running it through the chair where they bound her again. However, when the Gor scientist tried to take her again—after they cleaned her up of course—she spit in his face. He hit her several times, until her lip and nose bled, and she dropped her head back, dazed, while he did what he wanted to do.
She wanted to tune out. Needed to tune out. When she phased in again, Hollow was back. He brought a new laptop, telling her the other had been damaged.
“Nighttime at last, Ella,” he said absently. He spoke as if they were just at the club, her cleaning the bar area while he worked on the computer systems, rather than her naked, bleeding, half out of her mind, him the director of her torment.
“Wolf is a tougher bastard than I gave him credit for,” he continued. “We took him to a second-floor room with windows. We kept him out of the direct sunlight, but it’s hell for a vampire his age to be that far above ground during daylight.”
“You’re a monster,” she said hoarsely.
He shot her a puzzled look. “Not at all. A monster tortures for the pleasure of it. All of this serves a purpose. They had to do the tests they needed to prove what you and I already know about him.”
He shot Ella a look, as if they were actually sharing a moment of commiseration. “Every time he passed out, we brought him back with the right level of stimulation, but he passed out a lot less than I expected.”
She was supposed to make Hollow think she was doubting hers and Wolf’s bond. If the text didn’t work, they had to have a plan B. But she was so tired, her body so battered, and now her heart cried out, wondering if that was why she hadn’t heard Wolf’s voice in her mind. How far past sundown was it? He was alive, but in what condition?
Wolf, I’m here. I’m okay. Even though she wasn’t. But she wanted him to know… I sent a text to my phone. I left it at the club. It might get found.
Or it might not. She closed her eyes as the tapping of Hollow’s fingers on the keys continued on. She was beginning to hate that sound, a symbol of his horrific apathy.
Syd came back in. “Can we finally question her now?”
Hollow looked at Ella, his gaze steady. Soulless. “Ella, are you ready to answer questions? Or should we continue on the course we’ve been on? The choice is yours, of course.”
So reasonable, so calm. He could do this endlessly, because he knew there would be an end.
Yes, she would answer questions. She would. She couldn’t handle anymore.
But then, she thought of this moment and what later moments would look like. If there was a good end to all this, but she had to face her weakness, her capitulation, and how it might have hurt those she cared about. Wolf, Anwyn. Gideon. Could she live with that? Anything was better than this moment, right?
She knew better.
“I—”
The building rumbled, a low roar like a distant animal. The light fixtures vibrated.
Gor-guy’s face came popping up in the corner of Hollow’s screen. “We have a breach. We—”
The screen went dark and Hollow surged up from his seat, slapping the laptop closed. “They’ve found us. Initiate burn protocol. Get out.”
“The test subjects.” Syd gestured toward Ella.
“Leave them. Fire will kill them both. There’s…”
Hollow stopped abruptly, mid-sentence. His gaze slid to Ella, slow, painfully. “What…” His lips formed the word, but no sound came out.
Syd didn’t notice. She’d already started rushing around when Hollow issued the order. They’d been prepared for this eventuality, lighter fluid and other quick burn materials tucked under the counter. She stuffed the tinder in strategic places, not in a random way. She knew what she was doing. Their own weird form of fire drill, Ella realized, as terror flooded her.
Not fire. Please not fire. Ella was still strapped to the chair, in her cage. She couldn’t handle it, seeing the flame close in around her.
Even knowing they’d pay no more attention to her distress than before, fear compelled her to cry out. “Please, don’t leave me here. Please.”
Syd barely gave her or Hollow a glance as she lit the materials in the corner. As flame shot up quickly, she was already striding from the room. “I’ll meet you at the rendezvous, Holliman.”
Hollow didn’t acknowledge her. He had his eyes locked on Ella, but he didn’t see her. He put his hands in front of him as if he couldn’t see anything. He turned, stumbled into the table, crashed to his knees in a shower of papers and equipment. He put his hands to his head and started to moan.
“Help me,” Ella said desperately. “Please, help me.”
The flames were licking along the countertops, the papers on the floor, now moving up along the walls. Coming closer. Way too fast. Hollow paid no attention, though he was right in the path of the oncoming flames.
Fire. She was back inside a house of fire. There was no one to be brave for, no way out. She couldn’t get loose from the chair, out of the cage. The utter helplessness of it, in the face of what was bearing down on her, had her heart thundering in her chest so painfully, as if the fear would make it explode.
Screaming filled her head, filled her mind, the pain and terror taking her over. The screams were hers. She was pulling against her bonds, not caring that muscles were tearing, the cuffs becoming like wire, digging into flesh and making her bleed. Then one voice thundered in her head, overpowering and silencing all the others.
Ella. I’m here. I’m coming. You’re not alone, little girl.
A sob burst from her. For a moment, she was sure she was manufacturing him in her head to give herself a futile scrap of comfort. Except nothing could imitate the stern timbre of her Master’s voice when he was commanding her. When it was vibratin
g with a rage and urgency that told her if anyone could get to her in time, it was him.
Hollow crashed against the side of her cage, startling her. She’d forgotten about him entirely. Blood was coming from his mouth…from his eyes? He was scratching his face, digging, as if trying to claw something out of his head. He was howling. All the helplessness and terror Ella was feeling about the element rushing down on her; Hollow seemed to be facing that inside himself.
Then a shadow moved behind him, distorted through the flames, a giant hawk, with great wide, flapping wings.
Wolf burst through the tongues of fire, the wet blanket he was wearing swirling around his shoulders. He kicked Hollow out of his way as if he was trash on the floor, gripped the cage door, and that was the end of that. It burst off its hinges as he ripped it loose, tossed it aside. Then he was in the cell with her, tearing off her restraints so quickly, she couldn’t follow it. He was there, and she was free.
To stave off her terror at the encroaching flames, her Master knew exactly what thought to give her. The hope she’d clung to as a child, wanting to be saved from the fire.
Daddy’s here.
She wrapped her shaking arms around his neck as he lifted her, held her curled up in his arms. He swathed her in that wet blanket. As he did, she glimpsed someone else at the door to the lab. Saturnia.
The flame wreathed her, but the female vampire didn’t seem to notice. Her face was terrible to look upon, her eyes fastened on her servant, writhing on the floor.
Whatever was happening to Hollow, it was Saturnia doing it, destroying his mind from the inside out, tearing into his soul like he’d torn at his flesh, trying to get her out of his head, but he couldn’t. He had no eyes left, huge gouges in his face, and he was still screeching. Saturnia’s face was as terrifyingly expressionless now as his had been while torturing Ella.
