Cool, sweet air pushed into my lungs, but just enough to speak. Like he had done multiple times. He would only gift what he felt you needed to accomplish a goal. Nothing more. Coughing on the gasp that remained imprisoned in my throat, I stared up at him and spoke words I knew would hit home.
“What would Cato think knowing you work for King?” I croaked.
His face hardened, his gray eyes turning into solid pits of rage as he stared down at me. His gaze shot away from me for a quick second, a glance shot toward Valdus that stood a few feet from his back, and then back at me. If I hadn’t been watching, I wouldn’t have noticed the exchange even though it seemed to be more of Nero checking the man to see what he thought of the question than anything. Taking a deep breath, his eyes met mine, and I saw the emotional agony and turmoil flash through them, gone as quickly as it appeared. His large hand shot out, taking my throat in his grasp – squeezing as if I could draw any air that I couldn’t will into my lungs. As if he wasn’t holding it back from soaking into my blood. It was out of anger at the mention of our dear friend. His grip stung of my betrayal, as did the expression on his face. His lips were set in a straight, thin line, his steel orbs were cold, and his chin trembled slightly like he visibly attempted to hold back tears.
I knew the mention of Cato would cause him to act much more than the mention of his brother, who he had also deceived.
“I guess we’ll never know, will we?” he spat, lifting me from the ground so that my toes barely touched it.
“Didn’t you hear? He’s in my brain, Nero. Maybe we can find out?” I choked with what little air I had left in my lungs.
The entire forest hushed as if it could sense Nero’s fury and his need for vengeance. Boney fingertips dug into my flesh even more, causing the yelp to catch in my throat. My vision began to blur once more. Valdus watched with interest, his dark eyes inspecting me like meat hanging from a hook in a butcher shop. Like I was dead weight that only served one purpose as far as he was concerned. King had done his work on this man. The eye surrounded by the tribal tattoo sparkled slightly in a small beam of sunlight that penetrated the trees, and he smiled sadistically.
“Hey, Valdus, what do you think I should do with your bitch of a sister? Drag her back a little bruised, or let her really have it?” Nero asked without looking back at him.
Valdus’s laughter rippled through the air, deep, rich, and melodic much like our father’s. It shivered down my spine and reached down to my toes before settling in my gut in a solid pit of anxiety. My hands came around Nero’s wrist, nails digging into his tanned flesh in hopes the sting would cause him to drop me. My lungs burned with the need for oxygen, which he continued to feed me in extremely small doses – only enough to keep me conscious so I could take their jibes. The cool whoosh into my lungs almost made me gasp with each passing sensation, but I held them in. It would be a waste of the precious resource Nero had complete control over.
“She has no power right now. I say give her a taste of her own medicine,” Valdus replied.
Nero looked back at him and asked, “You want a piece before we have to take her back?”
Valdus pushed away from the tree, took his weapon off his shoulder, and leaned it against the closest tree before taking a few steps in our direction.
“Absolutely,” he stated while cracking every knuckle in his hands with precision, a wicked grin playing over his lips. “Let her have some air too. She can’t be that dangerous without her ability.”
Nero chuckled, and Valdus came around as if to surround me. Releasing me, Nero took a few steps back as I fell, my prosthetic yielding to the fall, so I landed hard on my knees with jarring pain. Both men laughed at my expense, and it would have broken me if I already hadn’t been broken beyond repair. I fell forward, still lacking the vital air Nero was depriving me of, gasping as I failed to breathe. They circled me, but I couldn’t look at them. My vision swam, and black spots still danced across my eyesight, the tips of black military boots barely visible. My fingers dug into the sharp, brown pine needles, the foliage underneath smooth and alive while the grit from the dirt caked under my fingernails.
“Okay, stop fucking around. We’ll only have a few minutes before they come looking for us,” Valdus asserted, boots kicking at the ground.
A rush of oxygen pushed into my lungs, hot and rejuvenating, nearly burning me alive from the inside out. I inhaled sharply and coughed, breathing in as much as I could before I could possibly be deprived again. They continued to circle me like predators, and when I rose onto my knees panting, Valdus stopped in front of me and leaned down so he could look me in the eye. The tribal tattoo was stark against his flesh, framing the eye perfectly like a target. His beard was perfectly groomed, and his hair was slightly disheveled from running through the trees. He was much more intimidating than I originally gave him credit for. The fact that he was King’s son, my half-brother, only made it easier to hate him without having to know anything about him.
“You know, when Dad talked about you, I was expecting something more impressive,” he sneered, his lips curling in a ferocious grin. “Like a goddamn superhero.”
I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, a fist slammed into my jaw – sending me backward and into Nero’s waiting arms. My head rocked back and felt as if it would slide from my shoulders. Instead of fighting against his assistance, I slid my feet underneath me and planted them firmly in the foliage.
I kicked out with my prosthetic, using all the strength left in my thigh to bring it up to kick Valdus square in the chin. Him leaning down in front of me worked highly in my favor. Saliva and blood sprayed from between his lips, and he stumbled back – his feet sliding through the pine needles and leaves. When he looked at me again, his eyes were filled with blind fury. Nero hadn’t had time to register what I had done before I lowered my foot, turned, and punched him in the gut. Crying out in pure, feral wrath, I remembered what the absence of heat in my abdomen meant. I could barely fight for myself if it weren’t for my ability, which was becoming all too evident as I reached out, hands out to my sides, and attempted to channel it into my enemies.
Nero barely reacted to the impact. He didn’t hunch over. He didn’t retch. All he did was curl slightly around the injury, and then straightened to his full height. In a lightning quick flash of movement, his hand came out, slapping me with the back of his open hand. It stung and caused me to reel, spinning until I was facing Valdus again with Nero’s arms coming around my abdomen, effectively locking my arms at my sides. The world stilled, the trees no longer acting as if they swayed in the wind, but stood strong like I should have been in the face of their violence.
Fists continued to slam into various parts of my body – my stomach, my chest, my face – each blow making it even more difficult to breathe and to focus. Breathing heavily, Valdus stepped back and flexed every muscle in his arms like he had worked them too hard, but I knew it was just for show.
“Come on, get your licks in. We all know you’ve wanted to since you came to us,” he stated, gaze intent on Nero’s face above my head.
He was so much taller than me, making it much easier for Nero to rest his chin on my skull much like he was now, waiting for the moment this would end because they had no choice. They killed me now and faced King’s anger at my death. I was useful, and my life wouldn’t come to an end until I had fulfilled that usefulness. It didn’t matter to King how much they wanted to beat the shit out of me for various reasons. All that mattered was what he wanted out of me.
“No, man,” Nero said as his arms loosened from around me, and his hands pushed me roughly to the ground. “Her slow torture has been well worth it for me. I don’t need to lay my hands on her to watch her suffer. Plus, I got a few in before now, and watching her die? That’s the ultimate revenge for what she’s done.”
I fell to the ground, sputtering past the iron taste of
blood in my mouth. I spat onto the ground and watched with sadness and anger as the blood and saliva spread over the green leaves and dried pine needles. It didn’t mean anything, even I was well aware of that, but it didn’t stop the vigor that leeched into my body just enough for me to cause some verbal damage.
“Oh, come on, Nero. You know you want to. Might as well while I can’t stop you, huh?” I baited him.
“One of the few things she’s right about,” Valdus stated while jabbing a finger at me.
“Stop baiting me. You know what your father will do to us if we get out of control on this one. I, for one, don’t want to be on his bad side, and I don’t have genetics to stop him from killing me,” Nero explained.
Laughter bubbled up inside my chest and came pouring out like a boiling river of irony and deceit. It filled the air as the sound of even more booted feet made their way toward our location. My entire body shook with it, almost to the point of uncontrollable tremors. When I looked up, I made certain my eyes met those of my older half-brother. I wanted him to realize that what I said was the truth, and nothing would change that no matter how desperately he wanted to believe it. He may have been shown another part of our father aside from what I had, but everyone knew King could put up any disguise he wanted, and that people would believe it just for the sheer fact that he wanted them to. It didn’t matter who you were.
“We all know genetics has nothing to do with it,” I chuckled. “It all depends on how useful you are. What purpose you can serve.”
Valdus’ body stiffened at my words as if he had known, but refused to believe it long before I came into the picture.
“Shut up, Mila,” Nero said as he came around and clapped Valdus on the shoulder in comradery. “Nothing you can say will save you.”
Hunched over, I spat onto the ground again – bright red blood landing just at the toe of his filthy boot.
“You think I care about myself? That I’m doing all of this to save myself? If you really believe that, you’re a damn fool. You never knew me at all.”
Valdus shifted uncomfortably but didn’t walk away. Didn’t look away.
In one, smooth, lithe motion, Nero took one step forward and kicked out. His foot connected with my chin and sent me sprawling to the ground, my body easily absorbing the fall. Standing over me, he jabbed a finger painfully into the center of my chest and said the next words so calmly his anger didn’t seem real even though he said them through gritted teeth.
“You’re the damn fool, and your foolishness is going to kill you.”
Chapter
TEN
Not only did I walk up the steps toward the gigantic doors of the Basilica with Nero and Valdus at my side, but I did it with handcuffs digging into my wrists. Twisting my hands in the nickel restraints, they only grew tighter, causing me to wince as I walked. I still felt every ounce of pain inflicted on me by these two men, but the worst part was the humiliation. Yes, my eye may have been blackened, and my lips busted and bleeding, but the physical injuries only made way to emotional and psychological pain.
I had suffered plenty physically at the hands of others, but I had never been more humiliated in my life.
My breath caught in my chest when the two doors pushed open, revealing a building I had never once stepped into – only read about and saw photos of on the internet and in textbooks. The ceiling was high, each arch that made up its expanse elegant. Stunning. Both men’s hands went to my arms, pushing me down the center of the pews. My steps slowed. I no longer cared about keeping up with them, especially if it were to lead to my death, which I knew was the case. My eyes could barely take it all in. It was beautiful and massive beyond my wildest dreams. We had been given the opportunity as children to visit Washington D.C. to see where our President lived, but my mother’s paranoia was enough to stop me from going altogether. Our feet echoed on the marble floor, the sound bouncing off the walls as I barely shuffled along in an attempt to catch even a small glimpse of every piece of artwork.
The pipes of the organ were gorgeous, sleek, and I practically gawked over it as they pulled me along.
“No time to sight-see. Come on,” Nero barked, jerking me in the direction he wanted to go.
Valdus chuckled a little and quickened his pace so I was forced to either stumble or jog on much shorter legs to keep up. A part of me wanted to make them drag me, but I had already lost so much of my dignity, and I would walk to my execution with pride and strength.
Everything else passed in blurry hazes of gold, white, and reds – each stunning part of the church passing me by. I truly had no idea what to expect. I had heard the word reactor more than once from King and Doctor Tee, but what did that even mean? The only type of reactor I learned about in school had everything to do with nuclear power plants, and nothing to do with the kind of energy I produced that caused the fission reaction that had been explained to me by Doctors Aserov, Devi, and Rayna.
A statue of a woman surrounded by four black, inscribed pillars came into view, and we passed them just as quickly as we had everything. I wanted to look back, to see which biblical woman was portrayed in stone for the world to admire and worship, but something else caught my attention and held it, the stone woman long forgotten as we climbed up a few steps, made our way around, and passed through a row of glass doors.
The dome-shaped ceiling before us was covered – even the walls – in tiles of varying shades of browns, tans, greens, and other hues that left me breathless. Small alcoves portrayed saints intricately painted, but none of this was the most distinguishable thing in the room. There was another dome in the room that caught my attention.
King stood before it, hands clasped in front of him as he smiled at our approach.
The glass dome behind him glowed with an internal light that emanated from a square pillar in its center, pulsing with a process I couldn’t describe. The blue was bright, but dull all at the same time, muted by the parts and gadgets I couldn’t name. I had never seen anything like this before – had barely learned about nuclear reactors in school because it was information we didn’t need unless we decided to work for the government in the power plants. A film of water ran down the interior walls of the glass dome, a thinner pane curved inside to direct the flow of the liquid that ran along the bottom edges – guided to the center where the reactor was housed within long, thin rods of hollow metal. They were evenly spaced, jutting out from the bottom of the reactor in a pinwheel that glowed slightly with the same blue hue where the two connected.
The only portion of the wall that didn’t cascade with water was where a glass door stood wide open. I could easily make out a silver, medieval-looking lock which seemed much more threatening than the rest of the contraption. It would mean that, as soon as I was placed inside, there was no way I was getting out. Not unless they wanted me to.
Anxiety immediately spiked the closer we got to King. It was in that moment I saw Doctor Tee in the distance, white lab coat glowing with the light from the machine. He looked back at us for a moment but quickly turned back to his work – which made him look guilty as sin. Soldiers were appointed at equal intervals around the room, sentinels observing the making of ultimate destruction.
The blue light reflected against King’s black suit beautifully, reminding me of the same glow my eyes had since the second injection of the serum took hold.
“What the Hell is that?” I whispered, with no reply.
“Glad to see you boys brought her back in one piece,” King stated as we came to a stop before him, his eyes scanning over me with incredulity. He caught sight of the blood soaking the side of my shirt and the dirt coating my pants. “You had your turn on her, I see.”
Valdus cleared his throat uncomfortably, and King’s eyes shot to him, then over to Nero, obviously believing he was the instigator of the whole thing. Of course, from what little I had seen of their dyn
amic, Valdus could do no wrong in his eyes. I still felt a ping of shame thinking the words. Heat flared in his dark eyes, turning tender for a split second when they came to rest on me. It was unmistakable, but hard to catch if you weren’t paying close attention. Fortunately enough for me, I had begun watching everyone I came into contact with as carefully as possible, looking for anything I could use. This wouldn’t be one of those things. King wasn’t a man who let his emotions get in the way of his goals. Not even any possible love he could feel for me as his daughter.
“I will deal with your insolence later. For now, I need her prepped and ready to go into the reactor. Understand?” King asked very pointedly, looking at both men with cold eyes.
“Yes, sir,” Nero and Valdus muttered in unison.
They pulled me away and toward Doctor Tee. I smirked, knowing no one would be paying any attention to my reveling in the punishment that could be coming for them. Even if King just took their favorite toys away, that was enough for me.
Doctor Tee was working on some kind of panel I hadn’t noticed since he was standing in front of it when I walked in. Well, dragged in was more like it. Either way, they were going to have to drag me into that reactor too. Who would willingly walk into their execution? It took all I had to stop myself from screaming at the top of my lungs to draw attention to save myself. I was trying to do this and hold onto what little dignity I had left, if any. But they would not be getting me into that machine without a fight. I knew that that thing would end my life, and that was all there was to it.
Closing the panel, Doctor Tee turned around, his eyes kind, but clinical nonetheless. I was a subject for study. Nothing more. Nothing less. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. It had been like that since the beginning, even with my own mother.
“Miss Hunter, please remove your clothing. All except your undergarments,” he said before turning to retrieve a bag close to his feet.
The Clash (The Permutation Archives Book 5) Page 7
