by Angel Lawson
The Girl Who Broke Free
By
Angel Lawson
Covers by AngstyG
There are no weapons in the room. No zippers or loose strings attached to my clothing. Nothing that I can fashion into something lethal. It’s strictly hand to hand combat, and by the end of the hour I’ll be sore enough that I’m happy to have nothing to do but crawl into bed.
“Good afternoon, Alexandra,” Cole says. The disturbed glint in his eyes hasn’t left since I was tossed in the van with him months ago. I don’t know if it’s the Hybrid juice running through his veins or the fact his sister’s desperate attempts to break him have succeeded.
“Let’s get this over with,” I reply. I learned when we started this ridiculous game that engaging him in conversation was useless.
I step to the line in the middle of the room, and although he hesitates for a brief second, he does the same. He prefers to start with a little chit-chat, baiting me into a rage so I’ll lose focus. Not today. I ignore his dark eyes and the way they drift toward the rib injury I’m nursing from our last session. I remember when they were blue, and a familiar wave of loneliness washes over me. I shake it off because that kind of thinking will only give him the upper hand.
We’re toe to toe and my eyes linger on his massive biceps. Did they get bigger overnight? His muscles aren’t the only advantage he has over me. He’s stronger and faster, everything enhanced by the Hybrid vaccine.
Me?
I’m not that big but I’m not a weakling. My brain isn’t filled with adrenaline-induced hate, and due to my training last winter with Jackson I’m a smart fighter with quick reflexes. It isn’t a fair fight by any means, but day after day I enter the ring with the idea I can win. I just have to figure out his weakness.
Does it hurt to have to fight the man I once cared for every day?
Yes.
Am I letting it break me down like my enemies want?
Hell no.
We stare at one another, waiting for the first move. He’s impatient, shifting on his feet. I move my elbow an inch, getting him to swing and take the first punch, but I duck and he gets nothing but air.
“Nice,” he grunts, veins showing in his neck. He’s pissed and I use the anger as a distraction, kicking him once in the knee and again in the stomach. He catches my foot in his hands and twists, spinning me through the air. I flail for a second, my side aching from the move, but quickly adjust, landing on my knees. I look up at Cole.
He breathes heavily but has a small smirk on his face. We’re synched, primed to fight, and on the same beat we rush forward and collide.
Part One
Alexandra
(Present Day)
Chapter One
As far as jails go, this one is pretty nice. Not that I’m super familiar with jail cells but I did spend time in a cage, so I do have a little reference.
The cells are more like small, unfurnished dorm rooms and there’s a nice selection of books to read. The door is locked between me and the scary things outside, which is a nice perk, although it makes me nervous to not have more appropriate shoes. I know it’s the paranoia from living in the new world for the last year and a half, but a good pair of boots can save your life. I look down at my feet, toes pointed at the ceiling, and frown at the flimsy slip-ons supplied to me by the guards. These shoes will get me killed.
The patch of hazy sunlight on the wall signals the approaching start of my day. I think it means it’s about 7 a.m.. Clocks have lost meaning. A few people cling to the past and wear battery-powered digital, but they’re still just guessing. Most use other measures to track time. Right now, I’m waiting for the sound of the guard outside my cell. That’s when my day starts, but the few minutes before they arrive, that’s the worst part of the day. The few moments I’m left alone with my thoughts and memories.
I roll to my side and close my eyes, making one last attempt at going to sleep. All that I get is a sharp pain from the bruise forming on my ribs, which inevitably leads to the memory of the gash Wyatt got on his abdomen during the first days we met. How his eyes are hazel with flecks of green. How cocky he looked long ago at Fort PharmaCorp with his mohawk and defined jaw. How months later, what his lips and hands felt like when we finally acted on our feelings with one another.
I blink and stare at a spot of sunlight on the wall, trying so hard not to think about him bleeding and crumbled on the ground outside the farmhouse in Kentucky. His strong, able body taken from him by an army of genetically altered soldiers.
I try but fail every time to forget the way the gunshot sounded as they dragged me away from him and extinguished Wyatt Faraday’s life and soul from this world for good.
That night, Chloe and her Hybrids also left my friend Jude with him, beaten and possibly dead on the porch floor. I was captured with my sister Jane. In the house, they found Jane’s fellow scientist and more-than-friend Avi Yeun, and the two Mennonites we’d rescued from an Eater attack, Finn and Mary. They brought us to the new Hybrid headquarters, a small college outside of Lexington, and separated us. I’d had zero contact with them since.
This tiny former office in the security building is my cell. Besides being isolated from the other captives, I’ve heard nothing about the other group consisting of Walker, Davis, Jackson, and Parker that left the farmhouse a day before. I know nothing about General Erwin’s army or my friend Paul who stayed to fight for the southern Death Fields, other than that the Hybrids planned to come here after they demolished and dismantled the group. I have to assume Chloe’s army was successful and they, too, are dead.
The spring of the door lock frees me from my painful memories. I sit up, cradling my weak side, and wait for the tray of food to slide across the floor in my direction. Like clockwork, it appears, and I eat quickly because he’ll be back to take me to the bathroom. Then it’s time to start my day.
*
The bucket and rags wait for me in the closet, beneath the note with my chores. I glance at the list, wondering whose clunky script is behind the instructions. I doubt it belongs to Chloe. It seems too trivial. The commander of a massive army shouldn’t be hand-writing chores for her prisoner, even though she clearly has taken a special interest in me.
I pick up the heavy bucket filled with semi-clean water from an outside source and grimace. The bruise on my ribs hurts and I shift hands, hoping the weight of the bucket won’t bother as much on the other side. It works. Sort of.
The murky water sloshes against my pants, soaking my knee. I pass the main office and two Hybrids in quiet discussion and stop at the front door. It’s window day and unfortunately, I’m awful at it.
My job consists primarily of cleaning, scrubbing the security office top to bottom. I wipe baseboards and cobwebs in the corners. I’m given a toothbrush to clean the grout between the tiles in the no-longer-fully functional bathroom.
Occasionally there will be some outside work. Washing window sills or plucking weeds from the grassy areas between the parking lot and the office. Every bit trivial and completely tedious. Nothing something I would consider a priority during the fall of society. But I’m being punished. She wants me to know I’m good for one thing: whatever the hell she wants me to do.
I’m at her mercy.
I dip the rag in the water and wring it out and start the process of cleaning the small square panes by the front door. I catch a hint of my reflection and stare for a moment, trying to identify the woman. Yes, I’m a woman now—nineteen. Long gone is the tidy hair I used to wear in perky pigtails. My hair is long and thick. I mostly wrangle it into a ponytail at the back of my neck to keep it out of th
e way. My eyes are gray, but look more blueish due to the ever-present dark purple circles, if not actual bruises from taking a punch to the face. I’m pale from not enough sunlight. When I pass by a mirror sometimes I think I’ve just seen a ghost.
In many ways, it’s probably true.
I wipe the rag across the window pane, pretending to wipe away the woman I’ve become.
Chloe decided on making Asbury College her new base of operations. It’s beautiful here. Rolling green hills. Lots of trees and plenty of room for the Hybrids to live and sleep. Out the window I see the green leaves shifting color. I missed the warm days of summer while being locked up in here and now fall has arrived and I’ve little doubt I’ll miss it too. I’ve been here for months, toiling away under the close eye of Hybrids who plot and plan world domination as though I’m nothing but a gnat.
I move to the other side, wringing out my rag again. Wash, rise, repeat. Although I can’t tell from my view out the window, I know the world is falling apart out there as well as it is in here. There’s nothing I can do but wait and watch.
*
Afternoons are the real challenge. The tedious chores end and then my real punishment begins. I change out of my janitor uniform of soft, scrub-like pants and a shirt, and put on the workout clothes I’m allowed to wear during this specific portion of the day. Heavy duty sneakers, spandex pants, and a tank wait for me on my bed when I arrive back in my room. After a quick lunch I’m escorted down the hall to what used to be a conference room.
The walls and floors are padded and a massive bolt locks the door behind me when I enter the room where my sparring partner waits for me, day in and day out.
You’d think Chloe was crazy (well, she is crazy but even this is a stretch) giving me time to flex and work my muscles. But I’m not here to gain speed and skill. No, I’m here as a mental and physical punching bag for her biggest disappointment and failure.
Her brother, Cole.
The first time I walked in the training room and found Cole waiting for me, I actually did have a breakdown. I’d been in isolation for days. Ignored and starved. I cried for my sister. I bawled over Wyatt. Hybrids showed no interest in quelling my emotional pain. They showed no interest in me at all for those first days and when the door finally opened, the guard didn’t show up with food. No, he brusquely told me to follow him. I did so with hopes that Chloe may be ready to negotiate.
It was a cruel joke when they brought me to the padded room and left me with him.
He looked worse than I did, with deep circles under his eyes. His lips were chapped and raw and I wasn’t entirely sure he recognized me. I felt my hair and cheeks. Maybe I was unrecognizable.
“No! Guard!” I screamed to him the minute the door shut with a resolved click at my back. I banged against the surface, beating with my fists. “Get me out of here!”
“They’re not coming back,” he said quietly.
I spun, kicking the door with the heel of my foot. He just stared at me with hollow, vacant eyes.
“Don’t you dare touch or speak to me.”
“Both of those are going to be a challenge. My sister obviously wants us in here together.”
“To what? Kiss and make up?”
His eye twitched when I said it and I forgot how sensitive he was now. The genetic alteration made him edgy and irrational. He thinks I betrayed him with Wyatt, forgetting that he set us up in the first place. He was consumed with misplaced but very real paranoia.
His attention snapped to me and a chill ran down my spine. “There’s no getting out, Alex. Not out of this room or away from Chloe. Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
“You’re as strong as they are.”
He held up his hands. Red, inflamed welts circled his wrists. He showed me matching wounds on his ankles. My empty stomach turned. “This is the first time I’ve been unchained in weeks.”
“Why now? What do they want us to do together?” It was then that I noticed the crumpled paper in his hands. “What is that?”
“Our instructions.”
It was handwritten and bizarre. My fuzzy, stressed, and malnourished brain may not have even processed it correctly. At least that was what I hoped, but Cole read the instructions aloud and the ball of fear twisting in my stomach since we were captured grew.
“You’ll have one hour of mandatory time in the training room each day. Use it as an opportunity to exert any energy you need to expend.”
“Is that all?”
“Our food, necessities, and treatment of fellow prisoners will be based on our cooperation,” he added.
“No. I’m not playing your sister’s sick games.”
“Then I guess you don’t care if they torture your sister.” Cole gestures to the mirrored stretch of glass against the back wall.
“They’re observing us?” I asked.
“You think they’re not?”
That only made me angrier, and I walked over to the window and tried not to gasp at the sight of my skinny face and wild hair.
“Go ahead and sit back there and watch, psycho. You’ve spent the last year trying to bring me down and I want you to know I’m not going to make it easy. Starve me. Beat me. Do whatever you want. You’ve already taken everything from me. My sister. My father. My family and friends.” I glance at Cole’s reflection in the window. “You destroy everything you touch and I’m not going to play your deranged games! Do you hear that?”
There was no reply. Just me ranting and raving. God knew if she was back there or not. Or if she was already winning the game by making me act like a neurotic fool.
I turned my back on the woman in the mirror and crossed the room to the door, banging on it with my fist until the Hybrid returned to let me out.
“You won’t win,” Cole called as I started down the hallway. Three other guards waited as I passed, one carrying heavy chains. They hadn’t even cleaned the dried blood off the inside of the cuffs.
I blinked back the tears of defeat and squared my shoulders in defiance. Chloe wouldn’t win.
*
They took me back the next day. I’d had nothing but water and a slice of hard bread. The scent of better-tasting food wafted past my door three times a day. My stomach rumbled in protest.
Cole waited for me the same as the day before. Wrists red from the shackles. Face sallow and thin. He stared at me accusingly.
“What do you want me to do?” I finally asked.
“Right now, it’s food,” he said in a flat, emotionless voice. “Next, they’ll come after your sister and those other people they brought in with you. Do you think Chloe will be gentle?”
“How do you know?”
“Where do you think I’ve been this whole time?” His skin was sallow enough and the scabs around his wrists cover scars.
“I know you warned Wyatt.”
“Why?” A crease appeared on his forehead and he looked away. It was clear I wouldn’t get an answer. I rested my hands on my hips. “I’ve fought too hard to just roll over now.”
“For once in your life Alexandra, it’s okay to cave.”
“No, I’m not stooping to her level. I don’t have that crap running through my system. My cerebral cortex is fully functional.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “My humanity is the only thing I have left.”
He glared at me with red, tired eyes, and in a move faster than I knew he could manage at the moment, he stepped forward and punched me in the jaw. My head snapped back and I screamed in pain.
I rushed at him and landed both hands as hard as I could against his chest. He caught my wrists and said, “I’m not you. I’ve got adrenaline and rage and all kinds of twisted thoughts running through my head.”
“Fight them,” I said. “There’s empathy in there. You’re not a Hybrid. That’s why you warned Wyatt.”
It hurt to utter his name.
“No, but even a Mutt can only take so much, Alex.”
I turned and beat on the door, demanding to be let out—taken away
from the barbarian. The door opened but instead of releasing me, the guards walked in dragging a skinny person behind them. They throw him on the floor and I realized it was Finn.
“Finn!” I rushed to him but I was dragged off by the two Hybrids. “Are you okay?”
The guard nodded at Cole and I watched with terror as he approached Finn and yanked him from the ground. The kid barely had time to comprehend what was happening before Cole went on a full attack. He punches, kicks, and basically decimates the kid in a matter of seconds. Finn didn’t have the skills to deflect them or protect himself.
“Cole! Stop!” I shouted but I was shocked still by the sound of electricity buzzing through the room. I heard a throat cleared over speakers I could not see.
“Cole.” Chloe’s familiar voice rang out. “Collect yourself.”
Cole stopped the instant she spoke and dropped Finn’s battered body in a heap on the floor. I struggled away from the guards and to my surprise they let me go to him. I grabbed his wrists, looking for a pulse and found one, but it was faint and he was certainly not conscious. I looked up at Cole and saw nothing but a blank expression and his chest heaving from exertion and rage.
“Good afternoon, Alexandra,” Chloe said from her hiding spot. “It’s my understanding you’re unwilling to cooperate with the physical activities I have set up for you and my brother.”
“I’m not fighting him.”
“Let me make something clear. Cole needs an outlet for his pent-up energy. It will not be with members of my army. It can be you or one of the other traitors.”
She knew she had me. Neither of the Mennonites could survive repetitive altercations with Cole, and I doubt either Avi or Jane would last long. I stared at the two-way mirror and said, “I hate you.”
The speaker clicked off and the guards wrenched Finn from my arms and Cole and I were left in the room alone. He stared down at me and I shot him a glare.
“I told you,” he said. “We’re not going to win.”
