Bound

by Shannon Mayer

  One more corner and we were in a huge bath house, the lights brighter, glinting off the pale mauve tiles.

  “Here, get clean,” Vincent said. “Burns, bring her some fresh clothes. I won’t be in a room with a woman who smells of filth and sweat.”

  Burns handed me a threadbare towel and a small bar of soap and the two men stepped out of the room and shut the door behind me. I waited a full minute then put my hand to the knob, opening the door a crack.

  “Is there something you need Ma’am?” A man’s voice asked.

  “No, thank you,” I said, my manners coming into play despite the fact that I was a captive of these men and had even warranted a guard on my bathroom time. I walked to the middle of the room. It was set up like a locker in a men’s gym, cubby holes for your stuff and shower heads sticking out every three feet.

  I didn’t understand what was going on, but at that moment the thought and temptation of hot water overrode any other concerns I had.

  I stripped and stepped up to the closest shower head, then turned it on full blast. Ice cold water hit me in the face and I gasped and choked on it, but forced myself to stay under. Scrubbing furiously with the small bar of soap I was able to get at least a couple of layers of dirt off from the last few days.

  The cold didn’t ease and my skin began to hurt. It was at that point someone hollered, “Hello?”

  I turned the water off and grabbed the towel, wrapping it around me as my teeth chattered. “I’m here.” The towel barely covered what God gave me and did little to stave off the cold.

  Burns stepped into the room and put a pile of clothes on the floor. I imagined he was probably blushing as he stammered out, “Here are some clothes, and I’ll just be outside when you’re dressed.”

  “I’ll be quick, I’m freezing.” The door clicked shut again. I towelled myself off and thought of Sebastian when he’d towelled me dry and we’d made love, laughing and romping together with abandon. That was before Nevermore came into our lives. I didn’t realize I was crying until the tears dripped off the end of my chin and onto the floor.

  “Stop it Mara,” I whispered. “You can’t turn back time, now you have to move forward, that’s all there is left. You have to be strong and smart for all three of you.” I placed my hand lightly on my belly and let out a long slow breath.

  Once I was fully dressed and had my emotions pulled together, I opened the door.

  Before Burns could say anything, I lifted my hand to stall him. “I want to see my husband; where is he?”

  Burns shook his head, “He’s down with the others. He’s okay, but I can’t take you to him. Vincent wants to see you right away; I don’t want to get caught disobeying him.”

  “Please, can we run? I just want to see him.” I begged him, putting my hand on his forearm, not caring how little he thought of me. Burns let out a sigh and looked down the hallway. He shook his head and my heart sank.

  “If we run, you can maybe see him for 20 seconds at best,” Burns said. My head snapped up and I nodded, my mouth unable to even form a thank you past the shock of Burns helping me.

  I followed him at a run down three more flights of stairs to what he informed me was the lowest level. The section was split into cells, not unlike a jail, each cell holding at least one Nevermore. As we ran past they reached out but not one of them made a sound. That was unusual; with the pack at home if we were ever this close there was at least a growl or two.

  As if reading my mind, Burns began to fill me in on Vincent’s “training” methods.

  “Vincent wants to show how the Nevermores can be trained and so he had us capture a male and a female—at least that was it to start with. He punished them when they did anything that he didn’t think they should. Like making noise when we walked by.”

  I glanced into a cage as we passed to see a form curled into a tight ball; burn marks oozing and open to infection covered much of the skin I could see.

  “He tortured them,” I said, no longer feeling smart about the decision to keep Scout from attacking Vincent. The next cage showed a very pregnant woman, her wrists and ankles raw where it was obvious she’d been tied up and struggled, her skin in bloom with faint lines of the broom flower.

  “That’s Marks wife. Or ex-wife, I guess. They were separated when she took the shot,” Burns said.

  I looked away. “Please, just take me to Sebastian.”

  “Here,” Burns said, stopping in front of the last cage on the block. He stepped over to let me pass. “Vincent thinks we can use the Nevermores as a trained army to take over Donavan’s compound. At least that’s what he told us and we believed him.”

  I stared into the last cage, its gloomy interior not showing me anyone. “Sebastian?” I called out. A shadow shifted and stood tall; in two strides he was at the front of the cage, his hands reaching through for me.

  “Wait for me at the other end of the block,” I said to Burns as I took Sebastian’s hands in my own, my eyes never leaving his.

  “I’m not supposed to leave you alone.”

  “Burns, you gave me 20 seconds, at least let me have those moments alone,” I said.

  Burns coughed and shuffled back down the way we’d come.

  “I’m sorry Bastian.”

  He grunted and pulled me up against the bars, our bodies separated only by the cold metal. Sebastian pressed his lips to my forehead, his hands roving up and down my back, finally settling on my hips. I pressed a hand against the scar on his shoulder that only days ago had been a bullet hole. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  He lifted the top of one lip in a half smile, took my hand and slid it down his chest, pressing my palm against the evidence of his arousal. For the first time in a long time, I blushed, a rush of heat firing my blood. He tipped his head and pressed harder against my hand, his eyes softening with desire. I flexed my muscles and he groaned, leaning his head against the bars and grinding his hips into my fingers. I sucked in a deep breath, my body aching to be touched, to feel again his heart beat against my own. Footsteps echoed and we pulled back, both of us trembling and our faces flushed.

  “Mara, I need to take you to the war room, Vincent, he’s waiting, and he’s going to know we took a detour if we put this off any longer. We do not want to piss him off,” Burns said.

  “Okay.” I blew Sebastian a kiss. “I’ll be back soon.”

  He gave me a slow nod and disappeared into the shadows.

  I followed Burns as we jogged back the way we’d come, stopping before we reached the floor where the showers were. I did my best to memorize the turns and twists of the tunnels, the stair wells and room numbers—because the minute I got the chance, I was going to bust us out of here.

  7

  The war room was covered in maps of the area and the world in general; a large table dominated the center and it looked to be mahogany, polished to a brilliant sheen. Sitting at the head of the table was Vincent, his army fatigues neat and tidy, and his face unreadable.

  “It took you long enough,” he said, standing as he spoke.

  I shrugged and tried not to let my exertion show. “I wanted to get clean; you know, getting filth off can take time.”

  “Don’t sass him,” Burns whispered to me.

  Vincent rolled his shoulders and clasped his hands behind his back. “This is very simple. You are going to help me train the Nevermores. If you don’t, I will kill your Sebastian. If you still flaunt my authority you will find yourself in an unfortunate situation where you will no longer be carrying your child. And if you still continue to fight me I will kill you.”

  The blood fled from my face and pooled somewhere down in my legs. He couldn’t be serious; he wasn’t so cold as to cause me to miscarry, was he? I stared into his pale gray eyes, searching for a spark of compassion, and found nothing.

  He spun on one heel and tapped on the chalkboard, “Perhaps this will help you see reason.”

  I squinted my eyes. There were six words written in perfect capital letter
s. I read them out loud. “Control of cure, control of power.”

  My mouth dropped open and I leapt to my feet, my heart pounding with an unspoken hope. “There’s a cure?”

  “I thought perhaps that might get your attention. You will see that I can be fair to those who are loyal to me.” He gave me a tight-lipped smile and continued. “If you help me take Donavan’s compound by way of the Nevermores, I will give to you and your Sebastian whatever cure Donavan has cooked up. It is in his compound on the harbour front where he and his scientists have been working on it night and day. They’ve produced some phenomenal effects.” He paused. “We are starting to see the realities of what Nevermore first promised.”

  My legs started to tremble and I slowly lowered myself back into my chair, not wanting to show weakness. The door opened and I turned to see Burns bringing in a tray of steaming food. I sniffed, smelling chicken noodle soup and garlic toast. My stomach growled, giving away my hunger.

  “Eat. I can’t have you falling down while you train the Nevermores.”

  I sipped at the soup then slurped back a spoonful of noodles, the cheap yellow broth delicious, and the slightly stale garlic bread tickling my nose with its scent as I took a bite.

  I swallowed a mouthful and Vincent sat down in his chair again, folding his hands on the table in front of him.

  “I want to know how you trained the Nevermores. It is more than apparent that they listen to you.”

  I took another bite before answering, giving myself more time to come up with an answer that would satisfy him.

  I pointed my spoon at Vincent. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? Have you seen any Nevermores turned back into humans?”

  Vincent’s jaw tightened. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “No,” I said, feeling the ground start to give way under the conversation. “I’m only asking for a little proof, something that would encourage me, give me hope. It will make my job training them easier if I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.” I was talking fast, trying to come up with viable reasons for him to give me proof. We both knew that the death threat hanging over me was enough to ensure I did as he wanted. He didn’t need to give me anything else.

  Vincent snapped his fingers. “Let me give you a little chemistry lesson. How much do you know about the components of the Nevermore drug?”

  Chewing on a bite of garlic bread, I thought back to the sheet my family doctor had given me on the breakdown of the drug.

  “It’s made from scotch broom and there’s dopamine in it. And something called tyramine too I think, but I’m not entirely clear on how that helps the drug work.”

  He wrote in those perfect capital letters on the board and as he tapped each word with his chalk he explained them to me, like a teacher would instruct a student.

  “Genistin increases the calcium content in bones and prevents more bone mass loss. Sparteine and certain flavonoids are what help in dealing with cardiovascular problems like arrhythmias. Dopamine, when released in the proper form, crosses the blood brain barrier and makes immense improvements and even prevents Parkinson’s disease.” Vincent paused and frowned at me. “Dopamine is also released as a reward when we consume food or have sex.”

  “What about tyramine?” I asked, caught up in the intricacies of a drug that I had almost taken.

  Vincent nodded with a bare twist of his lips. I found myself almost smiling with pleasure that I’d asked a good question. This was dangerous. He was a man who could terrify and yet still make you want to please him.

  “Tyramine helps to release the body’s stores of dopamine. That only adds to the feel good factor the drug induced. ”

  Another tap on the chalkboard brought my eyes back to center. Vincent continued his explanation. “Tyramine can also affect blood pressure, regulating it, which goes hand in hand with improvements of heart health.”

  I frowned. “But none of that has anything to do with weight loss.”

  Again he nodded with that small smile. “You ask good questions Mara. You remind me of . . .” He shook off whatever he was going to say. “That is the incredible part when it comes to this drug. It wasn’t designed for weight loss. It was designed for all these other things. But as the test subjects described their experiences of losing weight at a rapid pace, it became evident that the cocktail that damn scientist had mixed up forced the body’s metabolism into overdrive.”

  “But then what happened to make them lose their minds, to go feral?” Despite the fact I should have hated him, I found myself wrapped up in the education he was giving me. I couldn’t help but be caught up in wanting to know what exactly had happened to Sebastian and all those people who took the Nevermore shot.

  Vincent started to pace in front of the chalkboard, his hands once more clasped behind his back. “There are a great deal of toxins within cystius scoparius that were supposed to be eliminated. They weren’t.”

  “How do you know all this? Are you a scientist?” I asked.

  “No, but I was there when the drug was being produced. And I applied myself to learning all I could about it when it was given to someone I cared about and it became apparent the drug was not what it was supposed to be.”

  He turned to the chalkboard and continued as though I hadn’t interrupted him.

  “The very things that were meant to help those who took the drug had side effects too. The components, every one of them, had a flip side, a dark side.” He made small arrows to and from each component to a big ugly X he slashed onto the board. Again he began to pace the room.

  “Genistin stimulates breast cancer; I’ve not seen too many cases but there are several Nevermores that have been disposed of that had massive tumours hanging off their chests—so large, in fact, that they had difficulty standing upright.”

  I didn’t know what to say; that was an image that came all too easily to my mind.

  “The poison within the broom leaves the person with numb hands and feet, and that numbness travels up through their limbs. I believe this is why they are unable to climb, or at least a contributing factor. The fine motor skills also seem to be damaged a great amount; again, I believe this to be some of the toxins causing blockages.” He stopped his pacing and leaned against the table to stare at me, his intensity unnerving.

  “The flavonoids, they are carcinogenic in the right parameters and some of those seem to be met in certain patients. Again, tumours, skin cancer and the like have been apparent on a number of them.”

  Sipping at my soup, I tried to process all that he was telling me and I remembered what the early reports had said about the toxins in the brain. I was afraid to ask, afraid of the answer, but I asked it anyway. “Are their brains really being eaten away?”

  To my relief, he shook his head. “The initial thought that the brain was actually being attacked by the Nevermore drug and eaten away was incorrect. Parts of the cerebrum are being depressed while other parts are being stimulated. Thus we get the effect of the Nevermores.” He put the chalk on the table and placed his hands beside it.

  Vincent hit a button on the desk, an intercom of some sort I suppose. “Bring Adam and Eve in.”

  The door slid open, and this time only a single guard came in with a woman and man slightly in front of him. I stared hard at them, finally standing and cautiously walking closer to get a better look.

  Their eyes were still yellow, but the slit had blended back into a proper human iris. Their skin was still speckled here and there with the bloom flower tattoos so common on the Nevermores, but their skin itself was no longer yellow.

  Something was still off though and I finally put my finger on it. It was the flat, dead gaze that stared out of their faces, the vacancy that should have had a sign above their heads. I waved my hand in front of their faces.

  “They aren’t in there anymore are they?”

  “Adam and Eve were injected with one of the earlier formulas of the reversal drug. We broke in to Donavan’s compound before he made better arra
ngements for protection.” He came around to my side of the table. “Because the toxin from the cystius scoparius depressed parts of the cerebrum that make us human, for such a long time, it didn’t leave any pathways for the brain to re-connect. They no longer know themselves or much of their surroundings for that matter. But they are no longer monsters.”

  I backed away from them. “That doesn’t make me want to give the formula to Sebastian.”

  Vincent stepped up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, squeezing the bones until they hurt. “What is better, a man you can trust in your bed—simple, but safe—or an animal who is unpredictable, ready to tear your throat out at the slightest provocation? I saw him attack you outside your home, saw the terror it inspired in you. At least this way, you could have him with you.”

  I stared at the couple. A thin line of drool formed from the woman’s mouth and hung from her bottom lip, dropping until it reached the edge of her breast. Which would be better? A vegetable, unable to communicate in any way? Or a monster, at least still aware of me and the past we shared?

  I didn’t have a choice but to help Vincent and his men. It was that or get us killed, and I wasn’t about to make that mistake. I would do what I had to do to keep Sebastian, our child and myself safe, no matter what. But I knew that I would never let Sebastian take this reversal drug—at least as he was now, he still knew me.

  8

  Adam and Eve were escorted back out and Vincent pushed a sheet towards me. “This is what I want you to train the Nevermores to do. They must be able to follow these simple commands if we are to take Donavan’s compound.”

  I read the list out loud. “Attack, kill, left, right, forward, back, halt, quiet, loud.” I shrugged, “Will you give me what I ask for to train them?”

  Vincent frowned. “Won’t they just listen to you?” Again I shrugged. “Maybe, but with Scout I used food to gain his trust.”