She slumped.
I screamed.
Kavanagh watched it all with a detached amusement.
“Hurry up with the vampire,” she said, and she almost sounded bored.
“Winter, go! Just leave us!” I yelled, and from my vantage point on the floor, I watched a dozen pairs of feet close in on her in an ever-tightening circle. My shouted order was stupid. There was nowhere for her to run to.
She fell to her knees, beaten as Mad was, and hit the ground so that she faced me. Her eyes were unfocused, and there was a fresh cut on her cheek from where one of the orderlies struck her.
I felt a sharp pinch on my shoulder, and something like fire raced through my veins as I was injected with something. My mind drifted as the room grew dark around me, and I wondered if the stuff they kept giving us would have permanent effects.
Every injection was harder to come back from. Harder to push through and regain my sense of self. How much could we take before they succeeded in stealing everything from us?
***
I regain consciousness in a mad scientist’s laboratory.
The edges of my vision are fuzzy, but I can make out banks of computers along the walls, each of their screens showing graphs and charts as data is compiled in real time. A printer in the corner spits out reams of paper that pile onto the floor underneath it.
A searingly bright light shines down on me from above. I squint against it and try to shield my eyes, but my arms are tied down, and patches are affixed to them with wires snaking out in every direction. I raise my head to get a better look and realize that more wires are spilling down from patches pressed to my temples.
Off to my left is a long table filled with beakers and burners and vials full of liquid. Some simmer. Some smoke. All of them are oddly colored and make me afraid for me and for… who?
Friends.
I have friends here, somewhere. Memories of Winter and Mad and Ruby slice through the fog in my brain, and I struggle against my restraints. The leather cuts into my already-raw skin, and I wince through the pain and continue to writhe.
They are trying to make me forget. Trying to strip me of what I am. Trying to destroy me. Destroy us.
A scream filters in through the walls.
It’s Winter. I know it in my bones.
I pull harder, but I am held fast.
“Don’t bother. These restraints are made to keep Counterfeits tied down, and you barely qualify, baby demon.”
Doctor Kavanagh strides toward me, heels clicking on the hard floor and normally pristine lab coat spattered with crusted maroon. Dried blood, from me or my friends.
“I’m going to kill you,” I seethe, and pull harder.
“No, you’re not. You’re going to lay right there until we download every last bit of data from that chip, and then I’m going to kill you,” she says and moves to one of the computers. She begins to type, and the skin underneath the patches on my arms and legs begins to sting like pins and needles.
“I was happy to let you all run around and think you were accomplishing something,” she continues, glancing at me over her shoulder, “at least for a while. But between the data we gathered during the incident with the wolf, as well as what we gleaned from you and your necromancer friend, we have what we need now, and you’re more of a liability than an asset.”
“And you’ve been infiltrated,” I wheeze, still struggling. Memories of a man with a shock of white hair and a kind smile skitter through my mind. “That’s really it, isn’t it? A demon in your midst? That must be trouble…”
She doesn’t answer me, but she does stiffen, a muscle in her jaw ticking as she clenches her teeth.
Baby demon. The words rattle around in my head, echoing. “I’m not a demon, though. You’re wrong. I’m me. I’m human, like you…”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Gray,” she says, her eyes flashing with anger. “I am human. And I am nothing like you or any of the other monsters that populate this place. I study you. I learn from you. So I can eradicate you.”
“But I don’t look like the demons,” I say, fear warring with exhilaration inside of me. Half of me is terrified that what she says is true. The other half desperately wants her to confirm it for me. “My parents had claws… black eyes… wings…”
“Those headaches you told me about, those were the precursor. Transformation is always painful in one way or another. You finally saw your parents as they truly were, which meant it was only a matter of time before you became one yourself.”
“I’m not a demon,” I say, but there’s no conviction behind it anymore. My rational mind is just catching up to what my instincts are already screaming at me.
“Not yet, but you will be. Or would have been, I should say. But that won’t be a problem after tonight. Like I said, we have what we need now. You are extraneous.”
“Who is we?!” I want to scream with frustration.
She finishes her typing and makes her way to me, a vial full of black liquid in her hand.
“We are The Enemy,” she says, and the corners of her lips twist into a cruel smile. “We run this Asylum to contain and study Counterfeits… supernatural garbage… like you, only eradicating you after we drain you for all of the information you’re worth. You, my dear, are empty.”
She’s at the side of my bed, and I can’t take my eyes from the vial of liquid in her hand. It shimmers and roils, and it looks like it could eat me from the inside out.
Another scream rings out, this one from somewhere deeper in the facility. Kavanagh relishes it. “Sounds like things with the witch are progressing nicely.”
“Leave them alone!” I scream.
“No,” she says. “Now, open wide.”
When I don’t, she reaches down to the side of the table and presses a button. Electricity shoots through every nerve ending and my body bows off of the table, my mouth wide in a silent scream. I can’t help it. She dumps the liquid into my mouth, and I sputter and cough, but some of it slides down my throat, and this must be what dying feels like.
“There, not so bad then, is it?” Kavanagh coos, and I want to shout at her but I can’t get breath into my lungs. My head is on fire and my body is numb from cold, and I cannot move. Not even to blink. “Just a few minutes and this will all be over.”
She moves back to the bank of computers, and though I am immobilized I can feel the tears streaming from the corners of my eyes and falling into my hair.
Mad. Winter. Ruby. We didn’t make it. We accomplished nothing. We are the discarded and will be remembered by no one.
Kavanagh hits a button and the patches on my arms send a sizzling through my body that tenses and locks my muscles until I’m sure I’ll snap my own bones in half. The crash I hear must be the blood in my ears as my heart as it beats itself into an arrhythmia, and the flashing light I see must be the vessels bursting in my eyes.
And then I see Kavanagh spin around, her face a mask of rage.
The door to the room flies open, and rolling clouds of thick, black smoke pour in. Through the corner of my eye, I can just barely see someone framed in the doorway, but I can’t turn my head to make out who it is.
They race into the room, with more figures pouring in behind them, and I can’t find Kavanagh in the smoke and chaos anymore.
Klaxons blare.
Yellow emergency lights attached near the ceiling pop to life.
I start to convulse.
Someone stands over me and I can feel the restraints on my arms and legs loosen an slip away.
The smoke above me swirls and parts, and I find a demon with snow-white hair peering down at me.
My orderly.
“Don’t close your eyes,” he says, his face carved with worry.
He lifts me from the table.
“Gray?”
Whatever’s inside me is erasing me, and soon I will be nothing. Forgotten, even to myself.
“My friends…” I manage to mumble, and seconds after the words have
left my lips, I forget them, too.
11
The hallways are fire and rubble and smoke, and I see my parents in the ashes.
They are dead and gone, murdered by my own hand, and yet I their specters stand amidst the chaos. Perhaps they are my guides to the afterlife, and whatever waits for me there.
They reach out to me, and I watch as they flicker from human to demon and back. My silver-haired savior clutches me tighter to his chest and mumbles for me to hang on.
But I don’t want to.
The lack of clean oxygen is taking its toll, and the fire calls to me to let go.
And I’m forgetting… who?
Something important, I’m certain, and yet it remains just outside of my grasp.
We turn down another hallway, only to find it blocked by a collapsed ceiling. The man carrying me shouts to others like him, dressed in black to match their eyes, and gestures for them to find another way.
He sounds afraid.
I don’t remember who he is anymore.
The white hair rings a faint bell and I’m sure I’ve seen his face before, but the sludge in my veins is coating my memories, burning them to ash, and leaving nothing in its wake.
“Leave me,” I croak, and the words are like glass in my throat. Why won’t he just put me down? This is where I belong, and where I should stay. It will be over soon. Someone told me that not long ago, and I believe them.
“Not a chance,” he says and glances down at me. Whatever he sees makes him pick up his pace. “Shit.”
We’re moving fast. Too fast for a human.
He glances down at me again with those black eyes.
Why are his eyes black?
I know this… I should know this… but I can’t remember.
All I know is that his eyes terrify me, and I struggle weakly, pushing against his chest, trying to put some distance between us. His arms tighten around me like a vise.
“I put you down and you’ll die,” he growls.
“I’m already dead,” I say, and my voice is faint even to me. “She gave me something. The woman…” I stop my struggle. I can’t fight anymore. I can barely keep my eyes open. “It looked like the night sky.”
We race past the body of an orderly, collapsed on the ground, his eyes open and unblinking. And another. And another.
Everyone is dead.
The oppressive heat is suddenly replaced with cool air, and it shocks me out of my reverie. We are outside on the front lawn. My head tips back out of the cradle of his arms and I can see the building behind us.
Three stories carved from massive stone blocks. Leaded glass windows that flicker orange with firelight. Gargoyles grinning down from their perches on the roof. A turret that stretches up into the starry night, smoke swirling and billowing around its peak.
Have I been here before? It seems so familiar to me.
An explosion tears through the building, and the windows shatter outward sending shards of glass flying toward us, slicing our skin and littering the lawn.
The silver-haired man falls to his knees, throwing his body over mine to protect me. I curl up into a ball on the grass, relishing the feel of the cold blades against my feverish skin, letting it numb my aching muscles.
He raises himself above me on his hands and knees, and his eyes search me from head to toe. “Thirty seconds,” he says. “Just stay with me for thirty seconds.”
And we are up again, flying across the lawn.
“Open the door!” he shouts, and then I am inside, and it is warm, and comfortable, and quiet. No more screams. No more roaring fire. No more crashing as walls fall and ceilings collapse.
The terrible pressure in my head eases slightly, and I open my eyes to find myself in the back of a vehicle. I’m lying on a leather seat that faces toward the back of the car, and across from me, the silver-haired man is sitting next to a woman.
He presses a button on the armrest of the door and speaks to someone I can’t see. “Go. We’re in.”
The vehicle lurches forward and I brace myself against the seat to keep from toppling onto the floor.
The woman looks at me but talks to him. “Well done, Ciaran,” she purrs.
“I was too late by minutes,” he says, and there is worry in his dark eyes. “Kavanagh gave her something, and…”
The woman makes a sound of derision and waves him away. “Kavanagh. She’s nothing but ash now, and there’s nothing she can do that cannot be reversed. We’ll just need to get our Gray to my estate.”
“Who is Gray…?” I choke and sputter as the smoke purges itself from my lungs.
The woman shoots an inquisitive look at the silver-haired one named Ciaran, and he says, “She’s been mumbling to herself since I got to her. Whatever Kavanagh gave her is burning through her memories. Erasing everything.”
“That’s new,” the woman says, but she doesn’t seem very upset on my behalf. My suspicions are confirmed when she adds, “Maybe that’s not a bad thing. We can start with a fresh slate that way.”
“F…fresh slate?” I say. My tongue is slow and the words trickle out like molasses in January.
“We’ve been watching you, Gray,” she says. “I had spies all over that asylum looking for someone who might be right to join my little operation. A few of you were contenders, but you, by far, were the best.”
“Asylum?” What is she talking about? Had I been committed? “Did you start the fire?”
She nods slowly. “It was long overdue. And I couldn’t have anything happen to my newest recruit.” She tucks her long, dark hair behind her ear and fixes me with an amused stare. “You killed your parents, yes?”
“I did?” That can’t be right…
“Oh yes. Rather impressively as well. Interesting for a seventeen-year-old with no formal fight training. The Counterfeit blood in you must be very strong. I like that.”
“I’m not… Counterfeit,” I say, my eyes starting to droop. “I’m real.”
“Yes, you are,” she says, “and I’m going to patch you up and make you whole again, too.”
My eyes finally shut, and I don’t have the strength to open them again.
In the darkness, I am finally alone. Her words float to me as if from distance, and the last thing I hear before I lose consciousness is her promise: “You won’t remember this place. These people. Your little group of misfits. What you are. Don’t fight it. Let it go. When you wake up, you’ll have a new family, and a new purpose, and you will be extraordinary, I can tell. I’m Lilah. Welcome home.”
A WORD FROM JENNA
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for picking up HELLION: ASYLUM OF ASH. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did, please consider leaving a review here.
Next up is HELLION: THE COUNTERFEIT CITY, coming January 1, 2018.
You can find me at the following places. Say hi!
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Notes
Hellion_Asylum of Ash Page 6
