Tenderloin

by LD Marr

  In the instant that I felt Laz’s kiss, something irresponsible took hold of me. Without thinking, I ordered time to slow down, and I turned Laz’s fast kiss into a much longer, deeper one—in my time anyway.

  I pressed my body up against his and wrapped my arms around his waist—pulling him tight against me.

  This might be our last time together! The thought came into my mind.

  My body was sending me urgent messages too. Demanding that I satisfy my desire, if only for this one last time. I couldn’t pretend anymore that I didn’t want Laz. And I knew that he wanted the same thing I did.

  But how can we be together here and now in this place? I wondered.

  I looked around at the other people in the room. None of them were looking in our direction.

  I could take off both our clothes, I thought. Then I could put them back on again. It would only take a few seconds in their slowed-down time. No one would notice anything.

  I reached down to take off my stretch pants.

  But when I started to pull down my waistband, the need for haste blared through my lust-fogged mind.

  Guards must be coming to investigate the alarms, I realized.

  In each second that passed, they’d be that much closer. Even a few seconds might decide whether these people got away or not.

  No! I can’t be so selfish! I told myself.

  “Goodbye,” I whispered in Laz’s ear.

  Then I moved away from him and ordered time to return to normal. Now Laz looked back at me—dazed but passionate. He reached out and pulled me back in. Even tighter than I’d just been holding him.

  My body’s urges fought against my determination, dulling and almost overpowering my ability to think straight, or at all.

  No! There’s no time now! I fought back. Even more time is passing while we’re standing here!

  I pulled up the images I’d just seen into my memory—dead bodies hanging from the ceiling, body parts wrapped up, bodies in drawers. And my mind won.

  I wrenched myself out of Laz’s arms.

  “Go!” I screamed at him.

  I mashed my lips against his one last time—hard and fast. Then I shoved him away with all my strength toward the door.

  ⌛

  In a split second, before any of them had reached the double door, the loud blare of the alarm changed from ear-hurting to nothing.

  The doors burst open, and two of the biggest humans I’d ever seen stood there. This man and woman were both over six feet tall. Their bulging chest and arm muscles and thick corded necks that were almost as wide as their faces made Claude look thin in comparison.

  Each brandished a huge meat cleaver at the approaching crowd of much less muscular teenagers. The teens froze.

  Time, slow down! I ordered time in my head again.

  Now the two giants seemed to freeze in place too. Each with a foot paused in the act of lifting to rush into the room. Cleavers held high. But in slowed-down time, they kept moving forward by fractions of inches.

  I rushed over, stood there for a moment, and looked at the menacing slow-motion guards.

  How can I stop them? I wondered.

  Then I remembered that I had two more hypodermic needles.

  Of course! Why was I so slow to think of that? Am I losing my sharpness? I worried, but I knew there was no time to dwell on that.

  I pulled out one of the needles from the center underwire of my bra and injected it into the back of the nearest giant, the man. It didn’t visibly affect him—yet. Then I injected the second needle into the woman’s back.

  Their mouths began to slowly open as if they’d just noticed the sharp sting. But I needed to know if the drugs were enough to knock them out.

  I stepped back several feet and sped time back up to normal. The guards’ mouths opened wide, and roars came out. They both started to whirl around to see who was behind them, but they didn’t make it to the full circle.

  Both dropped their cleavers and sunk to the floor, moaning in protest. Then the enormous guards lay still.

  I looked down and saw that their faces were turned sideways. Drool leaked from the man’s mouth onto the floor.

  The woman’s leg had landed on her cleaver. Blood was leaking out. I knelt down and pulled the blade from her leg, but I didn’t have time to do more than that.

  Even though time was back to normal again, I looked up to see Laz and the others standing frozen a few feet away, eyes wide. I stood up and yelled at them, even though the alarm was off, and that wasn’t necessary for them to hear me.

  “Go now!” I screamed.

  They jolted out of their shock and moved forward. I slowed down their time again. Then in my sped-up time, I took off running out the door.

  Chapter 26

  Two more sets of double doors faced each other at the end of the long, wide hallway. I went to the nearest, on the same side of the hall as the room the teens had been in, and entered the code to open it.

  What was inside was almost identical to what had been in the room I’d just left. Almost, but not quite.

  Instead of holding both male and female teens, the cages in this room held only females. Many of them appeared to be in various stages of pregnancy. I looked down the row and saw that Chloe was there too! Whether pregnant or not, I couldn’t tell.

  Just like the people in the last room, when I’d entered this room in my much faster time, the girls began to make the slow motions of people who’d just noticed the unusual occurrence of the door bursting open. Heads started their slow turn in my direction.

  Like the people in the other room, some stood at the bars of their cages as if talking to each other. Some were lying in bed, and some were sitting up.

  Instead of wearing their own clothes, all these teenage girls were dressed in what looked like tan medical gowns, sleeveless and hemmed above the knees. None of them wore shoes.

  They can’t go out in the streets of New York dressed like that! I thought.

  Near its doors, this room also had cabinets built into the wall above a counter. I stepped over to one of the cabinets and pulled on its handle. It was unlocked and opened easily. I hoped to find the girls’ clothes, but that cabinet and the others contained only odd medical equipment and other things I didn’t recognize.

  Apparatuses with large suction cups on one end of a clear tube neatly lined one shelf. On the shelf below, large glass bottles had openings about the same size as the other end of the tubes.

  I closed the cabinets and pulled open the doors of a large metal box that stood next to them. Cold air began to waft out in slow time. Inside, labeled glass bottles of white liquid that looked like soy milk packed rows of wire shelves.

  I didn’t know what I was looking at, but I took more pictures and then closed this refrigerator’s door too.

  I’ll have to find clothes for all these people, I thought. But where?

  I remembered the uniforms in the room with the chopped up bodies, and I ran back there. I opened the tall cabinets and pulled out the long plastic bodysuits. Enough for the twenty girls I’d counted. Then I went back to the room with the pregnant girls and piled the uniforms on the counter next to the door.

  Just as I was about to start freeing the girls, I paused. I knew that an alarm would go off again soon after I started opening cages, and more guards would probably show up. So I had to give Laz and the others time to get out first. I went back and put a hand on the door that still hadn’t closed behind me.

  Time go back to normal! I mentally ordered time again.

  In regular time, the door to the room Laz was in burst open. I heard the sound of voices and pounding feet as Laz and the others rushed out into the hallway. Laz looked my way, questioning. I waved him urgently toward the double door at the end of the hallway.

  “Go!” I shouted. “Get them out of here!”

  Laz stared at me for a just moment. Some unrecognizable feeling jolted through me. But I didn’t have time to analyze what it was. Then he turned and left
with the others.

  In the room behind me, I heard the sound of startled female voices.

  “What’s happening?” “Who’s that?” they shouted.

  But I didn’t turn around to explain.

  I followed Laz and the freed teens through the second pair of doors at the end of the hall. Then I stood and watched them reach the elevator and take turns typing in the numbers of the code until all twelve had been entered.

  The elevator door opened, and they all crowded in. Then the door closed, and they were gone.

  I slowed time down again and went back to the room where the young girls were still in their cages.

  Then I rushed down both sides of that room and unlocked the cages one by one until I had them all open. As I’d expected, just as I unlocked the last one, an alarm began to blast a slow but ear-splitting blare.

  I took pictures of this room too. Then I went to the door of Chloe’s cage. She’d been standing at the bars when I’d unlocked it, and now one foot was raised in mid-air as she began to step out in slow motion.

  From my experience in the other room, I knew that after I sped up other people’s time again, it wouldn’t be long before more goons would come bursting into this room too.

  I organized my thoughts and planned the instructions I’d give. Then I returned time to normal. The double doors that had been slowly closing in their slowed-down time now slammed shut.

  Chloe jolted when she saw me suddenly standing in front of her, but she didn’t scream. She and the others stared at me with wide eyes. I knew I couldn’t waste any time, so I started talking.

  “Chloe. It’s me, your counselor Myrna. You know me. I have to talk fast because there isn’t much time. I’m going to tell you how to get everyone out of here. Everyone listen!” I said.

  I explained where to go in the elevators, and I gave four groups of them three numbers of the code each to remember.

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” Chloe asked me.

  “No. I can’t. You have to go on your own. I’ll give you clothes to wear. And I’ll catch up with you if I can. You might see some big guards coming at you with axes, but I’ll take care of them,” I said.

  I hoped that was true.

  “What!” some of the girls exclaimed.

  “Don’t worry about that. Just go! You have to go now!” I shouted insistently at the young girls who were all crowded around me.

  At that, they stirred themselves and started heading toward the doors, some pulling the arms of others who were still in a state of shock—mostly the ones with the biggest pregnant bellies.

  Before they reached the double doors, the alarm went silent again, and the doors burst open. This time, three huge people lunged in with meat cleavers held up and ready. A gigantic pale-skinned man and a tanned woman—and Claude, whose face was set in any angry scowl.

  Time slow down! I shouted in my mind.

  Everything and everyone slowed except me. I moved quickly to the group of aggressors who were now moving by millimeters into the room toward the frightened teenagers who were creeping backward at the same slow rate.

  I was out of needles, so I had to think of some other way to stop them. But they were all many times stronger than me, and there wasn’t much in the room. I opened the cabinets above the counter again.

  There were some hypodermic needles and what might have been drugs in some marked bottles of liquid. But I didn’t know what they were and whether they’d have any effect or be fatal to inject.

  In spite of all I’d seen in this place, I didn’t want to kill anyone. The idea of killing people turned my stomach.

  That’s not who I am, I thought, although I didn’t know exactly who I was anymore.

  But I had to stop them somehow. Just like in the other room, a metal towel dispenser was attached to the wall underneath the cabinets. Made of hard metal with sharp corners, it looked heavy but not too heavy for me to lift and swing.

  I tugged on it with both hands. It gave a little. I tugged harder. It broke away, leaving small holes in the wall and exposed screws sticking out on the back of the dispenser.

  I stood behind the three giants for a moment in my sped up time. My inner resistance was strong. I did not want to do this.

  I have to! Now! I told myself.

  Then I swung the metal dispenser hard against the back of the largest man’s head.

  Bile rose in my throat, and I pushed down the nausea and disgust I felt from what I’d just done.

  The impact made a sickening thunk sound, and the man’s mouth began to open and release the start of a yell. But in his slowed down time, it was hard to tell how much effect the blow had.

  The sick feeling inside me grew stronger. But I kept going. I swung the dispenser again on the backs of the woman’s head and Claude’s. Again, they made the beginnings of slight movements, but I couldn’t tell what impact my blows were making.

  I waited in my much faster time for the three people I hit to react in their much slower time. During what felt to me like five, ten, or more minutes, but would have been seconds to them, mouths opened to release slow, angry roars.

  Eventually, all three, who were still standing, spiraled around to look at me standing behind them. Angry eyes slowly narrowed at me, and three axes started to lift in three sets of powerful arms.

  During this time, continuous drawn-out screams came from the young girls huddled together several feet away inside the room.

  I didn’t hit them hard enough! I realized.

  The guards were so huge and powerful that my blows had only aggravated them. I circled back behind them again, hating that I would have to do what sickened me a second time. But there was no choice. I had to knock these people unconscious, so the young girls could get away.

  Again, I swung the metal dispenser against each of the three huge heads. Harder this time but not as hard as I could. Something in me resisted that and held me back. Again, I waited to see the reactions of the people I’d hit.

  This time, my blows seemed to have more impact. The three of them were dazed. But they shook themselves and turned toward me again.

  With growing disgust and resistance, I repeated the same process over and over. I could tell that my repeated blows to their heads were starting to have an effect.

  The three huge people were moaning now in their super-slow time. They’d dropped their cleavers and grabbed the backs of their heads. All three were swaying but still on their feet.

  Almost there, I thought. I hate this, but I have to finish it. Too much time is passing in real time while I’ve been waiting to see what happens. I’m wasting time again, and more guards might be coming to see what’s going on.

  The growing revulsion I felt was almost mind numbing. My body felt weak and numb too. It seemed like an enormous effort to move at all.

  I have to! I told myself over and over.

  I pushed back against the feeling and swung the metal dispenser as hard as I could against each of the three heads. I’d never been so sick and disgusted in my entire life. I knew I might be killing them, but panic spurred me on.

  Then I waited again in my time. I took deep breaths of the stale air, trying to recover from what I’d just done. Finally, three pairs of eyes glazed over, and all three gigantic bodies began to make a slow descent toward the floor.

  And then, without my telling it to, time sped up.

  The bodies of Claude and the two others hit the ground with loud thumps. Some of the teenage girls bunched behind me screamed in normal time. Others cheered. Then the girls started moving toward the door.

  What’s happening to me? I wondered. Am I losing my only advantage now?

  I acted calm, so the girls wouldn’t see how terrified I felt.

  “Take the uniforms on the counter on your way out,” I told them. “But don’t stop to put them on yet. Wait till you’re in the tube car.”

  I frantically ordered time again in my mind. Time slow down!

  The girls moving past me slowed.
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  I drew in a ragged breath of relief.

  But then the girls picked up speed again. They smiled at me as they passed me standing frozen next to the three still forms on the floor. Each grabbed a uniform on her way out.

  “Thank you,” said Chloe, as she stepped on dainty feet across the body of Claude. “But what should we do when we get out of here?”

  “Go to Sandra at the clinic,” I said. “You’ll make it. You’ll be fine.”

  I acted confident, but I was worried now. About myself. I still needed to check out one more room and take pictures there, but I took my phone from my small pocket and handed it to Chloe. She took it.

  “Give this phone to Sandra,” I said. “It has the pictures I took in here. Evidence. Tell her to send the pictures to all the news stations she can think of.”

  I told her my phone password.

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said, and she smiled at me. The biggest smile I’d ever seen on her face.

  Trying to look positive and calm, I smiled back at Chloe as she turned and followed the others out the door. But I was terrified.

  I walked out the door too and followed the girls through the second double door at the end of the hallway.

  Time slow down! I ordered again in my mind.

  The girls kept moving toward the elevator at what looked like normal speed.

  What’s happening to me! I wondered as I watched them all crowd into the elevator.

  I knew something was wrong, but there was still one room I had to see before I could leave too. The elevator door closed, and I headed back to check out the last room.

  Chapter 27

  A lone single door, the only door I hadn’t entered yet, was right across from the double doors of the room the pregnant girls had been in. I approached it.

  As I entered the code in its keypad, a sick feeling coursed through my entire body. Worse than what I’d just felt when I was pounding on the heads of the three guards.

  I really don’t want to go in here, I thought.

  But I pushed the door open anyway. In real time, ice-cold air wafted out at me. I saw bright lights in a pristine room where nothing moved at all.