by E S Richards
“Oh yes,” Heather laughed. “Just like last time all you want is your brother’s freedom. Well I’m sorry to break it to you Zahyra but he’s not going anywhere. In fact I think you’ll find he’s forgotten all about you.”
Heather clicked another button on her remote and the screen behind her came to life again. Zahyra’s eyes immediately flickered over to it, seeing an image of her younger brother standing amongst five other boys. She gasped at the sight of him. In their short time apart Asher appeared to have grown so much; he carried much more muscle than before making him look toned and strong. He also looked taller and older, something Zahyra couldn’t believe to have happened in little over a week.
She analysed the five boys who stood with him and lingered over one of them, his face looking familiar. With another gasp she realised she was seeing some of Clarke in his face, the young girl from the warped settlement. That could only mean the boy standing to the left of Asher was Adryan and the two behind him who looked identical were probably the twins Zac had spoken of: Jonny and Dylan. As the picture remained paused for a moment Zahyra seethed at the sight of the six boys, each one taken from their family and turned into a mutant without their consent.
Then the image started to move again, zooming out to reveal the six boys stood facing off against the group of advanced mutants she had arrived at the safe haven with. In the centre of that group stood Cain, staring forward at Asher with a shocked expression on his face.
“Asher? Asher it’s Cain. Are you alright?”
Zahyra heard Cain’s voice calling her brother’s name on the video and watched as Asher appeared to cock his head to one side in confusion. Asher didn’t seem to recognise who Cain was and as he called her brother’s name a couple more times the confusion on Asher’s face only grew.
Zahyra couldn’t take her eyes off her younger brother, disbelief flowing through her at what had happened to him. A tear threatened to fall from her eye as Cain mentioned her own name and yet still Asher remained where he was, a vacant stare occupying his eyes.
Tension then started to radiate around the vehicle bay as Zahyra watched on in horror. The commander of the mutant party started asking questions, other mutants joining in and wanting to move away from the boys. All the while Zahyra kept her eyes on Asher, his young frame standing motionless in the vehicle bay, assessing everything going on around him.
Eventually Cain started walking towards Asher and Zahyra held her breath. She counted his footsteps, her heart pounding in her chest as Cain edged closer and closer to her little brother. It looked like he could almost reach out and touch him when all the boys looked at one another and suddenly dispersed around the vehicle bay, disappearing from where the camera was pointed in the flash of a second.
Zahyra looked desperately at Heather, pleading with her eyes for the woman to change the angle of the video so she could see what happened next. Thankfully it naturally changed at the next sound, the commander crying out in confusion at the boy’s movements. Zahyra glued her eyes to the screen as the commander’s party started shouting, scrambling for the door in an attempt to get out of the vehicle bay.
She didn’t notice one of the boys had moved back into the shot until it was too late. It looked like Adryan who let out a high-pitched scream and then a sharp beam of light shot out from his eyes and into the mutant who was beginning to open the door. Zahyra’s mouth dropped open in horror as the sound of more screams emitted from the videotape and then the image dropped off, leaving Zahyra imagining what could have possibly happened next.
Her eyes quickly moved back to Heather and she couldn’t stop a tear falling from one of them now. Heather’s face seemed to light up at Zahyra’s dismay and it was only then that she realised Professor Welbeck had crossed the room again, finished with whatever work had absorbed her on her screen.
“The boys are incredible aren’t they?”
The professor’s question pierced Zahyra’s heart, her body shaking as she realised what the safe haven had turned her brother into. Her brother and five other innocent boys were now soldiers for the safe haven, controlled somehow through their Gen 6 mutations. And they were trapped in the vehicle bay with Cain – both him and Asher fighting for different sides. As her heart threatened to break out of her chest Zahyra knew what she had to do.
“You can have me,” she spoke quickly, locking eye contact with first Heather and then Professor Welbeck. “Let Asher and Cain go and you can use me for your experiments however you want. I can help you get the Tocsix’ working again, only I can do that. But you have to let my brother and Cain go.”
Professor Welbeck looked over at Heather and smiled. “We had expected you might say that. Thus far your brother and the boys have been ordered not to harm Cain, to keep him alive amidst all of the others. That order can change however, so I suggest you comply with our demands if you want to see either of them make it out of that room alive.”
“How can I trust you?” Zahyra bit back at the professor’s words instantly, a thick layer of doubt covering her poorly formed bargaining chip.
“You can’t,” Professor Welbeck chuckled to herself. “But at the moment both your brother and your boyfriend are as good as dead if you don’t do exactly what I say. So I have a feeling you might want to follow my instructions.”
Zahyra swallowed. The professor was right; she was completely at her mercy. As much as Zahyra’s body told her to fight, told her to struggle and run away from the two women Zahyra realised that if she even wanted the smallest chance of saving Asher and Cain she would have to do what she was told. Bowing her head to look down at her lap the professor seemed to sense Zahyra’s compliance and moved forward.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” she hissed as she pulled out a knife and cut away Zahyra’s restraints. “Move over to that bed in the corner.”
Zahyra lifted her head and saw exactly where Professor Welbeck was pointing. It was the same bed she had been strapped to during her bone marrow procedure; the procedure that had almost killed her. A voice in Zahyra’s head screamed at her to run but she knew her fight was over now. Climbing onto the bed silently she lay back as Professor Welbeck strapped her down, the woman’s cold eyes completely filling her field of vision and blocking out any hope Zahyra had left for her own life.
Chapter 25 – Zahyra
Zahyra couldn’t stop her screams from erupting as the professor guided the sharp knife along Zahyra’s back. Her pleading and begging had long since ended as instead she just tried to endure the pain Professor Welbeck and Heather were inflicting upon her.
At first Zahyra had believed they were just going to try and re-enact the failed bone marrow procedure from her previous time in the safe haven. After a long hour of torture though Zahyra knew she was wrong. While the professor was planning on extracting her bone marrow eventually both the two women appeared more than happy to delay the procedure a short while. Making Zahyra squirm and grow weak from their pre-surgical cuts.
As she lay on the fold out bed with her body slowly growing weaker Zahyra’s mind drifted to her brother and Cain. First of all she thought of Asher, of how much he had changed over the years. At first she viewed the change as natural, her younger brother growing older with the advancement of years. Secondly his change was forced to accelerate with the unfortunate events they found themselves a part of, Asher being kidnapped and then their first time in the safe haven meaning both Asher and Zahyra had to grow up much quicker.
The change she focused on the most however was the unnatural change the safe haven – no, their father – had forced upon him. She remembered how Asher had been just a year ago: no fear, no responsibilities, no terror. The boy she knew now was a very different person.
For all of it Zahyra held the safe haven responsible. Having learned what she had on her journey she now even blamed the safe haven for the raid on her camp all that time ago. She blamed the safe haven for sending out the mutants, sending them out in search of Zero’s like herself. Of course sh
e didn’t know whether it was true. She had no way of knowing whether the advanced mutant party that had attacked her camp had been sent with an ulterior motive or whether they were just doing what advanced mutants did. Regardless, Zahyra managed to endure the pain she was under better if she could focus on one sole enemy.
With hatred burning through her insides Zahyra managed to calm herself slightly by thinking of Cain. Something that stuck with her was how Professor Welbeck had called Cain her boyfriend right before she had agreed to their torture.
She had never had that conversation with Cain but as she listened to the words in her head she realised how much she liked them. If she ever got out of the safe haven again Zahyra vowed she would say those words to Cain herself, she would say those words and three more she had been thinking about for some time.
Their relationship had never been easy. Right from the beginning when Cain had saved her life and then hardly spoken two words to her she had known there was something special about him. She still remembered their first kiss with a fondness, a memory she now brought back to the forefront of her mind to distract from the pain she was being caused.
She could smell the forest and the scout hut around her, hear the sound of the wind rushing through the trees outside and the forest creatures that lived within it. In reality she knew the setting had been far less romantic, but with her body being bled for all it was worth Zahyra decided to allow herself a little bit of fantasy.
It was from that moment onwards that she had been hooked on Cain. She remembered how a few nights after their first kiss he had declared his feelings for her too, albeit with the warning that they could never be together because of his mutation. Zahyra allowed herself a small smile as she focused on how they had worked through his mutation, their desire to be together winning out against all odds.
Thinking so deeply about the two most important people in her life Zahyra was reminded of how dangerous their current situation was. She guessed she had been strapped to the bed in Professor Welbeck’s lab for just over an hour, although the unrelenting pain made it difficult for her to keep track of time.
She had no idea how long Asher and Cain had been together in the vehicle bay. Due to the commander’s mutant party all being there on the video she imagined Asher and the other boys must have turned up not long after she left. If only she had stayed behind a while longer, maybe she could have managed to save Asher from the spell he was under.
That was the only reasonable explanation that Zahyra could think of: that Asher was under a spell of some kind. Perhaps more realistically she realised he was being drugged by the safe haven, another reason for her to build up her hate for the facility.
He was just a ten year old boy – although he now looked much older – and he was being pumped full of drugs to make him more compliant. If Zahyra weren’t strapped to a bed that thought alone would have been enough to make her lash out at her attackers.
The glaze in Asher’s eyes when he had looked upon Cain was painted all too clearly in her mind. Like an empty void he had stared forward, not reacting to Cain’s voice or even the mention of her name. And the power he must possess. Zahyra worried for Cain trapped alongside him, although there was apparently an order out not to harm Cain the professor hadn’t said anything about the other advanced mutants. The vehicle bay would surely be a blood bath by the end of it all. Zahyra just prayed neither of the two people she cared about most would get hurt. She prayed that both Cain and Asher would make it out alive.
“Roger that, General.”
Zahyra’s ears pricked up. While the two women had been cutting into her body they had worked almost entirely in silence, only speaking up to taunt and ridicule her. Now she was certain Heather was communicating with someone beyond the room, the General of the red band. As her brain came up with the assumption the two women simultaneously stepped away from her body, allowing Zahyra a moment of peace from the two of them.
“There’s been a problem,” Heather’s whispered voice carried clearly through the empty room, even though she and Professor Welbeck had moved away from where Zahyra lay. “I need to go and meet the General, see if we can rectify it.”
“What about her?” Professor Welbeck hissed in response. “I can’t do the procedure on my own. You can’t let him find out we’ve been delaying it either.”
“Do you think I’m stupid? I’ll be back as soon as I can, but if I don’t go then he’s more likely to suspect something. Just wait for me. She’s too weak to do anything in the meantime, I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
“Alright,” Professor Welbeck’s reply sounded disappointed. “What’s happened anyway?”
“Something to do with the controls,” Heather’s reply was spoken much quieter than the rest of the conversation. “Hopefully we can get it sorted quickly, if not you’ll probably find out more pretty soon.”
“Alright,” Professor Welbeck repeated. “Good luck.”
Zahyra listened carefully to the exchange between the two women, gleaning all the information from their conversation that she possibly could. At the very least she knew she was going to be getting a break from their torture, the sound of Heather’s footsteps leaving the room confirming her beliefs. With her head stuffed into a hole in the bed however Zahyra couldn’t see where Professor Welbeck was. Her view comprised solely of the floor below her, so instead she strained her ears and listened.
After a few minutes a consistent tapping noise started up, something Zahyra had heard many times before from people working on screens within the safe haven. Breathing out deeply she concluded that she was safe for the time being and ran her thoughts over what else Heather had just said.
Some sort of problem with the controls was all Heather had been loose enough to explain. Zahyra racked her brain thinking about the safe haven and which controls Heather could have been referring to. Something to do with the red band that was for sure, or else it wouldn’t have been the General making contact with her. Aside from that however Zahyra’s knowledge was slim and she resigned herself simply to hoping the problem wouldn’t affect Cain or Asher in any way.
With that new discovery providing little guidance in her situation Zahyra turned her thoughts back to her current predicament. With Heather out of the room her chances for escape had instantly increased. Although Zahyra was significantly weakened by the attack of the two women, she could still feel adrenaline and power pumping through her veins. If she could find a way to free herself from the bed then she knew she would stand a chance against Professor Welbeck. The only issue was how to do that, both her movement and sight heavily restricted by the position she was in.
Wriggling her body around as best she could Zahyra tried to tilt her head out of the hole it was stuffed into. When she leaned to either side she could see the light coming in from the lab, but she couldn’t maintain the position long enough to try and locate Professor Welbeck.
After a few tries Zahyra accepted she was going to have to attempt her escape blind. She also realised that she needed to be much quieter, the noises of her thrashing about on the bed permeating through the otherwise silent room. The faint tapping of the professor’s fingers on her screen not providing anything near a loud enough covering noise.
Lying on her front with her arms straight beside her also didn’t offer Zahyra a great deal of dexterity. She could tell her wrists and ankles were strapped to the bed, as well as a thicker chest strap that was pulled over her naked back. She quickly determined the wrist straps would have to go first and set to work trying to do something about them.
It was not easy. With her fingers on her right hand Zahyra could just grab hold of the extra length of fabric that tightened the strap on her wrist. Tugging at it she discovered doing so only tightened the strap, achieving the complete opposite of what she wanted. So for the following minutes Zahyra tried flicking the extra length of fabric around to the other side of her wrist.
Cramp threatened to set in on several occasions and the sensation
of bending her fingers and wrist backwards sent tingles up her arm. After what felt like ages however she managed it, the fabric landing exactly where she wanted it. That was just half of the battle though. Now using only two of her fingers Zahyra stretched out for the fabric and started to pull, working it on the opposite direction so the strap around her wrist started to loosen. It was an excruciatingly long task but as Zahyra felt the fabric beginning to give way she became more determined, working on the problem behind her back until she could pull her wrist completely free and dangle her arm off the edge of the bed.
With her newfound freedom of one arm Zahyra froze again, listening carefully for whether Professor Welbeck had noticed her or if Heather had returned. After only a few short seconds Zahyra concluded she could waste no more time. Even if her escape attempt was being watched they couldn’t exactly do anything worse to her than they already were, she might as well put all her effort into it.
Now with one arm free it was much easier to release her second, although even that took longer than Zahyra would have liked. Moving around sent fresh waves of pain through the cuts the two safe haven women had inflicted into her back and Zahyra was forced to bite down on her bottom lip to stop her from crying out.
Once both arms were free the back strap was easy to remove and with that Zahyra allowed herself a deep intake of breath. The fabric being removed from across her back allowed her skin to relax, the areas around her many cuts becoming less taught and uncomfortable.
After giving herself a few seconds to breathe Zahyra accepted this was the moment where she would either escape or be caught. In order to untie her ankles she would have to push her upper body up from the bed and bend her knees, thus allowing her to reach around and access the ankle straps.
With that movement she would be granted a full view of Professor Welbeck’s lab, almost certainly also making herself more of a target for the professor’s eye. But without any other choice – and with Cain and Asher’s lives also on the line – Zahyra counted to three and slowly pushed up her aching body.
