by Naomi Martin
It’s obvious that plenty of power has been unleashed in here, and I find myself wondering what happened to those who wielded it. Are those bodies sitting at the bottom of a mass grave? Were they stuffed into an incinerator? What happened to them? The questions reverberate through my mind, bouncing off the inside of my skull, and it makes me angry. Being here, in this room, in this fucking prison, makes me insane with fury.
“Raven?”
“What?” I shout. “What do you want from me?”
“Show me what you can do,” he repeats, his voice tense with frustration.
“I don’t know what I can do!” I shout back at him.
“Fire!” he screams through the speaker. “Show me fire, Raven!”
I close my eyes, drawing my power into me and, with a scream, I turn and unleash a pillar of fire. The rush of energy running through me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. It’s stronger and more exhilarating. It makes me giddy. But, as I watch, it hits the window, the flames engulfing the glass before it dissipates, absorbed by the runes which glow an angry shade of red before fading to orange, then disappearing altogether.
“Damn,” I mutter to myself.
I look down at my hands, still unable to believe that much raw power came out of me. It was incredible. Even now, I can feel traces of that energy snaking along my skin, filling my veins and making my heart beat faster. From behind the glass, Keene looks stunned by the display. A small smirk quirks a corner of my mouth up and I draw my power back into me.
“What are you doing, Raven?” Keene asks. “I didn’t ask you to—”
With a howl of delight, I unleash it again, sending a blast of energy straight at the window. I hits with a hard thump and I hear something crack.
“Raven, stop this,” Keene says gruffly, his voice cracking. “Stop this right now.”
I laugh maniacally as I draw in more power than I ever thought I could handle and blast the window. There’s another sharp crack a moment before I hear the window shattering. It sounds like an explosion, and I watch as a million shards of glass are blown into the observation room, cackling wildly.
Keene dives out of the way of the razor-sharp shards that are blown into his room, pinging off the wall on the other side. Charts and posters that hang on the wall are shredded and pieces of glass are embedded into the steel. As I look at the destruction I’ve wrought, I feel a sense of disbelief—and a sense of awe—at what I’ve done.
The amount of power it took to overload the runes and shatter the glass is staggering. It’s an amount of power I didn’t know I possessed. A smile touches my lips as I see Keene poke his bald head above the desk. His eyes are wide and he looks absolutely stricken.
“I’m a total badass,” I whisper to myself.
“Are you done?” Keene asks, his irritation clear.
“For now, I guess,” I reply in a sing-song voice.
He gets to his feet, brushing debris off his lab coat as the door to the observation room opens. Fry walks in with a pair of guards. They all look tense, their expressions dark and wary. Fry looks at the shattered glass in wide-eyed disbelief, then turns to her guards.
“Subdue her,” she snarls. “Now!”
Keene looks at her. “That is not—”
The guards crash through the door, their expressions dark and their intent obvious. I start to draw my power into myself, letting it build. But my brief hesitation when they burst into the room costs me, and I’m hit with two tasers. Four darts pierce my chest and belly, firing charges of electricity through me. I feel my body spasm and lock up, every single muscle inside of me clenching.
Then I see the man in black coming toward me. It feels as if the entire world is moving in slow motion as I watch him draw his fist back. My eyes widen as his fist comes forward, and when it connects with my face, my head snaps backward—but the hum of power in me surges and I don’t feel anything, just that weightless feeling in my belly as I fall.
And then my world goes black.
* * * * *
The scream that bursts from my throat is raw, primal. Pain is coursing through my body, electric and intense. It feels as if the skin is being stripped off my body and they’re pouring rubbing alcohol over the wounds.
Fry steps back and pulls out the long, thick needle. Keene’s got his arms folded across his chest and is leaning against the wall as he looks on. Fry looks at the syringe, confirming she’s injected me with the full dose, and then turns to the computer beside the chair I’m strapped to, checking the readings.
My skin feels like it’s burning, and liquid fire is coursing through my veins. I cry out as tears spill down my cheeks, my body racked with agony.
“Quiet down,” Fry snaps. “You’re exceptionally shrill.”
“Please stop,” I sob. “Please—”
“The solution is already in your veins,” she says. “I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to. Which I do not, by the way. There is much to be learned from you.”
I thrash my head from side to side as I pull and writhe against the bonds holding me to the chair. I have never hurt so bad in my life and I just want this to be over.
“She is extraordinary, Vincent,” she says. “Look at these readings.”
He walks over and stands beside her at the computer. They’re talking about something I don’t understand and can’t concentrate on anyway, because I’m in sheer fucking agony. Slowly, the pain fades and it leaves me feeling wrung out. Exhausted. I’m totally spent, and I’m pretty sure being stuffed into an incinerator would feel a hell of a lot better at this point.
The torment goes on for another hour as they poke and prod me with a variety of different tools. I don’t know what they’re trying to learn, other than how much pain I can endure. I’m pretty sure that’s Fry’s goal, anyway. She simply wants to inflict as much pain on me as she can because she’s an evil, sadistic bitch.
By the end of it, I’m too weak to fight, too weak to do anything but lay there and groan. Fry and Keene walk out of the room, leaving me there for… I don’t even know how long. I seem to drift in and out of consciousness. I can’t tell. The next thing I do know that is that the room I’m in is flooded with light so bright, it makes me wince. I try to raise my hand to block out the light but can’t, and I remember that I’m shackled to this fucking chair.
I hear a door open and see Keene walking across the room. He unlocks the shackles on my hands and ankles, then quickly reattaches my collar. Not that I have the strength to draw my power into me, anyway. He helps me to my feet and, like a zombie, I follow him out of the room. He steps aside and lets me walk in front of him, my feet dragging on the floor as I shuffle back toward the prison.
“You are extraordinary, Raven.” His voice echoes around the corridor. “You are stronger than anybody we’ve ever seen before. And that includes the elementals in our employ.”
“Wonderful,” I groan. “I’m thrilled for you.”
“How did you come to have such incredible power?”
I turn my head and look over my shoulder at him. “How did I have to come any power in the first place?”
He purses his lips. “We are still attempting to answer that question.”
“Then I guess that makes your other question pretty stupid, huh?”
He chuckles softly. “Even in your condition, you still have that razor wit.”
“It’s all part of my charm.”
I stop at the door and wait for him to open it. All I want right now is to collapse onto that lumpy, scratchy, uncomfortable piece of garbage they call a bed and sleep for the next three days. I feel completely wrung out and the memory of the agony I endured continues to tingle in my body.
“We will need to conduct more tests, Raven,” Keene tells me. “And I fear they will not always be pleasant.”
“Yeah, because today was a cake walk,” I say.
“I tell you this because I’m apologizing in advance for the… discomfort you will experience.”
A w
ry chuckle passes my lips. “Discomfort. That’s one way to put it, I suppose.”
“We must study you, though,” he tells me. “You may very well be what we need to crack the code, so to speak.”
“So you can figure out how to murder us all?”
He recoils and looks at me like I slapped him across the face. As temping as it might be, I don’t think I can even raise my hand high enough, let alone generate enough strength to make it worth the effort.
“I have no desire to wipe out your kind. No, but I do want to understand you,” he says. “I want to know how you attain your powers. I want to know what it is about you that makes you different than humans. I want to know what it is about your physiology that allows you to have these wonderful gifts.”
Some of the things Zane said come back to me as I listen to Keene. And it’s then I realize that the vampire was right—Keene really does want powers of his own.
“So, what is it? You want to channel energy like me?” I ask. “You want the immortality of a vampire? The strength of a shifter?”
He shrugs. “Perhaps a little bit of each.” He grins. “And I believe that you are the key in helping that come to fruition.”
He inserts his ID badge into the reader and places his hand on the scanner. A moment later, it beeps, and the door to the bottom floor of the common area opens. Beyond the threshold, I see half a dozen guys milling about at the tables near the doorway, and the way they’re looking at me gives me a chill. The hostility in their eyes is obvious and I feel an icy tendril wrap itself around my heart, squeezing tight. There’s a dark, foreboding feeling in the air that makes me not want to go in.
“Go on, now. In you go,” Keene says. “Get some rest. We want you in tip-top condition.”
“Yeah, I’d hate for you to kill me when I’m feeling less than one hundred percent,” I say.
“There’s that wit again.”
Keene give me a gentle push in the back, sending me through the doorway. It closes behind me and the guys at the tables all stand up. And when they do, I see that Clint was sitting behind them. Their bodies had shielded him from my view, but now I’m inside with no protection at all—not that Keene offered me much in the way of protection, anyway—and I have nowhere to go.
Clint gets to his feet, anger gleaming in his eye. He walks toward me, his friends fanning out to form a half-circle around us. I’m caught between the wall and Clint’s wall of buddies and there’s no way out. I back up but quickly run out of room. My back is pressed up against the door and Clint steps close to me, his eyes burning holes through me.
“I’ve been wantin’ to have a word with you,” he says.
Beyond his friends, I see other people in the common area. They’re all looking at us, but nobody is doing anything to help me. They’re just standing there, watching, waiting for the show to begin. Clint reaches out and lays his hand on my shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze as his face twists with rage.
“You scared?” he sneers.
“Should I be?”
He chuckles. “Oh yeah, you should,” he says. “See, me and all my friends here are gonna take turns on you.”
“Great,” I reply. “I was wondering what I was going to do with the next five minutes of my day.”
The pain explodes within me as he drives his fist into my belly. The air leaves my body in a lungs and I’m left doubled over, coughing and sputtering as I try to reclaim my breath. He takes a step back and I somehow manage to stand up straight—or at least closer to straight than I was. I suck in deep breaths as I wait for my head to stop spinning.
“That’s cute,” he says. “Real cute.”
“Yeah, it’s kinda my thing,” I gasp.
“Know what I’m gonna do?”
“Take a shower, I hope?”
The crack of his hand meeting my cheek is louder than a gunshot in my ears. My head rocks to the side and tears well in my eyes. The only good thing is that I’m already still so gripped by the agony of my session with Keene that I barely register the pain from Clint’s slap. Silver linings and all.
“You’ve got quite the mouth on you, little girl,” Clint says.
“So I’ve been told.”
“I’m lookin’ forward to givin’ it a good workout.”
His friends all laugh amongst themselves, grumbling agreement. I glare at them all. As spent as I feel, I can still manage to work up a good head of anger. I’m beyond tired of guys like Clint and Sherman—guys who think they can take by force what I’m not willing to give.
Reaching deep, I draw upon my power, wanting nothing more than to unleash the same pillar of fire I blasted at the window in Keene’s room all over Clint. But it feels like I’m reaching into an empty well. There’s nothing there, other than a faint flicker of light. I try again but still come up empty. The collar grows warm upon my skin, but nothing happens. Shit.
Clint grins at me. “What’s wrong? Can’t rely on your powers to beat me?”
“What’s wrong with you?” I shoot back. “Can’t beat a girl who isn’t at half her strength? Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
His boys ooh and aah behind him as they snicker. Clint’s face reddens, and he drives his fist into my stomach again. The breath bursts from my lungs in an explosive whoosh. I fall to my knees, fighting like hell to keep the tears from falling. This is all humiliating enough without them seeing me cry.
Clint grabs me by the hair and hauls me to my feet, making me cry out. He presses close to me, his breath moist on my cheek, the stench of it filling my nose. He grabs hold of my breast, cupping it, and he squeezes it roughly, his salacious laugh reverberating in my ear.
“You got nice titties,” he groans. “Can’t wait to see ‘em.”
His friends cheer and hurl a slew of vulgar remarks at me, deepening my humiliation and shame. Not that it’s any better, but at least when Sherman had me in the supply closet, there wasn’t anybody around to witness my degradation. I cut a quick glance around, hoping against all hope that I’ll see Zane, or Gray, or Elliot coming to my rescue.
But I see nothing except the leering faces of Clint and his friends. Clint’s eyes shine with a light that’s half crazed and filled with lust. He pinches and twists my nipple hard, the sharp pain making me cry out.
“Oh, did that hurt?” he sneers. “That ain’t gonna be nothin’ compared to what I’m about to do to ya.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to will him away. Trying to wish myself to anywhere but where I am right now. But his warm breath on my skin and his rough grip on my breast tells me it’s not working.
But then Clint yelps in surprise, and all of a sudden, he’s gone. His hand isn’t on me and his foul breath is no longer filling my nose. Daring to hope, I open my eyes and feel a rush of relief that is deep and profound. Then, my legs give out, and I fall to my knees.
Chapter Sixteen
Gray
It’s only when I hear the cheering and chanting on the floor of the common area that I realize something’s happening. And I assume that, whatever it is, it’s not going to be good. I get the idea that Elliot could be in trouble down there. God knows Clint is gunnin’ for his ass and isn’t gonna stop until he gets him.
And I don’t know what it is, but I feel something like a burden of responsibility for the kid. I can’t help it. Now that I’ve gotten to know Elliot a bit, I kinda like him. I’m still not so sure about Zane, who’s apparently now the Fourth Musketeer in our little group, but I like Elliot well enough.
I slip off the bed and walk out of my cell, leaning against the rail to look down to the ground floor. Immediately, I feel my blood pressure shoot through the roof. A growl escapes me as I try to force myself to shift. I’m immediately hit by a stab of pain so intense, it nearly drives me to my knees.
Lightheaded and breathing heavy, my body still racked with pain, I push it out of my mind and turn, dashing for the stairs. I take them two at a time and get down to the floor, headed for the small knot of people. I push my w
ay through the group who’ve gathered around Clint, who has Raven pushed up against the door. His friends, when they see the rage in my eyes, quickly turn and back away.
I hear Clint say something about hurting her and she yelps as he pinches her breast hard. I grab him by the back of his neck, yanking him away from her. I may not be able to shift, but I still retain some part of my strength. Clint stumbles backward about ten feet before falling on his ass. From the corner of my eye, I see Raven fall to her knees. At least I know she’s safe.
I close the distance and grab hold of Clint’s shirt before he can stand up, and I drive my fist into his face. His head snaps back and blood flies from his nose. He howls in pain, so I punch him again. And again. And again. It sounds like I’m punching wet meat by the time I pull myself back.
Clint’s eyes are both swollen nearly shut. Dark purple bruises are already forming on his lumpy, misshapen face, which is covered in blood. I can see that he’s lost several teeth in our exchange and his nose is very clearly broken. He manages to pry open one of his eyes open a crack and looks at me. I lean close to him, glaring into the small sliver of eye I can see.
“You are not to look at Raven again,” I hiss. “You’re not to go near her. You’re not even allowed to think of her. Am I clear?”
“F-f-fuck you,” he rasps.
I deliver another powerful punch to his face, sending blood spatter flying, and he groans loudly. He’s a shifter, so it won’t be long before he heals, but until he does, this is going to hurt like a bitch. And for that, I’m glad. I cut a glance around and see that everybody who was crowded around before are all now standing at a safe distance as they look on.
“Let’s try this again,” I growl louder so everybody can hear me. “You go near Raven again, you even give her a dirty look, and I will rip your head off your fucking shoulders. You got me?”
Clint doesn’t say anything for a long moment. He just lays there groaning and bleeding, so I punch him twice more just to underscore my point.
