Elena (Beyond The Wall)

Chapter 6: Attraction

I could feel the water heating my skin and flowing down my limbs as I scrubbed in the steamy shower. Earlier, I had woken up to a small room before an enhanced guard led me to this bathroom. But before then, I could only remember laying beside Lyla in the squealing train.

After the hot bath, I blindly grabbed a towel from the sink and vigorously rubbed my face with it. Then I wiped the foggy mirror and stared into my reflection of deep, brown eyes. My once meaty face was now left with bony features caused from the stress of the past few days and my long, brown hair rested on my collarbones, dripping water down between my pale breasts.

"You must feel relieved."

I jerkily wrapped my body and turned and saw Jake leaning beside the door.

"Have you been standing there the whole time? Watching me naked?" I asked desperately.

He smirked and straightened himself. "Just a coincidence, Elena. I was just passing by. Anyways I'll make sure your clothes are brought to you in no time. We have a lot to do today."

"Oh so you suddenly give the orders around here huh?"

"It's best you keep calm," he muttered.

Angrily, I approached him and inhaled his soothing scent, trying my best to avoid his seductive stare. "You're wearing SpiderSilk, just like Sergeant Brooks. And you were able to command Jennifer Anderson effortlessly... tell me, are you one of them now? What did they do to you?"

"You have every right to be confused," he said calmly, and held my chin. "We sedated you and we were able to reconstruct your jaw—"

"Just tell me the truth Jake! For fucks sake! What happened to you!" I yelled and slapped off his hand. Then he slowly squatted and folded his arms with his eyes welling up. "Jake... you can tell me anything—"

"Do you think it's fucking easy?" He sparked.

"It's not been any less tough for me too—"

"They beat me up." He sniffled. "They beat me to stupor and took me far away from the prison. I woke up and saw myself in a lab with Jennifer giving orders to her workers. She then told me how my body rejected the vaccine and how I was fit to be their new 'lab rat' for some strange experiment..."

"What experiment?" I interrupted.

"I don't know. All I'm sure of is that as soon as I was injected, I felt deep burns beneath my skin which drove me mad for hours. I couldn't think clearly and everything around me seemed to be... haunting me. And she was present while all this happened. Jennifer, she was there, laughing and telling me how successful she had become..."

"She's really who they say she is." I stiffened, remembering how she ill-treated me in the train.

"She's a spoiled bitch full of pride," Jake said bitterly.

My body had already dried up as I moved my way out of the bathroom, walking into a narrow passage with algae-ridden tiled walls and dull fluorescent lights.

"So that was all?" I asked Jake who was walking behind me.

"That's only just a portion of the story. According to Jennifer, what was injected into my head altered my brain functions and enhanced my cerebrum, giving room for x-ray vision, faster reasoning, sharpened hearing, and a list of unnatural abilities," he explained.

"Just like a 'sixth sense'," I said, "only Logan can allow such so long as it benefits him. So can you show me these abilities?"

"No. It has to be triggered by some pills I am unauthorized to take," he answered.