Tethered Souls | Books 1, 2, and 3

{Book Three} 129 | Origins

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ Tethered ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

Chapter 3

━━─── • ───━━━

• Luna •

Luna's body was burning again. Worse than the time she was ambushed by Ramsey Sanitariums' security system or had phycyne smeared across her skin. Her body's heightened cells bounced frantically as if attempting to calm down. Maybe they were. She felt like she'd been stretched wide open, and her cheeks were wet.

She slowly realized they were tears.

Her tears were consumed by hatred and misery, a fury that tasted like blood in the back of her throat. Or perhaps it was blood. She might have been suffocating in her liquids.

Her memories after Amir's door had been sealed shut were blurry. Every waking moment was haunted by his parting words. I'm here for you, Moon. There had been a hissing sound above her body, and she had begun battling her way out of the room.

She noticed the staff cover him, and that was it.

Everything had gone black, and she'd woken in a new room where breathing hurt. Remembering her husband's voice and words helped to relieve some of her suffering. But then she remembered Major Thibeau's devious grin while holding a tanzanite necklace—her necklace, the one Amir had given her just before she was kidnapped by John Davenport—and her rage exploded. Not only had she agreed to have any amount of pain and suffering inflicted on her in exchange to see Amir, but they had both been captured, and she had no idea what lay ahead for either of them.

She didn't know anything.

• • •

She realized a day had passed when she wasn't allowed to see Amir, but she was given three meals, every six hours. Nurse Evans was the only one who seemed to know what was going to happen, but even she was somewhat chatty.

Luna was taken into a treatment room later in the afternoon, where Hisyl and Chemnisol were gnawing away on her body.

Dragging herself off the floor, she was drenched in sweat and chilled to the bone. She had no idea how long it had been since the first dose of hisyl had been initiated and the last blast of icy water had knocked her flat on her rear.

Giving in and letting them do whatever they wanted didn't seem like a choice initially. She was attempting not to make things too simple for them because the pain wasn't worth their time. But as soon as the chemicals were washed off her skin and she could move, she dashed for the door. She wasn't making progress, and by the third cycle of being doused with phycyne and soaked, she was finished.

She was truly finished. Or, at the very least, she wanted to be finished.

Luna shuffled around the cold table in slow, achy steps once she was able to stand without collapsing. She was pretty sure the table's surface was covered in a thin layer of crystals. The amount of money needed to outfit a room, let alone an entire facility, in chemicals and gems had to be extremely high, which explained the country's economic downfall. And that shouldn't even be on her mind, but she believes Chemnisol had shorted out her brain.

Major Thibeau had come and gone throughout the process, replaced by men dressed in military uniforms. Their berets concealed most of their faces, but from what she could tell, they weren't much older than her, maybe in their twenties.