A Cage for Hungry Hearts [COMPLETE]

8. Domare

"Wake up, little one."

That voice. I know it. I must obey.

I pry open my eyelids with considerable effort. As always, I am like a corpse waking up to an abundance of sensation. My body shuts off completely when I sleep, save for some primal part of my brain that is unique to my kind. I don't dream, but if a threat were to approach while I slept, I'd wake in an instant.

Before my eyes focus, I catalog the smells surrounding me. First is the scent of blood: dried and fresh, human and nosfa, DeBrock's and mine. It's far less appealing now that it's dry. It must be coming from my clothes. Then comes the sharp scent of a lab, ammonia and steel and the underlying reek of soured organs. Finally there's mint and sweetness, as familiar as the voice it accompanies—not Grandmère, but Mother.

Next, I am attuned to touch and temperature: the texture of the air, the weight and softness of my secondhand clothes, the smooth surface gravity pins me to. I'm lying on something hard and so cold that a chill rises up through my sweater into my skin. The chill reminds me that I have a body, one that aches and yearns and breathes and—wait. Stop. Don't breathe, I urge it, and my senses dim enough so that I can think more clearly.

I have a vague impression of burying my teeth in some unwitting human. Debrock, that's right. The taste of his flesh lingers in my mouth. I lick my lips to savor it, but my throat clogs with shame.

I lost control.

It's been a long time since I was that far gone.

As my body wakes up, blood slugs through my limbs. My muscles ache. The Nexians must've hit me with tranquilizers, and there I was, too stupid with hunger to control my blood-flow so it wouldn't affect me so quickly. Who knows how long I've been unconscious.

My mouth is thick with sour saliva. I try to sit up so I can spit it out, but I'm shackled by my wrists and ankles. I could break them, but I know better.

I recognize this room. It's brightly lit as anything in PLUTO. White floors, white walls, white sheetrock ceiling tiles. A plethora of cutting instruments litter a metal table to my right. I'm intimately familiar with all of them. This isn't a holding cell. It's the lab the humans built especially for me, my home away from home.

I swallow thickly and open my mouth. "Mother? Are you here?"

She pads across the floor into sight, and my heart trembles at the state of her. She's barefooted as usual, a lab coat hanging limply off her slight frame. Dark circles gather under her eyes, and her hair tangles wildly around her head.

"Domare," she coos. "You're awake."

Calm plants its roots in me, and I let out a tremulous sigh.

"Hello, Mother."

"Sweetheart." She wags a disapproving finger. Her fingernails are bitten down to the quick. "You must be careful what you eat."

Guilt is a feeling I am well accustomed to in her presence. It consumes me now. "I know. I'm sorry. How are you?"

She tilts her head in that peculiar way of hers, her vacant smile unfaltering. "No need to worry for me." She swipes a knife off the table as she edges her way around the gurney. "I am always well."

My heart sinks as the blade flashes between her fingers.

"Is it an operating day?" I ask.

She pauses near my feet, patting the toes of my worn boots with the knife. "I doubt there will be time."

Please Vlad, let that be true.

As if in answer, someone bangs on the door to the hall, and Mother's lips fold back from her blunt, human teeth. "COMING!" She flings the knife onto the floor. I worry she might step on it later. She stomps to the door. The pronounced slapping of her feet sounds painful. I wish she'd put on some shoes.