When Genny woke up, she felt a baracade of colors push down on her so hard she could barely see.
Usually it was easy enough picking out peoples emotions and sending them away so they didn't nag her endlessly. After all she had fifteen years of practice behind her. This time it was different. It was like her senses had been extended beyond touching people, she felt like she could read their minds. Is this really how Will feels? How did he make it through the day without telling all the voices to put a sock in it? This was driving her insane!
She groaned and sat up, trying to focus on her surroundings. A bit of golden liquid dripped from the needle in the anklet. She moaned again, Genny had already picked up enough from Will's feelings that gold meant bad stuff would happen.
She gazed around at the cube shaped room she was in. The walls and floor seemed to be made out of small rubber sticks. Like those inflated caterpillar stress balls you find a party stores. It was weird.
Standing up, she noticed the floor also changed colors. From a deep blue when she was lying down to a blue/green teal when she tried to stand. It following my own emotions, it's like my eyes, but for myself.
She gazed as it mixed teal with green for happiness and yellow for joy as she realized this wasn't very dangerous. She also didn't see a way out of here.
The wall to her right shifted and the tightly packed stands pushed and pulled themselves to form two tunnels. Down one she heard voices, down the other was silent.
"Genny?" It was Josie's voice.
"Here!" She yelled back, waiting until the short, bobbing, brown curls made their appearance.
"Oh thank goodness your alright!" Genny sighed in relief, leaning down to hug Josie.
She was confused when her finger brushed against something that felt like thin paper. Josie giggled like she was being tickled.
"Those are my wings." She said, and Genny gasped as two pairs of pale pink, yet slightly clear wings lifted from her shoulders.
They looked slightly like dragon wings, with long arms stretching out into the air with the papery skin draped between. But they didn't fold in like a dragons', instead they simply went up and down. They were so close to the color of Josie's white shirt Genny had missed them before. She couldn't help but marvel at them, they were beautiful and shiny, with a purple iridescence.
The room slowly turned into a bright green as she marveled. The was short lived, for a sew seconds later, echoing down the tunnel to her right was a sharp feminine scream.
"Tui!" She gasped, and stood to go after the sound. Josie grabbed her hand.
"It's not her, it's just a recording." Josie pleaded, trying to get her to stop.
Genny would have none of it. "How did they get the recording then?"
Josie looked like she was about to cry. "Please don't go down that tunnel."
She stopped. Something in the tone of her voice was stopping her. The floor was a lapping mixture of light and dark purple, fear and worry.
Genny sighed. "Fine, you had better be right."
"Follow me, I know the way out." Josie said, her wings twitching.
She led me down a maze of halls, only stopping when Genny heard the screams again. She was convinced it was actually Tui. The farther they went the smaller the tunnels seemed, it was only after hours of wandering around did Genny and Josie finally come across a steel door with a bar push and open.
As soon as Genny pushed against the door they were met with a blinding white light. The colorful maze behind her disappeared into regular stone walls, and she began to feel dizzy. Two nurses grabbed her arms and tied them together behind her back, then pushed her roughly against a wall while she tried to blink away the bright LED lights.
As soon as she could see again she realized she was not alone. Tied up next to her was Tui, across the room on the other side was Josie, and directly diagonal was Dylan. He was making a show against the bonds but it was clear he had been at it for hours. Four ladies who looked identical and dressed in all white with a red cross on the sleeves of their shirts were poised in a perfect square in the middle of the room. Except one had a patch of skin that looked like it had been replaced, and two puncture marks in the same place. Like something with fangs had bit her. Genny shivered at the sight.
The door opened and a tall man with blonde hair and cold gray eyes stepped out. Flanking him on his right was the girl Genny had been trying to wake up back at the School, Casey she thought her name was. On his left was a man she knew all to well, with his blinding smile and perfect hair, not a hair on his iron and pressed business suit. James Worthington, the immortal slime.
The tall man held out his hand and one of the ladies placed a syringe in it, the glass filled with a clear liquid. Her movements were smooth and robotic, like it was built into her code and substance to glide when she moved. The tall man's face didn't change as he opened his mouth to speak. I knew even before he said a word I hated him, his eyes reminded me of a rat's with the audacity of a silver-tongued snake.
"Welcome to the new and improved, Legal Assault Biologies. We hoped you've made yourselves comfortable for the time being." He looked at each and everyone one of us very slowly when he talked.
"When my father hears about what you're doing here-" Dylan started.
"We made a deal with Mr. Damian, he's coming here in three days. If he wants you, you can simply leave, free of charge. If he doesn't, well, we've already agreed to pay ten thousand dollars to buy you from him, and file your previous existence as dead, that is, if anyone will miss you after three days."
Dylan's face contorted into shock. "Of course he wouldn't sell me! I'm his son!" Genny winced at how unsure he sounded, why did he sound like he was asking a question?
The man smiled. "Believe what you want, but if plans go smoothly, he probably won't even recognize you."
Dylan paled again. His arms seemed to go deathly still but Genny could see he was shaking badly.
"James, if you'll do the honors." The tall man said, handing him the syringe of clear liquid.
Even James looked unsure about the vial he was holding. He seemed to be handling it like it was a bomb, at any minute it might explode. "But sir, this is an overdose-"
The man sigh. "I thought this would happen, Casey?"
Casey walk calmly forward with the same grace as the nurses. She took the syringe from James and walked to Dylan, who had started struggling madly. With one swift movement she had grabbed hold of Dylan's forearm and slid the syringe under his skin. Right where his elbow bent. It was so swift Genny hadn't even realized Casey had drained half the tube until Dylan started writhing.
He was doing the best his scrawny body could manage but it was like Casey was made out of a brick wall, no a steel wall. She pulled it from his arm and Dylan whimpered, falling against the wall. She watched in horror as he yelled, twisting like his blood was on fire. The tall man's face showed no emotion at all as Dylan screamed himself in unconsciousness. Slumping against the wall like a broken artists' manikin.
Tui had paled, she started protesting as a nurse approached her with another, much smaller, clear vile of liquid. This one looked different, it seemed to be solidifying in the glass. She injected it into her arm and Tui hissed softly under her breath, but it was nothing like Dylan's reaction. She didn't pass out, she just rubbed her arm sorely.
"Have fun with beauty and the beast." The man said one last time before disappearing into the door he came from, his minions following him.
That door slid shut and another one opened, leading to the familiar circular room with their dormitories. The metal shackles released them.
"Are you okay?" Genny asked Tui first.
She shivered. "I think, I just feel cold, really cold."
Genny stared as Tui's breath came out in visible white clouds, but the temperature in the room was perfectly warm. She wasn't sure if she should mention that or not.
"Come on, we should probably get him somewhere." Genny sighed, pointed to Dylan's body on the floor.
"I'm not touching him, if you want to help him that's fine with me, I want to go lie down for a bit." Tui flipped her hair and waltzed from the smaller room.
She sighed and looked to Josie for help, but she was already running after Tui. That left her to drag him to a cot. She hesitated before touching him, he could be in excruciating pain right now, she would pick up on that. But leaving him on the floor was meaner than even she could bear to be. Genny sighed and reached her arms under his shoulders and started dragging him across the floor. He moaned softly in his sleep, and to her surprise she didn't double over in pain. She only felt sad, and worried. Worried for what? Was he concerned his father would really sell him to this horrible man? She had never had anything but a few dim memories of her parents but she was sure they loved her.
Genny promptly dropped him on a random bunk, about to leave, when she turned around and at least arrange his limbs in a normal sleeping position. It was then she noticed his skin was burning up.
She frowned and laid a hand on his forehead, which was drenched in sweat and felt like liquid lava was running beneath the skin. He had a fever, that didn't seem good.
She wondered what the man meant by not recognizing his own son, it gave her a sick feeling in her stomach.
She needed to sleep this off.
Genny walked into the next room, so she could keep an eye on him, then collapsed onto the stiff bed and started drifting off into sleep.