The fever broke sometimes in the morning, I think, I wasn’t sure of the time. I was so exhausted that I didn’t move when the lights finally flickered on. I stayed where I was, curled up in the corner, my eyes shut. I wanted to sleep longer, to sink back into the soothing blackness of unconsciousness. My entire body was aching and my head throbbed in time with my heartbeat. Footsteps echoed around the room, growing louder as someone approached my cage. They stopped just in front of me, and I stayed where I was, pretending to be asleep.
It was Cain. Somehow I knew it was him. Maybe it was the way he shifted impatiently, or the sound of his deep voice muttering curses to himself. Maybe it was the light scent of cologne even.
The idea of recognizing his scent made me feel ill. Thinking of him in that way, in the same way that Kalda and I had talked about boys back home – how they sounded, how they smelled – made me want to throw up.
Kalda. Oh, Kalda. My Kalda. Like a chant in my head, pulsing in time with my heart. Her face kept swimming behind my closed eyes. Even Cain’s presence couldn’t distract me from thinking about her constantly. I kept denying it, over and over, I told myself that Cain had lied. That the blood on the table hadn’t really been her blood. But it was no use, I could lie to myself all I wanted, but I knew the truth.
A second set of footsteps made me flinch, almost blinking, but I forced myself to stay still and keep my eyes shut. I didn’t want anyone to know I was awake.
The footsteps stopped.
“Is the fever broken yet?”
It was a man’s voice, low and scratchy. Not Cain’s. I didn’t recognize it.
“I think so. She was thrashing earlier, she seems more peaceful now.”
A long moment of silence followed. I could almost sense the tension hanging in the air between Cain and the newcomer.
“You know she’s not human, don’t you?”
“Of course I know that.” Cain’s voice was rough, defensive.
More silence, and someone shifted with a rustle of fabric. I could feel my muscles tensing as anger crashed through me, but I forced myself not to react. They would talk more if they thought I couldn’t hear them.
“I know she looks like a girl, a beautiful one at that, and I know you’re her handler and it’s easy to get…attached. But Jotun aren’t human, and she isn’t a lost puppy you can adopt.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Cain snapped. “You don’t trust me all of a sudden. Do you know the things I’ve done for you lately?” A short pause, and I could picture Cain, his dark features twisted in anger, facing off with the stranger. “Oh, no. You don’t, do you? You sit in your ivory tower, in your office in the city, and you manage you employees. You don’t get your hands dirty.”
“You’re changing the subject.” The stranger’s voice was cool, hard as iron. “I can see you’re getting attached to the girl. You’re weak, Cain. You’ve let yourself start to care about what happens to her. Don’t think that the others don’t see the things you do and report back to me—”
“I know you have spies in here, yes.” Cain’s voice shook with fury. “You don’t have to tell me that. I know you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone, least of all the Jotun. You must trust me, boy. I know the species, she will kill you the moment she gets the chance.”
The stranger was right about that. My fingers were practically tingling. I longed to feel the crackle of ice at my fingertips. If just the stranger would come closer. Place his hands on the box. If I could get up fast enough, I might be able to freeze him at least partially.
Although, if I got up fast, I thought I would probably pass out at this point. But I would try, if I got the chance. Because this man, whoever he was, was someone that Cain looked up to, regardless of how angry he sounded. This man was the boss, he was in charge of this horrible place.
He ordered the procedure that killed Kalda.
Fury was burning in my stomach, sparks igniting into a raging fire. If I got free from here, out of this wretched plastic box, the first thing I would do was find the man with the cool, hard voice, and kill him.
They were still talking, and I help my breath and tried to quiet my thoughts, intent on listening in.
“I know you get your hands dirty, and don’t think I don’t appreciate that,” the stranger’s voice softened slightly. “Everything we do here is for a good cause. It’s necessary to find a way to eradicate the curse of the bloodline. You yourself know that better than anyone.”
“To be human is to be pure,” Cain muttered. “Blah blah blah, I know.”
“You should take this more seriously. Don’t you want your sons and daughters to be pure someday?”
“Of course I do.” A shuffling noise, like Cain was kicking at the floor with his feet. “I just wish there was a better way of doing it.”
“So do I,” the stranger made his voice soft, but I could tell it was an act, a way of getting Cain to think he was sympathetic. “I know, I wish there was a more effective way to do this, but it’s necessary. We’re so close.”
“I know.”
“And do you know that when this one doesn’t work out, if she doesn’t….you know what happens next. If she is too weak to be of any further use then she must be disposed of.”
“I know.” He sounded so grim that it made my skin break out in goosebumps all the way up both arms. It was hard to stay still.
“Will you have an issue doing what needs to be done? Do I need to assign someone else to her?”
Another silence, and then Cain said, “No, it’s fine.”
Just like that. It was fine. He’d “dispose” of me, no problem. My fingers tightened, curling into fists. If I got the chance, I’d kill him too. In a heartbeat.
The stranger left, taking Cain with him.
More experiments, that’s all I could think of after they were gone. As soon as I regained my strength I would be back on the cold metal table, being used as a lab rat again. I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t endure another second in the same room that Kalda had died in.
There was only one option, I had to try to escape the moment they tried to take me out of the plastic box. Maybe if I pretended to be sick, maybe if I pretended to be weak and trembling and feverish still, they would think I wasn’t fit to experiment on anymore. Then they would try to take me away and “dispose” of me. That would be my chance. I would strike then.
So I pretended. Over the next two nights I stayed where I was in the corner of my cage. I drank the water they gave me, but I pretended not to be hungry. That was hard, because I was hungry, and on the second day my stomach was curling, eating itself, it felt like. I curled up and put my hands over my stomach, hoping it wouldn’t growl too loudly.
Cain came both days, and on the second day he stayed longer than usual, hands pressed against the plastic of my cage, peering in at me. When he did that, it was hard to keep my eyes shut, my eyelids would flicker as I resisted the urge to open them, to look at him and check if he was still staring. He was, I could hear him mutter to himself occasionally.
He would walk away quickly if he heard a door slam nearby, or if footsteps sounded from down the hallway. I was sure he was thinking of the stranger’s words. That he was determined not to show any sign of weakness. Maybe Cain did care about me, in his own sick way. Maybe he thought of me as an injured puppy, a creature to be pitied.
It was thoughts like this that made my fingers curl and my jaw clench.
Maybe Cain did have a soft side, but I didn’t. Not anymore.
I was still going to kill him.
It was the second night that the men came. The lights were just starting to dim, as they did every night, flickering off one at a time down the long room. Eventually it would leave just the dull orange glow of the emergency exit sign. It was enough to see by. And when I dared to open my eyes halfway, it was enough for me to see their silhouettes as they stood there staring at me.
“This is the one?” came a low whisper in the dark.
“Yeah, he won’t have the balls to do it no more. The boss says he’s gone soft on her. Can understand that though, she’s a pretty chicken.”
“Still Jotun garbage.” The low voice became scornful. “Don’t be perverted.”
“Right. You wanna do it tonight?”
“Too tired. Tomorrow, just before lights out.”
“Yeah, alright.” A pause, then the low voice said, “Go on, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Pervert,” the other man muttered, but I saw his silhouette turn away, moving down the hallway until he was out of sight.
The remaining man pushed his face against the plastic, staring in at me. He stayed where he was like that for so long that I started to get to get chills running down my spine. Why had his friend called him a pervert? What was he doing there?
I was pretty sure that they were going to kill me tomorrow night, but what did he want now? Nothing good.
His fingers crawled along the glass, tapping, probing, towards the door in the cage. “Pretty chicken, you are,” he grunted, then chuckled to himself. I realized in that moment, that he and his buddy had probably been drinking. The way he was mumbling under his breath, slurring his words, repeating himself.
My skin was crawling with goosebumps, my entire body was rigid, dread slithering over me as I listened to him muttering
“Little chicken, little chicken,” he sang, then dissolved into laughter again. “You’re Jotun, I know that. Doesn’t he think I know that? But…you look human enough.” His fingers scrabbled over the plastic, trying to find the place where the door opened.
My head was spinning. The fever was gone, finally, but not eating for two days had left me light-headed and shaking, and the feeling was heightened by the fear. But with the sudden terror, it was also like something had changed inside me, and the darkness all around me amplified it. It was hard to describe, but it was almost as if my senses were outside my body, reaching out. I could sense how close the man was in the dark, hear him breathing, feel the heat coming off his body.
There was a dull sounding “click” as the man found the plastic lever to open the cage. He cackled in triumph. “Got it, stupid thing.”
Had they put drugs in my water?
And there was something else now, it was slowly becoming clear to me. It was the same way the power felt, like I had ice at my fingertips, only that feeling had been gone for the last two days, I realized. I had thought it was just from my weakness after the operation, but it was something else.
Now the feeling of power, of being able to flip a switch, was gone….no, not gone. Still there, but different. I could feel the potential for power, but it was outside my body, it was…in his body. Woven all through his body, the potential for power, right at my fingertips.
In the darkness, my eyes snapped open.
The man had been pressing his face against the plastic, and now he jerked his head back, blinking at me. Then a slow, stupid smile spread across his face. “You’re awake, little chicken. Want to have some fun?” The door of the cage creaked as he pulled it open.
I sat up slowly, a rush of excitement traveling all the way through me, to my fingertips and toes, a charge that felt very much like the power I’d always used, only now it was much, much stronger. Hand shaking, I reached out and pressed my palm out toward him, searching, feeling it out. What could be through this man’s entire system that I could sense, that I could use?
Blood. No, not blood….
“Water,” I breathed the word almost reverently.
“What?” He blinked at me.
“Your human body, it’s almost entirely made up of water.”
He was puzzled, beginning to grow irritated. “I don’t—”
I didn’t let him finish, closing my fist, wrenching at the power available to me with every bit of strength I had.
In the space of the next second his expression changed to shock. He screamed once, a short, strangled sound, which ended with a bang.
It was an explosion when it happened, and red splattered across the plastic cage, some of it coming through the crack in the door, showering my face with warm, salty wetness. The old me would have shrieked and gagged, scrambled back into the corner and wept.
After all, I’d just exploded a man.
The old me had died on the table with Kalda.
Freedom was just beyond the crack in the cage, and I could feel the new power buzzing through my body, charging me with adrenaline. I slid forward across the slick floor of the cage and dangled my legs out the door, dropping to the floor, skidding slightly in the crimson splatter that decorated the floor.
What was left of the man was extraordinarily gruesome, and I swallowed hard and looked away, fixing my eyes on the orange exit sign all the way down the hall. I could escape this place.
But first…first I had to find Fiske. The wolf was in here somewhere. I may have lost Kalda, but I wasn’t about to leave my other friend behind.
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