Chapter 17
Kyle
“S ebastian? Can you hear me?”
I jam my back up into the roof of my caged prison as my mind calls out to him again.
“Sebastian? Theo? Can anyone hear me?”
I have no idea how I did it the first time, but they aren’t there. I can’t hear them. I can’t sense them. I don’t even feel any different. I slam my back up against the roof again as anger boils through my veins. I’m tired of this. Tired of fighting and being experimented on. I’m tired of them drawing blood and drugging me up for their idiotic tests. I keep blacking out. My vision keeps changing. I’ve got voices in my head, and there are moments where my anger is uncontrollable.
I don’t know what kind of side effects these drugs are having on me, but it’s bad.
There’s a prisoner down here with me. A man. With rugged features, beady black eyes, and teeth he frequently snarls at people. His limbs are long, and he’s practically curled up into a ball the entire time. They hardly feed him, but he isn’t experimented on.
I don’t know who he is, and I don’t care.
All I care about is getting out of here.
The guards are whispering about things, and every once in a while, I can catch what they are saying. War. Battle. The forest. A village. Serums and spears and humans and transfiguration. None of it makes sense. Every time they haul me off for experimentation, I come back a little different. I don’t know why. I don’t know what they’re doing. But I know my appetite is changing. Things I would’ve turned my nose up at—things that would’ve usually made me sick—now don’t. Barely-cooked meat and Brussels sprouts and bones.
Bones!
I’m craving bones for fuck’s sake.
“Somebody! Anybody! Come on!”
I ram my back against the roof of the cage against before a man steps into view. His foot kicks up against the bars of my cage, and it startles me. My vision changes again, and I can see in thermal vision. I have no idea how I can, and I don’t know how to switch it off, but his leg is glowing red. But the bars he kicked are glowing red, too. Which means they’re very hot.
Which means they’re very weak.
I reach my hands out and focus on my anger. I pull and tug as the guards begin to laugh at me. I’m naked and afraid, but my anger is overpowering. I can smell things I’ve never smelled before down here. Like the dripping of sweat and the stench of their unbrushed teeth. I can hear droplets of water falling from the ceiling and people murmuring in other rooms. I block out every single sensation and feel the bars finally give beneath my hands, and that’s when it happens.
That’s when the guards start to take a step back.
I rip the bars from the cage and burst up from the roof. My fists are clenching, and my veins are throbbing. Growing with the need for more blood. My eyes focus on the guards that have their spears pointed at me, and they are yelling. Calling out for help and backup and whatever else they think will save them.
I don’t know how, but I know they can’t put their hands on me.
And I take advantage of it.
“Help me!”
Before I can take a step, the prisoner calls out to me. I turn my face and see his hand jutting through the cage. He’s weak. Tired. Hungry. His hand is trembling and the veins in his arms are physically sinking in. Denting his skin and making him look as if the earth is sucking him dry. I turn my head back toward the guards as they watch me, their spears poised in the air.
But they aren’t charging me.
Someone has given them orders not to.
I stride over to the cage and hold it over my head. I bring it crashing down to the floor, and it physically shatters at my feet. The iron and lead bars scatter as the guards gasp, then one of them begins to roar for help.
“We need backup in here! He’s gone berserk!”
They are right. I have gone berserk. If they think they can keep me cooped up here when Clarissa’s in trouble, then they have another thing coming. I help the man up to his feet, and he points his finger towards the back, his projection leading my eyes to a dark corridor.
“That way,” he says breathlessly. “Go.”
I run with him in my arms as if he weighs nothing. Fuck, whatever they are experimenting on me with isn’t right. I don’t know what it is, but my fear is that it’s the same thing that changed Clarissa.