Cursed (16 page)

From here though, there should be access to the rest of the facility. I spied a dust-covered metal door. It was stuck fast in years of gritty dirt and grime. I tugged with all my strength, using my foot against the door frame for leverage, but it didn’t budge. That’s when I noticed the panel next to it on the wall. A power panel like the ones in Julius’s kitchen. I must be able to open the door this way, but there was no blue light, no power.

I placed my palm over the panel, but there was nothing. I reached with my thought-energy, but didn’t detect any electricity buzzing behind it. It had probably been fried. The room was totally cut off. No way through. Insurance against people getting through.

But I had to. Somehow. I’d managed to start the motorcycle. Maybe I could manage to open up the door. I gritted my teeth, plunging my thought-energy into the panel. There was a faint tingle against my skin and a weak blue light started to glow. I pushed harder, charging more power into the panel. There was an audible buzz, and the door opened a fraction. There was a pop as air rushed through the crack. I huffed a laugh, resting my pounding head against the wall. A trickle of perspiration ran down my cheek, and I brushed it away, ignoring the lethargy that clawed at me.

I clawed my fingers around the edge of the door, wrenching it open, a fraction at a time, until I had a tiny space I could slip through into a pitch-dark hallway.

I hesitated, listening, but there was nothing but the plink of a drip of water falling somewhere close by. The hallway stretched endlessly into the dark in either direction. I needed a marker to find my way back. I scraped my heel through the dirt, making a line to mark the door if I needed to come back this way. I kept close to the wall, following the corridor, feeling my way with the brush of my fingertips along the wall. It was freezing here. There were no lights, stale air. No one had been here in a long, long time.

My fingers felt around the edge of a door, and I stepped into a room. The dull metal walls gleamed beneath the torch beam. A skeleton of a metal cot had been tossed onto its side. Along one wall was a metal toilet and a basin welded to the wall. A thick coating of grime covered every surface. I knew this room. Intimately.

I leaned on the wall to steady myself as my knees buckled. This was my room. My cell. My room of nightmares. Bile rose in my throat, and I worked to breathe through the contracting in my gut. This was where I was kept all those long years. In a metal cage. Not even that far from the laboratories and the capsules. I hadn’t known how close it had all been. Scientists working alongside my father, knowing their lab rat was in the next room. It was all so perverted.

I had to get out of here. Run. Now. Legs staggering over damp concrete. Thick darkness all around, crushing me. Fought for breath, but somehow managed to gasp the next one. The horror. The nightmare. Still here. Still a tangible thing. I could have died in that room, and no one would have known. Would have even cared.

I came to a corner and slipped around it. There was the unmistakable tap of footsteps somewhere up ahead. I doused the torch, catching my breath, keeping still. There was someone here! The sound became louder, and with it, lights in the distant corridor flickered on, and the surrounding black around me grew lighter until I saw the walls and ceiling without the need of the torch.

I launched myself to the nearest door. I closed it slowly, keeping it ajar so I might see if anyone went past. The footsteps halted, and then there was silence. The person must have gone into another room.

I closed the door, taking in my surroundings. There was another capsule, this one vastly different from the models I was familiar with. Twice the size in height and width. An uncountable amount of tubes were plugged into the side and connected to a complicated display on the wall. Blue lights blinked on and off in silent random patterns. There was a quiet humming coming from the capsule.

The top was a clear dome and was lit from within. I moved over to it, feeling as though my legs were made of wood. Horror struck me when I saw a face inside. A child. A little girl. Asleep. She looked so innocent. As though she were just resting.

Dark lashes fanned across her cheeks. Thick and curved. A small button nose. Dusky pink lips. The perfect Cupid’s bow. A face rounded in childhood and never growing any older. Holy Mother of Hell. Victor was still using children. I itched to unhinge the capsule, coax her awake, but if I didn’t wake her properly, I could kill her. I didn’t realize I was crying until drops fell onto the dome with a wet splat.

I wiped them off, wanting so badly to help the child. So helpless that I couldn’t. How many others were like her? How many more innocents had he used over the years? How many others pumped full of mind- and body-altering drugs? He’d started with me, but there was no telling what he’d done in the years since.

“I
will
help you. I
will
come back. I promise.” I kissed my fingertips and placed them on the window.

I came to the end of the corridor and glanced around the corner. This hallway was lit, and I assumed that anyone that might be around would be alive and awake. No use putting the lights on for the comatose.

There was a door halfway down the hallway with a square of clear glass. I heard muffled noises emanating from the room. I snuck to the door. Pressing my back to the wall. Nerves tensed. A bead of perspiration trickled down my spine.

I pressed my front to the door, stooping just underneath the window panel. Slowly, I eased up until I could see into the room.

There were ten or so people training on red mats on the floor. Men and women. They seemed to be practicing some sort of martial art, training in pairs. P.A.s floated about their shoulders, eyeing every move. It was vicious and fast. They held nothing back. Some men had blood dripping onto their clothing from various cuts on their bodies. Others had enough bruising on their faces that their eyes were nearly swollen shut, but it didn’t stop them from fighting. They didn’t feel any pain.

They looked professional. Bulky toned muscle, large shoulders, thighs like trunks. Most had necks as thick as their heads. The ultimate fighting machines. The women were as bulked as the men, their bodies altered beyond anything I could conceive as natural.

Something struck me as odd. I couldn’t quite place it. There were sounds of exertion, of feet and bodies landing heavily on the mats, a wordless yell. Then I realized there were no sounds of actual striking. Skin hitting skin.

I watched the closest pair. The man with his back to me struck upward with a strong uppercut to his opponent’s jaw. The head snapped back, like he was struck on the bottom of his jaw. But the man’s arm kept gliding in a perfect arch, upward and over his head. He hadn’t touched his opponent. But his opponent certainly had felt the effects of a fully fledged strike. He wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth.

I frowned, watching the others fighting, but never touching. Bruises appeared, bodies staggered and fell. They had to have been hit. Somehow.

Then the unimaginable struck me. What I’d seen clattered into clarity. These people fighting, using thought-energy just like I did. Just like Seth. They were unstoppable killing machines. They could accomplish anything. Machines who wouldn’t be limited by high standards of morality. These people—soldiers—looked as though they liked to fight. As though they’d trained their whole life just for that purpose.

There was a movement inside, and a large man moved into my view. He yelled a curt command, and the fighters ceased, standing at attention. Seth!

This was far, far bigger than I’d ever contemplated. A century before, there was only me, and a plethora of heart-wrenching failures. Inside that room, there was an elite force of manufactured soldiers. Together they would be an unstoppable force. The ramifications were mind blowing. It had taken a century, but my father had somehow been successful.

What my father had started with me had grown into immeasurable evil. Whatever he had created, for God knew what reason, was worse than I had ever imagined. Victor wanted me to use as a weapon. And I’d been unwilling. Been prepared to die not to do as he wanted. Now he had men, women—
soldiers
—who would do anything he bid because they
liked
it.

I crumbled in on myself. What the hell was I going to do? How could I even have a chance at stopping this atrocity?

What would happen if I couldn’t?

Julius. I needed Julius. Somehow, somewhere, he had to be alive. He just had to be.

I staggered to my feet and continued down the corridor, going as quickly as I dared. So many doors, so many capsules. People silently changing, becoming more and more nonhuman with each passing second. The more I saw, the more sickened I became. Victor was growing a killing field.

I came to the next door, looked through the window. My body went numb. I trembled from head to toe. Julius, slumped in a corner of the room. His head rolled to the side. So still. Blood. So much blood. Drops and smears on the floor. Prints on the wall. The worst of it was all over Julius’s shirt, seeping through a jagged cut. He wasn’t moving. Didn’t look like he was even breathing.

I was too late.

Dead.

Julius was dead!

I burst into the room. A fist smashed into my cheek, and I flew through the air and into the wall. Stunned, I managed to turn to see a soldier stalking toward me. His eyes gleamed with gratification. There was the hint of a smile on his mouth. He was
enjoying
this!

I pushed myself straight, using the wall as a prop. His hand clamped around my throat and squeezed. I tried to yank his fingers loose, but they were like steel bars. Pressure beneath my jaw, and my feet left the floor. He came close enough so that we were nose to nose.

Black edged my vision. No air. Desperation surged through me, making my mind spin.
Think
, damn it. Clear the mind. Will the energy, use the anger. Heat grew like a solid fist in my gut.

I brought up my knee at the same time sending the thought-energy out through my leg. It snapped through my body like a whip, blasting outward as I smashed him in the groin with my knee. He released me immediately. I dropped to the floor on hands and knees, gagging, trying to breathe and vomit at the same time.

The soldier roared in agony, his hands clutching his groin. He opened his eyes, and I was on the end of raging anger. He gritted his teeth, hauling his huge body to his feet, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

The soldier came toward me, towering over me, hands outstretched. He grinned. Disgust churned my gut. His fingers brushed my shoulder. I came up on one knee, thrusting upward with all my strength. I built my energy into a spike, just like I did the knife when I fought with Seth. Hardened it to become a solid, lethal object that protruded from my knee. I felt the energy-spike resist as it sliced through his clothes, skin, and intestines. I screamed, pushing harder, driving the spike right through his back. Felt the warm blood spilling over my hands, warm and smelling like metal. Felt bile rise into my throat as drops splashed onto my shoulders.

His grin turned to shock, then confusion. He glanced at his stomach, hands closing around the energy-spike. His legs wobbled, and he crashed onto one knee. I heaved upward, slicing through his sternum and through his heart.

He gasped, blood gurgling in his throat. His face froze in surprise and he toppled sideways to the floor, bringing me with him. I let the energy dissipate, and my knee became free.

My hands were soaked with his blood. Still warm. It stained my clothes. I could feel it soaking my skin. I crawled to a corner and emptied my stomach. I heaved even though I’d emptied everything, feeling each retch iron-fist my stomach. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, trembling all over. Julius!

A sob broke from my mouth as I lay my palm on his cheek. He was pale and cold. Blue lips. His lashes fanned over the tops of his cheeks. The dark hairs a stark contrast to skin that stretched too tight. My face twisted. Tears broke. I made a sound like I was the one wounded. But the side of his neck flickered with an uneven pulse. He was
alive
! Miraculously alive. I ripped his shirt open. The wound gaped open. Black blood pooled inside. Deep. Deadly.

There was nothing I could do to heal a wound like this. It had been given with the aim to kill, but as slowly as death would come. He’d been left here like garbage. And there was nothing I could do but watch him die. I was so damn helpless.

I doubled over, sobs wracked my body. It was all so futile. So
perverse
. Grief, so strong I’d never felt it before, surged through my entire system. All because he’d stood up for me. Had fought Seth for me. Had given himself up so that I could run and live another day. I should be the one lying with a fatal wound to my chest. I should be the one dying on the floor. Hadn’t I prayed for it often enough? Hoping against hope that one day this would all end. And now I had to watch someone I was close to. Someone I was in ...
love
with.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. I was in
love
with Julius. Just the sight of him sprawled in his own blood, knowing he was going to die because of me, was ripping my soul irreparably apart.

I pounded the ground. Punched the floor so hard my knuckles cracked. It was nothing compared to the pain inside. Every cell in my body shrieked in agony. I sunk to the floor, bent over myself in a ball until my forehead touched the cool ground, and I sobbed until there was nothing left to let out.

He didn’t deserve this. Neither had Heather. My beautiful friend who’d laid her life down for me. Why was I so special that people had to die for me? I just wasn’t worth it. People shouldn’t have to die because my insane father made me into something inhuman.

My father was the one person solely responsible for this. He was the one who deserved to die. After all the things he’d done to people. The men he’d made insane and had killed. They weren’t innocent, but they didn’t deserve to die for someone like him. Rage fueled me, bringing me out of this spiral of tears.