Temper (17 page)

I let my gaze flick over it and then place my hands deliberately in my lap.

He lowers his hand. “And here I was hoping we’d be friends.”

I focus on Maston, the silent observer. He’s high up in the Company, the power Davyd’s been given confirms it, but how high? I don’t know whether he being here means he’s more or less important than we thought.

I wait until his gray eyes, so like Davyd’s, meet mine. “I thought I was here for questions.”

If only they’d hurry up with whatever torture they have planned. I meant what I said to Davyd about pain; I don’t want to sit here for hours anticipating the prospect.

Doctor clears his throat, drawing attention back to himself. “I’m so glad for your ignorance. It will make what we have planned such a lovely surprise.”

I don’t flinch, but my stomach sinks toward the floor. His eyes are on me, waiting for the inevitable question of what exactly they have planned. I want to know. I want to know so bad I’m buzzing with it, but he can take his expectations and shove them between his fat rolls.

I press my lips together.

“Why no simple questions?” He asks, when I don’t. “We took samples while you were unconscious. Of course. You must have guessed that. Most of what we want to know will be spelled out in biological detail by your body.”

Samples?

Ice slips down my spine. It seems obvious now. I was unconscious, and the wires recently removed from the back of my head were probably part of their monitoring.

Doctor’s neat fingernails tap on the table top.

Those hands. On me while I couldn’t fight back. A fist of horror clamps around my belly and squeezes. The ball of rage I carry with me expands, filling the empty spaces inside me. The idea of Davyd being the one to have undressed me suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.

His mouth is moving, but I can’t hear him over the rushing in my ears. Those hands … touching me …

Doctor’s fist with its odd, slim, fingers hits the table. The thud on impact sends a shockwave up his arm and through his flesh and a heartbeat later his jowls wobble. “It’s polite to pay attention when someone is speaking to you.”

I bite down on a surge of anger. I have to stay in control. Here, more than ever I must be master of myself no matter how impossible the task. How can I fight the Company if I’ve already lost the battle for my temper?

He lowers his tone. “As I was saying, within a few hours I will have all the answers I need from you in my laboratory.”

It’s violation by test tube. This disgusting man will soon know more about me than I do myself.

I don’t throw myself across the table and find his eyes with my fingers, as satisfying as that might be. Instead, I take a deep, slow breath, laced with the reek of Doctor’s oily skin and my own terrified sweat. I push back the stool, so it scrapes along the floor. The dull noise it makes isn’t the screech I would like, but in the end I stand anyway and look down at him. “Fine. If we’re done here, I’ll be going.”

In that moment of triumph I think I see Maston’s mouth, the full lips a little like Samuai’s, twitch.

Crack.

The hand across my cheek sends me reeling. I rub my face. The doctor moves fast for a big man.

He straightens and tugs at his shirt, which rode up in his rush around the table. “Please, my dear, sit down.”

I take my time obeying, glad the trembling of my knees doesn’t show. I move my jaw side to side, making sure it’s still attached.

“Now, where were we?” He claps his hands together. “I just bet you’re wondering why you’re here?”

“No.”

His smile falters, but he continues as though I haven’t spoken. “Maston and I were discussing our little experiment. He wanted to cut our losses. However, you’ll be pleased to know I have assured him our tools have been misplaced rather than broken.”

“What do you mean tools?”

I can guess the answer but I’m buying time. He’s talking about us and the experiment is the ship. When he says ‘misplaced’ he must be talking about our escape from the ship, but he’s confident they can still use us. How? No one will willingly join the Company after what they’ve done. Lifers and Fishies alike are angry, and would sooner fight against the Company than fight for them. Bringing us here would put them all in danger unless …

His finger hovers over the Remote Device.

Unless they’ve come up with a way to control us or somehow use our bodies against us. I suspect I’m about to be a demonstration.

“You, my dear, are my tool.” There’s something possessive in his tone that makes me edge as far back on the stool as I can. “You and the others. Ready to fight for me when war comes again.”

“Not much we can do against another natural disaster.”

He sighs and turns toward Maston. “She doesn’t believe in our visitors from outer space. How very naïve of her. Where does she think the tech advances have come from?”

Maston says nothing. He seems bored by the whole thing.

If I keep the doctor talking, Maston might grow bored enough to walk out. “There are always advancements,” I argue. “In any society technological breakthroughs can happen as a result of human intelligence. I might not have studied much history as a lowly servant, but you can’t tell me the invention of the telephone or the motor car were results of exposure to alien technology.”

“You fool,” he snarls. “The Upheaval changed the game, any idiot can see that.”

I don’t know what to believe. The Pelican showed the Company is serious about creating a force to fight someone, but powerful people like powerful armies whether they have an enemy or not. I’m not in the mood to be agreeable.

I shrug. “Whatever.”

“You’ll change your tune when they come. Then you’ll be wishing you’d listened to us.” He sounds positively excited at the prospect of invasion. He can be because he knows it won’t be him on the front lines.

And it won’t be me either. “How about we agree to disagree and I won’t lose any sleep over it?”

Any further argument he might make is cut off by Maston’s hand on his arm and a glance at the device. It’s all the doctor needs to remember the reason we’re here. His precious demonstration.

My hope that Maston might end this before it begins drifts away like smoke from one of the big fire pits set up to feed everyone at camp.

Camp. How long has it been since I left? I picture the council calling a meeting and discussing my failure. Maybe they’ve already agreed I should never have been trusted with such a task.

“Are you ready?” Doctor asks. His long, fine fingers play across the surface of the device, drawing my attention to it.

I get it now. He wants me to watch. This is his big moment in front of the boss, and he wants all the audience he can get for the show. Even me.

I don’t have to give it to him.

I stare at the table. What I thought was smooth black paint is actually a deep, dark stain on a solid piece of wood. There are faint grains meandering across the expanse from one end all the way to the other.

I will not watch.

I will not give him the satisfaction. The grains are my focus, they are all that exist. I stare until my eyes water, tracing the grains.

“Dance,” he cries.

Pain. Impossible pain. Rippling through my arms. They fly up, beyond my control, arcing in spasms above my head.

“Look at the puppet dance.” Doctor trips over his words with excitement.

I fight it. Straining the muscles in my shoulders, trying to drag my arms to my sides. More pain. The grain of the wood blurs as hot tears fill my eyes.

I can’t.
Fight it.
I can’t.

Minutes, hours, years. And then it’s gone. My arms fall like the invisible strings holding them aloft have been severed in one swoop. Light-headed from lack of pain, I struggle to stay upright. I flex my arms, stifling a cry when the muscles respond. They’re mine again.

But he’s not done.

“That was fun for a start.”

I make the mistake of lifting my head.

His eyes shine with delight. “Kneel.”

“No.” I push the refusal out through a throat clogged with emotion and teeth ground together.

Any pretense at playing mind games with him is gone. I have nothing left, no cleverness, no wily attempt to trick him into revealing more than he plans in case it gives me an upper hand some unknown time in the future. But I have my pride

“No.” I manage it a bit louder this time.

Sweat sticks my singlet to my skin. I can feel the damp pooling in every crevice of my body.

Knowing what to expect doesn’t help. His finger pulses and the pain slams on. All at once. Zero to oh-please-make-it-stop at the twitch of a finger.

But I don’t kneel.

“You will give in.” Doctor sounds so sure.

Speech fails me, but I jerk my head, so hard I taste hot copper of blood where my teeth graze my tongue. No.

The grains. I wind my eyes along that tiny, safe, and swirling path. Each one becomes a person in my head. A memorial for the lives I’ve left behind. Mother, Zed, even Tesae. And then I count more. Those waiting for me back at the camp. Samuai, Kaih. Lady, Keane, Toby … I trace more and more lines. Every person I’ve met or heard of gets one, and I force myself to follow each line as far as I can.

My body lies somewhere far away. I don’t know what it’s doing. All that’s left is the grains and the edge of the table and keeping some corner of my mind out of his reach.

He is the pain. The pain is him, and I know now this is it. It will never ever end and I can’t win but I can hold on to the grains and the lines and the piece of me he can’t reach with his device.

“Enough.” Maston’s order penetrates my brain like a merciful shot, putting me out of my misery.

And the pain is gone.

I fall forward, barely turning my head in time to stop my nose hitting the ground. Instead it’s my cheek and the hard, steady surface welcomes my skin. Cool against the fever burning me up from the inside. I wrap my arms around my knees, rocking slightly. A ball of jelly muscles and complete humiliation.

Maston’s first word in here is also his last. He stands and walks to the far wall. There, he swipes a palm across the door and waits for the doctor to accompany him. He glances down at me, prostrate on the floor. Our gazes meet and I think maybe there’s a spark of sympathy in his eyes, but I can’t be sure.

A moment later, I’m alone.

I think I could lie here forever. There’s an ache in my face and I realize it’s from grinning. The absence of pain feels too good to do anything else.

Lying here and not moving feels like the best damn idea I ever had, but ten seconds is all I give myself.

At the end of the mental count, I push myself upright on protesting arms wobbly with aching muscles. I won’t be alone for long. When he comes I will be waiting with my head up and back straight if it kills me.

By the time I manage to get to my feet, I’m afraid it might.

I’m just in time. There’s a swish, and the door I came through opens again and Davyd is there. I stink of sweat and I fear I pissed myself when my mind sought sanctuary from my body. Davyd will notice. Nothing escapes him and the mess I’ve made of myself will be no different. My cheeks burn, but I force my chin up and look him in the eye. “Piece of cake.”

He laughs. A rumble that washes over me and soothes like a rough hug.

I sway.

He crosses to me in two strides. “You’ll return to your room until you are next required for questioning.”

“More?” No sound comes out when I ask, but he reads my lips.

“Possibly.”

But his eyes say no, and I cling to that inside to keep upright because right now I simply can’t do more. I’ve done enough.

I nod and shake off what I think is about to be an arm offered to help me walk. Leaning on someone would be nice but it would let him see how much the questioning took out of me. I take a step toward the door and don’t look back, afraid I’ll see bodily fluids on the ground where I fell.

I make it out of the door before he speaks again. “Collapse,” he mutters.

“No.”

“This isn’t the time to show how tough you are. What you did in there was enough. Now it’s time to play sick prisoner.”

He saw it. Shame tries to find a foothold but I left it somewhere after the puppet show. “Or what?”

“Or find yourself in the holding cells instead of the medical bay.”

The cells, I saw them down the other end of this corridor. “Why is there only one guard?”

“Did you see the archway?”

“Yes, so?”

“Think of it as a Q wall generator. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, all at the flick of a switch. It isolates the cells from the rest of the Company’s operation.”

“I’m resistant.”

“You are as far as you know, but you’d want to be sure such a blast wouldn’t do damage.”

He’s right. Being close to the Company doctors and scientists are my best hope of getting my hands on something I can take back to camp. It’s clear even to me the security in the holding cells could only be higher. Closer objective and more chance of escape—I don’t need any more convincing where I’m better off.

I hold his gray gaze a moment more, ignoring the usual sparks that result. I want there to be no mistaking that this is a choice I’m making.

I roll my eyes back and crumple. Knees liquid and arms jelly, I head for the floor. The hard, shiny floor. Oh but it’s going to hurt when I land. As much as I can without giving the act away, I brace myself and plan to roll to soften the impact.

Strong arms come out to catch me. Davyd’s arms. There’s no gentleness in their grip. He jerks me upright so my head collides with the hard muscle of his shoulder. “Get the medics,” he shouts. “She’s shutting down.”

[Samuai]

Keane’s dark eyes appraise me, and I fear everything I know is written on my face. Then he shakes his head. “Women, huh? But I’d rather you didn’t lead Megs on if you don’t return her feelings. She’s been through enough.” There’s a threat in his tone.

It’s like I’m going out of my way to make an enemy of this man. Digging up his secrets, conspiring with his prisoner, and now messing with a girl he seems to consider family.