eighteen

When I next opened my eyes, I couldn’t see very well. There was enough light, but nothing seemed right, not in my body or whatever was around me. I blinked and tried to get my surroundings into focus for more than a half-second at a time, but they wouldn’t stop bouncing in and out.

I was used to waking up disoriented, but not for a while had I woken up this drugged. My arms felt numb and heavy, and when I tried to move them, nothing happened. Panicking, I tried again, jerking hard enough to practically yank my arm out of its socket. Only a metallic squeak rewarded my efforts as something shifted under me slightly.

I looked down at my body. On my chest, the pale blue of a hospital gown greeted me. There was the white of a sheet a bit beyond that, stretching all the way to my toes though I couldn’t quite see that far, and then the silvery shine of low metal bed rails to either side of me. I tried to kick my leg. Only my knee shifted under the sheet, but my foot didn’t move.

I knew I must be strapped to the bed. I just couldn’t feel the straps because of whatever they’d given me.

Who were they? Doctors? Where was I?

Hospital, I thought.

I felt a momentary flare of horror … but then, wasn’t I used to waking up in a hospital? Which hospital was this?

“Drey,” I said. Something serious had happened with Drey, but I couldn’t quite sort it out. I closed my eyes to try to remember. “Pie.” Where was Pie? I needed to go get her. I’d left her with someone …

“They’ll be here soon,” a female voice said.

The flare of horror turned into a flash flood. My eyes flew open.

Ryse was standing at my bedside where Drey should have been. And then I remembered why he wasn’t here. A lot of it, anyway, if not all: I hadn’t killed Jiang. Drey had done it, to keep me from leading the Athenaeum to Khaya, and he said he’d be guilty of treason. He hadn’t told me what was going to happen to me …

Ryse was what was going to happen to me. She was my punishment. Fear hit me so hard it would have flattened me if I hadn’t already been on my back.

“No,” I said. I screwed my eyes shut and turned my head away from her, willing her to go away and this to not be happening. “You’re not here.”

I didn’t hear anything for a moment, and I wondered if maybe she’d only been a horrible drug-induced hallucination. Gods, I hoped …

But then I heard a light snap and the most pungent smell imaginable hit my nose. No, it exploded in my face and burned down my throat. I gasped and yelled, my entire body jerking, trying to get away from the odor. I still couldn’t move. But now I could feel the cuffs biting into my wrists and ankles as I strained against them.

My eyes were open again. The room was suddenly in much better focus—and so was Ryse, leaning over me. My chest was heaving.

“Get away from me!” I cried.

“More alert now?” She leaned back, but only to throw something away. Whatever had smelled so bad, I imagined.

I was definitely more alert. My eyes shot around, recognizing, widening. This wasn’t a hospital room.

I was in the lab—the Death Factory, back in the Athenaeum. On a gurney, in almost the exact location as the man I’d killed. I even had an IV tube running from a bag of clear liquid into my vein, just like he’d had. I could see the needle taped to the crook of my arm where I’d knocked the sheet back with my struggling. I tried to reach the tube with my teeth to yank it out, but I couldn’t. The effort left me dizzy and my head collapsed back on my pillow.

“Get that out of me now,” I said, still breathing hard. “Get me out of here.”

Ryse only maneuvered the bed’s extendable IV stand farther out of my reach and tugged the sheet tighter over my chest, covering up my arm again with its tube and cuffs.

“What am I doing here?” I demanded. I tried to shake my head to clear it more, without much success.

“You’ll see,” she said with a slight smile.

With a shout, I started thrashing. I arched my back and twisted, trying to kick off the bed, anything I could manage to free myself. Even if I knocked the gurney over, that would be better than simply waiting. But the metal frame only bounced and swayed a little bit. Still, I kept writhing as long as I could.

By the time I stopped, I was completely exhausted, every bit of my strength gone and every bit as strapped down as before. My one small victory was that the sheet was a mess.

“I hate you,” I panted, staring at Ryse through the hair in my eyes. She hadn’t moved at all, and neither had her smile. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” I was nearly sobbing.

She reached to smooth my hair back. She had a black Necron glove on. Even so, I lashed out, trying to bite her. If I could puncture the glove …

She whipped her hand away in time to miss my gnashing teeth—and then around again, smacking me full-force across the face. My head snapped sideways, and dizziness and stars exploded in my skull. Even so, I lunged right back at her, still hoping to bite her. But I didn’t make it two feet off the mattress before the rebound slammed me back down.

I squeezed my eyes closed again, willing the dizziness to go away. That trick hadn’t worked on Ryse, though, and it didn’t work for this.

“Are you finished?” she asked, if I’d been a five-year-old throwing a tantrum.

The darkness spun and swooped behind my eyelids. Deep breaths …

“Answer me.”

I didn’t want the smelly stuff shoved in my face again, so I opened my eyes to glare hatred at her. If only looks could actually kill. “No. And I won’t ever be finished, not as long as you’re here. How about you take your glove off and pet me like last time. Come on, flirt with death, you sick bitch, and I’ll—”

She smacked me again. My lip split and I tasted copper. As soon as I’d blinked away enough stars to at least see where she was, I spat blood at her. At least that got her to step back in a hurry.

Her dark eyes flashed with fury, probably because I’d managed to gain some ground without being able to move. “This is no good at all. Dr. Bernstein’s training has only set you back. We have a lot to make up for.”

“I’ll kill you,” I said, spitting more blood across the front of my blue hospital gown. “I swear I’ll kill you.”

“Maybe someday … but not yet. Andre had his turn with you, but he failed. Now it’s mine. I see you’ve at least embraced your urge to use the Word of Death.”

“Only on you. Where’s Drey?”

Ryse’s smile grew. “Like I said, he’s coming. Once he arrives, we’ll give your willpower a test, shall we? Let’s call this my assessment of how far you’ve come.”

There was only one thing for me to do: I had to incapacitate myself. It would be hard to touch someone to kill them if I couldn’t lift my arms, and I’d already nearly dislocated one shoulder. I twisted again, this time wrenching all of my force against that joint. Something tore inside, and I screamed.

“What are you doing?” Ryse’s voice came out higher pitched. She hadn’t expected this.

I ignored her and tried to pull against my other arm, but twisting onto my injured shoulder was agony. No matter how hard I tried, my body held back and I couldn’t get enough force.

“For the Gods’ sake,” she snapped, crossing her arms, “stop being so disobedient.”

It was the first time I’d heard her truly frustrated, and it brought a grin to my face even through the tears. “Then for the Gods’ sake, crawl into a dark hole somewhere and die.”

She looked like she wanted to hit me again, but I beat her to it, slamming my head down onto the bed. It was padded, of course, but I was pretty sure I could give myself a concussion and maybe some brain bleeding or something if I bounced it hard enough. I slammed it down again and again.

I heard Ryse yell for me to stop, but I wasn’t paying attention to her. I only had to focus through the explosions in my brain enough to keep going …

Warmth in my arm told me that wasn’t going to happen. In my peripheral vision, Ryse was squeezing something into the injection port of my IV tube. The warmth spread, leaving heaviness in its wake. Suddenly, no matter how hard I tried, I could barely lift my head, let alone bang it anymore.

Ryse yanked the syringe out of my tube, shaking her head in anger. “You annoying little bastard,” she hissed under her breath through gritted teeth.

“Not a bastard,” I gasped. “Have a father.”

She set the syringe on a tray and then peeled back each of my eyelids, shining a small flashlight in my eyes. I wasn’t sure if she was checking for head trauma or the effect of whatever she’d given me. In any case, I couldn’t turn away.

“I want you to be fully present for this,” she said. “You will be, for the most part, but a drop more muscle relaxant seems necessary.”

So that was what she’d given me. I glanced at the syringe. She hadn’t used all of it, and the tray held two other syringes. I wondered what was in those, and if I would have the chance to stab them into Ryse.

She followed my gaze. “Just in case,” she said.

I’d been trying to say something earlier. “Swanson … where’s Swanson?” I tried to roll my head to look at the windows, but had to be satisfied with rolling my eyes.

“Ah yes, the father you call by his last name only, a last name you don’t even share. I’m sure he would love to be here—I would love for him to be here—but he’s only been arrested and suspended for now, not sentenced to be executed.” She shrugged. “Can’t say the same for Andre.”

I stared at her, panting. “Why … do you hate me?” I hated her, of course, but my reasons were pretty obvious.

She bent down, putting herself on my level. “I don’t hate you, Tavin. Not at all. In fact, I feel a kindred spirit inside of you.”

I tried to shake my head, which meant it just twitched. “Not me. The Word.”

“Yes, and the Word is inside of you.” She leaned closer. “And I love it. It speaks to me. It’s a part of you, but I want it for myself.”

“So you want … to break me down … make it all yours.” My tongue was clumsy in my mouth, but I met her eyes and actually held them, something I was usually too repulsed to do. I tried to see something in her that I recognized. If Tavin and not just the Word of Death could speak to her, maybe she wouldn’t do this to me. “Why … are you like this?”

“I think all Godspeakers are like this to some extent. We’re each just drawn to different Words, called by them. And death, pain, is what calls to me.”

I tossed my head as much as I could. “I already knew … you were sadistic. But why?”

“You think you can psychoanalyze me in the minute or two you have before our guests arrive, hmm?” She flipped her short black hair over her shoulder with a slight smile. “Perhaps you want to understand why I’m doing this to you?” She waited until I nodded weakly, and then leaned back. “Nice try. But not knowing is another form of torment, I feel. Helplessness and fear in the face of the unknown puts you on a mortal plane with the rest of us, doesn’t it, even though you have a bit of a God inside of you?”

So she wanted to torment the Gods, or as near to it as she could, by torturing one of their Words. And not just any Word, but the one most often used to torture humankind.

Too bad I was the innocent bystander, because I almost couldn’t blame her. Not that I could tell her that. She either wouldn’t believe me or else she’d just want to encourage that side of me. And “almost” wasn’t quite enough in a lot of situations, I’d discovered—I could definitely blame her. Because even if she hated the Gods, she also had some crazy God-complex going on herself.

“You must’ve had … a tough childhood,” I said. I hoped the sarcasm was coming through well enough.

Ryse’s eyes narrowed and she straightened all the way. “Shall we begin, then?”

She turned away from my gurney, heading for the door out of the Death Factory. I remembered what was about to happen. The room tipped disconcertingly around me, but I still tried to lift my head to talk to her.

“No,” I said, speaking as fast as I could with my drug-heavy tongue. “Gods, no. Please … Ryse. Dr. Winters, whatever. I’m begging you. I’ll do whatever you want. You won’t even have to make me. I’ll do whatever you ask … just not this.”

She shot me a considering look over her shoulder. But then her chilly smile returned. “What if this is what I want?”

“Then I’ll fight you with every last breath in my body.” The words sounded more desperate than threatening.

Her smile stayed. “It’s more fun for both of us that way, I think. And besides, you also carry the breath of one of the Gods, and it doesn’t want to fight me.”

“No!” I cried as she moved again for the door. I tried to struggle, but all it amounted to was me shifting weakly on the bed in my restraints.

The door to the Death Factory slid open after she swiped her card. “Bring them in here,” she said.

Security guards wheeled three chairs into the room, not just one. Strapped to the wheelchairs were Jacques, Chantelle, and Drey, followed by Pie—who was dragged bodily inside by the neck, on her purple leash, when she planted her paws and tried not to enter the lab.

Everyone who had ever mattered to me.