Chapter 6

Everything has fallen apart. If I thought my life was unbearable before, now I know the true meaning of despair.

In the past twenty-four hours, Aezok drugged himself and tried to assault me, again; the prisoner nearly strangled me to death; and I witnessed a rape, or what was probably a rape. I didn't stay too watch, coward that I am.

Could I have stopped it? I huddle on my cot, biting my lip as I trace my fingers across the bruising on my neck. It hurts to swallow. It hurts to think about how close I came to death.

It hurts to remember the strained, "No," Viz'en groaned when Inde touched him.

He'd been powerless, the same way he was when Inde and Aezok pried the tusks from his jaw a few days ago. There'd been so much blood, I thought for sure they'd killed him. It took all of my nursing skill to staunch the blood and clean his wounds, packing the holes in his jaw with clean gauze. Severe dental trauma. Uncontrolled post-extraction bleeding.

I healed him then. And I should have stayed in my cell last night, nursing my scrapes from Aezok's attempted assault while he burned with the newest iteration of his disgusting black serum.

Instead, like a fool, I went to grab a protein bar and to check on Viz'en again. I was worried about infection, considering the trauma to his jaw. In the quiet corridor, however, I hesitated. A strange scent filled the air, musky and rich, and it chased all thoughts of stale, frozen food from my head. Breathing deeply, I felt my tense muscles uncoil. My new bruises stopped their thick aching. I swayed on my feet.

Following the scent, my slippers shuffling in the quiet hall, I peeked into the lab. A gray cloud hazed the air. Inde stood in front of a fan, wafting a beaker of clear liquid back and forth. Viz'en lay unmoving on his back in his cell, his chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed in the gas. His slitted eyes tracked me as I entered the room. Under the weight of his gaze, I felt like a butterfly, pinned in place.

My heart pounded hard in my chest. What were they doing to him now? Poisoning him? The gas didn't smell like poison. It smelled rich, like campfire smoke on a cold night, and lush, like being wrapped in a thick, soft blanket. Sudden heat flooded my body. A dampness grew between my thighs as, under the rough cloth of my uniform, my nipples tightened. I leaned toward the cage.

Nope. No way.

I reeled back, my fingertips itching to grab the flask and break it on top of Inde's head.

As if he sensed my thoughts, Inde's red eye swiveled in my direction. He smiled, a fake flash of white teeth that made my skin crawl. He set the beaker down carefully and with two long strides, reached me.

I struggled, but with my thoughts fogged with the unknown gas and my injuries from earlier in the day, in moments I found myself naked and flung into Viz'en's cell. I crouched for a long moment, my thoughts whirling with dread and still, somehow, lust. He watched me with dark pupils blown wide, and the pulse between my legs throbbed like a drum. Every instinct told me to climb him, to wrestle his muscled body flat and lick his skin. Panting, I scrabbled at the bars behind me.

Did Inde want him to kill me? Or was I some new bait for the "Wrath," that toxin Aezok wanted to extract? The gas grew thicker in the air.

My blurry eyes scanned Viz'en's red, heaving body, looking for a weakness, before my gaze snagged on the enormous erection tenting his pants. Lucidity burned through the haze in my brain. It had to be the gas in the air. He was too injured, too out of it to be feeling any kind of ardor. Inde was drugging us both.

I opened my mouth to warn him, but my inhale filled my lungs with more of the rich scent. I swayed, my muscles suddenly pliant and soft.

The musky air made my thoughts so heavy, my reaction time so slow, I felt like I watched myself from a great distance. Viz'en lunged for me, his face feral and his skin glowing crimson, and I parted my legs like a whore. I wanted him. I arched my back, flashing my wet pussy. I didn't care that my thoughts swam, or his eyes burned with hate. My body yearned for him, for this man who smelled like everything decadent and delicious in the world.

But he didn't want me. His thick fingers encircled my neck and he squeezed. Claws pricked into my skin.

The next moments are a blur in my memory now. He wanted to kill me, I was sure of it, but now, as I trace my fingertips over my lips as I sit on my cot, there's also a faint sensation of his mouth on mine. I think he kissed me?

Then Inde tazed him again and pulled me from the cage.

Sprawled on the cold floor, my thoughts swimming and my neck burning with pain, I watched Inde go in. He wrestled Viz'en's pants down to his knees and hooked a tube to his erection.

I scrambled to my feet, screaming as bile flooded my throat with acid. I tried to grab Inde's arm, but in the dark and hazy light, I stumbled, groping empty air. Inde turned a switch, and Viz'en's back arched, his hips pumping. A garbled rasp leaked from his throat.

I fled.

Now I don't know what to do. I don't know if Viz'en's alive in his cell. Part of me wants to check on him, but what if Aezok is about to come barreling down the hall, his veins blackening with a new version of his serum, ready to try to assault me again?

I wonder if Viz'en knows what happened. I wonder if he remembers me in his cell, or if the gas messed with his mind the way it did mine. Though I think I remember everything. The way he looked at me, like he loathed me, but then the way his grip softened around my neck.

I touch the bruising again.

Aezok and Inde have taken his blood, his tusks, and now his semen. To them, he's no better than a beastie to be harvested for parts. Whatever they're planning to accomplish with their formula, they must be close. Bones and blood and the essence of life. There's nothing else they can pull from Viz'en's body unless they skin him. I rub a hand across my stomach, shivering.

Either they're perfecting their formula right now, or they're preparing to write off the experiment and kill the prisoner.

If the serum is ready, I swallow hard, Aezok's coming for me. My stomach clenches again, the pain of the bruises in my flesh compounding with the empty ache of my insides. But I'm not hungry anymore.

My heart in my throat, I scramble to my feet. The light through the thick covering over my window is still gray, so it must be early. I can work on the bars for a while without getting caught, as long as I keep my ears perked.

Goosebumps erupt across my skin. I shiver again, rubbing my hands up and down my arms. The window isn't big enough for Viz'en's large body. Can I live with myself if I leave him behind?

INthe end, I don't even hear them coming. After working for a few hours at the loosening bars, my arms above my head and my feet on my tiptoes, my stomach empty, I got so dizzy I had to lay down on my cot. I fell asleep, or passed out, and I woke up spreadeagled on the counter in Inde's lab.

The cold metal under my back is like ice. I can't move my wrists or my ankles, but I can lift my head. I scan the room, watching the thick, black serum drip through the tubes suspended above. Craning my neck, I can just see into the other lab. Viz'en's on the floor of his cell, unmoving. Is he dead?

There's a sensation of movement behind me before Inde steps into view. He's in his lab coat, and he's carrying a box. I eye it with trepidation, my pulse rabbiting in my throat.

"What's happening?" I ask. Is this a new punishment? Did Aezok figure out I've been trying to escape?

Inde shrugs, placing the box by my hip. "Plan B."

What does that mean? I want to shout, but I know that'll just make him smirk at me and refuse to answer. I have to be smart. I'm trapped in place. I have to use my brain. Too bad it's whirling and spinning in panic. I will myself to calm down. To think.

I shift my hips, trying to ignore the fact he can see every inch of my body. It helps that I know he's never viewed me as a sexual being. I'm a robot to him, a lab drudge.

That thought actually makes my brain pause its buzzing. A lab drudge doesn't get strapped to a table. Only specimens get that treatment. I swallow hard. Am I now a beastie about to be harvested?

My spiking pulse shifts into overdrive and my head swims.

I need to think. I can't panic. "What—"

I hiss, watching him draw blood from my wrist closest to him. He places the vial inside the box and then smiles at whatever results he sees.

My eyes scan the room. I don't know what to do. I can't breathe—there's a huge weight on my chest, pressing my lungs into the cold table. Despite my darting eyes, there's no help for me in the dark tubes, on the sterile floors. I shiver, and my thoughts coalesce into a single realization. I'm about to die.

I should have worked harder at escaping. I should have tried again and again to bust out that window—forget the vacuum robots and the telltale dust. At least I could have died fighting. Instead, I'm going to be chopped into pieces, like I watched Inde and Aezok chop all those beasties.

I think of my life on Earth, wishing with everything in me this entire year was just a dream. I'm going to wake up in my apartment. Slimer is going to chirp in my ear, letting me know breakfast is late. Squeezing my eyes shut, I will it to be. I'm home. This is a nightmare. I'm home.

A cold finger touches my stomach and I rocket out of my illusion with a panicked shout. I scream, rearing away from Inde's metal hand. He presses hard against my abdomen and clamps another bar across my hips. My lower body is immobile, now, and my mind is static with horror.

My voice a low, inarticulate growl, I buck, but the restraints hold me in place. My vision sparks. In a moment, I'm back in time in my cage on the alien spaceship that first kidnapped me. I'm staring at the grate on the floor as my body slides toward it. I'm going to disappear into the black vastness of space.

I scream again, bucking harder. I'm not ready for this. I want more. I can't go out like this. I have to atone. I have to survive so I can—

Aezok appears by my side like a psycho jack-in-the-box, and his gleaming red eyes kill the remnants of my control. I can't. I can't. I lurch and howl. I dig my fingernails into the hard metal counter under me. A part of my brain registers the thick tube Inde's holding, the bulb in his silvery palm, and a part of me is shrieking at a decibel no one can hear. I'm mute. I'm terrified.

This is everything I feared. I'm such a compliant idiot. I knew this was coming. I never had a chance. My broken window bars. They mean nothing now. This is it. This was always my fate. Strapped to a cold table and at the mercy of sinister aliens. I should have fought back a year ago, back before my soul darkened with the weight of all the beasties I helped shepherd into death. It would have been a cleaner way to go.

I reach for the black void, desperate to escape, at least in my mind. But I can't manage the dissociation. Inde's metal fingers are too icy on my inner thighs, Aezok's heavy breathing too loud in my ears. I will the dark to flood my brain as the straps pull my legs further apart.

"Please, don't," I whimper.

Aezok flashes a gleaming grin at me. "Your compliance will be worth it, little female. For the next ten months or so, you will be pampered. When you give birth to a healthy male Kral, we will be the perfect family. For a little while, at least."

I shake my head at him. I can't speak past the horror clogging my throat with unspent shrieks. I can't let this happen. I can't stop it.

My skin crawls in revulsion as the bulb clears my vulva. It's painfully thick and cold, scraping my dry vaginal walls as Inde inserts it deeper into my womb. The agonizing jolt as it hits my cervix releases a new shriek from my lips. I writhe and wail, fighting the restraints, fighting to ignore the burning sensation of the bulb retracting, fighting the knowledge I've just been impregnated by a maniac who wants another hybrid body for his gruesome experiments.

The black void reaches for me, and I try to fall into its depths. I'm going to close my eyes, and everything will disappear. And maybe I'll never wake up. Maybe I can will death to take me away. I send a plea into the darkness.

For a few moments, I float, the sounds around me muted as the shapes of Inde and Aezok move in and out of view. My pelvis aches. I ignore what that means. It's not real.

It doesn't last.

There's a roaring noise building and building inside of my skull. It's a jet engine, a deep clamor of sound growing louder until it explodes into thunderous relief. The sound rips me from my cocoon, and I blink at the black tubes overhead before turning to look for the source of the roar.

Viz'en's awake inside his cage, bellowing and shaking his bars. His eyes are locked on me, slitted with rage. His pupils are so blown, his eyes look as black as my void.

Inde chuckles something to Aezok and moves to shut the lab door.

I watch Viz'en vanish from sight, my heart hurting for the pain in his roar. I must have woken him with my screams. I wonder if Aezok will kill him now that he's got a new victim on the way. I close my eyes again, trying to ignore the idea of a baby on the lab table beside me. The thought is so horrible, acid fills my mouth and I know I'm going to throw up.

I will Aezok to take a step closer so I can aim at him. He can't hurt me now. No more beatings. For the next ten months, at least.

A tremendous crashing sound echoes from behind the closed door, distracting me from my nausea. Inde peers through the small window and rears back, his arms pinwheeling as he tries to move out of the way.

The door bangs open, knocking him to the floor, and Viz'en stomps into the room. His shirt is in tatters around the swollen muscles of his heaving chest.

My mouth drops open in surprise at the same time my brain fizzes with a burst of relief and happiness. I want to cheer for him, but I don't want to distract him. He needs to get out of here. Now. But the locked exit is down the other corridor. This room only leads deeper into the compound to where Aezok and Inde live.

Before I can shout to him to go the other way, however, he reaches down and rips his claws into Inde's neck. In one swipe, he pulls out a hunk of blue, scaled flesh, hurling it away, and Inde collapses at his feet, blood fountaining from the deep hole in the column of his throat.

Homicidal cut-throat injury, my brain catalogs. Fatal; no chance of resuscitation.

Inde doesn't make a sound. His voice box is gone. His eyes roll wildly in their sockets for a moment, the red one focusing and unfocusing with a winking light, and then he's still.

I stare at Viz'en, frozen and shocked, as blood drips from his claws.

Inde had it coming but still, the violence of his ending knocks the air from my lungs. It happened so fast. He didn't have a chance to defend himself.

I can't stop the grin from breaking across my face. "Hah!" I shout at Viz'en. "Bravo!"

Then I press my lips tightly together as his attention shifts to me. Shit. I should have stayed quiet. I test the restraints at my feet and hips, but I'm still locked to the lab table. I'm a sitting duck.

I drop my head back once more and stare at the black tubes above me, waiting for death and hoping it'll be fast, like Inde's. Those claws will rend my skin like scalpels. And then it'll be over, and I'll be free. No more lab. No more future alien baby taking up space inside my body. Just nothing.

But he doesn't kill me. I wait, listening to the rumbling growl from his chest from across the room, and it doesn't move closer.

Aezok suddenly speaks, his voice jolting me from my calm. "You have moments before you succumb to the Wrath. If you're going to escape, better do it now."

"Kill you first," Viz'en mutters, his voice garbled by the stitches still in his lower jaw. He takes a heavy step forward, his neck dropping slightly like his head is too heavy to hold up all the way.

I shiver, willing him to run, to escape. I forgot about the Wrath. That must have been how he finally escaped. He's dying in front of me, the toxin poisoning his blood with every pump of his heart. He must have used every piece of himself to find the strength to break down his bars.

"You could try," Aezok taunts, circling behind the table until I can't see him anymore. His voice drops as he adds, "But then you'll definitely die here."

"Run!" I shout. "Forget him!"

A door slams from behind me. Aezok's gone deeper into the lab.

Viz'en roars but doesn't chase. He's a maelstrom of rage—his skin as red as arterial blood, his veins as black as a starless sky at midnight. And his bellowing voice, God, the pitch of his rage, it blasts the skin from my bones until I'm a bare frisson of energy, writhing on the lab table. But my flesh, it doesn't melt. Instead, it burns. My thoughts a haze of pain and fear, I barely register the sensation as he steps to my side, rips the bonds from my body, and lifts me into the cold air.

Then he's running, and I'm cradled in his arms like a bobblehead newlywed doll, my forehead banging against his chest with every pounding step. My thoughts whirl as I try to understand, but I don't know why he grabbed me. Does he want to kill me slowly later, savoring his revenge?

My eyelids flutter shut. I don't care. If he gets me out of this lab first, I'll perish in peace.