"Don't do it, please." Chloe pleaded into the darkness. Her voice sounded hollow in the cold, empty room, reverberating against the concrete walls. The constant ping from the monitor joined her pleas.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
Each beat of the high pitched noise tensed every muscle in her body as if her nerves feared that the noise was something more. Something or someone coming to end it once and for all.
But the ping of the monitor should be reassuring. That ping was a reminder that she was alive, that she was still sentient enough to know that each ping was a heartbeat.
"Lincoln, please." Her voice was so weak. The screaming from earlier and the shame of needing to plead both left her feeble. She could beg the love of her life for mercy, but perhaps she didn't actually want to see him. He might only disappoint her more.
A door creaked from across the room. Chloe jerked in her restraints. The ping of the monitor increased in speed. A shadowed male frame came into view but she couldn't make out his features. Was it Lincoln? Was it Max? Which was the lesser of her evils?
"Chloe, Chloe, Chloe." It was Max.
She warned Lincoln about his mentor. They had one short conversation, and she knew. He just felt unhinged.
She tasted salt from a tear or two that broke free from her eyes when Max stepped into her personal space. He smelled of cigarettes and pine--the latter a once-pleasing scent that now made her skin crawl. At least her heart was safe with Max. Her body, on the other hand, was another story. And it knew it.
Sweat greased her palms. Her breathing hitched when Max's fingertips grazed her upper arm.
"What are you doing?" Her breathless whisper betrayed her nerves. Not that there was any point in staying strong now.
"I think we'll inject you right here." Her arm flinched in the restraints. His long fingers held a syringe with a light amber liquid inside. The contents of the syringe were the reason that she had been caught in the first place. Their headquarters held the answers to Lincoln's secrecy, and she was determined to find out what he was doing here.
"Just tell me what you are up to--all these hours together, the secrecy. What's the point?" If her words weren't trembling, she might have come off persuasive.
"What's the point?!"
A maniacal laugh caused her stomach to turn. She tasted bile on the back of her tongue. If she couldn't calm, she was going to be sick.
"The point," he continued, eyeing the tip of the syringe and laughing at his own joke. "The point is that we have funded the greatest research in the history of the world. We're going to save lives. These same lives that were ruined by genome science now have a solution. It's right here. And you're going tell me if it works."
Chole's eyes drifted to the yellow liquid in the syringe then back to Max. He watched her with a gaze that held no remorse, no feeling. Chills erupted on her arms. It was cold. Max was cold.
The door creaked again. Rough hands grasped her cheeks. Warm hands. Hands that calmed her shivers with their very presence.
"Chloe," Lincoln breathed, his nose pressed to hers before he turned to Max. "What are you doing? Why is she here?"
"You mean, what are we doing?"
"You... you can't be serious!" Lincoln stammered.
Her heart beat faster with hope. Lincoln didn't want her here. He would save her.
He ripped the heartbeat monitor from her chest, ending the ping that Chloe had been hearing for so long that it still echoed in her ears.
"Stop. I found her in here. If she wants to be a part of this, here's her chance. " Max shrugged. "She's exactly the specimen we need."
"Find someone new," Lincoln stood as a barrier between her and Max. "I'll find us someone else. I can't let you inject her."
The hand that held the syringe extended toward Lincoln. "You're going to do it."
"What?"
"Prove to me that you'd choose our mission over a girl."
"No! I won't."
"You will." Max took Lincoln's hand and placed the syringe in it. Lincoln was frozen. He wouldn't do it. Chloe knew in her heart he loved her, and whatever was in that yellow liquid--well, whatever it was, wasn't something you have to the person you loved.
"She doubts you. She doubts the integrity of our plans. She wants to ruin them." Max spoke in his ear as he turned Lincoln toward Chloe's prone form.
Lincoln still said nothing. He wasn't protesting anymore. Her heart skipped a beat. He was thinking about it. Why was she snooping? She wasn't doubting him, she was doubting Max and this so-called mission. But that wasn't what it had looked like.
And now she was beginning to doubt. She doubted that Lincoln would choose her. And that feeling was worse than any so far.
"Lincoln, I love you." Her shaking began anew. Fresh tears left the salty taste again.
He had once said that he wasn't capable of love until he met her. The panic dissipated from his eyes and heightened her own.
"Inject her Lincoln! She is a threat to everything we are doing here!" Max exuded power and confidence. He trusted that his best friend would follow his will or maybe his psychosis made him oblivious to what really was going on in Lincoln's head.
"I'm sorry," Lincoln whispered.
"Inject her!" Max continued to yell.
"Don't do this Lincoln." Chloe pleaded with all that was left of her voice.
"What are you waiting on?!" Max was beginning to go from confident to angry. Lincoln looked at Chloe again, but he seemed closed off, even amongst her pleading.
He closed his eyes and drove the needle deep into her arm. The sting was nothing compared to the burn that followed the push of the plunger. Her body tensed then relax before her vision began to swim. Stars burst into her view and multiplied until the entire room went dark.
