Waiting for Amber Skyy

Chapter 7

It was actually quite nice to be friends with Leon. In between tests and experimentation, we were always placed right next to each other afterwards. We comforted each other after tough times and encouraged each other when we felt weak... well... I mostly did that. He was so young, I felt like I should be the one doing so.

One day, I was alone in my cage waiting for Leon to return from a test. He was gone much longer than usual, and it bothered me to no end. Every now and then I would kick or punch the bars of my cage, and sometimes I would hear one of those werewolf guys shout 'hey' at me. I didn't care. I wanted to make sure my friend is okay. Bruises formed on my knuckles.

I sent another punch to my cage, making the bars rattle and my hand throbbing in pain. The frustration and worry in me dismissed the pain while one of the guys walked over to me. He bent down and stared in. It was that one guy, Jacob or something from days or weeks ago.

"Shut the hell up, or you're going to get it," he barked at me. I just stared at him in response. He looked into my eyes, and I looked into his. It was him, my boyfriend, now a heartless werewolf who dined on my flesh.

"J-... Jacob..." I muttered to myself. He grinned evilly in response. He and I dated far before my birthday. The dim light didn't give me enough to see how much he changed, but I could remember past features. He was tall, at least a head taller than me, so that would be... like 6 feet. He had black hair and blue eyes, a trait that I always loved in him. We also had a lot in common, but now I wasn't sure.

"Hello subject 4MB3R," he said with a snarl. "Glad to have you with us." He squatted down and I could see the tension in his leg muscles. I remember him being really strong, but I couldn't remember him having a lot of the bulge.

I bit back at him, "My name is Amber. I'm not a number."

He chuckled, "Not here mutant, you're always a number here." Mutant, that word made me cringe because it was true. I set my jaw and he chuckled. "I bet you're wondering why I am here."

Now how did he know that? Can he read my mind or something? I didn't respond and he continued on. "I've always been working for ITex, ever since I was born. Even when we were dating." That made me stiffen. What did that imply then? "You were a pretty girl back then, even as a freshie." I blinked at the memory. I was a freshman in high school, just starting the year, and of course I fell in love with the hottest senior. Strangely enough, he liked me back. "I never did like you as a person, you were my mission. I had to like you in order to finish it. Young, adopted at birth, lived with Sally and Victor Hammond-"

"What?" I blurted out in the middle of his sentence. His eyes glared at me like he was going to rip out my tongue. But he let me take in his words. "I'm not adopted! Those are my parents! My actual parents! You're lying," I growled at him. No way was that true. My mother and father love me, and care for me, and they are my parents. They even look like me. My dad was a redhead before he started to lose hair.

Jacob just shrugged at me with a smirk on his face, "They may be your parents, but not biological. I'm pretty sure..." He turned his body to pull something from behind his back. A file came out, a pretty thick one too. He opened it and flipped through the pages until he got to one. "Sally and Victor Hammond. Young couple, Sally unable to produce eggs, both agreed to take in the girl-"

"You're lying," I lowly growled at him.

"Sally and Victor both had unexplained jobs, Sally was a computer technician for ITex, although she claimed she worked for the government," he continued despite my statements.

"Stop," I said, trembling at his words. It's not true, not true, not true.

"Victor worked along with his wife, in a different department. They knew that taking in the girl was part of their work-"

"Stop!" I yelled at him again.

"Daughter captured on birthdate, July 1st, both Sally and Victor didn't comply with ITex standards to give up the girl at the designated age. Sent in former executioner Jacob to rally them, telling them they had to give her up. They refused until she was captured. Now undergoing DNA testing and modification for a different project-"

"Stop!" I screamed as loud as I could, tears streaming down my cheeks. It couldn't be true, it couldn't. My heart pounded and I longed to see my parents again, demanding for the truth. But if I saw them again, they would look down on me. They would think I'm not their daughter anymore, just an experiment, an object, a thing that belonged to ITex. I was just a pawn in their game. I was set up. I was living a lie. It made me sick. I gripped the bars of my cage and stared down at the damp edge where my tears pooled. It can't be true, it just can't. My knuckles were white from my hold. If it was true, my parents only adopted me for the sake of being experimented on. They knew my fate. So why was I kept longer than usual? And if they weren't my real parents, who are my real parents? My real family? My whole life was a lie. My eyes started to dry as if I ran out of tears. I blinked, wanting to shroud the world in front of me, looking for a silver lining. But it was no use, this was my life now.

Jacob shuffled a bit to a stand and pulled out the file again, flipping through it and scribbling something down. I could faintly hear him moving under the sounds of my dry sobs. My body trembled from the information. But I was also trembling from anger. This was the truth, and I had to face it one way or another.

Before Jacob could walk off, I thrust my hand out of my cage and grabbed onto the fabric of his pants. He stumbled, and I gripped his ankle, squeezing hard and digging my nails into his skin. How dare he do this to me. How dare they do this to me. A warm substance reached my fingers just as his boot locked with my wrist. I felt it crack and I let out a yelp of pain, retreating my hand back into my cage. I cradled it, my wrist surely broken from the impact.

"You little freak," I heard Jacob growl. Another yelp escaped from my lips as my cage was lifted, and I slammed towards the bars as he held it up. He shook it hard, making my body thrash around with new bruises to come. "I never loved you anyways!" That struck a deeper chord inside me. It reminded me of a moment when we were on a past date, way long ago, at a movie, when he said he loved me. For what reason, I couldn't remember, but that moment sparked in my mind.

My cage continued to rattle, pain erupting every which way, until shouts from white coats told him to stop. It took another werewolf freak like him to hold him back, letting my cage fall at a strange angle. It rattled Leon's empty cage next to me as well as the kid's on the other side. A strangled cry emitted from the other cage as he/she fled to the back corner. I collapsed against the bars without words, just a gasp as my body landed in a strange position. Voices sang around me with concern and threats. I couldn't see Jacob, but I hoped he was going to be put on a short leash. I loved him; I loved the fake him. I loved my parents; I loved the fake parents I had. I loved my life; I loved my fake life that was bred to become a freak. It was sickening, all of it. I'd rather be dead than alive. This is not what I imagined the rest of my life was going to be.

Closing my eyes, my cage was placed properly back on the ground, and my body shifted against the metallic floor. Murmurs of discontent and worry flushed over me. Even when I was an object in their minds, they were worried about me, well they were worried that the "merchandise" was being damaged. I heard them say that. Despite my freakiness and being experimented on, they wanted me unharmed. Well they were pretty much failing with that. My mental state was shattered because of them. I heard the door squeak as I felt a gentle hand brush my broken wrist. I winced and the hand moved to my body, nudging me towards the exit. With my eyes closed, I didn't bother to open them and face reality in front of me. My sole purpose was to be experimented on, and I had no way to argue with that.