Doves

Chapter 16

            I could feel the knife scraping the bone of my skull as Lakota wrenched the blade in circles, completely obliterating my eye. I was choking on the pain and a scream that threatened to rip my throat out. I lashed out at Lakota, but it was no use; he would either move out of the way, dragging the knife with him, or pin me down with his knees. I could feel the blood gushing down my face, turning it into a slick red mask.

            Finally the scream broke loose, but after it came a flood of words. I could feel my mouth moving, betraying me, spewing the whole story. I heard my voice, trembling, recounting the find of the flash drive, how we couldn't figure out where it came from. The murder of Auto's parents, and our escape. The attack dogs. Usually, when you poke a hole in a plastic cup, the water comes out fast. But once the water level gets lower than hole itself, it stops gushing and trickling and it just stops. While I expected the story to get faster and faster, it kind of went like the water; flooding out at first, and then I couldn't help but slow down. My jaw slowly stopped moving, my tongue feeling too big for my mouth, and of course my face felt like it was on fire.

            Some dark, rational part of my brain was still functioning – miraculously – telling me that if this was the worst thing Lakota could think of to do to me, I might just be able to survive.

            Lakota tore the knife and another scream out. I went completely limp on the floor. As I was dragged back to my cell, Connors looming over me looking appalled, I could hear voices screaming and crying. I was barely awake when Linus came. The next few days were a haze of bandages, injections, and actual meals. Someone was obviously feeling bad for me.

            A week after I had been half-blinded, Linus came in and tossed an eye patch on the corner of my cot. I looked up at him. He stepped over to me and began removing the bandages. My face was nearly intact, minus where my eye used to be and the scars Lakota had so generously left me.

"You'll probably want this," he said softly, strapping the eyepatch over my head.

"Yeah, I wouldn't want to freak out the staff here." I sighed, then continued, "Come on, Linus, it's not like I'm ever getting out of here."

            Linus looked like he wanted to say something when he stepped away from me, opening his mouth, then closing it again. There was almost sorrow in his expression. Like he wanted to apologize. He looked down at his shoes and muttered something like get well soon. Then he was gone.

                                                                      *****

            It's funny; I had always thought it would be the physical torture and Lakota that would get Viper's secrets out of me. But a while after I had been introduced to whatever compound from Hell I was in, it got worse.

            Linus came for me one day, and I was sure I was going back to the dirt-floored room, but we ended up in a too-clean, too-bright room with a Frankenstein chair in the middle and a flock of lab coats with clipboards surrounding it. I looked over my shoulder at Linus.

            "Seriously? Experimentation?"

            He gave me a look, as if he knew something more, something that could have changed things. But all he said was, "It's far past experiments now. It's a method." And then he left me to the lab coats.

            I was strapped down to the chair, a bizarre arrangement of needles poised in a grotesque halo around me. The lab coats circled like buzzards, scribbling notes and pushing their glasses up on their noses. It started without warning. One of them made eye contact with another one, and suddenly the needles jabbed straight for me.