The Karma Study

Chapter 12 - Forced Sterilization

Zoe

I'm not sure how many days it's been, but when I wake up I'm back in the room I originally woke in when I first arrived in this place. Luckily I'm alone and my body still feels numb. My vision is blurry at first, and it takes a few tries to finally clear it. Taking inventory of the room, I realize I'm attached to a few items. One that is monitoring my heart beat, as well as an IV with fluids dripping, and then the final one I realize is attached to a few wires that have been connected to my brain.

I still have no clue what surgery I've had.

Everything seems to be normal, but I can't shake the feeling of utter wrongness. I feel like something is missing, like a part of me was taken.

I'm bound to the metal rails of my bed, but I have enough room to sit up straight and get a better look at my surroundings.

I'm in a paper gown, and I miss my clothes. The clothes the men got for me and loved to see me dress in. I miss them in general, but I immediately stop that train of thought.

They still could have been in on this plan all along. Break my resolve, see how easy it was to manipulate me once they found their way into my heart. I never had a weakness, but they soon became my only one.

I don't feel any major soreness, so that tells me I've been sprawled out and vulnerable for days. My father could have done anything to me.

Still, with the need to fight and possibly a false sense of hope, I look into the blinking camera. And I can't quite explain it, but I just know Brandon has to be watching. I simply know it to be true.

"B," I croak out and my voice is rough and dry from no use, but I clear my throat to try and sound stronger. "They performed a surgery on me, I'm not sure what it was yet. But something feels wrong, very very wrong. I don't think this was a tracker, I think they took something out." My voice waivers and I hate how weak these men have made me.

I found home in them, and yet here I am, on the brink of tears at the simplest thought that I might be talking to one of them.

I shake the emotions away, trying to find the numb in the confines of my mind. I need to turn into the machine. I need to find the numb if I want to survive.

I continue, "I'm okay. Nothing crazy has happened, the only thing I've experienced was the electro-kennel. Nothing I can't handle." I give the blinking red dot a weak smile. I know if Brandon is viewing the camera footage, then so is someone here. If I'm lucky maybe they'll think I've already gone crazy.

"I've learned the names of a few orderlies." My eyebrows pinch together as I try to remember the details I tried so hard to collect. "Um there's a tall blonde, his name is Tyler Green, sometimes goes by..." I trail off again, just barely grasping on the memories. Snapping my fingers when it finally comes back to me, "Creature! Tyler Green sometimes goes by Creature. And there's a ginger as well, Marvin Santos, no nickname that I know of... They somewhat look similar? They both have these..." I shiver at the memory. "These incredibly dull, dead eyes. You'll know it when you see it." I nod my head, hoping that I got all the information across clearly, my voice is still broken and weak, and part of me thinks that I actually didn't say it at all.

I'm not sure what is in the IV drip, but something tells me it's not just normal fluids. The world keeps going from clear to blurry, and everything feels weak, as if it would take all my might to even make a fist.

Just as I start to control the sway of my body someone enters the room from the door behind me.

"Ah, Participant Z-7-4, glad to see you're finally awake." My father glides across the room as if he's floating, I can't determine if maybe he really is just a ghost floating in the room at this point, or if the drugs are just making him seem that way. "You slept for nearly three weeks, almost bled out on the table and everything. You truly are just determined to ruin this study aren't you?" He asks, but I know he isn't looking for an answer.

Only a few things he said repeat in my head.

Three weeks.

Bled out.

Three. Weeks.

Bled. Out.

If it's been three weeks and the Karma's still haven't found me, I bet they have officially given up all hope. Maybe Brandon hasn't been watching the cameras after all, maybe it was all a ruse to make me latch onto false hope. I circle back to the same thought that they had to be involved with this somehow... They're the fucking Karma brothers; they should have foun me by now.

"What exactly is this study you speak of?" I ask Khal, not wanting him to know exactly what I'm truly worried about.

Three weeks. Three weeks. Three weeks.

"As if I'd explain that to you." He scoffs. "You will recover for one more day, then we will begin your training again. Now that you're sterile, there is no worry about feminine issues getting in the way."

My blood goes cold, and I can feel a cold sweat starting to prickle at the back of my neck, I try to control my breathing so as to not tip him off with the stupid beeping heart monitor.

Instead of letting me chime in with a question, my father continues, "We will start with observing your fighting skills. I haven't seen you in physical combat for a while, all I have to go off of was a little insight from one of my spies in your security team. Then we will go back to mental training, I need to know if you'd still sharp of if you've gone fucking stupid after going and getting attached to those boys." He crosses the room and comes closer, even going as far as sitting at the edge of my bed where my feet sit.

"Seriously Participant Z-7-4, you know better. You fell for them, their ruse, and now look where you ended up. I always told you to never listen to that useless organ in your chest. So, as a precaution, I've ensured that you won't be feeling something as foolish as affection going forward." A wicked smile contorts and stretches his face, and there's no controlling how fast my heart is beating with the realization dawning on me.

Still needing him to say it out-loud I asked, "What did you remove?"

"Well, we performed a hysterectomy of course." He shrugs, as if he didn't just tell me he decided my future in the most violating of ways.

I roll back my shoulders, and my eyes sharpen, my jaw locks in place. The world goes numb, and The Sparrow returns.