Recommence ° Edward Cullen[Rewriting]

[005]

Chapter Five | The Edge of Control

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Bright lights glared overhead, burning white halos into Alexandra's vision until she could see nothing at all. Thick metal restraints pinned her to a smooth, cold slab that leached the warmth from her skin. She wore a constricting white straitjacket, its sleeves bound even tighter by steel cuffs cinched around her wrists, ankles, throat, and abdomen. She couldn't move—barely even breathe. A leather muzzle was strapped across her mouth, locking her jaw shut, a safeguard to protect the surrounding scientists from the fatal bite she might deliver if she could.

Sight gone, she clung to her other senses. Hearing offered only the sterile drum of heartbeats—some steady, some nervous—and the soft clink of metal tools being prepared. Touch was worse. Every vibration magnified: the cold table beneath her, the snap of restraints against her trembling limbs, and worst of all, the burn of scalpels carving into flesh, through muscle and down to bone.

She clenched her jaw, swallowing the urge to scream. Her body jerked reflexively, but the bonds held fast. The contact of metal on skin sent nauseating shocks through her, threatening to tip even her resilient body toward sickness. Her trembling grew violent; her skin darkened with a creeping, unnatural hue. Behind the muzzle, her dull teeth lengthened, edges honed to knives. Her eyes bled from warm brown to pitch black.

The lights above flickered, shadows crawling like cracks in glass. A low, guttural growl rolled out of her chest—deep enough to rattle hearts in their cages. Chitinous, obsidian claws burst through the straitjacket sleeves with a sound like tearing bone. "Chains! Get the chains!" someone shouted, panic rising. Alexandra had only a heartbeat of freedom before she lunged. Her claws sank into the stomach of a younger scientist who'd stood too close, his scream gurgling as she tore him open.

He collapsed to his knees, gasping, his hands frantically trying to shove spilled entrails back into his body. Almost mockingly, she plucked his intestines from the pile and whipped the slippery rope of flesh at another male cowering out of reach. The end of it slapped him soundly in the face. Had she the capacity to feel mirth in her agony, she would have laughed. Instead, her gaze flickered to the tools that had been left within her reach. Those alive and intact oozed delicious fear.

Within minutes, the pristine white room dissolved into a canvas of scarlet, walls and floor spattered with litres of blood. A deep, feral satisfaction flared inside her—something like hunger, like power. The pain in her mutilated limbs melted away under the rush. Her onyx eyes gleamed as she drank in the chaos she'd unleashed, the murder and agony feeding a strength that had always been waiting just beneath her skin.

Alex shot upright with a sharp gasp, her skin clammy, hair sticking to her damp forehead. The aftertaste of blood and antiseptic still clung to her senses—white coats, white room, scalpels. Her heart thudded against her ribs in a frantic, uneven rhythm. "Shit." The word came out half-breath, half-curse as she pressed a trembling hand to her chest, trying to ground herself. Eyes fluttering shut, she forced a slow inhale, willing the nightmare to drain from her mind like dirty water.