The Darkest Souls

The Twenty-Second Chapter: Fatal Characteristics

Will led me into a room a few floors higher. The walls were glass, and everything was white. Who would have guessed the White House was more like some top secret science lab...

He walked me up to a narrow cot and motioned for me to get on top of it. I looked back over my shoulder and saw a smaller group of soldiers, but this time they all had their guns pointed at Michael's head. If I tried to escape, they would shoot him. Will claimed that he didn't plan to kill me anyways... so I just had to hope things didn't get bad enough to where I had to take risky measures of breaking Michael and myself out of this horrid place.

I got on the cot and laid my body down. It was stiff, but I felt relieved to not be standing or running any longer. Whether bad things would come shortly or not, at the current moment in time, I was happy. Michael was alive, and so was I.

"Good luck, Lacey," Will sighed, "Be strong. I know you're a tough girl."

"Tough girl am I?" I asked. "When did the world suddenly decide a hospitalized girl who is still a teenager- would be fit for intense pain- for your own sake."

Will stopped in his tracks. "Hmm. Maybe not. Maybe that never really was made an official statement... but, you have a stubborn mind. That's what holds you so closely to life. You don't let go of it easily."

"Uhh thanks I guess," I sighed wearily. It was an awkward comment, but so was the silence.

Will nodded his head and pushed through a door and entered the room outside of mine. In his replacement a man in a lab coat walked into my room and up to me. He looked me over in an observing manner. He bit down on his lip and looked like he was thinking things through very seriously.

"My name is Litford, Nathan Litford. I have the highest rankings as for those in my field of work, and I am very pleased to be given this opportunity to observe you," Litford stated.

"Well, I don't have much of a choice, but I do appreciate your happiness in this situation," I replied sarcastically.

Nathan Litford smirked and turned on a computer screen which turned on a series of electrical boards. He pulled out a rolling table that had a series of things thrown on top of it. Lots of small bottles, paper, and pens.

Litford grabbed a syringe and filled it up with the liquid from one of the menacing bottles. I was worried for a minute that he had planned to stick the long needle itself into my skin, but he inserted it into a small hole in a metal device hooked to a machine that had thin transparent wires running out of it. He took the wires and inserted the thin needle ends of them into my skin. ( At least it was better than the larger syringe's needle. ) He put one on each of my arms, one on the side of my neck, and another ( very painfully ) into the skin near my heart. I had to blink my eyes furiously to make sure they weren't watering up from the stinging pain.

The light blue liquid ran into my skin. I had no idea whatsoever that stuff was for. I was half worried it was supposed to destroy me, and half grateful that it might be pain medicine. Of course, the first choice was more likely.

A series of numbers, words, and charts showed up on Litford's screens. It showed things that I had no idea what they could possibly be. I figured I shouldn't have felt too stupid given the fact that he was apparently in the top of his class. Whereas I had done no studies in medicine, science, or whatever the guy did.

"Could you please talk through this?" I asked. "The silence is making me nervous."

"Mm, sure," Litford agreed. "There won't be anything you don't have the privilege to find out about."

I bit back my thanks as I remembered that he wasn't exactly a good person. That whatever results came out of this would be twisted into something bad and used against myself and others who likewise supported World, and not Country. I wasn't really sure how so, but if Will wanted something done, he did it because he had a plan. He was a strategist. Not an actionist.