Phoenix13: Resurrection (Phoenix13 Book 3)

Part #13: Not Easily Conquered: Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Songs like swords pierced Jason's mind. His heart pounded, sweat and blood dripping down his half-clad body. Each harsh, panting breath echoed through the close, pitch-black chamber where he hung. Tears of pain and anger fell through the grime and gore on his face. He threw his head back, gritting his teeth as the motion sent a wave of agony shooting down his spine.

"The drug's already working, mate." Alexx Sullivan's dreaded voice was a clap of thunder to Jason's sensitive ears. "I know you're hearing the singing already, but you'll be tripping serious balls in a few. That's a promise."

Jason shook his head weakly. It did nothing to clear the fog sprawling like cobwebs over his thoughts. "Get the fuck outta my face, Sullivan." Each word was an effort. "And while you're at it, trip on a rusty nail and die."

Alexx laughed. To add insult to injury, the sound was genuine—the bastard was enjoying this. "This place is concrete and steel, McKinley. I'd have to search high and low to find a nail. Rosetta—Deyanira, that is—knows you too well. If there was a nail anywhere in this cell, there wouldn't be a Jason. Remember, we know you broke out of Carceris Caeci. Twice. We're not stupid."

"Objection," Jason slurred. "The two of you could win first prize for stupidest man and woman ever in an international idiot fair."

"Ha, ha. Very funny. Also, my cue to exit." Alexx clapped his hands. The sound was so sharp and sudden it sent Jason's already panicked heart into overdrive. Momentarily, he wondered if he'd just have a heart attack and drop dead on the spot. After everything he'd been through, it seemed possible. His body couldn't take the strain; soon, he'd either suffer a physical collapse or a mental break down.

Alexx seemed to have his heart set on the second option.

As the unknown drug coursing through Jason's veins began to work, the lightless room that had been his world since the Stonehenge incident morphed and collided with the horrors spinning in the deepest void of Jason's memories. Fact and fiction ran like paint on wet canvas. Hallucinations as real as the incessant pain wracking his body rose to engulf him, and at first, Jason gave in willingly. After all, nothing could be worse than reality. Right?

Wrong.

By the time Alexx slammed and locked the solid steel door behind him, Jason's mind was already spinning with false colors and panicky, uncontrolled thoughts. He gritted his teeth, fighting to shut out the screams spilling from his subconscious. His mother's screams the night Skyler took control of Nathandra; his father's screams as he lay in the king's chambers with blood running from his gouged chest; his brother Jack's screams just before Jason put a bullet in his head.

Worst of all, though, and freshest in his memory, was the distant echo of what he knew to be Kalligan's last wordless scream of agony as Deyanira left him at Stonehenge. It burned through him like a viper's venom, tearing his heart and mind to shreds. I failed you, he thought as tears streamed down his face like blood from a nasty wound, and now I'm paying for it. Oh, gods, Kalligan. I should have believed you. I should've...

His own thoughts were cut off by the pitch and volume of the scream that tore free of his throat. His vocal cords gave out almost at once as the force of sound rushing outward left his throat raw and bloody. For a long moment, he couldn't think, couldn't hear, couldn't speak. All he could do was feel. Pain, mostly, but somewhere underneath, a warmth began to grow in his chest. There was no reason for it. There was nothing warm in his cell, or in the mental cell his mind had become. And yet, it was there. A candle burning fiercely against the encroaching blackness of unconsciousness.