Rebels

Ch. 40

Jack started down the hallway, peering through the first window of the door he came to in the wide hallway. He found the room was empty, and it appeared to be similar to the one he had previously woken up in, to be branded. A surgical table stood plainly in the center of the room, along with a tray full of sterilized tools. Jack moved on to the next room, peering through the door. Butterflies ran through his stomach as he found someone sitting on the table in the center of the room, staring directly at him. It was a man older than Jack, but his eyes were white. Jack assumed the man was blind, but he could not shake his fear away and forced himself to move on, forbidding his mind to wander off to bad places about the blind man.

Jack hesitated to look through the third room, but he knew Lyla or Luca could be in one of the rooms. He gathered his thoughts and turned, peering into the room. There was a body that lie on the table, which was covered with a white sheet. Jack quickly spotted a sort of surgeon next to the table, whose attention was fixed on the body beneath the sheet. The surgeon was holding a long knife in one hand, and was cutting into the person's body. Jack swallowed, feeling bile rise up his throat. He could not tell if it was from fear or if he simply could not handle what he was seeing. Nevertheless, he did not want that body to be Lyla. He swallowed once more and barged through the door, the surgeon immediately turning towards Jack with the knife still in his grasp. The man yanked down his mask he had been wearing, anger and confusion fuming through his eyes. "Who are you? I am in the middle of a very important procedure!"

Jack scanned the room. He found a tray full of medical tools and without thinking, Jack grabbed a scalpel. He tried to thrust it in the man's skull, but the surgeon blocked Jack with his arm. Jack attempted to then stab the man in his stomach, but once again the surgeon managed to dodge the attempt. With his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender, the surgeon spoke. "You're hurt. I can help you."

Jack didn't know what to do. His gut told him to kill the man, but on the other hand, Jack knew certain people in this very palace were on his side. At least, the guards that were with him and the King were on Jack's side. It was like a game, trying to pick out the liars and the innocent. "Whose side are you on?" Jack asked, though his voice had run away from him long ago.

The surgeon swallowed down his fear. "I do not choose sides. I am just here to do my job."

Jack did not believe him. His eyes fell to the body that lie on the table. Jack grabbed the sheet and pulled it away from the body's face. To Jack's surprise, it was neither Lyla nor Luca. Instead, it was of an older woman, who had blond hair, but her skin was too pale. Jack could tell just by looking at her that she was already dead. Jack turned back towards the surgeon, and his heart began to thump loudly in his ears. The surgeon now had replaced his knife with a shot in his hand, preparing to inject it into Jack. Instinctively, Jack took a step back, bumping into the woman's body. "S-She's already dead." Jack said, though he could not figure out why.

The surgeon nodded with a blank expression on his face. "Yes, she is."

"What were you going to do to her?" Jack asked, a shiver running through his body.

"I am going to place a monitor inside of her eyes and bring her back to life. She will then go through her daily routine, but we can see everything she sees."

A sickening feeling grew in Jack's stomach. Catching Jack off guard, the surgeon suddenly plunged the needle into Jack's arm. With adrenaline and anger now coursing through his body, Jack stabbed his scalpel into the surgeon's eye. The man stumbled backward, screaming out with pain. Jack grasped the needle in his arm and yanked it out, and moved out of the room. He did not know what he had been injected with, but he knew he needed to find Lyla fast. He glanced through the next room and moved on after he found it was empty. He glanced through the next, and his heart nearly stopped. There was Lyla, sitting on the table, with multiple open wounds covering her. Jack threw open the door and was grateful that no one else was in the room with her. Her eyes moved up to him, and she let out a cry. It was then that Jack could see she was visibly shaking. He moved quickly towards her, not knowing what to do. "What did they do to you?" He whispered.

She sniffed, trying her hardest not to cry out in front of Jack. She had never felt so vulnerable and weak in her life, and she was afraid. "T-They brought me to this room. One of them took out a knife and... And he started cutting me. H-He tied me down so I couldn't move..." Her voice trailed off as she mentally relived what she had gone through.

Jack was ultimately confused. He did not know that so many forms of torture and experimentation could be found under one roof. "It's okay, Lyla. You're okay. Do you know where this man went?"

Lyla squeezed her eyes shut. "H-He said that he had to go take care of another patient."

Jack could only think of the man he had encountered just moments ago. "I think I took care of him. Did he do anything else to you?"

Lyla thought about how she felt. Aside from the pain of the cuts she had running down her arms, across her legs, and on the side of her face, she could not detect any other signs of injuries. "N-No. Jack, they took Luca to another room." As she scanned Jack to see how badly he had been hurt, her breath quickened. She knew that she had shot Jack before, during his training and all, but it was different to Lyla, knowing that he could have been killed. "Jack, your arm..." She swore under her breath, standing to her feet. "Arin beat you. You probably have broken ribs and... And you're aware you have blood on your face, right?"

Jack sighed, ignoring his own pain for the sake of Lyla. "You have open cuts all over you, Lyla. Stop worrying about me. I've been in worse states before." Jack grabbed Lyla's arm gently, heading out of the room. "We have to find your brother. Arin might have found him already, and-" he suddenly stopped talking, his head fogging.

Lyla noticed this, her heart pounding. "Jack? Are you okay?"

Jack swallowed. He attempted to speak, but no words came. He desperately wanted to get out of the palace, so he began walking once more. He knew that whatever was happening to him had been from that surgeon. As he passed the room where the surgeon was, he fought back the urge not to go in there and kick the surgeon until he was dead.

Jack desperately wanted to get out of the palace, now wishing he had never stolen any money before.