Purple Phoenix

Chapter Thirty-Six

Everything hurt. But worse, every thought that came across my mind caused pain to bloom along the edges of my skull. Gosh, what happened to me? I was lying on my stomach when an itch tickled my nose, so I lifted a hand to scratch it.

Instead of being able to reach my nose and relieve the itch, my wrist met a cool metal. The hell? Okay, maybe I did something wrong last time. I'll try again, I decided. Lifting up my hand, my wrist touched the metal again. Okay, so I wasn't delusional. What if, my mind came up with a striking idea, I lifted my other hand? I applauded my thinking and went for it.

I pouted. Nope. That didn't work either. The same thing happened. It looked like I would have to open my eyes and check it out. Huffing through my nose, annoyed that I would have to wake up from my sleep, I peeled my eyes open.

The first thing I noticed was the blinding light; It almost seemed to pierce my eyes.

"Argh," I squinted, trying to see where I was. I turned my head left and right, trying to find something I recognized, but coming up with nothing except my friend Soraya, lying on her stomach and restrained to a table. I should say hi to her.

"Hey Soraya," I whispered. Okay, done with that. What's next? Wait a second- restrained? Why the hell was she restrained? I'm going to release her right now. I tried standing up, forgetting about the cool metal that captured my wrists. My eyes lowered to my own hands, and panic infiltrated my mind.

Uh oh. I was restrained as well.

I filed through my memories, resting on the most recent ones. Okay. So we dealt with Paradox, and then we left the scene. And then there was Olivia, and then oh... the dart. That's how we got here. They abducted us. How dare they? I'll show them hell, after I get out of here, that is.

I could heat up the metal and then get out of here. I reached for my powers but came up with nothing. My well was gone, disappeared. Another glance at the restraints told me Nyx was laced with it. Wonderful.

I decided to look around the room, hoping it would tell me something. It was square-shaped with a fireplace opposite to our beds. In between Soraya and I was a weird-looking machine I decided to ignore for now. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling were all made up of gray metal. That's it. No windows. I would have said no doors either but I saw a thin line in the metal on the right and assumed it was an entrance.

My nose tickled again, and I used the bed I was lying with my stomach on to rub my nose against it. Why hadn't I done that in the first place?

Soraya murmured something in her sleep, so I tried to wake her up.

"Soraya?" I hissed, "Soraya, wake up!"

She snuggled deeper into the bed. "No, just give me a little more time."

"Soraya, get up!" I yelled, causing her to jerk.

"I'm up, I'm up. Sheesh, what do you have to do around here to get a good night of... sleep?" She looked around the room. "Where are we?"

I answered, "Our own form of hell."

She shot me an annoyed look. "Seriously, what happened? Why am I..."

"Here? Restrained? In pain?" I offered but after another glare shot at me, I explained, "We were hit with tranquilizers and dragged over here by Steve and his goons, and we can't use our powers because there's Nyx laced in this room."

"Oh, well that's not good," Soraya said, always the one to state the obvious. I hummed in agreement.

The door slid open, and both of our heads swiveled around to see who entered. A sinking feeling made its presence in my gut. Not him again.