Reveille (The Hybrid Disasters, Book One)

Chapter 9: Everything Has Changed

I was in a small, enclosed cell. 

Like the majority of the facility, three of the walls were made of some sort of white, reinforced paneling. The remaining wall was made entirely of glass. 

Lyric, Adam, and Hagan stood behind the glass wall to monitor me. We were about to conduct test number one, which involved me breathing in 'non-lethal' silver fragments. Iron would be next, and then bronze, which was apparently Djinn kryptonite. 

Lyric was watching me so intently through the glass that it was making me self-conscious. I started pacing the small room while I waited for the fragments to be released through the small air vents that were located above me on the ceiling. 

There was a woman on standby outside the door of the cell. She was a healer like Cynthia. I had learned that healer did not exactly mean doctor like I thought. In fact, it was a trait of some supernatural species. Cynthia was a spellcaster, or a human that could wield some forms of magic due to Witch or Warlock ancestry somewhere in their family lines. The woman outside the door was a spellcaster as well. Both spellcasters were designated healers, because the magic they could wield was strictly curative in nature. 

Lyric argued that the lady needed to be inside the cell with me to reduce the reaction time if I needed healing, but Hagan refused. He said we needed to take every precaution since we didn't know what I was capable of. He didn't want me to hurt anyone. 

As if I could hurt anyone. I was 127 pounds of pure pansy. I couldn't hurt a fly, even if you paid me.

A speaker crackled on, and Hagan's voice reverberated in the small cell.

"Addy, we're about to begin. Are you ready?" he asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose," I said with a shrug. 

I sent Lyric a forced smile, but he didn't return it. He was still standing in front of the glass staring intently at me with his fists clenched at his sides. The guy was seriously intimidating sometimes. 

I looked away from him and continued pacing as I heard the vents kick on. Looking up, I saw tiny silver sparkles flutter down from above. I held out my hand as a few flecks fell onto my skin. After a couple minutes, I sent Hagan an 'I told you so' smile as nothing happened. He gave me a frustrated sigh and started writing furiously on his notepad.

I began to tell Lyric he got all worked up over nothing, but before I could, my chest was assaulted with the most intense pain I'd ever felt in my entire life. Every breath I took sent daggers to my lungs. A few seconds later, I started coughing up blood. I looked at the others in a panic and saw Lyric already reaching for the release button that would open the cell's side door and let in the healer. Before he could press the button, the room he was in filled with men in dark combat suits who had their rifles pointed at Lyric's chest. 

Lyric began yelling at Hagan furiously, but he made no further move to release the door. If they didn't let him save me soon, I was certain from his expression that he would kill them all regardless if he got shot or not. Lyric was super-fast, and I had seen him in action already, so I didn't doubt his ability to take out a majority of the men.

I held my breath for as long as I could before I tried taking another breath. The silver sparkles were still falling from above, and angry tears stung my eyes as the pain continued to etch its way throughout my chest. My fingertips were also starting to tingle unpleasantly. Hagan said this was a non-lethal experiment, but it certainly felt very lethal at the moment. I felt like I was dying. As the pain in my chest increased in intensity, I became more and more angry. I was pissed Hagan lied about hurting me, and I was even more pissed his men had roughly twenty guns pointed at Lyric.