Ephemeral ➵ Allison Argent (5)

Twenty-four

Phoebe's POV:

I slowly reach to touch the fence with my finger and instantly felt a painful shock which causes me to flinch away with a grunt. Yup, definitely electrified.

Zach chuckles from behind which causes me to roll my eyes in annoyance. "We're not getting out of here." He sighed.

"You could be a little optimistic." Hayden retorted as I sat back down next to her.

He raised a brow. "It's kinda hard when you watch three people get dragged out of here screaming."

"What happened to them?" I ask, noticing Hayden's look of discomfort.

"They were failures." Zach gave a sad smile. "That's all they said. First, you forget. You don't know who you are or what you're doing. Then you get violent." He looked down at his hands. "I watched two of them almost kill each other. One of them had a nasty looking cut," He nods his head to Hayden's side. "just like that. For yours, it shows you're improving which is good on your part."

"Getting injected with weird liquids isn't a fun time." I mutter but Hayden looks down to her side, seeing that the blood was already seeping through her shirt.

"Don't worry, black is okay. It's only really over when you start bleeding other stuff. When it starts turning silver..." Zach trailed off but I already knew what he had been talking about.

"Mercury."

He nods. "That's when they know you're really a failure."

"How many failures are there supposed to be?"

"Who knows? Doesn't it make you wonder what the success is going to look like?" He asked but I shook my head no. "I mean, what are we turning into? Something with claws and fangs?"

"Something with wings?" I suggest, recalling from what we saw on his back.

Hayden scooted closer to me, her expression filled with worry. "Something worse."

"Whatever it is," I lean my head against Hayden's shoulder and she rests hers on top of mine. "it definitely isn't good."

The light above us flickers and Zach's eyes widen. "They're coming." Not too long after, something begins to drip down from his nose and my eyes widen in realization, seeing that it was mercury. Zach reaches to touch under his nose, his eyes widening in fear at the mercury smeared on his fingertips. "Oh, god."

The sound of metallic boots coming closer causes us to turn, seeing the three Dread Doctors come close to the gate.

The one that had done surgery on me rips open the gate as it phased back and forth, before grabbing Zach from the floor.

"No!" I grunt and try to push myself up from the ground but my arm instantly gives out, still feeling the effects of the poison. "Leave him alone!"

"Stop it!" Hayden cried out as they continued to drag him away, ignoring his pleas as he tried to wriggle free from their grip.

"No! Stop!" Zach cried out before locking eyes with Hayden and I. "Help me! Please!"

I try to stand up again but weakly sit back down as they closed the electrified gate before walking away with Zach.

Who knows how long they would come back if one of us started to show signs of failure. It was only a matter of time.

Olivia's POV:

Once I park the car in front of the water treatment plant, the four of us quickly get out of the car and run inside.

We carefully go down from what felt like a dozen flights of stairs, we reached the bottom and all I could see were pipes running from both sides of what seemed like endless hallways.