Eight of Hearts: The Rift Blade - Book 1

Chapter 26

Shyla fought against her restraints, furiously trying to get to the old man to wipe that smile from his face. "That's not everybody!" she protested. "That can't be everybody! What about my family!? What about my friends!?" She thought of her parents and her brother. She thought of her classmates and neighbors. She saw them in her mind, crushed in an instant by an impossible, unstoppable darkness.

"Dead and dead. Or more accurately, consumed." Dr. Higgins shrugged, "Regardless, you won't be seeing them again."

Shyla was crying now. She no longer had the strength to fight against her restraints. She felt drained, like she had fought against the mercenaries in her mech all over again. Only this time she was overwhelmed by the sense of utter defeat. Her heart ached with loneliness. She wanted to see a friendly face again. Even Bryce would do, although James...what about James?

"What about...what about James?" she said, forcing the words out.

"Ah, yes, James Garland," Dr. Higgins said, his face lighting up with delight at the name.

Shyla felt a surge of hope: if Dr. Higgins knew his full name, then maybe-

"James is dead too, sweetie. If he had survived, we would have known." Dr. Higgins watched with satisfaction as Shyla sagged in her restraints. "I suppose it's possible he might have landed in a pocket dimension," he added after a moment. "In which case there is a one in seventy billion, four hundred twenty three million, five hundred forty three thousand, five hundred and fifty seven point four chance that he didn't get immediately shredded to tiny bits by impossible physics."

Shyla didn't look at him--couldn't look at him. She couldn't see through the haze of tears that ran down her cheeks. She had been terrified of this very possibility just the other day. Knowing the fate of the people she had known all her life did nothing to ease her pain. She hated herself for surviving when so many others had died. She hated herself for hoping that James had survived. She hated the mad scientist who had taken so much delight in breaking her with this news even more.

"Well, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you," Dr. Higgins was saying. "That tends to complicate the memory recalibration process."

Shyla's head snapped up in surprise. "What did you say?"

Dr. Higgins turned to her, his teeth flashing in his broad smile. He brandished a syringe in one hand as he stepped closer. "I rewrite the memories of all my favorite toys to suit my needs." He leaned his face close to hers, and injected the contents of the syringe into a port in her IV tubing without breaking eye contact. "But I've enjoyed breaking your heart so much, I've been erasing your memory just so I can do it again. I've been neglecting my duties just to spend quality time with you, my dear."

Shyla felt her consciousness begin to fade against her will. She cursed the mad scientist with her last ounce of strength. If she could just break free, she would kill that man, she knew it.

"I only want to do this a few more times before I recalibrate you permanently, I promise," Dr. Higgins said, smiling fondly at her defiant struggle against the drug.

The last thing she heard was the voice of another man speaking as he entered the room. "Sir, Mr. Sheffield is prepped for surgery," the man said. Then the world around her vanished into dreams of nothing.

The shadows watched as Dr. Euclid Higgins strode through the empty hallway on his way to the operating room. He passed by the cells without stopping, his mind preoccupied by his schemes. As he vanished around a corner, the shadows coalesced into the shape of a man, then fell away to reveal Cecil.