Page 9 of Ravage
“Are you going to be a good little pet for me, or should I toss you away now?”
My cracked lips press together in preparation to speak. “Pet?” I croak.
He scowls at me. “Yes. You’ll do exactly as I say without question.” He leads me from the room and my feet follow on autopilot while my eyes are still adjusting to the light of the hallway. “Starting with a shower and some food so we can begin your training.”
By the time I’m able to open my eyes, I don’t recognize where we are. We’re passing by a long window that looks into another large room filled with beds.
And people.
“What’s that? Where are we?”
Gordon doesn’t look at me or the room when he answers. “The lab where failures go to donate their gifts until they die. You’ll be lucky to go there if you fail me. If they’re successful in extracting your gift, they’ll keep you alive longer. But”—his grip on my arm tightens hard enough that I cry out in pain—“don’t fail me, pet.”
He brings me to a training gym and opens the storage room where a medical bed on wheels sits in the corner with a floor lamp and clothing rack beside it. “This is your room now. You’ll shower in the locker room. Be ready every morning. You’re not to leave this gym without me.” He releases my arm and starts to leave.
“But—why?” Why am I here? Why can’t I leave? What’s happening?
Gordon tsks and shakes his head. “You really think we’re going to let you get close to anyone else after you killed someone so easily?”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t. Lie!” His hand whips across my face, and my body crashes into the storage door before dropping to the ground. He storms over to me and grips my hair in a punishing hold. “Vera was the key to us taking the next step and you ruined that.”
My face contorts with pain, but even when tears are beckoned to my eyes, nothing comes. “She was going to kill Dane. I just wanted to save him. I didn’t want to hurt her. Please…”
“You’re a fool. You think that boy is going to thank you for killing his sister? You think he’s going to believe anything you say after he learns that you’re the one who did it?”
Fear chokes me at the thought of Dane or the others finding out about this. Of what I’ve done. Would they believe me? Maybe. If I had time to explain everything. But then…how can I tell Dane that Vera was helping GE? That she wasn’t the sister he thought he knew? She wasn’t the girl who showed up on the island.
I can’t.
I squeeze my eyes shut as the realization sinks in. I can’t let them know what Vera had become. How twisted and apathetic she was when she wasn’t with them.
I’ll never tell them. They can keep their good memories of Vera while I hold on to the real her as penance for what I did.
As long as Gordon doesn’t tell them first.
My eyes snap open with a new resolve. “Don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“Please,” I amend. “Don’t tell them.”
His smirk is cold and malevolent. “Them? Oh, right. The others who hang around him. Should we go tell them together?”
I try shaking my head, but his grip is too strong for it to move much. But it’s enough. He laughs and tosses me back. “Then be a good pet and go take a shower. I’ll be back with food and you’d better be finished before then.” His dull brown eyes leer down my body with a smirk pulling at his lips. “You’d hate to find out what happens if I’m back first.”
Revulsion coils in the pit of my stomach, and I curl in on myself as if to protect myself from him.
His smirk intensifies at my reaction. He leans in and drags his thumb down my lips. “Give it time, pet. You and I are going to have a lot of it.”
My body drops a few inches, and for a second, I feel like I’m falling. I grab at whatever’s closest while my stomach’s busy getting lodged in my throat and I’m choked by painful memories resurfacing in my dreams again.
Then I smell the sweet, delectable aroma of hot coffee.
My panic dissipates instantly because…coffee.
I can’t be falling from the sky if that’s what I’m smelling.
