Page 145 of Claim Me
The officers remain outside for now, the door still open, and faint hallway noise carries into the room.
Footsteps approach. Four guards enter, all wearing the same plastic nose clips that I have. They are escorting a figure restrained in chains so massive that he has to lower his head just to get through the doorway. Even before he fully steps into the light, his size dominates the space, his movements barely contained by the cuffs on his wrists, the chain at his waist, and the shackles at his ankles.
They guide him to the chair across from us. One officer motions him down into the seat while another secures the chain to a fixed point on the floor, tightening it until there’s no room for sudden movement.
"Stay seated," one of them says flatly.
Theoretically, the restraints hold him in place, but they don’t make him any less dangerous.
The guards step back once they’re satisfied, exchange a brief glance, and file out of the room. The door closes behind them.
Well. It’s not his size that draws the most attention. The mutant’s lower face is stained a deep purplish red, like flames crawling up his skin, or like blood flowing upward against gravity. Some of those red streaks disappear beneath his hairline. His eyes burn with a deep purple intensity. He’s dressed in a standard prison jumpsuit, but a strip of his neck is visible, and instead of the thin purple line typical of purple alphas, there are red, fang-like markings there, adding to his monstrous presence.
I stare at him, my mouth slightly open, as his gaze sweeps over us. Blue shows nothing, but my expression pulls a sourgrimace from the mutant, like he’s thinking:what, got your fill of staring at a freak?
Blue remains still. I wonder if that freak’s pheromones affect him at all, but for now, there’s no visible sign.
I shift even closer to his side, actually pressing my chest against him now, my hand resting along the back of the chair. All of my attention stays locked on the man across the table, forcing a series of five-second scenarios through my head. I don’t see any immediate danger, but I make sure there’s no doubt where I stand.
For a moment, no one speaks, and the distance between us feels uncomfortably small.
Then Blue leans forward slightly, as if to open the conversation, but Drax beats him to it, his voice low and raspy.
"I can’t believe my eyes. Blue Lowen himself, the father of this damn program, came to honor humble little me with his presence…"
He tilts his weird, half-purple head, as if trying to seize control of the tone, but I’m not about to let him, no matter how big he is.
"Show a little respect. Maybe start with good morning and thank you, Mr. Lowen, for visiting, for your precious time?" I growl.
Fenn Drax snorts and curls his upper lip, and I notice then that unlike normal people, he has double fangs. Besides the usual canines, he has another pair where his incisors should be. It looks even more mutant-like than his face’s coloring.
Slowly, dragging it out, he says, "Sure, sure… good morning, Mr. Lowen. What could God himself possibly want from a miserable bastard like me, used by your people and then thrown to the wolves?"
Blue doesn’t seem fazed by the hostile tone.
"Don’t be a smartass, Drax. I’ve looked closely into your case. If not for that stupid revenge mission you went on, you would be a perfectly free man right now, and I could have offered you a much better deal."
The mutant grimaces again, baring his weird teeth like a wild animal. "Offer me a deal… What’s that supposed to mean, Mr. Lowen? I’m in prison. And my revenge, as you call it, was completely justified. If you knew what they did to me…"
"I know quite a bit about your circumstances."
"Do you?" The man twists his face in a mocking expression and leans forward slightly, which makes me go rigid instantly, ready to defend Blue with all I have.
"Do you know they beat me with a metal table leg until I had intracranial bleeding? And then, in a room full of forty people, they tried to impale me with it? If the guards hadn’t shown up, that’s exactly what would have happened!"
Silence falls. Blue tilts his head slightly, then speaks.
"And yet, under the law, what you did afterward was attempted murder. So even if you felt justified, the law does not see it that way, and that is why… you are here."
"The law?" Drax throws back bitterly. "The law!" He raises his voice, rolling his eyes. "Seriously? I did everything to stay within the law, Mr. Lowen. I demanded signed consent forms from those betas, I recorded my supervisor confirming to me that everything was voluntary, and then it turns out I wasn’t even formally employed! And of course I discovered that every beta was effectively threatened with removal from the program unless they agreed to fuck with me. So tell me, who cared about the law back then?"
Blue’s response is cold.
"The fact that others broke the law doesn’t automatically mean you should have done the same or that you have any leeway. The facility’s warden has received his sentence. Heis currently in prison. If you hadn’t done what you did, if you hadn’t returned to that island, I could have given you a legitimate position at one of my facilities, where we conduct advanced research into fertility activation. But as things stand, I cannot offer you anything like that. What I do have approval from the judge to offer you is a position… as a research subject."
Drax blinks, as if he can’t believe what he just heard. Then he snorts in contempt. "Do you really think I want to be experimented on? And still be locked up, one way or another? I already agreed to a vasectomy for that damn warden!"
"The difference is that after spending a year as a research subject, you would be allowed to live in a location of your choosing, with only an ankle monitor. That would last five, at most seven years, and then you would be free. If you refuse my offer, you’re looking at fifteen to twenty years for four counts of attempted murder, including shooting two people. Cutting that sentence to less than half is not a bad deal, don’t you think?"
