Page 83 of Calico Descending

I don’t answer him right away, with my head swirling around the many scenarios laid out before me: turn myself over, force them to kill me and take the memories of Valdys to my grave, or run.

“Where is she!” The thunder in his voice echoes through the canyon, and delirious with shock, I lift my gaze to his.

“Dead.”

“Dead,” he echoes, and turns to the officers, giving a nod.

They lurch into motion, and as they near, Cadmus swings out, knocking one of the soldiers to the ground. Four others charge forward, jabbing their spears, as he backs me to the wall behind us.

“Stop! Stop! Okay! I won’t fight!” Cadmus holds his hands up, twitching again.

Oh, God, no. I can’t afford to lose him to this. I won’t have the strength to fight alone.

He lowers his head, turning away from the soldiers in the same submissive stance as when we were back at the marauders camp, but this time, he whispers, “Verisimilitude.”

A wave of relief crashes over me, quickly doused by the soldiers who lead him away from me.

Doctor Tims steps forward, and with my back pressed against the wall, there’s nowhere for me to go. Blackness flies toward my face, and a hard smack against my cheek sends me tumbling to the ground.

Through the dizzying ache of my jaw, I look up to see Doctor Tims glance back toward Cadmus, who stands flanked by the other soldiers, twitching and trembling.

His cold eyes turn to me once more. “He’s certainly not the soldier he was before, is he?”

“He never was,” I correct, pushing to my feet again. “That’s the problem, wasn’t it? You couldn’t control them yourselves.”

“He looks fairly controlled to me now.”

“Because you’ve destroyed his mind. You tricked him with hallucinations.”

“Whatever works.” Hands crossed behind his back, Doctor Tims paces in front of me. “You, on the other hand, are weak. Nothing like Neela. Or your sister, for that matter.”

“What would you know of my sister? She’s dead.”

“Perhaps.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you sure you want to open that box, Cali? The truth is a little unsettling.”

Thoughts swirl inside my head, taking me back to the night when Medusa confessed Bryani had died that day. “A gunshot wound killed her.”

“A gunshot wounded her. She was basically braindead after, so in some ways, I guess you’re not totally wrong.”

A cold, sick feeling settles in my stomach and crawls up the back of my spine, as his words begin to unravel inside my head. He’s as deranged as any of the doctors at Calico, but the only one who has offered some truths. And something tells me this one will haunt me more than the lies. “What did you do?”

“You see, when a normal female becomes impregnated by an Alpha, it’s inevitable that she dies. We watched it time and time again, with countless female subjects. Your sister cared for those women. And she became quite attached to them. She believed in our quest for the cure. So, as an ode to her, we thought we’d try a different approach, by impregnating an unconscious female. One whose brain couldn’t produce the same proteins.”

The first tremble of rage snakes beneath my skin, boiling inside my veins, while I watch him pace again.

“To our surprise, she was the first subject to deliver late in the third trimester. Unfortunately, the baby was stillborn, and she perished soon after.”

“She’s was a child! You monsters! You fucking murderers!” The kettled rage explodes inside of me, and I rush toward him. Breath explodes from my throat, where his palm slams into my gullet, and rigid stone crashes into my spine, as I fall back against the wall of rock behind me.

“That’s the difference between you two. She didn’t behave like a savage.” Fingers digging into my throat, he squeezes harder, and head woozy with the lack of oxygen, I watch objects float before my eyes.

“Go to hell,” I say past clenched teeth.

Knuckles crack against my cheekbone, sending pain up through my sinuses in a smack I didn’t see coming. “You’re nothing but a weak girl. Pathetic. Should’ve been you who took that bullet, and the world would be a better place for it.”

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