Page 21 of Heir of Ashes

Surprised, I shook my head. “No. I was cooperating by then.”

His gaze flicked up to a spot just above my forehead before he looked away, frowning. My heart skipped a beat. Did he just try to read my aura? According to Dr. Maxwell’s journal, werewolves couldn’t see auras.Could they?

“Why did they think you could breathe underwater? Are you a sea creature?” he demanded, still frowning.

Was I? Not if I couldn’t breathe underwater. “Who knows the minds of mad scientists?”

Logan debated with himself for a moment before asking, “And when you didn’t behave, what did they do to you?”

I glanced around the desert, thinking. Remembering. “The first few weeks, I gave them hell, fighting every step of the way. I punched, kicked, bit, spat. And when I resisted, experiment days happened three, sometimes four times a week. Then I started behaving, attempting escape only when I saw an opportunity.” Thinking about it now, I wondered if those opportunities had been deliberately staged to justify more experiments.

I wished someone had been as concerned for me as Logan was for his friend. What kind of friendship caused suchloyalty, such unwavering devotion? We locked gazes, Logan with simmering anger in his eyes, me with envy and hurt in my heart—even a drop of resentment. My expression was neutral, the mask I’d worn for half my life in place, concealing the raging emotions tangled beneath. Logan looked away first, but the hard set of his jaw made it clear he was far from calm.

I had rattled him.

“This Dr. Maxwell, he seemed to be on your side, the way he stood by arguing with the director, and the way he persisted at the end?”

I let out a harsh, bitter laugh, tinged with hysteria. “Dr. Maxwell just didn’t want his experiments to be over. He’s cautious, he’s smart, but he’s not sympathetic, and he’s not above inflicting pain if he sees a reward at the end.”

I thought about all the times Dr. Maxwell had brought me snacks, new magazines, talked to me about the world beyond the PSS. There were moments when I’d believed he wanted to help, but after the wolf incident, I knew better. He was a scientist above all else, and he’d thought gaining my trust would lead to better, more satisfying outcomes. Like I said, I was young and desperately needed sympathy. Dr. Maxwell had known that and, in the name of his project, had exploited that angle, bribing me to help advance his research.

No, Dr. Maxwell had never cared about me as a person but as a project, a special guinea pig.

“What if my friend could give them hell, but instead of kicking and spitting, he actually manages to injure or even kill some of them?”

I doubted he could, but I considered his question carefully. I remembered the first time I managed to injure one of the Scientists by kicking and dislocating his kneecap. They had shot me full of tranquilizers, then proceeded with their test byinjecting some sort of hallucinogenic spell into my IV while I was still unconscious.

“First of all, you should keep in mind the PSS has this thing they call the blocking bracelet, which they use on preternaturals to prevent them from tapping into that something that makes them other. But let’s say your friend manages to get to one or maybe two guards. If he’s that dangerous, they’ll just tighten security, give him a mild sedative—enough to keep him aware but not able to do much harm—then they’ll surround him with more scientists to watch the phenomenon. If he’s smart, he would rather they experiment while he’s lucid.” If I had thought Logan’s anger was overwhelming before, it all but suffocated me now.

“Is that what they did to you?” he asked in a low tone.

I remembered waking up after I had attacked the guest scientist. After I broke his kneecap, one of the guards shot me with a tranquilizer. It was one of those rare experiments where I didn’t need to be conscious while they prepared me.

I had woken in my room—the old one I had occupied in my early days at the PSS. It was a simple room with a narrow bed, a small bathroom, and sometimes a chair.

That day, my mother had occupied the straight-backed chair beside me. I’d been so glad to see her, I flung myself out of bed into her lap and cried my heart out.

I could smell the jasmine scent of her lotion, the cinnamon scent of her hair. She held me close, telling me everything would be all right. Then, three guards had barged into the room. Two had grabbed me while the other went for my mother. I was shackled and manacled with a special metal used for preternaturals and dragged to a small empty room in Building C—a room I had never been taken to before. It was a bare, sterile room with only a two-way mirror. I knew instinctively that they were going to do something to me, punishme for misbehaving—so I was ready to plead and beg for them not to let my mother watch. But instead of taking her to the room where she could see me become a monster, they threw her into the room with me. I was horrified by the idea of attacking my mother, but they had something completely different in mind.

The speakers crackled to life, and Dr. Maxwell’s voice sliced through the silence. “Subject UX01-484, I want you to listen carefully.” He waited for my attention to focus on the mirror where I knew he was watching.

“This room will start filling with fast-acting, enhanced radiation. We have reason to believe you can form an air shield around you and your mother. Once the radiation starts leaking and you’re exposed, if you don’t form the shield within two minutes, your mother will die. You have enough immunity to live three minutes longer than her.”

The words hit me like a blow, leaving me stunned, my throat constricting with terror. “P-please don’t do this. At least let her go,” I choked.

My mother huddled in the corner, loose strands of her honey-blonde hair around her face, her black eyes huge and frightened, her skin ghostly white, and she was shaking and shivering. It was an image that brought me nightmares for many years.

“Those are my orders. I have no choice. I’m sorry.”

“If you’re wrong and I die, then you won’t be able to experiment anymore,” I spat furiously. Tears tracked down my cheeks, and my body quaked with fear.

“I’m sorry. I have orders to follow,” he repeated before falling silent, as if debating what to say next. “They believe if you can’t do this, then you’re not what they thought you were.”

I huffed a dry laugh. “Then I die, and you get to pick another victim to torture.”

“Subject UX01-484!” boomed another voice from the speakers. “This is Dr. Michael Dean. If you can’t meet our expectations, there’s no reason to waste funds and resources on you. You are nothing but expendable.” He clicked off, and I heard hissing from all four sides of the room. Gas seeped from small holes in the corners, and my mother came closer. Did radiation have an odor? Texture or color? I thought frantically about what I could possibly do. I imagined the air shield they wanted me to form. I even closed my eyes to concentrate harder, but nothing happened. Desperate, I imagined me and my mother inside a bubble and tried to project it … and nothing. Either I wasn’t concentrating enough, or Dr. Dean was about to be proven wrong. An arm’s length away, my mother sat, sobbing, telling me she was sorry over and over.

I crouched and held her close. We rocked back and forth together, and I kept trying to do something, to form that damn shield. For the first time since the day I had been brought to the PSS fifteen months earlier, I prayed they were right about me.

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