Page 16 of The King

Yeah, sorry was too much. In any other situation, Ettie might have actually liked the nurse, never the doctor, but probably the nurse. Not in an invite-her-out-for-coffee kind of way, but more in a you-smell-like-Jungle-Gardenia-and-remind-me-of-my-childhood because that was her grandmother’s favorite perfume kind of way. It reminded the Demi-Goddess of sunny summer days, of flying over the beautiful, vast gardens of one of the Featherstone Estates, and of running into the house to feast on homemade chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon buns, and little fruit tarts all made by Nona Lizzie.

“Shifting and flying used to burn so many calories. It’s a shame it doesn’t work that way anymore.”

“Shut up, Girl,”Eden chuckled, trying to take on some of Ettie's frustration.“You know your curves are in all the right places.”

“Thanks,”the Demi-Goddess snickered.“You know, maybe Nurse Weatherby really is an okay chick – when she’s not working for Dr. Josefine Mengele.”

“Of course, that’s only if a person’s preference in perfume equals any redeeming quality other than their preference in perfume,”the Empress Eagle huffed in response.

Eden was right. No matter how much like Nona Lizzie Nurse Weatherly smelled, she was still one of the people pumping poison into Ettie’s veins, and that was hard to forgive.

“Talk about a fucked-up situation. I’m actually having an inner debate about whether I like the nurse who is part of my torture team or not while I’m being whisked away to Isolation. Tell me I haven’t lost my mind? Or worse yet, developed Stockholm syndrome. Can we even get something like that? Dear Great Goddess, I really hope we can’t.”

“No, Bonehead, we can't get any of those 'conditions,' or anything else like it, without a whole lot of Black Magic, Sorcery, and help from the Devil Himself. As far as Stockholm Syndrome, we haven't been here long enough for that shit. Not even a human would've been here long enough or had enough contact with the doctor for that, and you have to be awake to develop a connection that your kidnapper can exploit,"Eden scoffed."Besides, even if we had been awake and you could get conned, I wouldn't let it happen. There is no way, no how, there's gonna be another Patty Hearst on my watch. You hear me? We will not go there."

“Yeah, I hear ya’.”

“But on the other hand, I must say, only you could have a moral dilemma about the treatment of our torturer by HER torturer,”Eden scoffed.“Then try to decide if you could forgive her because she smells like your Nona.”

“Oh, shut up. I can’t help it if I have feelings, and my brain is all befuddled with drugs and herbs and silver. You know that shit makes me all tender-hearted. Besides, Empathy is part of who I am. You know that better than anyone. Worse than that, now that I can feel it again, I can't shut it out. That part of my brain, my defense mechanisms, aren't working yet. They're a little behind. There's a whole metric ton of everyone else's emotional baggage streaming into me like Hoover Dam just burst, and the nurse is the closest to me who has any kind of remorse at all, so her emotions are the strongest. She's stuck. She just needed a job, and this was the only one she could find. She'd been unemployed for nearly a year, her mom was sick, and the insurance ran out. She applied everywhere. All the hospitals…"

“Wait! What did you just say?

"I said that the nurse… Wait! Holy shit! I can feel what she feels and read some of her thoughts! I can hear everybody in this entire hellhole – even the people working here and the Shifters somewhere behind us. They're all trapped in one way or another. It's like the doctor sought out the humans she knew she could control – make them do anything she wanted without recourse because of their situations. The meds are wearing off! They have to be wearing off, right? Of course, they're wearing off. That's the only way I would be hearing all of this, right? I can…”

“You can keep right on going! I can’t hear shit yet, but I’ll help in any way I can. You just…”

“Hush! I’m trying to listen.”

And just like that, Ettie came to a screeching halt. Once again, she slid forward, then jerked backward, and felt like she was on an upside-down Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair. This time around, she didn't even have a chance for her head to spin before the doctor scolded, "Be careful. You cannot treatthisspecimen like that. We must follow protocol to the letter.Youcannot make a single mistake. Even the smallest misstep, and she might get free."

During the pregnant pause that followed, the irritation, rage, and utter indignation ratcheted up to thirty-three on a ten-point scale – and it came from all four of the men. They did not like the doctor and, if Ettie wasn't mistaken, were contemplating ways to end her existence.

“Get in line, boys,”Eden and Ettie scoffed in unison. Then the Demi-Goddess added,“I need to find out more.”

Mentally, everything was still fragmented and squelchy, much like the phone she'd used to call Maggie, but Ettie wasn't giving up. If they'd misjudged how her body would react to lower doses of poison, then surely, they'd miscalculated other things, too. She was probably the only Demi-Goddess they'd ever kidnapped and drugged…

Hopefully,she was the only Demi-Goddess they’d ever kidnapped and drugged…

If she was, that meant they had no clue what the fuck they were doing. With any luck, they didn't know about dear old dad, or even all the good stuff she'd inherited from her mom's side. It might be the only advantage she had. For the moment, Ettie had to stay alert, constantly take inventory of herself and her surroundings, and wait for the right moment to strike.

“Okay, Cobra Kai, you do you,”Eden sarcastically chuckled, still trying to help manage Ettie's raging emotions and keep her concentration on the task at hand.

Accepting the Empress Eagle's support without comment, Ettie focused on the conversation at her bedside while trying to penetrate the doctor's mind. She was the head honcho. Of that, there was no doubt – and boy, was she a piece of work. Sadly, her mind was locked up so tightly the Demi-Goddess couldn't see just what made that piece of work the special kind of psychotic butthead she was.

Not only was her tone arrogant and demanding, but she threw off the acrid and spine-tingling scent of condescension and disdain with a triple dose of good old-fashioned snobbery with incredible finesse. It was undoubtedly her true personality. Oh, yeah, this woman held herself in high regard, didn't think she owed anyone anything, and believed the people working for her were nothing more than a means to an end. Ettie wasn't even sure if she saw them as people. The Great Goddess knew she didn't think of the Others she'd ordered taken – the Shifters if Eden was right – to be anything other than fodder with which to play and experiment. The Demi-Goddess didn't need any of her unique abilities to know the doctor hated the people she was holding and keeping sedated.

“Keep going, Girl,”Eden encouraged. “You’re hearing some of the HBIC’s thoughts now. Locate an opening. You need to get in there, dig around, and find out how to get us out of here.”

“HBIC?”

“Head bitch in charge,”Eden explained.“Oh, please, you’ve never heard that before?”

“Not that I…”She stopped short as the woman in charge once again started to speak.

“She is a Daughter of Lugh,” the doctor announced.

“Well shit, she’s heard of dad.”

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