Page 19 of Beyond Hate

When I came into the room this time, I had an entourage of scientists at my back. My eyes were all for London as his head jerked up, even though his were all for what was happening behind us. That was fine… the show was all for him anyway. He hadn’tseenthe truth in my words before. I’dmakehim see.

The first needle made the man’s body jerk. I’d made it clear that both of my brothers were dangerous, that there was no reason for them not to be secured when they were brought back. It wasn’t because I was concerned they’d hurt me. I just didn’t want them offing themselves before I had an opportunity to getmy fill of revenge, and there was every chance they’d do it just to spite me.

His eyes flared wide for the briefest flash—bright hazel and full of broken accusations—and then he went limp.

Another assistant came into the room, and they were efficient when they took Marco from the wall and placed him back on his bed. I wasn’t even sure if it was necessary to restrain him at this point, but they still strapped his limp body to the frame. They didn’t even bother cleaning the blood from the metal when they chained the second man to the wall where he’d been.

“What are they doing?” London’s voice was soft when he finally spoke, and I leaned toward him like we were just two school kids watching an experiment.

“They’re bringing our brother back.” My eyes searched his face, catching sight of the slight disbelief still lingering in the back of his gaze. For some reason, it infuriated me. I needed him to believe me. “You want to see that I’m telling the truth? Watch.”

He seemed incapable of doing anything else as the man strapped to the wall woke. He fixed the two women with his confused expression.

“Don’t… don’t, don’t, don’t.” He muttered the same word over and over again in desperation. Watching me torture Marco really hadbroken him, but that was fine. I wasn’t interested inhim.

And that terrified expression slowly faded as one of the women stepped forward and slid a needle into his throat. The final injection.

The others had just dazed him for a while, given him nightmares of a life he’d lived before…

But this…

This was going to change everything, and all I could do was watch London as it happened.

Chapter 7

London

Somethingawfulwashappening.I didn’t know the man in the room with me, but I’d heard him every night this week crying. Nightmares—violent nightmares that made him thrash. His voice changed when he had them, it went deeper. Rougher.

He sounded terrified.

He sounded terrifying…

And Otto’s arms around me had been the only thing that kept me from going crazy listening to it.

Now, though, Otto couldn’t distract me from what was happening in front of my eyes. The man jerked when they put the needle into his neck, and then he went limp. The two women who’d come into the room left silently, and for a while there was nothing but the sound of our breathing—mine, a sharp gasp of panic, Otto’s, calm and even. The man chained to the wall took short, shallow pants… and in the corner, the one who I was pretty sure was dying barely rattled a breath at all.

And then there was the clink of chains as the man on the wall spasmed. It was so violent it made me recoil, and I realized a second too late that I hadn’t crawled away.

I’d moved closer to Otto, and his arms sliding around me were too strong to resist. The feel of him holding me tethered me as somethingimpossibleunfolded in front of me.

The man’s lids flew open, and I watched in confusion as his dark irises burst—the color flew through the whites of his eyes, and when it shrank back down as he gasped like he was taking his first breath, his pupils were ringed with a circle of blue.

Bright blue.

The same blue as my eyes.

“Wh…” His eyes darted around the room and his wrists jerked against his chains. “What’s going on?”

It wasn’t the soft voice I’d occasionally heard him use before.

It was deep.

Rough.

The voice he’d spoken in while he was dreaming…

Past lives. A needle to make you disappear.

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