Page 3 of Sergi
Humans wouldn’t smell the decaying flesh as intensely as a vampire or shifter, but it would still activate the gag reflexes, as was evidenced by the female who began breathing through her mouth.
“We need this lab spotless by tomorrow. S-272 will show you where the cleaning supplies are stored. You’ll be returned to your cell once the lab is ready for the next experiment.” She glanced at her tablet then nodded at the attendants, who stepped back.
If I weren’t so sick at the sight of the lab, I would have smiled at how pale the attendants had become.
“S-272, come here.” The female tapped the tablet against her leg.
A sound of scraping came from a far corner, and an older male shifter lifted his head, glancing around. Seeing the female, he nodded and moved out from around a counter. He wasn’t very tall and was as thin as the rest of us. He walked with an exaggerated limp, but if it caused him any pain, he didn’t show it. So, an old wound.
“Yes, mistress.” His tone was submissive as he bowed his head. A good little shifter slave greeting his master.
“This is S-473. She’ll be assisting you today.” The female gave me a side glance, and I lowered my head. “If she works to your satisfaction, I’ll consider her for your assistant. We’ve been ordered to increase the experiments.”
I gave the female a quick peek. Did she notice the twitch in his shoulders, the tension now riding along his back? I didn’t think so, but, as a shifter, it was possible I was the only one who would notice. For the moment, I would hold my judgment on S-272 until I spent time with him. But I would have to tread carefully.
While most of the imprisoned shifters would fight if given half the chance, some had been enslaved for too long and would defend their masters—human or vampire.
S-272 took a moment to look me over with a detached glance. “Yes, mistress.”
“I know she doesn’t look like much, but according to her chart, she listens and does what is asked of her. We’ll see if she can appropriately handle the benefit of working outside the cells.”
“Yes, mistress.” He continued to nod like a bobblehead.
“I’ll send someone to check your progress in two hours.”
The doors slid shut, and the lock engaged.
S-272 turned to me, his blank expression never changing, but I saw a spark of interest in his gaze before he dropped his head. “Follow me.”
I trailed after him, staring at the blood-soaked room. All of a sudden, stuck in my cell didn’t seem so bad after all.
Chapter Two
I was pushedinto my cell, barely able to walk as I dropped onto my sleeping mat, too tired to eat the cup of congealed stew that had been left for me. After five straight days, I was utterly exhausted from cleaning the bloody aftermath of the vampires’ failed experiments on shifters.
On my first day working with S-272, the only words he spoke were to tell me where the cleaning supplies and water basin were. Then he grumbled a word or two each time he assigned a new task after I completed the previous one. He could have just told me to clean one side of the lab, but for some reason, he broke the jobs down to a specific table or counter and then a narrow section of the tiled floor or wall.
He might have been testing me, or maybe he didn’t think I could understand simple directions. I chalked it up to him spending too many years in service to the vampires. They had always looked down on shifters as if we were nothing more than dimwitted apes and not the intelligent, pack-oriented species we were.
On the second day, as each cleaning area grew in size, it confirmed my earlier suspicions that S-272 was testing me. The next day, the tasks returned to his careful doling out of smallertasks, ensuring each one had been completed to his satisfaction before assigning the next one. It took the fourth day before I understood he was waiting for me to complain with frustration and sloppy work.
Today had been different.
Each of the previous days, as we cleaned up the remains of one of our own, S-272 never showed any emotion. He’d either grown cold and indifferent with time, or he’d learned to mask his emotions.
I handled it much the same way. It wasn’t that I didn’t care that it was shifter flesh and bits of bone I scraped off the floor or cabinets. It was easier because I had no idea who the shifters had been—no facial image to haunt my dreams and no knowledge of the life they’d led that warranted such a horrendous end. It would catch up with me, and until then, I would keep my head down and do the work.
But today, S-272 kept to himself, and I only caught his gaze twice. Both times, his eyes brimmed with unshed tears. Each time, I glanced away. And I understood. This one. This shifter, who was nothing more than a bucket of remains that were dumped into a hazardous waste receptacle, had been someone S-272 had known. Possibly cared for.
It gutted me.
I had wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my blood-stained lab coat and continued the task before me. Now, all I wanted to do was sleep and forget.
Forget where I was. Forget my new assignment. Forget all I’d left behind. Forget who I had been.
I was S-473.
I tensedin weary sleep when I heard the billy club at my door. It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two since I’d dropped onto my mat. I moaned when the door burst open and a bright light from a lantern shone on me.
