Page 25 of Into the Fire: After
Two new nurses rotated my arms and legs in a million different weird patterns (“range of motion”) before putting me through the worst part of this ordeal to date.
The gym.
Pushups to failure. Jumping jacks to failure. Squats to failure. Jumping rope to failure. Situps to failure. A million different awful exercises to failure. My gratitude at being allowed to wear a set of scrubs and sneakers waned by the secondset to failure.By the time they deemed the day over, I was a quivering, sore, sweaty mess. At least I slept well that night.
Rest day. Thank fuck.
Another sleep, another bland breakfast. A nurse coming in to read a monitor above the toilet (which apparently measured everydepositI made, which was somehow both fascinating and mortifying). The ceiling light furthest to the left flickered every minute.
All in all, my life as a lab rat could’ve been a hell of a lot worse. It was all becoming eerily normal, and that was the scariest part of the whole damn thing.
I didn’t even have to leave my room for the next several days’ worth of tests. I sat on the bed while yet another nurse held up flashcards. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. Asked me to spell a bunch of words—some easy enough, liketorch,all the way up toonomatopoeia, which basically ended up as verbal alphabet soup. Listened to a list of animals, did some math, then had to repeat the list back…backwards.
Approximately two billion riddles and questions, spread over hours across several days. By the time the nurse left after each session, I was almost as exhausted as I’d been after the gym days.
Sandwiched between the brain teasers were more tests: X-ray, MRI, CAT scan, EEG, nerve conduction, stress test, reflex evals, and more than a couple that I had no clue what the hell they were for.
Days and days of it all. I’d lost track of how many. I should’ve tallied my meals on the wall like they did in prison movies.
If I weren’t so distracted and exhausted, I’d have fought against the longing ache for my pack that always lurked behind my ribcage. I did, when I could, because I couldn’t think of them here.
Not of Brea, whohadto be alive somewhere. Maybe hurt or scared, but alive.
Not of Brooks, our only hope of escaping this nightmare.
Not of Lin and Caine, trapped somewhere in this building, but still whole, if Doc McFuckerson were to be trusted. With no other option, though, I chose trust. In that, at least.
Every time one of their faces tried to infiltrate my thoughts, I shoved them out. I couldn’t hold myself together and hold them in my mind at the same time. I simply wasn’t strong enough.
Ten
Lin
Mywristached.It’dbeen cuffed to the bedframe for the better part of three days. I assumed that was how long we’d been here; I’d taken to marking the days by each meager meal I was brought. Three meals, three days.
Presumably.
The shackles weren’t long enough that I could rest my arm comfortably on the bed. It stayed propped up near my ear, against the headboard. Each day, the ache had progressed. First in my shoulder, then down through my twisted elbow, and finally now to my wrist.
Would it explore new lands in my neck or chest over the coming days?
Maybe it would join up with the sharp burn in the back of my jaw, where Taryn’s plan hid.
I’d barely had time to look at it. Dumb luck was all that had kept it hidden through the cold shower and escort to separate solitary cells. As one guard had kept his gun trained on me,soaked and shivering in the itchy scrubs they’d gifted us, the other had cuffed me to the bed.
The absolutedumbestof luck.
In the dark of night, when I hoped I had the most cover from the domed eye in the ceiling, I’d examined it with my fingers. A small rigid square, half an inch long, if that. Rough corners, but flexible, like it was shrink-wrapped.
What are you up to, Omega?
With my face turned into my pillow in my best approximation ofinnocently sleeping because the abduction business sure is exhausting, I’d shoved the tiny square into my mouth, behind the fleshy hinge of my jaw. I’d once gotten a fish scale get caught there. Hurt like a motherfucker, scratching my gums and cheek, but I worried less about biting or swallowing it there. At the very least, it hurt enough that I’d know the moment it disappeared and relieved the pain.
What to do with the goddamn thing, I didn’t have a clue.
A series of muffled beeps from down the hall whispered through the thick steel door. I counted to fourteen, sitting up as best I could, and my door clicked and swung open on fifteen. It shut with a heavy thud and another mechanical beep of a lock engaging. The black-clad guard set the tray on the end of my bed, just like they’d done every other day.
I stretched out with my other arm to pull the tray closer. Two slices of white bread with a few rounds of thin lunch meat between. A cup of water.
