Page 10 of Rage

The thought flashes through my brain the same moment he lifts his head up from my neck and flicks his gaze back to mine.

No, no, no, no! This can’t be happening—this isn’t happening! I strike without thought of anything but the need for this nightmare to end, but he’s close enough for me to finally make impact, and I hit him square in one prominent cheekbone.

Pain explodes through my knuckles, and my vision blurs with a fresh bout of tears.

AX2 grunts, a surprised sound. When I blink my vision clear, he is staring at me with wide eyes slowly filling with horror. Horror that soon morphs into utter disgust.

Baring his teeth, he swings around and shoves me away from him, making me stumble until I collide with a chair and fall smack on my ass on the concrete floor. My tailbone smarts, and AX2 hisses and presses the hand no longer around my throat to the side of his head, undoubtedly in response to his chip’s punishment for hurting me. It’s the first reaction he’s shown since he snatched me by the throat.

“Abort autonomy,” I wheeze, my throat struggling to expand around my voice. “Abort, abort, abort!”

AX2 drops his hand from his head, his body resetting to attention and his face smoothing to the blank mask of nothing. Safe.

Shakily, I force several deep breaths into my lungs. You’re okay. He can’t hurt you now.

Fury ignites deep in my chest and rises like a serpent. He… He thought he could…

He grabbed me!

I stagger to my feet and bare my teeth at the giant beast. “Kneel.”

This time he drops to his knees immediately, his body obeying my command without the delay of free will. He rests his knuckles lightly against the concrete floor and looks up at me impassively, awaiting my next order. There is no more anger in his eyes. No more of anything.

I growl with mounting rage. He thinks he gets to escape into mindless oblivion? After what he did to me? No. No, absolutely not!

“Engage pain receptors,” I spit.

A fine tremor works its way through his strong body. I stare at his face, waiting. Three minutes pass before he begins to breathe heavier, his sides flexing with the expansion of his lungs. Five more, and a light sheen of sweat covers his skin.

Twenty-some minutes later, I finally see the flash of awareness in his eyes, and I smirk with triumph. Can’t hide from me, soldier.

“Disengage pain receptors.”

The only outward sign of the lack of stimulus to his nervous system is a slight easing of his muscles. His breath still comes hard and fast, his skin glistening with perspiration—but his eyes are bright with consciousness as he returns my stare. I see the hatred in them plain as day.

“There you are,” I whisper. I try to say something more—to tell him he can hate me for as long as he can hold out—but my voice dies on a raspy exhale before a single word escapes.

Heat floods my body, languid and deep, making me aware of every hair standing on end across my body. The sensation of the laboratory air against my skin feels… somehow more than normal. Feels too much.

I stare unblinkingly at the kneeling alpha—at his flexing muscles around his still-rapid breaths, his broad jaw, at the sheer power of him. Without my permission, a tremor spreads from my still-bruised tailbone, up my spine and down my arms.

I open my mouth again, but no sound escapes.

His eyes are mesmerizing.

The thought is fleeting and comes unbidden. I sway unsteadily on my feet, pulled by some invisible magnetism in those green depths. I’ve never known a man with eyes like that—

But he’s not a man.

I force my mind to still. What is this? Never have I had to remind myself of AX2’s true nature, no matter how much he looks like a man. I’ve hardwired the technology within him myself, grown the cells of his artificial skin in my own lab. I know what he is, and man it is not. But why… Why is my mind so foggy? Why can’t I look away from the smoldering hatred in those haunting eyes?

My breathing is as fast as his, panic clawing at the edges of the fog swathing my brain. Something’s wrong with me. Something’s terribly, irrevocably wrong, but all I can do is stare at the kneeling alpha while my body shakes like a leaf.

Is it delayed shock? A panic attack? A freaking seizure? I need help. I need to find someone who can help me!

At that last thought, my body finally moves. But instead of running for the exit, I stumble forward. Toward him.

I only make it three steps before the heat in my body rushes south into my abdomen, and something low inside me tightens so instantaneously, I nearly lose my footing.

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