Ava Gray - Skin Tight

“It was just a kiss,” she’d muttered. “It’s not like I demanded sex.”

With determination, she shoved away the faintly humiliating recollection. A kiss she’d instigated on the bathroom floor hardly qualified as magical. The awkwardness didn’t prevent her from worrying about him, however.

Her heart skittered in her chest as she stepped out of her quarters. They had long since ceased locking the door. Rowan deemed her no flight risk; that much was sure. Of course, the crazy bastard also thought she wanted to run away with him, so there was no accounting for the way his mind worked.

The white, clinical corridors contrasted markedly with the mock normalcy of her décor. She liked to pretend she was an ordinary girl with a small apartment, a television, and a job she hated. That was one reason she never came out into the facility proper; it destroyed the illusion. There was no grass, no sky, no sun, just endless white and soulless metal as far as the eye could see. Overhead, the fluorescent lights offered the same wattage day after day. She didn’t know how Rowan could choose this life for himself when the whole world beckoned.

Every instinct told her to return to her apartment. It was safe in there. Instead, she picked her way carefully down the hall. Silas often brought her this way for treatments, and she knew the cells lay past the treatment rooms. She had been kept in one until Rowan grew confident she could be trusted.

And what will he say if he finds you wandering, hm?

She got her lie ready. I was looking for you. It’s been several days since I saw you. Yes, that would work. If the words fed his ego and his delusions, he’d believe them. Gillie could envision how his face would soften and he’d give that awful smile. This time he might kiss her. She steeled herself against the possibility. At least it won’t be my first.

Gillie tiptoed past the treatment rooms. From within, she heard low moans of pain. That meant the techs were working, carrying out the doctor’s instructions. She hardly dared to breathe as she went by.

She continued down the corridor. The horror of the cells struck her anew. They were eight by eight, and each contained only a commode and a cot. An industrial drain lay in the middle of the floor, necessary because the test subjects were hosed off once a week from a spigot in the ceiling.

Some of the walls were spattered with blood, or other, less readily recognizable substances. A few of the subjects sat and rocked; others lay in the fetal position on their cots. Two paced like animals. Another pressed her hands against the glass as Gillie went by. She stopped, unable to help herself, unable to deny the woman this moment of connection. Aching, she pressed her palms to the glass from her side. There was cognition in the other woman’s eyes.

Kill me, she mouthed.

Gillie tugged on her pink scrubs, which were the only things Rowan ever ordered for her to wear. She found that faintly creepy, but at least she was out of the gray, institutional pajamas the other subjects had on. At last, the woman seemed to realize Gillie wasn’t wearing a badge.

The woman pointed at her cell door, a plea in her eyes, and Gillie had to shake her head. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

When the girl turned away, Gillie walked on. Mercifully, she could remember little of her time in these cells. They’d kept her sedated while they studied the limits and requirements of her gift. She didn’t know how the others bore it, and as for the ones who couldn’t, well, the madness was understandable.

She found Taye in the last cell. His swollen jaw and black eyes made him difficult to identify at first, but she knew the shape of his hands and the breadth of his shoulders as well. Not to mention the tousled dark hair. His gray pajamas were stained dark in splatter patterns. All too clearly she could see the crunch of cartilage and bone, echoed in the discolored fabric. Gillie recognized Silas’s handiwork; he executed the doctor’s punishments, but she’d never received the impression he enjoyed it.

Goddamn you, Rowan, what have you done?

He lifted his head as if he sensed her. His eyes took too long to focus, and Gillie had watched enough medical TV to know that meant a concussion. If only I had the key code. As if Taye read her mind, he extended a hand. Blue sparked from his fingertips, echoing in the panel, and the door popped wide, but he wasn’t steady enough to stand.

He tried and fell.

Which explained why she hadn’t seen him. Mindless of the cameras, she hurried into his cell and knelt beside him. “I have to get you out of here. He’s going to kill you.”

“Won’t.” His voice came out slurry through puffy lips. “He’s selling me to China.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Overheard.”

“So that’s why he had you beaten?”

“Also suspects I see you more than an hour a day. Couldn’t prove it.” He gave her a hard look. “Now he can.”

She helped him to a sitting position, an arm around his shoulders. It was hard to know where to touch him that it wouldn’t hurt. An ache sprung up inside her; he had been beaten because of her, because of a madman’s obsession.

“I was worried about you.”

“Go. Will try to wipe the cameras before anyone notices.”

“The pain makes it hard to focus,” she guessed.

“Yeah. Please go.”

Impotence made her angry. She had spent her whole life obeying orders. She was tired of toeing the line for fear of consequences. Rowan held the unspoken threat of the cells over her to compel her cooperation, and now, the one time she’d dared disobey, Taye was trying to banish her back to the safe walls that held her prisoner.

“Not just yet. When you aren’t injured, how’s your control?”

“Good.” His green eyes reflected anger and frustration. “Might be another reason why he had me beaten. Was nearly ready.”

“Then you just need a few days to heal. Try not to piss him off.” Gillie held up a hand, forestalling his instinctive protest. “I know you love to provoke him, but remember, I can’t get out of here without you. I need you, Taye.”

“I’ll be good,” he growled.

She couldn’t do anything else for him, but she knew who could. Gillie hurried out of the cell, which locked behind her when the door clicked shut. At this hour, Silas would be eating in the small employee lounge. As she’d suspected, he was spooning up some soup while staring at the television. He wasn’t homely per se, just… unnerving.

“Silas,” she said softly.

He turned to regard her with dead, black eyes. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

“Neither are you, I think. Do you like your job?”

The big man made a sound like an inner tube deflating and studied his enormous hands as if he’d never seen them before. “No.”

“You hurt Taye.”

“I know. Rowan made me.”

“How?”

In answer, Silas turned his head and showed her a faint blue pulsing light, inset behind his ear. Jesus, it had to be a control mechanism. Silas wasn’t an employee; he was a former test subject.

“I’m going to die here,” he said, and went back to his soup.

Suddenly bolder than she’d ever been in her life, she touched his arm. He tensed at the simple contact and looked at her hand as if it were an alien appendage complete with tentacles. “What if I said you could get out? Would you do something for me?”

Silas put the spoon down. “I might.”

“Taye might be able to help you. He could short out that gizmo in your head. I don’t know where that would leave you, maybe you’d revert to however you were before, but at least you wouldn’t be under Rowan’s control anymore. That has to be worth something.”