Sierra Dean - Secret Unleashed

“We’ve had this discussion, you and I. A vampire is not a living thing. That’s what makes you so special. You’re one of them, yet your heart…”

When he said heart , I recoiled, my body shuddering violently. I turned away from him, momentarily wishing the wall would open up and swallow me whole. All from one word.

If he noticed my Pavlovian response, it didn’t slow him down any because he went on to say, “Your heart beats. It’s such an amazing thing. You are a true marvel.”

The way he looked at me bordered on adoration. I couldn’t make sense of this man. He cut me open and wiggled his bare hands around inside me, stealing bits of my organs for God only knew what purpose, and yet he could still gawk at me like I was a beautiful sight.

“I want to see him,” I said.

“I know exactly what you want, and I intend to deliver. But I’ve never let anyone out before, you understand.”

“You’ve never had anyone like me here before.”

He laughed, and it was deep and warm, the kind of laugh a good man should have. This was not a good man. This guy was a modern-day Josef Mengele as far as I was concerned. I didn’t lightly go about comparing people to Nazi doctors with a penchant for human experimentation, but it seemed apt in his case. Regardless of what kind of monster he was, I was willing to do whatever it took to appease him if it meant getting out of this cell.

I thought I could withstand anything, but the last week had proven just how finely drawn my limits were. I wanted to leave here and go home. I wanted to sit on a couch wedged in the middle of Desmond and Holden and never, ever choose between them, and I wanted to see Keaty and Cedes. I wanted to hear my grandmere ’s voice and see Eugenia over video chat. I wanted to ask for a thousand things, but right now I would only ask for two.

“I want to see him.”

“You look frightful. Let’s take care of that first, then we can discuss a plan.” He tapped on the door, and it was opened from the outside, only this time no one closed it right away. He stepped into the hall and turned back to me. “Are you coming?”

He glowed like an angel framed in the fluorescent lights from the hallway. I took a step closer and hesitated. It was a trap, it had to be a trap. There was no way this plan could work so easily.

My gaze drifted to the drain on the floor, recalling how I’d woken next to it coated in my own blood. I remembered every awful moment spent in these four walls, and I suddenly didn’t care if it was a trap. If it meant getting out of here, I’d leave without so much as a backwards glance.

He crooked his fingers at me, and like a shy puppy I crept forward until I reached the threshold.

“In case you’re wondering why I’m being generous and allowing you to come on your own, I have a trigger for that collar around your neck, and I can make it do things far worse than a simple shock.”

Most of the genius aspect of my plan wilted with those words. I couldn’t get free and run for it. If he really did have a remote for this stupid collar, he’d be able to blow my head off.

I needed to get the remote or kill him.

I knew which option I preferred.

The Doctor offered me his elbow like he was walking me into our senior prom. The thought of touching him made me almost physically ill, but I bit back the sudden urge to vomit and slid my hand around his arm. My fingers were trembling so badly it was impossible the shaking would go unnoticed, but he didn’t say anything.

Chances were good he enjoyed me fear. My fear of him meant he was in control, meant he maintained the upper hand. I couldn’t pretend not to be terrified of him, and I lacked the energy to repress my reactions. Let him know I was afraid, and it might work in my favor as far as making him trust me.

I was escorted to another room, though this one lacked the coldness of my former chamber. It wasn’t fancy, more like a cheap motel room or a military barracks, but it had a bed and a shower, and in one of the drawers someone had left clothes. Real clothes.

“Dawn is getting close. You’ll stay here through the day, and tomorrow evening you and I will have a chat,” he told me. “The collar is quite safe in the shower, if you were concerned.”

Once I was alone I bathed quickly, scrubbing off over a week’s worth of dirt, sweat and dried blood. Evidently, only parts of me had been cleaned in preparation for my surgery. I lathered soap over every inch of my body, hoping I might be able to wash away the entire ordeal. I succeeded in scrubbing off the top layer of my skin. Washing my hair, I was relieved to see it had stopped falling out, and I hadn’t lost an alarming amount while I’d been starved.

I toweled off and greedily brushed my teeth, wanting those small day-to-day luxuries I’d been denied for so long. Once I was clean I returned to the main chamber of the room and rifled through the drawers. The clothes hadn’t been selected for me personally, so there was a generic assortment of items.

I avoided the scrubs and picked some black sweatpants with a drawstring waist and an army-green T-shirt. There were no undergarments provided, so I went without, though I’d have loved a bra to combat the cold temperature in the room.

I found a pair of socks, and just having my feet bundled felt good. I didn’t want to put my boots back on until I needed to. I sat on the bed, a metal-framed twin, and looked around my new temporary home. The bed and dresser were the only furniture, and there were no mirrors in either the bedroom or the bathroom. I did another tour of the space and noticed there were no electrical sockets or phone jacks. There was no glass in the space whatsoever, and the bed was bolted to the floor. The shower curtain hung on a flimsy plastic rod, and the sink was just a basin sticking out of the wall with no exposed pipes.

They had this place locked down like a mental hospital. With the exception of the green Oral-B toothbrush, there was nothing in the room I could use as a weapon. And unless my biggest foe was tartar deposits, the toothbrush wasn’t of much use to me.

I went back to the bedroom and lay down on top of the thin blanket. Compared to my former accommodations, this might as well be the Ritz-Carlton. Even the flimsy mattress felt like memory foam compared to a concrete floor.

The full weight of my exhaustion pressed down on me, holding me into the mattress like a giant hand. I had to think about my plan, figure out what I would do the next evening after seeing Holden, but my body didn’t care. Plans weren’t going to happen tonight.

I fell asleep thinking of the last bed I’d been in and imagining Holden’s arms. I made a silent prayer I’d be in those arms again tomorrow.

An unfamiliar man was standing over me when I woke up, and my immediate reaction was to slap him.

The response was instinctive, and I was thankfully so weak it didn’t do any serious damage, but he still seemed surprised, hollering, “ Ow. I thought you said this one was incapacitated.”

He rubbed his cheek and glared at someone on my opposite side.

“No, I said she wasn’t at her full strength. You’re the idiot who got in her face. You know better than to approach the subjects.”

“She was sleeping.”

“She’s part vampire, and you didn’t check the sun chart. Idiot. ” The other person was a woman. The nurse who I’d slapped wasn’t Geoffrey, the man I’d threatened the day before. I wondered if he’d requested a transfer off Secret duty or if it just wasn’t his shift yet.

Both nurses stood back from me now, looking uncertain of how to deal with my potential violence.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t sorry at all, but if they thought I was going to start attacking people, they’d move me back to my cell. “You surprised me. I’m so sorry.”