Previously:

Her silence only put more distance between us. Wind came through the speaker, and I knew she was running. "Be strong for your mother."

"I just hope she's strong enough."

Elise

Carlisle greeted me at the lab. With some sustenance, my mood had shifted into the positive, but the negativity of the sickly aura within the pods drowned me.

"When will the morphine wear off?" I asked.

"I don't give them full doses, so right about now," Carlisle said, gazing over at the humans who were sound asleep. "It will get louder here, I hope you know that."

I knew it all too well.

"Have you spoken to Esme at all?" I asked.

A small smile appeared on his lips at the mention of his wife and mate. "Everyday. She's doing just fine."

"You could bring her here to Arizona."

"I'd like to keep her away from all of this," he spoke quietly. "Besides, a little separation is good here and there." His smile came back. "When you have eternity, these little lapses of time don't mean much."

"It's not something I've processed. Eternity."

Carlisle pulled out a piece of cloth to polish some of the metal instruments he had out on the table. "Well, time isn't our killer." He put down a scapula, and picked up a stethoscope. "But stagnation is often a concern. It mostly leads to insanity."

"Are the Volturi kings insane?"

Carlisle laughed. "From a clinical perspective, I'm not sure. But Jasper has certainly made that argument with the alliance. The whole delegate congregation is based on the Volturi's inability to adapt to modernity."

Little groans came from the pods as some of the patients woke up. They couldn't see us. They couldn't see anything outside of the pod they were in.

The patient from the first pod sat up—a woman, a little older than me. Her dark hair was in tangles as she stumbled to the secluded toilet. The man in the pod next to her almost fell off the bed, his hands sliding over the glass wall, little whimpers escaping his mouth.

Carlisle straightened, and he gathered the tools he was polishing. He placed them in the correct spots on the wall, and I noticed his robotic behavior. But the reasoning behind it dawned on me a little later.

Boots crunched outside, and I found myself gripping the metal counter. I felt it give a little bit, the dent forming quickly. When I looked up, Damon was already there, the door closing right behind him.

"Oh, hello," he said, drawing out the greeting. He placed a backpack on a counter, and turned to me. "It's nice to have you back. A bit nostalgic, isn't it?" He paused, listening to the patients. Little moans. Groans of discomfort. "Do you hear that? The sound of progress."

If I opened my mouth, I'd never stop. So I remained silent, but I knew my expression gave it all away. And I knew he enjoyed it.

Carlisle stepped forward and gestured to the last pod. "Patient A7 is getting feverish."

Damon shrugged on his lab coat and flipped open the laptop on the counter. "Have you reduced dosage?"

"Yes, but his fever hasn't broken."

After typing a little on the laptop, Damon went over to the sink to wash his hands. After that, he slipped on a pair of latex gloves, making his way to the last pod. With a distant expression, he closed the glass door behind him and bent over the patient, analyzing his vitals on the screens. The patient whimpered in pain, and he was shivering as he grasped the sheets beneath him. Damon grabbed his wrist and turned it over slowly, pressing his thumb to his veins. And then he straightened and knocked on the glass. His head tilted to my general direction.

"What do you see?" He called. "If he dies tonight, we can stop trying."

No, he wouldn't die tonight. He had a few weeks.

When I didn't respond, Damon let go of the human's wrist and stepped out of the pod.

Carlisle moved forward and raised the notebook I'd filled. "Her data is here."

Damon looked at the book with distaste. "Speak, Adams. I asked you."

"He won't die tonight."

Damon clasped his hands together, examining the body through the glass. "Cold press on his forehead, and a Tylenol." His eyes drifted to Carlisle. "Move."

I watched as Carlisle began to gather the requested items. Damon disposed his gloves, his eyes dancing through the remaining pods. Then he was back at his laptop, a few feet away from me.

"I want that data transcribed," he murmured, glancing at the notebook on the counter. He pushed the laptop to me. "Excel it."

I stared hopelessly at the laptop's screen with a blank spreadsheet open. I then looked down at my hands. This was entirely different than using a phone. Surely, I'd break this device. But then again, would I feel that terrible if I did?

I pressed the spacebar once, barely feeling the sensation on my fingertip. I swept my index finger over the touchpad, and the mouse moved on the screen. I could do this.

I was surprised at the muscle memory I had retained from my human years before the Jovu. As my fingers hovered over the keyboard, I knew exactly where I'd place them for each word and number I had to type.

Before I could place my hands down onto the keys, Damon's voice broke through my concentration. "Stop. That's enough."

"What?"

He was reading through my data in the notebook. "You'll take steps to improve your strength and control. You doubt yourself. You hesitate—which is good. Tomorrow, you might type in your first row." He pushed the notebook to me, and then picked up another notebook from the counter. "But now, duplicate this data into this journal. I'd rather you tear through paper than rip through the motherboard."

I examined the data I had written. My current markings on the page had left indents on the following pages. It was surprising how I hadn't managed to tear through at least a few pages.

"I have some medical textbooks you could transcribe," he continued. "If you get bored of scribbling repeated data."

I looked down at my notebook, dumbfounded. "You want me to practice my strength?"

He had pulled the laptop back over to himself, and he was typing—like it was the most natural thing in the world. I envied how the keys didn't bend beneath his touch. "What else are you going to do? I've read your assignment. You're here for most of the day. Keep your eyes on their counters, and the rest of the time, work on your strength." He didn't take his eyes off of the laptop screen. "You know I'm all for self improvement."

I looked over at Carlisle, who was placing a rag on the patient's forehead in the pod. I was having trouble forming a coherent thought process with Damon's lack of… I frowned. Cruelty? Intensity?

He still had my mother locked and poisoned with venom downstairs, and he didn't even care to acknowledge it.

Carlisle eventually left the pod and exited my direct line of sight. I followed his movement to the back of the lab, where we began working with a few syringes. There was a large container of translucent fluid that he began filling them with. I looked away when I realized it was venom.

I barely felt the pen in my hand as I guided its tip to ink the page in front of me. I copied three rows of data and dabbed my fingers over the numbers to make sure they didn't indent into the next page. But of course, they did.

As I went on with this menial task, Damon occasionally got up and visited one of the pods. He would systematically put on a new pair of gloves, examine each patient, and head back to his laptop. Rinse and repeat.

Before he prepared to see his last patient, he went over to a minimal metal bookshelf. Before I knew it, a 5 pound textbook slammed onto the counter.

The Principles and Practice of Medicine, it read.

"1892. Good book." He slapped on some gloves and was on his way into his last pod.

Before I could touch the book, he called out. "One finger, Adams."

With my index finger, I flipped open the hardcover. I trusted myself to not rip the cover, but Damon clearly cared about this book, and whatever mood he was in right now—it was one I did not want to ruin.

As I began to copy sentences and sentences of medical theory, I found myself lulled away by the cold, straightforward language. It was boring, yes—but it passed the time. I only put my pen down when an alarm went off.

Carlisle tapped his phone on the counter to seemingly dismiss it. "You might want to jot down your current snapshot."

I looked over at the counters. All of them had a higher number than what I had written down a few hours ago—and of course, I couldn't document that. Carlisle gave me a meaningful glance as he turned back around to the syringes.

With some quick math, I subtracted the amount of time that had passed since my last entry for each patient—and that number would be their new entry. It made sense, and it would make sense to Damon.

"Done?" Damon asked, and when I nodded, he gestured to Carlisle. Damon grabbed some syringes from him and they tackled different pods. And I realized that the phone alarm wasn't for me. This was their scheduled dosing.

They quickly went in and out of each pod as what was happening sunk in. Damon placed his empty syringes on the counter, and he had one left.

"You haven't gotten your snapshot from downstairs, have you?" He asked. "Let's go together."

The corner of Carlisle's lip downturned as he looked away. He couldn't do much here, and I knew that.

Grabbing my notebook and pen, I led the way downstairs and braced myself for the sight. My mother was lying on her bed, one palm pressed firmly to the glass. I could hear her little moans of pain, similar to that of the patients upstairs. The morphine wasn't keeping them afloat anymore, and they were just given an additional dose of venom.

And as if on cue, it started. The venom hit them hard. The screams were chilling—throat-wrenching, powerful, and agonizing. I could hear each syllable of every plea emanating from the pods upstairs. Please, they were begging. Please make it stop.

I was hyperaware of Damon's presence in the drafty room beneath the ground. He held a single syringe in his right hand, and I knew I couldn't let him continue.

But Damon knew what I was thinking. Of course he did. He raised the syringe higher. "Do not deny her the potential."

"You're hurting her," I gritted out, flinching at the crescendo of cries. The overstimulation did nothing to calm me down.

"She'll thank me later for her gift." He flicked the syringe once, admiring it. But when he took a step closer to her pod, I snapped. My feet were off the ground, but I was going nowhere. I struggled against restraints.

Restraints?

"It's not worth it," I heard Carlisle whisper in my ear as his arms had come underneath mine, and he held me back. I kicked at him, my hands clawing at his forearms.

Damon calmly turned away and headed for my mother.

"Let me take you upstairs," Carlisle said quietly.

But I thrashed in his grip. I couldn't discern whether the screams were coming from above, or from my own throat. I would rip Damon to shreds for what he was doing to her. He couldn't touch her. He wouldn't touch her. He wouldn't dare.

"Elise," Carlisle said. "I will have to restrain you further if you don't calm yourself."

I broke free. The air around me shifted as I ran for my mother—but Carlisle was devastatingly fast. Or strategic. I couldn't tell. Because I couldn't avoid his grip on my shoulder as he pushed me to the ground.

I'm sorry, his eyes told me. Venom swirled in mine from sorrow and rage as the glass door closed behind Damon. Carlisle had me pinned, his weight on my back. I looked up only to see the tubes filling up with a dose of pure agony. It raced through plastic and ended in veins.

I struggled harder, not hearing a single word coming out of Carlisle's mouth.

My eyes were fixed on Damon's hands as he withdrew the syringe from the tubing. He had no expression. This was routine—I was the anomaly.

I helplessly watched the last of the liquid disappear into my mother's veins. And her count jumped down a few days.

This was it. The moment Damon walked out of the pod, it was over. I would deal with the consequences of killing him. I didn't care. Jasper would help me. I knew that he would.

I watched Damon with unwavering rage—a predator with her prey. But the little bit of movement to his left caught my eye. My mother. Oh, my mother.

Her body twitched only slightly, her hands bunching up the sheets beneath her. I watched her mouth open before the screams tore through. But they weren't just hers.

The agony rippled through me starting at my left arm and emanated towards the socket. It burned like a fire that was traveling up my skin, burning and charring everything in its path.

My mind was a haze. The world spun with stimulation. The sounds were too loud, and my senses were firing on overdrive.

And then there were boots in front of me. I looked up at Damon who had crouched to my level. His pristine white coat brushed the floor, his eyes hard as he watched me.

"No one interrupts these trials," he said. "Or even attempts to do so." He tucked the empty syringe in his coat pocket. "I hope you've learned something today. If not, well… you definitely have more to lose."

I tried to sit up, but I couldn't. My entire left side was on fire.

I put my right hand underneath me as a boost, but my left wouldn't come.

I turned my head, and I screamed.

My left arm lay half a foot away from the rest of my body.

Carlisle had disarmed me.

A/N: It's unfortunate how duty interferes with your morals.