A.N.
Deathbright: The actual size will be revealed in the next chapter. The size kept changing before because he was still "merging" now it has settled.
obviouslyincognito: There will be some old characters for sure! As for Darren and Mr. Tiny it says in book #12 that Mr. Tiny would never harm his flesh and blood, so Darren has that. But Mr. Tiny did say he could make their lives difficult lol But also Mr. Tiny likes complicated things and since Darren is supposed to be dead that might be enough of a puzzle to keep him "happy"...maybe.
Ansy: lol! I'm glad you enjoyed the cake.
I crouched on one knee in front of Harrison, looking up at him through my bangs while silently cursing the man to hell. This was the eleventh time in two days he had called me and each time I debated not answering; but the cons of not obeying the call were far too many. Each time I walked into the clearing or jumped from a tree Harrison smirked in satisfaction. This time he let me stay poised below him for far too long before finally gesturing for me to get up. He circled me three times, running a finger down my still growing flight feathers. The touch made me shudder and I subtly twitched away. I was waiting for the questions and certain pain Harrison had promised, but so far he was doing nothing but examining me multiple times a day. The fifth time he'd called he had laughed at me coming out of the trees drenched from the creek. I had foolishly thought that the water was clear and as a result bathed in the concentrated drugs, swallowing plenty of it before hauling myself out of the water. I'd nearly drowned and that disturbed me.
"Who is Subject number 1?" I questioned.
"What makes you think there is another?" Harrison responded. He was in a usually good mood this morning. One of his hands shot up and forced my head down as he examined the drugs remaining in my collar.
"I am number 2, its simple math to think there is a number 1," I said somewhat defiantly.
Harrison shook his head and put his thumb on the dial. "Tut, tut," he said. "You were getting so good." The dial was twisted to number three and I screamed, hands flying up as if I could rip the collar off. I stayed standing however, refusing to fall as electricity coursed up and down my spine, making my arms and legs jerk. The dial moved again to five which was the furthest it had ever gone and I finally went down, thrashing in the dirt. Harrison switched the dial off and pursed his lips. "You are right. There is a number 1." He sat beside me and wiped drool off my chin. "He looks a bit like Frankenstein's monster, but much shorter," he wrinkled his noise. "If you can even call it a he."
I twitched violently, managing to force out another question. "Does he speak?" My words hung in the air and I waited for Harrisons response. A Little Person was here. I would have laughed if the pain had been a little less. Mr. Tiny did not tolerate anybody harming his Little People.
"Yes," Harrison said distastefully. "But he utters little more then curse words." His gaze sharpened. "Why do you ask?" Before he even reached for the dial in his pocket I was speaking, eager to avoid another round of pain.
"Frankenstein's monster had a maker," I rasped. "Don't you think subject number one's creator will be angry you took him away?"
Harrison grabbed the front of my red shirt and held my head up. "Do you remember something?" He hissed.
I let my eyes glaze over as if the electricity had taken my senses. "You have no idea what's coming," I said.
"Enlighten me," Harrison spat.
I cleared my expression and met my captors gaze. "A dragon." I laughed loudly, letting spit fly and my eyes rolled. "He will burn you to the ground!" My hand came up and clasped around Harrison's forearm. "You'd better run while you still can," I said ominously. My eyes rolled back and I went limp, pretending to faint. The scents coming off Harrison were different then any I'd gotten from him before. They were gratifying. Doubt, wariness and a poorly hidden twinge of fear. Harrison released me and my head thumped to the ground. The man stood up and stalked away through the steel doors and I lay on the ground, suffering through the last side effects of being repeatedly electrocuted. I rolled over slowly and forced my protesting muscles to carry me through the tall grass. Each foot felt like miles but I kept on until I was out of sight of the door.
Harkat was captive too and I wondered if there were still more besides him and I. How many others were being forced into experiments? That's all this place was. I was in a giant testing chamber, being watched and catalogued. Every movement went into a folder and then onto graphs. I had already been too predictable, making my rounds every hour. If I wanted to get out of here I had to be erratic.
I waited until the electricity twitching faded completely and then got up. I sat cross legged in front of a tree and watched as the she-wolf melted out of the trees to watch me. The wolf was the one thing I could not work out in the dome. The collar looked exactly the same as mine, but I couldn't tell if there were drugs inside. I doubted they would need to drug a wolf anyway. The she-wolf was suspicious and never let me get very close, but she was always around and normally after Harrison and I met would appear from whatever secret spot she'd found to sit with me until the pain was gone.
"Hello," I said to the wolf and kept my movements slow when I stretched out my legs, wincing as cramped muscles pulled. "Harrison was mad this morning. It was stupid to think he was in a better mood."
The wolf whined and pawed the ground. Her scent was agitated, more so then it normally was.
"I found out there is at least one other captive here," I said, idly fingering the collar. Then I froze and mentally smacked myself on the forehead. "They made a mistake," I whispered to the wolf and she crept a little closer, tail swaying from side to side. "My wings, eyes and fangs are a part of me now. It's not magic to have them." I grinned mischievously. "But having hyper senses is magic." I leaned forward and the wolf did too, until our noses almost touched. "I can smell emotions and hear things no vampire can. They made a mistake!" I threw my hands into the air, which made the she-wolf startle backwards. "They made a mistake!" I tugged on the collar. "Somewhere in that drug they missed something." I looked at my hands and leaned back against the tree, reaching for the magic. It slipped through my fingers like always and I huffed.
"How long do you think we have until Frankenstein's creator comes?" I wondered out loud. I was sure there were cameras all over the place and I could not loose the pretense of having little to no memory.
The wolf suddenly stood up straight and her eyes brightened. For the first time the wolf looked almost cheerful and she bounded off into the trees, leaving me even more confused. But inside I echoed the wolf. I had something to use against Harrison; his fear of the unknown. I would keep feeding him what I could about Mr. Tiny until he cowered. I grinned and climbed up into a tree, intending to catch a good night sleep.
I only slept a few hours, hanging over a branch in the tallest tree which had quickly become my base of sorts. When I awoke the moon was high in the sky. It was a three-quarter moon, just a sliver before it was full. I wondered what had woken me up and touched the collar. Whenever Harrison called he always shocked me but there was no lingering pain so I knew that wasn't it. I looked around, brushing aside the smaller branches and saw what had woken me up. A small patrol of men were coming through the woods, carrying nets and a stretcher. They disappeared through the trees and I heard the she-wolf let out a whine of pain. I almost went down to the ground but before I moved the men reappeared; the wolf was stretched out on the stretcher. A line of dried blood stained her flank and her eyes were dull.
The patrol went through the steel door and I sat back on my heels. The she-wolf's injuries had been at least an hour old. Where ever the men had taken her, it was probably to be healed. I smiled calculatingly then groaned. If I wanted to be taken out I would have to actually hurt myself. I looked at the ground and then up at the dome ceiling. I wanted to do something that would look horrible but I could recover from relatively quickly and it had to look like a complete accident to the on looking cameras.
"Come on…" I muttered and licked my lips nervously. "Think." I looked at the ceiling again and winced and began to climb. My hands were sweaty and I slipped several times, nearly falling to the ground. That would have done enough damage, but I would rather be able to walk in a few hours. When I reached the top, close enough to reach out and touch the glass and electrified metal blocking it I pretended to loose complete control. I shouted at the moon and slammed my palms against the metal; shocks went up my spine but I latched onto the wire and curled my hands around it. Pain like nothing Harrison had done shot into my head and I screamed. My body jerked and I found I couldn't let go of the wire. My shirt began to smoke and then the wire broke under my fingertips; I plummeted down and bounced off one, two branches before slamming to a stop halfway down. My wings curled around me, singed and I blinked before going limp over the branch. Bit by bit I let my body slide where it was hung over and barely a minute passed before the metal door slammed open.
The men climbed up the tree and lowered me down and put me onto the stretcher none too gently. We marched toward the steel door and my lips curled upward even as I shook frenziedly. When the door opened I saw Harrison through half open eyes. He was standing outside dressed in a night robe. He took a cursory glance at me and scowled. "What happened?" He demanded.
"He went crazy sir," one of the men in front said. "Grabbed the wires up top and nearly killed himself."
Harrison bent down over the stretcher and touched my burnt wings. His eyes were hard and over the smell of burnt feathers I could scent him trying to work out what I was doing. "You aren't stupid enough to do this for no reason," he said. When I did nothing but shake he frowned. "Or maybe the drugs are having unpredicted side effects." He stood up and addressed a woman that had come up behind me. It was the same woman I had bitten. "Lower the dosage."
"Sir, that would too high of a risk. He is already near the minimum dosage. To take away even more-"
"Silence!" Harrison barked. "I will not allow him to die when I am this close to unlocking everything!" His eyes went over me again and then he scowled. "Take him to the infirmary. Lock the entire thing down and put an IV in. I want him well in two days for questioning."
"What about subject one and ten?"
"Leave them there. Prevent them from interacting," Harrison said simply and strode away into a side tunnel.
The stretcher started to move and I closed my eyes, committing the twists and turns to memory. I could hear the gurgle of water in pipes deep in the walls and cracked open an eyelid to see with some surprise that not all of the walls were finished. In some places the pipes were completely exposed, except for torn canvas clumsily put up with nails. In fact the entire main tunnel was not complete except for the floor which looked cleaner then anything else in the place. The tiles were so clean I could almost make out the reflections of the men carrying the stretcher in them when I turned my head.
We turned down another tunnel that was so small my wingtips brushed against them even though they were mostly folded. Outstretched my wings were about fifteen feet across. Two sets of wooden doors and then we were in a pristine white room with beds lining the walls. It would looked like a normal hospital room; if it wasn't for the straps hanging from each of the beds and the nurses who wore bullet proof vests and had cattle prods strapped to their belts. Only two beds were filled at the other end of the room; one with a young woman. She was screaming as she tried to fight the strait jacket she was tied in. An IV line came out of her neck. When she saw me her body stilled and she tilted her head.
"The moon has that one," one of the men muttered and they all laughed.
Harkat was in the bed across from the one they carried me to. Bandages covered his arms and legs and blood dotted his clothing. One eye was swollen shut but when he saw me his expression mellowed from enraged to horrified then excited. His mouth opened and I willed him not to reveal he knew me. Wisely his mouth shut, but his eyes glittered. He was wearing lots of ropes to keep him still but no IV came out of his neck.
"Put him in on high security," the men ordered the nurses and they put me onto the bed. Straps wrapped around my ankles, knees, thighs, waist and wrists. They removed the collar but immediately put an IV in. "Lowest dosage possible." The stretcher and men left immediately and the nurses went to work.
I lay passive but eyed the nurses while running my tongue over my fangs. They put another IV bag up and the line went into the back of my hand; whatever the medicine was it stopped my shaking but left me feeling like I would float away. The nurses left to station themselves by the other door and I looked back at Harkat. Now that I had more time to look at him better, I saw that he looked downright horrible. His arms were dotted with half healed wounds, all running where his stitches were. Then I noticed that the thread holding him together was different on that arm. My stomach rolled when I figured out what must have happened. They'd taken out whatever Mr. Tiny used to make his Little People and replaced it with common string. I hoped Harkat had been unconscious when it happened.
Harkat gave me the same once over and his eyes kept going back to my fangs, wings and eyes. One of his eyebrows rose up but he said nothing. His eyes were shining with more hope then I'd seen when I came in. I offered him a slow wink and the Little Person winked back. It hurt but I knew to keep Mr. Tiny's fury to a minimum even my friends would have to be fooled into thinking I knew nothing. I leaned back into the hospital bed and watched Harkat who seemed to be waiting for something. The ticking of a clock from somewhere in the distance was distracting and my hands tapped on the bed. When the clock struck ten I let myself fall into an uneasy sleep, awakening often when the nurses changed shifts.
At five in the morning I woke up completely to the sound of Harkat screaming. Nurses were crowded around his bed, holding his head still as they plucked at his other arm where Mr. Tinys' thread was still intact. I thrashed my head and screamed too; a howl that let some of the dragon out. The low growl swept through the hospital, and all the nurses paused. "Touch him again," I hissed. "I dare you." The beds began to rattle and I forced the magic to come to me. I couldn't quite grasp it enough to free myself but the depth of my fury could be conveyed. When the beds began to lift off the floor the nurses scowled and two stalked over to me, unsheathing their cattle prods. One prod was thrust at my chest and I shook, back arching. My lips remained closed; I would not scream and give them the satisfaction.
"I wouldn't do that," Harkat said through gritted teeth.
The nurses sneered and doubled the pressure on my chest. The shocking was enough to jar loose the little hold I had on the magic and the beds stilled completely.
"He is in here for nearly killing himself with electricity. Harrison wants him healed soon and I don't think you are helping."
Finally the agonizing pain stopped and the nurses left to once again stand by the door, abandoning Harkat too. A single tear ran down my cheek and tied down as I was I could not wipe it away. Harkat met my eyes and I could see the fresh pain and horror in his gaze too. I wondered how Harkat knew what I'd done, but had no energy to question it. Every day spent here was slowly sapping my energy. I had to make a move in the next two or three days, otherwise I might never get out.
"He is coming," Harkat said.
"Who?" I asked.
Harkat pursed his lips and said innocently. "The Dragon Master." I could tell he wanted to ask what had happened with my voice and the beds but he too seemed to have little strength for pointless questions.
"What?" I said again.
But Harkat didn't reply. He rattled the sides of his bed and shouted manically at the nurses. "DO YOU HEAR ME? HE IS COMING!" Spit flew from his mouth and the nurses turned away from him. "HE WILL BURN YOU ALL! YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS! NONE OF YOU!"
I closed my eyes, sinking into the darkness that was riddled with Harkats insane cries. I would rest, gather my strength and take back my freedom along with Harkats. I imagined tearing into the nurses and scattering their bodies before Harrison and doing the exact same thing to him, but much, much slower.
My lips curled upward and the dragon stretched. 'Soon' I promised it and remembering Steve's words echoed him. 'Soon there will be bloody, bloody chaos.'
R&R please? *throws candy bars*
