She was completely broken by Eveline's 'gift', she had to be. Pleasure at Lucas's hands rushed through her and she loved every fucking second of it. She'd been all over him first: tongue in his mouth, hands across his chest and shoulders, an unexplainable desire pushing her the moment he entered their bedroom. She'd been shoved against the wall, both wrists clasped by one of Lucas's hands, giving his other the chance to roam across her breast and down her side. He'd crammed himself so hard into her that she felt like she could barely breathe.
When he fucked her, she screamed and begged for more. She loved crying out his name and loved looking at the marks on her body from his nails and teeth afterward. She reveled in being dragged around by her leash, having him threaten to shock her (or, better yet, actually do it). Somehow, there was nothing wrong with her change of heart; things were how they should've been all along. Excitement rushed through her every time he came around.
That evening was no different. He walked in with a briefcase and a grin, and she jumped off the bed to launch herself into his arms.
"Hey, beautiful," he said, embracing her with his free arm. "Got somethin' fer ya."
Something for her? She was about to gush about how sweet he could be, but some part of her muddled brain remembered the vaccine as they moved to the bed. Brining her the vaccine was still pretty damn sweet anyway. He plopped the case down and unlatched it, opening the leather-bound case to reveal the velvet insides. Indents in the velvet snuggly fitted a small bottle of alcohol, a container of cotton balls, and a vial with a 23G hypodermic needle. Amber-colored liquid floated in the syringe.
"Fin'lly got this from those bastards I been tellin' ya about. It's th'—" He lowered his voice, though Eveline was not around, "—vaccine."
"Thank god," was all she responded.
Still of sound enough mind to give herself an intramuscular injection, she took it upon herself. Alcohol on the cotton, swab the skin, remove the needle from its vial, undo the cap, and insert into her bicep—motions intrinsic and robotic. The vaccine spread hot across her arm and made her muscle ache.
She asked, "What's it gonna feel like?"
"Kinda sucks fer a few hours n' you'll prob'ly get dizzy, but nothin' ya can' handle. It takes a day 'r two fer it t' work completely but y'all should feel back t' normal after that."
Then the room spun and she nearly toppled over before she reclined against the mattress.
His voice seemed to come from another room. "It's just yer brain gettin' cleared a' th' fungus."
He took his place beside her, cuddling, snuggling, letting her get comfortable in his warm, welcome arms.
For the next day, she went through the motions of pain in her bicep, dizziness, and an overwhelming exhaustion. She stayed in bed to sleep it off, staring at the swirling ceiling most of the time. But after that, thoughts of Evie and pleasing her with new family members subsided, leaving her brain clearer than it had been in who-knows-how-long.
When the family had gotten crazy at dinner a few days later, the yelling and screaming only made her ears ring. She watched on the sidelines, leaning against the wall with hands in her pockets, next to Lucas as he kept Diane away from fists being thrown by Mia and Marguerite, who seemed to really hate each other. No one mentioned her change in demeanor, not even Eveline who seemed like she thought fist fighting and screaming was a part of every family's meal.
Her clear mind was both a blessing and a curse. Now that she got to see the fighting and reflect on her months living here with Lucas with a mostly normal brain, she saw how extremely fucked up everything was. Sometimes it felt like watching a movie, like none of that could've possibly happened to her. But the shock collar reminded her of how real it all was.
About a week after her initial vaccination, Lucas decided the collar could come off. She scratched at her neck and washed it several times to get the clammy feeling of heavy leather off her flesh. Once she emerged from the bathroom, walking like she was 50 lbs lighter, he took her to his surveillance room from a secret door within his side of the house.
"This where you were always off to?" she asked.
"Yep. Fuckin' Company wants constant reports on what goes on 'round here."
The small room held within its walls a dinky computer chair and two desks filled with monitors — all showing different parts of the house: the kitchen, dining room, hall from the front door, main hall, the outside of Zoe's trailer facing the door, parts of the old house and barn, and a couple of places where people could enter from the swamp or front gate. The enormous house seemed to have its walls closing in on her now that she witnessed how much of it was under surveillance.
She snooped through a filing cabinet with all sorts of files and papers inside, getting bits and pieces of information. As she looked through the files, he told her about everything that had happened.
The Connections is what he called them, the company that hired him and gave him a lab—the Fuckin' Company was an affectionate (accurate) nickname. They were some kind of underground black market-types that dealt with Eveline as their main 'bioweapon'.
"Ride my ass, that's all they do," he'd grumbled during his description to her.
No wonder he called them the Fuckin' Company. If it hadn't been for their experimentation and poor business strategies, Lucas and his family would've remained as they had always been.
He brought her into the lab for the first time one day. It was a private lab for him and a few other Connections employees, connected to the Baker house. There was an entrance on his side of the house, down an elevator shaft hidden away. The elevator opened up to sterile walls and smell of isopropyl alcohol, making her feel like she'd stepped right into one of her college classes.
The shock of seeing his private laboratory, after having been trapped in the rundown and mildew-saturated ranch, had her frozen in the spot. It felt like rousing from a dream, as if everything before had been a figment of her imagination and she had awoken to normalcy. It made her question her sanity, whether or not she had even left for Dulvey. Just outside of Lucas' lab from beyond his window a scientist walked past, examining his clipboard. He wasn't unlike one of Persephone's colleagues, making her feel even stranger and disconnected from the world, like she'd been living in a simulation then ripped out of it with no explanation.
But then someone took her by the hand. The feeling of actual human touch shattered that illusion, and her eyes shot over to see Lucas. Then everything hit her all over again — the betrayal, the fear, the Molded, Eveline. Her stomach churned. She tried to come back, to get out of her own mind, as Lucas took her down the hall alongside the scientist. By the time they entered another room, where a few other white coats where huddled around tables, test tubes, and computers, she had mostly returned to the present. Lucas headed toward one scientist in particular who had his eyes against a microscope, studying something.
"Reed, that new employee I told y'all about is here," he said.
Reed looked to Lucas with a hint of disgust in his scrunched nose, then to Persephone. His face returned to something more akin to professionalism as he held out his hand, which was dressed in a purple nitrile glove.
"Lyle Reed, chemist, microbiologist, and Head Researcher."
She took his hand and gave it a very firm shake. "Persephone Black, doctor, neurosurgeon, and confused newcomer."
A smile tugged at the corner of his lip but was quickly quashed. "Good, I need an unbiased medical professional's observation of this specimen of the mutamycete—the, erm, mold, if you will."
She looked through the eyepiece, observing the microbes within. They appeared to be sluggishly, and unsuccessfully, reproducing.
"Looks like they're not doin' so hot," she said.
"Exactly. But does The Connections listen to me?"
"I'm guessin' not."
She pulled away from the microscope to see Reed scribbling something on his medical clipboard, his brows heavily creased.
"HQ isn't going to like this," he muttered. "Not one bit."
Lucas cleared his throat, getting their attention. "The briefin'."
"Ah, right. This way, Miss Black."
Reed led her around the laboratory, introducing her to everyone and giving her basic instructions and an assessment of their progress thus far. Their main goal was to observe Eveline (or E dash zero zero one, as Reed called her) to see how she acted on the field and what her next moves would be now that she'd at least somewhat settled. He described the cells on the petri dishes and the previous microscope slides as being unstable at best. At worst?
"The longer they aren't under E-001's influence, the more likely they are to rupture and necrose. They simply aren't stable enough to be viable."
"But they should be, is what you're gettin' at?"
"Well, that's what we're hoping for, but HQ doesn't seem to care either way. They're so proud of their little girl bioweapon that they can't get their heads out of their asses long enough to see the issue."
Seemed Lucas wasn't the only one with complaints.
Reed taught Persephone the proper procedures for entering the operating room, the entrance to which was in the corner of their small communal lab. She and Reed arrived (Lucas had vanished somewhere long ago, which made Reed walk with a bit more pep in his step) just in time to witness the autopsy of one of their oldest Molded specimens. It looked like the one Persephone had seen when she'd first been brought to Lucas's room. It seemed to have perished for some reason or another. That was odd, according to Reed, and probably not a good sign.
"This one just died today. I'm hoping it'll get HQ to open their eyes."
Persephone observed, decked out in her classic surgeon gear and feeling quite at home in thick scrubs, a gown, gloves, face mask, and visor. The Molded's insides were… very human, almost indistinguishable from human organs under the layers of black mold covering every inch of the beast. Its bones were the same shape and pinkish color as normal human bones, though spongy and flexible.
As she watched, she found a hunger growing inside her. That starving for knowledge and learning she once had when times were simple, and life seemed to be as close to perfect as she could've hoped. Despite that she knew it had been anything but. Still, the autopsy was the refresher she needed to remind herself of her passion, remind herself of what used to be. Remind herself of how Lucas had been…
Once the briefing ended and Persephone signed a few legal NDAs and documents that said she understood her role and the situation (mostly just as CYAs) she met back with Lucas at the entrance to the lab.
"Sorry I left ya with Reed," he said as they exited the room. "Guy's a damn blowhard."
"He certainly gave me a lot to think about."
She couldn't get the absolutely human physiology of the Molded out of her head. No wonder Eveline's influence had been screaming at her to acquire more people for Eveline's 'family' before the vaccine. She didn't pay much attention to where she and Lucas had gone, lost in her turbulent mind, until Lucas held a door open for her and let her inside of his private lab. Once safely behind locked doors, she finally let the question slip.
"Lucas, the Molded are humans, aren't they?"
"Sure are, the whole lot of 'em. Reed didn' tell ya that?"
"No, he conveniently left that part out. But what about you and me?"
"We're technically Molded, too, Pers. 'Least, we got th' ability t' be. Evie kept us a little more stable, though. Takes a lot a' energy fer her t' do that. We can turn Molded any time we want, but uh… We don' really know how t' turn back without Evie puttin' in a lot a' effort."
"Gross," she said, imagining the mold covering her insides (and her outsides if she so wished, which she didn't).
"Yeah, but ya get used to it," he said, putting an arm around her shoulder. "But what's more important is: here, you n' me can do whatever we want. So get acquainted with my lab. I gotta finish up this report 'fore the Fuckin' Company jumps down my throat about it."
Persephone took her time looking around. Most of his lab very similar to the other, but his was smaller and a bit more disorganized. Papers were strewn about the few desks around his work laptop, where he sat to type up his report; folders were opened with their contents spilling out; files on the status of his entire family plus some random names and faces Persephone didn't recognize. One cabinet was half-opened and, as she thumbed through it, she saw they were all of Eveline.
January 16th through all of October had complete reports on Eveline's status, mold secretion, "cellular degradation" (whatever that was supposed to encompass; they all had N/A written next to the box), mood, leisurely activities, affects on the rest of the family, and other such information. Judging by the last of the logs, it was mid-September now, giving Persephone a chance to finally keep up with the date. She had been trapped by Lucas for four months, waiting for that vaccine. Four months of torment and abuse. Her fingers tightened on the folder, crinkling it. She glanced to Lucas, who had been watching her, then cleared her throat.
"Y'all really need to organize these better," she said.
She put the files away in some sort of mindless organization. The messy papers weren't difficult to put together, and she made sure to stack them by date before sliding them into their proper folder. She shook out her stiff legs and continued her exploration. There was a whole other section she hadn't yet seen, and she was drawn in by the sterile light.
Inside was a gurney, medical supplies, cabinets. There were a couple of faded blood spatters on the tiled floor. It smelled of isopropryl alcohol with the faintest hint of copper and rotted fruit still in the air. Something dark in the corner cut through the white antiseptic walls.
It was a Molded, cryogenically frozen in a capsule that went from floor to ceiling, hooked up to tubes that seemed to empty and fill the container with liquid nitrogen. A chill emanated from its thick, insulated glass the closer she got. It seemed like a normal Molded. She observed it, trying to find what made it so special.
"Noticed him, did ya?" Lucas asked from the doorway.
"Hard to miss. What's up with this Molded?"
He approached her, smirking and holding his head high as if in triumph. "Wanna know a secret?"
"Uh, duh."
His hands grabbed her hips, chest pressing into her back. "You really wanna know?"
She grumbled, "Lucas…"
He whispered in her ear, giggling, "That's Oliver."
"… No way. Stop fuckin' lying."
"I ain't. It's really Oliver."
She stared at the Molded, mouth fallen open uselessly. Seeing it— him… Seeing him like that, feeling Lucas' perverse hands groping at her waist and hips, standing in that horrible soulless room—when did her life get so fucked up?