Way to threaten a dozen people I need to work with, dumbass. Well, work next to, anyway.
The flurry this time is vaguely uneasy. I sigh, haul myself up from my chair, and jab my index finger in his direction.
“How about you stop trying to boss people around and let everyone do their work? What did you even come down here for?” He and the rest of the lucifer’s crack team, including Sam, who likes to think he’s my mentor, work on a different floor.
He looks down at my finger and grins his stupid grin. Ugh. Does he seriously think that being a centuries-old silver hottie who acts like a teenager is attractive? I can’t even. It’s like when your dad tries to be cool.
Well, not my dad. Other people’s dads. My dad never bothered with shit like that.
Plus, he isn’t actually my dad.
And smooth, refined Andrew in no way reminds me of him.
“We’re having a meeting, and Percy wants you there,” he says.
Sighing, I turn back to lock my computer. Percy is the lucifer, and since it’s his beneficence that got me this internship-slash-job and the apartment I live in, I like to stay on his good side. Plus, he’s been nice. I’ve found it a little hard to trust anyone after what’s happened these last few years, but if I was going to trust, Percy would be on the short list.
“Come on, then.” I stalk ahead of him, and I hear him mutter something as he follows, though I can’t make out what.
Are you confused yet? Need a cheat sheet? Let me give you the CliffsNotes version of my life since I turned eighteen.
My name is Noah Cage. Except it’s not, really, because the people I thought were my parents were actually only fostering me on behalf of a terrorist organization, the Coalition for Community Advancement (CCA). About forty-five years ago, the CCA decided that it wanted to enslave humanity—oh, wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me give you the dirt on me first.
So, two days after my eighteenth birthday, about three weeks before graduation, I came home from school to find three huge men who looked as though they liked to rip people apart for fun at my house. My parents were packing bags. The men told me I was going with them. I asked my mom what was going on. She said, “I’m not your mom. You’re eighteen now, and we’ve been paid.”
I freaked out. The scary dudes seemed prepared for that, because next thing I knew, I was waking up in a lab, strapped to a table.
Ever had that happen? I do not recommend it.
While I was trying to work out if my parents had actually sold me or what, and if so, to whom and why, my doctor walked in. Yes, seriously. My parents had always been kind of freakish about medical checkups, so once a month Dr. Tish would visit our house and give me a physical. In retrospect, it’s weird, but when that’s literally all you’ve known your whole life, it’s normal. So at first I was relieved to see my lifelong doctor—and then I realized he was the root of all my problems.
The next eight months were brutal. Most of the tests they ran were minimally invasive—things like vision and hearing tests, physical stamina and endurance. And the blood tests, of course. There were so many damn blood tests. And it was the same thing, day after day, sometimes with increased stimuli to cause stress. The doctors and lab assistants talked freely in front of us. Once I realized that meant they didn’t think we’d ever be able to repeat what they were saying to anyone else, it was pretty fucking terrifying. But it means I know a lot about the tests they ran, even if they never really talked about why they were running them. The base knowledge was something they didn’t discuss, and it frustrated the crap out of me not to know why they were doing this to us.
Because, yeah, I wasn’t the only one there. I’m not actually sure how many of us were being tested, but the cell-slash-dorm I lived in had three other guys in it, and the hallway it was in was lined with doors. I guess I could find out the number now if I really wanted to—there are records—but knowing how many others were victims like me isn’t going to make me feel better.
I stab the button for the elevator, trying to block out the sound of Andrew chatting with… someone.
“…keep telling them that if they didn’t bring the cookies, I wouldn’t eat them. That makes sense, right, Rania? It’s not my fault they bring delicious cookies that mesmerize me into eating them!”
Ugh. Seriously? It’s enough to make me want to take the stairs. Except I have no doubt he’s much fitter than I am and would probably talk to me all the way up.
Fortunately—unfortunately?—we’re not the only people who get into the elevator, so even though I still have to hear his voice, at least he’s not talking to me.
So… where was I? Right, imprisoned by my childhood doctor for tests I didn’t understand the purpose of. Like that wasn’t horrible enough, there was something really weird about all the people at the lab compound. Like, weirder than you’d even expect for scientists and guards who were conducting medical tests on unsuspecting teenagers. At first I thought they were doing some kind of cosplay with fake fangs and horns, or that I’d ended up in the middle of one of those creepy Dracula-worshiping cults. Or maybe Satanists—I mean, if you wanted to worship the devil, you’d probably be okay with wearing fake horns, right? But then one day I saw one of the guards change into a huge dog. If shapeshifters were real, that meant the vampires and demons probably were too. Which made the tests they were constantly doing even scarier.
And then came a day when one of the lab assistants and two guards came into our dorm and started injecting us with some shit. It wasn’t the first time—usually after the injection we’d have to do something physical, and then they’d take blood. But it was the first time my roommates dropped unconscious to the floor after they’d been injected. Major creep out, right? So when there was a distraction and nobody was looking at me, I just dropped and pretended to be unconscious too. Whatever was in that syringe, I did not want it—and I can’t emphasize enough how damn lucky I was that day, because I found out about twenty seconds later that my roommates weren’t unconscious, they were dead. The testing was done, and we weren’t needed anymore.
Ever been dragged through hallways to an incinerator? Also not on my must-repeat list.
My amazing luck kicked in again, because the guards decided to bring all the test subjects down before loading us in, and as soon as they left, I was out of there. I never considered myself a lucky person before then, but I can’t argue with the fact that something was on my side that day.
And for almost a year after. Because while I managed to escape being incinerated, I couldn’t find a way past the guards at the entrance to the complex. The place was huge, though, and as long as I slept in short snatches and kept moving around, nobody knew I was there. I had a few close calls, and every time I heard a guard or scientist muttering about the “human stink trapped in the HVAC system,” or one of the kitchen staff complaining that supplies were short, I’d break out in a sweat, but they were so damn arrogant that it never occurred to them that one of their test subjects might have survived.
The elevator doors open, and I stride out, leaving Andrew behind. He knows where he’s going, and I don’t need to hang around so he can finish talking about the time he made cookies and “accidentally” used salt instead of sugar, then brought them to work and gave them to the hellhounds in one of the investigative teams. Although after having to deal with those hellhounds, I would have paid money to actually see it.