Three times a day.
Every day.
I got most of it down, moving on autopilot, not letting my mind think.
Two cats wandered through the room, hopping up onto the tables, butting their heads against the people here. A few hands lifted, petting what were supposed to be therapy animals. The dogs slipped into the room next, tails down, eyes blank.
The leanest of the dogs sat at my feet. He was light brown with dark points on his muzzle. A Belgian Malinois. His name was Abe and he was as trained as the dog that my handler told me wasn’t real.
This was real.
This was the only Abe I knew.
I ignored him, though he reminded me so much of . . . no. There was nothing else. I ignored him. The other dog I fed was one that would be dead soon, I was sure. She was miserable, mean, and barely took food from me. Dead. Just like the other Abe.
“I should take food to the one downstairs,” I said to Esther as I stood, thinking the thoughts they wanted me to. We needed to help those who fought the handlers understand that this was a good place. The animals were a kind touch, just not my thing. I didn’t care about dogs.
There was no Abe in my past, no dog that I loved and who had fought at my side.
Esther didn’t so much as look my way. “You do too much. You need to rest.”
I paused. That was new. “I do what we’re asked to do. To help the others.”
Which wasn’t incorrect. I took a deep breath, the sedative slowing my thoughts and my movements, and retrieved a second tray. The fingers in my mind loosened, same as they always did after I ate. I waited until they were gone from my mind, then I pushed back on the sedative’s effects, clearing my thoughts at least a little. Like working through being tortured, there were ways to function while you were drugged, even if it wasn’t easy.
There was a prisoner here, a man who fought the training and help.
A man who’d tried to escape sixteen times. Based on his rants, he’d nearly made it out the last time. I’d taken note of every route he’d tried, every trick he’d employed. Every reason they’d caught him.
Each time they brought him back, I thought they’d kill him, but it hadn’t happened yet. I clamped down on my thoughts, just in case. I made my way to the stairs that would lead to the floor below us.
George was the guard at the door tonight.
“You on it?” he asked.
“All good. He has to eat if the docs are going to help him.” I balanced the tray as George held the door open for me. Down the stairs I went, my bare feet slapping lightly on the concrete floor. The temperatures dipped the farther I went, and a breeze that shouldn’t have existed picked up.
If I didn’t take him food, he didn’t eat. I was the only one he’d eat for. My hands tightened on the tray, shaking a little.
Everyone else was terrified of him.
Even the doctors.
The guards.
Everyone. So I had to pretend to be afraid of him too.
“Pete, you hungry?”
There was silence for half a beat and then he replied as he always did. “Fuck off, you fucking traitorous bitch!”
I sighed. “I’m here to help you, Pete. If you’d just listen to me, you wouldn’t be kept down here. You could come up with the rest of us. You need to listen to my words.”
The room was a simple rectangle shape, more long than wide, and his chains were attached at the very back of the room. No bars, no doors, because those chains were on each limb rubbing him raw over time. A rattle of chains and then he was right there in my face, straining toward me with his very sharp, very pointed, teeth bared. “Traitor! You were the best of us! You were the one who could have stopped this! You had a chance!”
I held the food out to him, staying just outside his reach of where his chains allowed him. I was being careful, that’s what I told myself, but I put myself just an inch too close.
I locked eyes with him, willing him to listen to my words and understand how important they were. “Let me help you, Pete.”
He snapped a hand out for the tray and his fingers touched my wrist. His eyes widened and he yanked me closer. I didn’t fight, thinking that’s what happened when the drugs were thick in your system.
Alarms didn’t go off. The fingers in my mind didn’t come back.
There were no cameras down here, not on a madman who lived and breathed in what would be his coffin one day at the rate he was going.
Pete rolled me around so my back was flush against his chest, tipped my head sideways, then bit into the crook of my neck, teeth sinking in around my collarbone. I closed my eyes and breathed through the pain and welcomed the darkness that washed over me, drawing the meditation into me in a blink.
Only this time, I took Pete with me. With his mouth locked on my neck, drinking me down, he had no choice as I dove below the surface of the river in my mind, taking his consciousness with me. A dangerous gambit, seeing as I didn’t fully understand this ability myself. But desperate times called for daring . . .
As soon as we were through the raging currents and on the floor of the river, I jammed my fist back, unlocking him from my neck, then spun and fully pushed him off me. “You fucking moron!” I yelled. “Can you not see that I have been trying to reach you all this time? They have fingers in our goddamn minds! It’s not like I could just walk up to you and tell you to bide your time. I am working on something!”
His jaw dropped open, my blood dripping from it. I glanced up at the scene through the river’s surface to see him still latched onto my neck, his eyes closed, but there was no movement in his throat. We were in a holding pattern in the real world. But we wouldn’t have long.
“Jesus, Phoenix! I thought—”
“I know what you thought, you dumbass. You fought so hard and what did they do to you? They locked you up tighter and tighter.”
His jaw flopped open again. “And you . . . have barely a chain on you.”
“Exactly. I did what they wanted, knowing our time would come. You can block them out, can’t you?”
“Yes, it’s why they can’t compel me.” He licked his lips and gave a little groan.
It had to be a Magelore trick. Blood drinkers, soul stealers, they were feared amongst abnormals for their myriad abilities and the power in their bite and gaze. Their ability to use mind control was well known. In the past, I’d wondered if the facility and the handlers were controlling us with Magelore magic, but I didn’t know any strong enough to cause this level of destruction. Or smart enough, for that matter.
“You are the one person I can be straight with. There is a young abnormal here, brand new, and he can walk this place of darkness like I can. Our minds are safe from the handlers here and nowhere else. Can you meet us tonight? Do you think you can get your ass back here by yourself now that you’ve seen it?”
Pete nodded and looked around, a soft look in his dark eyes. “Yeah. You really think you can break us out?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “My wife is going to kill me when I get home. I went out for a meeting and . . .”
“Tonight. We meet tonight,” I said and swam toward the surface of my mind, out of this place that was darkness and safety.
I cried out as I broke out of the river and opened my eyes to the real world. “George, help!”