Kate
My eyes flutter open. Jesus, I feel like I have the flu. My body aches everywhere, inside and out, as if I’d been wrung out to dry. My eyeballs and whatever muscles that hold them in their sockets throb in sharp stabbing pain across my forehead and spike through my temples.
What the heck happened?
Where am I?
A frantic burst of panic spreads like fire in my chest. I try to move my arms and legs and find they’re too heavy to lift. My eyes are too blurry to focus. A frenzy of terror explodes in a burst of light behind my eyelids and I try to scream but nothing comes out but a hoarse cracked cry. My throat burns and cuts with dryness.
I reach out to grab onto something—anything—but all I can feel is the cold surface of what’s beneath me.
The memory of Pious’s hard metal fist coming at me hits me hard and stabs at my eye socket. God, he must have knocked me out cold. I slowly lift my hand to where it hurts the most on my face.
No wonder I can’t see. It feels swollen and tender to the touch.
I shift around and try to pull myself up into a sitting position. Around me the bleary world tilts and nausea rolls and surges up in my chest. I dry heave until tears streak down my cheeks.
“Pious!” I choke out.
He doesn’t answer me.
No one does.
I need to get up. I need to figure out where I am. Pious is going to inject me with that metal alloy crap and stuff me in one of those vats of icy Hell.
I crawl on my hands and knees, one arm outstretched to feel my way, until it hits a cold slab. Gripping my hands on the top of it, I pull myself up into a standing position and lean heavily on the rectangular shape. I feel the cool smoothness of the metal against my whole body.
Oh my God. That crazy alien asshole left me naked!
I lean my hip on the surface and wrap my arms around my chest. “Pious!” I growl out.
Still, no one answers.
Slowly, I spin around and try to focus my eyes. Where am I? The counter in front of me is flat, and when I bring my face down close enough to the surface of it and squint, I realize there’s a foggy shape of a girl floating inside.
I must be back in the preservation lab.
And I can’t see anything. I can’t see my way out or if Claire is here.
I’m a sitting duck. I don’t even know if I’m alone. He can be in here, watching me. Laughing his stupid metal head off.
A cacophony of loud high-pitched hysterical giggles pours from my lips. The noise that sputters from my mouth feeds my panic. It flares itself into gulps of air I can’t get, and black spots form in front of the blurriness in my eyes.
Every cell in my body is panicking. Leaning back against the cold slab of metal, gasping for breath, my knees give out. My body slides down the counter, and I land painfully hard against the floor. I lower my head between my knees and let my sobs break free. It’s okay to break down. As long as Pious isn’t here to see it. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.
No, I don’t want to give him tears, I want to give him all my hate.
I kick my leg out and hit something that sounds like it slides across the floor. What is it?What the fuck is it?
I scramble on my palms in the direction I heard the noise and feel around for whatever it is until my fingertips brush against something on the floor. It’s small and round and cool to the touch. Metal gears cover the exterior of it.
A faceplate.
I claw at it and slide it over my head. Will it heal me? Will it make my eyes less swollen?
Fire rips through my skin and pulses around both my cheeks and eye sockets. I scramble around, sliding my body against one of the cold metal counters and slowly, inch by inch, I pull myself up, back into a standing position. This helmet better heal my eyesight. I lunge for the walls of the room, hands stretched out in front of me, feeling my way. I need an uploading dock, don’t I? I need this helmet to fix the mess Pious made of my face.
God, please don’t let him be somewhere in here watching me. And where the hell is Rune? Did Jex ever make it back to him? And if he did, will he tell Rune I’m still stuck up here in this stupid tin can?
