Chapter 1
Gooutlookingfortrouble and trouble will find you.
It was one of my mom’s favorite things to tell me when I left her house.
Blah blah blah.
Trouble foundme. It wasn’t my fault I beat the shit out of trouble and ended up in jail. Puny men. They whine so much when you break their legs.
Soweak.
It was only two broken bones! Someone had called the cops, and there was more fighting and more complaining about “resisting arrest.”It’s not resisting if you win.Then ten male cops wrestled me into the back of the car and I didn't kill them all, mostly to avoid my mother’s wrath. I went quietly, like a good citizen. They should thank me!
Now, the last thing I remembered was being stuck in a jail cell with Patty the Prostitute.
Again.
Patty and I went way back. I busted up some dude smacking her around, and she told the cops his neck was snapped like that when she got there.
Good people, Patty.
I went to sleep on the cold metal bench in Eddy County lockup to wait for my mom to bail me out, like usual. Only I woke up in the dark and with a hangover I didn’t drink for. I was also naked. I didn’t remember getting naked or drunk enough to pass out. This cell was not the familiar dinky cell I was used to. It was more like a cage.
A strange whirring sound filled the space around me, pounding into my skull in time with my heartbeat. The smell of rot was thick in the air. I rolled to my side, sat up, and puked all over the floor, adding to the already rancid smell.
My head spun and I groaned. I laid back down and rested for a few minutes with my cheek against the cool metal of the grate floor. When my head stopped spinning, I risked lifting it to squint into the darkness. In the corner, was the shadowed outline of a body. They smelled alive, maybe they knew what was going on. Hopefully, it wasn’t The Worst Nightmare. A government lab that snatched me off the street. That would be bad. Really,reallybad.
I crawled around my splattered vomit and nudged the body with a shaky hand. It was Patty. She didn’t move after I gave her a hard shake. My heart jerked once. I checked her pulse and found it steady. The breath I'd been holding in burst out of me with a soft whoosh of relief. She was just knocked out. Probably drugged, like me. Alcohol would never get me this sick. I’d have to drink a whole town, and still not be this bad.
Alright. Assessment time.
All my fingers and toes? Check.
Drugged and taken to a secondary location? Check.
About to be murdered and featured on 60 minutes? Probably check.
Except they tookme. Me! Who, by physiology,can’tbe drugged. Or at least, not by anything I know of.
Oh, God. ItwasThe Worst Nightmare! I was in some government lab and they were going to vivisect me! Use my blood and parts to make super soldiers!
My breath panted out of me. There was a roaring in my ears, and cold sweat drenched my body. The logical part of me that wasn’t freaking out—deep, deep down—was worried I was about to hyperventilate and pass out.
“Shhh!”
I jumped, peering into the dark. The voice had come from in front of my cell. Only shadowed shapes stood out against the black. The drugs were making my eyes slow to adjust, but I was less shaky, so they were wearing off. That was good. Except I was going to be starving in about five minutes. Bet they wouldn’t feed me in this stupid government lab. Yeah? Well, jokes on them! I would munch on a personso fast! The Donner Party had nothing on my will to survive.
“Be quiet!” another hoarse voice whispered in the dark. Good thing too. I’d been spiraling down the rabbit hole there for a second.
“Who’s there? Hello?” I whispered back. The scratch, scratch sound of movement came from in front of me.
“Don’t make any loud noises.”
It was a woman’s voice, trembling and thick with tears. There was fear in her voice, making the tone shrill even at a whisper. I was starting to smell the fear now, too. The sickly sweet scent hung in the surrounding air, faint, but growing more noticeable by the second. Pretty powerful drugs they’d pumped me full of, to be dulling all my senses this much.
“Why? Do you know where we are?”
Her obscure shape was getting lighter, more detailed. I blinked a few times, rubbed my eyes, and there she was. She was in the middle of her own cage across from mine, sitting cross-legged on the floor with her thin arms wrapped around her breasts. She was dirty and her cheeks were sunken like she hadn’t been eating. Her skin was deep brown, and she had close-cropped dark hair. Her eyes were black reflective pools in the dark when she turned her head to look in my general direction.
