As it stood, Meadow Creek’s barn did not house cows nor workhorses. There were no sheep in those stalls, nor pigs, nor goats.
After the completion of the lab, the renovation of the barn was her father’s top priority. Plumbing was added, the stone stalls were enclosed to make several small rooms, and thick iron rings were thrust into the gritty mortar between stones.
And of course, there were the metal doors.
Despite the frigid weather, sweat gathered under the collar of her blouse. She never knew what fresh horror might lie in wait for her beyond those metal doors. Who would she meet next? How would they react when they comprehended the crime committed against them? What would happen to them if her father’s experiment proved unsuccessful?
Don’t think about it.
Of course, she could repeat the phrase a thousand times. She often did just that. It never worked. Very little could soothe the terror and acrid nausea that assailed her as Harrod pushed one of the doors open and ushered her inside.
And nothing,nothingcould assuage the guilt.
A ramp led down to the packed earth floor. She imagined that once the dust had been stirred by hooves and heavy boots, but now there were only the impressions of cultured men’s footwear, large boot prints, and the telltale drag marks winding a path to the largest cell in the back.
Josephine’s steps faltered.I can’t do this again,she thought, suddenly frantic. Fear was a wild thing in her breast — a galloping, rearing sort of animal desperate for escape from the horror that awaited her.
Again and again, it awaited. There was no reprieve, and the more she considered that, the worse her panic became.
Her life was an endless tunnel of darkness. It did not matter how fast she ran, how loud she screamed. There was no light to strive toward. The harder she struggled, the closer the walls moved, like a great contracting muscle, around her.
At the smallest sign of hesitation, Harrod wrapped his long, pale fingers around her upper arm and marched her the rest of the way. She stumbled on her laces, her knees knocking, but he didn’t stop to help her.
Onward they went, deeper into the shadows. The tunnel contracted again, closing in until she could barely breathe through its constriction.
She could hear the faint clink of glass and metal instruments in the unnatural quiet of the barn. There was still the faintest tang of animal in the air, but it was buried beneath layers of terror, bile, and blood.
There was some small solace in the fact that the blood, at least, was mostly her own.
Her vision went blurry as her muscles locked. It didn’t matter that she knew fighting was useless. Even if she was fierce, there would have been no use.
Fighting had never gotten her anything but pain. If she scratched, she was strapped down. If she screamed, she was gagged. If she kicked, she was shackled.
It never made any difference. The experiments always happened with their cold efficiency. Blood was taken. Tissue excised. Her reactions to stimuli noted. She was powerless, no matter what the beast in her breast howled.
So why did her body stillfight?
“Keep moving,” Harrod snapped. His fingers tightened around her arm at the same time that he gave her a quelling look. “Don’t be bothersome. How many times have we done this, Miss Wyeth? If you just do as you’re told, it will be painless.”
“It’sneverpainless,” she dared to answer.
Speaking through his teeth, he said, “That is because you never do as you’re told.”
He was right. Josephine was rarely as obedient as they wished. Not in this. Fighting was useless, butresistance— that was never beyond her, no matter how much misery it caused.
A teeth-rattling roar tore through the air.
Josephine began to shake in earnest.Please, gods, don’t let it be a shifter.
But the gods didn’t listen to her. They never did.
ChapterFour
When Harrod draggedher to the farthest cell, where the hulking metal door with its single slot for meals stood open, she knew that once again her prayers had been ignored.
Her father stood in the doorway. He was half turned toward her, his shoulders slightly hunched as he scribbled something in a notebook. The hand holding the notebook was also loosely clutching a pair of calipers.
Measurements, then.
