“You’ll break eventually, Aurelia,” he says, almost hoarse.
I smile, all teeth. “Well you’ll be waiting a long fucking time for that.”
He studies me one last time, something unreadable passing through his eyes before he turns to the door.
At the threshold, he throws a look at Adrian. “Yesli ty tronesh’ yeye, ya razorvu tebya na kuski.”
The cage door clicks shut behind Nikolai.
That sound—metal against metal—slices clean through the still air, final and absolute. But I can’t look away from him. His silhouette lingers just beyond the metal wires, talking to someone I can’t see.
The darkness eats the edges of everything down here. It’s been that way since the first day: the light fixed only on our small patch of ground, we’re exhibits in some sick experiment, while the rest of the basement—catacombs, maybe—stays in shadow.
There’s nothing here that can help me, but there’s something they don’t want me to see. That much, I’m sure of.
Footsteps shift in the dark. I feel Adrian’s eyes flick toward me, waiting, wanting to say something, but he knows better than to break the silence while Nikolai’s still nearby. So I ignore him. I keep my focus where the blackness moves, and when the steps come closer, I brace myself.
It isn’t Nikolai who appears at the gate.
It’s Ivan, the doctor.
But I know Nikolai hasn’t gone far. I can feel him still. His presence is the dark itself, holding its breath.
Ivan doesn’t even glance at Adrian. He stands in front of me, scribbling on his clipboard, the pen scratching abnormally hard. His eyes flick up occasionally, assessing my face, my wrists, and my ankles.
The material bites into my skin, and though I’m not quite suspended, my arms hang at such an angle that my shouldersburn. The ache has gone beyond pain, into something hollow and constant. Numbness creeps in, and with every injection they give me, I wonder how much longer before something inside me simply shuts off.
I don’t understand what they’re doing—the science of it. I barely passed human biology, and that was only because the tutors my father hired couldn’t stand to fail me. Whatever they’re pumping into me, it makes the world swim, dull but loud all at once.
Ivan moves again, reaching into his back pocket. A glint of silver.
But the scrape of metal on concrete snaps my attention past him. A chair? A shift of weight?
Nikolai.
The needle hits my arm before I can even curse. The sting is sharp and clean, blood beading as it sinks in.
“What the hell was that?” I demand, voice cracking.
Ivan looks up, disgust curling his mouth, as if the very idea of me speaking offends him on a moral level. He yanks the needle free, carelessly sliding it into his back pocket. But when he speaks, it’s not to me.
“U vashego pitomtsa slishkom agressivnoye povedeniye.”
Through the darkness, I hear Nikolai’s reply: “Moy pitomets, Ivan. Ne tvoy. Ostav’ yeyo. Seychas zhe.”
“You know that’s impolite. If you’re going to speak, you might as well do it in English for me and Adrian.”
Ivan looks at me with a grin, then lifts his head with a nod towards Adrian. “This pathetic bastard will never get anything from me.”
Adrian smirks lazily. “Love you too, doc.”
Good. They hate each other.
Noted.
Well, at least he spoke to me.
I consider pressing further, but with Nikolai just beyond the chained door, I choose not to push my luck.
