“Find out what’s going on,” she says. “And make sure you come out on top. Our lives depend on it.”
I stride from the cell and return to the floor above. I’m a man on a mission the way I cut through the large space and return to the exam room. Tulio’s made it back as well, looking up with his thick brows raised at the sight of me in the doorway.
“The treatments you give me don’t make me better,” I say. “They keep me sick, don’t they?”
TWENTY-FOUR
Caelian
Tulio can’t even bringhimself to respond. But what he doesn’t realize is his lack of response is an answer in and of itself.
He’s in a state of shock as I confront him, his eyeglasses low on his nose and the syringe hanging limply in his hand. He thought he was going to get to administer another one of his bullshit treatments with no questions asked, yet here I go throwing a wrench in his plans.
“Mr. C…” he starts, then failures to continue. “I… I never… I… I wa-wasn’t…”
“Spit it out!” I roar, taking an angry step toward him. My heart twinges inside my chest, protesting my temper at a time where I’ve already been suffering a flare up. “You’ve been feeding me poison that does more harm than good, haven’t you? TELL ME!”
“I… I’ve only been…” he stammers, his eyes widening behind his lenses. “I’ve… I’ve been f-following orders!”
“WHICH WERE?” I boom, slamming the door shut, twisting the lock. I start toward him again, quickly closing the gap. “What were you fucking orders, doctor? Tell me in your own words!”
“Your father…” He gulps down more air. “He asked me to do some trials on you. J-just some tests of diff… different—argh!”
He grunts as I seize him by the front of his doctor’s coat and slam him against the wall. His skull cracks against the plaster almost hard enough to leave an indentation. His glasses fly off his face completely, breaking into pieces once the pair hits the floor.
A second passes where he loses focus in his eyes—I’ve slammed him so hard, he’s probably seeing stars right now.
But I don’t give a single fuck.
He should be grateful all he’s received is a head bashed against the wall. He’s been my doctor for over a decade, regularly pumping me with shit that was supposed to make me better.
Nothing was ever mentioned about trials and test runs. I was never told I was a guinea pig being subjected to what sounds like experiments.
Perhapsworsethan experiments—perhaps, I was kept illintentionally.
“So you've been sabotaging me,” I say, my voice low, edged with fury. “Haven’t you?”
“W-well your father… he said… he always said it was necessary! That it was for the… the greater good! Bu-but you did… you really did have a condition, Mr. C! You really did have—argh!”
I’ve slammed his head against the wall a second time, jerking him in my hold like a ragdoll. A sense of cruel satisfaction fills me watching how his head rocks back and forth and his limp body sways.
“I was following orders!” Dr. Tulio cries out, sniveling like a pathetic fool. “I was just the doc-doctor, Mr. C. They made me dowhat I’ve done—they said that it was for Zinc Co’s research. That it could help thousands suffering from severe heart conditions!”
“Just not his own son? Fuck his son! His son can be kept ill and dependent on medical experiments his entire life!”
My grip on Tulio loosens as another swell of rage hits me. I turn it on the rolling table with the syringes full of the treatment he had planned to give me. With a single sweep of my arm, I send the tray crashing to the ground and the different syringes tumbling in every direction.
“You have to understand. They needed… they needed someone to monitor long-term exposure. The effects under stress and other variables. He said… said the key to a viable formula was a subject who could withstand the different treatments! Someone strong. Someone?—”
“Like me,” I snarl. “He made me the test subject to advance the pharmaceutical company.”
Tulio’s eyes widen then drop to the ground, the silence between us loud with confirmation.
I pace back and forth across the room, cracking my neck and listening to the pounding beat of my frail heart.
The heart that’s probably been irrevocably damaged from years of trial and error. More than half my life spent being subjected to experimental medications that seemed to have been prepared for mass market.
…and my piece of shit father is already dead.
