The blank stare was answer enough.
Brooks left the line in search of the nearest orderly.
“You may wanna grab the giant brute from the front of the line. Here’s his food.”
Brooks passed the tray to the orderly and turned to walk away, but a hand clamped around his wrist in a punishing grip.
His passenger reared its head as ice flooded his veins. The reaction was instant, the hold over his mind lost. Before he knew it, the monster was in control.
Brooks’ body turned and smashed the food tray across the orderly’s face in a fit of rage. His body fell to the floor in a mess of limbs and food and made no move to retaliate.
Brooks’ voice was inhumanly low as he growled, “If you touch me again, slave of the underworld, I’ll rip you to pieces and lay them on the doorstep of hell.”
In an instant, Brooks’ passenger was back in the corner of his mind and he was left to face the consequences.
He shuddered as the pounding of footsteps rushed toward him.
What did you do to me,he thought back at it.
“Ameadowfullofasphodels..”
Nausea.
“...a secret she will never tell...”
Pain.
“...ashes...”
Suffocation.
“...ashes...”
Cold.
“...they all burn down.”
Blinding light burned his retinas as he fought to wake. His body ached like flesh-eating poison was sludging through his veins and he couldn’t move to ease it.
Brooks shook his head to clear the drugged feeling but it was unbearably heavy and wouldn’t move. Vertigo came next and he gagged from the intensity.
“Don’t throw up. You’ve got a rubber heel in your mouth and you will aspirate.” Her voice sliced through his skin and carved into the bone.
His blood froze and he couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped around the heel when realization struck.
He was withher.
Dr. Mel Kore.
He lay naked on a wooden slab where sharp splinters pierced his skin. Brooks was thoroughly papoosed with leather straps around all of his extremities. He ran his fingertips over uneven gashes along the sides.
He gulped. The gashes felt ominously familiar.
They were claw marks.
Desperate slashing from those who were on that very table before him. Some of them may have even been his own.
Brooks’ breathing was heavy, sprays of spittle arcing in the air and landing on his face. The rubber heel in between his teeth left little room for air to pass. His eyes bulged as he searched the room for anything to stop her. To save him.
