But not right now.
Chapter 29
Thorn
Elora stood stiff, her arms wrapped firmly around herself, as if trying to hold her fragile frame together. Every inch of her radiated fear, a pitiful display of weakness that Thorn found almost thought-provoking. A tight, colorless line formed her lips; her gaze darted to the gurney and back again, her wide, unblinking eyes betraying the terror she was too proud or too foolish to voice. She looked like a cornered animal, ready to collapse at the slightest push.
Since the second session, she had stopped resisting. She had resigned herself to his experiments, showing a surprising level of curiosity that Thorn hadn’t expected. She asked endless questions about his methods, her interest sharp and genuine, and although it caught him off guard at first, he found himself enjoying her inquisitive nature.
But today, something was different.
When he motioned toward the gurney and instructed her to lie down, she didn’t comply like she had in previous sessions. She didn’t even move. Her tightly folded arms across her chest made her knuckles jut out like bone through paper, stark and pale against her trembling skin. She stayed planted where she stood, defiance born offear keeping her rooted, her eyes glued to the gurney as if it had suddenly transformed into something monstrous. Thorn clenched his jaw, his patience thinning. How foolish, how utterly pointless her hesitation was. The gurney hadn’t changed.
“No,” she muttered, her voice so soft he almost didn’t hear it.
Thorn’s brows drew together, a spark of irritation slicing through his otherwise composed demeanor. This wasn’t like her, not anymore. His footsteps cut sharply as he bridged the space separating them. “I suggest you comply, Elora,” he said quietly, carrying a subtle warning. “You know what happens if you don’t.”
She didn’t budge. Her eyes stayed locked on the gurney, her entire body shaking as she shook her head. It wasn’t defiance. No, it wasn’t strong enough to be defiance.
Elora took a step back, her eyes darting nervously toward the guards who stood by the door. “No,” she whispered again. “Please…”
She couldn’t form the words, but her panic was as plain as the quivering mess she’d become. Her arms curled more tightly around herself, as though seeking to shield her body from view, and her gaze flickered between the guards, watching their movements with the jittery expectation of a beaten dog waiting for the next blow. Thorn’s irritation deepened, but so did something else, something more complicated. A flicker of suspicion that gnawed at the edge of his thoughts. What changed? What was she hiding? The questions itched, he wanted answers, but for some reason, he feared what they might be.
He motioned for the guards to come forward. “Strap her down.” The moment the guards stepped toward her, Elora’s composure shattered.
“No! Please don’t!” she cried, stumbling back further. “I’ll get on, I will! Just don’t use the straps, please!” Her hands flew updefensively. “I won’t go anywhere, I promise. Justpleasedon’t tie me down.”
Thorn paused, watching her with a growing sense of unease. This wasn’t the same girl who had sat through his sessions before, asking her naïve, probing questions. No, this was something different entirely, something fractured. Her voice was frantic, edged with a kind of desperate terror that should have grated against his patience. Instead, it lodged beneath his skin, too loud, too close. Then there were the gashes, thin, angry lines marring her chin and forehead, fresh enough to gleam.
Something had happened.
His irritation ebbed into something more attentive, threading itself around the pieces she was inadvertently giving away. Unease crawled beneath his skin, unease he buried beneath cold pragmatism. He didn’t know why he agreed to her request; he should have dismissed it outright. Perhaps it was curiosity, or perhaps something about her frantic terror burrowed into the deeper emotions he kept buried.
“Very well,” Thorn said slowly, still full of warning. “Lie down on the gurney. No straps.” He glanced at the guards. “But stay close. If she tries anything, you restrain her.”
Tears pricked her eyes, though she tried to blink them away. Thorn watched her carefully, noting every slight movement, every flicker of hesitation as she gingerly climbed onto the gurney.
He stood over her, watching as she struggled to keep control of herself, biting down on her thumbnail to keep from sobbing. She left her other arm at her side, fingers splayed, offering it to him for the needle.
He studied her for a long moment, his mind circling back to the question that plagued him.
What had happened to her?
He rarely cared what the guards did to the wards outside of his experiments. Why would he? It was beneath his station. If Gerard or another took things too far, that wasn’t his concern.
Gerard, in particular, consistently served as his weapon of choice for punishment when needed, brutal, effective, direct. But now, for reasons he didn’t care to name, the sight of Elora gnawing at her thumbnail, staring blankly at the ceiling like a hollowed-out husk, scraped against his patience in a way that made little sense. It unsettled him, and he hated being unsettled.
“Why the sudden change?” he asked. His voice carried the cold detachment he always relied on, but something in the way he asked sounded almost...human.That irritated him most of all. “What happened?”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t even flinch. He hated this, hated the silence, how her fragile form seemed to shrink further in on itself as each second ticked by. She looked scarcely more than a shadow of the girl who had once met his demands with that damnable curiosity.
The words he wanted to spit at her died in his throat, replaced by something that coiled tightly in his chest. Why did he care? He shouldn’t care. She was a tool, an experiment, a piece of the puzzle he was building. She existed to serve a purpose, for his research, for his revenge. That was all. That wasalwaysall.
But her tear stricken blue eyes reminded him ofher. OfFlora.The resemblance disturbed him, tearing at the edges of his focus. It was muddying his judgment, a weakness he despised, and yet, regardless of how hard he tried to push it aside, it clung to him.
His fingers hovered at her temple before he snatched them back, suddenly aware of the tenderness that had crept into his touch. He forced himself to act, grabbing the needle. Hehad work to do. Whatever had happened to Elora, whatever had reduced her to this trembling, hollow thing, was irrelevant in this moment. Her comfort and salvation weren’t his concern.She’s here to serve a purpose.He reminded himself.
The needle slid into her arm, and though Elora flinched, she didn’t resist. Thorn watched as the crimson liquid filled the vial, each drop a step closer to his goal, yet he couldn’t stop the phantom image creeping into his mind. Flora’s face, young and fragile, overlapped with Elora’s, the two of them blurring together in a way that made his grip tighten. Her pale skin, the light dusting of freckles across her nose, the same wide, wary blue eyes that now stared up at the ceiling. It was difficult to overlook the terror there, and he imagined that was what Flora looked like, right before the flames consumed her.
