Page 64 of Heir of Ashes
A stunned silence followed. “My new … owner? You sold me?”
“I exchanged you. Sold is such an ugly word. It implies slavery, which I’m not fond of.”
“Exchanged me?” I repeated dumbly. “For what?”
Dr. Dean rubbed his hands together. “I got one of the most dangerous of the Rejected—one of the oldest Dhiultadh still alive today.”
Rejected. Dhiultadh. There were those words again.
I had no idea what he was talking about. General Parkinson had mentioned the Rejected before—but if I was one of them, then I really was the reject of the Rejected, because I had never heard of them.
“But why?” I asked, unsure of which part my question was addressing.
Dr. Dean seemed to have no such confusion. He leaned forward conspiratorially, his face alight with maniacal glee. Something foreign and inhuman darkened his expression. What was that black ring in his aura?
“Let me tell you a secret. When the PSS gained custody of you, there were some stipulations attached to the agreement. You were underage at the time. One of them, Clause 18 Paragraph 1, stated that ‘upon reaching her maturity at the age of twenty-one,’” he quoted, clearly reciting from memory, “‘and if the subject is found competent and capable, the subject is to be released from the custody of the guardians, free of any obligation toward the facility, free to pursue a normal life.’”
“Unless,” he continued, “’a third party intervened, preventing our research from reaching a conclusion, or if youproved to be too unstable or dangerous to be left free among mankind.” He leaned back, his eyes gleaming. “For, you see, we were also a disciplinary facility. An obedience school with benefits. Ah, I see Mommy Dearest never told you about that, but you shouldn’t blame her. Keeping these stipulations a secret from you was actually one of the clauses in the contract. You were not meant to know, lest you behave only to get free and unleash your true self upon mankind.” He snickered when he finished, obviously enjoying himself.
All I could do was stare at him in stunned disbelief. For a long time, my mind was a blank void. Then, very softly and quietly, I said, “I’ve been free all this time? All along, I have been hunted like a rabid animal, and I’ve been free?”
Dr. Dean laughed, slapping his hands together as if I had just told him the most hilarious joke. “Not at all. You see, Clause 23 (a) Paragraph 6 states that if there is any intervention preventing the PSS from conducting its research to its fullest capacity, then for each month the intervention occurs, there’s a three-month compensation penalty.”
“I was less than a month shy of twenty-one when I escaped,” I pointed out. “So, all you have is about two months and change.”Could I endure two more months of torture without breaking?
Dr. Dean grinned. “Not at all, my dear. The minute you left, the adult-age freedom clause was null. All that counted was that for each month you were away, a three-month penalty was added to your sentence.”
He spoke as if I were a convict who had committed an unforgivable felony. I never thought I could hate Dr. Dean more than I already did, but in that moment, I loathed him with every fiber of my being. It was such an intense emotion that my soul shook with its force.
You should never have left the Scientists before your time …Wasn’t that what Elizabeth had told me?
I quickly counted the months I had been away and calculated. I had been away from the PSS for about a year and seven months. Multiplying that by three, the result was … fifty-seven months more.
Almost five years.
“Did you—did you help me escape?” I asked slowly. “To prolong this penalty time, or were you just watching me interact with ordinary humans?”
“Oh, we were watching,” he said, his voice tinged with sadistic pleasure. “We watched every step. I particularly enjoyed how you handled the mage. Dr. Maxwell was also very excited about that, but he was fascinated by the vampire mind control. It was a factor Dr. Maxwell had never considered before. He wanted to keep sending more and more mercenaries after you, but I held him back as much as I could. Partly to prolong the penalty, partly because you were becoming a very costly project, and I was under pressure from funding.”
“What changed?” Because something definitely had. The last few weeks felt like a marathon for my life. I had yet to catch my breath.
Dr. Dean’s eyes shone with something—greed? “About five weeks ago, this gentleman approached me and made a very tempting offer. He would provide me with one of your kind—one that is not a mixed breed like you, but the real deal. In exchange, I deliver you to him. I must admit,” he confessed, his sincerity as wrong as daylight at midnight, “I was worried when you discovered the tracker and we couldn’t tell your whereabouts.” He tsked at me as if I were a naughty child. “But all we had to do was watch the Whitmore woman and, eventually, you were bound to come. It’s a shame though that General Parkinsoncouldn’t hold up his end of the deal. His ineptitude will be detailed in a long letter to his superiors.”
“So now what? I go with this so-called gentleman, to where? What will you tell your donors happened to me? Surely, they will be curious.”
Dr. Dean spread his arms wide. “Well, if I return and report that you’ve met a drastic and fatal end, what can they say? Especially when something bigger, meaner, and more dangerous is under their microscope, ready to replace you?”
Shock sank its icy claws into my flesh as the meaning of his words fully registered. “No one will believe you.” But even I wasn’t entirely convinced of my words.
“Why not? Who’s going to dispute it? Your assassin friend, the one who murdered five government officials in broad daylight? I don’t think so. They’ll believe me. Trust me on that.”
He checked his watch again and scanned the land around us. The creatures had stopped about ten feet away—at least half a dozen silhouettes.
Dr. Dean caught me glancing at them and chuckled. I promised myself I’d smash my fist into his mouth if he made that infuriating noise again.
“It’s almost time now. Don’t worry about these creatures. As I said, if you don’t touch one, it won’t harm you.” He finished by pointing his penlight at the nearest one.
I was wrong. It wasn’t as big as a cat. No, it was bigger, maybe the size of a small child. That was where the resemblance ended, though I had no right to compare the two. Its head was round, with pointed ears like arrowheads. Dark, shell-shaped eyes peered out from a face that was more a mask of bones than flesh, with nothing but two dark holes for a nose. Its lips were too thin and stretched wide. Its body was emaciated, the skin stretched taut over its skeletal frame, gray and yellow under Dr. Dean’s light. It crouched low, its knees drawn up to its chest.Its tail twitched, circling around its body and then unwinding back. Two small wings jutted from the middle of its back, far too small to support flight. It held its hands together as if nervously fidgeting—or awaiting an exciting event. The creature snarled—or smiled—its mouth stretching from ear-to-ear, showcasing an array of razor-sharp teeth. Dr. Dean quickly moved the light away, betraying how much the creature unnerved him.