Page 27 of Killer (Project)
“Welcome back, Killer.” I shifted, my body going ramrod straight. Blood pumped into my ears as a fire stirred in my belly. We were here, and Maggie was missing. My eyes searched my surroundings, looking for any evidence of a struggle.
“If you’re looking for the girl, she’s here… just not in your cell,” the lab assistant wearing a white coat said. Bars surrounded me, in front and back, cement walls replaced the bars to my left and right, and a door off to the right looked as if it were sealed, all to keep me captive. I narrowed my eyes, focusing on the lettering embroidered into the fabric.PGI Corp.Somewhere in my mind, a small spark was ignited. Those three letters and one word sounded vaguely familiar.
“Just… give her to me.” I didn’t want to beg. To let them know she meant something to me when, in reality, she could never mean anything to me. I just knew this place well enough to know someone as fragile as her wouldn’t survive without me. I was a monster, but I wasn’t that horrible to make her into something she never asked to be. Never would she be subjected to the testing I had been if I had a say in it.
“Give her to you? Come on, Killer. We both know you realize how this works. You follow the orders and you get what you want. You disobey, and, well...” The dickhead’s voice grew dark, and the doors behind him opened revealing a very knocked out Maggie in the arms of another man.
I gritted my teeth, forcing myself not to lash out. I didn’t want to know what they needed from me. What they wanted me to do...
“We will give her to you, under one condition,” the dickhead said. I was unable to take my eyes off her, watching her chest rise and fall. If she died, there would be no saving me. I would go off the rails. She might not have been anything important, but she was now my only way of staying human. I would hold onto her humanity, living through it to keep me sane in this place. It was my only hope.
“Don’t fuck with me, douche bag. Get to the point.” I cracked my knuckles, showing him I was up for anything. My muscles ached, and my legs still felt like they were tied to cement blocks at the bottom of the ocean.
Dickhead smiled, and I desperately wished he were close enough for me to reach through the bars and grip him by the throat. Would he scream in fear?
“When we have everything from her… we need you to do us a favor… Better yet, when the time comes, we need you to do something.” The smirk was still on his face. I growled. I didn’t like not knowing what I had to agree to.
“What do you want?” I barely got out, my eyes still trained on Maggie’s lifeless body. “We want you to kill her.” My eyes grew wide, and my chest cracked. I could feel something breaking inside of me. I had thought many times about killing her, about ripping her throat out, suffocating her. Yet, I had never been able to cross the line. I had never been able to make it more than a thought. The memories always stopped me. Looking at her now, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it and that alone would be the very thing that got us both killed.
“Why?” I tried to sound curious, and less worried about what they would do to the two of us if I couldn’t follow through. The truth was it didn’t matter if I killed her or not because they wouldn’t let me go. Dickhead looked at me sideways before wrapping a finger around one of Maggie’s dark brown locks of hair.
“See, she knows some stuff. Stuff that could hurt this corporation, even you, so we want to put a stop to it. Kill her… and earn your freedom, fail to do so and face the consequences…”
I looked around the room, my eyes scanning for a way out. There had to be a way to escape. The cell I was in was new—hell, the facility in itself was new. Besides the bars keeping me prisoner, a pair of sliding glass doors that lead into a chamber separated us. That chamber must have been where they had kept Maggie. I could feel the tension filtering into my mind, the anger, rage, and hate coming back to me tenfold.
They wanted me to kill her, could I do it…?
“I’ll do it.” I agreed knowing there was no way for me to do it. Somehow, someway, I would have to find another way out. Either that or the Brotherhood would have to find us. The sealed door to my cell opened as Dickhead pressed his hand to a small screen next to the door. That was also new. I watched as he pulled a key from his pocket and placed it into the lock hole.
“Stay against the wall. If you take one step, we shoot her up with more L1 than her fragile body can handle,” Dickhead raged. The door slid upward with a loud creak. For one second, I considered charging them, using my body weight to my advantage. Then again, it would be useless. This was a new facility I was unfamiliar with, and they had more power than I had. I was strong alone in myself, but when it came to twenty-to-one, they would always win, plus they would shoot us both up. Instead, I pressed my heels to the back of the wall as the man holding her squatted down just enough to place Maggie against the concrete and roll her into my cell.
The moment her body landed on the floor safely, I charged forward causing the man to jerk upward, smacking his head against the bottom of the steel sliding door. I growled in acceptance of his pain knowing deep down every person in this building feared me. The man backed away as I watched the door slide back down locking me inside with Maggie. “Try something like that again, and you won’t have to worry about killing her—we’ll do it for you,” Dickhead said. He moved away from the panel that I now knew controlled the door to the cell. Funny how he could say those things to me while bars separated us. If he had no escape and no protection from me, he would be pissing his pants by now and begging me to spare him.
My thoughts spiraled out of control as I inched my way over to where Maggie was. Her body was lying on the cold floor, and as I touched her hand, I could feel the coldness of the room seeping into her skin.
This place will steal her warmth, her goodness.
I gripped both her arms and dragged her carefully over to the corner. Staring at her, I tried to figure out what to do. They hadn’t given us blankets or pillows. They never provided us with anything other than the things that were needed to keep us alive. My eyes glided over her body and then to the confines of our new home.
Fuck.I wanted to scream. What was I supposed to do? It wasn’t in my nature to care and protect, but here I was trying to find a way to keep her alive…
You have to…a small voice inside my head whispered. Gritting my teeth, I pushed to the wall and slid down. Maggie’s head was right next to my thigh. With little effort, I could cradle her body in my arms allowing my warmth to protect her. I shuddered at the mere thought.
This isn’t the real me. I can’t do this… Blood spilled from my fingertips as I tried to dig them into the concrete floor. I didn’t want to do this.
What if I hurt her?I asked myself the question even though I already knew the answer. I wouldn’t. Not just that, but I couldn’t. She was our ticket out of here alive. Pushing all doubt to the back of my mind, I gripped her as gently as I could and pulled her into my chest. She stirred slightly, her face rubbing into my chest muscles. Warmth bloomed somewhere deep inside of me, melting a sliver of the coldness that had made me who I was. Clutching her as if she was going to disappear, I closed my own eyes and allowed myself to revel in the feelings of her small body in my arms. Her breath mixed with my own caused our scents to mingle together. Every breath I took calmed the demon inside of me.
Minutes passed in silence as my breath evened out. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to the two of us. I had been here, in this place, once before. Maggie hadn’t. She had no sense or idea of what this place was about.
I could feel the memories poking at my shields wanting badly to knock them down, but I couldn’t let them. I couldn’t let my guard down for one second. Doing so was what had gotten us here to begin with.
Fuck.I opened my eyes and looked down at Maggie. She was beautiful, something I had known this entire time. She was also familiar, in a sense that my body and mind called to her. Somehow, she knew me. I could feel it deep inside of me because whenever she was around, the person within always tried to escape.
Allowing my eyes to drift back closed, I saw Maggie in my mind. Memories swirled around me until I could no longer shake them. I was being pushed into a dark tunnel with no light at the end.
“I loved you, Diesel. I loved you more than life itself.” I could hear the emotion in her words and all but see the tears running down her face. What was happening? Maggie! I screamed out, but it was all inside my head. I couldn’t move, yet I was awake. More and more people gave their graces, and it was then that I realized I was at a funeral.
Not just anyone’s but my own.