Inhuman (6 page)

Why? Why me?

Wincing as the needle pierced the tender skin within the crook of my elbow, I made eye contact with Agent Evans.

“Please…” I begged, “Please…tell me why…I’m here.” My sobs echoed in the tiny room.

Agent Evans appeared to debate with himself as he watched the vials of blood fill, one after another. Sighing, his jaws clenched as he ignored my pleas.

After all the glass tubes were full of my precious lifeblood, the man in the white lab coat proceeded to scrape tissue samples from various regions of my body.

As the inside of my cheek was sliced, a copper flavor overwhelmed my taste buds and I felt a line of warmth trickle down the side of my cheek. Gagging from the overflow of blood welling in my mouth, I turned my head and spit red all over the white floor.

The hair sample, which I presumed would be the least painful of all, turned out to be the worst. I screamed as the lab tech carved out small chunk of my scalp.

Jackass! Now that spot will never grow back!

The pure white cell now looked like a crime scene and for all the sense it made to me, it was.

For the moment, all the agents and the lab tech had left me alone. I could hear them discussing amongst each other just on the other side of the door though, probably thinking up new ways to torture me.

Running my tongue along the inside of my cheek, I cursed again as I felt more of the butcher’s handy work.

That was the point when I realized that I probably wasn’t going to live through this. If they’d been so brutal just asking questions and taking samples, there was no way they were going to let me just walk out of here—wherever I was.

I missed Amy terribly. She’d be the only person that would even notice I was missing at this point. I had no idea if I was even going to see Keanu again, he didn’t really leave me any indication we were a serious item.

My grandmother wouldn’t notice for weeks—possibly months—that I was missing. I didn’t keep in touch very well. The only way we’d communicated over the last couple years was via letters through the mail.

I hadn’t paid my tuition yet or registered for classes, so they’d probably think that I wasn’t coming back. No one but Amy ever came to my room on a regular basis. Amy might alert the authorities, but they’d probably just think that I couldn’t afford my tuition, returned to Arizona and not be too concerned.

Basically, it all added up to me being missing or dead for quite a while before anyone would notice.

They could’ve at least undone these ties before they left.
I pulled against the straps but they were fastened so tight that my hands would only move about an inch. Spread eagle on the cot, I closed my eyes and prayed for this to be over.

A peal of laughter just outside the door startled me. My eyes focused on the door handle as it turned. My heart began thudding hard in my chest as I anticipated more inhumane treatment.

The five agents in black walked in—and Keanu.

“Keanu!” My voice bordered on a scream as his name reverberated within the small cell. “Why do you have him? I’ll tell you anything! Just let him go!”

Desperate, I began formulating lies, lies that might satisfy what these barbarians wanted to hear from me to keep them from hurting Keanu.

Agent Evan’s eyebrows rose accompanying a snide grin. Glancing back and forth between me and Keanu, he finally spoke.

“Miss Tiponi, I’d like to introduce you…” Agent Evans waved his arm toward Keanu. “to Agent Kai.”

“Agent?” I repeated, my tone hollow and lifeless. Dressed in jeans and t-shirt, he looked just like the man I met on campus. How could he an agent?

The night we spent together flooded back.

He used me!

An inexplicable feeling overcame me, a sensation of worthlessness. I didn’t know what was going on. My real life ebbed away from me like a child sitting on the edge of a pool reaching for a beach ball on the water, grazing it with anxious fingertips, but never retrieving it. My real life became my past, never to be lived again.

Clearing his throat, Keanu approached me as I lay helpless on the cot. I turned my head sharply away from him as he tried to make eye contact. His eyes were filled with shame. If guilt had a smell, it was oozing from his pores.

Angry tears blurred my vision as he lifted up my shirt. Pushing my bra aside and uncovering my breasts, several of the agents gasped at the sight of my birthmark, or at least I hoped it was the mark they were gawking at.

A hot pain of embarrassment seared in my chest. I felt like a specimen, nothing more than animal ready to be dissected.

“I need to get a camera.” Agent Evans walked briskly from the cell.

With my breasts exposed, I could feel their eyes upon me. Keeping my face toward the far wall, I felt Keanu, who’d stayed by my side, pull my shirt down.

“Hey Kai.” The agent with blond hair heckled. “You fucked it didn’t you?”

It?!

“Enough!” Agent Evans snapped and glared at Agent Meyers as he walked back into the cell with camera in hand. “Everyone out…except you Kai.”

The mattress sunk beside me as Keanu sat down. His hip touched mine ever so slightly and I quashed the mild enjoyment of having gentle human contact again—especially his.

My entire body tensed as he leaned over me to untie my left hand. His warm breath tickled my neck as he slowly and carefully unraveled the strap. The Velcro released with a reluctant hiss as my hand was freed.

He paused for a moment as though anticipating my next move. I’m sure he was prepared for, and even expected, a punch or slap.

Ignoring my right hand for the moment, he moved to undo my feet. I hated that I loved the way his hands brushed up against the inside of my calves as he gently released me.

Remaining perfectly still, I refused to look at him. I’d forgotten up until now that my face was probably marred with dried blood from the sample session.

“Are you…okay?” His voice was hushed, laced with guilt and regret as he carefully untied my right hand.

My jaw clenched as I felt fresh tears well in my eyes. All the pain and persecution I’d endured over the last few days suddenly brimmed over.

“What the hell is going on?” Sitting up on the cot, I rubbed my wrists that had become raw from the Velcro straps. I pleaded with wide eyes as I looked at him.

“You really…don’t know?” Furrowing his brow, his eyes clouded with confusion.

“No! All I know is that I’ve been kidnapped, brutalized and treated like fucking lab rat!” Rubbing the top of my oozing head, I marched up to Keanu with my bloodied palm open and shoving it into his face, I waited for an explanation.

His handsome bronze face paled as he reluctantly observed the proof of my suffering. “I…thought you knew. We all…assumed…”

“What?! What did you assume?!” My voice was becoming shrill and I felt my knees get weak as days of exhaustion overwhelmed me. Catching me by the elbow before I fell, Keanu led me back to the cot.

After sitting down, I slapped his hand away. “Tell me!” I shrieked, my chest heaving with sobs.

“You mean to tell me that you really don’t know why you’re here? That you really don’t
know
?” Shock and disbelief consumed his voice as he rubbed his face with both his hands.

All energy had been sapped from my body, I hunched over, shaking my head from side to side. “No.” I whispered through the salty tears cascading onto my cracked lips.

Kneeling before me and placing his hands on both of my knees, Keanu sighed. His voice shook as he let the words that would change my life forever fall from his lips.

“Cassia…you’re not…human.”

Chapter 7

“DNA. Deoxyribonucleic Acid. The basic structure contains a double helix, forty-six chromosomes and several genetic markers shared by all humans.” Agent Evans sat across from me, his face somber. “You, Cassia, have none of the standard ‘human’ DNA attributes. Our scientists are still researching the samples to learn more, but as it stands, you do not have human DNA.”

“I don’t understand.” I stated, my voice echoing within the walls of a small conference room. Keanu had arranged for Agent Evans to talk to me. He’d apparently explained how I needed to know what was going on and he obviously believed me when I said that I had no idea.

“Your DNA has very…pronounced differences.” He paused as though reluctant to tell me, then continued. “Instead of a double helix…you have a triple helix. Instead of forty-six chromosomes, you only have twenty-six. All of which…in human understanding…is impossible.”

I could feel his uneasy stare on me as I soaked in all the information.

“It’s even too pronounced to be considered a mutation. Do you have any idea as to why your genetic make-up is so…alien?” His question was innocent enough, but implied so much.

Staring at the table and shaking my head, my entire body went numb. Glancing at my hands, I wondered how I could look so human if my genetic code had betrayed me so dramatically.

If I wasn’t human, what was I?

Except for the birthmark, I had every likeness of a human being and throughout my whole life, there’d never been any indication whatsoever that I wasn’t.

No special powers, no psychic ability…nothing that would make me remotely think I wasn’t human.

“Can I…go home?” I sounded like a small child and strangely, that’s how I felt. My world had been reborn into a nightmare, a world in which I didn’t belong anymore.

Taking a big breath in and exhaling, it appeared for a moment that Agent Evans was considering it. “No Cassia, I’m afraid not.” An odd flicker of concealment danced behind his eyes as he repeated his last statement. “I’m afraid not.”

Adjusting his black suit jacket, he turned and moved to leave the conference room. As the door closed behind him, I could see through the vertical sliver where the wall met the door. There was at least one guard…machine gun in hand.

Laying my head on the cool, hard table, I sobbed as I cried harder than I’ve ever cried in my life.

Alien?!
That’s what he called me…an alien.

It’s funny how the things that we think are basic rights in life like going to school, money and especially freedom can be taken away so quickly.

In one breath, I’d been stripped of my former identity, my life…my humanity.

With all deaths, there is at least that recognition of something fading away from existence. Like a candle in the wind, someone’s life can be snuffed out, but there is always that tiny ember of light left behind, a warmth or acknowledgement.

Something.

My life, my former existence…was gone, leaving no trace, no warmth inside me. Just the knowledge that I’d once lived amongst the human race, as one of them, naïve to my true identity.

As I lay in a puddle of my own tears, wondering
what
I was, something inside of me…died.

My bloodshot amber eyes stared back at me in the mirror, dark circles pooled beneath them like ashen sediment. I was certain I looked at least five years older than I did only a few days before. Several strands of my black hair were matted with dried blood and hung like dreadlocks around my face.

I desperately needed a shower and fresh clothes. For a split second I compared this facility to a concentration camp, but then decided that I shouldn’t allow myself that much pity.

Knocking lightly on my cell door, I hoped to get the attention of the guards. After twenty minutes, however, I realized that either no one was out there or they were ignoring me.