The Supremacy (10 page)

wouldn’t.
I tested the tube that was still in my nose, seeing how far I could stretch it. Slowly, ever so slowly, I sat up, pulling the stand along with me. Only a few Testers rested between the girl and me. To reach her was not difficult.
On hands and knees, I started to crawl toward her, tugging along my IV stand. Almost halfway to her I felt a strong hand wrap itself around my ankle and I turned to see Brian shaking his head in warning, pulling me back.
I kicked him off, jerking my leg free from his grasp and continued toward the girl. I
couldn’t
leave her like that. Only a monster could justify allowing someone to suffer in that way.
When I reached her, the extent of the damage was undeniable. Hundreds of sparkling crystals shimmered and blinked in the dim light that hit them. Her blood continued to ooze from each tiny slice the shards had made in her flesh.
Crawling up to her face, I tried to tell her with my eyes what my voice could not, that I was not there to harm her. Holding both her hands in mine, I gave her a reassuring squeeze before I started the meticulous task of removing the tiny splinters from her skin.
One by one, I pulled the splinters free, allowing them to
tink
against the bare ground once they were pulled free. Within minutes, there was a pile of glass floating in the blood that had pooled beside her. Every now and then, she would let out a moan, but not once did she stop me. Sitting back on my heals, I looked to the girl that had been battered. I watched as her eyes closed, as her chest heaved for breath. Only a monster would do this to someone. A Keeper. Experience told me that she was not sleeping, but in shock. It was her body’s way of shielding her from the pain that she could no longer bear. Infection was her biggest enemy and only time would tell if she would survive.
Crawling back on sticky hands, I found my place next to Faith and waited for the Keepers to return.
***
Light blinded me as I happily sat back and watched John running carelessly through the meadow, my heart expanding when I heard his carefree laughter.
“Come on, Rin!” He shouted as he continued to sprint through the grass.
“Looks like rain.” A silky voice whispered from behind me.
Turning, I came face to face with Declan smiling onto the scene, watching John run deeper into the grassy meadow until he was no longer in sight, “Get out of the rain, Erin.” Declan’s voice grew fainter, until he too was gone.
Dark clouds descended upon the meadow, blanketing the sky, covering the sun. Clashes of thunder rang out before the rain began. Lighting flashed and water began to fall in waves from the sky. I gasped in amazement as rainbows of light danced off the rain like crystals-- like glass.
My amazement soon turned to horror as the rain began to slice my skin, tiny shards soon imbedded themselves into my flesh. The shower grew stronger; a crimson tide flowed from my body. There was no shelter, nowhere to hide from the glass pouring from the sky. My screams grew louder as the unrelenting downpour continued slashing and cutting my body.

Chapter Eleven
I shot up as I fled the dream, brushing the sweat off my face just to be reminded of the blood that still remained on my hands.
“You are the dumbest girl I think I have ever met,” Stephanie’s voice rang clear through the silent room.
Still dazed and confused from my nightmare, her words had yet to register with me. Looking at her through groggy eyes, I could see the disappointment radiating off her. She shook her head once more, “You can’t save everyone!” She shouted at me, her arms flying into the air, “Stop trying.”
‘Everyone’
, the thought of the girl leapt to the forefront of my attention, my eyes flashed to where she had rested, limp and moaning before I fell asleep.
She was gone
.
My mind finally realized that Stephanie could talk. My hands shot to my face, feeling for the tubes, my eyes scanned beside me for my stand, they were all gone.
“They came in shortly after you fell asleep.” She said flatly, watching my panic grow, “They removed everyone’s IVs and tubes.”
“But what about the girl?” I choked out, pulling onto my elbows.
“They took her.” Her voice was harsh and angry as her eyes speared into mine, “She was already dead. I think. She didn’t move a muscle when they dragged her out.”
My heart sank. She died. It should not have surprised me considering the extent of her injuries, but never had I thought she would go so quickly or be taken away by a group of Keepers without me waking. For
me
to be touched by them as they worked over my body without waking, it didn’t seem possible.
“They know what you did.” She added, staring at my hands, “The evidence is there.”
I tucked my hands to my sides and stared back at her in disbelief, “What was I supposed to do!”
“Leave it alone, Erin! That’s what. Worry about your own damn self and not about complete strangers. Do you really think any one of us would come to your aid if a Keeper attacked you?”
No, they probably would not, but knowing that didn’t change how I felt. If I died, I would die knowing I had done the right thing.
My arms went up in defeat, I was not about to rationalize my decisions to her. I knew what I was doing and what I was up against. No matter our decisions, we were all going to die, “I couldn’t sit by and watch her suffer.” It was an ending statement, Stephanie knew I was finished talking to her about it. No matter her words of warning, I could not see myself compromising my morals while I sat back and allowed another to suffer.
I had gone back and forth on that simple decision, to save a life or save self. It did not take long to realize that life as a prisoner was not a life I was willing to fight for. If I were able, I was willing to save others at the risk of my own wellbeing.
“They know,” She repeated as she turned her body away from me, “And they weren’t happy.”
It was as if she had expected me to believe they would not have cared. Knowing a Keeper’s feelings towards my actions would not have caused me to rethink my decisions. Ever.
As I sat up, curling my legs to my chest, I allowed the memory of my own attack to flood my mind. Memories of the operating room, of piercing needles digging into my spine while I lay bound to the table.
Out of everyone that had been taken, I was the only one to return; and no matter how hard I thought, it didn’t make sense. Only fourteen of us remained out of the twenty we started with. Five left and never came back, I left and…
As I allowed my mind to drift, my ears zoned in on the muted sound of softened groans. Light whimpers that I had not heard until then. I had thought the other Testers were asleep, it was not that they were
asleep
but that half of them were in what seemed to be inexorable pain.
On hands and knees, I crawled to the nearest Tester just to be confronted with the most terrifying sight my eyes had ever witnessed. So much so that my mind could scarcely register what my eyes were seeing.
A Tester, once skeletal and lethargic a few hours previous was now swollen, bloated beyond their skin’s ability the stretch. The sight of him was horrific, almost unbearable to behold, but like a deer in the headlights, I could not turn away. There was nothing I could do for him, my only ability was to watch.
His skin was translucent it was so swollen. Glistening as the sweat soaked surface pulled and stretched to its capacity with every inhalation the Tester took, but he wasn’t the only one. More moans sounded and I pushed away from the first just to be met with the realization that four in total were affected in the same way. All bloated, red, unable to inhale an entire breath. All dying.
What had they done to them?
There wasn’t anything that could be done for them, and I sat unmoving watching their swelling continue, thinking that at any moment their skin wouldn’t be able to bear any more pressure.
“What’s wrong with them?” Faith called out once she saw me sitting over the four.
“I don’t know,” I answered her, my voice hallow and vacant. “It looks like poison, maybe.”
“It’s the vaccines they gave them.” Stephanie called out, her voice still filled with disdain.
Unable to watch any longer, I turned away from them, piercing Stephanie with a skeptical glare, “How would you know?”
“
Pfft
,” She scoffed as she stood, “My mother is a nurse,” She pointed a rigid finger at the four lying in their own sweat, ballooning by the second, “That is classic vaccine injury. I’ve seen it dozens of times.”
The shots they gave them…
“Why hasn’t it affected all eight?”
She shrugged and came to sit next to me, “The effects can be singular. Not all will be affected, but four out of eight is the largest variable I have ever seen. Half given the vaccines had an adverse reaction.” She shook her head in wonder as she glanced over the four writhing in unimaginable pain. 
“
We are the Testers.”
Faith’s tiny voice whispered through the air before she slumped against the wall.
We
were
the Testers, their first batch. Everything they were putting us through was an experiment to calculate the success rate. We were nothing more to them than lab rats. The only question in my mind was what were they testing us
for
, what was there ultimate plan for us?
“They’re going to die, aren’t they?” Faith asked to anyone that was willing to answer.
“Yes.” There was no way around it, no reason to lie to her about their outcome. They were going to die. “But which is better?” I asked seeing her eyes began to fill with tears, “Living a tortured prisoner, or dying and hoping to find peace?”
Faith stretched out her tiny legs and came around me to rest her tired body in my lap, “Finding peace,” She whispered, burying her face in my neck, “But why do any of this to begin with?”
‘Why.’
It was a simple question. One that I wish I had the answer to, “Because they can.” I finally replied with the only reasonable conclusion I had.
Without warning, no sound, no reason, the cell door flung open with three Keepers rushing inside. I watched paralyzed as Declan looked over the four moaning Testers with an expression of anger and disgust. He clenched his fists to his sides, and then screamed at the two Keepers behind him, “Get these bodies out of here!”
Without care for injury, the two dragged the four by their ankles out the door. It was a sickeningly awful and inhumane display of utter carelessness and immorality.
“What about the girl?” One asked once he reentered the room.
My blood ran cold when Declan’s eyes landed on me, seeing me huddled in the corner with Faith in my lap. As Declan glared furiously at me, I slowly moved Faith away. I knew what was coming, “Leave,” He bit out, “I’ll take care of it.”
I grabbed Brian’s hand in mine, “Take care of her,” I whispered to him as Declan eyed me like the predator he was, “
please
.”
“Get up!” Declan demanded once he reached my feet.
“
No,
Rin!” Faith cried out. She grabbed my leg and sobbed into my side. “
Shhhh,
” I warned, slowly pushing her away, “Remember what we agreed? It’s better, right?”
With tears flowing down her dimpled cheeks, she nodded and crawled back to the wall.
I cried out the minute Declan’s hand clasped like a vice around my neck. He pulled me to his side and tugged me impatiently out the cell door.
He snarled furiously as he dragged me down the darkened hallway. We passed door after door, the pained screams that filled the narrow corridor reminded me that we were not the only Testers there.
Declan abruptly stopped. Throwing my body against the wall, he pinned me to the unforgiving surface, his eyes piercing mine as he glared at me, nostrils flaring with every inhalation, “Do you have to push
everything
!” He screamed, holding my face in his unrelenting grasp, “We see
everything
! It’s like you want to die.”
With sincerity in my eyes, I stared back at him. His vehemence no longer frightened me. His presence no longer gripped me with the fear that it once had. I made peace with my fate and with that came an odd sense of serenity, “What if I do?”
He growled close to my ear and his clasp around my face tightened, “It would be far easier for me to allow that to happen.”
With his hand firmly on my neck he turned to open the door in front of us, throwing me inside with ease and a quick flick of his wrist.
I had been expecting the operating room but the sight I was faced with froze me the instant my mind was able to discern what it was processing. It was too much,
much too much
. The large room could have only been an observation chamber. Dozens of monitors lined the walls, watching every cell, every Tester. Watching the halls, the outside pens. It was not the fact that they could see us that gripped my chest, but that
I
could see
them
, the other Testers. We weren’t just a group of twenty that got shoved into a tiny cell; we were a group of
thousands
, in hundreds of different cells.
“We see
everything
.”
Turning, I met his glare head on, “That really does not surprise me,” I smiled weakly up at his angry face, “How else would you be able to control a lot of so many with so few in charge?”
His returning grin was chilling, causing my blood to run cold. Declan stepped around me, his frigid fingertips lazily tracing the outline of my collarbone before he spoke in a slow cadence, “So you want to die?” He asked in a vacant tone, still watching me intently.
“It would be easier.” I answered him truthfully, “It would be freedom.”
“
Freedom
,” He repeated, tilting his head to the side. “Would you like to watch someone’s ‘
freedom’
in progress?” He pointed to a small screen that hung in the middle of the wall, “Watch.”
I zeroed in on the screen, stepping closer to the wall until it only hung a few inches from my face.
An industrial room flickered in the grainy feed. It was stark, void of all furnishings other than one large metal table. One Keeper cloaked in black stood motionless by a set of large double doors, waiting.
My heart dropped to my stomach as I watched the doors swing open to a pair of Keepers dragging a flailing Tester by his arms.
“This is the ‘
freedom’
you want.” Declan crooned into my ear and my body shook in his iron tight hold. Motionless, I stood, witnessing the scene unfold before my eyes.
The awaiting Keeper stepped closer to the Tester that was fighting in vain to free himself. Pulling a long syringe from his cloak, he inched nearer, stabbing it viciously into his side. It only took moments for his body to go limp in the hands of the two Keepers that held him.
My breath hitched in my throat as I watched the two toss his unnaturally lank body onto the metal table.
“He’s paralyzed,” Declan answered my unspoken question. “But not unconscious. He will be able to see
everything
, to
feel
everything.”
“No,
” I whimpered, cringing away from the screen.
“Watch it!” He demanded, holding me to face the monitor, “This is what you want after all.”
It was too much. My body went cold. My mind tried to shut down, unable to handle what it was witnessing.
With the cloaked Keeper at the controls, the table began to move. I remained motionless , immobilized by disgust and fear as I watched six hook shaped prongs rise above the Tester’s paralyzed body. Slowly, they lowered until the hooks were only mere inches from his flesh.
“
No!
” I breathed. Seeing the sheer terror grip the Tester almost doubled me over. There was no sound. There was no need for sound. His eyes told the story that could not be heard.
“Watch.” Declan ordered again once sobs began to rack my body.
Three hooks hovered over each side of his body until they abruptly impaled him.
“NO!
” I screamed. Collapsing to the floor, I brought my knees to my chest, and rocked myself to and fro.
It wasn’t real
, I told myself,
they couldn’t possibly be doing that to us.
“It’s not over.” I vaguely registered Declan saying as he lifted me to my feet. He was right. It was not over, not yet.
“They have to drain him first.”