He reaches toward the car handle. I hesitate, my hand hovering over the lock, but then I think of the fact that I have no idea where to start. And the way Deimos looked at me in the morgue. I am already a traitor. I am already drowning.
"Why?"
I whisper, my voice a ragged thread.
"Why would you help me?"
"Because Deimos is a variable that needs to be contained," Charles replies, his smile widening just enough to reveal the shark beneath the skin.
"And because I know you want to fix the mess you made. Let's go, Madeline. The clock is ticking for Lucy."
I swallow the bile in my throat. I am at my most vulnerable, stripped of my logic and fueled by a raw, bleeding guilt.
"Alright," I say, the word feeling like a death sentence.
"Show me where she is."
I step out of my car and into the shadow of his black vehicle. As I close my door, I catch a glimpse of the silver key still lying on the console. I leave it behind. I am stepping into a new world now. One far more dangerous than anything Deimos ever conceived.
CHAPTER 27 - Lucy
The darkness isn't empty. It is a living, crushing entity, thick with the smell of damp earth, rust, and old decay. It presses against my closed eyelids, filling my ears with a high-pitched, vibrating hum that swallows any sound I try to make.
I don't know where I am. Some forgotten artery of the city, an old sub-station or a service tunnel that exists off the maps. It feels less like a room and more like a tomb.
I am tied to a metal grate on the floor. Heavy, industrial zip-ties bite into my wrists and ankles, ratcheted so tightly my circulation is beginning to fade. I can't shift my weight. I can't struggle. I am pinned here like an insect in a collection.
A single, continuous drop of water hits a metal pipe somewhere to my left.It is the only way I have to measure time. I try to count them, but my mind keeps fracturing, the seconds stretching into agonizing hours. How long have I been here? Six hours? Twelve? Three days? The darkness liquefies any sense of reality.
I am going to die here. The realization hits me with the force of a physical blow. No one will find me. Madeline chose him, and now she is his prisoner, too. Or worse.
And Deimos...
A sob wrenches from my throat, raw and painful. Deimos. My brother. The man who spent his life running from our father, only to become him.
He locked me in this box, dragged me through the mud, and left me to rot. Liability. That is what I am to him. A variable he couldn't control, so he deleted me. The betrayal burns hotter than any chemical. He said Charles carved him into a weapon, but Deimos chose to hold the knife.
My chin pulses with a sharp, rhythmic pain. In the vat, the acid ate into the skin, creating a blistering, angry red patch that weeps onto the collar of my shirt. Every breath I take irritates the raw nerves. The physical pain is a mercy compared to the psychological terror of the silence. I feel the sticky, wet wound and envision my face dissolving, my features melting into the concrete.
"Please," I whisper, my voice cracking into a shrill note.
"Someone... anyone... help me."
The silence swallows the words whole. It is a void that wants to consume me. My mind begins to fracture further. I start to see things in the dark. Charles's silhouette, small Deimos trapped in a sensory deprivation tank, the green light of the acid vat rising from the floor.
"Mali," I whimper.
"Mali, don't let me die like this. Please..."
I lose count of the drips. I lose the ability to tell if my eyes are open or closed. I am ready to let go, to surrender to the cold and the dark. I am suspended in a sensory vacuum where the only evidence of my existence is the agonizing pulse in my jaw. The chemical burn on my chin has reached a stage beyond simple stinging.
It is a deep, rhythmic throb that feels like a hot iron being pressed into the bone. Every time I try to swallow, the skin stretches and tears anew, and I can feel the sticky warmth of fluid trickling down my neck.
I am a paramedic. I know what is happening. The acid steam has caused a chemical burn. Without neutralization, the tissue will continue to necrotize. But here, in the dark, my medical knowledge is just another form of torture. I can visualize the cells dying, and I can do absolutely nothing to stop it.
"Help..." I try to scream, but the word is a dry, rattling ghost of a sound.
My wrists are numb. The zip-ties have cut off the circulation so effectively that I can no longer feel my fingers. I am no longer a person; I am a torso of pain anchored to a cold metal grate.
