Page 18 of Monster. Me.

Wilhelm leans down toward me.

"Who?"

"Him!" I point toward the line.

"Calm the hell down, Drax. You don't get involved with program participants. You remember how well that worked out for you at the last facility, don't you? You really want to repeat that?"

"Wait! No!" I shout. "Stop!"

I reach toward the stranger.

I see him turn, surprised, noticing my gesture. Confusion flashes across his face.

"Wait! I want to talk to you!" I call after him, completely convinced for some reason that it's incredibly important for him to hear me. More important than anything else.

A matter of life and death, really.

That's when Wilhelm loses patience.

He swings his baton and cracks me straight across the cheekbone. It's his favorite punishment tool, and he never hesitates to use it.

My head snaps sideways, but it takes more than that to knock me out, so I twist back around and reach toward the beautiful stranger again, my cuffs rattling loudly.

"Wait! Please, just one second!" I call. "What's your name? Who are you?"

Damn. That sounds tacky as hell. Seriously, that's the best I've got?

But I don't know what else to say. I've never had a real relationship. I know sex, sure, but flirting? That's completely uncharted territory. In the past, my pheromones did the job for me. I didn't need much foreplay.

The man opens his mouth.

"Marlow. But are you—"

Before he can finish, Wilhelm hits me again, and this time he puts his full weight behind it.

Finally, that one rattles me slightly.

The beautiful man reacts immediately.

"Hey! What the fuck?" he snaps with outrage in his voice. "Do you really need to hit him?"

Blood runs from my split eyebrow into one eye, but I refuse to quit.

"Please," I say, still reaching for him again. "I just want… I just—"

The words die in my throat because the truth is I don't even know what I want from someone like him.

Who am I, really?

A mutant. A monster. Some ugly beast locked up in a cage. The outside world knows me as a disgusting rapist and a would-be killer.

Wilhelm shoves the gurney forward angrily, trying to force the jammed wheel loose, but then Marlow speeds up and catches us.

His mint-colored eyes, slightly slanted and strikingly bright, study my face with curiosity and… concern. His eyes land on my skin burned by the deodorant, an angry hive-like reaction, my chest in some places showing raw tissue almost breaking through the damaged skin, and there's also the mess of wounds left by the IV cannula.

"Are you Fenn Drax?" he asks suddenly. Something in his expression suggests he knows of me, which wouldn’t be surprising. After the Calsing Island event nine months ago, my name was all over the media. But if he has heard about me, he’s probably disgusted. After all, I was called a rapist.

Feeling tightness in my chest and a wave of shame, I whisper.