Escaped

Chapter Twelve

"Aurelie..." his face softened, and he put his hand on the back of my head, putting our foreheads together. "You know how long I've been waiting to hear that? I thought I'd have to wait longer, but... God, Aurelie... I love you, too, beautiful," he smiled, but suddenly lost it. "And I swear, I will help you through this," he promised solemnly. 

"I would like that quite a lot. But for now... I need to get this out, before I end up changing my mind," I told him, rain trickling down my back.

"Ok," he nodded, "ok... come on, let's get somewhere dry," he led me back to backdoor porch, where we sat in a bench swing under an overhang, away from the rain. "Just... start whenever you're ready," he clasped my hands in his. I took a moment to gather my nerves. I was far from ready to share my past. 

But the fact that it was Luke pushed me forward. 

"I was... I was born in Paris, in 1173. I was raised by my mother and older sister. When I was 10, my mother gave birth to a boy- my little brother. When I was 11, a man came to visit- he was unfamiliar. A couple days after that, I was taken from my home... kidnapped. I didn't know what was going on... I was so scared. At 11, I didn't have enough strength to overtake my captors, one of which was the strange man who had come the day before.

"They kept me in a dirty, smelly room no bigger than a broom closet, with bars instead of a front wall. A cell. It had a small hole in the ground, hundreds of feet deep, where I was supposed to use the bathroom. The floor was hard dirt and clay. The walls were pretty much the same. My 'bed' was a single animal pelt in the corner. I was kept in there for ten years- the captors measured how fast I grew, how quick I learned, what I could and couldn't eat, how strong I got... how best to restrict my blood intake to ensure I could not overpower them or escape.

"They knew of my mental powers- the strange man had told them- so they kept me nearly deprived of blood, so I'd be too weak to use them. I could still read their minds, but I couldn't manipulate them or control the objects around me. When the did give me blood, they short darts at me through the bars, that held a small amount of blood. They did that once a week. After 5 years, it moved to twice a week. For food, they gave me a small bowl of fruit and a slice of bread twice a week. 

"After ten years in the cell, when I was 21, they starved me of blood so much, I could barely move. They did that so they could move me to the table... where I spent the next 720 years, strapped down. It was only 1194, so the conditions were deplorable. The table was made of roughly carved wood, so it dug into my back painfully- I was given only a thin tunic made of deer skin to wear.

"The table was... torture. They cut me, burned me, stabbed me, to measure my healing ability. For instance, they figured out- which should have been common sense- that a bone deep laceration healed a little slower than a paper cut. Then... they did terrible things to me. They did so many things in order to record my healing rates. They gave me paper cuts, then slices deep as bone... cigarette burns, to burns so bad, they made third-degrees look like a tan, then even worse so that I had to regrow muscles, bones, tissues, etc... they gave me pin pricks, and stabbed me right through my body. And that's just the beginning of all I endured.

"In 1914, they deprived me to the point of near-unconsciousness again, and stuck me in a wooden crate and shipped me to America, along with every record they had of me. In the new facility, it was much nicer- stainless steel table, equipment, cleaner conditions... however, I knew it only meant there would be more torture. The Americans- the CIA, to be exact- dressed me only in a blue hospital gown, and strapped me to the table, where I spent the remaining 101 years. The Americans were much worse... I got half a syringe of blood once time a week.