Immune-ish

Chapter Thirty-One

EVA:

After an hour of sitting in the cage with my purple blood still dripping from my arm every so often, a man comes for me. He pulls gloves on, then unlocks my cage and enters.

"Get up," he commands. His gloved hands clamp on my upper arms and he yanks me up.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

He doesn't answer or release his grip as he leads me through the halls and stops me in front of two doors. I know I could break free of him and run, but where would I go? And anyway, my natural curiosity gets the better of me. I have to know what's going on.

The left door in front of us suddenly opens inward and reveals a room to me. I am shoved inside, but I feel nothing when I hit the white linoleum ground and the door is slammed behind me. My head almost hits a leg on one of the two metal chairs in the room, but I wouldn't have felt that either.

"What are you doing?" I call, my voice echoing back at me. The door blends into the wall and it takes me a second to find before I start pounding on it. "Let me out!"

Static fills the room and I cover my ears reflexively at the high volume of it. When the noise stops, my ears are left ringing.

"What else is special about you?" a voice over a loudspeaker asks. It's obviously Zane, but his voice is amplified at least ten times, making me want to claw my ears out. "What makes you different from other corpses?" His voice echoes off of every surface and I can't find the speaker to make it stop.

I fall to my knees with my hands clamped tight over my ears. "Shut up!"

"What? Too loud for you?" Zane asks and I can hear the arrogance in his voice. "Aw, man. It doesn't go any quieter." His sarcasm breaks through my plugged ears. "Do what I ask and answer my questions and I won't torture you too much."

"Fine," I spit. "Just don't be so . . . loud!" This is the only pain I've felt since my mother bit me, and it feels as though every ounce of agony is fifty times more acute than before. Why did I want this? I wonder. Why did I want to feel again?

"Okay," Zane whispers. I finally unplug my ears, even though it's still loud. "What makes you different? My scientist were unable to figure it out from the blood sample."

I sit up and notice the large mirror set into the wall on my right. Something about it seems off, but I take a seat on a chair in front of it anyway.

"I don't know," I say. "I got bitten and then I was like this."

Static breaks the silence in the room and I fall off the chair, moaning. It stops, then Zane says, "Wrong answer, corpse-girl."

"I-I really don't know!" I insist. My chest heaves even though I'm not breathing and I can't stop shaking.

I brace myself for the static again, but it doesn't come. "Fine." He breathes into the mic. "What abilities do you possess?"

"I don't know . . . I'm really strong, I guess . . ."

"Then why haven't you run away already?"

"I have nowhere to go." I have stopped shaking now and I am suddenly filled with confidence.

"Then show me your strength." That means he is watching, which explains the mirror being set in the wall.

I pick up the chair behind me with one hand and hurl it at the mirror. The static fills the room before the chair hits, but the breaking of glass and the screams are even louder. The cacophony lasts for mere seconds, but it leaves me in agony for minutes.

Suddenly all noise stops and I look up at the wall where the mirror was, still plugging my ears and trying not to scream. Zane stands in the other room with a microphone in hand. His face is surprisingly calm, given the circumstances.

"Very good, Eva," Zane says without the microphone. "Any other abilities I should be aware of?"

I don't feel a need to keep secrets from him, as he'll find out eventually. My ears are still ringing, but he doesn't need to know how badly it hurts. "I can't feel pain, and I can do all the things other zombies can do."

He nods. "You're not from here, are you?'

I shake my head. "Are we done here?"

"Once I make one thing clear, you may leave." He takes a deep breath and steps into my room. "Don't pull another stunt like this again. You may not be able to feel physical pain, but I know you care about Mr. Wolfe. Emotional pain hurts more than anything I could ever inflict upon you. Just remember that and you and I will get along just fine." He steps back into the observation room. "You leave with four of my men for where you came from tomorrow morning. Go get some sleep."

 "I don't sleep," I say to his back.

"Even better." He turns and smiles widely at me, then walks away. It's strange that someone so young could have so much power and authority.

Two men enter the white room and lead me back to my cell. I cooperate as I am locked back in because I'm still not sure what I want to do about my situation.

I regret leaving Xander, but he's better off without me. And I'm better off without him. I sit in the corner of my prison and try to stay strong despite the contradicting emotions swirling in my head.

If I'm being honest with myself, I'd feel a lot better if Xander came to save me, but that ship sailed when I ran away.