No Pain: Book 1

Chapter 48: Star

          "You're so stubborn!" Adler shouts throwing his arms out, something clatters against the

ground. "admit it, you want your defect."

"I don't want it." I scream back "I never wanted it." My body keeps shaking, I suppose that's a reaction to pain too.

"You want to know a secret?" I cough the water from my lungs, a deep ache pulsing in my jaw "I want this." I say, "I want to be normal." I watch his eyes, I finally see it, the wild look of an Idio.

"I don't want any defect."

"You ungrateful–" He raises the hammer again but stops himself before it comes down. He exhales a long breath and the wild look disappears, this is the most in control Idio I've ever met. The look slips away and Adler breathes his anger away. He smiles.

"Okay, then." He goes across the room and reaches into a drawer for something. There's a click and the cuffs on my ankles and wrists open. A new kind of pain explodes up my arms and legs along with a sense of relief.

"What's this?" A sharp pain stabs up from my jaw and into my ear.

"Escape if you want." He says, "if you can." He's smirking as he watches me. I was ready for more pain, I wasn't ready to run.

"You broke my leg." I remind him that and just about every other part of me.

He's smiling "a broken bone?" He asks in a condescending tone. "Never stopped you before."

"You're setting me up to fail, I'd know how to deal with this, if I hadn't gotten used to not feeling pain-"

"No, Star." Adler leans against the steel cabinets and crosses his arms. "You never get used to pain, if you had been born without your defect you'd know to fear the pain before it happened. You'd be desperate right now, knowing I control what pain you feel, when you leave and as you'll experience soon, the utter helplessness as you struggle to your freedom, nothing in your way except the pain."

"I don't need it." I look him in the eye "I'll get out of here and I'll stop you."

"Deadlines tomorrow, Star." He smirks "see if you can get out by then." He turns and opens the door, he holds his keycard up and lets it fall through his fingers to the floor.

"I'll check on you after I've completed my mission." He lets the door fall closed behind him. I watch. I'm completely free, my exit right there but moving my already aching body seems like the worst idea in the world.

I think it's worse that I know exactly what's wrong with me. I know what is causing each throb and stab of pain but that doesn't matter, I have to move. I have to get out of here and get back to the others. I will my arm to move, my body seems to rebel against the idea because it doesn't respond at first.

Move I order again, a scream rips its way out of my throat. I never understood why people scream when they're in pain. I didn't think it was actually a way to relieve it but when I scream, instead of holding it back, there wasn't so much less pain as a sense of expelling a portion of it out of me.

I let the scream come out when I move my leg, white and black spotting my vision, my head swimming as I slide to the floor. Hitting the floor even hurts.

What doesn't hurt! I scream at myself. I don't want it back I tell myself I don't need my defect

I force my legs under me, nausea rolling around in my stomach. I push my feet into the ground and immediately collapse onto the tile. A sob escapes my mouth, panting through the pain I lay there, struggling to get my body to move, the floor turning underneath me.

"Move." I want to grind my teeth but that aches and there's the most obnoxious clicking sound when I move it.

He broke my jaw! I want to scream, I want to hurt him, I want my defect... I freeze

I don't need it I try again but it doesn't ring with any truth, it doesn't even carry a stubbornness to refuse to be wrong.

I want my defect so I can kill him, so I'm not lying on the ground with my exit right there. This invisible force stopping my every move because he broke me. Move I order my body again but it refuses to obey me.

Move! I scream pressing my hands into the ground. My shoulder burns with the effort, an invisible knife stabs at my wrist. My hands are still bruised and burned from the institute. How that still hurts I have no idea. Everything is sensitive, everything aches.

Please, just move, it'll be over soon. I can't believe I'm begging my own body to work. Fine, don't work I growl frustrated with my weakness. I'll wait until it wears off.