Embers & Ice

Chapter Fourteen

The sound of the booming gong woke Hunter from a particularly terrible nightmare, but she felt worse awake than asleep. She rubbed her eyes and winced at the bright light in the corridors. Her head thumped as though she’d fallen out of bed in her sleep. Her nightmares worked her so hard that she was drenched in sweat and heaving. If she hadn’t been wearing her bracelet, she would have set her entire cell on fire.

Hunter needed to shower before she went to breakfast, but the moment she lifted herself from her hard mattress, her cell door opened and the guard with the roaming eyes and creepy tattoo – Jamison, his name was – stood there to greet her.

“Let’s go, Harrison.”

“Give me a break.”

“Couple more days and you’ll get used to the routine,” he said with a smirk. “Besides, you’re not having breakfast. Dr. Wolfe wants you down in the labs for testing.”

Hunter walked beside Jamison to the stairs, her empty stomach in knots. She’d completely forgotten that Dr. Wolfe had plans to inspect her even closer than he had yesterday.

Speaking of close inspection; Hunter felt Jamison’s eyes on her as they walked. When she shot a sideways glance at him, his eyes were hungry. Getting looks from guys at school was one thing – having a sleazy man rake her up and down was ten times worse. Are the guards that deprived that they have to perve on mutants like me? Do they live here, away from women and booze and bars and the real world?

The corridors were starting to fill with kids waking up and heading down to breakfast. She and Jamison avoided a bunch of girls crowding around the bathroom door, pushing their way in. Despite the grime and awkward open space, Hunter longed for a shower.

They marched straight for the elevator and took it down two levels. The doors opened to reveal a small entryway and a sliding glass door. Past it, she found herself facing a long corridor. Windows lined the entire right wall through which she could see a busy science lab almost the size of the breakfast hall. Low cubicles by the dozen were scattered throughout the room. Men and women in white lab coats went about their work, testing and typing on computers and fumbling with papers. Jamison yanked on her arm and she nearly slipped on the linoleum floors. She made a point to keep her eyes straight. A scientist with a brown scruffy beard passed them, but did not look twice at her.

Her nerves were starting to build. It didn’t help that Jamison led her through a door marked ‘Surgery Rooms’. Like the room she was in yesterday with Dr. Wolfe, this one also smelt like sickly anti-bacterial ointment. It was completely dark, but for the light that shone down on the stretcher and the many blinking dials on the machines.

“Dr. Wolfe and his assistant will be here shortly,” said Jamison. He picked up two items of clothing – a thin, lycra sports bra and matching bike shorts that would work better as underwear and were almost see-through – from the chair beside the door. “In the meantime, he’s instructed you put this on.”

Hunter fumbled with the flimsy set he threw at her. Jamison vanished and the door was locked behind her.

Using the privacy of the surgery room, Hunter stripped off. Her eyes roamed the empty space and caught site of a pin-up board on the far wall. Immediately and without thinking, she went over to inspect them. Amidst pages of information, there was a mix of children’s drawings that made Hunter frown. Dr. Wolfe didn’t seem to be the type of man to care about a child’s messy pictures. Hunter peered at the closed door and then started rifling through papers, even though she was sure he wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave important information out on display.

Hunter lifted up a graph and found a glossy image of Dr. Wolfe on a busy street in New York. He was getting into a yellow cab. The photo was taken in the middle of the day from a distance, like something a detective might snap for a case.