Ridley couldn’t see much through the rough burlap hood, and every breath left her choking on dust. She was being dragged down some kind of hallway—bits of floor tile and the occasional doorway blurring past her.
Within minutes, the floor changed from tile to sterile white linoleum, and the scent of disinfectant made her gag. When they pushed her through a set of swinging doors and she heard the beeps and buzzing of machines, it seemed like they were in a hospital.
Why would Silas take her to a hospital?
He wouldn’t.
He’d made their destination sound far more menacing.
The operating room. That’s what he called it.
But everything around her reminded Ridley of a hospital—the fluorescent lights, the white floor, the stench of disinfectant.
The realization dawned on her slowly. If this wasn’t a hospital, there was only one other possibility….
Abraham’s labs.
The place where he’d experimented on Casters and engineered John. The place she’d known she was headed to the moment she saw Silas in her cell—and the one thing she’d feared more than anything.
Her blood ran cold.
Not there. Anywhere but there.
No! No! No!
Ridley kicked and thrashed until someone pressed a cloth against the burlap over her mouth and nose. It smelled like bleach and dust and alcohol, all mixed together.
It only took a second for her knees to buckle. Then her thoughts flickered and she disappeared into the darkness.
Ridley opened her eyes.
Darkness.
Footsteps.
A word, here and there.
Dangerous.
Experimental.
Fatal.
Patient 13.
Ridley blinked. A single circle of light was aimed at her face. She could barely make out the bulb hanging from a long wire above her, like it was reaching down from the black shadows of the ceiling.
The harsh light burned her eyes, but she didn’t look away. She didn’t want to look at Silas as he emerged from the darkness beside her.
You bastard.
“No risk, no reward,” Silas said, stepping closer to the table she was strapped to. “We’re making history here, Doc.”
“I understand, Mr. Ravenwood,” another man answered, his voice shaky. “But there are limits.”
“Not in my world.” Silas laughed. “Relax, Doc. All in the name of science, right?”
Ridley struggled to stay calm.
You have to be smart if you want to get out of this mess alive.
She pulled against the restraints.
Shackles.
She ran her hands along the table. Smooth, hard, cool. Metal, most likely.
An operating table.
“Don’t waste your energy.” Silas bent over her and flipped what sounded like a switch under the table. “You’re not going anywhere, Siren.” There was something strange about the way he said the word. “When I’m finished, you’ll be so much more.”
More? More of what?
Silas snapped his fingers at the man she couldn’t see. “Begin the infusion,” he said, leaning closer to Ridley. “I’m afraid this is going to hurt. But not nearly as much as I’d like it to.”
Ridley focused all her energy in the direction of the unseen man, somewhere in the darkness.
Don’t begin the infusion.
Don’t begin anything.
“I said, start things up,” Silas barked over his shoulder.
Ridley didn’t feel anything change, and she was so tired….
But she couldn’t give up.
You don’t want to hurt me, whoever you are.
You want to leave.
“Do I have to—?”
She heard the door close in the distance, footsteps in the hall beyond. Then she felt a slap sting her face.
“You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
Ridley stared back at him from beneath her tangled blond mane. Her signature waves had become something closer to dreadlocks.
“Yeah? Maybe I think you have no idea who you’re messing with,” she said through gritted teeth.
He grabbed Ridley’s chin, forcing her to look at him. “Oh, I think I do.”
She smiled, steeling herself. “Your grandfather said something like that. Right before my friends and I killed him.”
Silas brought his fist down on a panel next to her, and an electric current shot through Ridley’s body like her blood was on fire.
She screamed.
The fire burned its way from the entry point in her arm, pulsing up to her shoulders and head, then back down her spine to her legs. Her feet. Her toes. Like a second thunderous heartbeat.
With each pulse, Ridley’s body writhed and spasmed. Her mind lost track of the fire and she focused on the sound of that other heartbeat.
The one far steadier than her own.
If she could hear the sound of that heartbeat, it meant she was still alive.
Didn’t it?
As Ridley let go, she heard another sound from somewhere in the back of her mind.
A song.
The one Mamma used to sing.
“Mockingbird.”
Maybe it meant she’d get to see Mamma again.
And Reece.
And Ryan.
And Lena.
She really wanted to see Lena.
Ridley smelled something burning far away.
Barbeque, maybe. A boy I once knew loved barbeque.
Link. I think his name was Link.
The thought made her smile.
Until she realized the burning smell was coming from her body.
And not just the smell.
The screaming, too.