Page 46 of Broken Destiny

“Keep her human, son,” the scarred man snaps, all traces of kindness gone.

“Don’t call me son,” Kodi growls back, his sea-colored eyes flashing with anger. “And she won’t shift while she’s in here. She knows better.”

The older man advances on the skinny boy, but Kodi holds his ground and lifts his chin even though the older man is obviously stronger and larger. “Keep her from shifting permanently, son,” Shawnessy sneers, emphasizing the address.

Kodi doesn’t falter. “I can’t. Whatever protects her blocks my magic too. I can’t force a shift to human or beast. She isn’t like the others.” His hands twist behind his back, the only sign that he’s nervous. Unless he was bluffing when he called the girl out of her room, he’s lying.

Shawnessy turns away with a curse. “Useless boy,” he mutters before looking back at the girl. “We’ll have to get more creative then. Sit her up and leave her back bare.”

Kodi gapes at the old man. “What?”

“You heard what I said, boy!”

My old friend’s steps falter as he approaches the girl. Regret shines in his eyes, and he pauses just before his hands reach the table.

“Now, boy, or your precious sister won’t last the night.”

Resolve settles on Kodi’s face as he fiddles with the table controls, his expression indifferent to the girl’s pleas. My adult self weeps for him. He’s being controlled even if there isn’t a tether around his neck. His sister is someone he loves, someone he’s determined to protect.

The table moves in such a way that he doesn’t have to remove the cuffs from her wrists. He simply sits her up, folds the top half down, and uses a knife to slice the back of the robe. His hands shake, but his touch is gentle. The little girl glares mutinously at him the entire time.

I force myself to distance my emotions as I watch the psychopath carve into my back as if he’ll find my wings just under the skin. The girl screams with agony with every touch of the knife. Shawnessy gave her a drug first, but it appears to keep her still instead of deadening the pain. He doesn’t hesitate as he ruthlessly thrusts the wickedly sharp knife into the young shifter’s flesh.

Kodi stands to the side, his gaze directed into the corner of the room. His fingernails slice so sharply into his palms that he begins to bleed. The drops of his blood onto the stone floor echo the drip of the girl’s as hers falls into a bucket beneath her. Who will they sell the sphinx’s blood to? It’s more powerful than a human’s, and any vampire would pay handsomely for it. For a perverse moment, I wonder if it will go to Avery. Why not have all of my guardians involved in my past?

I don’t need to see this through. My spine tingles with phantom pain as I force myself to change the memories, flipping through them until I’m older. The scenes are more of the same: different experiments, strange tests, more cutting. The sphinx’s back healed quickly the first time, but as she gets weaker, the wounds take longer to close.

Thankfully, not every memory is horrifying. Snippets of good are interspersed with the bad. Kodi reads to the girl from outside the giant iron door, lying on the ground in the hallway so that his words are audible through the crack underneath. While he reads, she sits with her back against the door, and her face glazes over as the story takes her elsewhere. Even as a child, it was my escape.

Over time, the sphinx stops shifting and stays human. I’m uncertain whether it's intentional or not. Addington comes and goes, only revealing himself a few more times. Shawnessy grows more aggravated with each visit, becoming more brutal with his son and his prisoner. When the threats to his sister aren’t quite enough, the old man starts physically assaulting Kodi. My oldest friend suffers through every blow as he grows into a young man and the girl nears her teenage years.

My memories skid to a halt on one particular scene. The scrawny girl is lying on the floor of her cell, perfectly mirroring Kodi on the other side, though neither could have known it. He has a book resting on his stomach, but he’s not reading it. He’s older now and might be very close to the age he died. I shiver, wondering if the memories are coming to a climax. I was around twelve when I made it to the hospital if I remember correctly.

“Read, Kodi,” my younger self demands.

“Demanding little minx,” he replies, but his voice is far away.

“What’s wrong?”

“They’re planning something bad for you,” he whispers just loud enough for the girl to hear, the book rising to shield his mouth. I wonder if there are cameras positioned to watch or record him.

My younger self seems to accept this wordlessly, as if she’s known all along it would come to a horrid finale. “Then kill me, Kodi,” she whispers fiercely. Where did all that fire and strength go? Why aren’t I still that brave?

The teenager’s mouth hardens into a thin line. “I can’t,” he croaks.

“You have to,” she tells him. Kodi shakes his head and starts reading the book as if the conversation never happened.

The memories flash again until I’m back in the torture room. Shawnessy has aged dramatically; his back is bowed and his orange hair is nearly gone. Kodi is nowhere to be seen. When Addington enters, it’s like the years haven’t affected him. Silver now streaks his temples, but he looks the same.

“One more time, Shawnessy. I will allow you one more experiment to extract her magic before we move to the next step. My oldest son is of the age to impregnate her, and she’s just started bleeding. He’s powerful, and the fetus will be pure magic when we pull it from her.”

Potent disgust nearly chokes my nonexistent body, and I’m temporarily worried I’ll be kicked from the memories before I see the ending. They planned to breed me? Like a cow? I shouldn’t be surprised, but I thought they’d done their worst. Evidently, the worst was yet to come. My younger self is visibly shaken. She’s just a child, barely twelve if my estimates are correct.

Addington is talking about Garrett. He’s only four or five years older than me, a teenager in his prime. Did he know what his father had planned? I’d entered the dream state prepared to be shocked, but nothing could have readied me for this level of horror.

Addington looks around the room. “Where’s your boy?”

Shawnessy shrugs. “He was being uncooperative. All the extra time I’ve allowed him with the girl to soften her must have affected him, too. He’s contained at the moment. I can’t trust his weakened emotional state.”

---