Page 47 of Dark Rebel's Mystery

The guards tromped by moments later, paying her no mind. Only once they were gone did she allow the tremor in her hands to surface. Leaning momentarily against the trolley, she took a shallow, calming breath.

31

KYRA

Kyra ducked into an empty utility closet, shutting the door behind her. The air was stale, and the single bulb overhead cast a sickly yellow light. Still, it felt like an oasis of safety after what she'd encountered in the corridor, and she needed a moment to collect her thoughts.

Who was that woman in cell twelve? And why did she look so much like her? Was it her mind playing tricks on her?

She was well aware of her mind not being a hundred percent sound, probably the result of what had been done to her in the asylum, and seeing the bruised woman could have triggered memories of her own ordeal.

What if it wasn't her imagination, though? What if she was a sister or a cousin?

Did she even have relatives? And if she had, were any of them enhanced like she was?

What if she'd been born like that and didn't remember it?

They could have caught her and put her in that asylum to experiment on her to find out what made her different, and after she'd escaped, they searched for her relatives.

A shiver ran through Kyra, and she pressed a palm to her chest, feeling the comforting warmth of the amber pendant beneath her clothes. The stone pulsed faintly, but it had no answers for her.

On second thought, the theory that she'd been born that way didn't make sense. She'd been as helpless as the woman in cell number twelve before an unprecedented surge of strength allowed her to break free. She hadn't possessed it going into the asylum, or she would have been able to snap those chains before the surge.

She'd been so drugged that she could barely remember what she'd done, but she was pretty sure she'd snapped the necks of several guards. She'd been shot at, and she might have even been hit, but she didn't remember that or even how she'd ended up in the rebel camp.

Well, she knew how. Several of the women she'd liberated were rebels, and they had taken her with them. That was what they had told her once the drugs had left her system and she could think coherently again.

Her life before the asylum was like a black hole of nothingness.

It was as if she'd been born fully grown in that dingy room with a barred window. Naturally, that wasn't true, and the dreams she occasionally had of a girl with eyes just like hers were a hint of her past. Maybe the girl was a sister or a cousin. Maybe that sister or cousin had a daughter who looked just like her, and shewas now imprisoned by the same monsters that had abducted her.

She had to take another peek at the woman to see if she really bore such a striking resemblance to her or if it had been a product of her imagination.

Kyra exhaled, leaning against the closet's grimy wall. She had to do something. If the colonel was throwing around words like tests and dosage, it indicated that he, or rather the one he called Doctor, might be doing the same thing to this woman that had been done to Kyra.

The question was the timing.

Had the woman already transformed? If so, she could be a great asset to the resistance. If not, extracting her while she was in the middle of her transformation might be risky. There could be dangers in halting the process midway.

On the other hand, could she leave the woman in the clutches of the sadist who was either beating her up himself or having someone else do that for no other reason than to satisfy his twisted desires?

Surely, the abuse had nothing to do with developing super abilities, and there were much easier methods to extract information from a captive.

Kyra cracked the door and peered out. Voices echoed faintly from the far end of the corridor. The colonel was somewhere downstairs, but guards came and went, and cameras loomed overhead, so rescuing the prisoner on the spot would be impossible. Kyra's best bet was to watch for an opportunity during medication rounds, but even that was reckless, given the enhanced guards on the premises.

Then there was the way her mind was misfiring, and she wasn't sure she could trust her own judgment right then. The place brought forgotten memories to the surface in confusing fragments.

A prick of a needle.

A cruel smile on the face of someone wearing a doctor's coat.

The change might have made her body nearly invincible, but it had messed with her head. To this day, she had memory issues, and not just from before the asylum or during her time there. That was why she made notes for herself that she regularly checked.

Steeling herself, Kyra eased into the hallway, pushing her cart once more. If she looked busy and preoccupied, no one would question her presence. She mopped the floors, wiped door handles, and shined the number plaques above the windows, giving herself an excuse to peek into the other cells, some of which were empty and some of which housed male prisoners who were not chained to their beds.

Half an hour passed with excruciating slowness. At last, a man carrying a tray of syringes and tiny cups of pills arrived, accompanied by two guards. She followed them with her mop, pretending to clean the new footprints they were making on the damp floor.

The colonel's earlier comment about drugging the woman replayed in her mind. Was the guy with the tray going to enter cell twelve even though the commander had told his assistant that the woman should not be drugged any further until the doctor said to do so?

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