Page 3 of Unholy Cross

The hard slap of footsteps made her whimper because she knew what that noise meant.Hewas coming.She tried to make herself smaller.Tried to disappear in a cell that offered no place to hide.The tears started as her heart raced in fear, and she wished she could talk.If she could only say how much all the experiments hurt, maybe then he’d find compassion.Maybe he’d let her go.She opened her mouth, fully intending to say something ...but nothing would come out.Not a single little peep.

The door slid open, causing her to jump, and Dr.Costello Birsha entered.

“Your services are needed.”

She shook her head, fear flooding her body as she started to shake.Not again.Please, not again.

“It’s amusing that you think you can tell me no,” he said, not looking amused at all.He snapped his fingers and a big brutish man came in, one she hadn’t seen before, eyeing her up and down lasciviously.“Now, you’re going to demonstrate to a new client just how much your services are worth.”

Again, she shook her head.Once more, she was ignored.The brute grabbed her arm and yanked her up.Lorelei tried to pry the thick fingers off her, but they only tightened.Once more a prisoner being led to the gallows.They marched down the blindingly white hallway, like she had done a dozen times before, and the word “exit” caught her attention.She often fantasized that if she could just reach that door, she’d escape.However, she hadn’t had an opportunity in the five years she’d been held against her will.He’d made her afraid of her own shadow.At the end of the hallway, Birsha swiped his key card and the door light turned green.Right before she was dragged into a hospital room, he leaned down to talk softly in her ear.

“I know what you’re thinking.”The fire and brimstone of his breath burned the side of her face.“You’re thinking I won’t kill you, and you’d be right.But just remember there are other ways to suffer.”

His gaze flickered upward to the man squeezing her arm, advertising without words exactly what he meant.Before dread could settle in, Birsha straightened and opened the door.The big guy holding onto her yanked her forward, and she stumbled across the threshold into the medical bay.

A withered man lay on the hospital bed, with tubes embedded into various areas of his body.Monitors beeped from the machines surrounding him.An older man held his hand, with a devastated look on his face.His eyes were bloodshot.His clothes wrinkled.More than a day’s worth of whiskers peppered his chin.A few other men were stationed around the room, watching everyone carefully.Lorelei caught a glimpse of a gun holster under a jacket.

Birsha stepped forward.

“Welcome, Mr.Thorp,” he greeted.“May I present to you the healing goddess.”

The old man studied her, looking her up and down.Hope warred with skepticism.His gaze flickered a few times to the young man on the bed.Lorelei could see the love he had for the patient and her heart went out to him.

“What’s your name?”Mr.Thorp asked her.

“She has many names,” Birsha replied for her.“Eir.Ninti.Kamrusepa.Iaso.You can pick any one of them.”

Mr.Thorp leveled his gaze at her.“He has brain cancer.If you save my son, I’ll pay anything.”

She truly felt sorry for him and his son, but she just couldn’t.Not only because she couldn’t talk, but also because healing involved pain.Lots and lots of pain.When she tried to back away, the arm holding her only tightened more.In her head she screamedno, no, no, but the monster didn’t care.He stepped up close and gripped her jaw.Fingers dug into her cheeks, warning her without words what awaited if she didn’t comply.Lorelei lowered her eyes and gave a reluctant nod.The tight grip on her arm ceased, allowing her to step toward the infirmed man’s bedside.The stench of disease clung to him, leading him toward death.She estimated he only had about another week.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed the sheet aside and laid a hand on his leg.Closing her eyes, she slowly sank into the sick body.Moving through tissue.Through blood and bone.From the leg to the torso, up and up, until she reached his head.There, she discovered the tumor.It pulsed with a purpose, wanting to take the life it had infected.To devour the soul.Tentacles spread like poisonous leaches.One by one, she broke all the tendrils branching out from the mass.Burning the tumor.Pushing it out of existence.Sweat formed on her face and upper lip.Her heart thundered in her chest.When the last ember faded away, her head exploded with pain.Curing someone took a sacrifice, more specificallyhersacrifice.She took the agony out of the man and made it her own.That was her curse.

Arms caught her as she collapsed.Although the last thing she wanted was to languish in anyone’s embrace, she didn’t have the strength to break free.Through the narrowed slits of her eyes, she stared into the shocked face of the elder Mr.Thorp as he cradled her.She patted his hand as a moment passed between them.Despite the pain ready to pull her under, she was happy he had his son back.

Then she was yanked out of his grip by the brute.She heard a faint protest from Mr.Thorp, but by that time she couldn’t stop the tumble into oblivion.

****

For the next few days, tormenting agony ripped through her body.She wanted to scream, but even that was denied, so the screaming reverberated in her head.The more severe the sickness, the longer it took to recover.At some point she wished for death.

Then little by little, over the course of days, the sickness purged from her system.

On the fifth day, Lorelei opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling.A tray of food slid through the pass in the door, but she ignored it.Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she wished for it all to end.How long did it take for a person to starve to death?Time blurred.Perhaps days passed, she wasn’t sure, until Birsha entered the room and yanked her out of bed.

“My dear,” he said.A snake-oil salesman trying to sell that he was a kind man.“I was informed you’re not eating.Now, you know the rules.You cannotstarve yourself.There are tests we need to perform on you if we’re going to learn what makes you special.So, I’ll give you one more chance.Eat your food, or I’ll have someone strap you down and force-feed you.”

When she said nothing, he grabbed a chunk of hair, yanking her head back.“Do you understand?”he snarled.

She nodded as much as she could, but he seemed to have felt it because he loosened his grip.Tears rolled down her cheeks.He smiled, although his eyes remained cold and unforgiving.

“See?How hard was that?”

Her hand shook as she wiped the tears off her face.The small flap at the bottom of the door opened, and a tray of food slid in.Heeding the monster’s warning, she knelt and methodically ate everything.As much as she hated to admit it, he was right.Every bite she took, a resolve deepened.She could no longer just sit in this cell, slowly losing her mind.She had to escape, because it was blatantly clear that no one knew about the horrors of Noble Vale.Sink or swim, it was escape or die trying.

She paced the small room, counting her steps over and over.Trying to figure out how she was going to get out of there.When she sat down on her thin mattress, the bed squeaked, and her heart skipped a beat as an idea washed over her.The camera in the corner of the room pretty much kept an eye on her twenty-four seven, but it had a small blind spot at the foot of the bed.The usual spot she cowered in whenever she wanted a moment of peace.

Did she have enough courage to try a prison break?

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