Page 63 of Marked to Be Mine

Maeve.

An urgent care notification flashed beside her room designation. Medical emergency protocol engaged. Vitals destabilizing. My blood crystallized into ice. What had they done to her?

The rage transformed from hot to arctic.

I pulled up the facility’s emergency protocols, examining redundant systems with clinical detachment. Then, deliberately, I initiated them all simultaneously. Contradictory emergency protocols cascaded through the system—biohazard containment triggering automated ventilation purge, which conflicted with fire suppressionprotocols demanding oxygen reduction. The system wasn’t designed to handle multiple catastrophic scenarios at once.

Alarms began wailing throughout the complex. Sprinkler systems were activated in some sections, while others initiated lockdown. Automated security doors slammed shut, then reopened as conflicting commands flooded the system. Over the facility-wide communication system, three different automated evacuation instructions played simultaneously, creating unintelligible chaos.

I gathered my weapons and moved toward the stairwell access. The medical sublevel awaited, one floor down. As chaos erupted around me, I descended to the medical sublevel.

The white corridors hit me like a physical blow. My heart hammered against my ribcage, sweat breaking across my skin—combat responses triggering without conscious command. My body remembered what my mind could not. I’d been here before. Not this exact facility, but places just like it. Places where people were disassembled and rebuilt according to specification.

The distant wail of alarms echoed through sterile passageways, bouncing off polished surfaces designed for easy decontamination. Blood and memory both washed away cleanly here.

I moved with a predatory focus, tracking the room designations. M-sector lay ahead. Emergency lights pulsed in erratic patterns, casting disorienting shadows alternating between harsh illumination and oppressive darkness.

A guard stumbled around the corner, disoriented from the conflicting emergency protocols. Recognition flashed across his face a second before I slammed him against the wall, forearm pressing into his trachea.

“M-7,” I growled. “Access codes.”

He struggled, hands clawing at my arm. I released enough pressure to allow speech but let my free hand unsheathe my combat knife, pressing the tip against his knuckle.

“Medical wing requires biometric access,” he gasped. “I can’t just...”

I drove the knife through his index finger. His scream died against my arm. This was merciful compared to everything I could do to him in the blink of an eye.

“Again. M-7 access. Now.”

“Protocol override,” he whimpered as blood streamed down his hand. “Daily authorization codes. In my tablet.”

I retrieved the device from his belt, maintaining pressure on his throat. The second screen confirmed what I already suspected—Maeve’s status showed critical metabolic reactions to administered compounds.

“What are they doing to her?”

“Initial conditioning phase. Chemical receptivity protocol.” His voice trembled. “Breaking down identity centers of the brain. Preparing neural pathways for reprogramming.”

I forced his bloodied thumb against the tablet’s scanner, accessing the medical database. Her vitals flashed in warning colors—heart rate spiking, neurological readings off the chart.

The timing confirmed my worst fears. Minutes, not hours, before permanent neural pathways formed.

The fluorescent lights overhead flickered, momentarily plunging the corridor into darkness. In that blackout, I was somewhere else—strapped to a medical table, restraints cutting into my wrists as Brock stood over me in surgical scrubs, nodding as blue liquid flowed through IV lines into my arm. “The resistance is good,” he said to someone I couldn’t see. “Means he’s fighting. Means he’s worth salvaging.” I screamed in my binds, desperately trying to set myself free. But there was no point. I was already almost gone. No return.

The guard’s voice jerked me back to the present. “Look, I’m just security. I don’t know what...”

His hand shifted subtly toward an emergency transmitter on his belt. The movement registered as a threat before conscious thought formed. My knife found his carotid, severing the artery with a single practiced motion. His eyes widened in surprise as warmth spread down my fingers.

A twinge of hesitation rippled through me—unnecessary death, potential information loss—but disappeared beneath cold tactical assessment. No witnesses. No alarms.

I appropriated his security badge and continued deeper into the medical wing, his blood still warm on my fingers, moving with greater urgency as the minutes ticked. Each second that passed was another second of blue poison filtering through Maeve’s system, rewriting her mind, erasing what made her Maeve.

Two lab technicians emerged from a side corridor, engrossed in discussion about evacuation protocols. I neutralized them efficiently—quick nerve strikes sending them to the floor unconscious—no more unnecessary deaths. Maeve wouldn’t want that.

The security increased as I approached the M-sector. Reinforced doors. Biometric scanners. Camera density doubled. I moved through their defenses methodically, disabling each layer of protection. My movements became increasingly efficient as memories of similar facilities surfaced—not complete recollections but body knowledge, muscle memory that responded to this environment with practiced familiarity.

I reached a monitoring station positioned above a surgical theater. Through reinforced glass, I saw Maeve strapped to a medical table, body convulsing against restraints. Her skin had taken on a blue-gray pallor, veins darkening beneath the surface. Electrodes monitored her vitals on surrounding screens, numbers flashing in warning colors. Medical staff moved urgently around her. She looked like…herself, still, though I suspected that was because her eyes were closed. It was the eyes that would show if one was permanently gone. I was terrified of what I might find once they opened.

My gaze drifted to her left. Brock stood at the head of the table, dressed in surgical scrubs, his posture betraying impatience rather than concern. Hewantedher there. Somehow, he knew how much she meant to me. He morethan likely knew I’d be coming for her. I activated the audio feed.

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