Page 25 of Alchemised
Not a person, but a weapon.
Well, Helena would be sure to treat him as one.
CHAPTER 4
IT TOOK HELENA MERE MINUTES TO EXPLORE every corner of her room and the adjoining bathroom. She was provided with only the most essential objects: soap, towels, a toothbrush, and a metal cup for water. She squeezed the cup, trying to bend it and work it. If she could break it, she’d have a nice sharp edge to slit her arteries open.
After several minutes of trying, all she had were dents in her thumbs and throbbing pain in both wrists.
Next she tried pulling down the mirror, but it was welded to the wall so firmly she couldn’t even get her fingers under it. It didn’t break when she tried hammering it with the cup, either.
She stepped back, glaring at the glass, and winced at her reflection.
She scarcely recognised the person scowling back. Sallow skin that had seen no light in more than a year, long black hair tangled almost to mats around her face. Her features were all sunken. She’d look like a necrothrall herself if not for her furious dark eyes.
She went back to the bedroom and was disappointed to find that there weren’t any drape cords for her to try to hang herself with. She checked behind all the curtains, in case one had been missed.
Just live, Helena, a voice in her mind begged.
She paused, fingers tracing the pattern on the curtain, trying to stifle it.
Luc … oh, Luc. Of course he would haunt her, refusing to accept a pragmatic choice. If he were there, he’d be telling her that her plan was terrible. He’d hated that kind of thing. People sacrificing themselves because of him or his family. He always felt responsible, convinced that if he was better, he could save everyone.
She could hear him now, telling her stubbornly that she wasn’t going to die. She could come up with a better plan if she’d just stop fixating on this one.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Luc. This is the best I can do.”
She went to the door leading to the hallway.
The instructions to stay out of sight implied she could leave her room. Her body trembled in anticipation, heartbeat quickening.
She gripped the knob, and it turned easily. The heavy door swung open, revealing a long corridor spilling into darkness, but rather than exhilaration at this freedom, Helena’s heart stopped.
The sconces along the wall were no longer illuminated. She hadn’t noticed how ominous the corridor was, thin and winding, full of creeping shadows like teeth that gave way to a mouthlike darkness.
She was used to constant light in Central.
She stood frozen. It was irrational. It was a house. She’d seen too many real, awful things to be afraid of shadows and hallways, but her legs wouldn’t move. The doorknob rattled in her hand.
The darkness was like a pulsing oesophagus, the long shadows swaying with the wind, threatening to swallow her. If she stepped out, she’d fall into the cold, awful, unending dark again.
She would never be found.
Terror coursed through her as the shadows stirred again, crawling towards her.
Her chest spasmed, sending a shock of pain through her lungs. She shrank back into the room and shut the door, her body pressed close against the reassuring surface of it, lungs and heart pulsing. She couldn’t breathe.
She knew the terror of the stasis tank would haunt her, but she had not realised the way it had rooted itself inside her, grown through her nerves and organs to paralyse her.
She stayed crouched, without sense of time, until there was a rap at the door, the soft clatter of dishes, and retreating footsteps.
She cracked the door open and found a cloth bundle and a tray of food. Pulling them inside quickly, she tried not to see the vanishing darkness again.
The door safely closed, she stared in revulsion. The meal was pig slop, as if someone had taken kitchen scraps and the day’s leftovers, put them in a pot, and boiled them. She’d sooner starve.
She shoved the tray aside.
Untying the bundle, she found sets of underclothes, wool stockings, and one dress, red as blood.
