Page 361 of Alchemised
She looked down at Helena again, who tried not to look as if she was listening.
“Well, if he’s gone, that means that I’m responsible for the selection process.” She leaned forward and grabbed Helena by the back of the arm. “I think I’ll have you as my first pick.”
Mandl’s resonance stabbed through Helena’s hand. Her nerves were suddenly on fire, being torn apart. Agony shot up her shoulder, through her body, and into her brain as if a splintering spike were being driven into her.
Her muscles began spasming as she screamed.
“Oh dear,” Mandl said with false concern, still holding Helena fast. “That wasn’t what I meant to do. I was trying to do this.” She grabbed Helena by the back of the neck.
Renewed pain burst through her, shooting down her spine and along every nerve ending. Building and building until Helena’s heart threatened to explode. She’d break all her own bones if it would let her escape. She’d chew her limbs off.
She could feel her mind scrabbling to break free from the agony. Just break. Just break.
“I’m not fragile. I am not going to break. Please believe that about me.”
She’d promised. Her body was seizing, but eventually it stopped. She was dropped heavily to the ground. Her muscles kept twitching. Mandl knelt, reaching towards her again, and Helena cowered away.
Mandl’s wide mouth stretched across her face. “See how quickly you can learn to be afraid?”
She took Helena’s right hand, resetting and healing the broken bones. She would indeed have been an exceptional healer if she hadn’t been a psychopath.
Then something cold pressed against Helena’s newly healed wrist, clicking as it was locked in place.
She stared at it dazedly, struggling to breathe. It was another cuff. The number was different. She couldn’t quite make it out.
Mandl stood, brushing herself off. “Put her in the transport lorry.”
As Helena was being dragged up off the ground, a young man stepped forward, stammering.
“Wait. That—that one, we got her. She’s supposed to be interrogated. I think. Pretty sure someone said something about that.”
Mandl gave a slow reptilian blink. “She was in the cull cage.”
He flushed and scratched his head. “We had orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“Um, it was one of the dead ones. I don’t remember. He told Lancaster something about it.”
“And Lancaster is?”
“Well, he’s in surgery.”
Mandl’s lips pursed, and she looked as if she were about to eat the Aspirant. “So you want me to do what? Put her back into the cull cage? Do you have jurisdiction to take her?”
He stammered and backed away. “I just—it’s what I heard. Maybe someone else would know.”
Helena wasn’t sure if she’d just been saved or damned. Interrogation was what Atreus had wanted. To find the bomber. She struggled to think. Her body kept spasming. All the drugs in it had her mind spinning as they faded away.
Several liches came over and dragged Helena and several other prisoners towards a lorry, shoving them into the back.
Interrogation would be dangerous. If anyone realised she was the bomber, they’d want to know how. Why.
She knew all too well now the dangers of interrogation. There were points where the mind broke, where pain became all there was. The Undying would hurt her in whatever ways were necessary to get the answers out.
Kaine said animancy was special. Rare. If Bennet was dead, Kaine and Morrough might be the only ones left with the ability, which meant they might bring him in and torture her in front of him or make him torture her.
If Morrough interrogated her personally, he’d find Kaine in her thoughts and memories. No amount of evasion could hide him; he was the fabric of her thoughts. Her every action tied to him.
