Page 41 of You Only Love Twice
The doctor picked up a long cylindrical advice. With a twist of the far end, light erupted from the pinhole at the opposite end. Richter clasped his chin and lifted the light to his eyes.
Obsidian flinched, momentarily blinded. Spit slid down his jaw as a growl tried to escape the leather mouthpiece strapped to his head.You submitted to this. But no matter how often he told himself such a thing, he couldn't escape the frenetic impulse urging him to burst out of his straps.
He felt like a caged animal.
The sudden flashing images of Richter drawing his cortex resectioning device into place around Obsidian's head, and strapping the helmet tightly made his gut churn. He couldn't hear the rasp of a leather belt slapping into place without feeling a chill down his spine anymore.
I'll have him schedule a reconditioning appointment for you....
No.Richter had promised. Just an assessment.
"Pupils responsive." Dr. Richter murmured, drawing the ocular spyglass away. "No sign of muscle spasm in his face, nor eyelids. No slurring of speech."
"And?" Ghost asked, from where he watched the process in the shadows.
Dr. Richter stepped back from the chair Obsidian was bound to, rubbing his hand over his mouth. "There's no sign of malfunction with the neural regulating actuator implant."
"Nothing?" Ghost sounded disappointed.
"Not as far as I can tell." The doctor unstrapped the leather buckle locking Obsidian's mouthpiece in place. "My apologies. A necessary precaution with your teeth."
Obsidian's chest heaved, the panic a little easier to rein in now he was no longer so tightly arrayed.
Vile tasting thing. He spat the mouthpiece free, breathing hard as he glared at Ghost through the strands of his hair. "So much for that theory."
"He has been increasingly insubordinate of late," Ghost said coldly.
"I do as commanded." Obsidian stared blankly at his overseer. "I wasn't aware I wasn't supposed to speak my mind as I did it. Perhaps you'd be better off investing in some of those new automatons they're selling to the docks? They don't speak back, or so I am told. Or send for one of your lickspittles if you want someone to kiss your ass. You seem to forget where we came from.Brother."
"Lickspittles?" the doctor asked, cleaning the ocular spyglass.
"The new recruits," Ghost replied.
"Ah."
"Or better yet," Obsidian said softly, the muscles in his arms flexing as he tested the leather straps that bound him to the doctor's examination chair. "Why don't you just sentence me the way you did to Zero?"
Ghost paused in his pacing, one of his white eyebrows arching. "That'swhat this is about."
The doctor had been in the process of dusting off his hands, and froze. "Miss Annabelle? I thought she died by the hands of the Duke of Malloryn's agents."
"No. She died by the Wraith's hands," Ghost said, meeting Obsidian's gaze.
"Don't call me that."
A vein throbbed in his temples. Obsidian's lip curled off his teeth. The Wraith. He'd seen the bastard's cold eyes in the mirror when he returned from a mission and needed to wash the blood off his hands, off his face. Heard the ringing in his ears when the Wraith was activated, and it felt like something else took over his body and all that was left of him became a silent bystander. All he knew of the world narrowed down to that piercing sound, as though he stood right under one of the enormous bells at the top of the Ivory Tower as someone beat upon it. The very world vibrated around him until hours later, when the ringing finally stopped, he would find himself lying helplessly in the dirt somewhere, blood dripping from his nose.
And no idea how he got there.
Ghost stepped closer, sneering a little. "Did Zero call you a traitor as you did it?"
"No."
She begged instead.And then I held her while the Black Vein I gave her killed her.
Annabelle's words damned him every bloody night he closed his eyes. "Do you think that he won't d-do the same... to you—?"
He hadn't wanted her to die alone. It was the first time he'd ever been able to find his way out of the vibration, enough to gain some control over his body. Enough to hold her as the Black Vein tore through her veins, and obliterated her heart.
