The Harvested (The Permutation Archives Book 1) Read online

  The man with the eyes as green as the leaves on the trees surrounding us was there with his hand tightly wrapped around my arm. A scream tore from my lungs as I desperately tried to jerk free from his grasp. I feared he was attempting to pull me into the trembling pool of blood, causing nausea to ripple through me. Terror choked its way up my throat in another scream as he resisted my attempts. I wasn’t getting away, no matter how hard I tried or how hard I pulled away from him. He was far too strong.

  With one final, aggressive pull, I landed in the lake, thrashing wildly and trying to keep myself from being dragged deeper into the abyss. The train of the dress restricted my legs, so I couldn’t kick my way to the surface. The blood and the man remained strong as I struggled to free myself from the man holding onto me. Gore clogged my throat as I writhed under the surface, neither the lake nor the man willing to let me go.

  His hands went around my throat, plunging me deeper and trying to drown me. Fear nearly transfixed me, and my instinct for survival finally began to take over. I gripped his wrists as I felt myself slipping away into unconsciousness. Blood forced its way into my lungs, and I fought to breathe, suffocating.

  I forced myself to imagine the blood cells surrounding me, picturing each molecule rubbing and vibrating against one another. The thick, effervesces began to pulse as I pictured it all perfectly in my mind. I was going to boil him alive until he let go, and I wasn’t sure if I would stop there.

  He tensed as I thrashed to free myself, the heat building around us as my power continued to climax. I kicked out, my foot connecting with what I could only assume was his abdomen, and he let me go for an instant. I pushed myself up to the surface with a foot against the lake floor and met empty air, gulping it in as quickly as I dared as my lungs burned from oxygen deprivation. Coughs erupted from my lungs, spraying out the blood I had swallowed with them.

  The gore was thick and hot against my cold skin, and I could see steam rising from it in the soft moonlight as it congealed once it hit the air. My hair stuck to my face as plasma ran into my eyes. I tried to wade my way through the lake, but my legs were sluggish and could barely move through the dense liquid. It was as if the blood was holding onto me and trying to pull me back down into its dark depths. Or was it the man with the bright eyes, reaching from below to drag me down? I was hoping it was just my imagination.

  It wasn’t. I could feel the hard nodules of his hands as they held onto my ankles and desperately tried to pull me back down into the lake of blood. I wasn’t going back down there to drown in it. He would drown by my hands before I did by his.

  I thrashed against him, thrusting out as I continued to try to walk to the shore, despite his despairing attempts. I felt my foot connect with his face in a slow movement, but it hit hard enough to make him to let go, so I could travel a little faster.

  After what felt like hours of wading and trying to move as fast as I could through the thick liquid, I finally made it on the shore, dropping to my knees to collect myself. The others were gone, but I could hear the man splashing behind me and paddling through the blood just as I had. He was getting closer and closer with each breath I took, and I knew the forest I had just come out of was the way to go—until it erupted into flames, taking the refuge of darkness away from me in an instant. Hopelessness pooled in the center of my chest and formed a concrete pit in my stomach.

  The flames trapped me between them and the dangerous man who had grown quiet in the lake of blood behind me. There was no way to escape. Turning back to the lake, I found him standing right behind me, his still frame not even making an attempt to touch me.

  Had I misinterpreted his intentions before? I was sure I hadn’t, but there was always a chance. I couldn’t stifle a small fearful whimper as soon as I saw him there, and the fear crept back into me and up my spine, leaving a chill in its wake. The congealed lifeblood caused my arms to stick to my sides uncomfortably. I could still taste the metallic tang of it in my mouth and feel its gurgling wheeze in my lungs.

  I looked into his eyes, surrounded by the blood running sleek over his model perfect cheekbones. His emerald orbs stood out against the darkened crimson as if he were glowing from the inside out. I thought I saw something move behind his eyes as if a kind of shift had taken place. I wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light from the fire behind us, or if it had happened, but I was willing to bet something was inside of him—working behind the scenes. He wasn’t human, at least not any more than I was. He was something else entirely, and the terror of it gripped me. I could see its predatory malevolence within the jade of his eyes as I knelt there. A part of me was confident this was just a nightmare with no true merit.

  “What are you?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t get an answer.

  He leaned down and kissed me as passionately as someone who hadn’t seen their lover in weeks, possibly even months. A heat rose to my lips, and at first, I thought it was from the kiss alone. Then it began to spread.

  It leached through my face and down my body, causing me to break out in a cold sweat and goose bumps to develop on my skin. I felt it in my mouth and throat as it continued to build. Then the searing pain set in.

  I screamed into his mouth and tried to push him away. He acted as if I was a gnat and continued his assault on my body. I finally imagined an invisible force sending him flying away from me, and it happened. I had control there, not him, and not anyone else.

  He landed back into the lake with a splash and was on his feet quickly, watching me with an evil grin on his lips. His eyes were still glowing, the soft green light reflecting off the blood rolling over his flesh.

  The heat moved inside of me until I could no longer think past it. I dropped to my knees and curled around my abdomen, where the searing blaze began to concentrate. My insides were being burned and turned to mush, and the pain was nothing like I had ever felt before. I couldn’t contain the screams that threatened to spill out of my throat, the heat in my eyes and burning up my gullet as I let them go, looking up to the sky in a silent prayer that I knew would go unanswered.

  Chapter 8

  Once my eyes opened, everything was a haze. I realized I was laying on yet another metal table, my bones digging into it uncomfortably, the cold surface unforgiving as it refused to yield to the curvature of my body. My shoulder blades pressed into the table painfully, and I could feel it pressing against my tailbone in such a way I knew would leave a contusion.

  I moved my eyes to scan my surroundings, but it hurt too much to use them in such a way. I lay there and shut my eyes again, trying not to move my body for fear that more pain would come with it. I attempted to block out a headache that began to sprout in my right temple by squeezing my eyelids shut even harder. A side effect of the Paralisix booster, no doubt.

  I rubbed my temples, feeling the needle from an IV move under my skin pinch and my muscles protest the movement. I winced but continued the action. The throbbing headache grew more and more severe the longer I was awake.

  I put my arms back down beside me on the metal table since rubbing my temples didn’t seem to be working, and the discomfort of moving subsided just a little. Maybe if I start to move around, someone will realize I am awake and in pain. Maybe.

  Blinking to clear my vision wasn’t doing any good. The lights weren’t helping. They were bright and fluorescent, causing me to shield my eyes from it with my arm. The ceiling became a glaring white as I continued to blink rapidly, my vision clearing up. The headache only grew worse from the blaring lights bouncing off the walls in intense waves. It seemed the side effects of the Paralisix booster were a lot worse than the drug.

  Grabbing the edges of the table, I pulled myself into a sitting position—every muscle and joint screaming in protest. A moan escaped as I sat up and my muscles burned with the effort. Another side effect of the Paralisix, I was sure. I wondered how long it would take for that particular byproduct to fade away.

  I glanced around between clear and blurry seconds of my vision, the
room spinning slightly with the coming and passing auras. It was entirely white, sterile, and filled with medical equipment and supplies. I was in an examination room, and it was small. Too small.

  Cool blue lights lined the edges of the floor and cabinets. The fluorescents in the ceiling canceled them out. At the bend of my elbow, there was a needle protruding from my skin with a long plastic tube running from it to a bag of clear liquids on a metal stand with wheels. I resisted the urge to rip it all out.

  As I sat there, trying to collect myself, I heard the sound of glass sliding doors opening on mechanical slides and footsteps coming into my room. I jerked my head up to see a blonde woman in a lab coat walking toward me with a smile on her face as if she was pleased to see me. The only reason I would be happy to see her was if she would provide something to fight the side effects of the Paralisix.

  I regretted looking up so suddenly as a slice of white hot pain shot through my head and neck. An aura was around her, blaring against the lights and causing me to shield my eyes with my hand and arm from the light reflecting white of her coat. I had nearly been okay until she had walked in.

  “Oh, my. Do you have a headache?” she asked, acting entirely too much like it wasn’t obvious.

  I began to doubt her medical knowledge in that instant.

  She turned off the fluorescent lights above us while saying, “I warned them about using so much of the paralisix on you. Looks like they don’t listen to good sense.”

  There was nearly instant relief as everything went to a cool, bluish light that was soft and forgiving. My eyes adjusted to the change without any pain, and I was able to put my arm down to investigate the woman standing in the room.

  She was dressed in all white, the lights bouncing off of the coat and into my retinas. The absence of color was still bright and clean enough that I had to squint to look at her. I let the sarcasm roll off my tongue when she asked me about my pain level while pointing to the little chart with the happy and crying smiley faces and probing me about my scale of pain from one to ten.

  “Well, if you know about the side effects of this stuff, then you should know where I am on that scale.” I didn’t feel like being nice even though she hadn't technically done anything to me.

  She looked too delighted for how I felt, and I was in a no-tolerance mood. She hadn’t even introduced herself yet, so why was I supposed to give her information about my current state?

  “Who are you?”

  She considered me with her dark brown eyes, as I returned her stare. Blonde hair rested on her shoulders, and though her features were too strong for her to be pretty, she was. She reached her hand out to me while walking closer, her heels clicking on the tiled floor and ringing in my ears.

  “Of course. I am Doctor Madeline Aserov,” she stated as she held her hand out to me, waiting for me to shake it in response.

  I didn’t want to take it, but it would’ve been rude to leave her hand floating in the air without consideration.

  I reached out and took it in mine in a firm handshake, leaning on my other arm for support. After the introduction, she walked over to a flat pane of glass in the middle of the room and ran her finger over it. It sprang to life with just her touch. She furiously pressed letters on the screen, words, photos, and date sliding over the flat surface.

  My photo popped up on the left side, along with my information on the right. The words slithered from the left side and landed in their respective slots. I found myself amazed by the screen, and how it operated, but I was more interested in the relief from the pain I knew she could offer me.

  She read the information on the screen and sighed in amusement. “I see it took three doses of Paralisix, as well as the booster, for you to be genuinely affected by the drug. That is the reason you feel the way you do now. I’m sure you’re sore, groggy, and have a headache. We will take care of all of that right away.” She typed something in on the screen again and walked over to a spot on the wall. A plastic tube ended in a kind of box with a door surrounded by metal and was set into the drywall.

  How had I not noticed it before?

  There was a rustling sound and three plastic bags, two small and one the size of a book, fell into place inside of the box with a soft plunking sound. The door on the box made a slight popping and hissing sound as the airlock released when she opened it, took the plastic bags out, and ripped them open.

  I watched her intently as she removed two pills from each of the smaller bags and laid the larger bag on the rolling table beside me. I would assume that, since we were so advanced in medicine, it would only take one miracle drug to cure everything all at once, but my body was apparently going to be difficult. I had already shown I was resistant to the Paralisix, so why wouldn’t I need more than one drug to take care of the effects of being given too much?

  “I am giving you three drugs to combat the Paralisix and the booster. This is just a precaution, seeing as you were resistant to standard dosages of the drug to begin with.” She turned my hand over, palm side up, and placed four pills in it. Two were white and oblong, and the other two were small and yellow with letters, numbers, and symbols etched into their surfaces.

  “What are these?” I had never been given so much medication at once before, and I was curious.

  She looked to me, that considering expression crossing her face again as her lips pursed as if in thought.

  “Well, the white pills are for a headache. It is called Triolex. It’s a mixture of three pain medications and inhibitors to block the pain receptors and impulses that cause a headache, especially when caused by Paralisix.” She looked into my eyes and continued. “The yellow pills are Dolorex, and they are to combat the soreness from the Paralisix. It’s made specifically to help get you moving without pain and rigidity.”

  I nodded as she placed a fresh glass of water in my other hand. I popped the pills into my mouth and took a large swallow of water to wash them down. The liquid was cool and felt wonderful on my sore throat. I ran the glass along my forehead and felt refreshed, fighting the urge to pour the water down my body to cool off.

  Doctor Aserov took the glass from my hand and placed it on the rolling table beside me as she ripped the plastic off the other parcel.

  “I am also giving you more fluids through the IV drip to help the medication work through your system. You need it more than anyone else who has been brought in. You are the only one who needed triple the average dose of both medications.”

  I couldn’t say I was shocked by the news at all. If anything, I’d expected it. I seemed to be able to handle and do a lot of unexpected things, so I’d learned not to be surprised by any of it anymore. All I could do was nod, though. The doctors there would be learning all about my growing resistance to the drugs soon enough it seemed.

  As I watched her hook up the new bag of fluids and take the nearly empty bag down from the stand, I couldn’t help but think about why I was there and what their plans were. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  “Why exactly are we here, Doctor Aserov?” I asked.

  She stopped what she was doing, turned to me, opened her mouth as if to say something, and then closed it. Apparently, she wasn’t at liberty to say.

  It was just as I’d thought.

  Chapter 9

  Doctor Aserov had left the room, only letting me know she would be back in a moment. She had moved so fast that I hadn’t been able to open my mouth to ask anything else or think another thought.

  No one was being upfront and honest with me, and it was beginning to become infuriating. I was sure that further tests were in order, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. That usually meant plastic cups, needles, and syringes. I shuddered at the thought of yet another needle and lay back down on the hard, cool metal, resting my arm on my forehead. I could hear the soft drip of the fluids flowing from the bag, down into the plastic tube, and through the barb into my arm. Its coolness was bleeding into my veins and spreading throughout my body. I
t left a feeling of iciness deep within my body.

  I let the arm with the needle in it rest on the table beside me and felt myself relax as the new round of medication worked its way through my veins, along with the fluids. I hoped that I wouldn’t be resistant to them as well. I needed the relief, as well as to get out of the sterile and cold room. I knew I would be there for much longer, if not for the rest of my natural life—however long that would be.

  The pain was beginning to ease away, making it possible for me to close my eyes without searing agony. The burning with each movement of my muscles was becoming less and less noticeable with the medication, and I said a silent thank you to my body for cooperating with the pills.

  As I lay there, my stomach growled so loud that my eyes shot open. I looked around as if there were others around to hear it, knowing the room was empty. I was hungry, but I wasn’t sure if food would be allowed or not at that point.

  With a hiss of air, the doors slid open once more, and I shot up to a sitting position. I was still unsure of what was going to happen to me or anyone else they had kidnapped, and I hated surprises.

  Once my eyes were open and I was up, both hands gripped the edge of the hard metal with a white-knuckled clutch. Fear took hold on me once again as if it was the only response I was capable of. The soldier who had been on the plane and had injected me with the Paralisix, as well as the booster, stood right inside the door—hands behind him, back straight, and legs spread shoulder width apart. He had a gun strapped across his chest, as well as two in holsters at his hips, and a bulletproof vest adorned his broad chest.

  Was I that dangerous? I surely didn’t think so, but what did I know? I found myself wondering what else the government armed themselves with for protection against me and wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to know that badly. There was a shock of recognition in my mind when I saw his green eyes again, but I shook my head, and it was gone.