Chapter 27

Michelle turned into the cool wetness on her face. Her head thumped and thudded in sickening waves that sent nausea boiling and bile into her throat. She wanted to dive back down into the comforting nothingness of unconsciousness. It would be such bliss to let go of the pain and float back down. She tried to push the cloth away but her hands weren't working right.

Her eyes were open, mere slits in the glaring light. She heard a snap and then the acrid, burning smell of ammonia flooded her nostrils, making her jerk her head back. She twisted away from the smell, but it persisted, following her until she opened her eyes. The dizziness threatened to overwhelm her and she fought back waves of nausea, swallowing hard as the gorge rose in her throat. She tried to tell whoever it was that was bothering her that she was sick and wanted to go back to sleep, but it hurt too much to open her mouth.

She took a couple of deep breaths and opened her eyes wider, forcing herself to try and concentrate on something other than her stomach and the pain pounding in her head. The room she was in was cold, the ceiling low with padded tiles. She was tied to a chair, her ankles tied to the legs. She looked around wildly trying to remember something. Anything. Where the hell was she?

Before panic could set in, a deep male voice called her name.

"Michelle?"

She turned her head, staring at a face that was familiar. He had dark hair and eyes and was handsome of features. But there was something missing that could have made the face truly striking. Who was he? How did he know her name? Why couldn't she remember?

"W... what?" she managed to gasp out, her eyes rolling at the pain that battered in her head.

"Come on sweetness," he coaxed, wiping her face with the wet cloth. "Time to wake up now. We've got such wonderful things to discuss."

"I don't want to talk," she gasped. "Please, my head hurts. I think I need a doctor."

She didn't see the hardness come into his eyes. She felt the cloth drop from her face. And then his hand connected with her cheek, rocking her head back against the chair. She gasped at the contact, at the pain in her head that increased with the movement.

"I said, Michelle, that it was time for you to wake up." He picked the cloth back up and gently wiped the blood from her lip. "You'll have to learn that you do what you are told. Do what you are told or there will be consequences for your misbehavior."

"Who are you?"

Her voice was barely discernable. But he heard her.

"Try and remember, Michelle." He bathed the back of her neck, and then got her a glass of water, holding it up against her bruised and bloody lips. More went down the front of her then in her mouth, but the moisture was heavenly.

"M?" she gasped. The events of the evening were coming back. "Oh, God. Nick." The vision of Nick, the bullet striking his body, him slumped against the wall in a lifeless heap flashed through her mind.

"I'm sorry, Michelle. He didn't make it." His giggle belayed his words. "I'm so sorry." He patted her on the shoulder. "But that doesn't concern you any now. I want to show you something."

Michelle pulled as far out of his reach as she could. She could feel pain and grief unlike anything she had ever felt before trying to overwhelm her. But she pushed them back stubbornly and reached for the rage that was bubbling with them.

"M?" Her voice was quiet with rage, steely, though grief was evident in her eyes.

He knelt beside her chair, pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Yes?"

"I'm going to take you with me. When you kill me? It's going to be the last thing you do." She spit in his face. "I'm going to kill you for all the girls you killed, for Nick. For myself. Because you are a piece of shit nothing that deserves to die."

M stood, wiping her spittle off of his face.

Michelle waited for him to lose control, for his fists to fly into her. She longed for it with everything that was in her. If Nick was gone, as he said, then she would make sure he didn't live too much longer. She wanted him close enough to bite, close enough so that she could use the only tool she had left, her teeth.

He laughed instead. "Oh, my dear. You are so much fun. Kill me?" He doubled over with laughter. "You can't kill me." He cocked his head in thought as he looked at her. "But you can watch me kill."

He strode over to a wooden table that Michelle hadn't noticed before, lifted a long sheet. The girl that laid there was young, not over twenty, and blonde, her hair trailing off the side of the table. She was conscious, her head swiveling wildly. Her mouth was covered with tape and she was tied to the four corners of the table.

M picked up a knife and held it above the girl in two fingers, letting it wiggle in his fingers as if he would drop it into her.

Michelle could hear her frantic screams even through the tape.

"No!" Michelle cried out. "Okay, M. Whatever you want. Don't hurt her." She watched as he reached down and caressed the girl's cheek with his hand, then with the knife. The girl strained away from him. "I'm sorry. Please, M?" she cried out in defeat. "Please don't hurt her."

He set the knife down in the tray, let his hand rest casually on the throat of the girl on the table as he turned to look at Michelle. His fingers tightened cruelly, cutting off the girl's air.

"Why?"

Michelle struggled against her own bonds. She pushed against the soft cotton cloth that he had used to pad the ropes that bound her feet, pulled against the ones at her wrists. She could hear herself begging M to stop.

"Just tell me why? Why shouldn't I kill her?" He looked down at the girl's red and sweaty face.

"Because, M. She's another human. A person like you and me." Michelle was almost sobbing.

"Hmm," he seemed to be thinking. "Not good enough." He switched hands, letting the girl get one pathetic gasp of air before starting again, his fingers maliciously biting into her throat. "Maybe if you asked me to stop, for you, because I love you?"

"Please, M." She gagged on the words but said them anyway. "For me, because you love me?" She felt the rope on her left wrist give just a little.

He let go of the girl's throat and turned to Michelle. "See now, that wasn't all that difficult was it." He walked the few feet back to her, and crouched by her feet. His hand slid up her leg, his fingers pushing between her thighs. "All you have to do is ask nicely and I'd do about anything for you." He leaned forward, his lips coming closer to Michelle's. "This is why you will always loose, Michelle. This is why I can always win. I don't care about them, the experiments. They are nothing to me. But you look at them and see life, something that you think is precious. I look at them and see nothing more than a way to continue my research." His lips were close to hers, almost close enough. "Except for you. You are the one. You are going to help me with all of this. Once you understand, we will do this together. Think how great we could be, Michelle."

This could be her chance. Adrenaline pulsed in her veins. She tried to sit still under his groping fingers as his face came closer to hers.

He backed off, laughing. "Michelle, your eyes are the windows to your soul. Sorry to disappoint you dear. Now, I have some work to do. You girls behave yourselves." He turned away from both girls and went over into the shadows.

Michelle worked on the padding under the rope around her left wrist as she looked over at the table. She could hear the girl's hoarse, raspy breaths. Could see that she was trying hard not to cry. With the tape across her mouth, she was having a hard time trying to breath.

"M?"

He didn't answer her and she thought for a moment that he had left. Then he walked out of the shadows, a pile of papers in his hands.

"Yes?"

He was wearing glasses, she noticed. And looking through what looked to be a legal brief. Why couldn't she remember who he was?

"She can't breath. Can't you take off the tape?" She added almost as an afterthought. "Please?" It almost made her gag.

He set the brief down on the tray, reached across the girl and roughly peeled back the tape, listening for just a moment to the sweet sounds of her crying.

Michelle watched him, listening to the hoarse coughing rasps of the girl, as he put the tape in a plastic bag, wrote something on it and set it in a file folder. He picked up a Polaroid camera and took a picture of the girl, which he also wrote on and set in the file. He stood for a moment, looking down at the camera then picked it up, turned and took Michelle's picture. He labeled the picture, tipped his head at Michelle and slid the picture in another file folder.

Just that act sent a sliver of fear through her. These files, evidence for when he was caught, now a portent to the things that would come. She watched as he picked up his papers, smiled at her and started to walk back into the shadows.