Page 5 of Bound By Thorns
“Stop it, 387!”I yelled, my voice wavering with pain.
I whipped my head up and literally growled like an animal at the man in front of me. This was what captivity was doing to us. It was morphing us into fucking wildlife. 387 was a man in his forties or maybe fifties, who was often experimenting with the limits of my sanity. We were all numbers here. My number was 424. I didn’t hate it. It was nice.
But right now, Ihated387. He was freshly tortured and in a dazed state, possibly demanding his dinner.
We were given minimal food twice a day. It wasn’t a well-balanced meal that would let me keep my muscles and strength intact. So, I was gradually losing muscle mass. I could barely use my left arm due to the burns, and that combined with the daily torment, I could barely do two pushups.
Fuck, I was in my worst state and it was only going to get worse. The clicking of heels echoed through the cell passage and my mind went alert.
She was here. Again. She was going to check my wounds. Again. Make sure I was healed enough for the next round of torture tomorrow.Again!
The sound of her heels neared and slowed as she reached my cell. I was on all my fours, not my best position considering I was only wearing some random white boxers they had provided me. They loved seeing blood contrast with that white cloth.
I pulled my gaze up slowly. The red stilettos filled my view, and as she stepped further down the passage and stopped near my cell, I anchored my eyes on her silk-teal dress. Not a drop of blood on her.
And then I met her gaze. She was also dead, just like me. The difference was the wall of bars between us. I was a prisoner, a number, a toy. She was the queen, a name, and a tool. Garret Tyson’s whore, Kaylan ‘Healer’ Bennett. Alpha Squad Two, certified combat medic. She had technically died a few months ago in Florida.
But was she dead? No.
Here she was, in the flesh, drinking champagne and eating briskets with the enemy. Garret followed close behind her, and when he stood right next to her, I spat at their feet.
“This useless fuck,” Garret gritted his teeth. I didn’t know what I expected Garret to look like, having chased him for months with my squad, but I didn’t expect a lanky, fifty-something, silver-haired clown. He looked weak, but I remembered his punch from a few nights ago. I was pretty sure he dislocated my jaw.
He threw his kerchief down on his shiny shoes and snapped his fingers to call someone. A terrified, small boy, barely an adult, ran to him and knelt to wipe my spit from his feet.
My gaze briefly drifted from Garret to Kaylan again. She was smirking as usual. Probably happy that my spit didn’t reach her glittery crimson shoes.
“I think his back needs some antiseptics,” she purred at Garret. He responded with a grunt and stalked off.
A first aid kit magically appeared in her hands and one of the men, Noel, behind her brushed against her bare shoulder to open my cell for her.
I couldn’t quite understand why that irked me. Objectively, she was beautiful. I guessed that was why Garret liked to fuck her in all the ways he could. I bet she was enjoying her new allegiance with him. I wondered how much money she was paid to stick around. I knew she had a family. Had she abandoned them for the sake of money and power?
Her faint smirk answered all of my questions. But there were still a few unanswered. As she stepped into my cell, my arm gave up, and I fell on my right elbow.
The vulnerability was eating at me. Here I was, at the mercy of the enemy.
“Don’t spit on my dress, it’s new,” she smiled and glanced at Noel, who was watching her from behind the bars. My face twisted in disgust but she couldn’t see it.
She gloved up and gently pushed me down until I was lying fully flat on my stomach on the cold floor. The tic tac toe’s massacre of a playground laid completely bare to her.
Maybe it was my imagination or a momentary haze, but I swore I saw her wince as she eyed my bare back. I couldn’t see it, but I was sure I looked like a Frankenstein experiment gone incredibly wrong.
She cleaned my back using some wipes. Then she whipped out a tube, unscrewed the cap, and squeezed out a generous amount of cream.
The cream was mildly cool against my skin, or maybe I was burning up due to some infection that would kill me in a day or two. I couldn’t tell.
Her fingers were awfully gentle on me, she carefully swept through all the corners and ridges of my back, and then she applied bandages on a few that were too deep and nasty in her assessment.
As she packed away the first aid kit, I watched her pale skin flushing slightly near her cheeks. I frowned and peered my gaze away. I shouldn’t be noticing things about a woman who was literally in bed with the enemy.
What I needed to do was to find a way to escape. Now that I knew Squad Six wasn’t coming, I had to find an out by myself. Perhaps this bitch, Kaylan, was the key. If I render her useless to Garret, I could get a trade, her life for my freedom.
All I needed was a plan.
TWO
Kaylan
