We can’t risk anyone else knowing about hisresearch. As if any decent soul would attempt this abomination! On second thought, I don’t want tobring another female into this madhouse. She could be forced into my position after I expire. No, I must focus on escaping… Eggs are easier to carry than six squirming hatchlings…
My eyes wander around the room as I roll my ankles and wrists to equilibrate my blood flow. There’s a stand of rubber tubes I could use to climb out if there was a window in this dungeon. Am I upstairs, downstairs, or in a basement? I thought I knew every inch of this house. The cabinet of instruments could arm me, but do I have it in me to kill whoever walks through the door? What if it’s Phin, and I attack him? Nausea rolls through my belly… I can’t hurt a person…even an evil bastard like Leopold.
Escape, escape, escape. I must sneak around until I find where he’s hidden Phin.
There are two doors out of here…or is one a closet?
“Try not to trash the lab. I know animal impulses and all that, but at one point, Boston’s high society considered you a lady. Act accordingly, and I’ll allow Breyers to return you to your room, maybe even dress you. Lord knows we don’t want to look at your grotesque, misshapen body any more than experimentally necessary.” He shivers with revulsion.
I’m delighted. The fewer hands and eyes on me, the better.
“I’ll be good,” I say sweetly because my mouth doesn’t know when to quit.
He starts to say something but thinks better of it. The fervor in his eyes has dulled to his usual calculating glare. He dries his hands on the same bloody rag but takes it when he leaves. I guess I no longer have the status to deserve a goodbye. My cage is bigger, but I’m an animal in his thoughts.
Well, he will be my past soon enough.
I can’t put weight on my feet without crying. My back aches from lying on the metal table for hours. I roll from the table to the floor, biting my fingers to keep from crying out. My forehead rests on the cool floor as I regulate my breathing to normal. My wrists burn, so I use my elbows to propel me across the room with the help of irregular pushes from my knees. I was a more coordinated toddler at crawling…
Gross, I left a streak of clear fluid in my wake. Let’s hope it’s water from my bath…the one I wasn’t awake for…shiver.
Blasted, the door Leopold exited is locked.Wait!The other door’s handle turns easily. I hold the knob with two hands—please don’t creak open—and gently pull it towards my swaying body. Plush yellow rugs capture my attention first. The breeze swirls dust in plumes and propels the rocking horse. A chair glides on its rockers further in. Books of all shapesand sizes litter the floor. Some are open as if waiting for a child to finish their stories. Dolls and stuffed animals stare at me as if I’ve intruded on their private meeting.
This was Phin’s childhood cage…I just know it.
I vomit bile until my tender heart forces me to black out.
Chapter 8
Is it morning or night? How long have I suffered under Mr. Breyer’s whip? Blood runs down my face, so I can’t see the tiny window at the top of my cell. This isn’t my usual cell. I suspect the one beyond the nursery where I grew up is too close to Hairy, and they don’t wish for her to hear us. Her surprise at the impregnation lab tells me she had no idea about my siblings and me in the swamp. She also didn’t know about the other women…the women I killed with my eggs.
What’s more important than my misplaced guilt is whether or not Hairy knows the true nature of Mr. Breyers. Does she see past the kind mask he wears around humans? Does she know that he yells Bible verses at us and curses our births despite howhe helped Leopold create us? His hatred burns more than the welts on my back. I’d strangle him with my bare hands if they weren’t tied within a foot of the ceiling.
“What are you?” He screams as the leather cracks. I’m sure it landed somewhere on my battered body, but I don’t feel the sting anymore. The welts on the bottom of my feet and tentacles will hurt the most as they heal, but it’s too soon for that. The cycle goes: beating on the ground, whipping while hanging, cutting in the chair, and back to the floor. His behavior is always the same…whether my infraction was small or great…or if I’m a hatchling or fully grown.
“A disgrace,” I mumble. My jaw hurts from the fistfight on the way to the cell. There’s a gurgling in my left ear, like when I forget to close the canals underwater, and a grinding when I talk.
“You aren’t one of God’s creatures, and you deserve to rot in hell!”
I must have misunderstood the Bible tales my mother read to me, because I thought you had to sin to rot in hell. In the nursery, she made sure we memorized the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, and all the ways to be good. Nowhere did she mention what made a creature God’s or not God’s except that he created everything. Mr. Breyer speaks in riddles, but I find if I repeat him, he stops hitting sooner.
“I’ll punish you on Earth for what you are,what Dr. Guett made you, and what you do to God-fearing women! Tell me you are guilty so you can be redeemed!” His brown eyes flash. His grey hair waves like a white flag, begging me to stop him.
I stay silent, gnashing my teeth together. Once I plead guilty, he will move to the next phase. I must keep him with me as long as possible. Even if I die in this room, Mr. Breyers must sate his lust for violence and anger at me here. He can’t be released until his temper is finished. If he got his hands on Hairy in her condition, he’d kill her and our young.
She’s too fragile for this. I will endure it for her.
“Don’t you seek redemption? Don’t you want to go to heaven anymore? Has the Devil taken you?” He punches me between each question.
I sway in my bonds. My eyes roll around, making the room spin. The effort to focus them is too much, despite the acid swishing in my guts.
“Don’t you dare release hell’s venom on me! You keep that poison inside your hideous self!”
I gulp, but my dry throat offers nothing to coat my insides.
“Why don’t you ask the Lord to save you?”
I glare at him through streams of red and spit at his feet.
