Page 14 of His Curse
So longis an understatement.
It's been twenty-seven days, thirteen hours, forty-three minutes and ten seconds, according to the time I went in, my counting, and the time I got out, anyway.
That's how long I was in the Black Box this time.
A new record for me.
Usually Dr. Kentworth only allows Dick and his minions to keep me here a few days at a time, the most being a week before now.
Typically my punishments follow a regiment as routine as my days here. No food or water for defiance, the number of days usually varies depending on what I refused but only ever goes a little past the point of malnutrition. If I talk back, they take away anything I may have earned, ie, my bed, my books, my toilet or showers, free time in the yard. If I fight them on something, physically fight them, I'm put into complete isolation in the West Hall without human contact of any kind where everything is done through windows and tubes with robotic arms or little drones. Sprinkle in random beatings and a bit of psychological torture, and you have a decent idea of the things that make up most of my time here.
All things I've learned to cope with; all things that don't last.
But when I try to escape, when I manage to get out into some unauthorized part of the facility or even as far as the grounds, I go into the black box.
No light. No sound.
No food or water.
No cot or blankets.
No human interaction.
Nothing but a hole in the ground to piss in that I usually can't even see.
There is nothing but pitch black, total silence, and the cold, hard concrete.
When it's a longer stretch, they sometimes give me stale bread and a liquid that tastes like used bath water, and they check periodically to make sure I haven't died, but I've never been in the Black Box this long before and I'm sure no one expected me to survive it.
I'm not really shocked I wound up here though, not after my last attempt to escape. It was a doozy, if I do say so myself, and I bet a few of the guards were taking bets on when I’d kick the bucket because of it.
I waited until Dr. Kentworth took off my collar, waited patiently until he had me strapped to a table by my ankles and nothing more so he could run another one of his tests, and when his back was turned, that's when I made my move.
I shifted.
For the first time in I don't know how long, I shifted on my own, completely of my own free will, and as much as I wanted to kill that bastard for keeping me here for so many years, I was more focused on getting out.
So, I knocked him out and took off. I went racing through his lab, ran down the halls, and searched for an exit, but not without doing as much damage as possible on the way out.
I killed at least four guards, injured several orderlies, scared the piss out of a few nurses and destroyed a ton of Dr. Kentworth'sfindings. I made it about sixty yards from the main building before Dick himself stopped me, the fucker shooting me with about seven tranquilizer darts before my wolf couldn't keep going, and when I came to, I was already in the Black Box with a fancy new collar around my neck.
That was twenty-seven days ago, and now I'm not sure if I'm being let out and led down the hall toward a new punishment or my imminent death.
My money is on the latter.
Dick stops at the first set of bars, presses his palm over the digital keypad, leans into the scanner, and states his name as a red light moves over his eyes before it turns green.
He does this two more times before we get back to the patient quarters, but when he leads me past Bella and then Chumani—both of them looking at me like they've seen a ghost—Dick continues walking by my cell toward the other door.
"Don't you ladies worry your pretty little heads now.” He chuckles like the evil bastard he is. "The bitch will be back shortly."
I roll my eyes but keep my mouth shut.
Obviously, I'm just going to be punished again and not marching to my death, which is only a mild relief when I realize Bella and Chumani are the only two in our block. The other eleven cells that were full when I went into the Black Box are now empty.
While Dick stops to chat with Greg and Jorge, the day shift guards, I chance a look over my shoulder.
Bella is on her feet, fingers wrapped tightly around her cell bars, her deep navy blue eyes wide and full of fear. She shakes her head once, glances toward the empty cells across the way then shakes her head once more. Assuming that means I shouldn’t bother trying to ask them what’s going on, I shift my gaze to Chumani, her expression basically the same as the female hugs herself tightly, holding her slightly swollen belly as her big brown eyes fill with tears.
