That was Travis, I guessed.
“He’s more… motivated now,” Geoffrey answered. His voice was quiet, but I could tell he was angry about something.
They passed just half a foot from where I cringed into the rocks. I froze, holding my breath.
“I think it’s sick,” Violetta muttered. “Disgusting. It’s never going to work.”
They walked slowly, their steps weighted with despair.
No one answered her. No one spoke again in my hearing. I stayed motionless until their footsteps had faded a little, but I couldn’t wait until the sound disappeared completely. Ian might be following me already.
I crept forward as quickly as I could and then started jogging again when I decided it was safe.
I saw the first faint hints of daylight streaming around the curving tunnel ahead, and I shifted into a quieter lope that still kept me moving swiftly. I knew that once I was around the gradual arc, I would be able to see the doorway into Doc’s realm. I followed the bend, and the light grew brighter.
I moved cautiously now, putting each foot down with silent care. It was very quiet. For a moment, I wondered if I was wrong and there was no one here at all. Then, as the uneven entrance came into view, throwing a block of white sunlight against the opposite wall, I could hear the sound of quiet sobbing.
I tiptoed right to the edge of the gap and paused, listening.
The sobbing continued. Another sound, a soft, rhythmic thudding, kept time with it.
“There, there.” It was Jeb’s voice, thick with some emotion. “’S okay. ’S okay, Doc. Don’t take it so hard.”
Hushed footsteps, more than one set, were moving around the room. Fabric rustling. A brushing sound. It reminded me of the sounds of cleaning.
There was a smell that didn’t belong here. Strange… not quite metallic, but not quite anything else, either. The smell was not familiar—I was sure I had never smelled it before—and yet I had an odd feeling that it should be familiar to me.
I was afraid to move around the corner.
What’s the worst they will do to us? Mel pointed out. Make us leave?
You’re right.
Things had definitely changed if that was the worst I could fear from the humans now.
I took a deep breath—noticing again that strange, wrong smell—and eased around the rocky edge into the hospital.
No one noticed me.
Doc was kneeling on the floor, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders heaving. Jeb leaned over him, patting his back.
Jared and Kyle were laying a crude stretcher beside one of the cots in the middle of the room. Jared’s face was hard—the mask had come back while he was away.
The cots were not empty, as they usually were. Something, hidden under dark green blankets, filled the length of both of them. Long and irregular, with familiar curves and angles…
Doc’s homemade table was arranged at the head of these cots, in the brightest spot of sunlight. The table glittered with silver—shiny scalpels and an assortment of antiquated medical tools that I couldn’t put a name to.
Brighter than these were other silver things. Shimmering segments of silver stretched in twisted, tortured pieces across the table… tiny silver strands plucked and naked and scattered… splatters of silver liquid smeared on the table, the blankets, the walls…
The quiet in the room was shattered by my scream. The whole room was shattered. It spun and shook to the sound, whirled around me so that I couldn’t find the way out. The walls, the silver-stained walls, rose up to block my escape no matter which way I turned.
Someone shouted my name, but I couldn’t hear whose voice it was. The screaming was too loud. It hurt my head. The stone wall, oozing silver, slammed into me, and I fell to the floor. Heavy hands held me there.
“Doc, help!”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Is it having a fit?”
“What did she see?”
“Nothing—nothing. The bodies were covered!”
That was a lie! The bodies were hideously uncovered, strewn in obscene contortions across the glittering table. Mutilated, dismembered, tortured bodies, ripped into grotesque shreds…
I had clearly seen the vestigial feelers still attached to the truncated anterior section of a child. Just a child! A baby! A baby thrown haphazardly in maimed pieces across the table smeared with its own blood…
My stomach rolled like the walls were rolling, and acid clawed its way up my throat.
“Wanda? Can you hear me?”
“Is she conscious?”
“I think she’s going to throw up.”
The last voice was right. Hard hands held my head while the acid in my stomach violently overflowed.
“What do we do, Doc?”
“Hold on to her—don’t let her hurt herself.”
I coughed and squirmed, trying to escape. My throat cleared.
“Let me go!” I was finally able to choke out. The words were garbled. “Get away from me! Get away; you’re monsters! Torturers!”