“Knock her out.”
Something stabbed into her side, and her body jolted. Edythe’s teeth slammed together, her mouth filling up with blood. Just before she lost consciousness, she heard Linc. He sounded tired and battered. Edie?
*
When Edythe’s eyes opened again, her father was waiting for her. She lifted her head, looking around. She was still tied down to the gurney, but Linc was nowhere to be seen. She let her head fall back to the mattress. Her body ached, her muscles cramped like she’d run a race. She almost laughed, she never ran a race in her life, but if she did, she’d probably feel like this.
She glanced over at her father. “Hi, again.”
His eyes widened in surprise, and he cleared his throat. “You’ve changed, Edythe.”
“I’m a doctor, now. Marine biology.”
He nodded.
“You knew?”
“I followed your career with interest.”
“Yeah? Then how about letting me out of here? You know, because I’m your daughter.” She couldn’t keep the disdain from her tone.
“You haven’t changed that much. You’re still as rude as ever.”
“And you’re still a sociopath, so here we are.”
Her father came closer, his eyes blazing. “Do you think I get pleasure from these investigations, Edythe?”
He could deny it all he wanted, but she’d seen their basement. She saw what he had done to Linc. There was no investigation, there was no method to his cruelty. He was a little boy with a microscope, frying ants under the sunlight because he could.
“Where’s Linc?” she asked.
“He’ll be here soon.”
“Dun, dun, dun! Sounds ominous,” she snarked.
“Edythe. Enough!” He punched his hand into the gurney, jolting her body.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked, really wondering. “How did you become this way? Did Grandma not hold you? Where you left alone in a crib and never attached to other humans?”
“You’re not human,” he said. His face came close to hers, his eyes traveling over her skin. “Not anymore.” He lifted a hand, ghosting his fingers across her forehead and down her nose. A sudden slice along both her collarbones had her sucking in a breath.
He’d taken advantage of her distraction to reach behind him and grab a surgical tool. He cut her, right through her clothes. She saw a slow bloom of red appear on her skin.
EDYTHE! Linc’s voice was like a cymbal, crashing into her brain.
“Nothing?” her father asked and cocked his head to the side, regarding her curiously. She saw the quick flash of silver and felt another slice, this time down the inside of her arm. Her father’s eyes traced the line of the wound. “Still no?”
Her chest and arm burned, pulsing with her heartbeat. Linc’s voice pounded through her brain, screaming out for her, but her attention was solely on the scalpel. A flick of his wrist, and it cut across her stomach.
“Ah.” Something caught her father’s attention, and he dropped the instrument on the floor. “There he is now.”
She heard a metallic rattling and looked over. Two men dressed in army fatigues wheeled a metal cage through the doors.
Linc. Her voice came out sounding much weaker than she meant it.
He was crazed, pacing back and forth. At times he grabbed the bars and shook them. Following behind the cage were two more men in fatigues, both of them holding wands that she recognized as cattle prods.
Edie. “Let me out.” He shook the bars again, and one of the men touched him with the end of the wand. Linc jerked, but he didn’t let go of the bars, and he didn’t look away from her. “Let me out, now!”
Her father’s only answer was to nod to the man, who shocked him again.
“Stop,” she begged.
Edie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
She tried to speak to him with her mind, not wanting anyone else to hear what she said, but it took so much effort. “I should have listened.” She turned her head to look at Linc. His scales glowed in the bright room, reflecting the light in green and silver flashes. He bared his teeth at the men and then at her father, who approached him slowly.
“Incapacitate him,” he directed, and both men shocked him. He fell to his knees, teeth clenched in a tight grimace. Her father loomed over him, scalpel held tightly in his hands. His hand darted out, and he swiped it across Linc’s hand. He stayed down, a growl the only sound he made. Her father darted forward again, but he suddenly stood. He was a blur of motion, grabbing her father’s hand and pulling him forward, turning him around and holding the scalpel to his throat.
“Let me out.”
“No!” her father yelled. “I need him in order to research her! Shock him!”
“You’ll shock my father if you do,” she cried out. She put all her reserves of energy into the words. “He’s not a young man. You could stop his heart.”
She saw the soldiers hesitate and lower their wands.