Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance) - By Dan Rix Page 0,87

him into an embrace, squeezing herself against him. “As if I’d leave you,” she whispered, and for a moment, the tension in her body thawed. “I lied. I do want to be your half.”

Clive just watched her from the stairs, the corners of his mouth held firm. Only his eyes betrayed his torment.

“Amber, there’s no deal,” said Aaron, feeling stronger now that they were touching. “He betrayed us.”

“He betrayed everybody,” she said.

Then Casler rose up behind her, blotting out the lights. His eyes gleamed as he snapped another pair of latex gloves into place and slid the mask over his mouth.

Aaron tried to push her off, but it was too late. Casler’s shadow swooped forward. He grabbed Amber around the waist, swung her onto the operating table, and held her down with one hand as he strapped her in. She shrieked and kicked him in the nose, wriggled free. He dragged her back, yanked straps tight across her stomach, her chest, her legs. Then he adjusted her body until her head lay directly at the focal point of the machine’s metal spike.

When it was done, Casler wheeled over his chair and sat beside her. He stroked her cheek and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “It’ll all be over soon,” he said. “I promise.”

Amber glared at him. “Take whatever you want,” she said, “but leave Aaron alone.”

“It’s too late for him,” said Casler.

“No it isn’t!” Amber strained against the straps, but nothing gave. Her body tensed, and then she collapsed, out of breath. “It isn’t too late for him,” she moaned.

Casler gave a sad smile, kissed her cheek, then pulled out another syringe. He rolled his chair behind the machine, where panels were missing, and extracted a loop of tubing coated with a sticky lubricant—mucous.

“Be gentle with this one,” he said soothingly to the machine, “She’s the potentate’s favorite.” Then he injected the syringe into the tubing. The tube pulsed vein-like between his gloved fingers before slithering back inside the machine.

Casler wheeled himself to the laptop, which flashed with an endless stream of green numbers. “Is everyone ready?” he said.

The machine wobbled, staticky, more like a projection than a solid object. Amber watched the quivering mass above her, too scared to look away.

And from out of the shadows, Clive was watching her. Aaron gathered one thing from the flicker in his pale eyes. He knew how much of his half would be missing when it was done. Clive averted his gaze, though, quickly wiped his eyes, and resumed his position beside the machine. “Go ahead, Father.”

Casler typed a command, then hit enter. “There—”

The entire cavern lurched. The machine groaned, as if suddenly encountering resistance. And Aaron knew why.

It was drilling into Amber’s clairvoyant channel.

He tried to climb onto the operating table, to Amber. But his fingers slipped. Again, the icy floor slapped his cheek.

Casler leaned back in his chair. “Keep it stable, Clive. Ninety seconds until we reach clairvoyance.”

***

Aaron’s three minutes were up. The resistance at the back of his head waned to a sliver, then nothing. Just the cold of empty space. By now, he should have been somewhere else. The golden fields of paradise, Elysium—the Abyss.

Somewhere else.

Not here in this dungeon with his cheek glued to frostbitten bedrock. Yet, by sheer willpower, his clairvoyance held. Miraculously, though it felt like a vacuum cleaner had been plugged into the back of his brain and turned on high, it held.

And if he could just hold it for another ninety seconds, he could fight. Aaron closed his eyes. First one arm, then the other. Then his leg. He dragged himself to his feet. His muscles wobbled, but they too held. He could hold anything for ninety seconds.

He could hold his breath for ninety seconds.

Fury constricted his pupils, and blood tingled in his fingertips. He wheezed, clenched his fists, and staggered forward, willing the strength back into his muscles.

“Counter-clockwise—three and a half degrees,” said Casler. “Eighty seconds.”

Aaron hooked his fingers over the backrest of a chair, grabbed the seat, and hoisted it over his head.

“Back it off, Clive. You’re drifting—two degrees clockwise.” The machine groaned behind him. “Keep it stable.”

“Father, watch out!”

The steel leg struck Casler above the eye. The impact knocked him off his chair. He dropped like a felled sequoia, and Aaron was on him before he hit the ground.

Seventy-five seconds.

Aaron landed with all his weight, sank his knee into the man’s back. He grabbed the first thing in reach. An old monitor. Fifty pounds of CRT, glass, and