us all. The best shot I have at that is with Eva.
Holding my head high, I follow her out into the corridor and she leads the way down to a blank wall at the end where there isn’t anything. Eva taps the middle of the wall and a screen appears out of nowhere. Quickly, she types in nine digits, and I catch the first three. Five. Six. Nine. I mentally repeat them a few times so I remember, and watch as the wall slides to the slide to reveal a lift on the other side. Eva presses the button and the lift comes up, making a dinging noise as the doors open and we step in. The second the door siphons shut, Eva’s hand rests on my shoulder and she purposely digs her long nails into my skin.
Her eyes, filled with darkness and cruelty, lock onto mine. “When the lab is done with you, I’m going to take great pleasure in killing you slowly, painfully, and we won’t be alone. I’m going to make your parents watch as you bleed into my hands.”
I grin at her even though I feel rattled inside. I’d never let her see that, though. “You can try, princess.”
Her laugh fills the lift as she lets me go and I flatten my shaking hands to my sides. In the world of the fae, death threats are amusing it seems.
And I don’t believe either one of us is joking.
“You really do look like her,” Eva says after a moment of staring at me in silence.
The lift jerks to a halt, and Eva slips through the doors before I can reply. Her cryptic comment shouldn’t surprise me. This bitch be hella crazy. But I can’t help but wonder who she thinks I look like. It’s not like I have any siblings, or even cousins for that matter.
I follow her down the long shapeless hallway, only the sounds of our footsteps for company. Guards flank a gated entrance at the end. They open it as soon as Eva arrives. My heart bangs against my ribs as I follow her through. To my surprise and unease, the room I step into is a laboratory. Everything is clinically white, much like the rest of this prison, but there are strange kinds of machinery in here, incubators and fume hoods, and research devices littered over the steel countertops. Yet even more startling than the equipment are the familiar faces I see.
Doctor Frank, the man who wanted to take me for ‘testing’, and Gold, who couldn’t look more disinterested to see me if he tried. For once he isn’t wearing a suit. A black shirt hugs his torso, the sleeves rolled up, and gold braces stretching over his shoulders. His pants and shoes are a similar black, but it’s not really his clothes that catch my attention. It’s the huge gun he’s loading with strange-looking cartridges.
I glare at him, a silly part of me hoping he’ll acknowledge me, but of course, he doesn’t. He whispers something to the doctor that I can’t quite pick up. Whatever it is, the doctor looks over at me and motions me to come hither.
Eva waits, watching as I follow him to one of the beds. My focus zeroes in on the six needles lying on the cart by the bed. My heart thrashes so violently that I struggle to hear what he says to Eva. I don’t say anything to them. I look only at Gold.
“What are you doing?” I spit out.
The edge of his lips curl and he looks over at Eva. She arches a paper-thin eyebrow at him, then the two of them chuckle like they’re sharing the best inside joke in the fucking world. Tears sting my eyes and I peel them off Gold to look down at the needles. My palms turn sweaty as I struggle not to show any weakness.
They can’t know I’m afraid.
That’s the kind of bullshit Eva gets off on.
She’s not the kind of fae to fight her opponent in battle. No, Eva would rather watch those fight to the death for her so she doesn’t need to get her hands dirty. She knows nothing about honour or integrity. She’s a damn coward.
The doctor wraps a rubber band around my arm and prods around for a vein. A slight relief fills me when I realise he’s just going to take some blood. The doctor fills two needles with blood, then picks up another and hovers it by the edge of