In The End Box Set | Books 1-3 Stevens, GJ (story books to read TXT) 📖

Before I could turn to see who stood there, arms appeared from behind. Their great thickness wrapped around my throat, a solid weight hugged tight against my head before dragging me back in the chair to pull my arms against my wrists still bound to the table.

Straining to see what the hands were doing at my side, I couldn’t catch the detail but I could feel my clothes being cut. Panic flooded through my body with the cold of the scissors, the warm air like a blanket as my skin exposed, the breath forced from my lungs as I realised my earlier confidence had been misplaced.

With the flash of a syringe across my view, I tried to move. I tried to thrash out of their grip, but the hands only tugged harder, the plastic digging into my wrists.

I locked eyes with the woman opposite as the needle pricked, watching as the corner of her mouth rose.

Warmth soon raced up from my stomach and to my chest, blanketing me from the inside as the lights faded to an image of Dan and Mike and the realisation of what I’d led them into.

5

A light touch pressed against my cheek as if a fingertip ran down my face.

Cold air chilled my skin. I couldn’t move, except the involuntary shiver. I couldn’t react to swat whatever hand touched at my skin. All I could do was listen to the rise of my pulse.

The memory of the small room flashed across my view, the image dissolving when I realised I lay with my head to the side, resting on a soft pillow sleeved in plastic. Breath panted, my lungs not listening as I tried to calm, as I tried to take in the air I needed to blow away the cotton wool in my brain.

I wanted so much to move, but my body felt as if encased in lead. The touch came again; this time my eyelids opened, electrified to search into the darkness.

What had she given me in that injection?

Another stroke ran down my face.

I managed to turn, the muscles aching in my neck as I peered up to nothing while willing my hand to rise from my side. The length of my arm felt as if I’d been in a fight as it slowly rose, convulsing left and right with the shakes despite my efforts.

After missing with the first attempt, my hand reached my cold, pallid cheek and my finger came back wet.

Knowing it was water and not another’s touch brought me little relief. What had she given me to cause my body to feel like I’d been in such a battle?

Moving to dodge the drops, sensation rose from my limbs as I swayed to sit, my feet edging down to the cold tiles. Had I been left in a fridge to freeze to death?

Head throbbing, I tried to twist in the darkness to see where I’d lain, but the tension fixed me forward to stare into the unknown.

My neck ached and felt on the edge of cramping as I tried to move my head. My arms were heavy and my stomach churned like I’d eaten a bad meal. I sat numb, unable to do anything but try to slow the shivers and concentrate on keeping the rising panic at bay.

Toni’s call came into my head, the words ‘human testing’ ringing in my ears as my stomach clenched.

An echo in the distance almost made me lose control over my breath and, without warning, light came through a square glass panel in the wall.

Pain screamed up my arms as they rose to shield my eyes from the brightness. Lifting my hands slowly after a moment, I realised the glass sat in a door when I saw a line of bright, artificial light piercing low to the ground. Through the glass and my clouds of breath, I saw the white tiled wall and heard the pounding of steps growing closer.

Taking a moment, I told myself my worst fears hadn’t been realised and somehow I gained control of my breath. My attention fell to my hands and the wrinkled, swollen fingertips, like I’d spent far too long in a hot bath, not in a freezing damp room. I couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been since I first arrived.

Turning around, I caught the detail of the white tiled walls forming the small rectangular room, the plastic mattress on the stainless-steel shelf where I’d lain, but not much more. The room reminded me so much of a police cell, minus the leaking roof.

The light disappeared and my breath sped again. The light came back, bright this time and focused, shining in my face. I flinched away, turning to the side to see the torch beam run down my body and down the hospital gown covering my torso before it flickered out.

The realisation came that I was naked apart from the thin gown. I bit back the panic and the questions about where the hell my clothes were and who had undressed me; it wasn’t the time to let my mind wonder what had happened while I’d been unconscious.

At the window, a pair of eyes squinting through the visor of a gas mask sent the questions away. For a moment at least.

Tears flowed, a reaction normally so foreign, a grief pressing down on my shoulders when the corridor light cut off. I cried for Dan and Mike. For myself and my stupidity. I cried for Toni and what should have been.

Curling into a ball, my spine aching as I closed myself in.

A mechanical crack sounded from somewhere deep within the wall and I got to my feet as the door slowly opened.

Dan, I thought, as relief took over my face, both hands wiping tears to the side.

I stood, unsteady at first and moved to