Page 24 of Anarchy Chained: Alpha Thomas

CHAPTER EIGHT - SADIE

He’s not someone I should trust. I feel that. My memory might be fucked, but I know this to be true. Somewhere deep inside my mind is my missing reality. And if I know anything, above all, I know that this man—this Thomas Brooks—he’s not one of the good guys.

“Stop it,” I say.

“Stop what?”

“Looking at me that way.”

“I’m just…” He stops, thinking. “I’m just admiring you, Sadie. Your… strength. I’ve never seen anyone withstand a mind blast like that. Granted,” he says, putting his hands up as if to enunciate this exception, “I haven’t blasted anyone like that in a long-ass time. They drugged it out of me before I left school and I kept up the protocol—albeit a modified one—because I like to be in control. So I don’t have a lot of recent experience on what my mind blasts are capable of these days. But just look at Yasmine. She took a direct hit and it did her in.”

“Who’s Yasmine?” I ask.

“The woman,” he says. “The doctor. She was on the floor. Pinned underneath one of her cohorts.”

“Was she dead?” I ask.

“One could hope.” He laughs, then stops abruptly. “She’s not one of the good guys.”

“Neither are you,” I shoot back.

He nods. “No. I’m not either. But there’s worse than me out there. For sure.”

“What are you going to do with me?” I ask.

“I’m helping you, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“Because you intrigue me, Sadie. You shouldn’t exist and yet you do. And regardless of what side we’re each on now, if we both came from Prodigy, and we both did, then we started out the same. We could be a team.”

“I work alone.”

“Do you?”

It came out so fast I didn’t have time to think. But I feel that to be true as well. “Yes,” I say. “I do. I’m confused now and I don’t quite know what’s happening. But I can feel it coming back. I will understand soon.”

“Good,” he says. “That’s what I want too. But you’re going to get very tired very fast. That’s the nature of the drug I gave you. So why not let it come back when it’s good and ready, hmm? Close your eyes and relax.”

I want to resist him. Like really want to. But he’s right. I can’t fight it. I can feel my body becoming heavy.

“It’s almost night, anyway,” Thomas continues to persuade.

My eyelids fall and that one simple action is like a trigger. Like a switch. Like a signal to just let go.

Can’t fight it.

“Don’t make this hard.”

The voice is unfamiliar. A hand is pressed hard against my mouth. My eyes are desperate to open, but they can’t. Or won’t.

“If you fight, I’ll win,” the voice continues. “So be a good girl and just go along.”

I wiggle and realize my wrists are tied with some kind of thick scratchy rope that scrapes my skin as I resist, making it burn.

“You think you’re here to kill me, little girl?”

“Who…” I try to say. Who are you? But my words—word—is thick and my tongue won’t work.