Page 54 of Mindeater

He moves like water, weaving out of the way. My legs buckle, but I keep advancing, chasing him. “I don’t know anything! You fucking stabbed me!”

The hook jerks free from the chain, and I launch it at his head. It clips his cheek, just barely, before he tackles me to the ground. I slice and cut whatever I can reach while he wrestles to get my arms restrained. Straddling me, he knocks the knife loose, jagged cuts in his jacket revealing too-shallow cuts. “Stop it,” he growls and pins my wrists.

The knife floats back into the air, and I make sure it’s aimed at his temple. His eyes round. He ducks out of the way just before it lodges into his skull.

“I’m going to kill you,” he snarls, and headbutts me.

The burst of my nose, coupled with the daze, gives him enough time to tear a glove off with his teeth, and then his hand is around my throat. The second our skin connects, the veins under his eyes glow brighter. Like ink spreading over uneven paper, it floods down, lighting up his cheeks and neck. I sag into the ground.

That gaping void consumes me. Neon stillness takes over my mind’s eye as pain explodes in my stomach. I scream. My body seizes and quakes. His grip doesn’t falter or lessen, but he grits his teeth. When I start to choke, slapping at his bloody forearm, his eyes widen a fraction. It burns. I can feel my skin blistering beneath his fingers.

“Fuck.” He releases me in a flash.

I gasp, sucking in greedy breaths while he retrieves a needle and syringe from his coat. The former is plunged into my chest.

“No—” Darkness spills over my vision, and I go limp.

***

When I come to, I’m back in the cage.

My wounds have scabbed over, but I’m just as weak as before. Sitting directly across from the bars is Ryx. Both gloves are back on, his veins back to their normal eerie blue color, and hollow bags cradle his eyes. How long have I been out?

I pluck at my ruined shirt and sit up, wincing. “What did you do to me?” I rasp, throat drier than ever.

One knee is bent, and he rests his arm over it. He holds something in his left hand, eyes locked on it. It’s then I register the absent weight around my neck. My tag. He has my tag. “I never thought I’d see you again,” he whispers. “I hoped I never would.”

“A little late for that,” I grumble, examining my injuries. Whatever he injected into me doesn’t affect my healing, at least. I’ll be good as new by tomorrow.

He huffs a bitter laugh.

The man still hasn’t spared me a single glance. Instead, he strokes a lazy thumb over my tag, almost like he’s finger-reading the letters. Just like when we were kids—when he was learning to read for the first time. A thousand questions demand to be asked, but I doubt he’ll answer any.

“You’re stronger than I thought,” he tells me, almost with a wistful admiration. “I’ll have to tinker with the formula. Most leeches can’t use their mastery for a week. You broke through in a handful of hours.”

“Is that why they have you then? An Other?”

Those steel eyes flick up.

“How did you get here? You…they had you chained up.” I can’t help but ask. I’ve spent years worrying about him.

“Where is the secret entrance?”

Seriously? This again? I scrub a filthy hand down my even filthier face. “I already told you. I don’t know.”

“Wrong answer.” He stuffs my tag in his pants pocket and pulls out the fucking needle again.

I back up, spine clashing with the bars. “Do not put any more of that poison in me.”

“Then fucking answer me!” he screams. “Tell me what I need to know! You owe me that much!”

“What do you think will happen when you march a bunch of humans into a Telex community, Ryx?”

He snarls and stands. “Hold still,” he grits out, reaching through the bars.

I jerk away, scrambling to the nearest corner. The man chases me around. The more I dodge his advances, the stronger his scent becomes. Typically, alpha pheromones don’t work on me. Thanks to my missing womb, I’m considered immune to it. But it’s never been that way with Ryx. His perfume calls to me on a primal level, demands I cower to it. I used to love how submissive I wanted to be for him. Now it’s just an inconvenience.

My movements slow, and I end up caught from behind.