Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(37)

A woman is standing over me wearing a long white lab coat. She’s got red hair and a pinched face. At first I think she’s a dream, but she yelps when my eyes focus on her. Dreams aren’t startled by the dreamer. I try to bolt upright, but I’m strapped to a bed. I’m not in my cell. I’m in something similar to an emergency room, though it doesn’t look very sterile. The walls and floor are concrete, and it’s cold. My nurse is not happy.

“She needs more Pentothal.” Her voice is tinged with panic.

A soldier is on me, holding down my arms while she injects something into my shoulder. I want to fight back, but I feel like I’m melting.

“The gas should have done the job,” the solider barks at her. “You said it would work.”

“Well, it didn’t! She’s like one of the kids,” she snaps. “She’s tougher than a normal person. Just relax. I’ve got it covered. Now help me. We’ve got to get her ready.”

“Please help me,” I beg, but I’m already sinking into sleep as the nurse and the soldier look down on me.

“She hurt her head,” the soldier says.

The woman sighs.



There’s a gurgling sound nearby that causes me to jerk. The rats must be coming up the hole again. I struggle, but the guard holds me still. The tinkling is coming from bubbles rising inside a bag of liquid that swings back and forth above my head.

“Where am I?” I say, but my voice sounds slow and flimsy.

“She’s not supposed to be talking, is she?” another voice asks. “Give her another dose.”

“And stop her heart?”

“If she wakes all the way up—”

“Calm down, Calvin,” the nurse demands. “She doesn’t have the strength of a pureblood.”

“How do you know? Just because the others seem normal, that doesn’t mean she is. She’s got one of those gloves,” the guard warns.

“They’ve turned it off, so relax. You make this job impossible sometimes.”

“I didn’t sign on for this,” Calvin complains.

“Who did?” the woman snaps. “If you hate it so much, ask for a transfer. I hear there’s an opening in the tank. You can feed those things. They’ll give you your own bucket of chum.”

The guard growls. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“Then stop whining and do your job,” the nurse scolds.

I hear a buzzing sound, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from, only that it’s near my ear.

“All right, let’s get this over with,” the nurse says. “The client wants to see the product, and she can’t be a filthy mess.”

There’s a tickling sensation on the back of my skull that is curious, but I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.



Now I’m nude, strapped down to a table, and terrified.

“Stop shivering. You have to be still,” a voice broadcasts from a speaker I can’t see.

“What are you doing to me?”

“We’re taking x-rays,” the voice explains.

I hear buzzing and I jump, sure that I’m about to be shocked like so many times before.

“I told you to hold still,” the voice complains.

“I’m trying. I’m so cold.”

After x-rays, Calvin and the nurse enter and wheel me to another table. They transfer me to it, then slide the table, with me on it, into a tiny hole like I’m entering a casket.

“The MRI takes an hour, so lie still,” Calvin snaps.

“I have a lot of electricity in my brain,” I say as I fade. “When I was little, the doctors said so.”



I don’t know how long I was out, but it was long enough for them to put me back in my cell. I feel groggy and soft. Chemically induced sleep must not be as good as the real thing.

They’ve given me a bath and put me into a black jumpsuit with the White Tower logo on it. There’s something on my head, too—a bandage, and when I reach up to see if they’ve stitched the wound, I realize my head has been completely shaven. All that’s left is stubble.

I sob. I know it’s stupid. My hair is the least of my problems right now, but I can’t help myself. It’s not from vanity. It’s the vulnerability, the helplessness, that crushes me. These people can take whatever they want from me. I have no control over anything, not even a single strand of hair.





Chapter Twelve


I’M ON THE SHORELINE IN MY BARE FEET, and the cold Atlantic water swallows my toes. Stretched out before me is a turbulent brew, spinning in the sky. A storm is coming, one that promises to wipe Coney Island off the map.

“Are you finally ready?” Fathom says, materializing by my side. He slips his hand in mine, and I hold on to it tightly.

“To do what?”

“To fight.”

Suddenly, the black wave that destroyed my home is hanging over me. Ghost, Luna, Thrill, and Arcade appear, all of them whole and alive. Ghost takes my other hand in his long, white spindly claw and turns his bulbous eyes to mine. His mouth is grim.

“You are not allowed to give up, halfling,” he hisses to me.

“I can’t do this.”

Black figures break through the wall of liquid, but they are not Rusalka. They are soldiers in White Tower Securities uniforms. Their claws shift back and forth from sharp talons to M-16s.