Skin Game (The Dresden Files, #15)(41)

They led me to the elevator and then down one level, to the floor where purging took place. I wondered if not finishing my own lunch would make that experience more or less unpleasant. To my surprise, though, we walked past the usual door and kept going to the end of the hall, where I’d never been. We passed closets labeled respectively as kitchen and office supplies and then continued on to doors that were ominously unmarked. It was into one of these that they took me.

This new room looked like the usual purging ones, save that the chair had strange arms on it. They were larger than the ones I was used to but still had restraints on them, which was all that mattered. Maybe this was the new upgraded model from wherever they got their torture devices from. Sheridan was waiting in the room for us, holding a small remote control. The guards strapped me into the chair and then, at a nod from her, left us alone.

“Well, hello, Sydney,” she said. “I must say, I’m disappointed to see you in trouble.”

“Are you, ma’am? I’ve been in purging a few times this week,” I replied, thinking of how the others had been incriminating me recently.

Sheridan made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “That? Come on, we both know it’s just the others playing their games. You’ve actually been doing remarkably well—until now.”

A spark of my earlier anger returned. Sheridan and the other authorities were well aware of when someone legitimately stepped out of line compared to when that person was simply being ganged up on. And she didn’t care.

I swallowed my rage and put on a polite face. “What exactly did I do, ma’am?”

“Do you understand what happened to Renee today, Sydney?”

“I heard she was re-inked,” I said carefully.

“The others told you that.”

“Yes.”

“And did they also tell you not to help her when she returned?”

I hesitated. “Not explicitly. But they made it clear in their actions they weren’t going to.”

“And don’t you think you should have followed their lead?” she pushed.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” I said, “but I thought my duty was to follow your instructions, not those of my fellow residents. Since neither you nor any other instructor told me not to help Renee, I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. In fact, I thought acting compassionately toward another human was something right. I apologize if I misunderstood.”

She scrutinized me for a long time, and I met her gaze unblinkingly. “You say all the right things, but I wonder if you mean them. Well, then. Let’s get started.”

With a push of the button, the screen came on, showing a typical picture of happy Moroi.

“What do you see, Sydney?”

I frowned, realizing she’d forgotten to inject me with the nausea-inducing drug. I certainly wasn’t going to call her attention to it, though. “Moroi, ma’am.”

“Wrong. You see creatures of evil.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I said nothing.

“You see creatures of evil,” she repeated.

This new turn of events left me uncertain how to proceed. “I don’t know. Maybe they are. I’d have to know more about these particular Moroi.”

“You don’t need to know anything except what I’ve told you. They are creatures of evil.”

“If you say so, ma’am,” I said cautiously.

Her face remained tranquil. “I need you to say so. Repeat after me: ‘I see creatures of evil.’”

I stared at the Moroi in the picture. It showed two girls, close to my age, who looked like they might be sisters. They were smiling and holding ice cream cones. Nothing about them looked evil at all, unless they were about to force that ice cream on some diabetic children. As I mulled this over, the armrest on my right suddenly clicked. The top of it slid back, revealing a hollowed out compartment below that was filled with some sort of clear liquid.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Do you see creatures of evil?” Sheridan said by way of answer.

I must have taken too long to answer, and Sheridan pushed a button on the remote control. The restraints that held my arm in place suddenly began to move, lowering my arm down. It stopped just as the bottom of my arm grazed that liquid and then began raising my arm back up.

Grazing was all that was required, however. I cried out in pain and surprise as a burning sensation spread over where my skin had touched the liquid’s surface. Whatever chemical was in it made it feel as though I’d just touched a pot of boiling water, searing my exposed flesh. Once my arm was away from the liquid, the pain began to slowly ebb away.

“Now then,” said Sheridan, far too sweetly after what she’d just done. “Say ‘I see creatures of evil.’”

She didn’t even give me a chance to respond before repeating the same procedure, letting my arm stay down a bit longer than before. Despite that, I was more prepared and managed to bite my lip to stop from crying out. The pain was there all the same, and I exhaled in relief when after a few moments, she raised my arm up and allowed me a small recovery.

It was short-lived, and she soon said, “Now say—”

I didn’t give her a chance to finish. “I see creatures of evil,” I responded quickly.

Triumph lit her features. “Excellent. Now let’s try a different one.” A new image came, this one showing a group of Moroi schoolchildren. “What do you see?”