Capítulo 3: 3. The Highwaymen.
We drove for four hours. Damien was quiet—thank God. Usually, he had chronic vocal diarrhea. I tried to wrench myself away, full of energy and ready to escape. We drove behind an extensive building. Now I tried to think about why he had to deliver me here. Was he working with them or was he in some sort of debt to them?
Damien watched me through the mirror and said, "Well, I do work for Sark, and this is my chance to prove my worth by delivering to you. Don't worry, I will be there too, to work on you. What comes to my nano molecules, well, you see, those shells react to stress, so this might just stress those triple shells enough to cause them to start to leak and give you various medical issues. Not infection at first, but there can be a lot of different problems for you and since Damon is out of your life, well, you have Adam and Charles when they are not fucking with Mariella, I mean."
How the hell did he know that, too? Was there some surveillance in our houses or what? Too many questions and my future didn't look too bright at all.
He stopped the car by the gate. There was some sort of comm device where to speak. Damien opened the window, pressed the button, and said, "Cargo on board. I'm coming to loading bay one."
The gate slid aside, and Damien drove the car through it and along the service road behind the building. He pulled in front of loading dock one and turned the car off. He then exited the car and headed towards the men in the doorway.
Mr fucking Sark. And that damn Indian man who was uncomfortably familiar. Damien chatted with the men for a moment, and all three came to the car.
Damien opened the doors and jumped in. "You're refreshed. Excellent. Just the way you need to be. This will be so much fun that you do not know at all. We begin to test you right away. But first, you see, Sark and others do not know about my little experiment with you, so I need to take this off, and even if you try to explain something to them, I guess they would think you are crazy or something."
He opened the bubble wrap, pulled it out from under me, and just put a sheet over me. Every last drop of jelly had been absorbed, and Damien felt my body over carefully and was pleased. He removed the stretcher and rolled it down the ramp again.
Mr. Sark came to watch, " Well, well, well, we meet again, long time no see."
He touched my liver, and I gasped. "Are you sore? Good thing, to have once again gotten some enzymes from you. That was the purest platinum that we came up with, so it will be very efficient for our purposes. Damien here knows so much about your anatomy and physiology. He will be my number two in no time at all. "
I said nothing as I continued to writhe in the shackles. The men carried me inside the facility and strapped me to a stretcher in the middle of one room.
Twenty people came in. Damien paralyzed my vocal cords so I couldn't speak and, took off his jacket and shoes, habitually put on his Crocs, and pulled on his lab jacket. D. Salvatore was embroidered on his chest.
People started taking blood, blood sugar, and blood pressure. I was auscultated, and a portable X-ray machine was brought into the room, and lots of scans were taken of me—even my teeth. I tried to get free, but these had springs in them and long spikes so no go to pull my wrists free.
I did not yet use my new power as I knew I had only a limited supply and I would save it a little better time to work. Now there were too many people, and too many drugs, and not a good time to reveal all my abilities at once.
Damien seemed to be showing Sark something, and I realized that the jelly machine was there. Great. I was getting sick and tired of jelly and jelling. Damien seemed to be explaining the different jelly types and their bases. He had perfected jellying to the next level, and I saw other victims in another room when one scientist opened the door across the hall. There were several of them in beds and not moving.
Soon, Sark left the room and came back a moment later with a cardboard box full of drug vials. They conversed about pharmacokinetics in my case and Damien had used Damon's knowledge about my system as he explained to Sark how I would chop down drugs as fast as I could and there could be all of sorts of new compounds in my blood.
He also told Sark how I would get tolerance if the same drug was used all the time, but since he always changed his jelly a bit, it worked, keeping me sedated but aware. Sark was not so sure that he wanted to keep me aware because it was obvious that there were a lot of other victims, too. Sark had several new drugs to be tested, and he was ready to test the use of jelly, as Damien was more or less an expert on it.
Damien showed him how to make different strengths of jelly, and before long he came and began to habitually gel my feet and hands, then the base of my skin. Finally, a jelly was made in my abdominal cavity. Sark felt how the jelly moved and for some reason always pressed on my liver. The first few jellies didn't have any effect at all. Of course, there was an enzyme collection underway, too. From my blood, too. It was again some sort of machine where my blood ran and enzymes were sucked out of it. Dialysis from hell.
After each jelling session, a thermal blanket was put over me, and after two hours, tests and measurements were taken. After I had been there for several days, maybe a week, Mr. Sark removed my liver and carefully sucked out all the enzymes. There were a lot of them. They had been sucking my enzymes from my blood the whole time and I could feel it too. They concluded that the pain from the platinum had caused my enzyme production to explode. The pain was needed; it caused enzymes to multiply.
I then grew a new liver, which again had platinum. Sark was unhappy when the drugs didn't work, and he went for the next ones. He pressed hard several times a day into my liver, causing me to black out from the pain. The next drugs were the new generation of Panic Pharmaceuticals. Well, the pharmaceuticals put me in a state of pharmaceutical paralysis, where I don't know friends from foes; I have no sense of touch, I just go around destroying.
Usually, when I was feeling enough panicky, I'd always run away. But because I had now evolved into a whole new being, the Multiple, like I had dubbed myself, I had no idea how my new physiology would process these drugs at all. Now I wasn't even sure whether I would even get a pharmacological condition and, secondly, whether I could get away now.
Damien showed Sark a harder jelly that would be absorbed slower and longer. Sark decided to give it a try. Normally, a 1-milligram dose would put me in a drug-induced psychotic state. Sark put in a dose of 40 mg. Then Damien came in and started jelling it into my abdominal cavity.
My liver was in pain, I was trapped into this damn stretcher and I just could not get away; they had given me some sort of drug that messed my mind, so I was not so keen to find my rage or even remembered my new power at all. I was confused, helpless, and in pain. Not a good combo when someone is as powerful as I am.
Sark looked keenly as Damien filled me up with damn jelly. Sark gave him five more drugs to put in there, so a cocktail of panic pharmaceuticals would be effective to render me helpless. The abdominal cavity was one of Damien's favorite places to jelly.
From there, it would be quickly absorbed into the tissues and would be effective for up to a few weeks. The jelly was quickly inside me, and Damien showed him how to apply it so that it was as wide as possible over the area. The medical situation began to sneak up on me.
I could already feel the first tendrils of panic starting to take up residence in my mind. Next, Sark wanted to try another dream. A red dream. He put me on about 50 times that. Damien put it on my ribs and rubbed it in carefully. I started to feel cold as my body temperature began to drop. They used now hot air blowers to get jelly absorbed as fast as possible before the red dream would sink me into hypothermia.
Thirdly, Damien introduced Sark to the implant gun and implants. Sark put three implants with a brand new, very strong zoo animal anesthetic like elephant anesthetic. Damien shot them effortlessly into my abdominal aorta and activated them. One implant was strong enough to put down three full-sized elephant bulls, so the dose was huge.
I was feeling pretty wild. A medicated panic feeling washed over me and I reacted to it, and I blew all of my rage up to the surface, and then nothing felt anymore. My rage had evolved too. I used my willpower to boost it and I was a monster. The tearing pain in my liver was suddenly nothing. Neither was the chill I felt as the red sleep lowered my body temperature.
Not even the confused, tired feeling that started to take over when the implants started to absorb, too. My rage kept me going. I was not talking. My vocalizations were animalistic, and feline, and Damien just smiled at me. Then Sark wanted one more. He had new pathogens and antibiotics for them.
Damien showed him how to make jelly out of them. The bacterial jelly went into my abdominal cavity, my spinal cord, my genitals, my stomach, my intestines, between my organs, between my lungs and my heart, and even my brain. They used a few drugs to lower my immune system too so the infection could get a good hold.
Researchers began measuring how the infection spread every day. And it did. It didn't infect my brain, spinal cord, or reproductive system, but it did infect other organs. My liver was removed, and the enzymes were extracted. I sometimes had headphones in my ears. They programmed me, too, to hate Damon and Mariella. This was all Damiens's little play.
My temperature fluctuated between fever and hypothermia as the red sleep held on. I was in a panic, ready to leave, and soon I was in a deep coma. Damien showed everyone how to disabuse me of my hibernation and pack ties. Then the antibiotic came in a drip but didn't work, and neither did the next one. Programming continued, but it was not certain if would it hold on, or did it even affected me because my consciousness was all over the place.
None of the six antibiotics worked, and the infection took more and more control. But the higher my body temperature got, the more the panic medicine was absorbed. The fever was already causing delusions, and I just looked at Damon and Mariella, and then I took more of my rage out. I was nearing becoming a soulless killing machine and now I needed to get out. I also had targets. Damon and Mariella, but everyone else would die if they tried to stop me.
I was a soulless killing machine and nothing meant anything. I just needed to get away. To be safe, to kill those two. My rage intensified my drug anxiety and gave me strength. Damien had gone away, and so had Mr. Sark.
It was early night when I got the first shackle off. The second shackle didn't take long. I got moving. Sure enough, I had been gelled up again in the morning with new medications, well for faster gel. Also, now I had dark blue sleep stuffed inside me and another dose of large animal tranquilizer to kill three elephants in jelly. Few other implants to intensify my infection, so I was good to go.
All of it was absorbed, and I was a terminator. No bullet was felt, even though the guards hit me. My vampire fangs were fully exposed and oozing venom. One bite and the victim started foaming at the mouth and was dead in 20 seconds. They had forgotten my fangs altogether, and what I could do with them.
I took all the drugs I could find and destroyed all the data, but no doubt it might be on a cloud server somewhere. There were no victims anymore. Everyone had been killed. I had heard Damien and Sark talk about it. I found a car key and a car.
I got behind the wheel and started driving. I drove to the house in Chicago. It was a safe house. Now, I wanted to get to safety, to a nest in the dark, to hide. This was my safe place. I had no idea where I had been originally, but I was soon home, my home, not Damon's and Mariella's home.
I went inside, left the drugs somewhere in the house, and curled up in my old bedroom downstairs. This had been my original one. Not Damon's. He had fucked once with me in this room and after that; he had cleaned it, like it never happened.
The scene where he told me we were no more repeated itself in my mind repeatedly, just like some nasty loop. it was partially changed because of the drugs, the programming, and my rage too. Just thinking about Damon brought my rage to the surface. Damon had made his choice.
He took Mariella, not me, and what was worse, Charles was Mariella's protector and had already loved Mariella and Adam loved her too. The whole damn world loved Mariella. I felt one minute very lonely and then again my rage pushed through, got rid of my emotions, and burned them almost to nothing. There was only white-hot rage in my mind.
I wanted to kill anyone who threatened me. I could feel the poison dripping from my teeth when I thought of Damon and Mariella. I had never felt this insecure, and I was partly lucid, partly in a fever grip, and partly unconscious when drugs and everything crashed over me again.
I was safe. I needed safety foremost. I had gathered blankets, pillows, and mattresses from all over the house to make myself into a protective cave. I was cold when I curled up among the blankets. My feline side was onto the surface, so I made a den for myself. I don't need anyone. But deep down, I knew I had to make myself better because I was the only one I could trust.
The years I had taught myself that. Never show weakness. Be strong. Trust only yourself and, most importantly. Never, I mean, hang on to someone else like I hung on to Damon. Don't share everything. I knew I had to try to get through this on my own. I wouldn't be weak.
I had lost both Jake and Rob. I loved them more than Damon and Adam and they died, because of me. I had never dealt with those losses. I had just hidden them deep in my mind, not even thinking about them. I had one problem; I did not react and did not deal with anything anymore. I just sucked it all up, pressed it into my mind, and let it be there, so I could save humans, and be the leader.
It took a lot of time for me to change in this regard. Nowadays, I do react but not always, and when it comes to dealing with those losses, I haven't. I have told what happened, and I have written this book but I have never moved on. Our bond with Jake and Rob, well it had had almost purpose. It was their job or need to save me and protect me, and I have learned over the years just how much they loved me. How much a human could feel for me.
I felt my protective shell was just as strong, just as protective. No one would ever rip my heart out of my chest and stomp on it again. I had to be strong and independent to keep myself safe and never surrender to anyone's power.
I could almost hear Jake's voice telling to me get a grip and start to help myself, and Rob's too. I was sick. The fever brought all this shit back onto the surface, and I just did not have the energy to deal with it. I needed to suck it up, not be weak, and start to act. First, get a grip of this panic pharma feeling. Be clinical, start to put yourself in some sort of shape, and then move on.
I am not like Mariella, and I never will be again. Maybe once I was, but not anymore because it is a weakness, and when someone uses that weakness against you, it hurts badly. I was the leader; I had lost so many dear ones before and somehow when I remembered how bad it felt to lose Jake and Rob; it helped because that pain, which had been even worse than Damon's new wife, was brought to the surface. I realized I could use my feelings as power, to keep me going and move on.
My love for Damon had taken a big hit during the last few years, when Damien had done so much damage, and Damon had made me believe he was a monster. I had stopped loving him, full on. I had moved on and I realized that too. I was not so angry that Damon had another but for Charles and Adam. I had someone's two wonderful men, and I knew Mariella had taken them from me. So I did not have anyone else than myself.
At first, I tried to start slowly to get the pharmaceutical situation under control. Small steps. Then the fucking dreams. I knew I needed sugar. Fine, let's get ourselves together and walk to the kitchen to get all the sugar. My rage and my willpower helped a lot.
I was wondering who to call if the situation got critical. Colin was my number one and he would get me back to health. Somehow Samuel had been cranky, and distant for a long time, and he was more into his clinic than taking care of me. Mirella, I did not trust her at all. She was a full-on vampire bitch as there is, and someday she would be dealt with.
My plan of action was firstly simple: Eat sugar and wear lots of clothes because we don't keep our body temperature up. I took the jars and thought of Damon, and I bit all the poison out of the jars. I got 57 of those 50 ml jars. I was so furious. Then apparently the poison ran out or I couldn't do it anymore.
Then I'd have to work out a little something for that inflammation. That could be taken care of at medbay. Downstairs. I decided to regroup and put a lot of blankets around me. I had a hard time moving because I had stuffed ten layers of clothes on me.
I needed the phone, in case I would have to call Colin and ask him a few things. But then again paranoia from panic pharma struck, and I would not call Colin. I kept my phone with me, but my state of mind fluctuated wildly. From endless rage, I had redecorated our bedroom and clarified that I did not want Damon there, to almost clear my mind when I had reason in my mind too.
When I got downstairs, I knew what I had to do. In the medicine cabinet was some self-made dental stuff and from there I would take antibiotics for its other stuff. I couldn't take the fever medicine because the dreams were still on, and my body temperature was low. I needed to cannulate myself and that was difficult to do when your temperature was so low that you couldn't feel your fingers.
I needed to keep my temperature as high as possible to get my body to eliminate these drugs and this infection, too. The solution is an Incubator. Put yourself on a journey to recover and then in an incubator for as long as it takes for the meds to wear off.
My liver ached now and then. They had had time to put platinum in it or else an infection. I decided to make a nest to start in one of the hospital beds. I watched my straps they were already less than 100; I wondered if this would kill me eventually. It would be only right as I was so unpermitted stupid.
My normal self-blame came to the surface again when I was more lucid, but I had no idea how he had found me. I guess he had his ways, and I just hadn't taken him as an enormous threat as he had been. Now, to go to the gala and invite Damien to come up to me and properly announce to everyone that yes, I am coming. Victim here. Get it.
But that's okay. I'll survive. I'm a survivor. I permitted myself to take an antibiotic for a couple of days or until I had 45 straps left, then I would go to the incubator. I would call Colin before that to let him know I would be in the incubator. So if he happens to be free, he could come and check my situation, that is, unless Mariella got him first.
I had this feeling, almost voices whispering in my ears, to keep going, to be a doctor, not to give up, to think what's next, and somehow those voices helped. It was like they were whispers from the past.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder