My toes curl. My heels are pinned to the searing floor.
White-hot needles race up my legs, hips, and spine.
Inside, I’m howling.
Yet I don’t make a sound because my jaw is clamped shut. The electricity has taken me over.
I’m not in control of my own muscles.
Shaking, white stars burst in front of my eyes.
Stop, please stop.
My heart is hammering. Adrenaline is surging.
This is agony.
Pure. Devastating.
My powers wind through me desperate to escape, but whatever pheromone dampening and blocking shields the Facility has developed repress them.
Panicking, I feel trapped inside myself.
The Omega in me is weeping.
Please…
“Turn that off,” a clinical, dispassionate voice commands. “Take out your personal vendettas in your own time.”
The words are muffled.
My ears are ringing.
Suddenly, the current is cut off.
I let out a strangled gasp, which is caught in my throat.
I collapse onto my hands and knees, as the muscles in my legs release all at once like a marionette with its strings cut.
I take ragged breaths. I work to take stock of the damage.
Worryingly, my heart is still beating too fast and unevenly, skipping beats. I battle to slow my breathing and control it.
I won’t break.
I fucking won’t.
I reach with fingers, which are still twitching with aftershocks, to touch my soles and then wince at how sore they are.
My whole body aches.
I blink the flashing lights out of my eyes, shuddering when I see Mr. Baskerville, the warden, standing next to Greco at the entrance to my cell.
I should be relieved.
He must be the one who insisted on the electricity being turned off.
No one in the facility wants to see the warden, however, just the way that it’s never a good day when Fiorella turns up.