Eternal Faith - Book 4 (The Ruby Ring Saga) (13 page)

She
rolled her eyes. “As if you care.”

I
looked into her eyes. “I do. Like I said, we’ve all been looking for you.”

“I’ve
been captured in battle before, but never have I been tortured and prodded and
treated the way these evil beings have treated me. I have even been slapped
around a little and threatened, as if these underlings have the right to treat
royalty that way!”

“They
don’t recognize your status here.”

“Of
course. Here, I’m nothing but a test subject.”  

“Why
did you stay here, in California? Why didn’t you just go back to your husband?”

“My
husband?” She laughed. “First of all, darling, we’re separated. I didn’t
mention it before because I was sure you’d think it was a ploy to win back your
Victor’s heart. Also, like you, Ethano wants my head. I’d rather hide out here,
in this hellish, confusing world, than go back to mine and face my fatal fate
at his hands. In spite of the monsters holding me prisoner here, I’ve become
very fond of the luxuries this time and place have to offer. Who would ever
want to go back through that miserable portal?”

“Victor,
for one,” I said.

“Hmm.
Well, that makes him an idiot. Truthfully, though, I’d rather not discuss him
and your happy life together.”

“Fine.
How did they find you?” I asked.

“As
my poor luck would have it, I somehow ran into one of those blue-ringed Immortals.
He turned me in to the others, and the next thing I knew, they were pulling off
a blindfold and I was here.”

“Any
idea who has us?”

“They
call themselves The Fifth Sanctum,” she said.

“What
do they want?”

She
blew out a breath, obviously irritated. “I’ve got no idea, Sarah. My guess is
they’re going to eventually kill us once they have all the data they need.” A
frown was perched between her brows. “I don’t know what world I’d fair better
in. Ethano wants me dead in my old world, and blue-ringed Immortals aim to
destroy me here. Where are any of us supposed to go? Even if we do escape this
dreadful place, are we to spend the rest of our lives running, hopping between
worlds to save our heads?”

“We’re
not welcome in this world as Immortals,” I said.

“Obviously.
They’re quite threatened by us.”

I
started feeling along the padded walls. “Let’s look for a way to escape.”

She
laughed and rolled her eyes at me yet again. “I’ve already tried that, more
times than you know.”

“Well,
it never hurts to try again,” I reasoned. “Maybe the hundredth time will be a
charm.”

She
sighed. “Fine. You can stay on one side, and I’ll stay on the other.”

“Hey,
listen, Della. You might hate me. I get that. But right now, we need to put our
differences aside and figure out where we are and how to get outta here.”

She
shook her head. “It’s really no use. I’ve tried everything, from seduction to
tricks to hunger strikes. Nothing has worked thus far, so I’m sure you can’t
just march in here and—”

Tired
of her constant verbal lashing and quitter attitude, I cut her off. “How do
they paralyze our powers?”

“I’m
not sure, but I don’t know why Victor doesn’t go back with an army of them and
paralyze all Ethano’s men. It’d be the perfect way to take him down,” Della
suggested.

“For
starters, they want to kill us, so I don’t think they’re gonna flip sides and
be our allies. Still, it’s strange that they have the same power as Ethano. Do
you think he’s connected to them somehow?” I asked.

“I
doubt it. Paralyzing an Immortal’s power is his extra-special gift,” Della
said.

“Sure,
he tells everyone that,” I said, “but we both know he isn’t exactly the most
honest man there is. What if he’s really from here, part of this Fifth
Sanctum?”

“His
ring is ruby red, not blue.”

“Della,
that fiend is a master of deception. What if he’s already been here and somehow
got in with the Immortals? Victor said he was married to King Edward’s daughter,
so he obviously got the ring that way.”

“Why
does any of this matter anyway?”

“Because
if he is in cahoots with them, they might hand us over to him, that’s why?”

“Cahoots?”

I
sighed and rolled my eyes, a bit tired of the time-span language barrier.
“Never mind. All I’m saying is that he wants me and my baby, and he wants to
kill you. What if they’re going to hand us over to him once they get all the
data and info they need?”

“I
highly doubt Ethano even knows of these people. If he did, he’d be over here
trying to rule. You know how power hungry he is.”

Suddenly,
the door cracked open, and two men wearing black came in. I jumped to my feet.

“Enjoying
your stay?” the guard said to me, holding up a stun gun.

“Listen,
I’m not going to cause any trouble,” I promised him, holding up my hand and
hoping he and his weapon would keep their distance.

He
stopped and met my gaze, and for a split second, I actually thought I saw a
spark of humanity.

“Would
it be possible for you to give me my purse? It has my prenatal vitamins in it.”

He
let out a long cackle. “Prenatal? You needn’t worry about that. You don’t
actually think your fetus will survive the experiments, do you?”

I
gaped in horror, and before I could say another word, I felt a thump on my arm
as an electric jolt shot through me. It was as if I’d stuck my finger in a
light socket or grabbed hold of an electric fence. I crashed back and hit the
padded wall, then slid against it down to the ground. I couldn’t move, and my
muscles cramped, twitched, and knotted. It was as if I’d been frozen, and pain
flooded every square inch of my body. Everything burned, like I was being
slowly roasted over a fire, and I hoped with all my aching heart that my little
boy wasn’t feeling any of it as he nestled inside my belly, just trying to
grow.

T
he
blue-ringed Immortals dragged Della’s limp body out the door. I gasped for
breath. I was no threat to anyone, so I couldn’t imagine why they would treat
me that way.
I’m seven months pregnant. What on Earth could I possibly do to
them?

Hours
passed, but Della never returned. I feared for her wellbeing, and I knew I was
next. My mind desperately scrambled, trying to figure out an escape plan. The
worst part was that they weren’t giving us any information, and I had no idea
what they wanted from us or why we were there. I tried to take a deep breath
and calm my trembling hands.

Finally,
later that night, they returned Della to our padded prison. I stroked her hair
as I waited for her to regain consciousness, all the while wondering what
horrible things they’d done to her. I wondered where she’d been all day, and I
couldn’t wait for her to wake up, because I had a million questions to ask her.

When
gunshots rang through the air, I jumped, startled by the loud and unexpected
blast. For one brief, fluttering moment of ridiculously naïve hope, I thought
my king in shining armor had come to rescue me, but then I saw the television
built into the wall high above our heads, playing an old Western cowboy
shoot-‘em-up movie, Della’s entertainment between torture sessions.

Her
eyes fluttered open. “Sarah?” she whispered. Groaning, she rubbed a hand over my
face, lingering on my chin a tad too long. The way her eyes moved back and
forth across the room without fixing on anything in particular told me her mind
was just as foggy as she looked.

I
touched her arm. “Della, are you okay?”

She
tried to stand but swayed to the side, then propped herself against one of the
rubber walls. “I’m fine.”

“Oh
my gosh, what’d they do to you?” I asked.

“They...”
She met my gaze, terror in her eyes, clearly unwilling to elaborate. “We’ve must
get out of here, Sarah.”

I
tried to remain calm. “They won’t give me my pills. I need them to stay
balanced, and I already missed my morning dose. I planned to take it at work
because I was running late.”

“Are
you going to short circuit?” she whispered.

“Maybe.”
I shook my head. “Let’s not think about that now though. Can you tell me what’s
happening?”

She
pointed to a vein in her left arm. “They put something sharp here, like that
shot they gave me.”

“An
IV?”

“What
is that?”

“Did
they stick a needle in your arm?” I asked.

“I-I’m
not sure. I just need to go to sleep,” she said. “I’m so, so tired,” she said
before she lay down and drifted to sleep in seconds.

I
started to pace, still wondering what the heck was going on. I had so few clues
to go on: the IV they’d stuck Della with, the shot they’d given me, and that
strange doctor in the lab coat. I could only surmise that we were in some kind
of medical or scientific facility, where the Immortals were trying to study us.
A cold chill shot through me as I realized I’d probably be next.

I
gripped Della’s hand. “We’ll get out of this, Della. Just hang on.”

Then,
in that very second, something happened that I was sure our captors hadn’t
counted on: I had a vision of Victor and saw him frantically looking for me. As
it happened, I recalled the Christmas tree lighting and the vision I’d had
then, when they were chasing us. Even though they were paralyzing most of my
powers, they could do nothing about my special power of sight. The visions
couldn’t really help me from a physical standpoint, and they had a mind of
their own and came and went when they felt like it, but it was some relief to
know they couldn’t take that away from me.  

“Sarah...”
Della said. Her speech was slightly slurred, her pupils dilated, and she still
seemed drugged, and it wasn’t long before she passed out again.

Anger
rose inside me, choking me as I thought about what they might do to me.
How
can they treat a pregnant woman like this? Don’t they care about Alexander, an
innocent baby who hasn’t even taken his first breath yet?

Suddenly,
out of the blue, the next vision came. I was lying in an operating room, unable
to move. Something cut into my wrists, and I realized I was
buckled down with
heavy leather straps, also across my neck and ankles. I flexed my arms and
strained against the restraints, but they wouldn’t budge. My heart spiked with
the knowledge that I was trapped. I craned my neck to catch a closer glimpse of
what the doctor was seeing, but then wished I hadn’t. On the cart was a tray
loaded with all sorts of medical instruments. The doctor picked up a device that
looked like a dentist’s drill, and my breath quickened. The drill spun,
emitting an ear-splitting, grinding
whir
that made it impossible for me
to think straight. A startled gasp escaped my lips, and my heart hammered
against my ribcage. The mad scientist was about to operate on a pregnant woman,
and he didn’t seem to have any qualms about it.

Confusion
and shock overwhelmed me. Every cell in my body screamed for me to run, but I
didn’t know how to free myself from the straps or where to run to if I did. My
eyes darted all over the room, searching for an exit or some way to escape, but
it seemed impossible.  

I
barely dared to breathe as the doctor’s cold, green eyes moved from the nurses
to me and then back to them again.

He
glared at the nurse, angry. “Sedate her.”

With mounting
horror, I yelled, “No!” I struggled and cried for them to stop. I had to do
something other than just lie there and wait for those monsters to kill me, to
destroy my baby, but my body refused to obey my brain’s commands, and my eyes
remained squeezed shut. My skin turned into goosebumps where it touched the
cold metal exam table. As the nurses hovered over me, my arms flexed against
the restraints, and a scream remained trapped in my throat.

One nurse came
over and injected a needle of clear fluid in my IV port, but she didn’t bother
telling me what it was. She looked into a camcorder that stood on a tripod.
“Video Diary, Wednesday, June thirtieth, 2013. The time is two p.m. We will
inject the Immortal test subject with a serum laced with Guardian poison.”

I gasped. That
stuff was deadly.

The nurse
continued. “The subject is hostile and...”

I tuned her out
as the green-eyed doctor stared intently at me on the table, like a snake
leering down at me. When his fingers brushed across my face, I jerked my head
sideways and struggled again, to no avail. He was pure evil, and the thought of
him touching me made my skin crawl. Hard angles dominated the doctor’s face as
he met my gaze. “You’re such a rare find. Do you realize how precious you are
to me?”

“Get away from
me!” I turned my head, and my gut twisted as he stroked my cheek like a prized
possession; his icy touch made me shiver.

“Your unique DNA
may be the key to saving my people.” The doctor looked me up and down. “You’re
the perfect specimen, Sarah.” He then rummaged through the tray of medical
equipment and picked up a large syringe the size of a turkey baster. “This is a
one-of-a-kind serum I’ve been dying to test on the right subject, the right DNA
strands.”

“Please!” I
begged. “Don’t do this. Please have mercy on me for the sake of my unborn
child.”

He squeezed the
syringe until a fountain of green liquid spurted high up in the air. At that
moment, he looked like the Immortal vision of a mad scientist from some old
horror film.

I winced as a
drop or two of the serum landed on my face, and I almost expected my skin to break
out into boils or hives or start melting off where the green ooze, almost the
same color as his serpent-like eyes, had made contact. My jaw dropped as I
stared at the long needle, its menacing tip glistening green, like poison. I tried
to mentally prepare myself for whatever it was that I was about to experience,
but I wasn’t sure how. My jaw clenched as my eyes remained fixated on the
syringe.

The doctor
straightened his broad shoulders and peered at me with his emerald eyes that
seemed to pierce my very core, making me shiver. “The drugs the nurse gave you
should kick in any second,” he said. “When they do, this injection will not
seem nearly as intimidating, Sarah.”

Jolting shudders
traveled through my body. Being sliced open on some lab table like a frog in a
high school biology class was not high on my list of lifetime goals.

The doctor
flicked the huge syringe with his forefinger to work out any air bubbles, then stepped
forward, a frown perched between his brows. I held my breath as the needle
connected with my skin, piercing the thin flesh on my neck. My heart beat
faster, prepared for the oncoming pain. It felt as if I’d been injected with a
stream of ice water, too cold and unnatural. I grimaced, trying to not scream
as I forced my legs to stay in place. A burning sensation crept through my
body.

I inhaled
deeply, knowing some kind of poison was coursing through my veins. In the blink
of an eye, the burning sensation dissipated, but it was still hard to breathe.

“Where’s Dr.
Andrews?” a man demanded to know. “He’s supposed to be doing this procedure
with me.”

“He’s
helping unload a shipment of medical supplies that just arrived,” a soft voice
said, “then he’s going to load more supplies for the others.”

“Good.
In that case, he can deliver the vials before he drives into town,” the man
said.

“Can’t
he go to town first? That’s 100 miles out of the way, and our people are in
dire need of those supplies.”

“Not
to mention, they have to be kept chilled,” another person chimed in. “Driving
through a hot desert isn’t going to help.”

Monitor
alarms beeped, lights flashed red, and a woman frantically announced, “We’re
losing the baby!”

“We’re
losing them both!” a man shouted.

I
was pale, my lips were blue, and I wondered if I had actually died already. I
was mortified to see the doctor’s towering frame looming over me, his face
solemn.

“Don’t
just stand there, people! Someone grab the crash cart!” a frantic nurse yelled.

“We
can do an emergency C-section and maybe save the infant, but I’m afraid there’s
little hope of rescuing the mother.”

The
man in charged peered down at me and shook his head. “It is not the baby I
need. We must focus on saving Sarah instead.”

Anger
boiled up inside me, and my cheeks flushed hot.

“But
we can’t just let the baby die, Doctor.”

The
loud, annoying beeping suddenly stopped, only to be replaced with a long,
monotone beep that was all too reminiscent of death scenes in movies.

“We’re
losing her!” a woman shouted. “We’ve got a flatliner!”

I’d
seen a hundred episodes of
ER
and
Grey’s Anatomy
, and I knew
exactly what that dull sound and that ominous, horizontal like on the EKG
meant: cardiac arrest. They had broken my heart, quite literally.

The
doctor looked sternly at the nurse. “Save the mother. The infant’s wellbeing is
secondary to hers.”

I
shuddered at the sound of his words. I felt my heart quickening as I took in
all the tiny details: his stiff, starched lab coat; the way his stethoscope
dangled around his neck; his evil green eyes; his black hair slicked back in
such a precise style that I could have measured the distance between the
strands with a ruler; and his pale face, like a ghost’s, the complexion of
someone who was sick and fighting off an infection. My eyes absorbed
everything, searching for something—anything—that might come in handy later.

“I
told you she was unstable,” another man said, “but you’re so insistent that this
race of Immortals is the answer to all of our problems.”

“They
should’ve just stayed in their own world. Didn’t they know it was dangerous to
come here?”

“I
don’t think they were even aware of us.”

“Can’t
we travel to their realm, the world they come from, and find more suitable
specimens? Surely there are plenty there.”

“We’ve
tried that. We can’t get in, or else the woman is lying about where the
entrance is.”

“We’ll
have to put down the other woman, but our Sarah, here, is the perfect specimen.
We just have to figure out how to stabilize her energy.”

The
heart monitor finally began beeping again.  

“The
mother is stabilized,” a woman said, “but we did lose the baby.”

My
heart thudded against my ribcage as I came to the realization that my precious
baby, mine and Victor’s little Alexander, was dead at their hands. I’d never
felt such grief, and even in my panicked, drugged state, it washed over me like
a huge tidal wave. Right there in that hospital bed, I vowed that I’d make
every single one of them pay. I didn’t know how or when, but I would make them
pay.

“Giving
her poison from the Guardians should’ve killed her,” a woman said.

“It’s
diluted,” the doctor said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Really?
Because you just killed the baby and she barely survived.”

“Run
an autopsy on the baby. I’d like some DNA samples.”

“Yes,
Doctor,” another woman said.

A
jolt ran through me, causing my breathing to falter. They were going to dissect
my son like he was some kind of biology experiment, as if killing him wasn’t
enough. I could not ponder how uncaring, how unremorseful The Fifth Sanctum were.
I imagined they’d sacrificed the lives of many innocent people for the sake of
their so-called research, the most recent being my little boy. My stomach
clenched. The doctor, heartless monster that he was, had killed my baby without
so much as batting an eye.

I
opened my eyes and my vision was over. Alarm tore through me as I snapped back
into reality, tears running down my face. My heart thundered inside of me, as
if I’d been hit with lightning or those maniacs had shocked me with their stun
gun again. I had returned to California in the hopes of keeping my baby safe
from Ethano’s foul plans, but in the end, it would prove to be a fatal decision
for little Alexander. A trickle of sweat ran down my back, and rivers of tears
dripped off my cheeks and onto my pillow.
Maybe we should have taken our
chances with Ethano,
I thought.
At least he wouldn’t let my baby die
.
But even if hindsight was twenty/twenty, my vision had told me that it was too
little too late, and I feared that Alexander’s life was doomed.