A few days later, Emika was sitting down, staring at one of her wooden fingers, thinking no other thought than please move.

Please move. Please move. Please.

And that was because she figured that the one way to get out of this awful situation was on the off chance that, indeed, she’d be able to control her tree hand one day.

In the end, the choice Emika had made was, “You promised, so go with him. Worry about the rest later.” And now, she was indeed worrying, but not necessarily about herself.

Maxime — he insisted on being called by his first name — had brought her to a large, remote building. It was apparently somewhat his operational base.

“If things go well, you’ll be able to live in a better place eventually,” he had said, right after locking her into a small room in the basement. “It’s just that this is the only secure room I have here, and stashing you away in a place further from me would pose unnecessary risks to anyone involved. Additionally, I want to run some tests to get to know your curse.”

And with that, she was in a cell. And after leaving her inside, he hadn’t returned for over a day. At least, there was a makeshift toilet down here. Truth be told, she’d spent most of that first day asleep, still exhausted from all that had happened before.

However, her sleep didn’t prove to be very restful. She’d wake up several times feeling cold shivers. Sometimes, a chuckle. Maybe she was dreaming, or maybe there was something up with this stony, moist, damp smelling basement. It was even worse here than at Melisande’s place. Because at Melisande’s place, at least there was Melisande. Which promptly turned any prison into a respite.

Waking up groggily one last time, the pungent smell of mould in her nose, she finally decided it was time to get up. Having slept on parts of her growth she’d snapped off for makeshift bedding, she had a few scratches on her arm and cheek, but at least she wasn’t freezing.

She tried to make sure that whatever sounds had bothered her in her sleep were gone now, and apparently, they were. So, now, there was nothing left to do.

Nothing except for plotting her escape.

Essentially, there were three ways she could play this situation. She could either do whatever he said and live a life in peaceful, lonely and boring captivity — that is, until her curse had replaced her with wood completely, which might not take all that long at this rate. In addition, that option would leave Melisande to rot in her own prison forever.

Or, Emika could try to escape. Break open the door somehow, or run away when Maxime pulled her out for another experiment. The issue with that was the ‘divination’ stuff people had been talking about. Emika figured, the moment she left, she could easily be found. So, in that case, she’d need to leave quickly, and go as far away as possible.

And lastly, of course, she could try to kill him.

Which would be a lot easier if she could use both her hands.

And thus, she sat there, trying to move one of her wooden fingers.

Other than that, there was one more idea that kept her going. Which was that, maybe, she was actually strong. As absurd as that sounded, there were some facts that pointed to that direction. And this wasn’t about the fact that she had some amount of muscle due to her gardening and bonsai work — these were useful, of course, but nothing that would really help her that much in a fight.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

More so, she suspected that her curse was making her stronger. And she thought that, based on the little test Maxime had conducted on her two days earlier, he might be feeling the same. Just remembering it already made Emika want to blow up. She needed to cut it out now.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

But, it had shown Emika one thing: She was resilient.

And looking back, that had been a pattern. The day her friends died, Emika had fallen down the stairs and hit her head, with no real consequence, except for being unconscious for a little. A day later, when trying to incinerate Eva’s remains, she was caught by the blast of fire. Still fine. She also had lost an entire arm after feeding it to the ring, and then boarded a train like nothing happened. In addition, there was no telling how strong the poison Victor had given her at the Research Branch actually was.

In other words, she was strong. And Maxime was onto her.

She pulled her ragged pants down to look at her thigh. Yep, there it was. A tiny growth of what almost looked like a small deadwood flower. And, as she touched it, she felt it move through her entire thigh right to the back side. Like a small cylinder of wood that had grown through her. Around it, her skin was a bit red, but didn’t hurt. In trying to pull and move the deadwood, she realised the smallest twigs were growing out from it inside her flesh, making sure that this replacement to her flesh was very firmly attached and couldn’t be removed.

After a while, she heard the second door unlock upstairs, and steps echoed as Maxime made his way down. Emika looked at him through the bars, as the indirect light from above illuminated him like some divine figure. Disgusting.

“Time for the second test,” he said. “Shouldn’t be too many more.”

Emika made a fist. “Wasn’t one damn time enough? Did you even find out fuck all? Clearly, none of you guys are actually competent at handling curses and magic. Let me try. How about you just give me some books on the topic, so I can learn it myself?”

“Want a lamp too?” he asked, and it was impossible to tell from his tone whether he was mocking her or actually offering.

With a click of the key, he opened the cell door and beckoned her out. Emika already knew the way — up the stairs, up the stairs again, then through a few corridors until they reached one of the main halls. On the ground, Maxime had carefully painted a range of circles, all originating from the same midpoint, which was where Emika was supposed to sit.

The circles had different sizes denoted on them, and by now, he had actually put a few more on. And within those circles were animals in cages. Today, mostly dogs.

That was how he set up his experiments to figure out Emika’s range.

Before the first trial, he had explained, “The thing is, I believe that in order to heal you, your curse saps energy from surrounding living beings. That means you are at your most dangerous when injured. Touching a living being directly, or being very close, likely always saps their energy, based on the account of the incident. This is a complication that’s a little unusual and needs to be explained, but first, we need to find out your radius.”

And now, it was time for the second trial.

“Okay, are you ready?” he said, preparing himself on his desk a few metres away as she sat down. Emika guarded her thigh on reflex. “Last time, your radius encompassed all the lines I’d drawn. Let’s see if it’s within this new distance. 15 Metres.”

And then, he took a gun, and shot. This time, it didn’t land in her thigh, but in her stomach instead.

She started gurgling, and sacked to the ground, bleeding out.

As he sat at his desk taking notes, she was just lying there, face against the ground. Her blood crept into a pool within her vision, right beneath her wooden hand resting next to her head, motionless, except for random twitches.

Of course, she knew that these were not experiments to find a cure. They were experience to figure out how she could be killed. That was exactly how she knew her resilience was an important asset.

She felt cold and dizzy. And yet, her conviction was clear, now more than ever. These weren’t conditions for anyone to live in. Completely unacceptable. The idea that Melisande had been in the hands of people like this made the little blood left in her body boil over.

She would break out of this prison, and rescue Melisande. And anyone standing in their way would be obliterated.

Focussing all her conviction on her tree hand, she finally did it. The finger moved.