Weeks passed. Then months.

Drip drip drip. A steady sound echoed at the far side of the room. Perhaps a leaky pipe or a broken wall. The lights always stayed on now, bright white through day and night cycles.

No one came for her.

Once a day, smoke hissed into the cage and knocked Jàden unconscious. She’d wake with the tank clean of her body fluids, a glass of water near the locked lower grate, and a ration bar set on the far side of her cage.

It tasted like dry, mealy oats, but was supposedly packed with enough calories and vitamins to sustain a high-energy Enforcer. She glared at the vile thing. It was all they fed her, and she hated it.

Jàden stretched her toes, each one covered in grime. She’d been wearing shoes one day, and the next they were gone. If she could ever run from this place, she’d have to do it in bare feet.

Fingers of madness caressed the edge of her thoughts. She rolled onto her back and stared at the endless sea of white. The nothing.

Jàden pressed a hand to her stomach, wishing she could dull the ache. She’d give anything for a warm meal and a hot shower.

Her heart swelled with grief. No way out. No reason to try anymore.

She never saw color. Never saw darkness. Jàden wasted away between glass walls while Bradshaw’s precious tank remained spotless.

She never saw another person or heard more than the drip in the distance. Jàden tried to hold herself together, humming songs to Guardians she didn’t believe in.

“Kale’s coming,” she told herself. He won’t let me die.

The door to the room slid open, followed by silence. Jàden rolled to her knees as a lab tech in a white jacket slipped into the room and sealed the door. “Shit, you’re her.”

“Help me.” Jàden pressed a hand against the glass, noting the flame and circle emblem on the woman’s jacket. “Please, get me out of here.”

The woman’s gaze darted around the room as if she expected to be ambushed, then raced over to Jàden’s cage, a palm-sized camera in her hand. “Quick, we don’t have long. Tell everyone who you are.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Where’s Kale?” She stood on her toes, trying to see over the woman’s head for him. Any moment now, he’d come charging in and save her.

“Tell me your name. Say it out loud.” The woman slapped the glass. “Wait, are you bleeding? What are they doing to you?”

She hadn’t bled in months except for a small scratch. Jàden looked down, blood soaking the inside thighs of her pants. She wiped her hand along her thigh without thinking, then pressed her palm to the glass. “Please, get me out of here! Tell Sergeant Jason Kale I’m alive.”

The watch on the woman’s wrist beeped. “Shit, I gotta go.”

“No!” Jàden screamed. “Don’t leave me here.”

Sobbing until her chest was too painful to bear, Jàden screamed as loud as she could, hoping somewhere out there Kale was racing toward her and would find her.

“I’ll get this message to him.” The woman kept backing up, but didn’t point the camera away.

“I’m not a spectacle!” she screamed. “Just let me out of here. Tell Kale they’re trying to open the inner gate. He’ll know what it means. Please!”

She dropped to her knees as the woman slid out the door. Sobbing against the glass, Jàden startled when gunfire erupted in the hall.

“Come back,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be in a cage.”

Bradshaw strode into the room, tapping on his data pad as if nothing in the world bothered him. He slid it into the console and pressed several keys.

“Kale’s going to save me.” She traced her eyes over Bradshaw’s features. A firm jaw, clean shaved, and brown hair spiked on his head. He never even glanced at her. “Please don’t drown me. Or hurt me.”

Uploading… flashed across his screen. Jàden narrowed her eyes. What data could he get from her cage’s console that wouldn’t show up on his computer? “Tell me anything, you cold-hearted prick. What possible data could you find interesting?”

She might have well been asking the walls why they were white, or why only two of the blast shields were ever used as a computer console.

Primal anguish crawled over her skin. She scooted toward Bradshaw and pressed her palm against the barrier. “I saw that hideous thing rip a hole in your spine. You should have died in the core.”

The screens on the wall lit up with her brain activity, a web of capillaries and neurological connections. But something else lay beneath it. Several violet threads trailed away from her thoughts in a dozen directions.

But her words must have struck a chord as he turned his cold gaze on her.

“Download complete,” the machine chimed.

Bradshaw didn’t give her another glance as he slid the tablet out of the console and strode toward the door. Whatever information he’d just gathered, maybe it was something he didn’t want anyone else seeing. Or it had to do with those strange violet lines in her brain.

The screen shifted back to white like the rest of the room.

She’d gotten him to look at her, just for a moment. What had she said? She couldn’t imagine he’d care about her feelings on whether he lived or died.

“Come back.” She cried out, tears on her cheeks.

Maybe he still had nightmares about what happened to him. Or maybe chronic pain in his neck and spine now. “Serves you right, bastard.”

The door slid closed. She crumpled to the ground, caressing a thumb across her arm for comfort.

“Kale,” she whispered. “I’m going to die in this place.”