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REVELATION 2:2

I know how thou canst not bear them which are evil. . . .

~ * ~

Alex was coming down the stairs.

She could sense him in the rhythm of the heartbeat she could already hear. He wasn't alone; the second set of footsteps, quiet as a cat, belonged to that boy who wisely chose a compound bow as his weapon. Others waited at the top of the stairs so that Alex might have some privacy with their guinea pig, the doctor among them, fidgeting in his eagerness to play his medical games with her body, as though she were a toy that felt no pain.

Deb squeezed her eyes shut. Didn't they realize?

The bars were thrown on the door and thin light spilled into the room. "Deb?" Alex's voice was hoarse.

"I'm here." Her response was cold. "Where's the doctor?"

Alex hesitated. "Upstairs. You—you don't have to do this."

She stepped out of the corner blackness, her presence enough to silence him and make C.J. finger the bow as the distance between them dwindled to only a few feet. "Yes, I do."

She was on C.J. before he could breathe, the bow in her left hand as her right easily lifted the snarling teenager from the floor. She dropped him with a little shove that made him stumble backward, then tossed him his weapon. One flight above, the panicked doctor and the ethers clambered down the stairs.

"It's okay!" Alex yelled shakily. The footsteps faltered. “Just give us a minute!"

"Do you see?" she hissed. Her eyes were glittering Its in the flashlight glow. She grabbed his collar just long enough to give him a single, hard shake. "Do you see what I've become?"

"I could be like you." C.J. gasped as Alex stretched his hand out, but she slapped it away.

"You dart want that." Her face, so pretty to begin with, was exquisite in its icy pallor as she motioned to her belly. "There's nothing here but a black, hungry hole." She turned her back, her pain too great to share. "You don’t know what this is like. It blots out the most precious memories, and nothing compares—not drugs, starvation, not even desire. It's all that and more, rolled into a dark, ugly addiction that never, ever leaves you." She laughed bitterly. "I even dream in red!"

"Deb—"

"Don't touch me!" She twisted away. "Don’t ever touch me!" She glared at them. “And don’t come down any more with less than four people, and always be armed!"

"But you wouldn't . . ."

"Oh, wouldn't I?"

Alex stared at her, then whirled and stormed up the stairs with C.J. backing out of the room after him. She heard the babble of voices above, then the clang of the bars as C.J. locked her in.

Then there was only the darkness to comfort her