Experiment Number One
CHAPTER SEVEN

“With intensive studying, we have discovered that your blood could be used for plenty of things. Most important to clean up the mess that he made,” Doctor Taylor threw a nasty look at Ren. I just couldn’t come up with what Ren could have done that was so terrible to make everyone throw so many jabs at him. I mean, he was such a charismatic soul. I guess his warm nature had a cold draft, though. You can’t forget what he did when his sister won that award.

“So you want my blood, to study?”

“No, a cure,” Ren piped in. Doctor Taylor turned to him and kicked him underneath the table, causing him to call out in pain. “We already started to talk about it. Plus, she was going to replace out sooner or later,” he protested.

Doctor Taylor sighed, and after a few seconds, she turned back to me with a smile. “Yes, we are looking to create a cure, but that is all we can say. See, Emerye, you’ll be our first experiment, one that can lead to you saving thousands, millions, of lives just by allowing us to take some samples of your blood to do some testing of your components. What do you say?”

I looked down at my hands; the scars started flaking off. They were right; I did have a greater purpose as the only documented mutant in thousands of years, but was that purpose locked up in an inescapable compound? Whatever problem Ren Clash created, whatever cure they wanted to develop, and whatever else the government wanted was not beneficial to me. I mean, come on. They wouldn’t even tell me what the threat was. How do I know that it would affect me and my siblings? I couldn’t just sit by and let them slowly kill me for a cause that I had no intention of being a part of. I had my siblings to protect. That was my greater purpose and had always been since Mariana was born.

“I can’t.”

Doctor Taylor looked as though her whole body had been set on fire. Ren Clash’s eyes bugged out of his head. George crossed his arms across his chest and pressed his lips together. Lieutenant Wallace… Well, there was a hint of a smile on his face. I thought that the projector light was playing tricks on me. Or he had a sick and twisted mind that was planning out how to torture me for my inability to cooperate.

Doctor Taylor choked out, “Why not?”

I sighed, “It would be selfish of me to sacrifice myself for the sake of the government when I have my siblings to get back to.”

“Mendoza, haven’t you been listening? You’ll be saving the world if you would just stop being stubborn. Your siblings are a part of that world.”

“The world I’d be changing,” I began, “would be one to benefit those in power. Even if we produce a cure or do whatever else the government wants to use my blood for, my siblings will still be at the dirt bottom of society. There is no way I am going to give advantage to those who want me dead and leave my siblings alone.”

Doctor Taylor huffed and turned away from me.

George approached the table and said the words that haunt my nightmares. “Mendoza, there’s a slim chance that you will ever get back to your siblings even if you allow us to conduct the experiments. But think about your chance to get back to them if we have to bolt you to a table. Very low, aren’t they?”

The room went silent at George’s threat. Looking at Ren Clash and Doctor Taylor, I think even they were surprised at the words. With their backs turned to us, they looked over their shoulders with gaping mouths.

“She’ll think about it,” Lieutenant Wallace got up and un-cuffed my wrist from the table.

“Wallace, you have no jurisdiction over this,” Doctor Taylor countered.

“You don’t either, Taylor.” Lieutenant Wallace forced me to stand by my forearm. His light grip he held when we entered the meeting room was transformed into something harsh. I flinched away from his fingers marking bruises on my skin, but his grip was unrelenting. I could barely move an inch from his side. He led me out of the room.

“George. You have to stop him,” Doctor Taylor whined. Lieutenant Wallace and I were already walking across the lab when George responded. “Let him take her. Wallace always follows his orders in the end.”

I looked up to Lieutenant Wallace, who clenched his jaw with so much force that his scar pulsed. His eyes caught my gaze, and he said in a hushed voice, “They have secrets lurking in the shadows of this facility. You can’t trust a word they say.”