The Fires of Spring

Chapter Eleven

This time Lilith awoke in a different place. She was alone and cold, dressed, but lying prone on the floor. Someone must have carried her there while she was unconscious. She tried to move but when she did, the scabs on her back cracked and sent pain shooting through her. Regardless, she tried to haul herself into a sitting position, but her arms shook and quivered and she collapsed back onto the cold pavement floor.

She tried to think, tried to clear her head. She felt drowsy and drugged - had they drugged her? She didn't know. There was a long board before her. What was it for?

Lilith tried staring at it, but it slid in and out of focus. She couldn't look at it for too long, as when she tried to lift her head, her vision swam and she slumped back down.

Lilith blinked and when she mumbled a few incoherent words, they echoed and crashed in her ears, as loud and hollow as surf pounding on sand.

Her mouth felt oddly wet. She wondered if someone had poured water down her throat as she lay unconscious. Again, she wondered if she was drugged. Giving a bleary shake of her head, she closed her eyes to rid herself of the sight of the overhead light, a blinking fluorescent eye, bleeding all colours of the rainbow until they shattered about her like so many crystals.

She lay down again on her side. As her eyes swam open, she tried to count the tiles on the wall and couldn't. She was very cold and every part of her was numb with pain. She did not know how long she stayed there, lying on her side. It could have been only an hour. It could have been a day.

A guard came in then, and she curled up in fetal position. She could barely comprehend anything save the pain and the cold. She wanted him to go away, to leave her alone. She knew nothing. Had done nothing.

"Please," she whispered when he hauled her into his arms. She was only half play-acting when she begged. "Please."

He was wearing a balaclava, but he stared right into her eyes as he walked. His grasp was soft, almost tender, carrying her bridal-style towards the board.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, hiding his words by leaning over her to arrange her limbs and speaking into her hair. When he pulled back, his eyes were warm and full of tears.

She used all her strength to spit in his eye.

"Go to hell," she snarled at him, and, light-headed, collapsed back on the board. Her vision blurred and she saw black spots. Pain had never done this to her before, and her befuddled brain tried to make some sense of whether or not she was drugged. She assumed she must be.

He jerked back, wiping his face with his hand. His pity did not fade, which roused even Lilith's foggy mind to worry.

But it did not rouse it far, for she turned her head and blinked, even the effort of batting her eyelids causing her to reel for a moment.

She could have been lying there either a few seconds or an age when in came Christopher, with a bruise on his face, but apparently otherwise unharmed. She wondered why that was - why hurt her if he was the one who knew whatever it was Visage wanted? He was bucking and kicking in the arms of the guard, but when he saw her, he sagged instantly.

"Lilith," he said. He looked horrified.

Lilith closed her eyes and used all her strength to curl into the smallest ball she could. Her brain had been reduced to nothing more than the simplest functions in her beffuddlement. Now she sought to make herself small, to hide, to cower, like a wounded animal.

But even then it came to her what Visage was doing. Some part of the intellect and calmness that Christopher had lauded her for refused to give up and whispered in her mind.