This Would Be Paradise (Book 3)

Chapter 6

We were brought back down the dark and quiet hallway that lead to the room where I was forced to kill the infected with my bare hands. I tried to catch Mac's attention without saying anything, but his gaze was firmly fixated on his feet. He must be freaking out. He knew what was waiting for him thanks to the stories. Amelia stopped at the door beside the room I was shoved in the day before.

"Put him inside. Bring her in here with me," Amelia ordered.

I pushed against the guard trying to pull me into the other room. "What are you planning to do?" I yelled. "I'm the one you want to put in there."

Mac's face was expressionless as the other guard opened the door to the padded room and gently pushed him inside. Mac wasn't resisting. He must have been in shock.

"Mac, don't worry, I'll get you out of there," I screamed, but I had no idea how I would go about that. I turned to Amelia. "I'm the one you want to punish, you bitch! Put me in there again!" I would survive a bite, Mac wouldn't.

"Bring her in here," Amelia said with force.

The guard resumed his attempt at trying to stuff me into the other room. I managed to wrench myself out of his hold and kicked him as hard as I could in the nuts. His armor didn't include a cup apparently as he sunk to his knees grasping at his injured junk and groaning. I ran like a linebacker and smashed straight into the other guard just as he was shutting the door to the padded cell. We flew to the ground and I tried to do the same thing to him as I did to the other guard, but he wasn't going to allow that.

The guard reared his feet up and shoved me back hard like a kangaroo. I flew back and to the side, slamming into the solid cement wall. My lungs froze at the impact, my breathing momentarily suspended. I struggled to get some oxygen and breath through the pain from the collision will the very solid wall. The guard that had kicked me, had gotten up and grabbed both of my feet. I was drug into the next room, still coughing up a fit as my lungs started working again.

The other room was small and skinny and dark. There was a desk attached to the wall and above it, the two-way mirror Rose had mentioned. They were going to make me watch Mac die. To them, he was immune and would suffer a simple bite. To me, it was watching an execution of a friend.

I was still lying on the floor and couldn't see through the mirror from my angle. I rolled to my side and tried to sit up.

"Try anything again, and Carlos will tranquilize you," Amelia warned. "But not enough to put you to sleep, just enough to keep you awake and lucid, but docile."

Carlos must've been the guard I had kicked in the nuts, because he gave me a sick sneer from his bent-over position, like he was already hoping I would try something. The other guard had moved his hands from my feet to my arm and yanked me to my feet. The man-handling from the guards was pissing me off. Next time, I would be angling to break some arms.

I swayed on my feet at first. The guard turned me so that I was now facing the two-way mirror. Mac was in the corner of the padded room on the opposite side of the mirror. He was standing extremely still, his eyes glazed over. They had tried to hose off the mess I'd left on the floor, but there was still a large, ominous russet colored stain where the infected's body had fallen.

I had no choice, I had to tell them. "He's not immune," I said.

Amelia's head whipped from the mirror to me. "What did you say?"

"Mac isn't immune."

"He has a bite mark from an infected."

"He did that to himself when your murdering goons killed everyone in his group—including children," I spat at her.