Chapter 34

Margarita had handed over Hattie and Katrina to Brixton, the man had run a finger down Katrina's jaw as he told her about all the things that he'd do to her as revenge for what Deckard did to him.


The three of them now sat in an off-road vehicle, with no roof or windows, just large black beams that made up the frame, two armed guards hanging on as Brixton drove, Katrina sitting in the middle and Hattie on the end.


"So, I'm intrigued," Hattie began as they rolled into the research lab, abundant with people in white overalls and guards in black. "Do you wash the blood off your hands before you count your money or is it afterwards?"


Brixton only gave her a look as he continued driving, Katrina trying to focus on her breathing to keep herself calm, knowing full well the stories Deckard told her about this man and knowing that they didn't deal in money.


"Dismissed," he called to his guards as they'd disembarked from the vehicle, both Hattie and Katrina's wrists still cuffed.


"You don't get it, do you?" Brixton asked darkly as he grabbed Hattie by the arm, Katrina keeping her promise to Deckard and willing herself still and not to try and bolt as fast as she could. "You know, the weak deal with money. We deal with evolutionary change. Change that sometimes require acts of violence."


"Like killing innocent people with viruses?" Hattie fired back, ignoring the promise Deckard had also asked her to make of keeping her mouth shut.


But with Hattie, they couldn't harm her for fear of harming the virus, Katrina however was expendable.


"Only the weak ones. We're dealing with the future of the planet. Things that money cannot buy."


"Oh, like your soul back?"


"My soul? Your brother, your husband, took my soul. The boys in the lab made me a new one. Now that is progress. And that is what I'm going to do to him. I'm going to take his soul by changing you," he said to Hattie and then Katrina as he grabbed her arm and dragged both girls with him.


"Welcome to the extraction room Miss Shaw," Brixton said as he sat Hattie down on a metal slab, Andreiko the scientist typing at a computer next to it.


"And for you Mrs Shaw, the preparation room," he said as he guided her to sit on an identical metal slab next to Hattie's.


"Get them ready."


And he left as they turned to Andreiko.


"It won't be long," he said to Hattie, but it wasn't something he could say to Katrina.


Hattie was then forced on her back, handcuffed to the slab as they prepared the machine.


Katrina was placed on her stomach, also handcuffed to poles that ran parallel to the slab, as her shoes and shirt were removed and a woman began taking x-rays of her spine.


"What is this?" she said in Russian as she moved the wand over Katrina's back, the gel cold on her spine.


"Doctor. We can't transform her," she informed the other woman in a white coat who'd been prepping a table of instruments.


"Why not?" she asked, still speaking in Russian.


"What is wrong? Is something wrong?" Katrina asked worriedly in Russian, heartbeat racing.


"We shall see how Brixton wants to proceed."


Before the doctor could leave, Katrina lunged.


Grabbing the poles along the slab and pulling herself to her knees, Katrina kicked her leg out, knocking the doctor down as she turned to the nurse who was frantically trying to run away. But not before Katrina grabbed a scalpel from a tray with her toes and threw it, the blade landing right between her shoulder blades, in her spine, as she collapsed to the ground and Hattie came over to unlock her cuffs with her silver pin.


Pushing down the worries of what was wrong with her, Hattie grabbed the extraction machine as Andreiko helped them escape by cutting a hole in the side of the tent.


"Think they're dead yet?" Hattie asked in a hushed tone as they walked, talking about the boys.


"Let's hope not. They were our ride out of here."


She may not be ok, but she really hoped Deckard was.

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