Korelia squeezed her eyes shut and was unable to muffle an already soft sound of pain. Doctor Brad Skal sniggered and 'accidentally' pressed his thumb into her bleeding flesh. Kore gritted her teeth and refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream. The only consolation she had was knowing that he couldn't see the barley masked agony on her face.

***

Korelia starred wide-eyed at Janet and Jill Skal. Her blood was simmering from the sounds emanating from the bedroom down the hall and she was having a hard time not making sounds like a tea kettle. The air permeating everything around her smelled of pleasure, lust, and deep frightened pain.

"You're not even going to do anything?" She yelled at the girl and her mother. Kore's eyes drained of all color as Jill looked at her with a deep defeat burned into her blank face. Janet shed a silent tear and refused to look at her at all. Her face, like her eleven year old daughter's, was blank. But, hers was one of barren emotion.

"There isn't anything we can do, Kore." Jill said simply, as if it were obvious. "Trying to do anything results in even more pain for everyone involved."

"We would leave, you know." Janet said in that empty voice that differed so greatly from her normal, bubbly, mentality. "He'd only hunt us down again." She finally looked up into the mask that had moments before been a human face. "I'm so sorry." She whispered before standing from the sofa and trying to embrace this young child that wasn't her own.

Kore stepped out of reach of the woman she had only met ten weeks ago. She was angry at what they had done. She had hoped that they could have been honest. But, it looked like they had been told of Kore's emotional triggers and hidden this one from her. They had done a good job of not letting her know what Dr. Skal was doing to his son and she felt pitiful for not having known sooner. However, they had obviously never been told of the extremes to her anger.

Kore, who was an exceptionally good thief, had been black-mailed into a long standing contract with an arms dealer on the black market. After her dear animal friend, Pops, was safely locked away, Kore had been sent to this place for 'improvements' via Doctor Brad Skal. Jill, who was a rough and masculine girl only a year older than her, and had liked her almost immediately, as had her mother, Janet. Brad himself, had a slick look to him and the air felt smothering and oily in his presence. She didn't like him, but, she kept that bit to herself since he seemed to tolerate her quite well. Jack, Jill's twin, had avoided her at all costs. His reasons were unknown to her. Until now.

Kore turned away and walked towards the sounds coming from the black corridor that led to the three bedrooms. She stared fixedly at a silver water pitcher that stood on a small table next to the entrance of the hallway. She half turned to the women in the room so they could see both the pitcher and her face.

"A wedding present, perhaps?" Kore asked calmly. She took the index and middle fingers of her left hand and slid them down the body of that silver work. The metal that touched her fingertips melted, trailed thickly down, and scorched the wood of the table, leaving only a blank strip where her skin had been.

She didn't wait to see the look on their faces. She floated to Jill's room and swung the door open, ruining the doorknob in the process. Thinking was no longer an issue or an option.

Kore walked through to the bathroom that Jack and Jill shared. There was water in the bathtub where Jill had been hoping to relax before Brad stormed her brother's room. A cleansing soap that Kore had made for her was waiting, untouched in the dish with the unlit matching incense next to it.

She stared at the other door that led to this room and started to feel a growl growing in her throat. Sounds of urgency were emanating from behind the flimsy wood and her anger continued to shoot adrenalin into her system. This was insufferable.

She sprang at the door and slammed it open. Her nose wrinkled as her new wolfish sense of smell brought the stench of forced sex and overpowering evil. Eyes bled of color fell upon the bed and her face broke from bank, to enraged.

Brad Skal was sliding hard and fast between his sons straddled legs, grunting with ecstasy as he dug farther into that eleven-year-old body beneath him. he was pinning Jack's wrists to the bed and occasionally tightening his grip to the point that normal bones would break, just to see if Jack would scream. Brad didn't even hear Korelia come in over his own pleasure.

However, Jack was looking at her wildly over his father's shoulder, showing fear and shock on his pale face. His long, light hair was sticking out at odd angles where Dr. Skal had forcefully pulled his head in one direction of another. There were deep bite marks on Jack's chest and neck as well.

Korelia strode over to the bed brusquely and pressed her left palm into his Brad's exposed right shoulder blade. the sudden burning made him yell and jump away from his son and assailant. The look of rage on his face was all she needed to complete her anger.

Jack was trying to shake his head to warn her of some fate that was now sealed. Kore ignored him, keeping her eyes on where the danger stood. Brad was bearing his teeth and breathing heavily in his frustration and anger.

"You love to hurt others, don't you." Kore said to him in that every day sort of way that meant trouble. "But, you just can't handle it when it's your own pain. Is that it?"

"Your lucky that your Owner is an old friend and customer of mine. You've just made a big mistake." He spat, hunching his shoulders. He turned towards the door, trying to look dignified in his naked and now limp form. The burn on his shoulder glowed as it continued to heat his skin. It wouldn't take long for blisters to rise. He slammed the door behind him. Kore could here him walk down the hall and disappeared into his Lab, where any sounds he made would be sufficiently muffled.

Jack sat on the bed, leaning heavily against the head rest and looking at Kore as if he had never seen her before and she saw the question in his soul. She was a stranger. Why would she endanger herself for him?

Kore finally let her eyes close for a moment. She sighed inwardly and did what she could to keep her calm and collected mask up for a little longer. Turning back to the bathroom she swept over to the bath tub and plunged both of her hands into the water from the elbow down. After a few moments, the water started to steam pleasantly and she took her hands out. the fire was gone and so was her anger. But, it left pain and emptiness behind it.

Jack was standing in the doorway to his room looking very slightly aghast. he looked as if he could have been picked up and thrown away with a thought. Also, he was leaning very heavily on the doorjamb and his effulgent skin was whiter than normal.

Kore stood and pushed her way past him. He turned slightly to watch her go over to his bed. She stared pulling off the defiled sheets and was halfway done before she spoke again.

"Go ahead and take a bath. use the soap that's there. it will help to dispel his smell."

She stopped her work and stared at Jack until he went into the bathroom and closed the door. Kore grabbed a couple of clean sheets from the linen closet in the hallway and redressed the bed before taking the soiled and foul sheets outside. As she lit them on fire, the last of her energy drained away.

She slipped back into Jill's room and collapsed on her small cot. She ripped her dirty clothing off from this prone position and grabbed a much cleaner night shirt from under the covers. She put this on and settled into the scratchy sheets. While hearing Jack softly splashing the water around in the bathroom, Kore tried to prepare herself for what was about to come. Her punishment arrived that night.

Korelia, drained completely of energy from the stress of earlier, barely let herself be led from Jill's bedroom by the man in the white lab coat. It was time for her 'improvements', or 'upgrading' as the doctor sometimes jokingly referred to it. This time was different, though, something was very wrong about how tightly he held her wrist and the secretive smile he held under the looming shadow of his face.

Brad tugged his coat tighter about him as he let her hand drop while he opened the hidden pannel that served as the door to his lab. Inside was unusually dark, not even the faint dim overhead that hung just above 'the chair' was on. In the crack of light the open door provided, Kore could see the white clad madman kneal to a place on the floor that lifted up. He walked behind the tired girl now and pushed her forward, forcing her to the open hatch that ensured doom.

The water had long-since gotten chilly from the cracked window, but it wasn't until after sitting for an additional twenty minutes shivering that Jack rose out of the water. He supported his weight on the edge and moved with mechanical slowness for his towel.

He really thought Kore would've come back, if not just to check on him, but to pull him from the tub and into a warm terricloth embrace. But she didn't, and he felt too old as his various bodily complained from basic movements. Not really bothering to clothe himself, as it could be ripped away to shreds any moment his father chose, Jack settled for the soft black towel. Not knowing where else to go, he stumbled into Jill's room, trying to find her if even to scold her for being so irrational.

Jill was at her desk working on something that totally eluded him as Jack flopped down on the bed. He curled inward reflexively, but winced as a bruise already fading on his neck was brushed and flared to life again.

"You okay, kid? You were in there for a long time. I thought you might have drowned yourself." Jill didn't turn from what she was working on to even spare him a glance. She didn't need to.

"I'm alive. Where'd she go?"

Gesturing with her head, his sister made a half-shrug. "Probably the lab, though I didn't hear anything as I passed by."

Jack was already up and out the door, limping the path he knew so well. "Korelia?!" He flung open the door only to be met with darkness and an empty room. But there were odd sounds, from where he wasn't sure, and so he started wandering around the lab in curious wonder.

Another room? All Kore had even seen of Brad's lab was the place that she was being steadily pushed out of. It was the room that she had undergone surgery after surgery in as Dr. Skal inserted Animal DNA into her genes. But, everyone in the family was convinced that this was the only room he had. What was going on? She fell on her hands and knees in the darkness. She looked back to see Brad's silhouette very slightly in the darkness of the other room. She watched as he slipped his small frame thru the trapdoor and she backed away and into the darkness as he tried to approach her.

His laugh was sharp and menacing as he heard her back hit against the far wall. This room was MUCH larger than the other one. The floor under her was cold and smooth. Metal, not stone or concrete. The wall that her back was against was the same freezing and unforgiving material as the floor.

She couldn't see him anymore. He had closed the door behind him and even her feline optical improvements weren't enough to let her see in this darkness. She barely stifled a scream when she felt Brad's breath on her face.

He giggled again, almost girlishly, before grabbing her arms and dragging her to her feet. He continued to laugh as he threw her to his right with such force that she fell to the ground and slid into another wall.

Something was wrong. Was this what anger did to him? Or, was she just that tired? He was normally not a strong man in any respects, but, he was doing a damned good job of throwing her around. Her eyes slid closed and she all but fell back to sleep in the midst of everything. Well, that answered her question.

She heard him walk back to the stairs leading out and he hit the wall next to them. A single light flashed to life so bright that Kore hid her face. After a moment, she put her arms at her sides and looked over at the light. She couldn't see anything other than what was in that circle of brightness. And even then, she wasn't sure what she was looking at.

It was to the right of her and she quickly saw that she was correct in thinking that the floor and walls were metal. A small alcove connected to the room she was in now with a small bottle-necked doorway. She couldn't see much inside but she spotted the edge of a metal table and two metal rings in the middle of the circular nook. One was on the floor and the other directly above it.

She did scream as she felt Brad's hand latch onto her arm. She hadn't heard him come up at all and his laugh was starting to make her nauseous. He pulled her to her feet again and looked at her small face.

"Well, your very lucky, my Sweet Mourning Dove." He said in a voice that made Kore want to vomit. "You'll be the first, maybe the only, person to experience my new additions to the Lab." He smiled at her again, almost good-naturedly before he turned her around and gently led her to the room.

Korelia suddenly didn't have any more emotion. She knew that something bad would happen. She had known when she had been in Jack's room earlier. Now, she just didn't have anymore feeling to show him.

And, that would probably not make him very happy. He wanted her pain, but there wouldn't be any. He wanted her fear, but there was none left. And now, she feared that his anger wouldn't be directed at her.

He was still smiling as he took some very small manacles from the metal surgical table to the right of the room and snapped then around her wrists. There was a short distance of chain between the two cuffs and she feared she would know what was happening next.

Brad smiled as he pulled her into his arms and placed her carefully on the surgical table. He bent below her and retreaved two metal hooks from the tray at the bottom of the surface. He quickly snapped these hooks to the rings in the center of the room before coming back over and wheeling the table, with her on it, out to the center area.

Kore noticed now that the room sloped slightly down to the rings and that there was a drain placed around them. She swallowed hard and looked at Brad, who beamed at her, looking very proud of what he had made here. He was acting more jovial now. Like a child who was showing his best friend the new tree house he had built all by himself.

Brad clapped and rubbed his hands together. "It truly is fitting that this room should be christened by you, don't you think, dearest?"

"Why do you do that?" Kore asked.

"Do what?" He asked.

"Always speak to me in a term of endearment? You never do that to anyone else here." It was a trivial question. But, Kore was starting to feel uneasy again and she was trying to set up a system of check points to reassure herself.

Brad looked from side to side before he shrugged and gave her another toothy grin. "It seems appropriate, I suppose. Now, time to get to work!" He said happily. He grabbed onto the chain between Korelia's hands and threw it over the hook in the top ring. He then carefully held her around the waist and slid her off the table. He stood back for a moment, surveying her hanging there with a look of discomfort on her face.

His own features fell into deep thought as he tried to figure out what it was he had forgotten. After a moment, he snapped his fingers together and grabbed another set of manacles from the table and placed the chain on the hook at the bottom ring before clapping them shut around her ankles.

Then, he stood up, went to the table, and came back with a scalpel. As soon as Kore saw it, she looked away. He lungs were tight and before long, she would start gasping for breath. She didn't want to know what Brad was going to do to her. She just didn't.

If she had been able to, she would have sighed when she found out the knifes intention. Brad cut away most of the night shirt so that it rested just above her stomach.

(TBC...)
Back