Chapter XI

BALLING HER HANDS INTO fists, she gritted her teeth as pain clamped down on her chest like a vise, and she squeezed her eyes shut. "Mommy, please! Stop! It hurts!" Her eleven-year-old voice sounded even tinier then it really was as she pleaded.

"Just a little longer," came her mom's soft, cajoling voice. "It's almost complete."

A bolt of electricity shot through her body and she screamed at the top of her lungs. The room around her lit up white as electricity circulated through the clear glass parts of the machines. She gripped the edges of the armrest as the energy rippled through every inch of her body, and an alarm went off in her head when the cries from her sister could no longer be heard.

The jolt stopped and she flopped down, draped in the padded seat, her wrists and ankles still cuffed to the chair. Panting heavily, she pried open her aching eyelids. "Mommy," she barely had enough strength to speak. "I can't hear her."

She turned her head to the side to see, and through her blurring vision she found another chair exactly the same as the one where she sat—slanted and padded in brown leather, the cuffs clamped shut—only it was empty where a body had once dwelt seconds ago. What remained was a steady stream of black smoke rising off the seat of the chair from a pile of ash.

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as she felt her world crumble. Flinging her head back towards the woman standing in front of a panel, glancing frantically over a chart, she cried, "Mommy! Where is she? Where's Ma—"

"Hush, child!" Mommy tapped the glass of a screen on the panel and she swiftly jogged to her side, adjusting the metal helmet on her head. "We did what was best. She wouldn't have lasted another five minutes in her state." Mommy stopped messing with the helmet and met her eye to eye with a smile. "What you did was extremely brave." Mommy hurried back over to her panel. "And it was the right thing, despite what others thought." Aiming her eyes toward the ceiling as hot tears poured down her cheeks, she heard her mother's gentle voice once again. "One last time." Jerking her head towards to her mommy, her eyes widened. "If this doesn't work, then your sister's death means nothing."

Panic filled her little chest. "No, wait!"

Mommy pulled a lever on the panel and the electrocution resumed. Again, she screamed, each jolt seeming worse than before. She tensed up and arched her back as her fingernails dug into the leather padded armrest.

This time, several images appeared in her mind. Quick flashes of a baby girl, a mother standing over a crib as she stared happily down at this beautiful baby, and another flash brought mountains with homes and apartments built into the rocky terrain; a blue sign stood bolted to a large wall with the word Monasa scrawled across it.

All of a sudden, the images vanished along with the intense agony, but she knew the discomfort from the procedure would last for days. She drooped back in her seat panting, sweat dripping from her dark hair, and her heart felt like it would burst.

Darkness began to cloud her vision when she looked up once again at her mom, who continued to stare at the monitor on her panel with glee.

"We did it!" Mommy clapped her hands in victory. "We've found her!"

Beginning to feel herself slip out of consciousness, she could hear mommy's words but couldn't make any sense of them. Her mother dashed over to her chair and swiftly unlocked the metal cuffs that kept her bound. She leaned forward, trying to stand to exit this death chair, but her legs were completely numb. Instead, she fell into mommy's arms and closed her eyes as they became too heavy to hold open. With her eyes closed, she heard a wailing inside her head and she clung to mommy's shirt.

"Mommy, I hear her," she whimpered, wanting to sob, but she felt too weak to conjure even a single tear. "I hear her screams."

She felt her mom's soft hand stroke her head as she shushed her. "Rest now. Regain your strength. There is yet much work to be done."

MICHELLE SPRANG UPWARD WITH a gasp. Immediately, she noticed the sweat covering her brow, and she laid a hand against her pounding heart. She frantically glanced around looking for her mom, the machine, or any sign of present danger, but the only thing she found was her crew and the others sound asleep.

Sucking in a few deep breaths, she panted and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She shuddered as vivid images of what her mother used to do to her and her sister as children replayed in her mind, and she placed her chin between her knees.

She clenched her jaw and heat burned in her cheeks feeling an overwhelming desire to punch the wall. She needed to forget about this woman and move on, but these memories weren't allowing her to do so. She despised her mother for forcing her to endure things no child should ever have to. It was her mom's fault that she was in the Dome, and it was her fault that Madilyn was dead. She rubbed her eyes with the thumb, index, and middle finger of one hand. As much as she wanted to forget about her mother, she knew her job wasn't done, but once she finished her mission, she could be free of her for good.

Michelle furrowed her brow in aggravation. She hadn't had a memory so painful in years and the sudden return caused her heart to flutter. A soft string of words floated through her mind like a whisper in the wind, and her face hardened. She couldn't reply. Not if she wanted to stay free from the monster.

Lowering herself back down onto the rough ground, she stared up at the black ceiling with her hands folded across her chest. Often times, the beast liked to plague her sleep with awful memories of what had happened to her and Madilyn during their childhood—that memory being the worst. She knew it was just another sign of the days to come. The day when she would lose the battle like she had many times before.

Sighing, she laid there slightly shaking, and she thought it was from the cold draft filling the small cave, but she quickly realized it wasn't. The shaking informed her her time was running out and that the dam inside her mind was failing. She turned over on her side, staring at Nathan's peaceful slumbering face, and she knew that sleep wasn't going to be as easy for her.

The thought of that beast returning made her queasy. It had taken several hard years to fight it off, and now she had been free for nearly three. Her eyes squeezed shut as vivid images of the torment she used to bestow on others flashed through her mind, and she hugged herself in a tight squeeze. She never wanted to be that person again, but if these memories were rearing their frightful faces nightly, then she had to assume that the monster was right behind.