Trigger warning: Captivity with some torture. I try to keep it less graphic.

The Guild of the Primal Cross was an elite organization to work for, but not so great if you were its prisoner.

That would be me, subject 001, 16-year-old Brooke Taylor.

My skin burned as The Nazi and Keres hosed me down with ice cold water—my weekly bath. I stared at the cracked, yellow stained tile in the room's wall that the organization had turned into a shower, while I gritted my teeth. My nails dented hard into my palms, trying to expel the cold.

"It's time!"

The water stopped. My gut cramped from the tension as the slight pulse behind my closed eyelids begged for another minute. My gaze flicked to the cold blue eyes that held no compassion.

"Stop staring at me, you mongrel."

With pulsing skin and clattering teeth, I knew it was in my best interest to look away as the strands of white hair clung to my face. Iciness had found its way into my bones and it was the hardest to warm up from that level of cold.

Kesler inched forward with the silver bracelet and I squirmed away to the corner.

"Stop fussing around." Gretchen's boot came out of nowhere and connected hard with my torso. "Get it on her wrist now!"

I didn't know why they even bothered. They'd tortured me with the one thing that I thought was my friend—water.

Tight fingers grabbed my arm, and the bracelet clasped tight around my wrist. The pounding subsided instantly.

It was how they controlled us.

Nazi (Gretchen) and her general, Keres, worked fast. They were two opposites of each other. The general had short, spiky hair, with dark eyes and bushy eyebrows. In the beginning, I didn't know if she was male or female.

Gretchen had blonde hair, always tied up in a bun with thin lips and flawless skin. She was somewhere in her forties and had a pair of bulgy arms that were busy tugging and pulling to get me dry and into a fresh uniform. This week it was a blue shirt and pants. The 001 was a reminder that they deemed me highly dangerous—it was because of what I could do with water.

"Move!" Gretchen barked, and I stepped out of the room that they turned into a shower.

I kept ogling the lightning rod dangling from her grip. I tried to escape a million times, but the stung of that rod was the reason I didn't fight back anymore. The stung was too painful to bear when I wielded water. Yup, you heard me. I could command the water.

It was why I was here to begin with.

We walked down the narrow grey hallway. The lights swinging from the ceiling cast dancing shadows on the walls, elevating the pounding behind my chest. The hallways were always so cold and the breeze made me shiver.

We passed the room that belonged to subject 005. We'd never met face to face, only banging through the pipes. The banging stopped three days ago, after their session with Dr. Dent, also known as Dr. Death.

The double steel door of my 4x4 cubicle with white walls and white tiled floors opened.

Gretchen shoved me into the room and locked the door behind me. I flipped her a birdie and couldn't wait for the day that I would see water as my friend again. After the tank, I doubted it would ever be my friend again.

I grabbed my blanket and pulled it around me, hoping it would soothe my red skin, bringing back some warmth to my body.

My nightmare started the day that I put Jessica inside a bubble of water. I knew that water worked differently with me than other humans, but I didn't know that I could do that. She made me furious with her constant torturing because I was adopted. The last straw was when she told me that my birth mom was probably a hooker that was addicted to crystal meth.

She went to take a sip of water, and my anger got the better of me. The water called my silent plea, and it grew bigger and swallowed Jess. The babble moved with her into the air and then I realized when someone grabbed me it was me that moved that bubble. I controlled it.

Whatever that was, it disappeared when I came to the compound. Tears pricked my eyes. It didn't matter how long I'd been here, not knowing if today might be your last day, wishing it was your last day, still brought that purgatory fear into my gut.

Dr. Death would probably torture me with the tank again. A high-pitched scream reached my ear and my heart instantly pounded as the adrenaline coursed through my veins. Opening the follicles and raising the hair on my arms and on my neck. A second scream pleaded for help and I covered my ears.

The screaming would carry on like that until it would be my turn.

A loud bang came from the pipes. It was subject 006, their room right next to mine. They tortured him last week. Three bangs: Are you awake?

I banged on the pipe once; it meant that I went for a shower.

He banged the pipe seven times. They had subject 007. The guild had broken her beyond repair, and they still tortured her. They would never stop until we were dead.

They told my mom that I would go to a special place and that the government would help me with my ability to wield water. I didn't even know that it was a real thing, that there were people like that out there.

Mom started asking too many questions and when she didn't like the idea of having brief contact with me, they took me and erased her from her memory.

How the hell did they do that?

So, nobody was coming for me, and that was the hard truth that I faced every single day in this hellhole.

***

The hours went by and I found myself in front of the double steel doors with the tiny window in the middle.

Guards wearing black op suits paraded the hallways. "All clear," the male voice said, reaching my ears.

I hugged my blanket tighter as Beverly and Morgan's faces popped into my mind. Mom's beautiful, big brown eyes always looked lovingly at me behind closed eyelids. She was short and stocky, with brown curls that draped her face. I tried to hold on to my little sister Morgan's laughter. It came from her belly, and you always, but always, laugh with her. I miss them with every pound of my heartbeat.

Multiple footsteps stomped on the concrete floor and I rushed back to my bed as they stopped right in front of my door.

Please, no!

The door clicked and then opened.

Dr. Death's figure stood in the doorway. His glassy eyes flickered to mine and stared into my soul. He had deep wrinkles in his face, with the shoulders that stretched at the seams of his white coat. The sound of my heartbeat thrashed in my ears.

He nodded, and tremors rushed through my hands and fingers. "No, please. I had enough."

Guards grabbed my arms, and my legs kicked, connecting with a guard's nose.

The kicking and screaming always followed with a prick at the neck that would force my body to stop. The fighting subsided to only my mind. Their little gadgets were just too powerful.

Tears pooled in my eyes and rolled down my cheek as I trembled only on the inside now. Remembering the pain of the electroshock therapy, with the months of healing after harvesting cells, and the icy water that almost drowned me time and time again, were my biggest fears.

I had no idea what it was they tried to achieve, but whatever that was, they didn't want the original.

The journey to the lab took eons, and I tried to think happy thoughts. Thoughts about my family, and Melina, my best friend that I had to leave behind. My grandma was a sweetheart. I missed her.

Goosebumps spread across my skin and my body shivered as they carried me into the room. A green, gruff carpet covered the walls. Shelves and wooden tables lined the one wall with a computer on a desk and a stool with wheels. The room caused more turning and knotting inside my stomach. A heart monitor and a ventilator stood out among other machines. Machines that would revive me.

The black iron doors hiding the tank were closed, and I thanked whoever was out there, and heard my prayers that it wasn't the tank today.

The cold of the silver table pressed against my clothes. I prayed it would be the last time. That today would be the day that I was going to die. Please let it come. I didn't want this life anymore.

"Disrobe her."

No, no, please! Not the tank. I wouldn't be able to handle the tank again, not today.

Only whimpers left my lips. The eight-foot tube filled with water hoisted from the platform as my eyes skidded to the inky depths. Everything pulled and turned inside of me. My heart hadn't stopped pounding its rapid beats as adrenaline pumped through my body.

I hated the tank. I hated that suffocated feeling when your lungs couldn't keep the breath inside anymore. When your limbs jerked to the lack of oxygen and all your organs shut down.

They were murderers. That was what they were. They broke the strongest will and then they disposed of us when we showed them what they wanted.

More whimpers left my lips as they put the mechanical arm around my naked body. The humming filled the room as the machine started up, and I got hoisted from the silver table.

Dr. Death stared at me with unforgiving, stormy grey eyes as the device moved me closer to the tube. My lips curled, baring my teeth, and I grunted.

He didn't even flinch.

At the platform, next to the tank, Gretchen waited with her lightning rod. She yanked the bracelet from my wrist. The tranquilizer wasn't strong enough to knock me out, but it was strong enough to subdue me.

These people were monsters and the worst part was, we did not know why they were doing this to us. We only had our imagination to fill in the blanks.

And then the lowered me into the icy pool of death.

A/N: Sorry for this dark chapter, but I'm sure you know, if you read Shifted, that Brooke's past isn't a beautiful one. I tried to dampen it a bit, not to show too much graphic details, and I'll keep on doing that, rather concentrate on her emotions, hopes, and fears, than the graphic of the torture. It's not many chapter, I hope not, but you need to understand why she hated water and why she was sort of broken. Thanks for reading. I hope that you would continue. It's really a beautiful story as Brooke and Xander is one of my favorite couples.