Scorched
Erica Hayes
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
Contents
I'm an Aussie living in northern England, where at least the hospitality and the beer are warm. I write in coffee shops, feed my enormous cat, and watch TV or read until far too late at night. If it's got serial killers, superheroes, monsters or spaceships – preferably all four – I'm there.
On the big issues: Captain Picard is cooler than Captain Kirk, Batman would beat up Superman, and vampires are hotter than werewolves any day. See, I knew we'd get along.
You can follow me on Twitter @ericahayes.
I'm not a bad person.
I repeat it, over and again until the words scorch into my brain. I'm not a bad person. I don't deserve this.
It's the white room again. I'm strapped to the hard metal chair, my eyelids taped open. A dangling light bulb flickers. My feet are bare, my half-shaved hair a knotted mess under the heavy alloy helmet they've bolted around my skull to neutralize my power. I'm sweating in my gray hospital smock. It itches and stinks of piss. I don't remember pissing myself.
I don't remember much about anything.
But I'm not a bad person. They can't trick me into believing I am. Hour after hour, I repeat the words, so they can't make me forget: My name is Verity Fortune. I'm thirty-one years old. I'm not a bad person.
In the dim control room behind safety glass, the pretty doctor pushes her glasses up on her nose. She's the one I call Dr. Mengele, blue eyes like ice and a thick blond braid over her shoulder. She wears a clean white coat. She twiddles knobs on her machine and hurts me.
I brace for the next assault, struggling to keep my thoughts untangled. They can't make me forget. I know who she works for. My archenemy, the psychopath who locked me up in this place. He's the evil one, not me. If I ever get out of here…
Mengele presses one of her buttons. Current crackles along my skin, and the tiny hairs on my arms jerk taut. My muscles crunch and twist in agony. An angry bonfire ignites behind my eyeballs, and even after so many days—even though I know it's what she wants—I can't help it.
My power flexes, a warm muscle in my head. I remember that, all right. I can break glass, crush concrete, move objects at will. But nothing happens. The augmentium helmet just heats up, absorbing my telekinetic energy. Electrodes sizzle. My skin burns, the stink of singed hair. I gnash my teeth. Spit bubbles on my lips, coppery with blood.
"Zero point three micra on the left frontal." Dr. Mengele's voice, distorted over the tannoy.
The orderly waddles closer, his grin full of bad teeth. It's the fat one today. The fat one likes to hurt people, and his greasy hospital greens are already pinpricked with blood—mine