The Collective

Chapter Twenty-Seven

     Max sat next to me when I woke up. He snored softly, head resting on his chest. I followed the clear plastic tube in my hand to a bag of clear liquid hanging off a metal pole. There was a blood pressure cuff on my left arm and some other type of monitor on my right hand. Judging by the quality of the equipment, this wasn't a regular hospital.

     "Max? Max, where's Ethan?!" My voice rose. I vaguely remembered him walking away, but it was too fuzzy to see anything but what was right in front of me.

     He jerked, almost falling out of his chair. He grinned. "Hey. You're finally awake."

     He was literally the last person I wanted to be with, but he didn't seem to particularly care. "Where's Ethan? Why is your hair blue?"

     "He left." He pulled a hypodermic syringe out of one of the drawers. "May I?" He pointed to the IV.

     I held my arm out.

     He slid a glass vial out of his pocket. He held it up to the IV.

     I jerked out of his grasp, backing away from him. Max might've been the only thing I recognized, but he was still dangerous.

     "Ethan told me to get you out. We're cool now, okay?"

     No. Not cool. We weren't friends. We'd never been friends. After the hell he put me through, we were never even going to be acquaintances again.

     "Alex, you can let me do this, or I can pin you down and force it. You and I both know you're not strong enough to make me stop. You can barely hold your head up."

     Yes, well, I couldn't see straight, but he didn't need to know that. I snatched the vial out of his hand and threw it. It shattered. I jerked the IV out. My teeth dug into my lip as white spots burst behind my eyes. I fought through it, stumbling towards what I thought it was a door. Turned out it was a window. I scrambled towards the other wide of the room. A giant, metal door slid into place.

     Max tsked. "You're making this too hard on yourself."

     I pounded on the door. There had to be a knob or a switch or something. Doors were supposed to open. That was the whole point of doors, to open to a whole, other area of the space.

     Dizziness attacked. I slumped against the door, groaning.

     Max waltzed towards me. He pulled a new vial from his pocket. "Rule 1 of espionage: always have a back-up." He unceremoniously stabbed the needle into my thigh.

     Cold flooded through me. I tried to get my feet under me, but it just wasn't working. I crawled, only making it a few feet away. My arms gave out. I face planted and it should've hurt but I didn't feel anything.

     Max knelt in front of me. "I'm getting you out." He swept me into his arms. "I gave you a mix of something from the lab guys. It's gonna slow down your heart and make you feel a little..." his eyebrows did a weird wavy thing. "You're also not going to be able to speak, and you're probably going to end up with a nasty bruise on your thigh, but that's your fault." He put me back in the hospital bed. He reattached the blood pressure cuff and the thing on my finger. He stabbed the IV needle into the bed and covered the bloody spot on my arm with the blanket.

     The monitors screamed. He pulled on a white coat and clipped a badge onto his lapel. He grinned broadly. "Just lay there, and don't move."

     Shouldn't be hard considering I couldn't.

     Several people rushed in. Max stood over me with a stethoscope on my chest, and a surgical mask on his face. He turned off the monitors and shook his head, expression grave. "She's gone. Time of death: 0800." He pulled the blanket over my head.