Judgement 8 (Subject Alpha #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t know how they even survived that. Anyway, here I am. The prototype that created you.”
    He just stared up at me, his eyes soft and his teeth gnawing at his bottom lip.
    I shrugged, it was my life, my story. It wasn’t unusual to me. It was normal. It still hurt though, that I was created specifically for the benefit of science and not love.
    “I was four when she first started to inject me with stuff and hook me up to different apparatus. She’d surge my little body with voltages whilst experimenting with each of my senses. Luckily I don’t remember too much from then.”
    He pulled in a deep breath, snatched the vodka and filled us both up. The room was starting to spin, but I smiled, enjoying the feeling and allowing it to loosen me up.
    “I didn’t live like normal kids until I was around ten or eleven. One of our neighbours reported me to the authorities. It was no great surprise that she hadn’t even registered my birth. From then on, I had to live as ‘normally’ as possible, although I was far from normal. I’d noticed some specific things; how my hair was way too static, much more than the other girls.’ My skin tingled constantly and I’d always notice the lights dip faintly when I walked into a room. I managed to hide this from Janice, or she’d have strapped me to the nearest table and killed me with more invasive tests. I started my periods at six, the shock to my system triggering puberty, and ending in the menopause at eighteen.”
    I flinched. Children had always been something I craved, but she’d even taken that from me. Reid swallowed heavily, his expression softening. His pity annoyed me so I ventured on.
    “And then, when I was about fourteen, it all changed. Nothing had worked, she was still categorising me as ‘normal’ and growing extremely annoyed with me. She upped the game, changed the drugs and altered the voltage, wiring something different into my brain this one particular time. She gave me a blast and my long hair suddenly leapt for the sky. I honestly looked like I’d been tipped upside down. It just stayed there, straight up, me looking like a cardboard cut-out in a hairdresser’s window that had been stuck on upside down.” My heart sank, remembering my life from then on. It all changed and not for the better. “If it had been up to her, she would have dragged me into her basement and refused me the light of day ever again. But I stood my ground, refused her any more unless she allowed me to finish school. It was the only thing that was normal for me. I’d made friends, found out I was quite clever, and I enjoyed that other side of my life, a life away from wires and tests and constant fucking agony.”
    My body sighed at the influence of the alcohol and I lifted my feet, curling them under me on the sofa, and finally found the courage to look at him. “She didn’t give me complete control though. To be able to carry on studying, I was to be all hers at the weekends and during school holidays, and when I hit twenty one, I was hers, lock, stock and barrel. All of me. It was enough though. Well, it was then.”
    “Elina.” His voice was quiet, his eyes full of sadness and pity. I shook my head, not allowing his sympathy in.
    “What you need to understand, Reid, is that she is my mother. She was all I had. She gave me life. Yes, I know it was a fucked up life, but she granted it to me. The air I breathed, each laugh, each smile, they were all because she created me.”
    I blinked and lowered my eyes when he slid his hand over mine and linked his fingers through my own. The warmth of him clogged my throat and I snatched my hand back. The pain from that simple act hurt more than anything. Sympathy was nothing; understanding was more important, and I was confused as to which he was offering so I didn’t allow any.
    “What I didn’t know at the time was that she’d sent every single report to my father, who had presented them to the defence secretary. Aren’t