The Wilds: The Wilds Book One Read Online Free PDF

afterward. As much as this part of the compound didn’t look that different than the rest, just more painted cement, there was one very important difference. There was a window in here, large enough for a body to squeeze out of, and it opened. I’d seen the latch. There were no bars in front of this one like all the rest, or anything else to impede my escape.
    Six months ago, after I’d awoken from what she’d done to me, I’d found myself alone in this room but I’d been unprepared for the opportunity. I wouldn’t be again. If I’d acted quick enough, I might have gotten out of here. But I’d sat too stunned to even try and escape the chair before they walked back in.
    After I was strapped in, they hooked up the device that would send shocks through my body. They were just finishing as Ms. Edith entered. She wore her dark hair in the same bun but had switched her jacket to a white lab coat, as if she were some sort of doctor. God, I hated her most of all.
    One of the guards placed a chair several feet in front of mine and she walked over and sat upon it as if it were a throne. Then she smiled. She always did, as if we were old and dear friends. I couldn’t get memories from Dark Walkers but I didn’t need them. She enjoyed these sessions.
    “Hello, Dal,” she greeted me, using my nickname. I wasn’t sure why that burned me worse than anything else. One day I’d punch her in that same mouth that she used to speak to me as if she really knew me.
    “Hello,” I greeted in response, holding back my own anger.
    The guard finished attaching the torture device to me and handed her a small box with a wire that ran to where I sat. It had a dial on it and a button. It was simple but effective. I knew the higher that dial went, the more likely I was to die.
    “Leave,” she said to the guards. We both watched them walking out, her with enthusiasm and me with dread.
    I knew what came next.
    “You had a visitor today,” she said as she toyed with the dial.
    I didn’t answer. She wasn’t asking, just stating the topic of today’s interrogation.
    The thing was, I knew there was no way to escape the pain today, even if I told her everything she wanted to hear, but my mind still scrambled for a way out. I hated it. It made me feel like an animal.
    Her fingers toyed with the dial again. I didn’t look directly at it, knowing she wanted me to. She wanted to see the fear I withheld from her.
    It didn’t matter where she’d dialed it up to anyway. The lower settings would be more bearable but last longer. The higher settings would bring oblivion quicker, but eventually, it always came. I’d almost never left this room on my own two feet. There were only a handful of times that I had in the years I’d been here, and those were only due to outside interruptions. Now these sessions were held at night. There was nothing like a pesky work call to disrupt a good torture.
    My eyes flickered to the dial before I could stop myself. She looked at me, smiling.
    “So, let’s start with what you said to your visitor today.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs while I was nearly immobile. The gesture wasn’t lost on me.
    I relayed the conversation verbatim to her, seeing no point in bothering to withhold any of it. The visiting room was rigged for sound, another Ben tip. Plus, she didn’t want to know what was said. She wanted to know what I’d seen.
    “Was there anything else?” she asked. “Did you get one of your hallucinations?”
    That was the thing about Plaguers; even though I hadn’t heard anything else, which was the truth in the visitor’s case, no one believed me anyway. I debated when to feed her the lie. I needed to survive this session and how ever many more it took to get out. But if I made it too easy, she wouldn’t believe my made-up story. I’d made that mistake before.
    “No,” I said.
    The pain shot through me and my body jerked with it. I didn’t cry out. Maybe I should’ve but I