CAGED

“Subject Seventeen. Mexican American. Twenty-six years old. Orphaned at the age of nine. No friends. No sexual partners. Dead-end job. She won’t be missed.”

The deep monotone voice grated across Sofia’s senses, slowly stirring her back to consciousness.

Her eyelids were heavy, refusing to open. Her body felt lethargic and sore as she tried, and failed, to roll over in bed. Instead of her lumpy mattress, whatever she was sleeping on felt rigid and far more uncomfortable.

Had she fallen asleep on the couch while watching TV again?

It would explain the ache encompassing her entire frame—her furniture was all thrifted and worn—and the weird monologue she heard in the background. The extra shifts she’d taken at the restaurant must have really caught up to her over the last few months.

A shiver wracked down her spine, making her aches worse. She moaned as her lower abdomen cramped, the sound dull and weak.

Did she get her period? She hoped not; the birth control she used prevented them, though sometimes spotting happened at the worst times.

She never cramped like this, though …

“She’s in prime physical condition, which undoubtedly aided her in the first drug trial,” the voice droned on.

“What batch did you administer and when?” another man asked, sounding just as bored as the first.

Drug trial? What had she fallen asleep watching?

Her brow furrowed, and exhausted, she tried stretching her hand out in search of the remote, eager to turn off that incessant conversation.

Her movements were slow and uncoordinated, and she could barely move her arm more than an inch before her wrist met resistance.

What—?

“We’ve injected her with batch two-hundred and fifty-six of the breeding serum.” There was a brief pause, followed by the shuffling of papers. “Two days ago. She suffered no ill side effects and survived phase one with her reproductive organs intact. Most don’t make it that far.”

Breeding serum?

Sofia grimaced. Whatever that was, it sounded awful. Was it some kind of heavy duty fertility shot?

A blast of cold air hit her hard, causing goosebumps to sprout all over her skin. Her nipples stiffened into hard peaks, the sensation pleasurable and painful all at once.

Simultaneously, heat exploded through her core, so intense, so potent, that arousal spilled from her center, drenching her thighs.

Another shiver wracked her frame, causing her womb to contract. It hurt, but that pressure soon turned into something sensual. She moaned again, clenching her legs together as more of her slick coated her thighs.

What the hell was going on?

“She’s shivering.”

Everything inside of Sofia stilled, some kind of internal alarm blaring in the back of her mind. What were the odds the men on TV mentioned a woman shivering at the exact moment she did?

“That’s a normal response to the serum, I can assure you, Dr. Hines. Alarming reactions would be; bleeding from the orifices, vomiting, a full-body rash, quickly followed by multiple seizures. Her body would go into cardiac arrest as her organs shut down. A shiver is no cause for concern.”

Sofia groaned softly, her eyelashes fluttering rapidly as she finally pried one eye open. Blinding white light assailed her senses. She sucked in a choked breath as pain sliced through her brain.

Ow, what the hell?

She squinted against the brightness, struggling to make sense of what she was seeing through her blurry vision. Everything was white. White walls, white ceiling.

She wasn’t in bed or on the couch—this wasn’t her home at all.

Where am I?

She turned her head, only to cry out as she felt a sharp sting along the back of her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut, whimpering as more cramps set in, that heat spreading uncomfortably through her womb until that brief spike of pleasure was a distant memory.

Her head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton, her brain unable to process anything.

Something was really wrong with her.

Had she been in a car accident on her way home from work? She usually took the bus to save on gas, but it was winter, and she hated waiting at the stop if she had to work late.

Had she driven to work, then? She couldn’t remember.

Wouldn’t she remember?

Something’s really wrong, she thought again, panic clawing at her. Despite her sudden onslaught of anxiety, her heart kept its same strong beat, and her breathing didn’t alter in the slightest.

Why wasn’t she reacting right?

She forced her eyes back open, the too-bright world swaying lazily back and forth until she felt slightly nauseous.

Was she in a hospital?

She opened her mouth to call for a nurse, but the words wouldn’t form. She swallowed thickly, grimacing at the scratchy sensation in her throat. When was the last time she had some water? Last night during work, maybe.

Then why did it feel like days?

“She’s waking.”

What …?

Despite the agony in her neck, Sofia craned her head to the side, blinking slowly at a solid glass wall. Two dark, people sized shadows lurked just on the other side.

The second shadow turned toward the first. “When do you plan to administer the final dosage of the serum?”

Serum?

How could she hear them through the glass? Where the hell was she?

Sofia tried to sit up, only to be met with that same resistance at her wrists as before. Frowning, she looked down as the men continued speaking.

A horrified sound escaped her sore throat as she caught sight of her body—her very naked body. She was on some kind of metal bed, with several wires connected to her chest. An IV drip connected to the inside of her elbow.

But that wasn’t the most alarming part.

Thick white cuffs encircled her wrists and ankles, shackling her to the bed. This time, her heart skipped a beat as her panic increased, but it felt sluggish.

Off.

The sensation of wrongness sparked a ferocious terror, and Sofia whimpered, struggling pitifully against her restraints, her muscles aching and uncooperative.

“Help,” she croaked, her throat on fire as the word barely passed her lips. The men on the other side of the glass either didn’t hear or didn’t bother to acknowledge her plea, and more fear spread through her.

“In another forty-eight hours, she’ll receive the last dose. We’ll keep her sedated until her body has had ample time to adjust to everything.”

Sedated? That’s why she felt so weird! They’d sedated her! She jerked her hands—or tried to—but she couldn’t move.

“I thought you said she’d passed the first trial with flying colors. Why keep her under longer than necessary?”

“Her body has adapted beautifully,” the first man stated casually. “But given that we injected her with an improved serum to ensure her breeding compatibility was over ninety-eight percent, it’s best to monitor her for an additional few days, just to make sure she doesn’t expire, before we introduce her to her breeding partner.”

Breeding compatibility? Breeding partner?!

Expire?

Oh, hell no! Whatever sick, twisted dream she was having, she wanted out of it! Right now!

Except, it didn’t feel like she was dreaming. She didn’t have a good enough imagination to conjure some kind of evil, twisted, experimental laboratory.

This felt too real.

Too horrifying.

She needed to get the fuck out of here!

Sofia struggled harder, moving her arms a fraction more than before. She squirmed against her restraints, desperate to get free. Whatever was going on, this wasn’t a hospital. She hadn’t gotten into an accident.

“The other test subjects didn’t receive the same courtesy.”

“The other subjects were before we’d exhausted our resources. All of our funding went into improving the serum. Hopefully, it’s enough. I’d hate to put all of this time and effort into another lost cause.”

The second shadow shrugged. “It might be, regardless of our scientific advances. Subject Zero has been rather volatile. He ripped apart every eligible female we presented to him as a viable breeding partner. He’s unstable.”

Oh, god.

The first shadow laughed lightly. “Of course he’s unstable. We’ve turned him into a monster, stripping away whatever humanity he had before and leaving only his baser, animalistic instincts intact.”

These men were delusional! They’d kidnapped her and it sounded like they’d tortured someone else. A strangled cry clogged in her throat, nausea churning in her gut as her heart finally started pounding.

“Someone,” Sofia rasped, her voice rising despite the pain in her throat. “Help!”

Just then, she heard the whirring of a machine. Snapping her head to the right, toward the IV drip, she watched in panic as a blue liquid shot into the IV bag from a machine connected to it, mixing with the clear solution inside.

“What—” The blue liquid traveled through the plastic tube, heading straight for the needle in her arm. “No, stop! What is that? Sto—”

The world spun, fractures of blinding white light mixing with pitch black as she collapsed back onto her metal bed. Before she could resist, before she could even attempt to fight the lethargy spreading through her body, darkness claimed her.