Page 69 of Juniper Unraveling

I’ve learned that Doctor Falkenrath doesn’t like going down to the incinerator himself. In the beginning, I thought the reason was that he felt it below him to carry out such tasks, but as I’ve gotten to know him, it’s clear that it’s all those bodies, subjected to cruel and unspeakable torment, that he can’t bear to see.

“I can do it.” Saying anything else would leave me feeling helpless and crippled, and I’m neither. Thankfully, the crackers staved off the nausea and provided enough energy to function without the overwhelming fatigue.

He gives a nod and heads toward the door, doffing his suit into the receptacle beside the door, before he disappears into the anteroom.

I pull the sheet over the mutilated remains of the body and push the bed toward the elevators. Once inside, I press the button to the basement, staring at a spot of blood that’s been wicked by the white cotton sheet. In an effort to save resources, they’ve begun to salvage the sheets. Instead of being burned along with the bodies, they’re laundered and sterilized, but still carry the stains of death.

The doors open to the line of beds waiting to be wheeled into the incinerator. The scent of burnt flesh hits me like a curtain of nauseating fumes, and I cover my nose to keep from vomiting. One-handedly pushing the cart, I set it in line with the others, and gag when a sour smell reaches my nose.

Pulling back the sheet on the cart in front of the one I wheeled down reveals a man whose eyes are white and glossed over. His abdominal cavity is cut open, and as if it’s been cut out and haphazardly thrown atop his body, his liver sits half hanging out of the hole, blackened and covered in small bumps that indicate cirrhosis.

Oh, God.

I throw the sheet back over him and bend forward, beside the cart, just opening my mouth in time to expel a blast of clear fluids that splash against the cement floor.

My muscles quake with the nausea gurgling in my belly, and I vomit again—nothing but bile and the acids that sting my throat.

Standing up from the mess, I glance around for Mike, but he’s nowhere in sight. The rancid stench goes straight to my nose again, and if I don’t get the hell out of here, I’m going to throw up whatever miniscule amounts of stomach fluids are left in me.

I spin toward the elevators and halt in my tracks.

A shadow edges toward me—big, menacing, and familiar.

I breathe through my mouth to keep from panicking, but when Ivan steps into the light, there’s no denying the fact that he’s angry. Shoulders bunched and lip snarled, he strides toward me, his boots clomping like the hooves of a demon against the concrete.

“Ivan. I’m sorry.” I stumble backward into the carts behind me, as he closes the space in seconds.

His palm slams against my throat, trapping my breath, as he grinds his teeth in fury. “Where the fuck were you last night?”

Eyes blazing with fire, he squeezes tighter, until stars float in front of my eyes and I can’t answer if I wanted to. My hands fly to my throat in a futile attempt to fight him, but dizziness is settling over me, making me weaker.

Throttling my neck with one hand, he gives a harsh yank of my pants, pulling them down to mid-thigh. “I brought friends with me last night. Promised them a good time. And you made me look like a fucking fool!”

“Please,” I rasp, and my circle of view closes in from the edges.

Pushing into my space, he bends me backward, until I’m lying across the man we dissected earlier. I focus on the dark ceiling above me, the thick pipes that blur, as the oxygen fails to fill my lungs. Pressure slams into my thighs, and the sharp sting between them is his merciless thrust into me.

“Ivan!” My voice arrives no higher than a whisper, and the pipes continue to blur and sharpen, blur and sharpen. Tears fill my eyes when his grunts reach my ears, the angry sounds with each violent drive that slams me against the dead body below me. “Please!”

“Fuck you, whore. That’s what you are. A whore. A dick-loving slut.”

In minutes, he finishes inside me and releases my neck. The second he pulls himself out of me, a cold hard crack smarts my cheek and kicks my head to the side. A tingle of fire radiates from the ache in my jaw.

“I’m … sick. I got sick.”

Eyes wide, he looks me up and down and, tucking himself away, takes a step back. “Sick?”

Catching on, I shake my head and pull my pants up. “No. No not like that. I’m not—”

His hand slams against my throat again, pushing me backward onto the cart. I kick to slide off, and he gathers my legs, swinging them atop of the body beneath me, until I’m lying across the dissected man. Writhing beneath his grip only sends him into a furious spell, and his fist collides with my cheekbone, rattling my teeth.

“You’re a fucking Rager? You better not have infected me, whore!” The wall moves in my periphery, bodies slipping past me as he wheels me toward the incinerator doors. “You know what we do with the infected.”

“No!” Flailing my arm knocks his hand away from my throat, and I lift my head, screaming.

His palm smacks my mouth, fingers digging into my jaw. “Shut the fuck up, whore. Nobody cares about a disease-infected piece of shit!”

I claw at his hands and bite his palm, a move that earns me another rail of his fist.