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We leapt and ran and flew in the huge space of the studio and were both out of breath when Michelle arrived.
Aleks looked at her with obvious dislike. “Not tonight. We are on holiday.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, unsmiling.
“It’s only ten minutes,” I pointed out, not wanting any unpleasantness to spoil the evening. “You go and get ready, Aleks. I’ll be up soon.”
“You should not be wasting your time on this nonsense, Malphia.”
“I’ll run up the stairs,” I promised, putting my hands round the back of his neck. We kissed with complete disregard for the fact we had an audience.
Then Aleks left, and I was alone in the dungeon with Michelle.
“I thought he’d never leave,” she said, affixing the monitors somewhat more roughly than usual. She observed Amalgamation C, and then asked me to close my eyes and simply imagine performing it. She studied the screen. “Very good. Visualise it again, and see yourself shutting the laptop lid at the same time.”
“What?”
“I want to see what your patterns do when you envisage both events at once.” I really wished I had gone upstairs with Aleks. He was right, this was nonsense. But I did as requested. “Interesting,” she said. “Again.”
We did it again, and again, repeatedly. She started to sound cross. The computer lid slammed shut, and I opened my eyes.
“Clever girl,” she said. “Off you run, then. Dirty weekend with Pasha and Aleks, is it?”
I stared at her. “No,” I began before realising two things: I did not have to explain anything to this woman, and my involvement in her research was over.
Not bothering to remove the monitors – the bin in my ensuite bathroom would be the best place for them – I flounced from the studio. In the elevator I pressed the button for the top of tower, but the doors were so slow to respond that Michelle managed to join me in the small space.
“I said no when they asked me,” she said. “You need to learn to say no too.”
I looked away, determined not to listen to any more of her nastiness, though wishing I had, indeed, said no when she had asked me for the ten minutes a day.
“You know what I said about there being no negative stimuli in these sessions?” she said. “I lied.”
There was a sudden stabbing pain in my neck, and I collapsed, bumping against the side of the lift as I fell to the floor, stunned and still.
Chapter 37
Anicysensationtravelledround my body as I stared ahead, sore from the fall. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. Had I had some sort of fit?
Michelle crouched, encompassing me in her perfume cloud. “Did you really think I would let you ruin the work, and oust me to a background role in my own castle?”
She stood up, leaving me to look at her shoes: the stitching, the red heels, the colours. Michelle’s reds didn’t match again. One shoe was much darker than the other and less shiny. They were very real, those two shoes in front of my face. The rest of this couldn’t be. Any minute, something was going to happen to explain it all away. Any minute now, Aleks would wake me from this demented dream, this nightmare.
Something jangled and scraped above, and the elevator moved. Down. It felt like we were going down, but surely we couldn’t go down? The basement, the dungeon, was the lowest level. There was no down.
But there was. And the sliding doors opened to it. I tried to get to my feet, but not a twitch did my muscles make. I was frozen on the floor. I tried to cry out, to scream, but no sound was forthcoming, my mouth and throat also being paralysed.
I was dragged out of the elevator by my armpits and into a darker place. I could see an old wall of large damp blocks and a low stone ceiling that seemed to sag under the weight of the castle. The hard floor hurt my face and smelled of stale, dusty earth.
Michelle moved about in unseen space. Animal fear coursed through my veins. Sweat chilled on skin. Breath was loud, rasping, sucking at the air, as I wanted to live, wanted to move. Immobility conflicted with the desire to flee, and I tried to scream again, but that was still impossible.
The light and dark red shoes appeared. I was lifted by my arm until I was nearly standing. Michelle was strong. I couldn’t turn to see what she was doing, but she soon had me attached to a wall by my wrists, the top of my body hanging forward like a sad rag doll.
“Ready to begin, Miss Treadwell?” asked Michelle.
The injection in my neck burned and seared, and jolted life back into limbs. I threw myself forward and tried to struggle free. It was futile. The effort required just to move the heavy chains I’d been attached to was immense, and the pain in my wrists, extreme.
“Let me go!” I yelled. “Have you completely lost your mind? Is this some sort of joke? Or trick to see how I respond? It’s not on, Michelle. You have to stop this now.”
