Claw Read online

  Gone.

  Chapter Four

  Everything hurts. My body is one big bruise. But I'm back in the four-poster bed with the soft mattress. This time, though, I'm naked. They've taken my clothes. Fuck them. That's not going to stop me. I was born naked, as was every single person in this world. Nakedness is a state of mind. You can either rule it or let it intimidate you.

  I can't stop a groan as I sit up. Pain is everywhere. One of my ankles feels as if it's broken. No exploring for me today. Maybe it's time to wait for them to come to me and tell me what this is all about. It's ridiculous that I've been a prisoner here for months and still haven't got the faintest idea why. Yes, they probably love torturing me, but there's no point to it. They've not tried to get information from me. That's what torture is usually for, right? At least based on my training. And in all the years of being an assassin, I've never heard of anyone putting their prisoner into a fancy unlocked room. It doesn't make any sense at all. That worries me. If I don't know what my enemies are up to, it's much harder to predict their next move and how to counteract it.

  If I knew they wanted me dead, I could always play dead and hope they carry my body out of this house. But I'm pretty sure they like me alive. Torture is much more entertaining with a living body.

  I extend my senses to see if I can listen in on a servant conversation again. No such luck; the house is quiet.

  My stomach growls at the same time as my bladder signals me that it's time to find a loo. That makes me realise that I've not used a toilet ever since I first woke up in this room. How weird. I guess it's either because I've not had enough fluids, or because they do something to me while I'm unconscious. Either way, I need a toilet.

  I get up and curse as I try and put weight on my injured ankle. If it's not broken, then it's sprained at the very least. Just what I needed. Now I'm a sitting duck...cat. No, I'm nowhere near being a cat. I've lost my strength and spirit. They've broken most of me, as much as it pains me to admit that.

  I limp out of the room, cursing at every step. My body is on fire with pain. Is that how humans feel after tumbling down a staircase? Being human must suck. I wish I had my healing abilities back, but they seem to be out of commission.

  I dimly remember seeing a bathroom yesterday but ignoring it while walking past. It takes me ten painful minutes to find it again. It's a big room with a golden bathtub that sits on four lion's paws. Ridiculous. I lock the door behind me and pee to my heart's content. At least I still have control over my bladder. Small mercies.

  Now that I'm here, I use the opportunity to look for escape routes from the bathroom. There's no window, obviously, but a grate above a towel stand catches my eye. Ventilation, I assume. It might be just big enough for me to squeeze through, if I manage to pry it open. Which, in my current state, is unlikely, because I wouldn't even be able to climb onto the towel rack with my injured ankle. But still, it's good to know for when I'm healed. This might be a way out.

  My heart beats a little faster at that thought. A tiny spark of hope. Not enough yet to make me feel better about my situation, but at least it's a start.

  I'm hungry, but I'm too exhausted to limp to the kitchen. I return to the bedroom and lie down with a relieved groan. I still haven't met a living soul in this house. The mutants don't count, and besides, they're not in charge and likely don't have any answers for me. I don't want that woman to return and sadly, I'm afraid of K7 coming to visit me too. Who I'd really like to chat to is that servant who was clearly unhappy with his life here. Maybe he's already started his new job, but his colleague didn't sound much happier. Even if they don't want to help me escape, I bet they'd be willing to give me some food.

  For now, all I can do is wait. The pain is too much for me to sleep. I stare around the room, counting the cobwebs in the corner. I wish they'd left a book for me to read. Or some knives to sharpen. Anything to take my mind off things. Strangely enough, I still feel as imprisoned as I did back in my cell. My new nicer surroundings haven't changed that at all. Maybe this is even worse because I don't know what's going to happen. Is this the last moment of respite before they kill me?

  I glare at the ceiling as if I could blame it for my predicament. But no, the only person I can blame for this - besides my captors - is myself. I walked right into the cage. I kind of kidnapped myself. I invented the art of self-kidnapping. Now I just have to find out how to undo it. Self-rescuing. As much as I would love my guys to burst into the room right now to rescue me, it would hurt my pride a little. I think my pride would survive being assisted by cats though. None of those here yet. Maybe they didn't hear my call. Still, I have to hope.

  I sit up and do my cat call again. And again. After five times, my throat hurts. I'm not used to using my voice for these kinds of frequencies.

  A strange noise from the wall to my right makes me freeze. It's a quiet, faint noise, definitely not made by a human or even a cat. Something smaller.

  I stop breathing and sit without even blinking.

  It's a burrowing sound; claws against brick. Something is trying to get into the room. As quietly as I can, I breathe in through my nostrils, analysing even the faintest trace of scents. A rodent. Not sure if it's a mouse or a rat. I cringe. Usually, this would be dinner, but not today. The animal clearly heard my call. It was quiet until I called for feline help, and I don't believe in coincidences.

  I hold my breath again and wait. The burrowing becomes more frantic until a piece of stone falls onto the wooden floor. It crashes into the silence, and even though my rational mind tells me nobody outside this room would have been able to hear it, my heart still beats a little faster.

  I hear claws on wood before I see her. A mouse, a juvenile still, at the cusp of adulthood. Her grey fur is ruffled and covered in dust. Her nose twitches a couple of times, then she sneezes. How adorable. She wipes her face with her front paws, then looks around. At first, she ignores me, but when she realises that I'm the only living being in the room, she slowly approaches me.

  She squeaks when she's a few foot away from me, as if to make sure I was the one that called her.

  I stay as still as possible while repeating my cat call, just quieter than before. I had no idea other animals could understand it. Not that I've ever tried talking to a mouse before. I didn't really need to hear their cries of mercy before I ate them. And now this mouse may be my way out of here. How ironic.

  When I talk to cats, they send me images and emotions rather than words. Maybe I can do the same with the mouse.

  I concentrate and send her an image of the sky combined with the feeling of sunlight warming my fur. Almost immediately, the mouse sits up on her hind legs and sniffs the air, almost as if she's expecting to smell the outside world.

  "Yes, outside. Do you know the way?"

  She drops down to all fours and runs back to the hole where she came from.

  "No, wait!"

  I picture myself stuck in the tiny hole and pass that image on to the mouse. Her nose twitches in amusement.

  "I need another way out. And I don't want any of the humans to see me."

  She crooks her head as if in thought. Am I interpreting too much into her behaviour? Maybe she's just a stupid animal who's only steered by instincts, not conscious thought. It almost hurts to think that, since it would mean that my hope of the mouse showing me the way out is in vain.

  "Can you do it?" I whisper. I hug myself as hopelessness creeps up on me again. I can't give up. Not yet.

  An image pops into my head, but it's not created by me. Giant blades of grass, taller than me, swaying in the wind. Moss-covered earth beneath my paws. The scent of daisies all around me.

  I want to cry with relief. The mouse understands me and she knows a way outside.

  Chapter Five

  If anyone would have told me I'd one day make friends with a mouse, I would have stabbed them.

  Not anymore.

  Whiskers - that's what I've started to call her - has a wicked sense of humo
ur. For a mouse, anyway.

  For the past few hours, she's shown me images of the inhabitants of the house. K7, the man who semi-kidnapped me, the woman who thinks she's K7's mother, about ten different mutant grunts and four servants. Whiskers is only sending me pictures and smells, not voices, so I don't know which of the servants are the ones who I overheard talking when I first woke up in this room. Not that I'm complaining. She's been such a big help. Step by step, I'm building a mental map of the house. It's a little hard because I'm seeing everything from the perspective of a tiny mouse, but it's enough to show me the potential escape routes. My main problem is that I'm not alone here. Those grunts could be waiting for me again. And the second problem is that I'm sure I'm being watched. I bet they're sitting somewhere upstairs with a large bowl of popcorn, pissing themselves laughing at my feeble attempts to escape.

  Thanks to Whiskers, I now know that I'm downstairs in a tall building. It's hard to count the floors from the perspective of a mouse, but I bet it's at least ten storeys. There's one basement below me, but the mouse has only been in there once. I bet that's where they kept me until I was transferred to this room. The ground level is three floors above me. It's a long way to get to the exit, even if I was in top condition.

  Whiskers moves through tunnels in the brickwork, but of course I wouldn't fit in there. She's shown me images of some ventilation shafts, but they don't start getting big enough for me until one level above me. That means I have to use the normal stairs, unless I find a convenient hole in the ceiling somewhere. I wish. Still, I'm further than I was when I woke up today. And I'm feeling a lot more confident. I'll make it out of here. I will.

  Footsteps in the distance alert me, but Whiskers is faster. She disappears beneath the bed. I'm glad she doesn't leave the room. I don't want to be alone, even if my only company is a mouse.

  I sit up as straight as I can and stare at the closed door in both anticipation and dread. If it's some of the grunts, they'd be able to simply pick me up and do whatever they want with me. As creepy as the woman was, I kind of hope it's her.

  But no. The door opens and a very familiar face peeks in. K7. Usually, I prefer to think of my fellow clones as sisters, but not with her. Not after what I saw in my dream.

  She walks into the room and closes the door behind her. A smile curves her pale lips, but it seems more like a habit than happiness. Her right eye, the mechanical one, glints and a red light shines from it, pointing right at me. What the fuck?

  "What's that?" I challenge her. I doubt we need introductions.

  "Hold still," she orders coldly. Her voice is nothing like my own. There's no life to it. She sounds much older than I am. In a twisted way, it reminds me a little of Grandma Doctor, the woman who created us.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Scanning you. Don't move or it might hurt."

  I glare at her but I follow her advice. I'm in no mood for more pain.

  "Your ankle is broken," she said dispassionately. "You need to take better care of yourself."

  I can't help it, I snort out a laugh. "I'd be in much better condition away from here. Want to let me go?"

  For a second, a child's fearful expression passes over her face, but then she's back to robot mode.

  "You will stay. My parents have plans for you."

  I shudder when she calls them her parents. "Do you know who I am to you?" I ask, keeping my voice as neutral as possible.

  "Of course. You're the runaway."

  "That's not what I meant. But yes, I like running away. Would love to do it now, actually."

  "You're the experiment," she says with distaste. "You failed and disappointed my parents, so then they had me instead. I'm not a disappointment like you."

  Ouch, that hurts even though I couldn't care less what her pretend-parents think of me. It's the way she looks at me, all high and mighty. She really thinks she's better than me. And not just that. The disdain in her eyes is clear. They've brainwashed her.

  "I'm your sister," I say softly. "We're sisters."

  "No, we're not. I don't have siblings. My parents say that I'm so perfect that they didn't need any other children."

  Arrogant, much? This is ridiculous. I try to feel pity for her, but it's getting harder and harder.

  "Have you always lived here with them?"

  "No, we were in Attenburgh when I was younger, but then my father got a job here in Parseldon-"

  She stops, her eyes widening. Oops. She's said too much.

  Parseldon. The town closest to the capital city. This is where all the rich people and politicians live. Close enough to the capital to commute there for work, but far enough not to have to live alongside the plebs. I've seen pictures of Parseldon. Sleek buildings, large public parks, a river with water so clear you can drink it. I've never had any plans to go there. Not my kind of people, and too much security for assassins to go about their work unchallenged.

  It's quite a distance from Attenburgh. A day of travelling if you're not running as a panther. My heart sinks at the thought. That makes it even less likely that my family can find me here. They might still be combing through Attenburgh, while I'm being kept in a town far away. Why can't life just be simple for once?

  "What's your father's job?" I ask casually.

  "I should be asking the questions," she replies haughtily. "I'm the one in charge."

  I raise an eyebrow. "And what makes you think you're in charge?"

  I shouldn't bait her, but I can't help it.

  Her right eye glows red again. A ray of light touches my shoulder and I scream out in pain as it pierces my flesh. I clutch my shoulder, expecting there to be blood or at least a burn wound, but I feel nothing but smooth skin. What by all things evil is that thing?

  "Did that hurt?" she asks innocently. "That was the lowest setting. Please don't make me use the higher one. That one hurts me too."

  "Then why would you use that, if it causes you pain?"

  A shadow crosses her face. "Sometimes, you have to feel the pain you're causing others."

  It sounds like something she's heard so often that it's become a mantra for her. I doubt it's what she really thinks. Pity rises in me. It seems like she's had to use her strange eye as a weapon against her will.

  "Have you always had that eye?" I ask her.

  "Yes. It's pretty, isn't it? I can change its colour, look."

  Suddenly, she's a child again. The eye flickers from red to green to bright yellow.

  I smile to encourage her. I don't want her to turn psychopath again. Having her behave more like a child is much easier to deal with.

  "What's your favourite colour?"

  "Purple. What's yours?"

  "Red. Purple is lovely too, though. Do you have a lot of purple things?"

  She shakes her head. "No, my mother says I shouldn't favour one colour over another. It's just like with the servants. I'm not supposed to like one more than the others. She says I should feel the same for everything."

  "That sounds very hard."

  K7 nods. "It is. You won't tell her about purple, right? If she knew, she'd take the colour from my palette like she did with light blue."

  Anguish tinges her voice. What a strange life this girl has. She seems well looked after physically - ignoring the mechanical eye - but they seem to have fucked with her mind somehow.

  "I won't tell her," I promise. I mean it. She may be crazy and slightly twisted, but she's also my sister. "What's your name?"

  She looks down at the floor. "That's a secret."

  "Hey, I can keep a secret. I won't tell your mother about your favourite colour and I won't tell her that you told me your name. Deal?"

  "I shouldn't."

  "Come on, I'll tell you mine, too."

  "I already know yours. You're Kat."

  I grin. "But do you know my full name?"

  She looks up at me. "Katriona."

  "That's still not my full name."

  She bites her bottom lip. Now she looks her age. S
he's clearly debating hard whether to confide in me or not.

  I let her think in silence. I don't want to pressure her too much. I'm slowly getting her on my side and I don't want to put that in jeopardy.

  "My mother calls me baby, but that's not my real name," she whispers. "And my father calls me K.C."

  I'm not sure if she means Kacey or K.C. I really hope it's the former and not an abbreviation of something like Kat Clone.

  "But Lynda calls me Puppet."

  "Who's Lynda?" I ask.

  "One of the servants. She's not my favourite, I promise."

  I hold up my hands. "I never assumed that, don't worry. Which name do you prefer? Baby, Kacey or Puppet?"

  She looks down on the floor again, evading my eyes. "Neither. I've made my own."

  My sister seems scared of my reaction to that. Poor thing.

  "Hey, look at me." She does it so fast that I know it's just an instinct. She's used to following orders. "I made my own name too. When I grew up, I was always just called Kat or Katriona, but then I learned that most humans have two names. A first name and a last name. So I came up with my own surname. Feln. Can you guess what's that based on?"

  "Feln," she repeats. "Feline?"

  "You got it right away, well done. Not many people figure it out at first try."

  She smiles at me proudly. I somehow doubt that she gets praised a lot.

  "Sophie," she blurts. "It's from a book I read. Not my favourite book, I promise."

  I cringe but keep my expression neutral. "Sophie is a lovely name. I'll call you Sophie from now on if you want."

  She nods. "But only when we're alone."

  "Of course. I promise. Do your parents know you're here talking to me?"

  She shakes her head and gives me a sheepish smile. "They kept saying that I could visit you soon, but it never happened. They think I'm doing my homework. My father is away for work and my mother's out shopping. It's only the guards and the servants here and they'd never tell on me."