HUNTED-Chapter 424: Research Centre (4)

Keira was left in the messy room in silence beside her deep breaths to the bullet lodged in the back of her thigh. She was still blocked by the wolfsbane lingering in her system, so the healing process—something she hadn’t even attempted yet due to her wolf only being with her for about ten minutes before she was drugged—wouldn’t work.

Right now, Keira was more human, and she was bleeding out on the tiled floor.

After calming her breaths and rapid heartbeat, Keira slowly sat up, keeping her injured leg extended out as she searched the room and threw her hands up. There wasn’t anything she could use to try and remove the bullet! It was silver as well, making her flesh burn.

"Seriously? You just gonna let me bleed out all over your white tiles?" She clipped at the camera.

There was no response from the speaker, so Keira began dragging herself along the ground, using her hands to pull her backside across the tiles, leaving a trail of smudged blood behind. She needed to do something. She didn’t know what that was yet, but getting to the bed seemed like a good idea.

When Keira got to the side of the bed where the contents of the food tray hadn’t been left, the door swooshed open. This time, three masked guards and Carter entered the room. The masked men pointed their rifles at Keira, which she thought was ridiculous, especially because of the current state she was in.

When she didn’t try and attack them, two of the men started cleaning up her mess, leaving the other still training their gun on her.

Carter strode forward, placing a green first aid box on the bed and stopped in front of her, his height looming over the Princess. "Get on the bed," he ordered gruffly.

Keira glared at him but didn’t comment. Putting her elbows on the bed, she tried to lift herself up. Before she could fully get up, Carter rounded the bed and seized her under the armpits, yanking her up roughly. "Too slow."

"Sorry, comrade, my leg’s a little busted from the bullet you put in it," Keira snapped back, then hissed as her leg bent slightly from the change in position.

"Turn over." Keira didn’t bother with her snarky attitude as the pain travelled up her leg. If he was going to help her, she would be quiet for now. She rolled onto her stomach and dragged herself along the bed.

Carter leaned over her, rummaging through the first aid box. She hated how close he was, the man who’d shot her. Instead of thinking about that, she watched as the last of the splattered food had been scraped up, and the floor full of orange juice, water, broken glass and her blood had been cleaned up, leaving the tiles nice and sparkly once more.

The guards left, leaving the last one, who continued to point his gun at Keira. "You know, you must be pretty bad if you need a guard here to protect you from little old injured me."

Carter looked up and pointed his chin towards the door. "I won’t need assistance. The mutt is incapable of getting the best of me."

The guard left the room, leaving Keira alone with Carter. She tensed at the feel of his hand on her ankle and looked behind her when she felt the material of her trousers move and part away. Carter was using scissors on the trousers and stopped just beneath her butt cheek.

Then he was up, his boots thudding against the floor, the bathroom door swooshing open and shut before he returned with a bowl of water and placed it on the fixed bedside table. He snapped on some white gloves before grabbing a scalpel and tweezers, the instruments glinting in the fluorescent light.

"Um… Have you done this before?" Keira asked nervously. She stiffened as Carter smirked at her. She shouldn’t have said anything—now he knew she was anxious.

Would he make this hurt more?

The bed dipped under his weight as he settled down beside her.

"Stop tensing." Carter leaned forward. "It will make it harder to extract the bullet."

"You know, if you hadn’t shot me, this wouldn’t be an issue," she said over her shoulder.

"If you hadn’t tried to pull that stunt, I wouldn’t have shot you." His hands moved to the wound, and her face flopped into the pillow. He probably did it to shut her up. She tried breathing through the pain and the nausea coiling in her stomach as she felt the tweezers rummaging through her slowly and finally hitting the bullet.

Keira hissed at the light vibration but kept her whimpers to a minimum, knowing well, without looking at him, that Carter was probably enjoying himself.

"Stay still," he ordered, his voice gruff, one hand on her lower back. She’d squirmed a little when the tweezers gripped the bullet. The entire thing was making her feel a little dizzy.

Then, within a few seconds, the tweezers left her thigh, and the sound of metal plopping into the water and hitting ceramic caused Keira to look up just as Carter left the tweezers with the bullet in the dish beside her.

"The drug should be out of your system by tomorrow. But the wound needs to be closed up until then. You might get an infection otherwise."

"And you care because…?" Keira muttered, still trying to get her voice back, feeling the sweat gathering under her armpits and beading on her forehead, overly hot from the nauseous feeling of those tweezers digging into her muscles.

Carter snorted. "I don’t. But you’re a Cross. You’re invaluable. Hunter will want you alive."

"Hunter?"

Carter didn’t respond and started wiping at her wound again, gathering other instruments she didn’t bother looking at this time. She also didn’t press further about this Hunter guy. It was clear Carter was at his limit of interacting with her. He didn’t like that the mad scientist shared his name with her.

The more she could learn about this place and the people within it, the better. Keira might not quite be like her mum or dad or her siblings, but she would do what was possible to survive and escape this place. For now, she would have to be patient, which clearly wasn’t her strong suit after this whole escapade that left her being shot in the leg.

At least it wasn’t the back of her head.

Just as Carter placed the needle against her skin, the door swooshed open. "What have you done to our prize?!"

Keira watched wide-eyed as the mad scientist strode into the room. "Give me that! This isn’t a battlefield. You are not a qualified professional!" Carter was pushed aside once he placed the needle down.

"Does it matter?" Carter grunted, crossing his arms and glaring at Keira. "The mutt will heal anyway. Besides, I’ve always stitched mine up."

"And look how wonky your scarring has been." Unlike before, the needle was only a little uncomfortable. The mad scientist was clearly more skilled and somehow a professional with a license and was in a place like this?

"Whatever, old man." Carter turned to leave.

"Get Keira some food," the mad scientist said, pausing the soldier’s steps.

"Didn’t you see what happened? She should starve-"

"She’ll be stuck in this room for longer then," the mad scientist interrupted, causing Carter to clamp his lips shut.

"Fine." He grumbled, storming off. "Should I force-feed her as well?" The door swooshed shut behind him.

"That wasn’t very smart," the mad scientist observed.

"What did you expect?" Keira questioned, though there wasn’t much bite to her words. Although this guy was creepy and treated her like some sort of pet or prized experiment, she was a little more comfortable with him than Carter—only a little. "You’ve kidnapped me and plan to do horrific things to me."

The mad scientist tsked. "I meant Carter. He knows better, especially with an invaluable werewolf like yourself. Our boss won’t be happy when he hears about this."

"Boss?" She looked over her shoulder, but the mad scientist didn’t respond. He was suddenly too focused on his work that he was incapable of responding.

Keira didn’t bother pushing on that matter. Instead, she asked, "What’s your name, by the way? I can’t keep calling you… the scientist in my head."

The mad scientist grins. "It rings a nice bell, though, doesn’t it? My name is Octavius."

Keira stared at him. "Of course it is."

Octavius huh. That was another name she could give to her parents. For all she knew, though, these weren’t their real names. The ’research centre’ was already of high standard in security, and the fact that her parents hadn’t located this place yet meant they were being meticulously vigilant.

Did they not fear that by taking her, it now made them targets?

She never voiced her thoughts, and the remainder of her treatment was left in silence until Carter returned with another tray full of food.

"It’s not poisoned." He thrust it in Keira’s face when she’d just turned over, and Octavius had been ’kind’ by repositioning her cushions to lean against the bedframe with ease.

Octavius looked between them, his eyebrows raising, and then trained his eyes on Keira. "There is no point in poisoning your food. You need to be in the best physical condition before you can leave this room."

Keira put the tray in her lap, flicking her gaze from Carter to Octavius, her brows furrowing. "What do you mean… leave the room? So, my attempt to escape was-"

"Ridiculous," Carter scoffed, crossing those bulky arms again. "But you’re not the first to try."

Keira’s mind swirled with this new information. Not the first… It reminded her of the guy she saw earlier and all the rooms she’d seen in her little futile attempt to escape. "What do you mean?"

"Unfortunately, dear, we cannot tell you anything more. It would ruin the experiment-"

"It’s not an experiment, old man," Carter clipped, then turned his anger on her. "Just eat your food like a good little mutt. Then maybe you’ll learn more about where you’re at. That’s what you’re trying to do, right? So shut up, eat the food and clean up. You’re a mess."

Keira’s mouth dropped open, and before she could manage a retort, really not used to others treating her in a way, Carter shoved a banana in her mouth and left the room, and Keira blinked after him, biting down on the fruit.

What the F.

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