Christmas in Zonei - 7. Chapter 7

It was well past dark and Kim wasn’t home yet.

Raeden knew something was wrong. He felt it deep in his core. Kim was alive out there; he knew that too somehow. But Kim wasn’t happy—he was afraid. He wondered how he could possibly know these things.

My imagination must be playing tricks on me.

He’d had a connection with Lyzel. He’d known her location at all times. He’d known her state of mind, always, even if they were too far apart to form a mind link solid enough for conversation. Their range for communication had been further than most other mod-pairs—about two miles.

But there was no explanation for this connection he seemed to have with Kim. It was impossible. Kim was mundane—he wasn’t a mod with telepathic abilities. He couldn’t broadcast his emotions, and Raeden’s own telepathy didn’t extend to anyone other than his bond-mate. The thoughts and emotions of normal people didn’t seep into his consciousness. So whatever he was feeling must be his imagination.

Nevertheless, Kim was late. He always got home before dark and it was a full hour past sunset already. Raeden was on edge, gnashing his teeth. There was absolutely nothing he could do to help Kim, wherever Kim was. The only thing he could do was wait and worry—he couldn’t even pace—and he hated it.

Twenty minutes later, he crawled over to the window and stared out into the night, watching the snow drift silently to the ground. It covered the filthy streets with a fresh blanket of white, camouflaging the detritus and covering the muck in the gutters, hiding Zonei’s wretchedness under a layer of sparkling beauty. But Raeden didn’t notice that.

Kim was getting closer. He felt it strongly and wondered why his mind insisted on taunting him with these impressions. But he wasn’t terribly surprised a few minutes later when he spotted Kim coming down the street. The very large man lumbering beside him, however, was unexpected. And Kim was struggling to carry something bulky and heavy.

Raeden furrowed his brow. What the fuck?

In all the time he’d known Kim, he’d never brought anyone home. He didn’t even seem to have any friends. He spoke of coworkers now and then, but he didn’t socialize with them. He never went anywhere except to the grocery store, he never did anything except sit in his unit and read, and he certainly never brought people home.

Well, he did bring me home, but we see how well that turned out. He would surely never bring home another charity case. So who the fuck is that man and what the hell is Kim carrying?

Raeden was to find out soon enough. He watched Kim struggle up the few steps to the apartment complex door and then he and the man disappeared from sight. Raeden shuffled back to the futon on his knees, arranging himself on the edge expectantly, wishing he could stand.

He had a bad feeling about the man who accompanied Kim. Something about his demeanor, even from a distance, did not sit right. Raeden didn’t trust him one whit.

Raeden smelled the man long before he walked in the front door. He reeked of sweat and nasty smoke, and by the time the front door opened, the scent was almost overpowering.

As Kim entered the room, Raeden felt, or maybe saw, some of the tension ease from his body. The fat man followed him in and Raeden surprised himself by letting out a low growl from deep in the back of this throat.

He didn’t personally feel threatened. Even injured and in his human form, the man was no match for him. But he did feel that he was a danger to Kim and that got his hackles up. His skin tingled. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that he was feeling the beginning stages of a morf.

Kim grunted with effort as he set an odd machine down carefully on the floor near Raeden’s feet. “Hey, Raeden, this is Dr. Marcus,” he said breathlessly. “He’s agreed to treat your hands and feet with electroregen.”

Raeden whipped his head up to look at the man sharply. He didn’t look much like a doctor.

The fat man was staring at him in undisguised shock. Raeden was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and sweats, even though the temperature in the room only thirteen degrees Celsius. He had gotten warm worrying about Kim and had taken his sweater off. Marcus had clearly noticed the scale markings that tattooed his arms.

“You’re a mod!” he said in a strangled voice. Not taking his eyes off Raeden, he started to back away. “You didn’t say anything about treating a mod.” Raeden could smell his fear. “The deal is off.”

By now he was at the door and he hesitated with his hand on the knob. “Bring me my machine. And you owe me, just for hauling my ass all the way out here.”

If the situation had been different, Raeden might have laughed at the expression on Kim’s face. He was clearly outraged.

“No! We had a deal!” Kim burst out. “You’ve come all the way over here. You need to treat him. He’s not dangerous. He can’t even walk.”

The fat man squinted his piggy eyes at Raeden doubtfully. “He’s a mod,” he stated again.

“He’s just a big teddy bear,” Kim argued. He was standing next to Raeden who was sitting on the edge of the futon, and now he leaned over and wrapped his arms around Raeden in a hug.

Raeden didn’t take his eyes off the doctor, but Kim’s arms were warm around his chest and his scent, stronger than usual because of his efforts carrying the heavy machine, enveloped him. A wave of emotion washed over him. He felt unexpectedly protective of the young man, and this stranger in his home felt like a threat. Unbidden, another low growl came out of the back of his throat.

“You’re not helping,” Kim hissed in his ear before taking a step away from him. He turned to the doctor. “Would you like some tea?” he asked. Without waiting for a response he went to the credenza and busied himself with tea preparations.

“You’re insane,” the fat man said, but his fear had diminished considerably. Raeden could no longer hear his heart having palpitations.

“How are we paying for this?” Raeden addressed his question to Kim.

Without turning to look at him, Kim answered. “You’re paying for it as soon as you’re better and can get an intel. Meanwhile, I’ll make payments to Doctor Marcus with each paycheck.” His voice quavered a little and Raeden looked at him sharply. There was more here than Kim was telling him.

“Why would he accept a payment plan?” Raeden asked.

“Because he’s charging exorbitant prices,” Kim replied.

Raeden refrained from scowling at the doctor. He didn’t want to scare away his best hope of regaining his mobility. Although once he could walk, he’d have no excuse to stay with Kim. The thought of being alone again almost had him refusing treatment. He had gotten better since he’d been living with Kim. He wasn’t well by any stretch of the imagination, but the young Asian had somehow managed to piece together a few tattered bits of his soul and was holding them in place with duct tape and baling wire.

Kim turned to look at him and the hope that was shining in his eyes was too much. Raeden couldn’t crush that. Kim had so little to hope for.

“How much?” Raeden growled.

Kim started and he and doctor exchanged a glance that was less than savory. Something was definitely going on here.

“Eighty thousand per session,” the doctor replied. “And you’ll need more than one.” Apparently the doctor had decided to treat him after all.

But then Marcus continued, “Although, I’m not even sure it’s possible to treat a mod. The sessions are extremely painful. I brought an anesthetic to knock you out, but I doubt it’ll work on you.”

“It would if you gave me a double-dose,” Raeden replied. His heart was suddenly beating faster, and saliva started pooling in his mouth at the thought of getting some drugs into his system. He had given up on talking Kim out of anything stronger than aspirin weeks ago.

“I didn’t bring a double-dose,” the doctor replied. He nodded toward Kim with a scowl. “He didn’t tell me I’d be treating a mutant.”

The fat man stepped away from the door and came toward Raeden, moving slowly and cautiously as if he were approaching a wild beast. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” he said.

Kim came over to help, gently unwrapping the bandages that protected Raeden’s black fingers. The doctor pursed his lips and shook his head when he saw them. “Three sessions, at least,” he said.

Kim knelt and removed the bandages from Raeden’s ravaged feet. They still hurt like hell even though he couldn’t feel large part of them at all.

The fat man’s piggy eyes widened as he stared at Raeden’s feet. “No amount of electroregen is going to fix those,” he said. “It should help some, but you’ll lose several of your toes for sure anyway. You should have them surgically removed so they don’t infect.”

Raeden was surprised at the surge of disappointment that washed over him at the doctor’s words. He hadn’t believed he was capable of caring anymore. He glanced at Kim and the distress on the young man’s face was heartbreaking.

“It’ll be okay,” he said to Kim. Addressing the doctor, he followed with, “Just do what you can. If this electroregen makes it so I can walk again, I’ll gladly pay you.”

The doctor turned to Kim, who had returned to making tea now that the water was hot. “The agreement was that you’d pay in full for each session, whether or not it’s successful,” he said sharply.

“Yes,” Kim hastened to agree. “It does work though, doesn’t it?”

“Usually,” the doctor nodded and, although Raeden didn’t trust the fat man as far as he could throw him, he didn’t get a sense that he was lying.

“We can do one session and see if it makes a difference,” Raeden said.

Fifteen minutes later Raeden was lying on his stomach on the futon while the doctor positioned his hands over a large glass plate on the electroregen unit, which was sitting on the floor in front of him. Marcus pressed a button on the side of the contraption and a metal plate lowered over the top of Raeden’s hands until it touched them and began to push them against the glass plate below. Raeden sucked in his breath in a hiss as pain shot through his fingers.

The doctor tapped the button again and the machine quit trying squash Raeden’s hands in pancakes, but they were already painfully crushed.

“It’s going to hurt like hell, but you need to keep your hands in there. If you jerk them out, you could break my machine, and that’ll cost you a lot more than eighty thousand and a few bl—”

“Doctor!” Kim interjected suddenly.

The doctor broke off and glared at him. “What?”

“Uh … how long does it last? I mean, how long do you need to zap them, or whatever?”

Kim was definitely hiding something. He had some sort of agreement with the doctor that he wasn’t letting on about, but Raeden couldn’t think through the fog in his head. Why did I ever think drugs were fun? he wondered. Oh yeah, he remembered. Not fun, just mind numbing. They make it okay. I don’t have to think about her then. A wave of nausea rolled through him, and he tried to focus on the doctor’s words instead of his own dark thoughts.

“The session itself takes fifty-two seconds. It’ll be at least a few days after treatment before you start seeing results,” Dr. Marcus said. “You should wait a week and no more than ten days before treating them again.”

Kim nodded.

Raeden gritted his teeth. His fingers were throbbing from the machine pressing down on his hands. “Just get it the fuck over with,” he growled.

“Fine,” the doctor snapped back. He seemed to have lost his fear of Raeden. “You just hold the fuck still.” With that he put his fingers on a switch and said, “Three, two, one…”

Raeden’s world exploded in pain. It felt as if he had stuck his hands into a raging inferno. And now he had to hold them there. He fought valiantly to keep from jerking them out of the machine and likely destroying it in the process. White-hot pain was his universe. He was distantly aware that his eyes were squeezed tightly shut and someone was making a tremendous racket. Slowly it dawned on him that the noise he was hearing was himself, screaming in pain. Just when he thought he was going to pass out, the heat dissipated.

He found himself panting for air. Kim was kneeling beside him, one of his small hands rubbing Raeden’s back, his other hand wrapped partly around his bicep. The doctor pressed a button on the machine and the top plate slid up.

Raeden stared at his hands. They looked exactly the same as before. He had expected his wrists to end in charred stumps—it had felt like his hands were being cremated right on his body. Suddenly he became aware that his stomach was churning and his mouth was flooded with saliva. He swallowed quickly. “Bucket!” he gasped out.

He was no longer using the bucket as his personal urinal, preferring to make his slow way into the bathroom on his knees. He was tall enough to pee into the toilet without having to stand.

Kim raced into the bathroom and returned just in time with the bucket. Raeden emptied his guts into it, then collapsed with a groan.

“Tea?” Kim asked, rubbing Raeden’s back again. Raeden glanced up to see that Kim was holding a cup of tea in front of him. He nodded and Kim brought the cup up to his lips, tilting it just enough for him to get a swallow.

“Thanks,” Raeden said. His voice came out in a rasp. His body was covered with a sheen a sweat and his limbs felt like jelly.

“I think it’s best if we do his feet bottom’s up,” the doctor said.

Raeden groaned. He wasn’t sure he’d survive another ordeal like the one he’d just gone through. His hands felt strange and tingly, and his fingers ached.

“Can you give him a few minutes to recover from the last one?” Kim asked.

The doctor grunted, then said, “The anesthesia will start wearing off soon. Best to get it over with.”

Anesthesia indeed, Raeden thought. That shit didn’t do fuck except make me feel dizzy. Regardless, at the doctor’s urging, he scooted around on the bed until his feet were hanging off the end, in easy reach of the torture device.

The doctor placed his feet on the lower plate and lowered the upper plate until his heels were firmly squashed. Raeden set his jaw and against the pain. Once again, the doctor counted down and then his feet were immersed in boiling lava. He didn’t even try to stop his screams. It took all of his intense focus to keep from kicking. The agony seemed to go on forever, and then, blessedly, he lost consciousness.