CHAPTER 32

"Melisca Lorwey."

Lorna's breath froze in her lungs as different words escaped from her friend's lips. Her heart pounded from the very first truth she learned. She heaved a deep breath and exhaled loudly through her mouth to somehow lessen the growing ache in her chest when she heard the first lie. Just the name alone already got her trust cracked.

Doctor Vera and Rico eyed Lorna in the far corner of the room. With the 'we told you so' look on their faces, she looked away and returned her attention to the folder in her hands. The pen in her fingers went numb as she forced her limbs to take down the name they all heard.

Melisca met the doctor's smiling face. The triumph on her lips brought confusion to her mind. She had slipped a truth from her. The human side in her had won their favour. As she tried to grasp her brain into focus, her chest constricted and her skull thumped. The more she fights, the more the drug pierces its purpose to her system—to admit every damn lie hidden.

"Where were you from?" The doctor's voice was like an enchantment in her ears.

"Vrona." She's under a spell that only her mouth is moving and her brain has shut open for anything it demands.

"Where is your birth origin?"

"Falden City." She bit her tongue for slipping off again. What's in the drug that could force her lips from the words of truth from her? From anyone that had been under it? How did humans formulate something like that? Even their supernatural poisons.

"So, you're from here originally," Vera mumbled sweetly to her, a sugary smile on her lips as she caressed Melisca's head. "Tell us about yourself." The doctor demanded and retreated a step.

Melisca stared at the doctor and pressed her mouth shut. She had to get a grasp on her thoughts before the drug spilled everything. "I live by myself. No family left. I work as a bounty huntress." Nothing came to her mind other than what she knew in herself, what she believed.

The doctor raised her head and turned to someone across the room. "Did you know that?"

Lorna met her mother's hard look. "Yes. I knew that information about her."

"What made you leave this place?" Vera returned her attention to Melisca, who was now squinting her eyes and staring straight at her.

"This is the place where I lost everything." The hard edge in her voice was so thick that the undying bitterness resonated in their ears. "I lost my home, my parents, my family."

Lorna's breath froze in her lungs as she looked at the ground. The image of Liz's reaction when they entered the city's boundary replayed in her mind. Her friend shortly puked at the side of an alley during their ride that night. Liz felt sick and repulsed because of what the town reminded her of.

Her chest heaved up and down raggedly as she now understood Liz more. With the feeling of guilt in her heart, she brought the woman back to the place where she greatly suffered the pain of losing everyone she loved. She could have told her about it, but then they just knew each other, and Liz didn't trust her that much and easily. It's her most tragic memory, buried so deep that she doesn't want to talk about it. She gets that.

The woman in a white coat scoffed and gave her patient a smirk. "So, why did you return then?" The gleam in her eyes and how her face delighted knowing that she was about to get the juicy details from the girl.

A tear slowly fell from the corner of Liz's eyes. She returned her gaze to the doctor hovering above her. She clenched her knuckles, and it turned white at how hard she closed it. Her teeth gritted inside her lips as her jaw twitched. Her breathing was ragged. She had inhaled various smells around. The scent of antiseptic in the room, perfumes, and cologne of the other people inside. Heartbeats thrummed in her ears, thrilled and fast from the anticipation of what she could reveal.

"Doc," Rico mumbled with caution as he gestured his eyes on the ECG.

Vera turned her attention to the monitor, and her eyes widened. She hastily grabbed another syringe and a bottle on the table beside her.

Lorna stepped closer to the other side of the bed. Liz closed her eyes and is now breathing by her mouth. The heartbeat on the screen monitor is way above normal.

"Why is her heartbeat going up?" She asked frantically, her forehead knotted with worry. She raised her hand and stroked her friend's hair as she pleaded. "Liz, please calm down. This is going to be over soon."

Melisca had shut her eyes for she knew that the wolf's aggression was surfacing in her. The golden rings in her pupils should never be seen by anyone. Her knuckles were gone white as she clenched her hands to refrain from clutching the armrest that she could easily crush in her strength. The thick, tight leather cuffs that bind her wrists would be just a sewing thread to her. She can free herself in a single yank from the restraints.

Doctor Vera held Liz's arm to properly inject the syringe's content into her system. "Interesting.." She uttered with a curve at the aid of her lips when she finished emptying the dose in the girl's veins.

"What's that mom? Another dose? And why do you have that evil grin on your face?" Lorna inquired with her brows in one line.

Gradually, Liz's breathing patterns had slowed down, along with her heartbeat at the monitor.

"It's a sedative to calm her. See? She's now breathing normally." Her mom replied with a stern look on Melisca.

The doctor tied an elastic tube to the girl's arm and rubbed a cotton ball with antiseptic on the skin above her forearm. Vera doesn't need to tell Liz to clench her first for she's doing it already. Then she pierced the needle into a vein, blood filling the small tube.

"Why are you taking my blood?" Melisca finally speaks. Her rage had subsided as concern flooded her thoughts. Lorna said that taking a blood sample is not necessary. But then why is the doctor doing the opposite?

"Mom, what's that for? That's not included in—"

"--Our set of tests had changed, Loriena." Vera stated sharply in her tone as she pulled out the needle and capped the small tube that contained Melisca's blood. She gave the sample to Rico and eyed her daughter across the other side of Liz.

Lorna's eyebrows almost made a single line as she looked surprised. "Since when, mom?"

"You've been gone for 2 months. Anything could happen at that time. Besides, I am the one who conducts this stage of test so you don't have anything to say about it."

"You should have said earlier."

"What's wrong if I took her blood? It's not like I would drain her body. And besides, this is for everyone's health and safety. To see if she's physically fit to work with us. Why? Does she have any diseases that we shouldn't be aware of?" Her mother bombarded her with questions with a sharp edge in her voice.

"You can't just take anyone's blood without permission. You haven't informed her before we started so that we—" Lorna's still about to answer back but another voice butted in.

"--It's alright, Lorna." It was Liz who spoke this time. She's looking up to her with solid eyes and a twitching jaw. "It's already been done." Then her friend turned to the doctor. "Are you all done with me? Any questions left?"

"You seem so normal after we drugged you just almost an hour ago. Shouldn't you be still weak and sleepy?" Rico noticed and the other two girls looked at her.

Melisca wanted to cut the guy's tongue off or slice his head from his shoulders, the latter was much more enjoyable. It might not be obvious that he may be the one to expose her. But she wouldn't allow it, never. She's just barely started her mission, and she won't be revealed, not yet.

"I'm a drug user, Rico. As time goes by, my body easily adapts to it. That's why I can handle the after-effects of the influence. I'm sleepy now and feel weak but still high. I just know how to manage it."

"And you're proud of that, huh? Who knows what diseases you might have from all those contents and equipment you have used?"

"And you're proud of drugging anyone for your tests? A drug is a drug, you're putting someone's life just for your requirement. What if that individual is allergic to it?"

"We have countermeasures for that, Liz. That's what I'm for." Doctor Vera tuned in to break their heated banter.

"For someone normal, you sure are not ordinary." Rico mumbled and turned his attention away from the girl lying on the strapped seat.

"She's used to drugs, so she should be fine." Lorna stated.

"No wonder she kills like a psycho." He remarked.

"Rico!" His friend exclaimed his name and he looked at her, ready with a murderous glare towards him. He won't take back what he said.

Vera started wearing off all the tubes that were put on Liz's body. "Help her get up."

"Did she pass?" Lorna asked her mother as she pressed a button to adjust the chair to a sitting position.

"I still have to examine her blood. I'll just call you later for the result. If there's no problem, then she's all in."

Lorna quickly unstrapped Liz's arms and legs, the woman jumped out of the seat instantly.

Melisca snatched her rider gloves at the far table in the corner, along with her leather jacket, and she quickly put it on.

"You sure are high, you move fast."

With her back still at them, her actions halted. She breathed a large air to fill her lungs with her eyes closed and lips pressed together. Her hands clenched the front of her coat tightly. She can't erupt now, that guy would certainly have a piece of her, or rather she would have a piece of him, his tongue. But not now, certainly not now.

She stomped to the door with heavy steps, without facing them, and announced with gritted teeth, "I don't like it if anyone takes anything from me unless I agree." Everyone paused and stared at her back figure. "They already took everything." She heaved a deep breath and remarked, "That's why I'm here." Then she exited herself first from the room.

Aside from that thorn of a guy on her nerves, she has something more to be worried about. Her blood sample shouldn't be examined. She stopped outside the door with eyes dazed and her mind working its neurons to come up with any plan to get her sample back.

She paused and stretched her hearing, she had to know first where the doctor would take it.