Nightmare. The word bounced around in Summer's panicked mind. Nightmare. She fought to tame her wild heartbeat as clicking and whirring surrounded her. Nightmare. She kept her eyes closed, hoping whatever humans lurking nearby believed her still asleep. Her breathing steadied back into a slow rhythm.
Summer's whole body ached. Her wings were tucked underneath her as she lay on her back. Feathers pressed unforgivingly against her back like daggers. Pain lanced through her wings as she tried to relax.
Doctor Moore had taken far more than one feather.
She tested the restraints around her, moving as slowly as her stiff muscles allowed. Her impatience tightened around her like a knot. Whatever ungodly creation made these crude sounds would kill her, or worse. She already lay in its maw. She raised first one wrist, then the other. Leather whispered against her skin, just loud enough to send a chill down her back, ruffling her feathers all over again.
Summer strained her ears for the scuffle of human feet. Unnatural din crowded her ears, filling her head with useless noise. A faint pressure took up a residence at the front of her skull. She swore every movement could be the door shutting, every click the sound of Doctor Moore picking up the knife to cut her apart. He would want more samples.
She coached each muscle back into tranquility as she gathered her composure. If the humans meant to kill her, they would have already. The thought only left deeper questions gnawing into her. Why hadn't they killed her already? What fate would they choose for her?
Shaking off the yawning questions mentally, she extended a tender request to her wind sense. Thinking would only dig her further into this pit. Giving in to her instincts would seal her fate with cloyingly sweet air or the embrace of a gun's arrow. Her breath billowed in front of her, battered by the rampant flurry of motion around her.
It wrapped her like a cocoon, surrounding her in a stifling caress not three inches from her nose. Its skin had no edges, its surface smoothly uniform as her breath rippled across it. Beneath moved many parts with the energy of a dust devil, working with a fervor that tired her just listening to it.
A new wind shifted past her bare feet, sliding through the grooves in her talons. Her toes twitched involuntarily. She winced. Above her matted hair, a matching circular path bloomed out into open air. Two options, then. Both were just barely wide enough to drag herself along the padded table until the edge. If, by some wind-blessed miracle, she could somehow move.
The humans had outdone themselves this time. Hempen strands secured both her wrists and her fingers separately to something under the table. Straps wrapped across her thighs, just below her knees, and her ankles. All were tight enough they bit into her skin and left indentations. Her shoulders and forehead had the same treatment.
Summer was beginning to experience a new form of agony. Strange metal clips pinched each wing bent, two on each side. Doctor Moore had either studied her wings extensively or had gotten really lucky. The first clip pinched her nerve, sending stars dancing in front of her closed eyes whenever she tried to move. The second took advantage of this weakness to neatly hold her wings in a position to be folded below her. Ingenious invention. Even if she were free, she would struggle to remove them herself.
Her growl died in her throat as the door creaked open. She reached out into the still air, her vision swirling with the breath of the human peeking through the door. "Doctor Moore?" A doting female voice chimed. The name had Summer clenching her teeth together. Her fears materialized in whorls gracing the air from his head turning away from Summer.
Seconds ticked past, the Avi's heartbeat growing faster as time died and a new moment was born. The Doctor finally responded. "What do you need?"
The female tapped fragile nails against the door. "What shall I do with the subject in 2A?" Summer's wind sense blurred into the darkness behind her eyelids. Her body quivered and went cold as her body overdosed on adrenaline.
This time he didn't hesitate. "Just kill it. We already have enough. Pack it up like usual." Moore ordered the death without even a change in his tone. No waver in his voice. Summer swore all that he was carved from was cold calculation and sadistic malice.
Whatever response the female gave him, the words went over Summer's head. The door sealed shut and the two were alone once more. Her senses collapsed in on themselves, narrowing to a single point. Doctor Moore twirled a gunmetal feather between his fingers, as long as her forearm.
He sat in the very corner of the room on a stool. A spotless desk sprawled before him, papers organized in neat piles. Her body stilled as his stare bored steaming holes through her.
Time slipped away from her, the device around her cluttering away at its task. She counted each breath. Summer didn't stop until her wind sense became as clear as crystal.
The room was sparsely decorated. A potted plant that held no smell of dirt, and a plank resting against the wall was the sum of what she had not already discovered. There had to be something she could use to escape. She scanned the room again and again, turning over possibilities in her head.
The walls were smooth, but maybe the floor would provide a secret. She counted the cracks in the floor until she could feel each speckle of dirt the air skimmed. Every time the noise from the machine changed, her vision blurred and she had to start over. Her search proved fruitless, and she stamped out her frustration. All of her other options were exhausted.
Tentatively, Summer examined the Doctor once more. He watched her with some kind of fascination, teasing her feather between his fingers. The feather. Her focus shrunk to the blade, bloody scenes crowding her imagination. If she could stab it into his chest with enough force, or maybe drag it across his pale throat? Summer saw him gasping on the floor, his snide lips unable to speak words as his blood pooled around him. The thought was a welcome one.
Instincts jumped, electricity in her bones begging to be unleashed on the world. The human sat unaware of the danger dormant before him. Summer was about to force the wind to obey her whims when her wits caught up to her.
Even if she did succeed, what would happen after? She was trapped deep in some human stronghold she knew nothing about. She was secured to a table with thorough bonds, in a room that could be locked anyways. More humans served Doctor Moore and sought him out for orders regularly. The pitiful odds quelled her blood lust.
The Doctor stood and approached her, placing the feather in its very own spot on the desk. The noises stopped at his movement, almost as if even whatever surrounded her served his every desire. He stooped down to examine her, and Summer's heart thundered even as her breathing remained slow. His face was close to her feet. If she struggled now, maybe she could gouge out one of his cold eyes. Both if she were lucky. She reminded herself all over again the plethora of reasons why she should wait to maul the Doctor.
Maul him she would, eventually. She promised this to herself. He treated her like a possession. Not to mention, he seemed like just the fanatical type to hunt her to the ends of the earth. He would be a threat to her so long as he lived.
He grabbed a strangely shaped object from his coat, and he spoke into it. Her ears still rang from the lost sound. Summer watched his lips shape his thoughts into words. English was so strange.
Within minutes, his followers arrived to help him drag the table out from within the artificial cave. Their chatter filled the room, the human tongue lost to her even though her hearing slowly recovered. Her concentration faltered only as a nosy human prodded her body, rudely scrutinizing her. They even dared to grab her by the eyelashes and force open her eyelid, shining a miniature sun into her eyes. Thankfully her flight eye was still closed and colored dark. Summer didn't even flinch. She was a model captive.
Apparently that cleared her for movement, because deft human hands untied her restraints. She would've cut them instead, but that wasn't what mattered now. Her lip nearly curled with disgust. The restraints came off one by one, all save for the clips on her wings. Summer started sizing up the humans in the room with her.
The guard was posted at the door. She could feel the gun trained on her, even before her mind had filled in the full picture. Doctor Moore toyed with her stray feather at his desk, commanding his lackeys from a safe distance. Three assistants surrounded her, and a fourth stood at the ready. They reeked of human blood.
The four donned heavy gloves. Summer puzzled over it for only a moment before they slid their hands under her wings. She nearly passed out for real then, reflexive tears welling in her closed eyes. They hefted her in unison, placing her onto the board. As she settled back in and the pain faded to an ache, they started moving with her.
She fought to tune back into her wind sense. She heard the door swing open. The humans who carried the board were unsteady, and she was jolted around enough that stars burst and bubbled. It was all she could do to remember when they turned corners.
Before long she was carted through another door, and all but one human filed out of the room. She was left to sit for a while. Something told her this was the final destination. She fluttered open her eyes.
A false sun burned above, and leaning over her was Prisoner.
He flinched, but he still gently lifted her body with shielded hands. He removed the clamps from her wings, and her tears finally stole their way down her cheeks as her nerves reawakened.
His face was etched with fear, and his hands shook, but gratitude flooded her as he took Summer in his arms and settled her down, leaning her against the wall. Prisoner looked her over, clenching his hands together. He removed the heavy gloves as he turned to walk away.
One hand was swathed in thick bandages. Summer found her voice, whispering two English words with as much respect as she'd ever held in regards to a human.
"Thank you."
She swore his lips turned up in a hint of a smile before he left her alone in her cell.