So So in Trouble

Being captured gives you a lot of time to think.

A lot. I think could have written an entire novel in the time I was captured.

I guess I kind of did…

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Clayton had lost all track of time. He’d lost track of anything that wasn’t pain. He couldn’t feel anything because it was all one giant mess of pain. Nothing stood out… Everything must be broken, then, right?

Exactly why wasn’t he dead?

He didn’t know. He really had no idea why he was alive or what he was going to do to get free. He didn’t want to die here, but he couldn’t move. He was… He was as good as dead. He didn’t think that it was really possible to come back from this kind of damage, not even for a genetic freak. He’d gone over his life, thought about the things he’d done, his pathetic journey after he found out what he could do—why hadn’t he have been better? Why not be more of a hero? Someone that could have gotten out of this?

He sighed. He couldn’t even lift his head to look up, but he was pretty sure he’d heard someone come into the room. The scientist, maybe?

“If you’ve come to look at your experiment, I think you kind of broke it,” Clayton muttered, coughing. He shouldn’t have tried to talk. It hurt. Hurt a lot. And now he was having trouble breathing. That was not good. Very not good.

“Thought you were dead.”

“Close enough. Did you get all the data you needed, then? You going to stop breaking things?”

“Your body has a higher tolerance than most. Strange how that works. Especially how this seems to have sustained you when you should be dead.”

“Really? That make me Wolverine now? Because I always thought that I had the lamest superhero power ever, but if I’m more like Wolverine—”

The scientist poked at one of Clayton’s numerous injuries, and he stopped talking, trying to roll away with a moan despite how much everything hurt. “You have proved to be more than I expected you to be. Much better than I had thought. This could be useful. If only those idiots had let me test you sooner—the things that I could have learned… There is so much potential. This is actually rather exciting.”

“Exciting?” Clay demanded, struggling to sit up. “This pain is exciting to you? I thought he was the sadist, but that must be you, huh? You’re a prize bastard, aren’t you?”

“You would call your father that?”

“My… what? Oh. I suppose because you made me in the lab, right? That makes you my father? Oh, this is awesome. I just had my very own Darth Vader moment! Can you call me Luke now and speak like James Earl Jones?”

“Such a juvenile sense of humor. I suppose that goes with your current physical age,” Kilbourne muttered. “You do have limits, Moore. And I intend to find out what they are.”

“’Not to fifty,’” Clay muttered, quoting deliriously. “’To blave…’”

He closed his eyes, not sure he could open them again. The ending to his book sucked. Here is where I died. He didn’t have the energy to come up with anything better. He should think of some kind of fitting goodbye, maybe a way to leave April a message. Maybe Larabee, too. He should do something.

Was he still being a whiny loser if it hurt too much to move, and he might be dying? Yeah, probably. Clay sighed. “Hey, Kilbourne?”

“What do you want?”

“Well, I’d like you to get what’s coming to you in some horrible way that involves spandex—and no, I don’t know how that would work, but that’s not the point. I get last words, right? I should. You should let me have those.”

“You’ve been babbling for long enough already.”

“You have to tell April I love her. And tell Larabee he was the best friend I ever had. And then I guess if you have to, you can do whatever you’re going to do—I can’t stop you—but do that, at least. I want them to know that much.”

“I swear, Clayton, if you give up now, I’ll hurt you myself.”

He frowned. Wait, was that April’s voice? It couldn’t be. He must be dreaming. The earpiece didn’t work and the tracking device didn’t work because if they did, he would have been rescued by now. Kilbourne’s cronies must have found them and taken them out. “Not sure it’s about giving up, April. I was kind of brave for a while, though. Was nice. I did good. Was almost a hero for once.”

“Clayton, don’t do this. Listen to me. Stay with me.”

“Love you. Hey, if you find my body, can you bury me with some gummy bears? Let the worms eat them instead.”

“Damn it, Clay. Do not give up,” April ordered, and he wanted to do it, for her, but he really didn’t think that he could stay much longer. That darkness was so tempting. Maybe he could be one with the Force now…

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