Defiance (Significance #3)(14)

"Because," she began and stopped her ministrations to look me right in the eye. "I know what it's like to have your life taken from you one day with no rhyme or reason, no cause, and no way back."
"What are you talking about?"
"I didn't imprint with Sikes the…conventional way."
"What?" I said with as much irritation as I could muster at the woman with the needle in my arm.
"I was like you; human, alive, a typical teenager where everything that happens to you is the worst thing ever. Because it is. It is the worst thing ever when you haven't lived yet. Sikes pulled me from the street one day, took me to his compound and performed test on me. Blood test."
She looked at me poignantly and I knew the next words out of her mouth were about to change my world. The Virtuoso world, too.
"He was exactly the same back then as he is now…well," she blanched, "was." She cleared her throat. "He was determined to gain the upper hand over his race. He was determined that the key was in the blood. He kept me for a couple of weeks, and I wasn't his only prisoner. He had several of us down there."
"But," I was baffled, "you helped him kidnap me. You acted like you… loved him."
"Oh, honey, I did love him. And he loved me, after the imprint of course." I just shook my head in confusion so she went on. "You see, he used my blood, and the others' blood, to perform experiments on each other. He was certain that he could force an imprint." She sighed and took a long breath. "And he succeeded.""What?" I gasped.
"When he was performing his experiments on me, he wound up giving me his blood. Then one day, for no particular reason, he touched my hand to feel my pulse…I felt the imprinting. I saw the visions. I felt his attraction to me. I knew he had some sort of feelings for me…because he never made me scream."
"What do you mean?" I asked, though the ice in my veins as I read the answer out of her head begged me not to ask her.
She took a long breath, one filled with regret, longing, and guilt. "During the experiments, he never made me scream like the others did."
Ten
The bile was rising just as Caleb burst back into the room. I could barely think, but soon understood that my heart was beating a mile a minute. I pressed my hand against my chest just as Caleb jerked me from the table, putting me behind him and assessing the threat of the room. The older, graying woman and the man who had yet to move a muscle didn't prove to be what was causing me so much terror.
He turned to me, while keeping an eye on the other two. "What's wrong, Maggie?"
I had to ignore him for now. I had to understand what she was saying. I moved around Caleb toward her and he turned me back to face him. I felt his fast heartbeat reach into my chest, and I knew that I needed to calm him first. "I'm fine. It's ok."
"What happened? Did she do something to you?"
"No, just told me something that I didn't like." I nodded toward her. "I have to finish this. I'm ok," I assured him.
"I'm right here," he said as I turned around, "and I'm not going anywhere."
"Uh…what's your name?" I asked her before I went further.
"Ruth," she answered in a whisper.
"Ruth, what did he do to you?" I asked and felt Caleb pulling the answers from my head behind me. He grunted when he found what we were talking about and he gripped my hand like he'd never let go.
"At first he did stupid things. He would try to bully them into a reaction from their body. He tried to scare them into it; like their body would choose that over death or pain. But it doesn't work that way. And when we imprinted, it changed things. He wasn't able to give his blood away anymore."
"Why not?" I asked in enraptured curiosity.
"Because I was jealous," she said and smirked. "More than that, my imprint demanded that he be only mine." 
"So you really loved each other?"
"Yes," she answered carefully. "We were bound, we were together and we belonged to each other. But it wasn't right. It wasn't the same as everyone else."
"Ruth," I said in exasperation, "you're talking in circles and it's making me a little crazy. Will you please not make me pry all the answers out of you?"
She sighed and nodded once. "It's just that I've never told a soul any of this before. I wasn't allowed to when Sikes was alive and now it still feels like betrayal." I started to ask her why, but she held her hand up. "I'm getting to it, Miss Impatient."
I fought not to roll my eyes and gave a motion for her to continue. I sank back into Caleb's chest, feeling the need for his calm and soothing. I had a feeling she was saving the best for last. She continued.
"I wasn't allowed to go against him. I wasn't my own person. I practically belonged to Sikes and not in the romantic way that you two belong together. He controlled me, whether he wanted to or not. My body submitted to his every subconscious will. His blood in my veins made some sort of connection in me that allowed me to imprint with him, but it wasn't real." She looked at us both and curled her lip a little. "Sikes never looked at me the way that boy looks at you."
"But you said you both loved each other?" I argued.
"And we did, but it was because I had no choice. You know, it's as if you have a family member who had hurt you. You still love them, but you don't like them?" she tried to explain. I nodded. Yes, I knew what that felt like all too well. "From the moment we imprinted, I knew that things were different for us, that we were one of a kind."
"Wait," Caleb said gruffly behind me, his breath breezing over my ear. "The imprints were still working then. Sikes would have imprinted the natural way if he'd just waited. What was he trying to accomplish?"
"The Watsons started losing their imprints long before the rest of the clans," she answered and I felt Caleb jerk. "They just didn't tell anyone. They were ashamed and didn't want to appear even weaker to you. It was only a few at first, and the clan covered it up. They hid those men away and didn't let anyone know. When Sikes reached imprint age and realized he was going to be one of the ones to be stuck away in the compound with the rest, he refused to submit to that. So he began his secret experiments. No one ever went down to the well compound. It was old and wearing down. He knew he wouldn't get caught there, and he didn't."
"This whole time, every time I've seen you, you're saying that your imprint hasn't been real?" Caleb said slowly.
She lifted her wrist. I saw the half black water drop on her wrist. "This is a tattoo," she revealed and rubbed it with her fingers. "A real tattoo. And it hurt like the dickens."
I gaped at her. "You didn't get your tattoo when you…" I blushed at what I was about to ask her.
"No," she said and gave a sweet little chuckle. "Sikes and I never mutualized. We were unable to. He even had to go and have my name tattooed on his crest. It never appeared and he didn’t want anyone to know that it wasn't real. When he revealed me to his family as his significant, they were skeptical. He was a little older than most, but they didn't question it once they saw our tattoos and the way we could read each others' minds.""Why didn't Sikes tell anyone? He could have imprinted his whole family that way," I said and was truly baffled. If he had the power to do it, it was unbelievable that he had not.
"Because he knew it was wrong." I scoffed and she looked at me sharply. "I'm not trying to justify him. I loved him and hated him. I wanted him and wanted to run away every second of every day. I needed his touch and craved it, but also wanted to vomit every time he touched me. He felt the same. It wasn't right, it wasn't a life. It was a prison, for us both. Yes, we gained abilities, yes we could communicate with our minds, yes we healed each other, but the intimate parts, the soul bonding parts of the imprint were missing. For us, it was all chemical. All physics and alchemy, and Sikes always regretted what he did to me."
"Why?" I whispered because I couldn’t stop myself.
"Because he loved me. Whether he wanted to or not, he loved me, and it was against his imprinted nature to hurt me."
"Ok," I replied, soaking everything in. "So, if that was the case, then why did he make you help him and why did he kidnap me?"
"Well," she began and I heard her thoughts.
Oh boy…this is where it gets hard.
"Just touch me then," I told her. "Let me read it all through you, if you don't mind."
"That would be easier. I have no secrets anymore," she said sadly and gave me her hand. It was the swiftest, most eager vision I'd ever had. I guess because she was offering it instead of me taking it. It jerked my senses alive and I felt her emotions as raw and real as if they were my own.
I saw her with Sikes. They both looked so young as they were new in their relationship. It was awkward for them, even more awkward than it had been for me, but they couldn't deny the need for each other. The attraction was mostly on his side; he'd felt strange about her every since he'd kidnapped her. He felt something in him that was protective of her. Then after they imprinted, he felt guilty. Ruth was swamped by his guilt of how he'd entrapped her, when in truth, that was what he'd been trying to do. Instead of reveling in his accomplishment, he wallowed in his shame and pain. Over the years, that turned to bitterness.