Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I hear the muffled clack of footsteps getting louder and clearer as I work to open my eyes. The room is bright, and I have to squint as I go to pick my hand up to block out some of the light.

However, I can’t move my arm. My breathing gets heavier as I work myself awake and try to figure out what's going on. Then I remember. I remember exactly what’s happening, and I relax under the bindings since I know there is nothing else I can do as I stare at the ceiling above me.

The footsteps stop right in front of my door, and I close my eyes again, not wanting to face what I know is going to happen as the door slides open. The person comes through the door and says nothing as they walk up to me. It’s silent until I hear them start typing loudly, the sound of the keys echoing in my ears. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, wanting to drown out all the noise and go back to a noiseless slumber.

Suddenly the typing stops, and I hear rustling on the left side of the table I am strapped to. Then everything stops, and all that is heard is the faint clicking of the clock somewhere in the room, where I can’t bring myself to remember where exactly it is.

I feel the person roughly grip my arm, and my eyes shoot open. Not caring about the brightness of the room anymore, I turn my head towards the perpetrator. I can’t see their face; they’re wearing a mask that covers the bottom half of it, with only their eyes showing as they stare down at the arm they grabbed.

"Please." I open my mouth and manage to get out a plea when I see the needle that they’re holding in their hand. My voice cracked in three different places with just that one word, and it came out as more of a whisper, but I know that the person heard it when they look up at me.

I see their mask move, and the corner of their eyes move up as if they were smiling at me. I get a nauseous feeling in my stomach at the sight, and they say nothing as they look back down at my arm and bring the needle to my skin.

My mind is screaming at me to do something, anything, as I see the needle get closer and closer to my skin. I try to move away, but the bindings are keeping me in place, and my entire body is sore, I'm not even able to move a muscle. I can’t get away even if my life depended on it, which in this moment I am sure it does.

I turn my head to look away, and I feel the needle pierce my skin as a tear rolls down my cheek at the knowledge of what is to come. I can feel the liquid coursing through my veins, and I know it’s just a matter of time before I start feeling the effects.

I brace myself on the table as my skin starts to burn and my veins feel like ice is going through them. I have been through this process hundreds of times already, and it still has a growing effect on me, as if it changes every time.

I soon feel unbearable pain as the icy feeling in my veins turns into a burning sensation that makes my skin feel like it’s boiling. I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. My throat is raw from only screaming and barely any talking for days on end.

Tears streamed down my face as I struggled against the binds holding me down. I know that I’m barely moving them and have no chance of escape, but my body was moving impulsively, trying to get out.

Small whines are the only thing leaving my throat, and my eyes are blurry from the tears. I see the outline of the person in the room with me walking around my body on the table. I don’t have to see them to know that they’re writing their ‘findings’ down.

I close my eyes again, praying for the pain to go away, even the slightest bit. It’s gone on for hours at a time before, and I just hope that I pass out early this time.

I don’t know how long I’ve been on the table in pain for; it can’t have been more than 20 minutes, but it felt like hours. I can vaguely hear the door to the room opening before everything goes black and the pain in my body is left to a dulling heat in the back of my mind.
~
When I wake up, I’m back in my cell, laying on my bed—a single blanket and a worn-out pillow laid out on the ground of the cold room. It takes me a minute to be able to move my arms and legs. I can still feel the dull throb of pain in my joints as I move myself to sit upright against the wall.

There’s not much in my room, that being a small table in the corner with some paper and writing utensils that I never seem to really use, and a small toilet in the corner. I usually spend the day staring at the white, blank walls, waiting for the pain in my body to go away fully. It never completely leaves; there’s always that dull ache in my body, reminding me of what’s been done to me and mocking me, saying I’ll never be able to function with my body like it’s supposed to. Well, apparently this is what it’s supposed to be: a rag doll getting picked up and pushed around for other people to poke and prod at.

I’ve been in this place since I was born, and I have no idea how long it's been since. I have no concept of time in here besides the glances at the clock in the operating room, as they call it. Not that I can read the time on it anyway; I was never taught. Sometimes I would stare at the clock in the room while I was being worked on, trying to figure out the time, but they were always fast glances, and I couldn’t bring myself to focus that well when I was being injected with stuff.

Reading the time on clocks isn’t what I was made to do anyway. I hear the voices and conversations in the hallway pass by; it’s not like I have anything else to do anyway. I’ve heard several instances where they’re talking about a military weapon that would be very helpful, and I can’t help but notice that the weapon that’s been constantly talked about is me. They’re making me into a weapon.

I guess it would be obvious to any outsider looking in what they are trying to do, but I don’t think of it that way. I’m here trying to understand why this is happening and why it’s happening to me. I didn’t ask for any of this, and I often find myself wondering what a normal life and childhood would entail.

The only vivid memory I have of being in this place is Ellie. She was brought into my cell one day when I was younger, with nothing said from the guards as they threw in an extra blanket and pillow. That’s when I found out that there were other children here too, not just me.

I watched as the guard closed the door and heard the lock click into place. I glanced over at the little girl who came in with me. She didn’t look at me and instead opted to claim the corner diagonally from me.

It was silent in the small cell, as if another person hadn't been put in with me and it was still just me. I kept looking at her from the corner of my eye as time passed and my position sat up on the wall. She never moved from where she was; only the occasional small hiccup was heard after a muffled sob.

The guard came back later with two trays of food that consisted of a couple pieces of bread and a small cup of water—not nearly enough to be able to healthily sustain ourselves on, but I was already used to eating like that for years.

One tray was dropped in front of me, the little water that was in the cup sloshing out over the edges onto the ground. I looked up and gave my best dirty look to the guard, but they didn’t acknowledge me. The other tray was dropped in front of the other little girl in the room. She flinched away and tried to curl into the corner she was in more, even though her body was already fully pressed against the wall.

I start to drag the tray towards me and hear the thud of the boots from the guard leaving the room, the lock clicking into place. I pick up a piece of bread and start picking off the green parts of it. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but it didn’t feel right eating it, so I made it a habit of carefully picking the parts off every time.

I started nibbling on a piece after I'd picked off the green from both pieces. I noticed movement in the corner of my eye and turned to see the girl reaching for the food on her tray after some hesitation. She looked down at the bread and also started to pick off the green parts and place them back onto the tray. I watched as she practically shoved the bread into her mouth and gulped down what she had for water.

I could visibly see that she was still hungry, so I moved my tray closer to hers after I finished the piece of bread and had some water. She jumped when she heard the scraping of the tray against the ground, as if she forgot there was someone else in the room, and finally looked up at me with wide green eyes. I nodded towards the tray and pushed it closer to her, motioning for her to take it. She just shook her head and pushed herself back into the corner she was in, her eyes still locked onto mine.

“Take it.” I insisted with a hoarse voice.

"I- I can’t, it’s yours." She said it in a small voice, shaking her head again. Her voice didn’t sound as bad as mine did, which is what would happen if you'd spent enough time here. I figured she was new and they just brought her in, and with that, I pushed the tray even closer to her, trying again to have her take the bread, but without getting so close as to scare her.

"I don’t need as much; I’m used to it." She just stared at me, as if processing my words for a moment. Then she slowly reached forward to grab the food from the tray. I let out a sigh as I leaned my head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling.

There was movement on my side, and I turned my head to see the girl standing beside me, holding out half of the piece of bread I'd given her. I opened my mouth to turn her down, but then closed it and carefully took the food out of her hand after seeing the look on her face.

I felt the corner of my mouth lift up slightly as she sat down next to me and started up a conversation.

"My name’s Ellie. What’s yours?" She spoke in more of a happier tone than what it was like earlier. I stared blankly at her question, my mind not coming up with an answer. My name? What was my name? The only answer I could come up with was the series of numbers that ‘patients’ are addressed as.

It seemed she noticed my hesitation in answering the question when she spoke up again. "Do you not have a name?" I looked at her and didn’t know what to say, so I instead opted to gently shake my head in denial.

She looked at me in confusion before a smile spread across her face. Well, that’s okay!" she said cheerfully, "we can share a name! You can have my middle name; it’s Y/N; it’s not like I’m using it anyway." She finished her thought, a smile still on her face as she looked at me.

I found myself mimicking her smile while nodding my head in agreement. She clapped her hands in excitement while engaging in a different topic completely. We spent a long time talking about random things, with her mostly telling me about different things about the outside world. It was the first time in my life that I was having a full conversation with someone that wasn’t one-sided and had me enjoying the other person's company.

A tear falls down my cheek, and I work my sore arm up to wipe it off. Thinking about Ellie is the only thing in here that makes me feel anything other than pain, and I will make sure that I find out exactly what happened and who was involved.

Suddenly the door to my cell opens, and my trainer walks in with a smile on his face. I don’t match it as I stare at him with a deadpan expression.

"Come now, why the long face? I thought we were buddies." He says it in a cheerful voice, and I stare at him, not moving, with the same expression on my face. His face drops into a scowl, apparently done with playing nice for the time being.

He throws two pieces of clothing at me, and I let them hit me, still not moving. "Get dressed; I don’t have time for your shit."

"No." The first word I speak, he isn’t ready for, as he does a double take at me like he’s shocked at me saying anything. I usually don’t say anything and just move, like while getting dressed and following him to the training area. However, today I’m not feeling compliant, know I’m too sore to try and train, and don’t know how I’m going to fair.

"What did you just say?" He asks with a sneer in my direction when I don’t move right away. I know I shouldn’t push back and just do what he says, but today I don’t have the patience to pretend.

"I think you heard me and my shit." I respond, and I see his eyes visibly darken. I don’t have time to react before he’s roughly grabbing my arm and forcing me up. Pain shoots through my body as I’m forced up, and I hold in a whimper. I don’t need him to get any satisfaction from this.

“Listen here, you little bitch,” he practically spits in my face as his grip on my arm tightens even more. I can already feel the bruise forming where his hand is. He opens his mouth to say something before he’s interrupted by a voice coming from the doorway.

"Is there a problem here?" A guard passing by hears the commotion in the room and stops in the doorway. My trainer's face spreads into a smile as he turns around to face the guard. The guard has their taser out of their belt holder, holding it as if ready to attack at any moment. I go stiff as I’m attracted to the sight, knowing how that tiny stick can feel as the electricity courses through my veins. Unfortunately for me, it seems the trainer felt it.

He releases my arm and starts to walk up to the guard. “Yes, everything is fine, just a little issue with getting the equipment to cooperate." His back is turned toward me, but I can hear the smile in his voice when he talks. He walks forward and reaches his hand out to the guard. In this moment, my mind is screaming, No, no, no, please no. The next events happen in a flash as he takes the taser from the guard and strides back up to me, immediately connecting the taser to my ribcage.

I let out a cry as the electricity shoots through me, and I fall to the ground. I can feel the electricity throughout my entire body as squirm on the ground trying desperately to make it stop.

I see the trainer crouch down beside me and take ahold of my jaw, forcing me to look at him. "See what happens when you don’t cooperate?" I grit my teeth as I force out a response.

“Fuck. You.” He clicks his tongue in disapproval as he stands up and walks towards the door, giving the guard their taser back.

“I expect you to be in training in less than 20 minutes.” He then leaves the room and says something to the guard, causing them to nod and take their place standing against the wall outside the doorway to my cell.

I take my time getting up, with shocks still hitting me every once in a while. He knows I don’t know how long 20 minutes is, but I can’t bring myself to move any faster than I am. I can see the guard in the doorway from here, their hand resting on the taser in their belt, which causes me to try and move a little faster.

I move to change into the clothes that were thrown at me, cursing out the trainer in my head the whole time. The shocks from the taser have practically all disappeared by now, leaving behind fits of rage in their wake. I’m angry at the trainer for treating me like some piece of equipment he can hit and throw around when it’s not working to his standards. I’m angry at the experiments they’ve decided that I’m going to be the center of and the torture that I’ve had to grow accustomed to over the years. I’m angry at the people behind all of this, and I’m angry that I couldn’t have a life outside this lab that Ellie had told me so much about before.

I work to get dressed in my fits of rage, and throw the old clothes carelessly on the ground. There’s nothing really different about the clothes, both pairs include a shirt and pants that are all white, the training clothes maybe being a little for flexible for movement.

After I’m dressed, I walk out of the room and don’t even look at the guard by the door as I start down the hallway towards the training room, but I can hear their footsteps walking closely behind me.

The halls are long; the walls are all white and empty, with doors lining up on both sides. If you weren’t looking hard enough or were just passing by quickly, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that there are doors here by how they blend right into the walls, with no doorknobs but light fingerprint panels built into the wall in order to open them.

Getting to the training room was a fairly long process, but you do it over and over again, and it doesn’t feel that long; you get numb to the feeling and just keep walking, and before you know it, you’re there. That’s what happens this time when I make it to the training room. I’m in front of the door in what feels like no time, and I push the door open to enter. This is the only place I’m authorized to enter like this, and I make my way towards one of the benches, ignoring my trainer standing on one of the mats in the middle of the room.

I sit down on the bench and lean forward with my elbows on my knees as I scan the room. It’s about three times the size of my cell, with various mats covering the ground. The walls are the same white color that the rest of the building is, but instead of being bare, there are walls with an assortment of different gun types and knives. However, all the weapons that are on the walls are props for show and won’t do any real damage. I learned that the hard way when training. One time I tapped into my rage and threw a throwing knife at the trainer, but instead of piercing his skin, all it did was bounce off his chest as he started to laugh at me.

Ever since that day, I have found myself not holding back my punches in retaliation, even though the trainer didn’t say anything about it. I could see that he was taken aback by some of them, especially when I got him hard in the eye once. I was particularly happy when he stumbled back from it, but I paid for it the next day when he was extra rough with me.

I watch as the trainer nods his head towards the door, and see the guard was waiting in the doorway for a signal to be released. They immediately turn to leave back down the hallway we came from after the signal from the trainer was given.

He looks at me expectingly at my place on the bench. I know I’ve been testing his patience today so I sigh, push myself up, and walk over to him. I stop when I’m in front of him, waiting for instructions.

“Today we’re doing solely hand to hand training.” He smiles at me and I know he’s still trying to push my buttons, he knows I get highly more aggressive when engaging in hand to hand combat. He’s also incredibly cocky, thinking he’s going to get away with a lot, especially since the day I got him in the eye.

He gives me no warning when he’s already taking a swing at me. I easily duck out of the way and brace myself. There’s no time to recover before he’s coming at me again. He throws swing after swing at me, and I work to dodge and block them. I can tell he’s not thinking of his movements and is just trying to get as many punches in as he can.

I take advantage of his carelessness and after he throws a certain punch, I push back. I bring my arm up to block his punch while pulling my other arm back to throw a punch into his unprotected stomach. He gets pushed back, not expecting the blow, and I jump at the opportunity to not give him the upper hand.

It’s my turn to throw punch after punch at him, and he isn’t as good as blocking them. He tries to punch back again but I don’t give him the chance to. I make sure he doesn’t get a chance to do anything but try to weakly block my advances.

He crashes to the ground after a particularly hard hit to the jaw, and he brings his arms up with a look of anger on his face. "Hey, you’re not supposed to—" he starts to say something angrily, but I cut him off as I jump on top of him and deliver a hard blow to his cheek. You could hear something pop when it happened, and his face turns to the side as blood starts to drip from his mouth.

I don’t stop as I tap into my anger and continue punching him over and over. His face quickly becomes deformed, swollen, and bloody as I don’t hold any punches back. He starts choking on his blood as he lays there, taking every single punch I throw his way. There are tears in my eyes as I start to scream my anger while still punching him.

I eventually bring myself to stop, tears still streaming down my face as I pant and look down at the beaten-up trainer below me. He’s not moving at all, as if—oh shit. I quickly bring my fingers down to his neck to check for a pulse. I wait for something, anything, but there’s nothing.

I quickly get up from the body and wipe my face with the back of my hands. Think. Think. Think. My mind is going into overdrive trying to figure out what to do. The guard would surely be back any minute; the training sessions don’t go on for that long. If they find me in here with a dead body, there will surely be drastic consequences. I can’t let them find me.

If I leave the room, I’ll be out in the open. You need restricted access to every room in the building. I’ll be stuck in the hallway, just waiting for someone to find me, unless I can get access to the doors.

I look down at the body by my feet and then up to the walls lined with the prop weapons. I quickly run up to the wall with rows of knives on it and try to find the sharpest one I can manage.

I find a switchblade that can’t be any sharper than the corner of a piece of paper, but it’ll have to do. I go back over to the lifeless body and bend down, spreading out his hand face down on the ground.

"I would say sorry, but I would be apologizing to myself for having to do this." I speak to the open air as I grip one of the fingers, holding it still, and bring the knife I have gripped in my palm up and bring it down as hard as I can. I cringe as I hear the bone in the finger crack. The finger is pushed up as the bone breaks, and I keep bringing the knife down into the skin in quick recession as blood splatters on me.

I feel the finger partly break off, and I stop striking the knife down in order to work to pull it off the rest of the way. I drop the knife and put the hand that was holding it on his arm so I can get more leverage on it. I push his arm back and pull the finger with my other hand, and the finger comes off his body with a pop. I stand up and lift up the finger in my hand, blood dripping down onto my arm from the bottom part of the finger where it was ripped off.

“Thank you for your kind contribution.” I say as I inspect the dissevered finger in my grip. I hurriedly make my way to the door to leave the training room, but the door opens before I get there, and the guard that brought me there is standing in the doorway.

Chapter Text

I freeze as the guard stands in the doorway, surveying the area with his eyes focusing on the dead body right behind me. The guard moves quickly to draw their pistol, but I move faster.

They barely have the gun in their hand when I grab their wrist and bend it backwards, causing them to let out a cry of pain before they’re forced to drop it. I bring my leg around theirs to kick the back of their knee, forcing them to fall to the ground with a grunt. I don’t hesitate when I bring my other knee up and hit them under the chin as hard as I can. The force sends them falling backwards to the ground on their back.

I go over to get the gun that was dropped, but am stopped short when I feel something connect to my side, and for the second time today, I fall to the ground, shaking as electricity courses through my system again.

I squeeze my eyes shut as I try and fail to pick myself up, pushing up on my arms but then falling back to the ground when they give out under me. I hear the guard force themselves up next to me, my body going limp as I feel them grab my arm and forcefully flip me on my back.

I open my eyes slightly, squinting up at the guard above me, who wears an angry look on their face. I lay as still as possible, with shocks still periodically going through me, and I see the guard bend down and reach for me. I take the moment to gather a burst of energy and catch them off guard.

I lock both my legs around one of theirs and swing my body so it ends up behind them, and then I bring my arm around, locking it around their throat. The guard freaks out and brings their arms up to claw at mine around their neck. I lock my arm harder against their throat to not let up, and the guard works their body up so they’re standing. I lock my legs around their waist, and they move to slam me against the wall with me clinging to their back. Black dots circle my vision, but I keep my arm locked around their throat, and I can feel them start to feel the effects of not being able to breathe. The guard still claws at my arm, but I can feel them getting weaker the longer I hold the position. It’s not long before the hold on my arm loosens and our bodies fall to the ground. I slowly release my arm from their throat, and when I don’t feel them breathing anymore, I push them off of me, body rolling over on the ground.

I work to pick myself off the ground, using the wall to steady myself. I lean my back against the wall, out of breath, trying to work the dizziness that I start to experience out of my system. I can’t stay here long; this hallway isn’t going to be empty for much longer, and finding me with two dead bodies probably isn’t going to bode well for me.

I start to work my way towards the gun that was dropped on the ground, hugging the wall to support myself. I manage to reach it and bend down to pick it up, barely managing to keep myself steady.

I release the magazine from the pistol, checking how many rounds it has in it. There looks to be 7 rounds, good enough for me to use. I lock the magazine back in place and cock it, making sure it was ready to fire just in case.

I keep the pistol in my hand at my side as I make my way down the hallway in search of an exit. I walk as fast as I can down the hallway, still keeping steady on the wall as I go. I walk down endless hallways trying to find any sign of an exit out of this place, but I haven’t the slightest idea what to look for.

I reach the end of one hallway and make a turn into another one that looks exactly the same; this happens multiple times until I reach the end of a hallway and start to hear footsteps coming from the next hallway down. I work quickly to try and get into the first room I see.

I go up to the door a couple doors down from the end of the hallway where the footsteps are coming from, and I shakily try and find the fingerprint panel in order to open the door. I run my hand over the side of the door, trying to find any kind of abnormality that might give me a clue on where the panel is. The footsteps get closer, and I’m scrambling to open the door. I end up bringing the severed finger up and putting it against the wall in multiple places. The door finally pops open after a small beep from the panel on the side, and I quickly make my way into the room, quietly closing the door behind me.

I hear the footsteps recede, and I let out a breath as I lean against the wall, catching my bearings. I look around the room, finally surveying it, and it looks identical to my cell—nothing much but a small table and toilet. However, the paper and pencils that lay untouched on the table in my cell seem to be thrown around and torn up, and the walls are filled with scratch marks.

I don’t have time to question it before I hear movement coming from a corner of the room and whip my head in the direction the noise came from. I can see a shadow moving that I didn’t notice before, and bring the gun up in front of me. It turns around, and my breath catches in my throat.

"Ellie?" My voice comes out as a whisper, my resolve dropping, the gun being brought lower. I look into the same green eyes I’ve seen so many times before, but they’re sunken in and clouded over, no longer bright and full of wonder. The skin is black and wrinkled all over the body, with claws that look sharp enough to be able to cut through anything.

"What did they do to you?" I speak in the same tone, eyes wide and filling with tears. I know the thing in front of me is not the Ellie I knew anymore and is just a creature put in her place, but the part of me knowing it was her had me hesitating to do much.

Suddenly the thing bares its teeth, with them looking as sharp as its claws. I step back when my brain registers that it’s moving closer to me, but it moves quickly to jump at me, pushing me down with its force.

I let out a painful cry as my body hit the hard ground. I wasn’t preparing for the impact, and even with the grip I had on the gun, it gets knocked out of my hand, sliding just out of my reach. My body panics as I feel the weight of the creature above me, now knowing I don’t have a defensive weapon.

The creature growls above me, teeth still exposed, as drool drops from their mouth onto my face. I make a noise of disgust as I feel it dripping down my chin and onto my neck.

I let out a wail as I feel its nails dig into my arm, blood dripping down to my elbow. Tears well up in my eyes, and I stretch my other arm out to try and reach the gun. It’s just barely out of my reach, my fingers grazing the gun, and I try to push the creature off of me, but it has too much strength.

I squirm my body, trying to get as close to the gun as I could with the creature sitting on top of me. I see the creature bring its claw up, about to slash it down on me, and I stretch my arm out as far as I can, feeling something pop before I can finally get a handle on the gun. The creature starts to bring its arm down, and I quickly bring the gun up and shoot the creature in the forehead. It falls limp on the ground beside me.

My breathing is sporadic as I stand up on shaky legs and wipe my face off with the back of my arm.

"I’m sorry, I’m so sorry." I speak to the body that used to be that of my friend with tears running down my face. I always wondered what happened to her, and I can’t tell if it would have been better not knowing.

Suddenly, I hear a siren start blaring throughout the building. If they haven’t found the two bodies I’ve left behind, I bet they were alarmed by the loud gunshot that just sounded. I have to find a way out of here. I take one last look at the creature's body, and I make my way out of the room.

There are red lights flashing along with the siren, making the hallways dark and hard to see in, a big contrast from the once blinding bright lights. I start to work my way down the hallway, once again trying to find a way out of this place. I’m turning down random hallways looking for any kind of change, and I find something when I see the hallways become wider with more space open between them. I move towards the wider part of the hallway until I hear a series of heavy footsteps and shadows coming from that direction.

I know that it’s most likely a group of guards looking for the intrusion, and with me being who they’re looking for, I’m not interested in sticking around.

I go up to the first door I see and take the finger I still have with me out. I hope that all the panels are in the same place for every door because I don’t have enough time to try and find it. Luck is on my side because the door pushes open after my first attempt, and I rush inside the room.

I let out a breath, but the relief is short-lived when I see someone staring back at me from inside the room. They’re wearing a white lab coat with a badge attached to it, making me assume that they're one of the scientists who work there. They’re sitting at a table filled with some kind of moving picture on it, with papers scattered all across it. I see the person move slightly to reach for something next to them, and I quickly bring up the gun to stop them.

"I wouldn’t." I mention, and they stop in their tracks after seeing the gun, slowly raising their hands in defense. I see a radio next to them, figuring that was what they were reaching for. I move closer to them, motioning for them to move out of the way, and I grab the radio and throw it at the wall, breaking it into pieces. The scientist cringes at the smash, hands shaking as they still hold them up in the air.

"How do I get out of here?" I ask them, and they shake their head at me.

"You can’t get out. Not with the security that’s put in place. You can’t even see the exit door without access to it."

"Then how do I get access?" I ask, my patience running thin as I know I have a limited time until the guards eventually find me.

"You can’t. There’s only one other way out of here." They quickly shut their mouth after saying it, and I can tell that they didn’t mean to let that last part slip.

"What other way?" I pushed the gun closer to them for emphasis, but they kept their mouth shut, body shaking. They say nothing, but their eyes keep glancing at the table behind me. I follow their gaze and see a red lever on the table.

"What does the lever do?" I ask them, and they look at me wide-eyed, like they didn’t expect me to realize they kept looking at it. When they don’t respond, I push more. "What. Does. It. Do? I won’t ask again." I say as I push the gun into their chest and place my finger on the trigger.

"O-okay! Okay! Just please d-don’t shoot me!" I let out a sigh, any patience I had left diminishing into nothing, and it looks like the scientist notices it too.

"I-it’s an emergency lever to take down the security of the building. Put in the code, pull the lever, and the entire building's security is taken down." They speak fast, barely making a break, sweat covering their face.

"Put the code in." I demand with a firm voice, and the scientist hesitates, and they soon realize that it was a mistake.

"Put the goddamn code in before we see how many of these bullets can fit in your body before you stop breathing." They nod their head multiple times in quick succession, eyes wide, before slowly moving towards the table. I get behind them and press the gun against their back, and I can physically feel them shutter. I would feel bad, but I know that they know exactly what’s been going on in this lab and have been turning a blind eye to it all.

I hear them push in the code, and there’s a light below the lever that turns green. I go to pull it before I hear a voice coming from behind me.

"I wouldn’t do that if I were you." I whip my body around, gun following the motion until it’s pointed at the new person in the room. My breath hitched seeing the new person who inhabited the room. I don’t speak and just stare at them, gun still drawn.

C'mon, sweetheart, put the gun down." He smiles at me, and I feel rage bubble up inside me.

"Do not call me that. You have no right." With my jaw clenched and my body tense, I stand there, my heart pounding and my breathing heavy.

"My bad, my bad, okay." He puts his hands up in a mocking way as he lets out a breathy laugh. "I just thought you might want to know what happened to your friend." My grip on the gun tightens, and it took everything in me not to pull the trigger. I would have pulled the trigger in a heartbeat if he didn’t have the answers I was looking for.

"You see, she was part of the same experiment you were; she just didn’t quite cut it, apparently." The entire time he’s standing there talking, he has a smile on his face, and it just makes me more angry. "You should have heard her screaming after we took her away from you; even gave you a name wasn’t that nice of her."

"Shut. Up." I force out of gritted teeth, my hand starting to shake in anger as I look the man who took everything away from me in the eye. That’s when I realize he’s stalling, and the reason he told me that was to keep me occupied long enough for guards to get there. The door burst open, and groups of guards started piling in, all with their weapons aimed at me. I do the one thing I can think of at the moment.

I quickly turn around and pull the lever down; a beeping sound comes from it. I feel the bracelet that I was forced to wear loosen, and I look down, forgetting that I even had it on. It wasn’t a skin-tight fit anymore, and the item circles around my wrist lightly.

All of a sudden I can feel my body start to get warm, like how it does when I’m on the experimentation table, but not boiling. I look down at my hands and can see a light teal circling them, and I look back up to the other person in the room. For the first time since I’ve seen him in here, his face has a look of worry on it.

"What’s wrong? Scared to let your creation loose in the world?" I stare mockingly at him, my skin heating up again as I feel surges of power ripple through me. I see him snap back out of his daze and sends an order to the guards to attack me. Bullets fly towards me in quick bursts, but there is something keeping any of them from hitting me. Every time a bullet gets close to me, I can see a faint outline of a bubble around me before the bullet drops to the ground at my feet.

All the guards stand there stunned as they run out of bullets to try and shoot at me. Now it’s my turn to laugh as I feel the power build up again, and suddenly the walls start to break apart and pieces of the roof start to cave in. The guards and scientists in the room scramble to get cover, but a large piece of the roof falls directly on top of the guards as I turn to focus my attention on the person in the room towards whom most of my anger is directed.

"Now hold on a second-" He tries to get in a sentence, but I don’t let him have it as the ground beneath him starts to open up. He falls into the ground, holding onto the side of the floor that is still stable, his legs dangling into the abyss. I squat down in front of him, and he tries to reach for me, but I click my tongue, moving out of his reach. Please, I-" he attempts to talk to me again, but I ignore him once again.

"Have fun in hell, father." I tell him as he loses his grip on the floor and starts falling, screaming as he falls into an abyss. I stand up and look to the other side of the room, where the other scientist is. They’re cowering in a corner, jumping when a piece of the ceiling falls close to them. I don’t give them any mind as I walk out of the hole in the wall where the door to the room used to be.

The hallway didn’t fare much better, with half of the walls torn apart and debris everywhere from where the building is falling apart. I see another group of guards close to me, but they’re not paying me any mind as a couple of the creatures that I killed earlier trap them into a corner. I watch as the guards stand no chance against them and see a creature jump on top of a guard, knocking them down and bringing their claw down to slash at their throat.

I turn to walk away in the other direction, the way out seemingly easier now that the building is collapsing in on itself. I turn a corner to see a hole in a wall not leading to any normal room that I’ve seen, and I start to walk towards it. Once I get up to it, I stick my head out of it, looking around, before letting my foot step into it. The floor isn’t a normally tiled floor anymore, and I look around and notice that I’m not in a building anymore. There are no walls, no ceiling, and no bright lights. It’s freedom. I am free at last.

Chapter Text

I try to get as far away from the crumbling building as possible, but I find it harder than I initially expected. There are even more sirens out of the building, and something loud and spinning above me with a stream of bright light coming out of it.

I feel a cool sensation wash over me as the light comes closer to me, and it moves so fast that I don’t have time to even try to hide from it. I lift my hand over my eyes, attempting to cover them from the brightness. My heart pounds as the light stops right on top of me, my mind racing with possibilities. However, one of the possibilities my mind came up with did not include the light turning away from me and moving behind me.

I’m confused, thinking surely something would have happened when the light saw me. I don’t dwell on it any longer as I quickly make my way in the opposite direction of where the thing went.

I’m breathing heavily, my body greatly fatigued, but I force myself to continue, getting fully out of the facility, which is so close that I have to press on. The closer I get to what I believe to be the edge of the exit to the facility, the more lights I see flashing blue and red. I see a group of people next to the lights and rush behind a small building, where I’m able to pick up part of a conversation.

"We were told an experiment went wrong here, and the building started crumbling down on itself. What kind of an experiment does that shit?" I hear another person answer them, sounding bored.

"I don’t know, but why were we told to secure the permitter for an experiment gone wrong, and what up with the helicopter? Can’t believe I was woken up for this." My eyebrows crease in confusion. Did they not know that I was the experiment? If they’re here, why wouldn’t they be told?

I’m too busy in my head to notice the other voices coming closer to where I am, and it’s too late for me to try to do anything but to press myself up against the building and let out a small gasp.

They stop for a second and look right at me, and I stare back wide-eyed, heart pounding, and I wait for them to grab me, start to yell for the others, draw their weapons at me, anything, but nothing happens. They continue talking and walk right past me, like I’m not even there.

I watch their backs as they walk through the barricade and over to the other side. I’m confused again, as this is the second time tonight that I’ve been glanced over and completely ignored. I don’t understand why people are just walking past me like I’m not even there. Aren’t they supposed to be looking for me? Even if they didn’t know if they were looking for me, I would think finding a person here would raise some suspicion at least.

I look down at my hands and notice a light purple glow radiating off of them. It’s the same kind of aura that I saw around myself in the building before it collapsed. I think back to the power that I was able to summon and wonder if that wasn’t the only thing I am able to do. I decide that I should just test the theory and hope that I am still able to produce the strange shield that I did before if it doesn’t work.

I try to steady myself as best I can before taking a deep breath and stepping out into the open. I can see lines of the flashing red and blue lights, causing me to squint to be able to see slightly. I can see groups of people standing around talking and wandering, all of them seeming to be in their own world.

I can see where the people are getting in and out, and I slowly make my way over to it. Soon I’m where the barricade opens from, and I hesitantly stand in front of it, wondering if anyone is going to notice me standing there.

My question gets asked when someone goes up to open the door. I back up so I don’t get hit, and the person coming out walks in, immediately turning around to close the barricade back up behind them. I don’t have time to worry about being seen as I quickly rush to get through to the other side before I am closed in again.

I’m able to squeeze myself through the gap just in time before it’s closed off to me. I look back as the door shuts and the person who walked in turns to walk around the corner, disappearing from sight.

I look around at all the people around me, none of them taking a second glance at me. I look back down at my hands and can still see a faint purple glow, but it seems to be getting fainter. I have to get out of here before whatever power I’m harnessing wears off and people are able to see me again.

I don’t know where I’m going or what to do, so I aim to just go where my body takes me. I can feel my body starting to shut down as I walk, but I force myself to get further and harder to find.

It seems like I’ve been walking forever, but I know it can’t have been that long. I eventually see lights and buildings in the distance and hesitate to go further. There are likely a lot of people there for the number of buildings there are, and I think to turn a different way but stop myself. I figure anyone looking for me wouldn’t expect me to waltz into an area with a high amount of people, so I walk towards the buildings and lights.

I try to avoid the brightest places and maneuver my way through the shadows of the buildings. There don’t seem to be that many people here from what I can see, but I don’t let my guard down as I work my way through.

Not long after I start walking, I feel my legs start to collapse under me, and I brace myself against a building. I know I’m not going to be able to keep walking for much longer, so I try to find a spot for me to stop for a bit. I find a small area in between two buildings, and I stop there, practically collapsing on the ground against one of them.

I can barely feel my limbs as I brace myself against the wall, and now that I’m sitting, I can feel the full effects of the events that happened. I look down at my arm, and there’s dried blood that trickled halfway down it from where the creature scratched me. It doesn’t seem to be openly bleeding that much anymore, which I consider a plus. My shoulder aches, and I’m pretty sure I pulled it or did something to it while trying to reach for the gun while being pinned down. I look down at the gun I still hold and weakly make sure to snap the safety on before managing to put it in the waistband of my pants.

I breathe out and close my eyes, leaning my head back against the wall. I can feel my body shutting down, finally reacting to being tased multiple times and being slammed against a wall, and I can’t bring myself to stop from falling asleep. I have the image of Ellie as that creature in my head, with me shooting and killing her on repeat, and I vaguely remember the feeling of water trickling onto my skin before falling into complete unconsciousness.
~
I can feel my body shaking slightly as I let out a small groan and work to open my eyes. It seems to be a harder task than I thought; my body is still aching and not wanting to move.

I hear a strange, constant rumbling sound and lift my arm up as if to try and make it go away. However, instead of hitting a brick wall like I was expecting, my hand rubs against something cold and smooth. This causes me to open my eyes fully, and instead of seeing the buildings where I left myself, I see a ceiling with walls closing me in. There’s a blanket draped over me and a pillow under my head as confusion engulfs me.

Confusion soon turns to panic as my breathing picks up. They found me. They found me, and now I’m being brought back to be locked up. Or what if they’re not even going to lock me up anymore and are just planning to get rid of me? I’ve caused too much damage, and now they’re scared of me doing it again. But why am I not restrained? My body doesn’t wait to catch up with my brain before I’m jumping up, not expecting the ceiling to be that low and almost hitting my head on it as the blanket on me falls to a heap on the ground at my feet.

I’m not expecting the ground to be shaking and moving, and I lose my balance and crash back to the ground. I hear a faint "shit" from above me as I can feel myself being pushed slightly to the side before the movement stops completely. I hear a door slam and footsteps walking around to the door where I am, and I force myself back into a corner as far away from the door as I can get.

The door opens, and a blinding light streams through, causing me to whip my head to the side and bring my arm up to try and block it out. Every time I try to open my eyes, I can feel them burn before I have to shut them again. I’ve never seen this kind of light before, and I was forcing myself to try and get used to it so I could try and work to defend myself against this person.

Suddenly I hear the door shut, and my eyes shoot open to see that the person has entered along with me, holding his hands out in front of him. My breath hitches as he goes to take a step forward, and I try to push myself further into the corner.

"Hey, hey, I’m not gonna hurt you." He speaks in a soft tone, bending down on one knee without moving to get any closer to me. I look down to see the purple aura around my hands again, but it goes in and out like it’s trying to stick but can’t. I see the man look down at my hands, where I was analyzing, with a confused look on his face. Can he see the glow?

"Are you okay?" He asks, and I look up at him, his brown eyes staring into mine. He wears a slight smile, and it makes me feel an almost calming sensation, like I want to trust him. Wait what? No. Why would I even think about trusting this stranger who took me? He’s probably trying to lure me into trusting him so he can strike when I’m caught off guard.

I tense up as I think about it and prepare myself to get ready and fight my way out, even if I know my body probably won’t be able to handle it right now. I remember the gun and reach behind me to grab it, but I find it’s not there.

The person notices the movement and lets out a breathy sigh. "Yeah, sorry, couldn’t take any chances. I’ll give it back once I know you won’t try and shoot me." He lets out a small laugh and looks down, shaking his head. I don’t say anything, opting instead to put my hands in my lap and start fiddling with my fingers, a nervous habit I’ve picked up with my time in the lab.

The man lets out another small sigh and moves to open the door again. He stops when his hand is on the handle and turns his head to look back at me. "I promise I’ll tell you everything when we’re somewhere safe." He says this before turning back around to push open the door.

This time I’m expecting the bright light to stream through, and I’m able to keep my eyes open slightly, but I'm still not able to open them completely. I see him jump down slightly to get all the way out of the compartment, and with his back still towards me, I act fast.

I get up as fast as I can, fighting through the wave of dizziness that I experience, and bolt out of where I was being kept. I push into the man, who stumbles to the side, caught off guard by the contact, and jump out. I try to keep my balance, but my legs still aren’t trustworthy enough to hold me up well, and I fall on my knees, feeling a sting on them. I don’t have time to think about it as I push myself up and start running in a random direction.

I hear the man curse behind me, and I don’t glance back as I push myself to run as fast as I can. I don't know where I’m going, and nothing looks familiar to me at all, and it looks like there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around. I try to push my way into the covered area to hide myself, but before I can get there, I feel an arm wrap around my chest, and my body falls back against another.

I try to pry the arm off of me so I can move, but it’s too strong, and I squirm to try to get free. "Please, I’m tryin’ to help you." I hear the voice of the man who took me behind me, and my mind is screaming at me to get free and run, but my body is exhausted, and instead it ends up slumping against him.

"Please." I manage to speak, and for some reason tears well up in my eyes again, but they don’t fall, making my eyesight blurry.

"You’re okay. You’re okay." I hear from behind me as I feel the man release his hold on my chest and bend down to bring an arm under my knees, lifting me up into him with his other arm supporting my back. My head is against his chest as my body falls limp in his arms. Any warnings in my head about this person disappear as he walks with me in his arms back to where we once were. My body felt like it was floating, and I wouldn’t be able to try to escape again even if I wanted to.

We get back to where we were, and the man hops up onto the ledge and places me back down on the pillow where I was before running. He grabs the blanket that was lying on the side in a ball and places it back on top of my body. He takes one last look at me as he jumps down again, and this time he is able to successfully close the doors back up behind him.

I hear another door open and close above me as the rumbling sound from before comes back, and my body is slightly shaking from it again. I try to close my eyes and relax again, but my mind is too alert, and so I end up staring at the wall as this stranger brings me to an unknown location.

After a while, the rumbling stops again, and I hear the stranger get out. I find enough strength to be able to push myself up and lean against the wall. I follow the sound of the footsteps coming around to the back, where I am, and hear a latch sound as the door is opened again.

The stranger stands there as he looks at me, and I continue to stay against the wall, not moving. C'mon, I got a room for us; no one should look for you here." He holds out his hand as a motion for me to take it, and I hesitate for a second before slowly moving over to take it. I have nothing left to lose anyway. He helps me down from the ledge, and my legs wobble unstably as he goes to hold me steady. Once I gain my balance, he looks at me before he reaches to grab the blanket that was used to cover me and wraps it around my shoulders. "Maybe just wrap yourself with this until we’re inside."

I look down and just now notice that my clothes are stained red with blood almost completely, some of it being my own and most of it being from various other people. You can see rips in the clothing, leaving parts of my skin vulnerable to the air, and I do my best to wrap the blanket around me, trying to cover up the worst parts.

The stranger seems satisfied with this as he closes the door and latches it, leading me away. He walks close to me, and I do my best not to walk too slowly and annoy him. He doesn’t seem to be bothered by my pacing, though, as we walk down this hallway of sorts, passing by a variety of doors. As we’re about to pass another door, someone walks out of it, and I jump, the stranger grabbing my arm lightly to pull me next to him. The person coming out of the door doesn't even acknowledge us as they grunt and start walking down the way we came from.

The stranger's hand stays on my arm as we continue walking and eventually stop in front of a door. The stranger releases my arm as he reaches into his pocket to grab something and pulls out some sort of key before using it to unlock the door in front of us.

The door opens, and he motions for me to enter as he puts the key back into his pocket. I slowly make my way into the room, surveying my surroundings. The room itself looks to be around twice the size of the cell that I’m used to, not including the door that looks to lead to another room.

Instead of the pure white walls that my cell had, these are a little darker than that, with pictures hung up on some of them. I hear the stranger move around me and place a bag on one of the two things with pillows on them that took up most of the room in here. I hear him unzip the bag, and what I see inside is a range of different guns. I instinctively take a step back, and he looks over at me. He chuckles and shakes his head before saying, "Relax, darlin’ if I wanted you dead, you would be already."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" I quip as I watch him take out a pile of clothes from the bag.

"Who said I was tryin’ to?" He asks as he holds out the clothing that he took from the bag out to me. It’s astonishing how different he seems from when he was seemingly trying to comfort me before to now. Does he have some kind of ulterior motive? If he does, I should try to figure out what it is, right? And if I’m actually safe here, like he said I would be, it seems I was in my thoughts for too long as I heard him whistle and wave his unoccupied hand in front of my face.

"S-sorry." I barely get it out in a whisper as I grab the clothes being handed to me. I can see his face visibly soften at this as he shakes his head.

"Don’t worry bout it." He speaks in a dismissive tone before motioning to the door to the other room. "You can shower and change into these. They’re all I got at the moment till I can get you some in your size." I look down at the clothes and realize that it looks like he’s given me some of his clothes to change into. "I’m gonna head out and get some food for us; I should be back before you finish showering; the place is just next door."

I stand there as he moves to go towards the door before remembering something. He pulls a gun out of his waistband and hands it over to me. I recognize it as the gun that I stole from the guard and move to take it from him. I move the clothes in my hand under my arm and grab the gun from him. I pull the slide back to check to see if there’s ammo in it, and when I’m satisfied with what I see, I snap it back shut, locking it in place. I look up to see the man amusingly looking at me. “Just in case.” He says as he nods his head towards the gun he gave back to me. After this he turns to open the door.

"I’m Frank, by the way." He mentions before turning back and leaving out the door, closing it as I hear the lock move into place.

Chapter Text

I turn from the door and head towards the other room that the stranger— Frank, pointed me to. I push open the door that was cracked open all the way, and it reveals a small area with a toilet, shower, and sink all together. How convenient.

I shut the door behind me, and I set the clothes down on the edge of the sink, placing the gun on top of them. There’s a mirror above the sink that I look into and almost jump at my reflection. My eyes are sunken in with bags under them, and I look like I’ve just been trampled with my torn clothes and cuts and bruises littering my skin. I shake my head and move to remove my clothes. It turns out to be a hard and painful task, as most of the fabric has stuck to my skin, and I had to peel the fabric off of me.

After I manage to peel my clothes off, I go to turn the shower on, only to be quickly confused by the knobs that I see. All the showers I’ve taken in the past only had one knob, which consisted of freezing cold water. The showers were never long, but every time I got out, I would be shivering the whole time I tried to sleep.

I turn the knob closest to me, and water starts streaming down from the shower head. I put my hand under the water, expecting the water to be cold, and jump back when the water is scalding hot on my hand.

I can see steam start to rise from behind the curtain. I’m not completely sure what to do now, but I figure I should probably try turning the other knob to see what happens. I go back to the knobs and turn the other one.

I hear more water being pushed out of the shower head, and I go back to check the temperature of the water. It’s still hot, but it’s slightly cooler than it was before, making it so I can keep my hand under the water longer.

I go back to turn the other knob slightly more to see if the water will cool down a little more. I check the water again and decide the temperature is fine before making my way into the shower.

I let out a relaxed sigh as I feel the water run down my body. I close my eyes as I tilt my head and let the water fall over my hair and across my face. This is the first time in my life that I don’t feel rushed and uncomfortable as I shower, and I take advantage of that.

I spend a good amount of time just standing under the spray of the water, reveling in the feel of it. I eventually open my eyes and reach for the little bottles of soap that are on a small ledge next to me. I lift up my right arm and let out a cry of pain when I move my arm up, forgetting that it’s injured.

I feel my arm throb as I put it back down at my side, and I see blood and dirt wash down the drain as I work to clean myself the best I can with only one arm.

I’m able to get most of the dried blood off of me, but my scratched arm still has some on it that I can’t get all the way off without wincing in pain.

When I decide that I’ve cleaned myself to the best of my ability, I turn the water off and open the curtain, grabbing a towel that lies folded on a small table next to the shower.

I dry myself to the best of my ability and grab the shirt off the pile of clothes I was given. I move slowly, putting my less injured arm into one sleeve before forcing my other arm through, wincing as I move it through the fabric. The shirt is big on me, the sleeves falling almost to cover my entire hand, and I roll them up slightly so I can put the rest of the clothes on.

There’s a pair of skin-tight shorts that cover my thighs when I put them on, and after, I put the sweatpants that were there on, tying the string in the front as much as it would go, trying to make it so they don’t fall off of me.

I grab the gun that was left on the sink, glancing at my reflection and looking more refreshed than I did before I got into the shower. I turn to walk out of the bathroom, stepping on the pant legs as I walk.

I walk back into the other room to see Frank rustling through a bag. He looks up when he hears me walk in, and one side of his lips quirks up as he takes in my appearance.

"I take it the clothes didn’t quite fit." I look down and see that I’m practically drowning in the clothes. I shrug my shoulders in response and immediately regret it as I feel a shoot of pain go through my shoulder. Frank’s eyebrows creased, his mouth turning into a slight frown when he sees me wince at the movement.

"You hurt?" It takes me a minute to process what he says before I’m shaking my head.

"Oh, um, I’m okay." I don’t even believe myself as the words leave my mouth, and he looks at me like he clearly doesn’t believe it either. I still don’t exactly trust him; I have no idea who he is or what he wants from me.

"C’mon, sit on the bed." He motions next to him, patting the surface with his hand. I hesitate before slowly walking towards him, putting the gun in my waistband and trying to make it so it won’t fall out.

I manage to get the gun to stay, and I sit down next to him on the foreign object, not fully expecting it to dip down as much as it does. Frank goes to gently touch my shoulder, and I jump back, not expecting the touch and cringing from the pull in my shoulder.

"Sorry, I’m sorry." I move back towards him, apologizing, and take deep breaths, trying to calm myself.

"No, no, I’m sorry. I shoulda told you I was gonna touch you." His hands are up in a defensive position, and he scooted back from me after I jumped away from him.

"It’s okay; you’re fine." I manage to say through bated breaths.

He waits until my breathing has calmed down before he moves towards me again. He sits there for a moment, waiting for me to give him the okay to proceed. I nod my head, and he takes that as his queue to start.

This time, when I feel his hand touch my arm, I don’t jump away from him and wait for him to assess the problem. I let out a hiss of pain through my teeth when he moves my arm a certain way. I hear him let out a curse and an apology before he continues, being gentler than he was before.

"It looks dislocated. Gonna have to pop it back in place." He speaks in a gruff voice, still assessing my shoulder. I swallow hard, knowing it isn’t going to be an easy task to get through.

"You need a moment to prepare?" He asks me, and I quickly shake my head, just wanting to quickly get it over with. He lets out a breathy ‘okay’ before he’s bracing one hand on my shoulder by my collarbone and the other on the upper part of my arm. I try to steady my breathing as I feel him adjust himself to a better angle.

"Ready?" I nod and clench my jaw in anticipation. I get a brief countdown before I feel my arm being pushed up and back into the socket with a crack. I let out a strangled cry of pain, trying to keep as quiet as I can. A metallic taste engulfs my mouth as, during the process, I bite down on my tongue hard enough for it to draw blood.

Frank steps back from me, and I’m able to roll my shoulder back without as much pain as before. "Thanks." I look down at my hands when I speak, finding myself fiddling with my fingers again.

"No problem." He responds, and I feel him stare at me for a few moments before I hear him move to open the plastic bag that was next to me.

"Wasn’t sure what you liked, so I just got pancakes, ‘cause who doesn’t like pancakes?" I look up to see him smiling as he holds out a container for me to take. The container is heavier than I thought it would be as I grab it from his outstretched hand and place it in my lap. "There’s also some eggs and bacon in there to get some protein in ya." I don’t know what he’s saying at all, but I end up just nodding at him anyway, like I understand.

He hands me a pointed plastic object that I feel like I’ve seen before, but I’m not sure. I stare down at the object, twisting it in my hand, trying to figure out when I’ve seen it before.

"Actin’ like you never seen a fork before." I look up to see Frank staring at me with an amused look on his face, and I get embarrassed by the way he says it, like it’s a common thing to know about.

"I have seen one before, thank you." I try to mask the embarrassment I feel, but I seem to not do it very well. The amusing look on Frank's face vanishes, and it turns into something I can’t make out.

"You really don’t know what it is, do you?" I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out, and I end up just staring at him. He seems to take this as confirmation and grabs the item from my hand, taking the container that was sitting on my lap along with it.

I watch him as he opens the container, the top of it flipping up and settling behind the other part. He brings the item that was grabbed from me, places the pointed side into the container, and hands it back to me.

I look into the container and see two brown circular things next to a yellow clumped mess that Frank put the item he took from me in. I look up at him expectantly, wondering what to do.

"Okay, take the thing I just put in there." I pick up the plastic item with some of the yellow mess coming along with it, "yeah, there ya go, now you can eat that." I bring it up to my mouth but stop right before it reaches, my mind swirling. What if something was put in it? I’ve never seen anything like this before; how do I know it’s okay for me to eat? I can’t help the thoughts that keep swimming in my head, and it seems Frank notices.

"Here," he lets out a soft breath and walks up to me, carefully taking the item from my hand again. I watch as he puts it in his mouth and starts to chew it. "There’s nothin’ in the food but food." He notes when he’s done chewing, handing the container back to me so I can finally start eating.

I used the object to get the food on it and slowly bring it to my mouth, glancing up at Frank and continuing when he gives me a small nod. I ready myself and put the food into my mouth, chewing steadily, still not sure about it.

It’s strange, and I’ve never had anything like this before, but apparently I don’t mind it as much as my mind is making me believe because half of it’s gone before I get the chance to realize I’m eating more. It’s a drastic difference from the bread that I’ve been forced to get used to as my only source of food.

I’m so busy piling the food in my mouth that I didn’t notice Frank coming over with a smaller container with what looks like some type of liquid in it. I look up at him questionably as he opens the smaller container and holds it out to me.

"It’s syrup; you usually put it on pancakes to make em taste better." I’ve been so immersed in the type of food that I'm eating that I forgot about the other kind in the container. "Here, dip your finger in it first to see if you like it; it’ll be sticky." He brings the container down in front of me, and I raise my hand to the container to dip the tip of my finger in it. The liquid is thicker than I thought it was going to be, and I’m surprised when it takes a little bit to drip off my finger.

I tasted the liquid from my finger, and the taste that hit me was a completely different flavor than anything I’ve tasted before. I knew it was going to be different, but I wasn’t expecting it to be that drastic. "Good right?" Frank asks after a moment after I’ve tasted it, and I just nod in confirmation.

He tips the liquid over the other food that is in the container, making sure to cover most of it. There’s still some leftover in the container after he’s done, and he puts the rest back into the bag where it was originally.

"You can cut it with the fork to make it easier to eat." He explains, motioning to the item that lay unused for the time being in the container. I pick it up, slightly unsure of what he means by cutting it with this. "Turn it sideways and place the pointed part where you wanna cut." I try to follow along with what he says, and it takes a slight adjustment from him for me to be able to have it placed correctly.

"There ya go. Now you wanna put some pressure on the pointed part usin’ the handle. Don’t need to put that much into it; should cut easily." I do what he says and put some pressure on the pointed part using the handle, and it cuts through like he said it would. I’m able to cut a piece off small enough for me to be able to eat it easily. It has a soft taste that I wasn’t expecting as I chewed through it.

"Good?" He asks me, and I nod with a mouth full of food. "‘M glad." He chuckles as I stuff more food in my mouth, not knowing the last time, if ever, I’ve had this much food in one sitting.

Frank grabs the other food container and goes to sit on the other object in the room with pillows on it that looked identical to the one I was on. I vaguely remember Frank referring to it as something, but I don’t remember the name he used for it. He leans against the pillows, legs stretched out in front of him, as he opens the container to start eating.

I turn back to my own food and continue eating. It’s silent for a little bit, the only sound being slight movements from one of us, until I see Frank reach for something next to him. He’s holding some kind of rectangle device in his hand, and he pressed a button on it, which turns on a screen that faces where we were.

I hear voices start coming from it, and I see people in black and white moving around the screen. My eyebrows crease, and I lean forward, trying to get a better look at the screen.

"You ever watch TV before?" I look over to see Frank looking at me and my reaction to him turning on the screen.

"Oh, um, no?" I rack my brain to see if I’ve seen anything exactly like this at the lab, and the only thing I can come up with are the screens with the moving pictures I saw when I was escaping the lab, and now that I’m thinking about it, there’s probably more to it than I initially thought. "I’m not quite sure exactly... There was this screen type at the lab, but it looked different than this." I continue, and he looks at me like he knows something but doesn’t say anything about it.

He clears his throat before making a reply. "Different how?" His eyes are trained on me as he waits for me to respond.

"Well, the pictures were less clear, and there wasn’t much happening on the screens; they showed different rooms and halls around the lab." He nods as he licks his lips, releasing a small, breathy laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, that’s not what TV is; what you saw were security cameras used to keep an eye on everythin’ 'round the lab." He clears his throat again, looking at me before he continues. "On TV," he motions to the screen he turned on just moments before, "most of it’s just actin’; no one's watchin' people in real time, and it’s made for entertainment." He says this right as a woman on the screen lets out what can only be labeled as a dramatic scream before collapsing into the arms of another person on the screen. "See?" Frank laughs as he witnesses the events happening on the screen.

"Yeah." I let out a soft chuckle as I watch more of the events that happen on the screen. We continue to watch what’s happening on the screen, and soon, both of our food is gone from the containers, and I can’t think of a time when my stomach felt as full as it does now.

"Alright," Frank stands up, collecting the empty food containers and throwing them away. "I’m gonna head out again; I shouldn’t be long, but just make sure not to open the door to anyone; I’ll have the key to get back in myself." He walks towards the door before stopping short of it. "Also make sure to keep these shut." He grabs the cloth that is hanging on the wall and pulls it together for emphasis.

"Got it." I respond back to him, and he gives me a nod before opening the door and walking out of it, the lock sounding after it’s been shut.

I get a brief thought of trying to leave, but I wouldn’t know where I was going, and Frank hasn’t given me any reason not to trust him yet, so I sit and just watch what's on TV for the time being until he returns.

It wasn’t long until I heard the door being opened again, my hand instinctively reaching behind me for the gun but moving away from it once I see Frank walk through the door.

He holds a smaller plastic bag that he sets next to me after closing the door behind him. He takes out a stack of what looks to be mini pieces of paper stuck together, along with a pen. He says nothing as he writes something on it, walks around the room to place it on an object, and repeats the process, putting a piece of paper on different surfaces in the room.

"What are you doing?" I finally ask him when he’s placing a piece on the pillow behind me.

"I’m helpin’ you learn what shit is." He says writing something else down and sticking it to my shirt. I look down to see the paper with the word ‘shirt’ written on it.

"I know what a shirt is."

"Just tryin’ to cover all the bases, darlin’." This is the second time he’s used that word to refer to me, and I get a weird feeling that I’ve never felt before. I shake the feeling off as I concentrate back on the man who’s wandering around the room.

He continues writing the names of things down and sticking them to the things the name written on them says. Soon the stack of papers he originally had has diminished greatly, and the room consists of yellow papers all over.

He starts showing me certain things, like the bed, the lamp, the TV and the remote that goes with it, and everything in between. When we got through all of the ones in the room we were in, he brought me over to the bathroom to start the process all over again in there.

After I practically had to beg for any kind of break from my mind being scrambled with all the new information at once, Frank finally caved in, and we laid on the beds and watched different and random things on the TV for a long time.

Chapter Text

I don’t know how long we’ve been here, sitting and just watching TV, but I know it was long enough for the room to start getting darker.

I adjust my position on the bed and look down when I feel my arm brush against something. I forget that there’s a sticky note on my shirt from when Frank decided to go around the room sticking them to everything. It took him a good amount of time, filled with me saying the wrong words multiple times and Frank dying of laughter almost every time, to get me to remember what they’re even called. Since then, I’ve managed to make him feel bad for laughing and cause him to genuinely try to help me figure out the name of it.

I take the note off of my shirt and crumple it up into a small ball before looking over and throwing it at Frank, whose focus was on the TV in front of us. It hit him in the shoulder, bouncing off and onto the bed next to him, and I turn my gaze back on the TV, acting like I didn’t do anything. I can hear rustling next to me, and suddenly I feel something hit my cheek. I look down to see the ball of paper that I crumpled lying next to me.

I look over and just see Frank looking at the TV seemingly inconspicuously, but I can see his mouth twitching, trying not to smile. I pick up the paper ball that’s being thrown around and go to throw it back at him. His resolve breaks, and he starts laughing when the ball misses him and hits the wall next to him instead. His laugh is contagious, and I can’t help but laugh along with him.

"You-" Frank tries to speak between his laughter but is having a hard time getting anything out. "You… you weren’t even close." He manages to get out eventually, still laughing in his half-laying-down position on the bed.

"Wha- hey!" I try to sound stern, but it doesn’t come out anywhere close to that, as laughs keep coming out in the middle of it. He continues to chuckle as he picks up the paper ball and turns to throw it in my direction.

The room falls quiet as the paper misses me drastically, and we both make eye contact for a moment before we’re bursting out laughing again.

"Now you can’t say anything about that." I mention it, and he shakes his head at me.

"Shut up." He says this with a smile still on his face. I let out another chuckle as I go to wipe my face with my hand, but stop when I see something. My hand is emitting a yellow glow, just like when it was teal and purple. I just stare at my hands, inspecting them like I’m expecting them to show me something else, but nothing happens.

I hear a throat clear from across from me, and my head snaps up. I was so immersed in looking at my hands that I forgot I wasn’t the only one in the room. If I was wondering if he could see the color before, I think I have my answer.

He was looking at my hands just as I was, and he looks up, his eyes meeting my own. Nothing is said for a moment, and I open my mouth to say something, but suddenly the light in the lamp next to me shatters, and I jump back on the bed away from it.

Frank reacts just as quickly as he jumps up from the bed he was on to a standing position in the middle of the two beds.

"You okay?" He asks, looking over at me with a concerned look on his face. I look back at him wide-eyed, slowly nodding my head. He reaches out and helps me off the bed and away from the lamp.

He holds my hands in his, surveying them, and I slowly pull them away from his grasp. He looks up at me before glancing over at the broken glass scattering the ground and then focusing back on me.

"Did you do that?" He asks, his eyes staring into mine, and I struggle to come up with a response.

"I- I don’t- I don’t know." Did I break the light? Why is it that whenever something weird happens, I always have a color radiating from me? The way Frank looked at my hands, I know it couldn’t be normal.

Frank clears his throat before stepping away from me and nodding his head a couple times. "‘Kay uh," Frank glances at the digital clock displayed on the nightstand the now broken lamp is on. It took Frank a while to teach me that it’s a different kind of clock than the circled one I’m used to seeing and that, ultimately, these clocks are easier to read when you’re just starting out.

"I’m gonna go get some dinner for us and find somethin’ to replace the light with. I’ll pick up the glass when I get back, so don’t touch or worry bout it." I look up at him, confusion etched on my face.

"Dinner? You’re getting food again?" We already had so much food earlier, and I still feel full from it all. He looks at me, trying to read anything else on my face, but I give nothing away for him.

"How much were they feedin’ you?" He asks, still staring at me, and I have to drop my gaze from his, a part of me knowing that he probably won’t like the answer. I swallow before letting out a reply.

"Um, like, a couple pieces of bread... twice a day." He moves back from me like he’s been shocked.

"Two pieces—Jesus." It comes out as a whisper as he pinches the bridge of his nose, and I work to look anywhere but directly at him. I know I probably shouldn't, but I feel a sense of shame come over me as if it were my fault.

"Hey, look at me." I breathe out and bring my gaze up to look at him. "You don’t gotta be ashamed, okay?" How does he know exactly how I’m feeling? Am I able to be read that easily? He continues on talking, ripping me out of my thoughts.

"It’s normal to have three meals a day, but some people just have two big ones to sustain themselves durin’ the day." He talks to me with the most sincerity that I've ever felt. I was expecting him to judge me, not understand me, and just undermine me because I don’t know anything. The only other person in my life who’s ever treated me like another person was Ellie, and now I don’t even have her anymore.

Brief flashbacks of the creature of Ellie cross my mind, and the memory of shooting the gun through its head comes to light. The sound of the gunshot echoes in my ears, and I flinch slightly, shutting my eyes as to not let any of the tears building up escape.

I blink rapidly, forcing the tears away, and find Frank looking at me, just… waiting. I can see a knowing look in his eyes as he just stands there patiently, waiting for me to calm down.

"Sorry." I breathe out, and he shakes his head at me.

"‘S fine, don’t worry ‘bout it." He slowly moves to walk by me towards the door to the room. "I’ll be back in a bit." He takes one last look at me before leaving out the door, and once again I’m alone in the room.

I sigh and sit back down on the bed, picking up the remote and mindlessly flipping through the channels. I ended it on a random channel, but I can’t comprehend what’s happening on it.

My mind wanders to everything I’ve learned and witnessed over the little time I’ve been free. The life I had in the lab was drastically different from what this life outside seems like, and it’s like I’ve been pulled into a whole new universe where I had to relearn everything that I thought I knew, which apparently wasn’t very much.

I can feel the shame build up in me again as I think about how Frank had to teach me things that I figure were learned a lot earlier on by other people. He told me it wasn’t my fault and to not feel like it, but I can’t help but think a part of me is useless out in this world.

Suddenly I hear a whistling of some kind and a thumping sound coming from the window. I whip my head towards the noise, my hand reaching around me to take ahold of the gun.

I get on the bed furthest away from the window as I stare up at it, my gun held up in a defensive position. There’s no other way out of the room other than the door in front of me. I can hear taps and noises coming from the window, and I grip the gun tighter, prepared for something to come bursting through it, but nothing does.

In my panic, I don’t realize that my hands are emitting yet another color until I focus on one of them holding the gun. There’s a faint pink color coming from it, and for the second time, I’m staring down at my hands as they emit a color.

I don’t know how long I sit there for, but I eventually see the color drain from my hands into nothingness, and the noises I heard coming from the window come to a stop as well.

I let out a breath and dropped the gun from its position, still holding it in my hand for good measure. I lean my head against the wall on my back and close my eyes. The feeling of the wall on my back brings me back to the endless days of sitting in my cell. Bright lights and loud beeping engulf my mind, and my eyes shoot open, letting out a small gasp.

I can feel tears forming again and frustration settling in, and I roughly wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. There’s a part of me that wants to forget about the lab completely and try to put it in the past, but there’s another part that needs to know what happened to Ellie and why. She was the only person who showed me any hint of kindness while I was in the lab, and I feel like I owe it to her to find out what happened and make the people responsible pay.

The knob on the door to the room starts to turn, and I perk up, my grip tightening on the gun in my hand. I know that it’s likely just Frank coming through the door, but there’s still a part of me that’s on edge.

I relax when I see Frank walk through the door, holding different bags in his hands. He has a small smile on his face before it drops, turning into a more serious expression when he sees me on the far side of the room, gun in hand, facing the door.

"What happened?" He quickly shuts the door behind him, scanning the room with his eyes and visibly relaxing when he notices there aren’t any immediate threats.

Nothing, I just- just heard noises coming from the window." He sets the bags down on the bed closest to the window and goes over to it, pulling the curtains back to inspect them. Once he was sure that the window was securely locked and no one could have come in, he closed the curtains back up and turned to look at me.

"The window’s locked; no one can get in from it. Was pretty windy a minute ago, so coulda just been stuff being thrown around out there." His words ring in my ears, and I struggle to comprehend that he’s saying there’s nothing out there for me to worry about.

I don’t notice him moving towards me until I see him crouching in front of the bed I’m on, arms crossed over each other in front of him. My eyes meet his, and I see one side of his mouth quirk up in a half smile as he just sits there with me.

"Sorry." I can’t help myself from apologizing to him, and he shakes his head at me.

"Stop apologizin’ got nothin’ to apologize for; probably scared n confused about everythin’ that’s okay." He sits here with me until I feel my mind go back to its normal state and I’m able to function normally again.

He stands after he sees that I’m better and goes over to the bags that he brought in. I stand up from the bed I was on, put the gun back in my waistband, and wait to see what he has.

He goes through a brown paper bag, taking out various items before walking over to where I am and holding them out for me to take. There’s an item wrapped in a different type of paper and a container filled with these yellow sticks.

"Can’t go wrong with a burger and fries; it’s a classic." I can’t help but feel a small smile form on my face at his enthusiasm as he goes back over to the bags. "Oh, here." He walks back over as I set the food on the bed, and he hands me a tall container after twisting off something on the top of it. "It’s a water bottle; gotta keep you hydrated."

I look down in the container and see the water swish around as I move it. I bring the bottle up to my lips and take a sip of it. I can’t help but feel refreshed as the liquid hits my tongue and falls down my throat. It tastes a lot better than the water I’m used to getting. The water that I would usually get would be a darker color and have a dirtier taste to it.

The water tastes so much better that I can’t help but start to gulp it down from the bottle. There’s only a little bit of water left after I’ve drank most of it up already. Frank says nothing as he walks back over to the bags and comes back, holding another water bottle out for me to take. How does he plan these things out? He’s either overly prepared in situations like these or he figured something like this would happen where another one would be needed.

Either way, I quietly thank him as I take the other bottle from his grasp and empty the other bottle before placing it in his outstretched hand for him to throw away in the garbage on his way back to the other side of the room.

"Heads up." I look up from the food on the bed to see Frank holding something in his hand and going to toss it to me. I reach up and grab the small item out of the air right before it hits me. "Nice catch." He smiles, and I look down at the small red item that was thrown at me.

"If you open the burger in the wrapper there," he points to the item he handed to me previously that was wrapped in a kind of paper. "Yeah, that one," he notes when I put my hand over the item. I work on unwrapping the item and find two pieces of rounded bread with something that looked brown and orange stacked inside of it. "Now take the top part of it off n open the packet to drizzle it on top." It took me a little bit to work to open the small packet with Frank’s guidance through it, but I got it open and worked to put it onto the burger, which he made sure to say the name of more times than probably was necessary to make sure that I remembered the name of it.

I bite into the burger and find it has a completely different taste than the food we had earlier. It makes me wonder how many other food items are out there that I haven’t even tried yet, and I have the feeling that I’m only scratching the surface of it all.

I finish the burger in record time, with Frank laughing at me through it when he said that I had ketchup all over my mouth and offering me something to wipe it with. He mentions the other food that I forget is there and haven’t touched yet, but I don’t think I can eat any more with what I’ve just gotten done eating. Frank understands and takes the rest of the food while saying something along the lines of "more for me," and he goes to sit with the food in front of him as he eats.

It’s quiet in the room except for the TV playing and the occasional crumpling of wrappers coming from Frank. It’s a nice change from the constant humming noise I’m used to that was always running in the lab.

After we’re both done eating, Frank gets up, reaches back into one of the other bags he brought, and brings out a box and another object. He goes over to where the lamp is and brings the object up to start cleaning up the glass with it. He picks up the pieces on the ground before cleaning up the pieces left on the nightstand.

"Don’t step over there; there’s still pieces in the carpet I couldn’t get out. Don’t want you cuttin’ yourself." I nod at him as I watch him take a new light bulb from the box and insert it into the lamp. The lamp lights up immediately, and Frank claps his hands together in success.

I just survey him from my position on the bed as he grabs the last items out of the bags and looks over at me, holding clothes in his hand. "I found clothes that I figured might fit you better than what you’re wearin’ right now." I’m not expecting it when he throws the clothes in my direction, and I flinch as the clothes fall onto the bed in front of me, and the trainer's face crosses my vision for a split second. It doesn’t take much for Frank to start profusely apologizing.

"I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I wasn’t thinkin’ when I was—I'm so sorry."

"No, no, it’s fine; I just wasn’t expecting it." I rub my eyes as I speak and try to get my breathing under control.

"I’m sorry." I shake my head at him when he apologizes again.

"Really, I’m fine; it’s not your fault." It takes him a minute to accept my words before he reluctantly nods and sits down on the bed behind him.

I grab the clothing that’s in front of me and find a pair of black pants in a similar style to the ones I would train in and a plain gray shirt that is much smaller than the one that I’m currently wearing.

I stand up from the bed so I can start changing from the clothes that I’m in. I take the gun out of the pants I’m currently wearing and place it next to the TV. I then walk over to where the new clothes are and start to take the pants that I’m wearing off so I can put the new ones on.

I hear Frank let out a curse on the other side of the room, and I look over at him to see him cramming his neck to stare at the wall next to him. I don’t ask why he’s doing that and just work on changing into the clothes.

The pants are a much better fit on me than the other ones, fitting my waist without having to tie them tighter to me. I take the shirt off, wincing when my arm bends the wrong way, forgetting that there’s still a cut on it.

I don’t dwell on it much as I put the new shirt over my head; it's also a perfect fit, and I don’t have to worry about my sleeves covering my hands now as the sleeves on it are short. A brief question crossed my mind on how he managed to get clothing so close to my size without even asking me, but I just figured it was easier than I thought it would be.

Frank’s still staring at the wall when I finish getting dressed, and I quietly announce that I’m done, wondering if that was the reason that he wouldn’t look in my direction. He rubs his neck and clears his throat as he looks back over at me, now fully dressed. I can see a slight color on his face, and he rubs it with both hands before looking up at me.

"Seems to fit well." I nod and look down at the clothes again before looking back up at Frank, but his gaze is locked on my arm. "When’d you get that?" He motions to my arm and gets up to walk closer to me.

"Oh, uh, I don’t know." I don’t know why I’m trying to keep secrets from him when all he’s trying to do is help me, but it’s like the only person in my mind I can trust right now is me, and I am still trying to keep it that way.

He looks at me with a deadpan expression, and it’s no wonder why he doesn’t believe me because I’m pretty sure anyone would remember exactly how they had a cut like that on their arm. He doesn’t push on the subject and leads me to the bed to sit down as he goes and gets a box out of the bag that he brought.

He comes to sit down next to me, and he opens the box containing various amounts of different items inside it. He pulls the sleeve of my shirt up over my shoulder so he can get a better look at the cut.

"Looks like you might need some stitches." He continues to examine the cut, and I look over at him with a confused expression on my face. He sighs when he sees my reaction and tries to explain it to me in the calmest way possible.

"I have to take a needle and bring the skin back together so it can heal." My eyes widen at the sound of having to use a needle, and my body reflexively moves away from him.

"Hey, hey, I know I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to do it. It’s to help you, I promise." I stare at him, still hesitant to accept, but he sits there, patiently waiting for me to agree.

I stare at the ground slowly, trying to bring myself to agree to let him pierce my skin. I have a feeling that it’s not going to be like how it was in the lab, but I still have to convince the restricting part of me to do it.

I take a deep breath and lift my head up so I’m no longer looking at the floor. I scoot closer to him so he can reach easier and try to give a silent okay for him to proceed before I back out again.

"Gonna need you to say somethin’ before I do it so I know you’re okay with it." I look up at him to find him looking at me with soft eyes, not making a move to grab anything yet.

"Yeah, yeah, just do it, please." I swallow hard, and he lets out a small confirmation before going into the box to grab a small packet. I hear him rip open the packet and look to see him holding a white square in his hand.

"This is an alcohol wipe; it’ll help clean it so it doesn’t get infected. It’s gonna sting a little, so I’m gonna need you to bear with me, okay?" I nod, and he tells me to take a breath before he carefully grips my arm and starts to rub the wipe on the cut.

I wince as I can feel the sting he warned me about, and I try to keep my arm still for him to work on. He finishes quickly, apologizing whenever I wince.

"Okay, sorry to say that was the easy part. I need you to hold incredibly still for this, alright?" I squeeze my eyes shut and just nod my head, turning my head away from him. It doesn’t happen right away, and I hear him moving things around before he tells me to take another breath and to prepare myself.

I feel him take ahold of my arm again, and I can’t help the wail that leaves my mouth when I feel the needle being pushed into my skin. I squeeze my eyes shut even tighter and grip the bottom of my shirt tightly in my hands.

I hear him apologizing, cursing, and trying to comfort me all throughout the process. Every time I feel the needle go through my skin, I tell myself it’s almost over and I don’t have to go through too many more, even though I have no idea if it’s even true.

I feel a slight tug, and the feel of the needle going into my skin stops. "I’m done; just gotta wrap it. You did great, sweetheart." I blink my eyes open again and turn my head back to see Frank taking out a piece of cloth to start wrapping around my arm. "Welcome back." He smiles at me when he realizes that I have opened my eyes and am looking at him again.

He finishes wrapping my arm and lets out an "all done" before cleaning everything up and bringing the box back to the bag that he puts it back in. I glance down at my arm to see a white wrap going around it, and the scratch that’s under it is not visible anymore.

I don’t touch it, scared to mess it up, so I instead roll my sleeve back down so it covers part of the wrap.

"You can sleep in that bed; I’ll take this one." He motions to the bed closest to the window before he walks into the bathroom. I hear the sound of the water running, and I press my hand against the bed I’m sitting on. I didn’t expect it to be a place you’re supposed to sleep, but I guess the pillows made sense in that case. It does seem like it would be more comfortable than the hard ground, but I’m still not completely used to just sitting on it, let alone sleeping on it.

I’m lost in my thoughts and don’t hear the door to the bathroom opening or Frank walking out. "Can’t get comfortable?" I look up to see Frank standing in front of me, his clothes changed, and some drops of water still on his skin.

I notice that I’ve been sitting in the same position that he left me in, which was probably why he thought I was uncomfortable, but I’ve been used to sitting in the same position, and it didn’t really occur to me to move where I was sitting.

"Have you never slept in a bed before?" Frank looks at me and finds me wearing a confused look on my face when I witnessed him pulling the blanket back from the bed and moving to get inside it.

"No, I haven’t." I shake my head at him, and I hear him let out a small sigh.

"It’ll probably be uncomfortable for ya at first, but once you get used to it, should be a lot more comfortable than where you’ve been sleepin’." He sits with his leg crossed under him and his other one hanging off the bed as he speaks to me.

I move to lay in the bed like I witnessed him doing not long ago, and feeling the coolness of the sheets on my skin makes me shiver. It’s not nearly as cold as my cell was, but I still find myself shaking from the uncertainty and unfamiliarity.

Frank turns off the light in the room, engulfing it in darkness except for the sliver of light that’s shining through from the curtains. "Night." Frank bids me goodnight, and I echo it before turning to my side to try and fall asleep.

My body is exhausted, and I can feel myself strongly wanting to fall asleep, but I keep turning and flipping my body to different positions, and I can’t seem to bring myself to sleep. I can hear Frank’s breathing slow down and figure that he’s already fallen asleep. I turn my body over a few more times, strongly attempting to sleep, but to no avail.

I slowly push myself up out of the bed, trying not to make too much noise so I don't wake up Frank, and I grab a pillow off the bed and work a sheet off along with it. I use the little light I have in the room to go to the end of the bed and place the sheet and pillow on the ground.

I lay down on the sheet that I put down and place my head on the pillow. My body is already starting to fall asleep in this position. This floor is slightly more comfortable than the hard tiled floor that I usually sleep on, and there’s no coldness to feel from beneath the blanket. Before I know it, sleep takes over me, and a world of darkness engulfs me.
~
Visions swirl in my mind, and suddenly I’m back in my cell as a kid with Ellie. She’s drawing me a picture of the stars. She says they light up the night sky, and they’re the best thing to witness.

"You can only see them at night, though." She hands me the picture, and I look down to see the page is colored black with small white dots on the paper.

"Why only at night?" I continue to survey the paper, even though it’s a pretty straightforward picture.

"Because it’s too bright to see anything during the day!" She speaks with excitement, practically bouncing up and down, and I feel myself smiling, looking up at her.

However, her bright, smiling face starts to morph into a black, wrinkled creature with sharp teeth, snarling at me. My smile quickly falls off my face, and everything around me starts changing. I’m standing in front of the creature with the gun in my hand. I vigorously shake my head, tears running down my face. I don’t want to live through this again, please.

The creature tackles me to the ground, but the gun that was in my hand disappears, making me defenseless against the creature who’s about to slash down at me with its sharp claws. I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the impact, but it never comes. Instead, I hear gunshots ring in the air, and I gasp as the creature falls off of me. I look behind me to see myself standing there, a sinister look on my face, as I continue to empty the entire gun clip into the creature. Except when I look back, the creature is gone, and what lies bloodied with multiple bullet holes in her chest is actually Ellie, green, dead eyes looking back at me. I let out a cry and push myself back from the body until I hit a wall, and everything goes silent as I sit there with the dead body of my friend laying in front of me.

I let out a gasp, and my eyes shoot open, expecting to see a dead Ellie next to me but just seeing the darkness of the motel room. I have to take a deep breath in order to control my breathing, and I rub my hands over my face, trying to wake myself up, with dried tear stains on my cheeks.

It takes me a little bit to recollect myself, but when I do, I hear a muffled voice coming from the bathroom. I sit up and squint my eyes to try to see if Frank was still in the bed, but I could only make out some of the sheets being messed up on the bed.

It was still dark outside; if anything, it was just a little bit lighter than it was when I fell asleep. I turn my body towards the bathroom door and try to pinpoint what’s being said, but I only pick up tiny parts of the conversation that don’t make sense to me. The only things that I’m able to pick up that seemed important were "gotta go" and "get her". I was almost certain that Frank was talking to someone else, but I didn’t hear another voice other than his.

It's silent for a moment, and I strain my ears in order to try and hear more of the conversation, but the bathroom door opens, and there’s no time for me to lay back down to pretend I’m still sleeping as Frank steps out. He stops when he sees that I’m sitting up and not still asleep. He says nothing as he goes over to where his bed is and starts to stuff things into the one bag that he brought.

"We gotta go." I’m expecting a question as to why I’m sleeping on the ground when there’s a bed right next to me, so his statement catches me off guard.

"What?" I’m able to respond after my mind wakes up a little more.

"C'mon, we have to get out of here; it’s not safe here." I force my body off the floor and see Frank already by the door, ready to leave.

"But-"

"Darlin', please, there’s no time for this. I just need you to trust me on this. Here," he quickly says, walking towards me with a pair of shoes in his hand. "Put these on and follow me." I don’t move right away, and it doesn’t take much for Frank to plead with me again. "Please." I can see the desperation in his eyes, and it doesn’t take any more for me to put on the shoes, grab my gun, and hurry to follow him out the door.

He doesn’t even lock the door behind him when we leave the room; he barely even manages to close it. It’s still relatively dark outside, but I can see specks of light trying to make their way into the sky.

Frank’s gripping my wrist and pulling me along with him, and I trip over my feet a couple times, not used to wearing shoes. He only slows down a little before continuing his pace.

We reach the thing that initially brought us there, and he goes to open a door on one side of it before ushering me into it. I have to lift my foot up in order to get in, and Frank helps me get up until I’m sitting in the seat. He closes the door once he makes sure I’m securely in and runs around to the other side, opening the door to jump in on his side. He puts the bag with him in between the two seats, grabs a key from his pocket, and puts it into a slot, twisting it and causing the rumbling sound I heard previously to start again.

He reaches over to me and grabs a gray strap that was by my side and pulls it so it comes across my chest. It reminded me of the straps used to restrain me while I was being experimented on, and I push his hand away on instinct. He pulls his hand away from me but keeps it hovering nearby.

"Hey," he says softly but urgently to me, causing me to look up at him. "Remember when I said I needed you to trust me?" I slowly bring my arms back down to my side, not knowing why I’m so quick to trust him but silently letting him continue anyway.

He lets out a breath of relief before reaching for the strap, and this time when he pulls it across my chest, I don’t push his hand away and let him pull it all the way across me until I hear a soft click where he locks it in place.

He gently grabs the strap across me and pulls it slightly, causing the part around my waist to tighten, but not in a way that makes it uncomfortable to the point where I can’t move. This makes me let out a breath that I didn’t know I was holding.

He brings a different strap to go across him, clicking it into place before he pulls a lever next to a wheel, and things around me start to move.

I turn my head to look out the window to find the surroundings around us appear to start moving. It’s all slow until a few turns are made, and things start to move faster and faster until everything turns into a blur. I don’t speak, seeing the look on Frank’s face, and just let him do what he has to.

"Shit." Frank curses, and I look over at him to find him eyeing the mirror that is placed to the side on the outside of the door. "Hold on." I don’t have time to readily prepare myself before he pulls the wheel and we start to drift to the side. The strap across me scrapes into my neck, and I grip it with one hand, the other holding on to the edge of the seat I’m on. I pull on the strap, but instead of pulling out more like it did with Frank, it locks in place and doesn’t move.

We’re only leaning for a second before we’re back sitting straight up again, but Frank still doesn’t seem to have solved the problem from the second curse that he let out next to me. I look out the window next to me and see another small mirror on the side my door’s on, and I try to peer through it.

Through the mirror, I can see something following us, practically right on top of us, and it seems Frank is trying his best to try and get away from it. However, the thing behind us isn’t letting up as it speeds up and moves next to us to the point where I can see it through my window now.

The windows on it are dark, not allowing me to see through them, but I don’t need to as the window starts to drop and two men are revealed in it. It doesn’t take long to figure out what they want when they bring out guns and start to point them at my window.

I don’t have time to react before I can feel a hand on me pushing me down so that I’m bent down staring at the ground when I hear a shot and glass shatter above me. I hear Frank let out a grunt before more glass is shattered on the other side of me.

I move to sit up before I feel a hand back on me, holding me down. "Do not sit up." I can feel pieces of glass on my seat, some falling out of my hair and onto the floor in front of me.

I hear more gunshots ring out and feel us swerving from side to side. I very slowly raise my head slightly so I don't make Frank aware of the movement and peek up to look out of the now broken window.

The people are still next to us, still holding the gun up, but they're trying to keep control of the thing they’re in while at it. I can hear yelling coming from it; the other person the furthest from me looks to be in a heated argument with the other person in the car, putting his hand on the wheel, but the other man quickly brushes his hand off. They were swerving back and forth, and there's a moment when both of them are lined up in my line of sight. I see this as an opportunity and try to reach for the gun I have on me, but the strap is restricting me.

I move my hand to try and unclip the strap from my body before a hand is placed over mine. I glance over to see Frank periodically glancing at me, shaking his head when he notices me looking at him. "Trust me." I whisper up at him, and I feel his hand tighten on mine.

He quickly glances over at the other people next to us and releases his hand from mine, moving it to where my strap is. I hear a click, and the strap is coming loose from my body.

I’m able to move freely now, and I stealthily move my arm around to grab the gun with me, trying not to attract much attention to myself. I have the gun in my hands, and I turn my gaze back out the window to see the people still not paying attention to us.

I carefully click the safety off and cock it, so it’s ready to shoot. I can feel Frank trying to pay attention to me, but I can’t do much but try to keep control so we don’t crash.

I adjust my hold on the gun and bring it up to the window, aiming it directly at the people next to us. I move myself to get the best angle, and I see the people look over at me, but before either of them could do anything, I’m pulling the trigger on the gun, and the bullet goes through the first person's head and into the other one’s, causing them both to be dead on impact.

Frank has to swerve out of the way so they don’t hit us as they fly off in the other direction and crash straight into a tree.

"Belt back on." I grab the strap and click it back in place as Frank tries to get us to safety as fast as he can.

Chapter Text

Frank pulls into a narrow area, stops, and turns to look at me.

“I need to know if you’re able to turn your powers off temporarily.” The question comes out of nowhere, and my eyebrows crease and confusion sets on my face.

“What?” Frank closes his eyes briefly and lets out a small sigh before setting his gaze on me again.

“I promise I will explain everything to you when we are not sittin’ ducks out in the open. The people who are after you are tracking your power usage. It’s how they found us at the motel.” I stare at him in shock. How did he know any of this? I open my mouth to ask that exact question, but stop when I see the look he gives me.

I look down at the forgotten bracelet that’s still on my wrist. I twist it around in my hand, wondering if it would be able to disable them like it seemed to have done before.

It looks the same all the way around, except for a part of it that looks slightly uneven compared to the rest of it.

I press on that part of the bracelet, and it makes a slight click noise and tightens back on my wrist, not as tightly as before. Immediately, I can feel my body getting lighter and my energy being drained.

I let out a small gasp, and my head falls forward, not being able to be held up completely. I feel pressure on my arm, and I force my head to turn to see a concerned-looking Frank staring back at me.

“You okay?” I go to nod, but end up wincing when my head feels like something is holding it down. I force my head back so it falls against the back of the seat.

“They’re gone. I don’t feel them anymore.” I can no longer feel the dull pressure that was in the back of my mind. My body is no longer being held up by whatever power was coursing through me, and I can feel a heavy burden on my body.

Frank doesn’t ask how I know or how I did it; he just lets out a small confirmation. I close my eyes and feel my fatigued body drift off.

~

Flashes of blood and screaming cross my mind; gunshots echo in my mind. Everything seems so far away, like I’m witnessing it from across a hallway.

It all gets closer, gunshots getting louder, until everything suddenly stops and my eyes open.

I blink rapidly, trying to focus on my surroundings. It’s dark, and I can tell that we’re not outside anymore. I hear a door close next to me, and footsteps come around to the side I’m at. Frank comes into view through the broken window before he’s opening my door, pieces of glass falling off of it, and helping me get up.

He works to try to avoid the glass the best he can, helping me steady myself when I have to jump down from the ledge in order to get out. I can feel my legs slightly give out under me, and I have to grab onto him so I won’t fall.

He stays there for a little bit, holding me up so I can get my balance. I’m eventually able to move and take in my surroundings, with Frank following close behind me in case I lose my balance again.

The rest of the area doesn’t have that much lighting, and it all looks rundown, like no one’s been there for a while.

“Frank, what are you-“ A man comes out of the middle area that has the most light but stops short of what he’s saying when he sees me. “What is she doing here?” He motions to me, and I instinctively go to take a step back.

Frank gently grabs both my arms, whispering a quick “it’s okay” to me before walking past me towards the other man in the room.

“You told me to bring her somewhere safe, n that’s what I did.” Frank walks closer to him and stops when there’s just a little space between them.

“Somewhere that isn’t here.” His voice gets quieter as he speaks, as if he thinks I won’t be able to hear him anymore.

“She’s fine; her powers are deactivated; they won’t be able to track her.”

"Okay, but how do you know that, for sure, we can’t take any chances, Frank?"

“You know you’re a terrible whisperer.” I take that as my opportunity to speak up, and Frank chokes out a laugh as the other man looks past Frank at me, a shocked look on his face as if I’ve just shot him.

“Wha- I-” He looks at me but can’t seem to get a full sentence out of his mouth.

“She gotcha there, Lieberman.” Frank walks behind him and pats him on the back, motioning for me to follow him. I move to walk behind him, passing the other person on the way.

"Okay, but she’s your responsibility!” He turns to shout after Frank, his voice getting progressively louder as the sentence goes on, and Frank waves his arm over his head to brush him off as he continues further into the room.

Frank sits down on a long seat in the back of the room, bringing out the same box he used to stitch me before. “C’mon, sit.” He motions to the space next to him, and I close the distance to sit next to him. He gently grabs my arm, inspecting it. There are little cuts scattering it from the glass, but none of them are bad.

Frank moves his arm, and it gives me the angle to see blood dripping down his sleeve. “You’re bleeding.” I go up to touch his arm, but he pulls away from me.

“‘M fine, lemme look at your arm.”

“Lemme look at yours.” I don’t let him look at my arm, and he lets out a heavy sigh, looking up at me with annoyance written on his face.

“I’ll be fine-”

“So will I; it’s just a couple scratches I’ve had worse; you’ve seen it.” I look down at my arm, glancing at the light scrapes on it as I speak. I can see him contemplating what to do before he nods, setting the box down in the space between us.

I attempt to look at the wound, but there was too much fabric in the way for me to actively see it. Frank seems to understand this, as he’s carefully moving his arm to pull the fabric off.

He lets out a groan, working the sleeve off his hurt arm, and I go up to help him, but he brushes me off, eventually getting the shirt off his body as he places the fabric down on the other side of him.

The area was a lot easier to see now that there was nothing blocking the view. I can now clearly see that it was a graze from a bullet. I think back to earlier, when I was pushed down when gunshots sounded and bullets started spraying. The grunt of pain that he let out right before the glass on his side shattered tells me that one of the bullets grazed his shoulder before it flew out the window.

My hands are shaking as I grip his arm, feeling the warmth of his skin on my hand, and he brings his other hand around to engulf my mind, steadying it. He looks at me with soft eyes before opening his mouth to speak. “There’s a small mattress over there you can lay down on.” I shake my head at his implication that I didn’t have to sit there with him, but I feel like I have to repay him with something for everything that he’s done for me.

“I want to help, please.” I look up at him with pleading eyes, and he gives me a slight smile, hand-squeezing over mine before nodding his head. I look back down at his arm, inspecting the wound further as his other arm returns to his side.

“It’s just a graze-” We both end up speaking at the same time, and I hear him let out a soft, breathy laugh.

“Sorry.” I’m quick to say after, not wanting to upset him by accidentally talking over him; even if it was just an accident, my body reacts on autopilot. I’ve had to learn to behave and abide by the rules set for me while I was in the lab; otherwise, there would be drastic consequences. I hate how bad it is to get tased, and those punishments were one of the tame ones to endure.

A part of me wants to back away from Frank and curl myself up into a ball, thinking that something’s going to happen to me because I broke the rules. But I have to listen to the other part and know that there are no more of those rules out here, and punishments like the ones they gave aren’t going to happen to me anymore. I hope. A small voice echoes in my mind, but it leaves as fast as it came, my mind forcing the negative thoughts back into the depths of my head. I have to tell myself that I’m okay now, and all the things that they’ve done to me and all the rules that they made up don’t apply here.

I reach for the same packet that he did before when cleaning the cut on my arm. I take the small paper-feeling item in my hand to gently wipe at the wound. I get a clearer look at the actual cut once most of the blood around it is cleaned up, and I can see that it’s not that deep, so minimal work was only needed to tend it. There was a brief training once while I was in the lab on how to clean a wound, but the training wasn’t long, and there wasn’t another one after that. They didn’t care enough for me to learn how to effectively clean wounds, and from then on, they pushed me into more and more combat training.

I manage to get the cut wrapped with the help of Frank, who guides me along the way. He thanks me before insisting that I go lay down and rest, not giving me an option otherwise. He stands up from his spot and leans over to pack the things back up in the box. His shirt still lays in the same spot where he put it down earlier, which leaves his skin still showing as he works to put everything back. It’s like I’m in a trance as I watch him work, muscles flexing as he moves.

He picks up the box and sets it on a shelf next to the seat it was on. He looks over at me, and I realize that I’ve been just staring at him as he cleaned up. I blink rapidly to get my focus back, and I see the corner of his mouth twitch up. I go to apologize, but I stop myself before it can come out. He says nothing as he picks up the bag he brought with them and turns his back to me, walking to a table on the other side of the room. I take this as my opportunity to go try and rest like Frank said to.

I find myself sitting against the wall on top of the mattress that Frank pointed me to. I lean my head back on the wall, trying to get myself to relax. I don’t know how long I’m sitting there for, but I can feel myself starting to drift in and out of consciousness and decide to let my body lay on the mattress. I can hear distant voices talking about something I can’t comprehend before the noise cuts into a low, muffled sound and sleep starts to overtake me.

The peace in my mind doesn’t last long before a loud alarm sounds, and I jump up from my position, forcing myself into the closest corner. The alarm sounds nothing like the one from the lab, but it might as well be the exact same one as images of the lab flash in my mind. My eyes are squeezed shut, and I bring my hands up to cover my ears, trying desperately to drown out the noise.

“DAMMIT LIEBERMAN, TURN IT OFF!” Even with my hands covering my ears, I can hear Frank’s voice through the muffled sound of the siren. I can’t hear what else is being said, but I can vaguely hear the suppressed voices of the two men in the room.

The alarm gets turned off and the place grows quiet again, but I can’t bring myself to take my hands off of my ears yet. My breathing comes out in quick, small breaths as I attempt to get it back to normal and slow my heart rate down. I feel hands grab my wrists softly, as if they were barely touching my skin, and they’re pulled away from my ears. I slowly open my eyes to see Frank in front of me, a concerned look on his face.

“Breathe for me, darlin’.” My breathing has already steadied since he’s been here, and it falls to a steady rhythm, following the rise and fall of his now-clothed chest. “There ya go.” His hands release my wrists, dragging slightly down my forearms before falling off of me.

He stands up to full height, and my head turns up to follow his movement. I look up at him, and he stretches his arm out for me to grab his hand. I place my hand in his, and he pulls me to my feet, helping me get my balance.

“C’mon, wanna show ya somethin’” He walks me over across the room to the big open area in the middle, where the other man sat in a chair. He turns to face me, a smile on his face, though he looks ragged and unkept, like he hasn’t been sleeping.

He holds out his hand towards me, “I’m David.” He takes a quick pause before adding “Lieberman” to the end of it. I give him a small smile before putting my hand in his to shake.

He spins his chair back around to look at the screen that has some kind of document on it. “You would usually give your name back in that situation, but..." He speaks in a light-joking manner, but Frank still smacks the back of his head with his hand.

“You know she wasn’t given one.” Frank speaks between his teeth with his voice lowered, but I’m still able to hear him.

“It’s called a joke. Ever heard of one before? Jeez.” They start to argue, and I can see my first meeting with Ellie not paying attention to exactly what they are saying.

“Y/n.” I all but whisper the name that I spent countless days trying to remember when Ellie left, repeating it over and over in my cell as if the name was going to leave my memory at any time.

They stop arguing, looking over at me with confused expressions on their faces. “My name." I swallow, trying to soothe the dryness in my throat. “It’s y/n.” I look up at them to see them just staring at me wordlessly, both glancing at each other before slowly nodding.

Frank smiles before motioning for me to stand next to him, having a better view of the screen on the table. "Alright, darlin’,” he squeezes my shoulder gently, and David rolls the chair he’s on slightly out of the way so he’s not directly in front of the screen.

I can immediately see the word “CONFIDENTIAL” written out in all red at the top of the page. It’s a word that I’ve seen around the lab so many times before that it’s been engraved in my mind, and I know that it’s not something that just anyone can have access to.

Looking at the rest of the words on the page, I can only make out a few words that I know; “weapon”, “trial”, and “test” were the ones that I could easily make out on the page.

I can feel my eyebrows crease, not understanding most of the words written in front of me, only knowing the words that I’ve seen a lot or that are easy to read. Most times I’m able to sound out the word to figure out what it means, but this time there are too many words, making it overwhelming for me.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.” I shake my head and look over at Frank, who’s still by my side. He quickly licks his lips before speaking.

“We were aware of intel containing information about a secret weapon the military has been workin’ on.” He takes a breath before continuing. “We were tracking the progress of said... weapon." He looks at me when he says weapon, emphasizing the word. “We spent weeks trackin’ it, tryin’ to figure out a way to get ahead of it. Until we saw that they were ready to start trialin’ it. With what we saw, we couldn’t let the trials start; it was too dangerous. So... we made a plan to go destroy it.” At this, I stepped back from him. Destroy it? Were they going to kill me? Everything that they had done—why would they go through that much trouble just to get rid of me? Unless they were trying to make it easier for them.

I reach down to grab the bracelet on my wrist, thinking back to when he said I should turn off my powers, and I can’t help but wonder if it was all just a ploy in order to make me vulnerable. Frank’s eyes grow wide at my moment, and David, who’s looking at him, looks over to me and acquires the same facial expression as Frank does.

“Now, darlin', listen to me,” he says, putting his hands up in a surrender stance as he talks, trying not to set me off any further. “We didn’t know the weapon they were talking about was a person. As soon as the incident was out and the lab was destroyed, we thought they had started the trial, but it went horribly wrong. It wasn’t until we saw the emergency alerts that the experimental subject was out and to do whatever it would take to catch it that we knew there was somethin’ more to it.” I release my grip on the bracelet but keep my hand around the area of my wrist, not entirely letting my guard down but letting enough down so the two men could relax a little more.

“Your signal was sent for a split second through the system with the use of your power, and it would have been overlooked by anyone who wasn’t directly looking for it right away, but Lieberman was able to keep the signal up for longer. That’s how I found you—passed out in the alley. Glad I was able to find ya before anyone else did.” I can see deep sincerity in his eyes and can’t help myself from trusting him, even though there is still a part of me that is reserved.

“I think you can help us.” David says, leaning against the table, hands rubbing over his face.

“Why would I do that?” I look over at him when I speak, and he takes his arms off the table and spins around to look at me.

“Because you might also be able to help yourself.”

Chapter Text

It’s been a couple weeks now since Frank’s taken me in. He’s been teaching me everything, from learning more about what things were and reading different sections of things to figuring out time, and it’s hard to think that he’s only doing it so I could help him. I’ve never been shown this much attention before without any malicious intent behind it, and as much as I want to believe that he’s not like scientists I grew up with, it’s all I’ve known for my entire life, and it’s going to be hard to not be cautious at anyone who so much as throws a smile my way.

Much to David’s dismay, Frank ended up putting sticky notes all over the place again, a lot more than the previous ones in the motel. He stuck them all over David’s work place, and when he would complain and take one off, Frank would give him a death glare until he shut up and put it back, mumbling under his breath as he did so.

It seemed like Frank genuinely cared about getting me to learn things, which confused me because it had nothing to do with what they needed from me in the first place.

After I was “recruited”, I was given the rundown of who they’re looking for and the reason why, but I only got the full reason from David’s side at the time, with Frank staying quiet as he spoke.

Things started to click together for me when David told me about his family and how they thought he was dead at the time. However, all I got out of Frank was that he also lost his family, but nothing else was said on the topic, and I wasn’t going to push it, seeing the pained look on his face.

It took about a week before he was finally able to tell me the whole story, not leaving out any details. He sat down next to me as I was attempting to decipher documents. David handed me to see if I found anything out of the ordinary.

I was slowly working my way down the page before Frank gently grabbed it out of my hands and set it on the other side of him. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, and we just sat there with me looking at him with curiosity.

He was staring at the ground before he opened his mouth, and everything just came out at once. He told me about his family, what happened to them, and why he’s trying to find the people he’s looking for now. The hurt shown on his face, visible even when he stared at the ground, caused my chest to tighten. I could tell that he was really torn up about it, and even if I never had the family connection he had, I still found myself sympathizing with him. Ellie was the closest and only person I had really with me, and it hurt like hell when I lost her, so I couldn’t begin to try to understand how Frank was feeling.

At some point during his spiel, I found my hand mindlessly ending up on top of his as some sort of comfort tactic, and when I realized what I was doing, I went to pull my hand back, but he grabbed my hand and put it back on his with a small squeeze for reassurance.

I didn’t know exactly how much or what he and David knew about me from the system, but there was only one other person in my life that I felt this close to, and he trusted me with the story of his family, so I figured I should trust him with mine.

“I killed my father.” My words caused him to whip up his head to look at me, eyebrows creased in confusion at my suddenness. I swallowed before quickly continuing, so he didn’t think I was crazy.

"He, uh, he was one of the main people behind all the experiments, especially on me.” I shook my head, letting out a breathy laugh. I had never said this out loud before, not even to Ellie. I didn’t want her worrying about everything as much as she already was, so all our interactions were me trying to talk about anything other than the cell we were both locked in.

She asked about my parents once, and I ended up just telling her I didn’t remember them, as if that was easier than saying they were the ones who were responsible for her getting experimented on. There was a brief moment where she just looked at me with an unknown expression on her face before it broke out into a grin, and she went on about her parents. I could tell that she was really close with her, and in the moment, I could only wonder what that was like.

I glanced up at Frank to find him looking at me with the same look that was on Ellie’s face when I told her about my parents, and I had to avert my eyes from his, not being able to fully look into them.

“When I saw him while I was trying to escape, I just— I just couldn’t do it. I felt so much resentment towards him, and with this power that was coursing through me, I just snapped. Before I knew it, the ground was caving in, and he was falling into the pit, pleading with me, and I couldn’t find it in myself to care. I watched as he fell and didn’t give a damn about it.” I somehow said all of that in one breath, breathing in deeply after I finished.

Sometime during my ranting, we got closer together so that the sides of our legs were touching, and I finally raised my head to look back at him to find him still looking at me. His attention seemed to be directly on me as I spoke, and I don’t know why, but it shocked me. With my whole life of people talking at me and barely listening to what I was saying, I was expecting him to be zoning out at something else in the room, but he wasn’t; his focus was solely on me.

In that moment, I was expecting him to laugh or call me crazy, back away from me, or something, but all he did was look at me with a knowing look in his eyes.

I was finding myself staring into his eyes once again, but this time felt so different than the times before yet so similar at the same time. I had to shake myself out of the trance I found myself in to scoot myself back from him; his touch seemingly caused my mind to not be able to form any sense.

"Um." I cleared my throat in order to get the sentence out of my mouth and wiped my hands on my pants, feeling them getting sweaty. “I’m going to need the papers back in order to try and find something, or I’ll be hearing it from that one over there.” I motioned with my head in the direction of where David sat at his desk, doing who knows what.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, here.” He picked up the papers he set on the other side of him before handing them back to me, and I grabbed them from his hand, thanking him with a small smile.

I look down at the papers I acquired in my hands and start to figure out anything on them again. I didn’t really know where I left off before Frank came over, so I started at a random part of the page and immediately noticed something.

My eyes creased as I glanced over a word that seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t pinpoint where exactly I knew it from.

“Find somethin’?” Frank spoke from beside me, and I almost forgot that he still sat next to me.

“It’s just this word. I feel like I know it from somewhere; I don’t know.” He slid closer, so there was only a slight space between us to look at the paper.

I pointed out the word, and he looked at it for a minute before commenting. “Looks like it’s bein’ used as a name of some kind. You know of an Axon?” He said the word out loud, and everything came back to me at once.

The word that Frank spoke, I heard spoken many times before. It was used to address the scientist, who was the one who would inject me. I was only able to hear some of what was happening around me most of the time, but I vividly remembered that name being passed around multiple times in the room, and the person who was leaning over me responded every time.

“It’s one of the scientists who experimented on me.” I managed to get out, but my brain still scrambled at the memories crossing my mind.

Frank took the paper from my hands in order to examine it more. “There are more names under it; should be able to get somethin’ from it.” He got up and started to walk in the direction of where David was working before he stopped to turn at me.

“Hey,” he called out to me, and I looked up at him so he knew I was listening. “I woulda let him fall too.” It took me a moment to figure out that he was talking about what I told him about my father, and I went to respond, but he already turned to walk away before I got a chance to.

The names Frank gave to David were a big help; they turned out to only be code names people were using, and with them, he was able to find out their real names and addresses.

That’s what brought us to how we ended up staking out a house that belongs to Piers Collins, or Axon as he goes by.

It’s been hours of sitting in the van not moving, and if I wasn’t used to sitting for hours not doing anything, I would probably be restless right about now.

It’s completely dark, and I'm not able to see much of anything but the light illuminating the porch of the house. Nothing has happened as of yet, but it doesn’t seem to deter Frank, as he patiently keeps staring at the house, waiting.

“You guys got anything yet?” I jump as David’s voice suddenly sounds in my ear. He somehow convinced Frank to give us earpieces so he could talk to us while we’re out in case something happens. It took a while for Frank to finally agree, with them going back and forth until he eventually just caved and snatched the things out of his hand.

Frank rolls his eyes at the sound of David’s voice before responding. “No, we didn’t. Now, stop contactin’ us; we’ll note if anythin’ happens.” Frank takes the earpiece out of his ear and throws it onto the dashboard in front of him.

“What if you’re going to need that?” He gives me a pointed look at my sentence, and I throw my hands up in defense. “Okay, sorry.” I get out with a laugh, and he shakes his head with a smile.

I look back out the window towards the house to see movement on the porch. “Hey,” I say, getting Frank’s attention, and he sits up in his seat in order to get a better look at where I was staring.

Another light comes on, showing a smaller building, and the door to the house opens, showing a person stepping out onto the porch. From our position this far away, I can’t exactly see the figure who’s walking out completely, so I can’t tell if it’s who we’re looking for.

“You know em?” Frank asks next to me, and I shake my head.

“I don’t know; I can’t tell from here.” The person walks over to the structure next to the house and lifts up the big door connected to it. “What are they doing?”

“Looks like they’re goin’ into the garage.” Frank speaks beside me, and it’s quiet for a moment before I see more lights and a car come out of where we saw the person just go.

“Get down.” Frank grabs my arm and tugs it down for me to duck, and I slide down in my seat, shielding myself from the outside.

The van lights up from the lights of the car, and we stay down until the light goes away and we don’t hear the sound of the other car.

Frank peeks up above the steering wheel before he quickly starts the van and drives off after the car.

“What are you doing?” I ask him as he starts to speed up, catching up with the car that just left.

“Tailin’ em to find out where they’re goin’”

He keeps his headlights off so as not to draw any attention to the van. It’s late and there aren’t many cars on the street, so it takes some effort on Frank’s part in order to successfully follow the car in front of us without tipping them off.

The car makes turns every few blocks, slowly leading us into an area with fewer buildings and more trees. It’s completely quiet in the van, Frank focusing immensely on making sure he doesn’t lose the car, not even David saying anything through the earpiece.

Suddenly the car stops in the middle of nowhere, and I hear Frank let out a curse before quickly pulling over into a set of bushes. There was enough to partly hide the van, but not too much to the point where we couldn’t see the car that was parked further up from us.

It’s so dark that I can barely see the door to the other car opening, and a shadow of a person starts to walk towards the van. Oh crap, did they see us? I can sense Frank tense up beside me, and I find myself holding my breath. Frank slowly reaches for one of the guns he has stashed in many places in the van and brings it to his side.

The person walks even closer to us, and the air in the van is so tense that neither of us moves a muscle. They suddenly turn to walk through a gate to the field to our right that I didn’t notice before, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding, Frank’s shoulders releasing some of the tension that was in them.

I try to focus my eyes better in the dark, and I eventually see the outline of a small building in the field the person just walked into.

We both wait a couple minutes to see if anyone will come out of the building, but I can’t see much more movement by the building. I hear a door open next to me, and I whip my head over to where Frank is to find him climbing out of the van.

“Wait, hey, where are you going?!” The sentence comes out quickly, and Frank looks at me from outside the van.

“‘M gonna go see if there are any windows or anythin’ so I can see inside.” I go to open my door to go with him, but he stops me. “Hey, no, you’re stayin’ here.” I look at him with a confused look etched on my face.

“The hell I am, I’m going with you.” I go to open the door again, but I’m stopped when Frank reaches over to grab my arm.

“You are stayin’ here where it’s safe.” I want to protest more and insist on going with him, but seeing the look on his face, I end up reluctantly nodding and dropping my hand from the door handle.

"Just, please be careful.” He looks at me before dropping my arm and giving me a quick nod. He closes the van door as quietly as he can, and I watch his shadow walk towards the same gate the other person did, and I keep my focus on him until I can’t see him anymore.

Anxiety builds up in my chest, and I can’t help but worry, my eyes glancing over to the dashboard where his earpiece lays forgotten.

“He just went in there alone, didn’t he?” David’s voice comes through on the earpiece again.

“Yeah.” It comes out more as a breath, and there’s a split second when I wonder if he even heard me, but my focus settles entirely on the distant building in the dark.

~

It’s been too long. The anxiety has only built up, and I can feel myself becoming nauseous. “I can’t wait here any longer; it’s been too long. Why isn’t he back yet?”

“I’m sure he’s fine; he can handle himself pretty well. He’ll be back; just wait a little longer.” At this point, I can even hear the nerves in his voice, and it doesn’t make me feel any better about the situation.

“He didn’t take the earpiece, what if he’s hurt?”

“Believe me, he’s been hurt before and didn’t let that stop him.” I start to fiddle with my fingers again nervously as I stare out at the building so long that it starts to not look real anymore. I swear I feel the van shake slightly, but when I go to focus on it, it’s gone, and I blame it on my mind playing tricks on me.

More time passes, and I can’t handle sitting here any longer. I go to open the car door for the third time tonight, but this time I’m able to actually open it.

“What was that noise? What are you doing?”

“David I cannot sit here and wait any longer, I have to go look for him.”

"Yeah, and what happens when he comes back to the van and you’re gone? How do you think he’ll react?” That makes me slightly hesitate to go any further on imagining his reaction to my disappearance, but the feeling in the pit of my stomach doesn’t go away at all.

“Something’s wrong; I can feel it.” David starts to talk, but I don’t hear what he says as a gunshot fills the night air.

It feels like time slows down; a high-pitched ringing fills my ears, and I don’t wait any longer as I open the glove box and grab the gun that was placed inside before jumping out of the van and bolting towards the field, not even bothering to shut the van door behind me.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I can barely hear David over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears, and my hands shakily try to open the gate in front of me.

“There was a gunshot, and there’s no way I’m going to sit in that van and pretend like I didn’t hear it.” I manage to get the gate open after a couple attempts, and when it opens, I start to run towards the building.

"Okay, listen, I would highly advise you not—oh, who am I kidding? You’re probably already halfway there; I’m not even going to try anymore.” I’m trying to focus on where I’m going, but I can barely see my hand in front of my face, which causes me to have to slow down.

I find myself squinting, trying to see anything in front of me. I’m trying to find the building, but in the darkness, everything seems to be mashing together and looks exactly the same.

There are more gunshots in the distance, and I can feel my heart start to beat even faster in my chest, as if at any moment now it’s going to pop out of my chest. My senses are getting overwhelmed, the ringing in my ears is getting louder, and my eyes are starting to make up shapes that aren’t even there.

I have to stop and squeeze my eyes shut, hands going up to tug at my hair, waiting and wishing for the ringing to stop, at least a little. The gun feels heavy in my hand as I drop my arms back down to my side.

I can vaguely hear the sound of David’s voice, but I can’t make anything out; everything seems muffled. I force myself to take deep breaths until my heartbeat slows down. It’s still beating relatively fast, but it’s a lot slower than it was before.

The ringing in my ears turns into a small hum in the back of my mind, and I figure that it’s enough for me to say I’ve calmed down enough for me to try and come up with a solution to the mess I’m in. But when I open my eyes, it seems everything has changed.

I let out a gasp when I can now see my surroundings clearly, as if it were the middle of the day.

My vision sweeps across my hands as something catches my eye. “Oh, shit.” My hands are glowing again, and either I have a condition or my powers are coming through.

“What’s wrong?” I stare at the dark green color emitting from my hands in thought. “Hello?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Um, I’m pretty sure my powers are somehow working right now.”

“WHAT?!” I cringe at the yelling in my ear as he continues talking fast. “Y/n you need to get out of there now; they know where you are, and they’re probably on the way now.”

“I’m not leaving without Frank; I have to find him first.” My eyes scan over the run-down, fading brown-colored building in front of me, and I start quickly heading towards it. There’s more yelling on the phone, mostly of me being in danger and needing me to leave, but I can’t just leave Frank; I need to know if he’s okay.

I get closer to the building to see a dim light on inside, and I slowly make my way up the porch. I wince when the step creaks under my foot. I stop on the step and wait to see if I can hear any footsteps coming, and when I don’t, I continue until I’m on the porch.

I lean my back against the house and turn my body enough in order to barely be seen in the window. My eyes start to burn, and I lean my body back so I’m fully against the wall again and rub my eyes with the back of my hands.

I blink my eyes open again, and it seems like nothing has changed until I turn my head and I can see straight through the wall I’m against. I jump back from against the wall and scan the new area I have access to.

I can only see one room, which is cluttered with various different items. Stacks of newspapers littered the ground and table in the middle of the room, along with several cups scattered around.

There’s another wall with a door cutting the rest of the house off from my view, and from here I don’t see any sign of Frank. I tiptoe my way down the porch to try to see anything inside, but I have no luck as the rooms have the same messy look with nothing useful inside of them.

I try the front door, but it’s locked, and even if it wasn't, I don’t want to be blindly walking into the house without a destination in mind.

I find myself trying to get off the creaky porch as quietly as I can to walk around the other part of the house.

I get to the back of the house to find a couple more smaller stairs that lead to another door. There are more windows up further on this side of the house, and I have to push myself up in order to see through the window.

I don’t have to push myself up for long though, as the wall slowly becomes more clear and I can see inside the house again like I was able to do on the other side.

The inside doesn’t look much different; it’s still a mess like the rest of the house, this time with dirty dishes covering the counters and sink, looking like it’s supposed to be a kitchen.

Again, I see nothing useful, and I go to step away until the door to the kitchen opens and the face part of my nightmares that I wished I would never see again walks out. He isn’t wearing a mask, but I would know those eyes I spent countless times being forced to stare into every time my body felt like it was burning from the inside out, anywhere.

I duck my head down and slide myself further down the wall, as if he would be able to see me where I am anyway. My jaw clenches and my grip on the gun tightens as I see him freely move around the room. He walks with a limp, and his skin looks red and agitated as he walks towards the sink.

I hold my breath, trying not to move or make a noise to tip him off. He seems to be rinsing something off in the sink that’s on the wall where I stand.

I fight the urge in me to just shoot him through the window, not knowing if he’d be able to lead me to Frank. He walks away from the sink, showing a knife that it turns out was the thing he was washing, and turns to go back into the door he came from.

I get jittery standing outside, knowing soon the place might be swarmed by the people I’ve tried to get away from. I throw all precautions out the window after only half a minute of standing there and bolt towards the door to get inside the house.

Thankfully, the door was left unlocked, and it let me open it and step inside. I didn’t waste time and made my way as quickly as I could without making much noise to the door I saw him leave out of.

I carefully twist the handle and only open the door slightly enough for me to make sure there is no one directly on the other side of it. I don’t hear anything and take that as my sign to open the door further, but before I’m able to open it all the way, the door suddenly stops as if it hits something.

It’s open enough for me to walk through the door to the other side, and I gasp, covering my mouth, so no more noises accidentally come out.

What lies on the other side of the door is a lifeless body surrounded by a pool of blood. I don’t have time to think about it as I step over the body in order to get access to the rest of the house.

There are multiple doors down the hallway, but I start towards the one where a trail of blood is coming from. My hand reaches the handle before I stop myself and take it off, wanting to try something first.

I gently place my hand on the wall in front of me and wait for the wall to begin to see through. It gets to the point where I’m able to see a set of stairs leading down into another part of the house. However, I’m only able to see it briefly before the wall turns back solid under my fingers.

I look down at my hands, and it seems my abilities are wearing off; the glow around them is starting to fade. I figure that’s for the best, even if I feel they might help me in the long run.

I take a breath and open the door to start down the stairs. There’s blood trailing all the way down the stairs, and the pit in my stomach comes back full force again. I make it down the stairs successfully, wincing after every creak they make on my way down.

It’s then that I hear voices coming from the room to the right of the steps. I hear a very familiar voice that I’ve become accustomed to over the last few weeks.

I practically run over to the voice, stopping just before the doorway to the open room. I stand to the side of the doorway so my body is covered by the wall, with just my head peeking around the corner.

I feel my unoccupied hand clench into a fist at the sight before me. Frank was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, his wrists and legs bound as blood dripped from his body. I can feel my body fill with anger at the man standing before him, with the same twisted smile on his face as he held a knife drenched in blood.

I feel my heart clench at the sight of Frank barely keeping his eyes open but being able to stay awake enough to be able to glare at the person before him.

“I’m going to ask you again: who are you and how did you find this place?” He shoves the knife under Frank’s chin, and I feel my body slightly jolting forward to try and help him, but I have to force myself to stay unseen in my spot for the time being.

“I’m gonna tell you again, fuck off.” Frank speaks like he isn’t barely hanging onto consciousness and even juts his chin out even more, so the knife digs into it more.

“You trespass on my property, kill my friend, and you’re the one telling me to fuck off.” The man chuckles, and I feel my body fill with ice at hearing it again.

“You know what? I’ve had enough of you.” The man brings the knife up over his shoulder, preparing to bring it down on Frank.

“No!” The word comes out just above a whisper, but it doesn’t seem to matter as both the men in the room seem to have heard it. I quickly hide my body behind the wall, but the damage has already been done.

“Hey! Who’s there?” I hear the voice get closer to me, and I prepare myself for a fight. I back up as much as I can, knowing he had a knife, and I bring my gun up so it’s aiming at the doorway.

“HEY, LEAVE HER ALONE!” Frank’s somehow still booming voice comes from the other room, audibly strained but still forcing it out.

It does nothing to slow the other man down, though, as he bursts through the doorway and immediately starts towards me, but he shortly stops in his tracks before another grin stretches across his face. I feel my whole body shiver at the sight, but I focus my attention on keeping the gun pointed at him.

He chuckles, his hands coming up above his head in a mocking surrender, a knife still between his fingers.

The gun is shaking between my hands, and it takes all that’s in me to try and make it stay still. He sees me shaking and gets a cocky look on his face.

“Now, do you even know how to use a real one of those?" He still wears the mocking, disgusting smile on his face, walking towards me like he’s not even the slightest bit worried.

I aim the gun right beside his head and pull the trigger before he can get any closer to me. The bullet misses his face by inches, wedging itself into a shelf behind him, and he flinches to the side, his eyes widening in surprise.

“I’d say so, yes.” The surprise soon turns into rage as his face turns into a scowl at my response.

Apparently he’s not very bright, as he starts to charge towards me and ends up with a bullet lodged in his shoulder, stumbling back. He screams, and it distracts him enough for me to run past him into the room where Frank is.

I keep the gun held up towards the doorway and get next to Frank so I can check on him, periodically checking the doorway to see if the person I can still hear grunting moves.

There’s a bullet wound in Frank’s ribcage and scratches covering his entire body and face. I push his head up with my hand, and he gives me a pained, lopsided smile.

“You were supposed to stay in the van.” I can’t help the light scoff that comes out of my mouth at the forced words that he forces out.

“You were supposed to be careful.” I start to try to untie his limbs, struggling slightly with only having one hand, but I manage to get one of the ties on his wrist off.

"Mm, yeah, well, that word ain’t really in my dictionary, darlin'." He rolls the discomfort out of his wrist, and I shake my head at him. I attempt to untie the other one before I hear a noise coming from the doorway and whip my head back around to it.

The man comes out clutching his shoulder with his jaw clenched tightly as he finds my stare in the room. The gun in my hand is pointed directly at him, and I see movement in the corner of my eye of Frank attempting to untie his other wrist from the chair.

“You,” the scowling man says, taking a step towards me, and I steady my grip on the gun. “You did this to me.” He motions to the bright redness of the skin on his arms. “You dropped a fucking building on top of me.” He seems to get more agitated and angry as he speaks.

“And yet you’re not dead. I would say it’s a shame, but if you died, I wouldn’t be able to do this.” I pull the trigger on the gun again, aiming right for his knee cap, and he collapses to the ground in front of me with a shout.

“You BITCH!” He forces out the words through his clenched teeth and somehow gets an even angrier look on his face.

He tries to stand up again, but I don’t give him the chance when I shoot a bullet into his other knee, causing him to collapse fully onto the ground.

“This doesn’t even begin to excuse the pain that you’ve caused me asshole.” I can see tears start to stream down his face as he attempts to grip his knee, and I don’t feel myself giving any empathy to the man, knowing he doesn’t deserve it, especially not from me.

I turn my attention back to Frank and see he was able to get his other wrist untied, so both were free, but he ends up slumping back into the chair, his head hanging down so his chin touches his chest. I bend down to look up at him, and I can see his eyes are fluttering and struggling to stay open.

“Hey, Frank, stay with me, please; keep your eyes open.” His eyes open more at my words, but it doesn’t last long until they’re starting to droop again.

I get his ankles untied, and he’s finally freed from the bindings he was put in. “Can you stand?” I speak softly but firmly to Frank, so he knows I’m talking to him, but all I get out of him is a small grunt and a slight movement before he’s slumping back down in the seat. “Okay, c’mon.” I bend myself down and wrap his arm around my neck in an attempt to get him up out of the chair, and it takes work, but I eventually get him standing but slumping into me, causing me to push back into him so I don’t fall over.

The bitch on the ground decides in this moment that he wants to try and talk again, but this time I have no patience for him, as my sole goal in this moment is to get Frank the hell out of here. I shoot two more bullets into his chest that knock him unconscious, if not dead.

I walk as fast as I can with Frank dangling off of me, and that’s not very fast, but I find it in me to push forward. Getting up the stairs is the hardest part—having to lean against one side of the wall in order for me to move my own body up. I can feel him moving his legs the best he could in order to help me, letting me know that he’s not entirely unconscious.

I eventually make it to the top of the stairs and don’t spend any time acknowledging the body that still lies on the ground in front of the door. I lean Frank against the wall again so I can open the door that I came in from. I open it as best I can with the body blocking some of it, so it doesn’t open all the way, but I manage to get us both through.

I start to trudge my way through the kitchen and to the backdoor I came in from until I’m interrupted by the scream I let out when I look up and see a person leaning against the sink and staring right at me.

Chapter Text

“Who are you?” I have to adjust the heavy weight of Frank resting on my shoulder and the small movements he was doing earlier stopped completely, telling me he’s completely unconscious now. I have to get him out of here.

I can just see the man in front of me smirk through the darkness of the corner he’s in, sending chills down my body as he pushes himself off the sink. The grip on my gun tightens as he walks further towards me and into the dim light illuminating the house. My grip wavers as his face comes into view, but I force myself to keep the gun up and pointed at the stranger, well as much as I can manage with Frank still leaning heavily onto me.

The man's left eye is completely clouded over with a jagged scar covering the corner of it, and it all but makes me even more uneasy. “It’s okay, let me see him.” I almost don’t hear his voice, too busy analyzing his features, and I somehow bring Frank’s body closer to mine at his words.

He takes a step closer to me, not phased in the slightest at the gun being pointed at him and my mind is racing with thoughts of needing to get Frank out as soon as possible. I don’t even know if he’s alive at this point. I can hear David’s voice in my ear, but I can’t bring my mind to comprehend what he’s saying as I focus on the stranger in front of me with a malicious look on his face.

My mind makes up its mind, only caring about getting Frank getting out of there, not caring about what the person in front of me has to say as I aim the gun and pull the trigger for the nth time that night. The bullet lodges itself in his side and he grunts loudly in pain as he rushes to hold onto his side.

“Shit.” I attempt to shoot another bullet at him, but the gun jams and I can’t fix it with only one hand. I have to think quickly and end up releasing the magazine from the gun hearing it hit the floor with a clang. I kick the magazine away from me and throw the gun at the man in order to throw him off balance to try and buy me some time to get out of there.

The person turns his body away from me, distracted by the sudden object being thrown at him, as well as the gunshot wound in his side, and I take this as an opportunity to escape.

I make my way as fast as I can with Frank’s weight still resting on me, out the door I came into. I struggle to get Frank down the couple of steps, having to use all of my strength to keep him upright so he won’t fall.

I get us both down the couple of stairs and hear the person inside swearing and things crashing and breaking. I don’t stay there any longer as I drag Frank around to the front of the building, starting towards the field I came from.

It’s completely dark and I can’t see anything in front of me once again. I move in a direction that I hope is the way towards the van, my knees buckling under me every once in a while from the weight on me.

“David?” I force out through heavy breaths, my throat closing up as I attempt to breathe. I don’t hear a response on the other side of the earpiece and panic starts to settle in. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this by myself.

“David, please.” By now I’m full on panting as I walk (hopefully) in the direction where the van is parked. It’s quiet for a couple more seconds, with just my heavy pants audible until I get a response over the earpiece.

“I’m here, I’m here, sorry.” I can hear how he’s out of breath as well as I hear a loud engine start on the other side. “I’m on my way over to you now. I’m moving as fast as I can, are you okay?”

“Um,” I start eyes scanning the air around me, even though everywhere is just pitch black. “Frank’s passed out, he lost too much blood and I’m trying to make my way out to the van, but I don’t know if I’m going the right way. I can’t see anything, it's too dark.” At this point I’m rambling and David has to calm me down and tell me that everything will be fine, even though I don’t fully believe him.

I let out a sigh of relief when I can vaguely see the shadow of the van in the distance. I find the stamina to push myself forward to finally get to the van after forcing myself through the gate with Frank still leaning on my shoulder.

“Get him in the back of the van and lay him down. There should be blankets back there to put him on.” I struggle to get the back to the van open, gripping onto Frank’s shirt making sure he doesn’t fall. I steady him as I climb up into the van, using the rest of my strength to pull him up into the van with me before quickly closing the doors behind me.

There are blankets already laid out in the van, recognizing them as the ones that I used when I was in the back. I set him down as carefully as I can and scan over him, seeing a pool of blood start to accumulate under him.

“David there’s— there’s so much blood I don’t know what to do.” My voice as well as my hands are shaking and I can’t think straight.

“It’s okay just try and see if you can find a pulse on his neck.” I’m about to mention that I don’t know how to do that before he quickly continues on with his guidance. “Take your index and pointer finger and press down on his neck, a little below where his jaw is. Feel for a heart beat of any kind moving up and down. If you need a reference try to find yours on yourself.”

I take a breath before bringing my shaky hand down to his neck, feeling for any kind of movement like he said. I don’t feel anything for more than a couple seconds and I slightly begin to panic before I feel a slight movement under the skin. It’s so faint that I don’t know if what I felt was there, I don’t even know if I’m checking the right place. Before I panic any more I try to do what David said and bring my other hand up to my neck to try and find my own pulse.

It takes a few tries to find the exact spot before I feel rapid movement under the skin, the same feeling I felt on Frank, but a lot faster, barely stopping in between beats. I keep my fingers on Frank’s neck for a little more to feel another faint beat under my fingers.

“I can feel it, but it’s faint.” I move my hand from his neck down to where the bullet wound in his ribs is, blood immediately covers my hand. “He’s bleeding a lot, I don’t know what to do.”

“It’ll be okay, can you find the source of the bleeding?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Okay good, now see if there’s another blanket or anything around to press down on the wound to try and control the bleeding.” I quickly look around the van and find an extra blanket folded up in the corner. I rush back to Frank after acquiring the blanket and put it over the gunshot wound in an attempt to stop more blood from pouring out of it.

“I have a blanket on it but I don’t think it’s going to last long.” I can already see blood seeping through the blanket that I’m using, and I use both hands to press down onto it, and they slowly become soaked in blood.

“Good, keep doing that until I get there, I’m about twenty minutes out.”

“It doesn’t look like he’s going to last that long, David.” I can hear him curse on the other end before I look up to find the keys still sitting plugged into the van. Before I can think any more into it, I’m climbing into the seat where Frank once sat, staring at the different numbers and icons littering the area. I quickly find myself overwhelmed looking at everything there, and for a split second think that there’s something wrong with me for even thinking of attempting this.

I take one more look back at Frank’s paling body before my mind’s made up. “David, how do I use the van?” There’s a brief moment of silence on the other end before he comes through full of question and slight panic.

“What?” He speaks forcefully through the earpiece and I take a deep breath before answering him.

“I can’t sit here and wait, I need to get him to you sooner, so tell me how to use the van.”

“I really don’t think—”

“David please! I can’t let him die.” I feel my voice crack at the end and he can hear the desperation in my voice as I speak.

“Okay, just, turn the key in the ignition to turn the car on, and make sure you put your seatbelt on.” I nod my head even though he can’t see me, and turn the key sitting in the van until I feel the van roar to life under me. I let out a breath and reach behind me for the seatbelt, but I only get it half way out before the door next to me is ripped open and the person I left shot in the kitchen appears in the doorway, an agitated and angry look on his face.

He reaches for my arm and I push my body back away from him, kicking my feet out at him so he stumbles back. I reach out to grab the door to close it, but am interrupted when the person jumps back up at me.

I lose grip on the door giving the person the advantage to slam the door back onto my wrist trapped between it. I let out a scream when the metal slams into my wrist and I can hear David’s frantic voice in my ear, but I can’t focus on what he’s saying.

The door starts to get pulled back again and I forcefully shove the door back into the attacker. I hear him hit the ground and take that as my chance to quickly shut the door.

“David quickly, how do I leave?” He quickly explains the basics on how to get the van to move, and I can hear the person outside moving again. I don’t wait any longer until the van is starting to move along the road. The person slams his hands on the window of the van and I panic, pushing the van quickly forward causing them to fall back onto the ground.

The road is small and I keep driving off the road, forcing the wheel back towards the road. It’s dark and I can’t see much in front of me, the road barely being visible to me. It takes all I have in me not to step on the brakes every chance I get, knowing Frank’s life is on the line.

I eventually get out onto one of the main roads with David’s help and am thankful that it’s late and there’s no other cars on the road. I can tell that I’m moving significantly slower than how Frank was driving and it fills me with anxiety about not getting to the destination as quickly as I can.

I struggle to stay in between the white lines that are on the ground and just about drive through every red light I come across. If there were any other cars on the road I would have surely caused extreme problems on the road.

A screen lights up above me and starts to tell me where I have to go instead of David guiding me himself. “Follow the GPS as best as you can, we’re meeting at a motel I found on the way. It’s our best chance for him.”

“Okay.” I do my best to follow the screen the best I can and where it’s telling me and I push through the pain in my wrist as it starts to throb whenever I move it. I let out slight winces whenever I have to move the wheel a certain way and am glad David doesn’t hear or say anything about them if he does.

I can hear Frank making various noises every time I accidentally press the brakes and whisper a quick apology every time, but it helps me to know that he’s still alive. I’m scared to take my eyes off the road even for a split second, so I’m not completely sure of Frank's current condition, which fills me with even more anxiety.

“You should be coming up on the motel now, I’ve parked in the front so you should be able to see me when you pull in.” I see the rundown sign of the motel come into view, letters looking like they’re one bad storm from falling off completely.

I attempt to slow down again, causing the van to jerk forward from stepping on it too hard, still not used to how it stops. I slow down enough to be able to turn the van into where the motel is, accidentally driving into the grassed area as I do so.

David instantly sees me and motions for me to pull in where he is. I stop the van, not caring enough to try and pull it into one of the spaces and jump out of it, however not before putting it in park when David panically told me to.

We both hop into the back with Frank, and I can see him wince when he sees his condition. He’s still unconscious and the blanket that I put on him was now fully covered in blood.

“We’re going to have to lift him up, not ideal but we don’t really have a choice in this situation.” I nod and rush around to Frank’s side as David settles at his other one. It’s a lot easier lifting him up with David’s help and we’re able to drag Frank to the room David got, luckily there doesn’t seem to be any other people here and we don’t draw any attention we don’t want.

We get Frank to the room with mild difficulty and get him on one of the beds. “What do we do?” I look over to David as he examines each of Frank’s injuries.

“I only know the basics, I called someone who knows more than I do to help him.” He looks over at me and nods to the other part of the room. “You can go wash up, there are some clothes for you in there.” I hesitate not wanting to leave Frank alone, but David keeps insisting that I go, and I just nod, taking one last look at Frank’s unconscious body before turning to the bathroom.

There’s dried blood covering my face, neck, and arms, and I work to try and get some of it off before jumping in the shower. My hands are the worst as they’re practically dripping in blood, unfortunately belonging mostly to Frank.

As I’m washing up in the sink I hear frantic voices in the other room, and I keep myself from running out to see the progress of Frank. I have to trust that David knows what he’s doing in order to help Frank.

I take a quick shower, not being able to bring myself to take my time and be careful with my wrist. I can barely move it at this point, but my mind is solely set on worrying about Frank.

Getting dressed is a hard task in itself with practically only having one hand to use with my other being glued to my side not being able to move it much. When I look in the mirror after the shower I look slightly more refreshed than I did when I got in, and got practically all the blood off of my body.

When I walk out of the bathroom I find the person David must have mentioned leaning over Frank’s body on the bed. “How is he?” The person by the bed turns around to look at me and slowly nods his head.

“He should be fine,” he glances back at Frank who’s still unconscious, but now has various tubes attached to him with a bag of what looks to be blood hanging on some kind of hook next to the bed. “We just need to wait and monitor his condition.”

He gets up and walks over to where I’m standing and holds out his hand to me. “I’m Curtis, a friend of Frank’s.” I go to shake his hand, forgetting about my wrist and end up quickly pulling it back down to my side with a grimace. Curtis’ eyebrows knit together in confusion as he witnesses this. “Are you hurt?” I glance down at my wrist and I almost let out a gasp at the sight of it. It has become a lot more swollen and discolored since the last time I saw it.

“Oh, uh, it’s just my wrist.” I’m hesitant to tell him how bad it really is, not really knowing who he is, but also not wanting to take his attention away from Frank.

“Sit down, I can have a look at it.” I go to decline, knowing I’ve dealt with worse and don’t want him to waste his energy on me when Frank is in much worse condition, but he seems to know what I’m going to say before I’m able to get it out. “Please, sit, Frank’s okay, he just needs to rest and hopefully he’ll be awake soon.” I sigh and sit down on the bed as he starts to rummage through a bag next to me.

He takes his time analyzing my wrist and apologizing when he bends it the wrong way. “It looks broken, I have a brace I can put on it.”

“Okay.” My eyes fall on Frank on the other bed as Curtis works to wrap my wrist. It soothes some of my nerves, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps, knowing he’s okay. “Where’s David?” As he’s working on my wrist I realize David is no longer in the room with us.

“He went to go move the van and try to get a key for the room.” I look over to him in confusion.

“He doesn’t have a key to the room?” Curtis chuckles and shakes his head placing my arm in the brace.

“Nah, he said there was no one in the lobby when he arrived and had to get in a room somehow.” The door to the room opens and David steps into the space with a key in hand. “Speak of the devil.” Curtis lets out another chuckle and David narrows his eyes, staring at his back as he shuts the door behind him.

Curtis steadies the brace onto my arm, and stands up from his position. The black brace goes up my forearm into the crook of my elbow, causing me to not be able to bend my arm as easily as I would be able to with it off. He walks back over to Frank checking a few other things on him before packing up miscellaneous things back into his bag.

“Alright I’m heading out, monitor him and contact me if he gets any worse.” Curtis grabs his bag and walks over to where David stood with it slung over his shoulder. He stands in front of the door and turns around to look at me while grabbing ahold of the handle. “Keep the brace one for a couple weeks until your wrist starts to look better, contact me if you need a new one.” I give him a confirmation before he walks out the motel door, shutting it behind him as he leaves.

David groans and plops his body down, laying dramatically beside me. I let out a small scoff watching him raise his arms above his head letting his body fall the way it lands. He opens one of his closed eyes to look at me and forces his body up in a sitting position with another groan. It’s quiet as we both sit there observing Frank. I feel a small pat on my shoulder, David resting his hand there before gently brushing it off.

“He’ll be okay. He’s been in this situation many times before and has just come back stronger.” I feel myself nod continuing to stare at the body laying on the other bed. Now all we can do is just wait.

Chapter Text

The room grows quiet after Curtis leaves. My gaze focuses on Frank’s body on the bed, and I can’t bring myself to look away from him. Curtis said that he would be alright, and I believe him, but there’s still a part of me that’s worried sick, and I can’t understand why I’m panicking this much over someone who I’ve only known for a couple of weeks.

David leaves a little bit after Curtis, claiming he has to get something back at his place. I try questioning him on if we’d be safe here, not knowing if I was tracked here from the house, but he insists that we’ll be fine as long as I try not to use much of my powers while he’s gone.

I don’t get much more in before he’s leaving, and I’m left alone with the still unconscious man in the bed across from me. I find myself staring at the rise and fall of Frank’s chest again, making sure it’s steady and doesn’t stop.

There’s a slight panic feeling in my chest on what I would do if he stops breathing, but I have to tell myself that he’s going to be fine, and it won’t come to that.

I sigh and fall back on the bed, not being able to bring myself to do much else. I lay on my side, still able to see Frank from my position. It’s not long before I feel my eyes drifting shut, the events of the night finally taking its toll on me.

I try my best to keep my eyes open, not wanting to miss if something starts to happen to Frank, but my body says otherwise, soon falling into a world of darkness.

~

“I don’t know if this is a good idea.” I look at the green-eyed girl in front of me, who’s currently trying her best to make the piece of plastic she has as sharp as she can.

“We can’t live like this, you’ve never even been outside. Don’t you ever wonder what life outside this building is?” I admit that I’ve wanted to know what the outside was like ever since the girl came in and started raving about it. I just don’t think this plan is the best thing we could do.

The click of the door sounds, and she quickly shoos me away to the other side of the room and hides the sharp object behind her. A guard comes in with food trays and drops one in front of me before going over to the other girl in the room to drop another tray in front of her.

He turns to walk away, however before he can get out of the room, the smaller girl is jumping on his back and reaching her short arms around his neck, jabbing the sharp object into his skin.

The guard jerks his body around, attempting to throw the small person off of him as his neck starts to bleed. I jump up and as quietly as I can, and I walk towards him, reaching for the key badge he wears on his belt.

I get a grasp on it before a hand harshly grips mine. I let out a sharp cry when I feel something in my wrist pop and look up to see the guard sneering down at me.

He manages to get the girl off his back, slamming her into the wall so she falls to the ground at the impact. I have no chance to try and check on her before more guards rush into the room and I’m dragged out into the hallway.

“NO, LET ME GO! ELLIE!” I start screaming as I’m picked up and carried down the hall. I can see three other guards around Ellie, dragging her in the opposite direction of the hallway I was going in. She isn’t moving and I find myself thrashing around in the grip of the guard holding me trying to get to her, but it’s no use and I watch her get dragged out of sight, not knowing it’s the last time I’ll ever get to see her.

~

I find myself jerking awake, the memory fading away in my brain. It takes me a minute to remember where I am, looking over at Frank’s body and expecting him to still be asleep, but I am surprised when I find his eyes looking back at me.

“You’re awake.” I find myself jumping up off the bed to his side. “How do you feel?” I sit down next to him on the bed, observing him to see if there are any immediate worries.

He doesn’t say anything, instead bringing his hand up to swipe his thumb across my cheek. I’m taken aback, and I realize that there were tears that fell down my face while I was sleeping.

I turn my head down to look down at my knee, his hand sliding off my cheek to fall to his side. I take my hand to rub the other side of my face to get rid of any other tears.

“Don’t.” Frank’s hand comes back to grip my chin, and I turn my head back towards him until I’m looking into his eyes.

“Don’t what?” My voice comes out just above a whisper as Frank lets his hand rest on my cheek again.

“Hide from me.” His voice is gruff, and he goes to talk more but ends up in a coughing fit. I quickly reach for the cup of water Curtis left on the nightstand next to the bed for this situation and hold it up to his mouth so he can take a sip. “Thanks.” I place the cup back down on the nightstand and go to sit down on the bed I was once asleep on before I feel a grip on my wrist, stopping me.

I turn my body around to see Frank’s hand around my wrist, pulling me back towards the bed he’s on. There’s something in me that’s hesitant to sit that close to him again, and I don’t know why. “I don’t want to hurt you.” I make up the first excuse that comes to mind: not wanting to be this close to him when I can feel my hands start to shake and my heart start to beat faster in my chest.

“You’re not gonna hurt me.” He insists, and I have no choice but to sit down next to him. My gaze falls to my lap again, and I start messing with my fingers, not knowing what else to do. “Hey,” he says, placing one of his hands in mine to stop their movement, and I raise my head to meet his eyes. “You okay?” I swallow hard and can only nod at him, not trusting my voice in the moment.

Silence takes over the room for a minute before I clear my throat. “I should be asking you that question.” Frank lets out a chuckle at my statement, taking his hand off of mine, and it takes all of my restraint to not reach for him to keep it there.

“‘M fine; don’t worry bout me.” It’s not so convincing when he lets out a grunt, trying to get his body to sit up against the headboard. I go to stop him from moving any further, but he just shakes his head at me and pushes himself all the way up.

He’s out of breath by the time he’s lifted himself up, and I find myself looking at him in worry, causing him to give me a short smile as if telling me not to worry.

“How’d I get here?” He looks around the room as he talks, taking in the unfamiliar scenery.

“I drove you.” His head stops looking around to suddenly look back at me as if I have two heads. And then he starts laughing.

“You,” he pauses between laughs. “You drove me?” He laughs until he suddenly cringes and holds his side, forcing him to calm down.

“It’s not funny; I thought you were going to die.” Once he’s calmed down, his gaze softens at me.

“‘M sorry, darlin', it just caught me off guard. Wasn’t expectin’ you to be able to drive me outta there. ‘M proud of you.” He grabs my hand while he’s speaking, gripping it softly, and it doesn’t help my pounding heart in the slightest.

My mind isn’t working; I want to say something, but no words come out, and if they do, I feel they wouldn’t make any sense. I open my mouth to try and say something before my eyes glance over Frank’s torso, seeing the shirt he’s wearing start to turn crimson.

“You’re bleeding.” My body reacts on its own, immediately getting closer to him in order to check it. He tries to push me off and wave it off like he’s fine, but I’m not having it.

I lift his shirt to find the wrap Curtis put on him getting soaked through with blood, and I’m immediately reaching for the container that was left behind for this exact reason. Before he left, Curtis showed me what to use to replace his bandage with when he needed it, but I figured that David would be the one to handle it if it got to that point. There’s no sign of David coming back anytime soon, so I’ll just have to do my best to change them myself. This somehow makes my hands shake even more than they were before.

“I can do that—” Frank reaches out to grab the wrap from my hands, but I shake my head and pull it out of his reach before he can get a hold of it.

“I can do it.” I insist, starting to unravel the now-red old wrap from his abdomen, apologizing when I hear him wince slightly at my movement.

I throw the old cloth into the garbage by the bed and prepare to put the clean one on, but I have to first wipe off the excess blood around the wound. I go to fill up the small bowl left by the sink in the corner of the room, bringing it back by Frank’s side to start cleaning up the wound.

I glance up to find Frank’s gaze on me, looking deep in thought. “What? Are you okay?” I go to pull away from his body before he quickly shakes his head, reaching for my arm to keep me there.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I can tell his mind is somewhere else as he speaks, his gaze drifting away from mine.

"What's wrong?" He swallows and turns his head back up to look at me with the most intensity I've seen in him. His hand finds its way back to my cheek, fingers grazing it gently, and I instinctively feel my head turning to keep his hand pressed there.

"I'm afraid." He just about whispers, and I have to comprehend if he actually said anything, but the way his eyes are piercing into mine, I know he did. I open my mouth to question him, but his thumb runs across the bottom of my lip, causing me to forget what I was about to say. "Of gettin' too close—wantin' to get closer." He lets out a soft chuckle while shaking his head, and I can't help but just sit there, wanting to know what else he's going to say.

"To tell ya the truth, you scare me." I can feel my face drop at his words, and I go to pull away from him, my head going to face the ground again, but before I can do anything, he shakes his head, keeping my head up to face him. "Lemme finish."

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before opening them again to look back at me. "The feeling I get when I'm with you—it scares the hell outta me." He doesn't say anything else, instead grabbing one of my hands and placing it on his chest. I can feel his heartbeat pounding, my own's rhythm not being far off from his.

His hand lets go of my wrist, but I find myself keeping my hand on him, not wanting to remove it from him just yet. Our eyes lock, and I have no idea how long we're sitting there for. Time seems to move in slow motion, and I can feel him pushing forward towards me, causing my arm to move backwards towards my own body.

Curiosity fills my features when my arm is the only thing separating our bodies—not pressed as harshly against it as it once was, but now just simply staying there. I can see the questioning look in his eyes as if he's debating something, but he ends up shaking his head and leaning his body back on the bed, turning his head to look at the wall.

"Frank-"

"'M sorry." Our voices are barely audible, and I'm not sure what just happened or what's exactly going on in Frank's head, but I figure it's for the best that I leave it be for now. Instead, I work on putting the clean wrap on his wound in silence.

Chapter Text

I'm sitting on the bed, legs crossed under me, mindlessly watching whatever happens to be on TV at the moment. Every once in a while, I glance over to Frank, who seems to be actively avoiding my gaze, his head turned in the other direction from where I sit.

The air in the room has shifted ever since what happened, and it feels like I'm being suffocated by it. I have tried multiple times to say something to him, but every time I look over at him, I can't bring myself to say anything that might bother him more.

It feels like we've been sitting here for hours in silence, and I don't know how much longer I can stand it. I'm just about to get up and lock myself in the bathroom, desperate to get away from the feeling in the room, when the door to the motel opens and David steps back inside.

I'm quick to turn off the TV and practically jump up from the bed I'm on, causing David to look taken aback by the sudden movement. "Hey," I say, desperate to break the uncomfortable tension in the room.

"Hey," David glances at Frank on the bed, but if he notices that he's awake, he doesn't say anything. "Sorry that I took so long; I had to go back to the bunker to get something and picked up food on the way back." He motions to the bag that I just notice he has in his hand.

He sets the bag on the surface next to the TV before reaching for something in his pocket. "Before I forget, here, put this on." He walks over to me, extending a small silver bracelet out for me to grab. I take it out of his hand, examining it before sending him a questionable look. "It'll help your powers be untraceable from anyone."

I look down at the small item in my hand, hesitant to put it on right away without knowing exactly what it's supposed to do. "How?" I ask, looking up at David, for an explanation.

He sighs softly, sitting down on the edge of the bed I was once on before looking up at where I stayed standing. "When you use your powers, you send an extreme amount of electromagnetic waves through the air, which is how you’re able to be tracked. When you said you were using your powers earlier, I was able to catch the signal and smother it so no one was able to follow it. Even if they saw it beforehand, they would have only seen the general location of where you were; they would have no idea where to start."

I wouldn't know if Frank is even awake right now if it weren't for the slight sound movement coming from the bed he's on. If David notices, he doesn't say anything and continues where he left off. "The bracelet I just handed you should make it so any signal you emit when using your powers isn't able to be picked up. I had a feeling that something like this would be able to work for you; I just needed to figure out how they were tracking you, and you using your powers at that house is when I was able to figure it out."

I look down at the bracelet that I still hold in my hand, examining it more. I spend time just looking at the object in my hands and clicking the small button on it that pops it open to make it easier to put on. It looks similar to the one I already have, which makes me more hesitant to put it on. I can't shake the feeling that it's a trap for me to put on the same type of bracelet, rendering me defenseless as soon as I put it on.

"Hey" I almost jump at the sound of Frank's voice, not expecting to hear it after so long of silence. I tear my gaze away from the bracelet to see Frank sitting back up in bed, looking at me. "Remember what we talked about?" It doesn't take me long to know what he's talking about. It's like he knows what I'm thinking without me having to outright say it.

I want to trust him; I really do, but for some reason my body just can't move in order to put the bracelet on. There's still a part of me that doesn't want to take the risk of it, remembering how it felt the endless years I spent in the lab.

My gaze falls to the ground, not being able to look at him any longer. "'S okay; you don't have to do anythin' you don't want to."

"Well-" David starts to speak but immediately stops after he sees the glare Frank sends his direction. I can feel my emotions going into overdrive again, and before anyone can say anything, I'm pushing past the two beds to quickly make my way to the bathroom, keeping my head down the entire time.

I make sure I lock the door behind me before leaning on the sink. I close my eyes and try to get my breathing back to normal. I can hear brief mumbled exchanges happening with the two men I left in the other room.

I clutch the bracelet in my hand as I focus on calming down my breathing enough to focus my mind on something else. It takes a little bit, but I'm able to get my breathing and heart rate back to a bearable pace.

I open my eyes to find my reflection staring back at me. I can barely recognize myself anymore; my eyes are no longer sunk in as much as they were before and no longer look dull and void; I look alive. No longer used as the experiment I was; a look that I didn't know existed.

I run my fingers over the bracelet, noticing that even though it looks similar to the one I'm already wearing, the material of it is a lot smoother than the roughness of the other one, as if the comfort of wearing the bracelet were thought of.

There is no reason not to trust the two men that brought me in; they haven't really done anything showing any hostility towards me or any indications that they had any intentions of putting me back into the experimental life I was living, and I don't understand why it's so hard for me to put on a bracelet that they say will help me.

"Fuck it." I whisper under my breath before quickly clipping the bracelet onto my wrist before I change my mind. I stand there for a couple seconds, thinking something is going to happen, but everything remains the same. It's not until I unclip the old bracelet, thinking there's not much use for me to be wearing it any longer, that everything happens at once.

As soon as the old bracelet leaves my wrist, the mirror in front of me cracks, the light above me pops, and the ground below me starts to shake. The door to the bathroom cracks in half, causing me to jump back from it, and I feel a slight buzzing in my hands, but my mind is focused on the shaking of the room.

The shaking doesn't last long, but it does enough damage to knock things off the shelves. It's not long before quick footsteps are heard rushing towards the bathroom, and David and Frank's faces are easily seen through the broken door.

"What happened?" David rapidly gets out, and at the same time, Frank asks if I'm okay in the same manner.

"Uh, something with this." I hold up the old bracelet I recently took off my wrist while glancing around the ruined bathroom one more time.

David and Frank share a look at each other before David leaves the view through the door, muttering something along the lines of "we have to go" before I hear him back in the previous room.

Frank gently looks at me for a moment before whispering "c'mon" and leaving in the direction David left. I can't understand what he's thinking when he looks at me now or what I did for him to look at me so differently in such a short amount of time. I'll have to force myself to talk to him later, not knowing how to even start the conversation or what it's even supposed to be about.

I look down at the bracelet left in my hand and let out a sharp breath before dropping it to the ground and going to pull the doorknob so what's left of the door opens. I use my other hand to hold up the top part of the door so it doesn't fall, and once I'm out of the destroyed bathroom, I lay the part of the door as softly as I can against the doorframe and walk towards the other room.

The door to the room is open, and I can see David loading things into the car he parked as close as possible to the room from where I stand. I look over to see Frank messing with the bandage on his side, softly grunting when it doesn't do what he wants.

"I can help you." I take a step towards him, but he quickly deflects my help.

"'M fine." He forces out almost aggressively, turning his body away from me, causing me to take a step back. Does he hate me? Suddenly water sounds from outside, and I look out to see water coming down harshly and David running to where we are, his jacket over his head, to try to prevent himself from getting wet.

"It started pouring out of nowhere; we should leave before it gets any worse. Luckily, there don't seem to be many people here who heard the commotion, so we should be good." He ushers both of us out of the room so he can lock the door behind us after doing a quick sweep to make sure he got everything before locking up.

Frank quickly sits in the front seat of the car while I get in the back, and David gets in behind the wheel a couple seconds later.

He hands out the containers of food for the road, and I spend the ride slowly eating the food, with the sound of rain hitting the car and clouding me from the world outside.

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Trusting someone never comes easily to me these days. I'm trying to rationalize my distrust in Allison from her working in the lab, but the more I saw how shaken up and jumpy she was, I don't know if she's as much of a threat as my mind is playing her out to be.

She was apparently clueless about everything being done in the lab, and I find it hard to believe from how much was being done, but I know from experience what people manage to hide from anyone they don't want knowing about it.

She still wasn't allowed to come back to the bunker with me; she was simply given a number to contact me if need be before heading back on my own. She looked like she wanted to argue, but I didn't give her a chance to before I was walking away from her.

~

"Tell me what you know." Allison hesitates for a moment, flinching when I press the gun to her upper back. Her hands are nervously fiddling in her lap as I casually lean back against the bench, making it look like a casual conversation to anyone who might pass.

"I-I didn't know the full truth, I swear... there were gaps, and I couldn't bring myself to ask questions." My jaw tightens.

"No, you just let it keep happenin'" She flinches again, at the weight of my words or the gun still pressed to her, I don't know.

"I-I know it was wrong, I know." Her voice cracks and tears pool in her eyes, but none fall. "I needed the money; my mom was in the hospital, I was desperate, I didn't know what I was getting myself into at the time, and by the time I knew something was off, I was trapped."

I scoff, looking to the other end of the park as she wipes a tear off her face.

"How much do you know?" I speak after a minute of silence. She swallows before answering.

"Before I left, I went further into the system than I'm allowed to... I found all the documents of the experiments, everything they've been doing for decades." She takes a shuddering breath before continuing. "They have lists of all their experiments, and they hardly ever succeed. There was only one case of the experiment succeeding... the rest turned into these creatures—"

"Creatures?" I cut her off, turning to look at her again. She swallows, nodding her head.

"The experiments were too much for many to handle; their skin and eyes started shifting, becoming more and more inhuman every day, but they never stopped the experiments, even after the transformations."

~

I finally make it back to the bunker, and all previous thoughts in my mind vanish once I walk up to the door to the bunker and see the door splintered and the lock on the ground in front of it. My hand instinctively finds the pistol tucked into my jeans, holding it ready for a fight as I further push open the door.

The first thing I notice is the broken furniture and knocked-over equipment, along with papers scattered everywhere. Then my gaze finds the blood splattered on the ground, and my body tenses. Pools of blood lay further in, and all I hope is that none of it belongs to y/n or David.

My eyes scan the room desperately looking for any sign of life, but all I find is more blood and smashed furniture. Mostly everything at David's computer setup is smashed or taken; none of the left screen is able to turn on to give me even a clue of who did this, even if I did have a very good guess who it was.

All the weapons that were stored are gone, and it takes everything inside me not to completely lose it. My brain is too scattered for me to think clearly, which is what I have to do in this moment. Dammit. I need to focus, but all my mind keeps going to is the thought of her back in that torturous prison she just escaped from, and that doesn't calm the beating of my heart and the tightness in my chest. It's happening again; I'm losing people I care about, like anyone around me just drops dead or disappears in an instant, like a goddamn curse I can't get rid of.

I was starting to drop the high walls I've built around myself, and this is how the universe pays me? I'd laugh at this like some sick joke, but I'm afraid I'll lose it completely if I don't at least try to get my mind in order.

I'm about to lose it completely, not able to find anything of use, when I catch a glimpse of something under the desk.

I bend down, reaching out to find a small flash drive taped to the inside of the desk leg.

~

I'm pounding on the door in front of me until my hand screams at me to stop. The door opens, and Allison's startled face appears behind the door as it opens. I push past her into the room without a word.

The room smells stagnant, and there are cracks in the walls, but it's the least of my worries at the moment. I wasn't planning on coming here when she casually said the motel she was staying at, and it seems she wasn't expecting me to show up either, as she closes the door after briefly looking outside for anyone. She didn't tell me the exact room, but it wasn't hard to find out which one it was since she checked in under the name Allison, which wasn't the smartest move if you're on the run, but right now there's one focus on my mind.

She has a laptop on the side table, and I throw it on the bed, slamming the flash drive where the laptop was before looking towards her. "Put it in." She opens her mouth to say something but closes it after a couple of seconds after seeing the look on my face.

She walks over to the bed I threw the laptop on and opens it, reaching for the flash drive with shaky hands as she plugs it in. I step closer, tilting the laptop towards me, causing her to jump slightly.

There's one file on it that I'm quick to open. The screen turns black before an image of the inside of the bunker pops up. There's a tense silence in the room while the video loads, and Allison looks like she's about to jump up from the bed before the video starts to play.

My eyes remain locked onto the screen as the video starts. Everything's fine at first, David and y/n talking over the counter in the kitchen, and a part of me wants to know what they're saying, but the scene quickly shifts when David walks away from the counter and the room is filled with men in gear and guns. I tense when y/n suddenly disappears from the screen and David is yanked away from the desk and pushed forcefully to the ground. It isn't long after that when the screen goes black.

It's silent in the room for a few minutes, Allison not daring to move from her position before my gruff voice breaks the silence. "Rewind it." She doesn't argue, leaning forward to replay the video. Once the intruders come on screen again, I tell her to pause it and zoom in. There's an emblem on the sleeve of each of their uniforms that I force her to zoom in on.

"You know what that is?" She hesitates in answering, and I'm quick to draw the gun in my pocket and push it into her side.

"I-It's the symbol for the lab; it's what the guards wear." She's quick to answer. "It's likely they were taken back to the lab."

"I thought the lab was destroyed." She shakes her head at my statement.

"One was, but there are still two more locations that are still operational." My jaw ticks, hand tightening on the gun in my hand. I have to clear my mind again to stop it from wandering off from the main focus right now, which is to figure out where David and y/n were taken.

"You know which one they were taken to?" I ask, my hold still solid on the gun. She shakes her head, looking up at me.

"It could be either one, I'm not sure... One of them is the one I worked at; it was the smaller of the two and didn't have much room. Your best bet is probably the other one."

I turn around to grab a piece of paper and a pen from the side table, throwing them in front of her. "Address." She takes the pen with a shaky hand, writing down the address in messy but legible handwriting.

I take the paper from her and walk to the door. "Wait! You can't go there alone—" she stops her sentence when I turn to look at her. I pause with my hand on the door handle, and she swallows before continuing. "The place is swarming with guards; you'll never be able to get in." I nod, tucking the gun back into my pants.

"I'll manage." I open the door and walk out of the room, leaving her sitting on the bed with the laptop still open in front of her.

~

She wasn't kidding when she said the place was heavily guarded. Sitting on the rooftop of a building across from the lab, I have a clear view of at least five guards in front of the building as well as two sitting by the gate entrance to get in.

There are even more patrolling around the building, making it extremely difficult to even think about how to get in. I sigh, rubbing a hand over my face, trying to stop myself from just storming in there.

I don't know what else to do as I take out my phone and dial a number, my finger tapping impatiently on the brick below it as I listen to it ring.

There's a pause in the ringing before a voice sounds on the other end. "Frank?"

"I need your help."

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I don't know how long I've been here. I can barely focus on my surroundings as it is, let alone keep track of the time.

I'm unable to lift my head more than a couple of inches before it's falling back down, forcing me to stare at my lap and the ground. There's a faint ringing in my ears, and I can't be sure if it's just in my head or not.

They've kept me in this room hooked up for the entire time, electricity continuously flowing through me, not giving me any chance to escape.

I've blacked out a countless number of times, and it isn't long before my vision starts darkening again and I fall into complete darkness.

~

When I wake up, I'm no longer in the same room. I squint my eyes, groaning weakly at the bright light that blinds me. It isn't until I see movement in the corner of my eye that I realize I'm not alone.

Panic sets in, and I try to move any part of my body, but everything's numb, and I don't have complete control over my movements. I'm only able to move my arm enough to knock something off the tray beside me, causing the person to grab my arm and force it into the binds attached to the table.

I get a clearer view of the person above me, the same white coat and mask over their mouth that I've seen countless times before. This time, however, it makes me panic further. I find the strength to push myself halfway up from the table I'm on, but it doesn't last long until the electricity is back and I'm falling back down onto the table as the person restrains my other wrist.

My vision is rapidly fading again as I stare up at the spinning ceiling above me before I'm plunged into darkness once again.

~

When I wake again, everything's dark. Panic sets in for a few seconds, and I blink rapidly, trying to focus more. It isn't until the room flashes red that I realize it actually is dark in the room and the blinding lights from earlier are off.

I try to move again, but I'm still strapped to the table I'm on, not able to freely move my limbs. I can still feel the remnants of the electricity inside me that's quickly draining whatever energy I have.

It isn't until I focus on my surroundings more that I hear the gunshots and fighting out in the hallway. The door to the room is opened, and a scientist rushes into the room, immediately releasing me from the binds and attempting to drag me out of the room. They're not able to get me far when I get enough energy to push myself away from them, falling to the ground.

I can see the annoyance on their face through the red lights that are still flashing periodically in the room, but as they go to grab me again, the door to the room is slamming open and a single gunshot rings out. The scientist falls to the ground instantly, blood beginning to pool out from their head.

I struggle to push my body back but am met with Frank's worried face trying to stop me. "Fuck, sweetheart, what'd they do to you?" His voice is muffled as my brain tries to focus correctly, but everything is spinning around me. He picks my limp body up into his arms and walks out the door.

The sounds of fighting are heard in the hallway as Frank carries me through. I can hear his voice speaking, but nothing is coherent from the muffle in my ears.

He brings me further down the hallway to get to the exit, passing by countless bodies on the ground on the way. I can feel my vision fading as I struggle to stay conscious. My hearing is still muffled, only able to hear parts of conversations that Frank's having with someone.

"Frank, don't—" A gunshot rings out from the gun in Frank's hand, cutting the other person off as he holds my body to his chest, storming through endless hallways to the exit.

I only know we're out of the building by the feeling of wind on my arms, my eyes unable to stay open long enough to know what's happening around me. I'm placed in the back of the van on a soft blanket as Frank appears above me again, but I still can't process what he's saying.

"...hear me?" I'm unable to respond as my eyes drift shut once again, and when I open them again, Frank is in the driver's seat, no longer above me. I continue to hear pieces of a conversation, but none of it registers in my head as I fade in and out of consciousness.

"...I know..."

"It's not my..."

"...to go..."

"...not her..." I completely black out.

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