AN: Guess who's back?! Hi everyone, thank you very much for your continued interest in my story! I'll get right into it, the next two parts are going to be
very dark, and will shed some light on a big part of why our intrepid heroes are the way they are, so tread lightly. There is also some dialogue taken from the episode "The Departure", I'm sure everyone will spot it the moment they come to that part. Please do leave me your thoughts on this part, a big reason of why I've taken so long is I wanted to get a good balance and I'd love to know if I got it right. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING, and a BIG BIG thanks to my beta
Alix and her continued tolerance of my terrible updating schedule.
10. We All Fall Down (1/2)
Winter 2005- Four years after The Departure
Day 1
Liz
The moment the sack was removed from her head, she knew it was over.
The lighting was less than ideal, but she could still pick out details that told her escape from this room was near impossible.
There were two men stationed on either side of the door.
There were another two beside her, the one who had removed the sack falling back into position to the left and behind her chair.
Just for fun, there was another man standing off to the side, by a table that held many sharp and unappealing looking objects. She forced her attention away from those, and instead focused on the one thing that told her there would be no escaping this unscathed.
Anyone else would have seen a normal, thirteen year old boy, nothing out of place except the smirk that was meant to infuriate, and even that wasn’t unusual. She knew who he truly was, however, and she knew what he could do, and because of this, she knew, she knew there was no getting out of the situation undamaged.
“ Nicholas.”
Maria
This wasn't a big deal.
So she had been snatched in the middle of the night, after a pretty vicious fight that had left her dorm room a shambles. So it felt like she had a couple of ribs that were fractured at best, and snapped clean at worst, and her face probably belonged on a Fight Club poster. So she was currently prisoner in what looked like the scariest underground prison she had ever seen, something torn from her nightmares, in nothing but her Scooby-Doo pajamas no less.
This wasn't a big deal at all.
The door at the end of the carved out hallway opened with a groan, and threw light into the darkness around her. Maria readied herself for anything, another round of beating perhaps, or an opportunity to curse the ancestors of yet another dead-eyed flunky, but when she saw the cargo goon 1 and 2 were dragging between them, the snarl on her lips died, and her bravado crumbled. She would recognize that disastrous flop of hair anywhere, especially because she’d been begging him to change the style for years.
Kyle, unconscious and bloody, dangled between them like a limp rag doll.
As they threw him into the cell beside hers, Maria couldn't help but scream his name and scramble to the side that was shared with his, ignoring the pain, ignoring the whispers that said it was unwise to show weakness, because fuck everything right now.
Kyle was
here, in this hole, in this hell.
‘This’ had just become a very big deal indeed.
Kyle
Kyle had been knocked out several times in his life. A true sports fan, he’d gotten his first sprain at age six, his first fracture at eight, his first of many concussions at age nine. Always, he’d found the disconcerting moment between unconsciousness and waking strange, but this was the first time that regaining consciousness made him wish he could stay knocked out instead.
His first coherent thoughts were for his family.
Were they safe?
Had they gotten his message in time?
His second thought was that it was very dark where he was, and that his head hurt something awful, even more than his nose, and that was saying something, because he was pretty damn sure he had broken it in an attempt to head-butt his abductor.
Seeing as he was currently locked up in a cell, he was guessing that that particular plan hadn't worked like he'd wanted it to.
Soon, he became aware of something other than the steady throbbing of pain in his head. There was a background chatter that was going on relentlessly, and when he could finally focus for more than five seconds, he realized it belonged to a very familiar voice. Kyle lay still as he tried to recover, and alternately swung between despair that they had gotten to his family, that he hadn’t gotten the warning out in time, and relief that he wasn’t alone. As he listened to Maria go from frantic and pleading, to threatening to beat him up some more if he didn’t open his eyes, he had to release a weak chuckle.
That was a mistake, because his ribs certainly weren’t up to it, but it made Maria gasp, and call out his name in relief and joy.
“ Kyle! You’re awake!”
The words were almost a sob, and Kyle managed to turn his head towards the sound of her voice. He bit down on the angry curse that was his first instinct when he saw the state of Maria’s face, because it was obvious that she hadn’t come without a fight. Somehow, he managed to twist his lips into a passable smirk.
“ Fancy meeting you here, Maria. So who was it? Ties or tourists?”
It was the way they’d come up with to talk about the two parties that concerned them most, because they couldn’t exactly go around referring to the citizens of a country that no longer existed, could they? Ties meant suits, which equaled the government, while tourists referred to those who came from galaxies far, far away. A choked laugh was her first response, and then after a few breaths to compose herself, the answer he’d been dreading came.
“ I think….they’re Tourists.”
They stared at each other, and Kyle could see his own fear reflected back at him in her eyes.
“ Damn.”
Day 2
Kyle
It was a little funny, how easily you lost track of time when you were left in darkness. Seconds, minutes, hours, days...every significant unit of the passage of time melded together into an immeasurable chunk where there was nothing to do but wait. At least his injuries gave him something to focus on, from the twinge of his possibly snapped ribs, to his surely broken nose, to the impaired view from his right eye- the pain, the progression from sharp and cutting to dull and throbbing and then to an aching stiffness, was enough to give him a sort of gauge to how much time had gone by.
So he knew that while he could barely breathe when they had come for Maria, now, he could manage shallow inhalations without succumbing to pain. When he had been struggling frantically against the bars of his cell as they dragged his step-sister away, he had still been able to see out of two eyes, and now he was down to one. He had mastered a method for breathing through his broken nose while throwing out curse words, something he’d been unable to do as they had slammed the door shut behind them, the sound echoing above Maria’s screams. Enough time had passed for him to come to terms with his injuries. What had happened to Maria in the meantime?
The main door to the dungeon slammed open again, and Kyle immediately snapped to attention, eyes searching for signs that Maria had been returned. His hopes were in vain, as only one person stepped into the dark. The light from the hallway beyond the illuminated his frame, but obscured his face, preventing Kyle from committing his features to memory. It was a pity, because he would have loved an opportunity to smash his fist into the guy’s jaw if he could recognize him. In his hands he carried a tray, which Kyle guessed carried some sort of food and some liquid in a paper cup. It was unceremoniously shoved into the cell, and with that done, and barely enough for Kyle to catch more than a passing glimpse of his face, he turned to leave. Tired of the silence, the darkness, and of being alone, Kyle ignored the food, and called out instead.
“ Hey! You! Where’s the girl? Why are we here? What is this?”
At first, the man (was he even a man?) kept walking, as if he hadn’t heard Kyle at all. Just before he reached the doorway, he turned and slanted Kyle a dead-eyed look over his shoulder.
“ You’ll find out. It’ll be your turn soon enough.”
The door swung shut once more, and darkness fell again.
It was strange, how darkness stole away the concept of time.
It was even stranger, that with the subtle threat of the last words uttered by his captor hanging in the air, time suddenly didn’t seem long enough.
Maria
She'd been strapped to this gurney for hours, and once the initial mind numbing fear had passed, time had bled into an anxious sort of boredom. She knew she should try to use this time to sleep, but every little noise had her jerking around ridiculously, heart pounding, so that recourse was out of the window.
Always an optimist, she had instead tried to list the good in her current situation. It was a game she had been playing for hours now, in an effort to distract herself from the gnawing ache of dread and anxiety in her stomach.
Her current thoughts circled around her position. For one thing, it was weirdly comfortable, if you ignored how the restraints were cutting off circulation to her extremities. The cushioned foam behind her was a vast improvement over the cave rock she had had to sit on from the moment she was thrown into her cell, after all. And it was light years above what Max must have felt when the Ties had had him, because as she recalled Michael's recounting of it, that had been cold, unforgiving metal.
Maria shut her eyes in reaction to the thought. Musing about torture at the hands of the FBI perhaps wasn't the best thing to do right now, since this could potentially be far worse. At least Max had had them all on the outside, working in concert to get him out. If Kyle was in here too, it was almost a certainty that Liz was as well.
A new noise began, the grating of a metal sheet that covered half the wall in front of her sliding upward by the virtue of gears that sounded like they hadn’t been oiled for years. It revealed clear glass, and she was willing to bet serious money that it was very much bullet proof and perhaps even Tourist proof. The surface she was on suddenly shifted, and within moments, her horizontal position had suddenly become vertical, providing her with a much better view of the room on the other side. Another cramp of fear shot through her stomach, but this discomfort was forgotten as soon as her eyes fell on what was before her. Maria froze immediately, and her mouth fell open in a wordless cry of horror and denial.
It was time to give up her game, because in that room, with an expression that Maria was sure was identical to hers, Liz sat restrained, face cut up, bloody and bruised, complete with an evil alien teenager at her side. Behind her, where Maria couldn’t see but Liz obviously could, she heard the door groan open. Maria saw Nicholas whisper something to Liz, and from the frantic way her best friend had begun struggling in her chair, so obviously protesting against whatever was about to happen, Maria could guess she wasn’t exactly in for a massage. The blonde released a shaky breath, and felt an icy chill settle over her as she accepted the truth.
There was nothing good in this situation.
Nothing.
Liz
Soft, warm, cotton.
Cool, fluttering, drapes.
Bright, golden sunlight in an opulent bedroom.
These were the first things to greet her when she opened her eyes, banishing the last tendrils of the vague, unsettling nightmare she’d had. She smiled drowsily as she woke, her eyes widening into alertness as the delicious smell of fresh, buttery croissants and fragrant coffee registered. And then thoughts of food were forgotten when she turned over and found
him lying beside her, propped on his side, shirtless and smiling, and watching her with eyes that were so, so warm and bright that her heart ceased to beat.
“ Hey.”
She was in too much shock to do anything but submit when he leaned in for a kiss. It was as if he could no longer hold himself back, as if he thought he had every right to it, every right to
her. Her heart seemed to have no trouble responding even though everything else had shut down, and decided to resume its pounding triple time. It seemed that he was unaware that she was practically undergoing cardiac arrest, because he pulled back with another smile, stopping just far enough to rest his forehead against hers. The gesture was so familiar, entangled in so many past memories that her heart stuttered to a stop again. With monumental effort, she managed to get her tongue to work.
“ What-”
“ Ssh. Can we...will you let me hold you? Please.”
It was insane, and the last thing she should be doing was staring dumbly at him when a million questions needed to be asked, but it was as if she was 15 years old again, and powerless against the lure of his eyes. Besides, he was here, wasn’t he? Within reach, in the flesh, warm, alive and looking at her like she was his fondest wish come to life. Against everything she’d told herself she would do if she ever saw him again, against logic and reason, she granted his request, nodded, and allowed herself to be enveloped in his arms.
It was like she had finally come alive again.
Every nerve ending was tingling, the blood in her veins sang, she felt curiously lightheaded and alert all at once. Briefly, she entertained regret as she accepted that no one had ever, and apparently could ever, make her feel the way he did. And then she abandoned all thought, and simply clung to him with all her might.
It was impossible to tell how long they lay there, but then she became aware of the ground trembling beneath them, how the beautiful day had suddenly turned dark and stormy, and his skin clammy and feverish to the touch. She leaned back to look him in the eye, and was alarmed to see that where he had been healthy and whole before, he now looked wasted and ill. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes haunted and he was almost gasping for breath, as if the air was suddenly too scarce.
“ Oh my God. What’s happening? You’re hurt, you’re-” Fear and worry made her rear further back from him, but he tightened his hold on her, and halted her retreat.
“ No, no. Stop. Please. I don’t have much time, I won’t be able to stay here long.”
“ Let me go, I can help you, let me help you-”
“ You can’t. You can’t. Just...I need to tell you something. I want you to listen.
Listen!”
His desperation made her still, and when he cupped her face between his hands, she couldn’t look away if she tried. “ I want you to know, even now, after everything, even after whatever will happen...they can lock away my memories, beat the breath out of my body, make me forget who I am...but my heart is
yours. It will
always know you,
always love you. I love you. I love you, and I’ll never stop. Never.”
She reached up to cover the hands that were holding her face captive, and opened her mouth to speak, but she only got as far as one word.
“ Max,”
And then there was nothing but pain.
“ WAKE UP!”
Liz’s chin was jerked into the air as her head was yanked backwards, interrupting the escape her dream had provided her. Although she was no stranger to the torture of lucid dreams involving Max Evans, this one had definitely been one of the most intense. Usually, the dreams put her in a bad mood for days, but given her current situation, she gladly would have taken the dream. At least, they only made her feel like she had been dragged over hot coals, instead of
actually having that happen.
Her host looked a little put out that she had managed to fall asleep, but Nicholas seemed to get over it quickly, choosing instead to focus on what seemed to be his favorite of the 90-question game they had been playing.
“ Tell me where they are.”
Liz fought the urge to laugh, because how many times did he want to hear the same answer? The first time he had asked, she had failed to speak, simply because the implications of the situation had been too overwhelming to process all at once. Obviously, Nicholas was looking for the hybrids, there could be no other reason for him to seek her out. Her mind raced from one conclusion to another, and the accompanying emotions were so strong, it was dizzying. There was no time to dwell on any of it however, and she quickly narrowed in on the most important things: they were alive, had been held captive somewhere, and now had apparently escaped. Her stunned silence had earned her a split lip, and then the questioning had begun in earnest. Her answer to this latest reiteration was out of her mouth before she could think it through.
“ I’ve told you.
I don’t know,”
The swift blow to her midsection had her bending over in agony, and her body jerked as the pain washed through. Liz blinked away stars as the grimy floor beneath the chair she was tied to swum dizzyingly around her, and she fought to keep from passing out.
Breathe.
Breathe.
A hand fisted in her hair and dragged her back upright. Her abused muscles screamed in protest, but she bit back on the groan of pain, and ignored the way the goon behind her seemed intent on ripping off half her scalp. Liz had long ago decided that he didn’t matter, he was merely a tool doing his master’s bidding. The one she really had to focus on, the one she had to outlast, was the diminutive looking teenaged boy sneering down his nose at her.
“ Bet you didn’t like that, did you Liz? Did that hurt? It looked like it did.”
Almost panting with the effort, she sucked in another breath and managed to shoot him a cocky grin Jack and Kyle would have been proud of.
“ It tickled a little.”
Anger flashed over Nicholas’s face, and he nodded at his servant, who acquiesced with a sound backhand across her face that sent her reeling off to one side. She would have fallen off her chair if not for her restraints, and she could almost hear Alex’s voice hissing disappointment at her, asking if that particular blow had been worth it. As she was pulled upright again, and could see Nicholas once more, she decided that it had been, because she had at least proven she could get under his skin.
Now all she had to do was survive him potentially getting under hers.
“ You’ve gotten tougher since I saw you last, I’ll give you that, little human. But don’t think for a
second that that will help you in any way. This is only the beginning, Liz, this is only the warm up! You really think you can play this game?”
“ I already told you,” It hurt to keep her voice from trembling, from the effort of keeping it steady. “ I haven’t seen them or heard from them in years. I don’t know anything.”
It seemed to be the wrong thing to say. An unholy light of madness seemed to fill Nicholas’s eyes and he chuckled as he shrugged casually.
“ Have it your way then. What’s the saying they have on this backwater planet of yours? Let’s play ball.”
One of the silent observers in the room left then, and Liz took a few moments to steel herself for what was to come. No doubt, he’d been sent to collect something, or do something that was designed to make her talk. Was Nicholas finally getting ready to perform the mind rape? It had practically been the first thing he’d done when he had held the hybrids captive, and it was the one thing she couldn’t defend against. While she had no information about the aliens’ current whereabouts, she still had so much to hide, so much that Nicholas could not be allowed access to. So although she kept up a brave face when he drew closer and closer, she couldn’t help the shudder of fear that ran down her spine as he leaned in close.
“ You might be able to take a hit, little human, but let’s see if she can too,”
Before her, what she thought was a simple, gray wall was revealed to be concealing a glass partition between her room and one next to it. When she saw what was there, it felt as though all of time had stopped, and only one thing mattered.
Maria was there, in that room, strapped tight to a gurney.
Her blue eyes were wide, and Liz could read the terror in them as clear as day. When the hulking giant that was in the room with Maria approached the gurney, Liz could do nothing but struggle ineffectually against her bonds.
“ Oh God…Maria! Stop! Get away from her!”
Nicholas laughed again, a delighted look on his features. “ Looks like we hit a sore spot there, didn’t we? Let’s try this again. Where are they?”
Liz couldn’t even lift her gaze from Maria’s prone form, and she shook her head desperately, willing Nicholas to hear the truth in her voice.
“ Please. I can’t…I’m telling you the truth! I don’t know. I don’t know! They left, we never heard from them again,” She didn’t need to look at Nicholas to know that her answers had failed to satisfy him, because the servant in the room with Maria continued his steady progress. Liz shook her head frantically as he raised his fist to strike. “ Please, please! I swear, there’s nothing…Maria! Don’t do this, please, don’t...I don’t know anything, I don’t know anything! Don’t touch her, don’t hurt her, no! ”
When the first, brutal blow was delivered, Liz was already screaming before it landed.
…she would scream all night.
Day 3
Maria
Maria had never given too much thought to dying before. The world was too big, life too absorbing, there were too many things she had yet to see, feel, touch, taste,
do, to consider the end. She had felt that way even before the summer the human-alien hybrids had happened, and the feeling had only intensified after that. There was no longer only one world to be in awe of, but many, spread out across the universe. How could thoughts of death possibly take precedence over knowledge like that?
Today was different however.
Today, her entire world had contracted, had shrunk and narrowed to this room, to the gurney she was strapped to, to the burning, searing pain she felt each time their captors heard something they didn’t want to. She had long ago stopped screaming, having no energy left except to spasm uncontrollably and squeeze her eyes shut against the sight of her broken body, and especially against the sight of her equally broken best friend.
The man in the room with her never spoke, barely even acknowledged Maria except for when he cracked another bone here, delivered another swift punch there. His actions were always timed with when Nicholas asked Liz a question, with her best friend’s emphatic responses, with Liz’s screams for them to stop each time Maria suffered another blow. Maria didn’t want to look at Liz, because she knew she would only find devastation there, along with enough guilt to blanket the world twice over. She knew her best friend already blamed herself for how things had ended up with the hybrids, and especially for how things ended up with Alex. There was no doubt in Maria’s head that Liz had somehow come to the conclusion that the current disaster they were in was her fault as well, and if there was one thing Liz Parker didn’t need, it was more guilt.
So Maria tried to remain as quiet as she could.
She tried to hide just how much it hurt.
She tried to keep her eyes firmly closed so that Liz wouldn’t be able to see that all she wanted to do was curl up and die.
Time had ceased to exist, lost under the haze of constant pain and suffering, but her eyes suddenly flew open when instead of another harsh blow, a gentle touch graced her battered face instead. When she saw who it was, she wished she had kept her eyes shut.
Nicholas was there.
Wearily, she moved her gaze to Liz, and if she were still capable of it, she would have flinched in sympathy. The dark haired girl looked like she had been dragged through the pits of hell, and woken to find that she was simply at the precipice of a deeper descent. Though her physical hurts looked substantial, it was the look in her eyes that scared Maria the most. Liz looked empty, unhinged, like she was about to say anything, do anything, if only Nicholas would stop using Maria as his punching bag.
She couldn’t let that happen.
So she pulled in another painful breath, ignoring the fire in her ribs. She aimed what she hoped was a passable smile at Liz, and prayed that she would be able to interpret it for what it was: a signal that Maria wasn’t beaten yet, because being at death’s door wasn’t
quite the same as being dead, and encouragement for Liz to keep on fighting too. Best friend telepathy at work, Liz’s eyes widened and she shook her head frantically, telling Maria to abort her plan, to spare herself more hurt.
As if she could let this opportunity for a wisecrack pass by?
Kyle would never forgive her.
Despite a lip split in several places, Maria managed to turn her own smirk on. “ Nicholas. Still waiting for that growth spurt, huh?”
The Skin snarled and signaled for his lackey to continue the pain.
When the blows came, Maria’s one recurring thought was that at least this time…she had earned them.
Kyle
Crack!
“ Just give them up, Kyle. Why are you putting yourself through this? From what I got from the boy king during our brief, but very informative, acquaintance, you never even really
liked them all that much. I
know he didn’t like
you. Actually, he pretty much hated your guts. He’s not worth this. He certainly wouldn’t return the favor. Trust me, I knew him back when he was all but emperor of our universe, and even now as the powerless whelp I met, he hasn’t changed one bit. ”
Crack!
“…Still don’t want to talk? Is it some sort of misplaced indebtedness? From when he saved your life? News flash, human, he wasn’t doing it for you. It was all to score points with Liz Parker…didn’t he steal her from you? All the while, he actually had a wife waiting in the wings? Class act that one.”
Crack!
“ This can all end right now, you know. I mean, don’t get me wrong, watching you bleed all over the floor is entertaining for me…but not so much for you, I think. I can make it stop. This can all go away. I can even get them to heal you up. That silly little game you play needs you to be able to run around, right? Just tell me where they are. Where would they go? Who would they turn to?”
Crack!
“ Kyle, Kyle. Come on. You’re taking this strong, silent thing to the next level, aren’t you? Fine. Do it for the girls then. You must know by now that I have both of them too. I’m sorry about the screaming, by the way. They told me you wouldn’t sleep once you heard them going at it, and that you started to scream too, for no reason! Is that some sort of bonding activity for humans? One of you screams, you all have to scream?”
Crack!
“ Look at you. You’re pathetic! Why are you protecting them? Don’t you understand? It’s their fault you’re here! You better start talking, human, or else this, right now? It’s going to seem like nothing compared to what comes next. You heard them last night didn’t you? What do you think I did to them, to make them scream like that? To make them beg? If you don’t talk, I’ll make you watch, Kyle. I’ll make you watch me hurt them, watch me cut up their skin, break their bones, smash those pretty little faces in. How about that huh? How about that? Or maybe I’ll even bring your father here to join the party. He’s getting old, isn’t he? How long do you think he’ll be able to last?”
“…Wait. What was that? Were you trying to say something, Kyle? Get that gag out of his mouth, you idiots, how am I supposed to hear him? There. That’s better. You have something to say now?”
“ You…you’re…you’re going to…die, you know,”
“ Are you threatening me, Kyle? Fine, I’ll play. And how exactly is that going to happen? Surely you don’t think that you’re going to be able to unhook yourself from those chains and do the job yourself, do you?”
“ W-when they hear…when Evans a-nd G-guerin hear…what you’ve done to them…you’re…dead. N-no place to h-hide,”
“ And how exactly will they hear of this? Do you have a way to contact them? A meeting place? Tell me. I’ll go meet them myself, I’ll tell them myself, I’ll even give them a free shot.”
“ I-if you touch…my father…
I’ll kill you.”
“ Not if you die first, human. Now, stop blathering this nonsense.
Tell me where they are!”
“…With my b-bare hands. I-I’ll kill you.”
“ This is pointless. Put the gag back in. I think a few more lashes should put him in a more cooperative mood.”
“ …when t-this is over…you’ll be…d-dead.”
Crack!
“ I wouldn’t bet on it, Kyle. What are you waiting for? Do it again!”
Crack!
Liz
They were waking her again, forcing her head backward, and throwing water, icy cold, in her face. It stung, but the next time they did it, she was ready, and managed to gulp down a few precious mouthfuls of liquid.
It wasn’t much, but every little bit would help her survive.
But did she really want to?
The gurney Maria had been strapped to was empty now. They had dragged off the other girl an indeterminate amount of time ago, blonde hair streaked with blood. Without her best friend to focus on, Liz had fallen into unconsciousness shortly after. Now, it looked like Nicholas was back for round…whatever it was. She had long since lost count.
He was staring at her with a calculating expression, and then he motioned for the servants to cut her free, and she immediately pooled to the ground in front of her chair, fighting to keep from screaming at the new position, at the blood rushing back into her hands. When she had gotten herself more or less under control, she lifted her head to look at him, and was dismayed that he seemed completely unafraid of anything she might do. She didn’t register on his threat scale, she was insignificant, a bug he could simply squash.
It made her want to coax out what meager power an alien healing had left her with and burn his face off.
“ I was just thinking, Liz, that maybe I’ve been going about this all wrong.” His tone was conversational, as if they were at a social function and they were acquaintances, rather than a captor and prisoner. “ I’ve been playing it like we’re on opposite sides here, when I realized…we’re really not. In fact, you’ve probably got more of a reason to be pissed off at the boy king than I do. I mean…sure, my issues with him are personal…but yours are even more so, right? I mean, while he was romancing you, he had his real destiny all lined up. Don’t tell me you were all right with that.”
It was true, that the list of things Liz thought would never happen to her had dwindled rapidly since that fateful September day, so long ago. Sitting in an alien prison, discussing her failed relationship with Nicholas of all people, however, was one thing she had never thought would come to pass. Smothering the hysterical urge to laugh, she instead tried again to impress upon him the futility of his attempts to squeeze information out of her. She leaned against the chair, tried to sit up and speak like every word wasn’t pain.
“ I don’t know where they are. I don’t. I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
He ignored her.
“ That must have hurt, right? I was in his head, you know.” To demonstrate, Nicholas tapped his temple. “He really
was fascinated by you, and I can even sort of see why. You’re not much to look at, especially not now, but there is…something about you. So it wasn’t all a lie. But then again, she’s the one who had his baby, so what do I know?”
Liz fought to keep her expression steady, determined to hide the fact that his words were having more of an effect on her than she wanted. It said something, didn’t it, that she almost wished he would continue punching her rather than discuss the way her relationship with Max had ended? Shakily, she wiped away a trail of blood running into her eyes.
“ It doesn’t matter how much you hurt me, or even how much you hurt Maria. We can’t tell you what you want to know, because We. Don’t. Know.”
Her words went over his head again, as he continued to watch her, carefully searching her face for the slightest waver, the smallest sign that his words were hitting their mark.
“ Does that bother you Liz, knowing that his first child will never be yours? That every time you see that baby, you’ll know it should have been your child?”
If she could cover her ears, she would. She was tired, she was in pain, and for that second, she couldn’t stop the grimace that twisted her face and he spotted it immediately.
“ Tell me where they are,” The words were gentle, deceiving. “ I can take care of it for you. You will never have to lay eyes on the child. It will be as if he never existed.”
Liz shut her eyes, and refused to entertain the thought that she actually looked like she was considering something so horrible, or gave the impression that she was capable of it at all. She shook her head and hugged herself as best as she could.
“ Leave us alone. You’ll never get what you want, because we don’t have it. Just…leave us alone.”
There was silence, and then the ice-cold command came.
“ Tie her back to the chair.”
She let them.
She had no strength left to scream.
Day 4
Maria, Kyle
“ There's a lot about you Maria. There's a lot about you, but I think what means the most to me is that you're open. You know, I can look into your eyes and I can see you. I can see what you're thinking. I can see what you're feeling. How much I mean to you sometimes, how much I piss you off sometimes. But I can always see you.”
“ I see you too. ”
“ No, no you don't see me. You know when Max and Liz would kiss, and Liz would get the flashes? And when we would kiss you didn't. I know how much that hurt you.”
“ That doesn't matter to me anymore Michael.”
“ The reason you didn't get the flashes is because I didn't let you get them. I didn't let you see me. I've never let anyone see me before...because there are things inside of me that I don't want people to see. There's things inside of me that I'm not so proud of. But I've thought about it, and I want you to see me. Take my hands.”
In the half moments between sleep and consciousness, Maria could almost feel the flickering candlelight on her closed eyelids, feel the scratchy softness of the bed sheets tangled with her limbs, smell Michael’s scent all around her. When she finally woke, she half expected to be in the bed where he’d left her, alone and cold after a night where he had finally let her see him, finally shown her how he saw her too.
To say she was sorely disappointed when she saw she was back in her cell was the understatement of the century. Her first instinct was to groan in pain, except she wasn’t sure if she could even manage that. Everything, absolutely everything, hurt. Was it possible for eyelashes to cause pain, because she was positive that hers were doing just that. How was she even still alive? There was a point during her audience with Nicholas that she was sure she had died, but perhaps she had just passed out instead. She made cautious movements to get up, and by the time she had dragged herself to a semi-sitting position, she was sweating, and shaky and on the verge of passing out again.
She briefly considered trying to sit up a little higher, but an unexpected voice stopped her.
“ I…I wouldn’t try it. That way lies dragons.”
Maria gasped and looked to Kyle’s cell, where she hadn’t even noticed him huddled on the floor, laying on his side. Her stepbrother didn’t appear to be sporting any new injuries- the broken nose and black eye were from the day he’d been dragged in, but Kyle seemed paler, sicklier…and why was he lying like that? He seemed limp, as if he was unable to make even the slightest movement. Before she could ask, Kyle spoke again, voice raspy and thin.
“ L-Liz is here too, right? I heard…that little twerp…told me. How is she?” He grinned, but it looked more like a grimace. “ Never m-mind. About the same as you and I, huh?”
“ Kyle? Why are you…why are you just lying there? Why aren’t you moving?”
Slowly, painfully, Maria dragged herself to the side of her cell closest to Kyle’s. Their cells were still steeped in darkness, but she was now close enough to see that he seemed to be lying in a pool of water, except, where would that have come from? Unless…
“ Oh my God,” Eyes widening in realization, Maria pressed herself against the bars separating the cells, broken bones be damned. “ Oh God. Kyle…your blood…oh my God. You’re bleeding out. What did they do to you?”
Kyle winced and managed to shake his head weakly at her. “ D-doesn’t matter. Are you…how bad are you?”
Drooping, Maria leaned against the bars and allowed her eyes to close. She was no doctor, but she knew she was badly off. Several broken bones, various lacerations…a bloody cough that seemed to indicate a punctured lung. Add in the fact that she hadn’t had food or water in a while, and she kept seeing big black spots dancing in front of her eyes, and that was pretty much had only the tip of the iceberg of what was wrong with her. She opened her eyes, knowing Kyle was still waiting for a response.
“ I think I’ll have to lay off the gym for a while.”
This made him laugh, if the short wheeze could be called that. “ Yeah? I think I’ll have to do the same.”
The stepsiblings lapsed into silence, both struggling to not pass out, desperate now to stay awake and reassure each other they were alive. Each time Maria’s eyes were on the verge of fluttering closed, Kyle’s voice would call her back, and when Kyle went without moving for too long, Maria would coax him into showing some signs of life. Though they didn’t say it, when they weren’t watching each other, they kept their ears pricked, and eyes trained on the main door for any signs of Liz. The compound seemed too quiet. Did that mean Nicholas had given up for a time? Or did that mean Liz was…it was too terrible to contemplate, so they chose to ignore it all together.
When the door swung open, they instantly looked towards the sound. Kyle swore loudly while Maria cried out at the sight of Liz being dragged between two of Nicholas’s lackeys. They headed straight for a third cell, the empty one to the right of Kyle’s and unceremoniously deposited Liz on its floor. She was bleeding from various places, her face a mess of bruises, and even in the dim light, he could see one of her arms lay at an angle too awkward to be natural. Somehow, Kyle managed to find the strength to flip onto his stomach and start the crawl to the side of his cell closest to Liz. The action made his head spin, and exposed his ruined back to Maria, something he had been careful to conceal. From her strangled gasp, he gathered that it looked at least as bad as it felt, but he didn’t stop until he was as close to Liz as he could manage.
“ Liz?”
The dark haired girl didn’t move an inch. In the dark, it was hard to see, but from the shallow rise and fall of her back, it looked like she was barely even breathing.
“ She doesn’t look too good does she?”
The remark was casual, and Kyle glanced up to see that Nicholas had entered their dungeon, and was staring through Liz’s open cell door at the unconscious girl. Kyle was spared the effort of cursing him out as Maria did the job for him, although she could have saved her breath for all the effect it seemed to have on the Skin.
“ None of you do, actually,” He said now, sparing them each a brief glance. “ So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m having so much fun with you all, really, it’s entertaining to see how long you’ll last with me, so I’m going to give you a little reprieve. Bring it here.”
One of the silent men produced a small, zippered case from somewhere and handed it to Nicholas. He unzipped it, and then walked into Liz’s cell, crouching by her fallen form.
“ See this?” In his hand, he held a syringe, full of a deep purple liquid. “ Its real name is far too complicated for you humans to understand, but you should appreciate its effects. One measure, and everything that’s wrong with you starts to heal. It’s very useful when you don’t have anyone who can do that with you, and by the looks of things, Liz here needs it, badly.”
Maria had long stopped her diatribe, and Kyle kept silent too, waiting to see where Nicholas was going with his latest ploy.
“ I see I’ve got your attention. While I would like to say I’m going to give Liz this out of the goodness of my heart…I think we all know that’s a lie. You see,
this is a very specialized form of a nifty little compound we have back in the whirlwind galaxy called gandarium. I don’t have the specifics, but to heal you, it triggers some sort of reaction in the mind, making the patient relive how they got their injury in the first place. Then, since the compound knows exactly how you got hurt, it can go about reversing the process, until you’re back to full health. Neat, huh? ” He grinned maniacally here, waiting for the implications of this to sink in.
Kyle stared at Liz, mentally cataloging all the visible injuries and he shook his head.
“You’re going to make her go through all that again? “
“
Very good, Kyle! And here Max thought you were just a dumb jock. Shows what he knows right?”
Kyle shook his head as Nicholas started to lower the needle towards Liz’s arm. Maria was sobbing now, begging him to stop, but her pleas went ignored.
“ It’s really elegant though, don’t you think? The perfect interrogation tool. A dead prisoner tells no tales…so this pulls double duty. A little more persuasion…and when it’s done, IF they haven’t broken and told all during the healing process, they’re all set for the next round again.”
The needle went in and then the purple liquid was gone. There was no movement, but then suddenly, Liz bucked, once, twice, curling into herself and crying out with pain.
“ Hm. I think that’s those last few kicks she’s feeling.”
Aghast, Kyle couldn’t lift his eyes from Liz as she began to writhe around, gasping and helpless. He didn’t even notice that the two goons had come into his cell until they grabbed an arm each and held him down to the floor, screaming and thrashing while Nicholas administered a dose to him as well. They hadn’t even left his cell when the sensation of the cruel whip ripping through his skin was back, and he could do nothing but jerk spasmodically in agony. Dimly, he could tell that they had entered Maria’s cell, and given her the same treatment as well.
“ Did I mention that many who get this often end up losing their minds?”
Nicholas’s voice sounded like it was coming from very far away, and Kyle couldn’t bring himself to pay too much attention. He was busy trying not to die from what felt like the 1000th time the whip had cracked across his back. In the cells on either side of him, Liz and Maria were lost in their own throes of suffering.
“ I really hope that doesn’t happen to you three though. I’d hate to have our time together cut short. Enjoy,”
With the screams of his family echoing around him, Kyle prayed for survival.
He prayed for the hybrids to come.
Day 5
Kyle, Maria, Liz
Kyle woke up shivering, absently reaching for a blanket that wasn’t there.
His questing fingers met the gritty, cold floor of his cell, and then everything came rushing back.
He wasn’t in his room, in his bed, about to go on with his day.
He was a prisoner, a captive at the mercy of a madman, with nowhere to go, with nothing to look forward to, except…
Blue eyes flew open, and he barely had time to marvel that he could see out of both eyes, and actually breathe through his nose, before he was turning towards the cell to his right, to where he had last seen Liz Parker shrieking as if she was being skinned alive.
It was quiet now, and Liz…was awake.
She was sitting up, huddled against the bars between their cells, staring at him with eyes that bled relief…and despair.
“ Kyle.”
He didn’t waste another second. He was at the bars, reaching through to her, clasping her hands as desperately as she was gripping his.
“ Are you okay?”
His voice was still raspy, testament to a throat made raw by endless screaming. She nodded, and then focused on something over his shoulder.
“ I’m okay. Can you…can you check on Maria? She hasn’t…she stopped. A while ago. I can’t tell if she’s sleeping or…could you?”
Kyle swallowed, immediately understanding what Liz could not say. Maria had stopped screaming, but was that because her body, having gone through the same torture over again, was now healed up and had shut down to rest, or because it hadn’t been able to handle the healing?
He gave her hands one, last, reassuring squeeze, and then he let go, shuffling to the other side of his cell. His step-sister was curled on her side, facing away from him, bright blonde hair dirty and streaked with what he knew was dried blood.
It was hard to see, but if he focused, he could almost be sure that he could see her back rise and fall with her breath. Kyle didn’t dare be relieved, choosing instead to implore whatever deity was present in this hell to give them just a bit of a break, and he called out to her, softly.
“ Maria? Maria. Wake up. Hey.”
Silence, and he could feel Liz’s gaze on his back, heavy and expectant. Kyle didn’t turn around, wanting to avoid seeing the despair there turn into devastation.
“ Maria. Come on. Wake up.” He hesitated a bit, and then pasted a fake smile on, willing his voice to sound teasing and warm instead of merely desperate. “Dad made pancakes, and Amy’s whipping up some morning mimosas. I don’t know if I can hold myself back if you don’t get up. I’m going to eat all of that and leave you nothing. I mean it. Maria?”
There was no response, and somewhere inside him, Kyle felt his heart slow to a stop and shrivel, and from the shaky intake of breath behind him, he knew Liz was struggling to hold back a strangled sob. There was a deep, terrible silence where nothing existed except the dawning realization that Maria De Luca would no longer laugh, or smile, or sing, or throw things at him. Kyle opened his mouth, not even knowing what there was to say…and then there was movement before him.
Maria was awake, alive, peering over her shoulder at him, face pale and exhausted. Her expression was highly unimpressed.
“Nice try, Valenti.” She turned over fully and scowled at him. “As if you would have a chance at that if we were at home,”
Liz’s cry of relief coincided with Kyle’s own laugh of surprise, and then Maria was at the bars, and they were hugging each other through the metal. Liz was pressed so hard against the walls of her cell, it was as if she thought she could pass through them by sheer force of will. It was still a dungeon in the middle of god only knew where, there was no visible way to escape, no indications that help would be coming, but the three of them were together, and whole for the first time since the hellish affair had begun. For a few, brief, shining moments, even the darkness didn’t seem so complete.
Now, all they had to do was survive.
TBC.
