CONTAINS CONTENT:
Language, violence, forced removal of clothing (no assault).
{{Unedited}
Everything went black and Vincent whirled, pulling Headhunter, but quickly remembered that it was out of bullets. He cursed under his breath, and dropped to his knees, hoping to miss any bullets that were headed his way. There was no other way out of this one, this time.
He and Austin had just entered the building and crossed the foyer, moving towards the back where the staircase and elevators were.
His only saving grace was that he’d just put his right hand onto the doorframe that led into the staircase, so he was able to move himself into the space without being able to see.
Where Austin was? He had no idea. He thought that he heard him for a moment, but it was distant, as if in a box. Then Vincent realized that everything felt like it was in a box. This wasn’t just Cory… This was Finola as well, and they were combining their powers. To what end? He had no idea.
When his vision cleared, he confirmed this. Everything was gray and covered with ash, as if he’d stepped into an old black and white movie, and the setting that he’d been standing in had been bombed a long while ago. He imagined that this space looked this way right after the war.
Vincent pulled back out of the staircase and noted that the window at the back of the building was blown out. As he was drawn to go through it, he pulled a vial from his pocket and refilled his arm, reloading the guns. After a moment, and the intense feeling of a billion tiny nanobots crawling through his skin, he pulled Headhunter again, and walked with it at eye level.
“Cory?” he asked, knowing this was his trickery.
Austin was gone; probably either in his own fantasy of Cory’s making, or simply invisible to Vincent.
“Let’s talk,” Vincent said, dismissively as he made his way through the courtyard at the center of this building. There were ash covered benches, a fountain that had no water, only gray dust and withered, broken trees. White flecks floated down from the sky like snow. “Cory?”
“It’s really good to see you again, actually,” Cory’s soft voice filled his ears. “Wow. What a strange mix of emotions,” Cory marveled. Vincent whirled, gun raised, “You really don’t need to do that, you know that I’m not here.”
“Where are you, exactly?” Vincent asked, trembling. He kept the barrel trained on Cory’s handsome face.
Cory approached from the shadows and shrugged his shoulders with his hands in his pockets, “around.”
“What are you trying to do-” Vincent pressed, flicking his gaze one way, then the other. “Why are you still attacking?”
“Oh, we have a goal, for sure… it’ll happen, trust me,” he whispered with a truly genuine smile.
“Please don’t hurt Marielle.” Cory stared him down as if Vincent was stupid for even asking such a thing. Vincent paused, swallowing. “Do you want me to beg?” He ventured, slowly getting to his knees.
Cory shrugged again and shook his head, “No,” he said simply.
“What do you want, Cory?”
“What I want? You can’t give me…” he said sadly. Vincent hung his head as Cory approached, his fangs becoming large, protruding. “I want my family back, you son of a bitch,” he growled, irately. He began to take slow, methodical steps towards Vincent, and Vincent kept Headhunter up, but retreated at each movement. “My mother, my father… my brother.” Cory stopped and glared at Vincent, then cocked his head as a wolfish look started in his eyes, then made its way down to his mouth. “You want to know something weird? Although I’m fairly certain that you know this already. I don’t exist in any other dimensions. At least, not in the dimensions that I’ve been to… Finola and I are always dead,” he removed a hand from his right pocket and looked it over, “our condition is… so fragile,” he said shaking his head, and dropping his hand. “We have to figure out a way to stay here, Vincent. Or we’re all dead, you know that.” Cory looked down thoughtfully. “You could have helped us. But instead, you made that cure, took it, betrayed us all, and left. The only reason I let you go was that I wasn’t sure that I’d ever be able to figure the cure out on my own. Someday I might need it.”
“I’m guessing you’ve figured it out since then?” Vincent said tightly, still as concrete.
Cory waved his hand dismissively, “months ago. I let them all believe that only you have it,” Cory chuckled, “keeps them all coming after you and in check.”
“And what about the other worlds? How are you convincing them?”
“A lot of Valorant in other worlds works with Kingdom. Many worlds have problems, Vincent, I’m sure that you know that. They want your radianite, they want furthering research, and so on…” Then a sinister grin spread across his face, the one that told Vincent that he had a juicy secret. “But who knows what I might be able to accomplish with Marielle’s abilities.”
“What have you done?” Vincent asked, and he stayed on his knees, sitting back on them. “Please, Cory… please.”
Cory shook his head despairingly at Vincent. “You were right. She helps stabilize the field. We just haven’t figured it out completely yet. Something to do with her ability with Austin. I know a guy; he’s working on it here… and in our world too. Well, mine,” Cory said, driving in the emotional knife that reminded Vincent that he no longer had a home.
Vincent smirked and shook his head, “You damned fool. There was always another option,” he said with a chuckle, then he shook his head, “you’re just too stupid to know.”
“Oh, I’m stupid, yeah?”
“You both are… your attack dog slipped his leash and killed her,” he paused, swallowing. He had to play this right, “And we killed yours when she tried to attack us. She’s dead. So, that plan’s nerfed.”
Cory briefly narrowed his eyes. “What you talkin’ about, boyo?”
“Tala.” Vincent shook his head, “Marielle is only one answer,” Vincent growled, pushing his glasses back up his nose, “but your stupid friend killed ours. We killed yours right back.”
Cory looked deep in thought for a moment. “What about Neon?”
“Neon is the answer, you arrogant ass,” Vincent said proudly.
“And just how’s that?”
“You really think after you just told me that you have a goal – and I know that it has to do with Marielle – that I would tell you anything?” Vincent said with a proud smirk. “Now you have no way to stabilize so you can all stay here.” Vincent made a motion in a circle with his pointer finger. He chuckled cruelly, “I was going to trade Tala to you when we first arrived, but as I said- that mutt that you call your best friend killed her to save himself when I bested him. Shame. You just keep making bad decisions. Neon is dead.” Cory’s eyes were full of rage, but the rest of him was calm, at peace almost. “What do you want, Cory? Why are you keeping me here? What did you do?”
“You know… I was going to save this for later, but it’s just- it’s just too good,” Cory began, that smile that competed with Satan himself etching the lines around his face. He thumbed his bottom lip for a moment.
Terror began to spread across Vincent’s chest, and he wiped sweat away with a shaking hand. “What… did you… do?” He paused, “did-did you hurt Marielle?”
Cory grinned and looked down thoughtfully, “You know, I always kind of wanted to taste that…” his grin grew wider as he continued to thumb his lip, his fangs protruding a little. “I did, Vincent. I did taste that.”
“What are you saying?” Vincent barely breathed.
“You left me a trail when you went from world to world, looking for her. Trying to protect her from us… You thought that we’d never get the single person teleports, or if we did, we were years out. Klara dug until she found your files- the ones that you wiped, Vincent. She was heartbroken. You know she loved you like a brother.” Vincent felt his insides twist. He took another step forward, “I followed you.”
“You’re lying,” Vincent replied shakily, the golden gun trembling just a little.
“I promise, I’m not.” Cory smirked, “We found her, Austin and I.” He said like he was simply reading off a grocery list, “uh, took her back home and tried to fix the problem with the field, and the dimensional hopping with her. In the meantime, had some fun with her, and killed her… Not on purpose, I assure you, the experiments are just intense. But I did that in all five of those worlds that you found her alive and well in.” Vincent swallowed hard, and went to his knees. “She’s dead. At least everywhere you touched.”
“You’re – you’re lying,” he stammered.
Cory shook his head, “No, brother.”
“Austin… her husband- he would hav-”
“Oh, Austin’s dead, too… yeah,” Cory said in mock sorrow. He looked off, probably in the direction of Tundra, “Tundra doesn’t like his double, he wants to be the only one.”
“You did not do this,” Vincent said, retching.
“I did… I so did,” Cory said. Another wry smile crossing his thin mouth, “I understand your fascination now, your love. She was delicious, Vincent,” he whispered, salaciously. “Sometimes… she even liked it,” he taunted. He dragged his tongue over one of his fangs implying Sleepwalking, “if I told her to.”
Vincent raised Headhunter and fired repeatedly at the image, but the bullets went nowhere, and did nothing. Vincent fell face first to the ground and pounded the pavement several times as he let out a long, exasperated cry. He knew exactly what this meant for him and how Marielle would see him now, and he felt the anguish of losing all her doubles that he’d tried so hard to leave alone for a normal life. “And the others…” he whispered through tears, “Th-they let you do this?”
“They didn’t know. Well, Iselin did, but everyone else?” He shook his head, pursing his lips. “Only that it had something to do with Marielle.”
“Austin…Tundra, he-”
“Yeah, he didn’t know.” Cory let out a long sigh. “He knew that I took her, that we were running tests on her. That she died. I promised him that he’d get the one that you settled on. Good old-fashioned eye for an eye bull.” Cory looked off, biting his bottom lip, “Sad to say… I think some of that has made Tundra a little nuts.” Cory smirked. “Humans are funny.”
“You’re one of them,” Vincent whispered, dazed and shaking his head.
“No, we’re more. I’m a god, Vincent, remember? Tundra and I both. You could have been a god, too if you’d just played by my rules.”
Cory straightened his back with his wrists crossed behind it, and held his head high. “Now that you’ve…” he removed a hand for a moment to rub the bottom of his mouth again, “found the one that you’re looking for, how does it feel to know that even though you had her, not only is she falling in love with Austin, but to know that we’re going to get them both, slit his throat, and do the same thing to her that we did to the others?”
Vincent’s cheeks puffed up in rage, as hot tears pricked the corners of his eyes. “If you haven’t noticed our friends are uh… dropping? Dying? Your team is dwindling. You have no way to stabilize,” Vincent taunted.
“On the contrary, we have Marielle. We’re already doing it,” Cory explained, with a soft, innocent smile. “I have a deal with Kingdom. And I have a special place for you at home. It’s a room, no bigger than that staircase.” Cory smirked, “Once I get Marielle back to our world, I’ll let Tundra have this one… until the tests kill her too, I’m afraid,” Cory sighed and squared his shoulders, “I need them to stop doing that. But…” his voice trailed off.
“I’ll go with you,” he stood and opened his arms, sucking Headhunter back into his wrist. “I’ll go with you.” He put his wrists together, and stretched his arms out, “take me… take me, and leave Marielle and Austin alone,” he pleaded. “I’ll give you my life, take it.”
Cory tucked his bottom lip in for a moment, and gave him an almost compassionate look, “Listen, I might have taken you up on that, but firstly- I’m not here,” he whispered. “And secondly, I made a deal with my best friend,” he explained, then he grinned. “You can’t be a scumbag forever, Vincent,” Cory said dismissively, “sooner or later god’ll get you.”
Vincent lifted irate, and hate filled eyes at him, “I’m not exactly scared of the god of pleasure,” he spat.
Cory snickered mockingly, and put a finger to his throat, and ran it across his neck before his image vanished, leaving Vincent alone and back in the real world.
A voice was in his ear, “What happened? What happened?” Sasha was wailing in his ear. “Vincent, come in!”
“D-do you have Marielle?”
“No, she ran off.”
***
Austin tried to run into the stairwell after Vincent, but was shocked to discover that he wasn’t there. “Vincent? Vincent?” He was crying up the steps. “What the hell?” he asked, looking up the empty steps. It was ghostly, not a soul was in sight. “What is going on…” Austin whispered, keeping his pistol up. He knew that this was probably Cory’s doing. “Guys, is Vincent with you?”
“Uh, that’s a negative,” Tayane replied.
“Austin, what happened?” Marielle asked. He knew her panicked tone. Great.
“I don’t know, he vanished,” he replied, poking his head back out into the hall where the elevators were and looking through the window behind him that was smashed… something told him that he was out there, although he couldn’t see anything, so he stepped over the threshold, and went out into the space.
There was a dead fountain in the middle, gray stone benches, and twisted, unkept trees.
“Austin, I’m coming!”
“Marielle, stay there!” Austin barked. Too late. She had not only broken away, but she happened to do so right as one of the final black Kingdom goons appeared from behind them all and put a bullet through Sasha’s middle. He collapsed, and Wei Ling and the others rushed to his side, momentarily disregarding Marielle and giving her the perfect moment to sneak away, grateful that Sasha was going to be okay.
Tayane had been behind the man who’d taken the shot, and he hadn’t seen her. She went up to him, put her satchel over his face, and ran several feet back, waiting until it exploded, taking his face with the blast.
Wei Ling healed Sasha, all was well and Marielle was gone.
Marielle popped in, next to Austin, “I told you to stay there.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you alone in here, and I want to find him,” she replied, sharply.
“Right,” Austin sighed, raking his hair, “I keep forgetting…Gall.” He kept the tip of his pistol high, and started again, “Stay close.”
Both walked slowly, searching the area; not making eye contact. “What are we going to call you, now?” she asked.
“No idea,” he replied dismissively. “Hey, what is your code name?” he ventured.
“Masin Chaenes.”
A laugh burst through his nostrils. He was shocked that he’d never thought of that before. “Got it.”
She shook her head at him, adoringly, “What’ll yours be?”
“Frosty the snowman,” he replied, contemptuously. She chuckled. “I don’t know… Ice King.” He didn’t mean that one.
Marielle looked down a walkway that was partially hidden by columns. “Are we in here because we think Vincent is?”
“You’re in here to get caught by us,” a voice came.
Austin whirled, and fired…at nothing, and something sharp pierced the skin under the left side of his jaw. He knew this drug, Chamber had used it on him when he’d been tortured, he could feel its effects immediately. His powers were being suppressed. Almost the instant that that’d happened, so had fifteen men- from nowhere, stepped out from the shadows, all pointing guns… at Marielle.
She panting for a moment, lifting her pistol and training it on one of them. “Put it down, Marielle,” Austin whispered fearfully, there were men already restraining him, and forcing him to his knees. She seethed through clenched teeth. “Marielle… this isn’t the time to be brave,” he whispered.
-Darling… please. I can’t fight them right now. The drugs have weakened me.
Marielle lifted her hands after dropping her gun, and one of the men injected her as well. She glared at the one removing the needle. He grinned at her, wryly, and stepped away.
Cuffs were placed on both of their wrists, keeping their arms behind their backs.
The crowd parted, and to Austin’s surprise and terror, as well as Marielle’s, up walked none other than Barbara. For a moment, nothing clicked… then everything did. She was giving them up. The fact that her body was wreathed in gold didn’t even occur to either of them as they spotted Cory, also in gold with her. “Take them, they’re yours for now,” she said, gesturing with her head.
Cory grinned, and approached Marielle. “How nice to meet you in person,” he purred, and he lifted a curled finger and stroked it down her cheek.
Austin seethed, knowing how bad this was. This was what they’d been trying to do when he went after Wingman… they’d been trying to capture them together. Why? He didn’t know, but his mind was already formulating theories and trying to plan as both he and Marielle were shoved into the back of a black van with a masked rider.
They chained Marielle to one end of a metal bench, and Austin to the other end. The rider sat on a bench on the other side of the van with a large, black gun.
Both of them ignored him for the first few minutes of the drive.
-Talk to me?
-I don’t think it’s a good idea… Austin replied, throwing a glance at the helmeted rider staring at them.
She looked to him, fearfully, and as she did, he slowly removed his helmet…Tundra. He was chewing gum in the left side of his mouth, and he looked a total mess. It was the first time that Marielle had truly seen him, and it was beyond uncanny.
This man was Austin… but his pallor was whiter, and a hint sallow. This made sense, all of them were dying. He was a bit thinner than Austin, and this showed in his cheekbones which seemed a bit darker, and deeper and was also obvious by the form fitting motorcycle outfit, revealing his exact shape. Every bit of him was coated in black, except his head, face and hair.
He was wearing thick smudged, and running eyeliner, which enhanced the blue in his eyes, making them darker, meaner, acutely nefarious, and somehow…more alluring.
Marielle noted after he ruffled the front of his damp hair a little that his left ear was covered in piercings. She started counting; at least ten.
He was terrifying; not just because he was like looking at a darker, more deranged Austin, but because he was staring at both of them, and his expression – dark, demanding, plotting, excited, hungry – was so completely fixed that both Austin and Marielle flicked their gaze to each other, then back to him. They watched him like he would strike at any moment, but he merely stared.
“So, you can read my thoughts?” Marielle ventured.
Tundra only smirked and leaned back, relaxed against the van wall, knees parted.
Austin studied him as he stared at Marielle. What was he thinking? None of it was good, whatever it was. If this was him… er, his double. What was his play, here? Was he trying to seem intimidating?
“So do you just like… not speak?” Austin pressed, trying to sense anything from him at all. It wasn’t that he didn’t speak, it was that he refused to speak to Austin. Austin was inferior- no, more than that, Austin was an abomination to him. He- Tundra was real, Austin was the synthetic copy.
He stopped chewing, and cut his darks eyes to Austin, then made their skin crawl, as he slowly dragged his gaze down Austin’s body until it came to his genitals, where he stared for a moment… unreadable. A distant smirk parted his lips and he glanced away after a good five or six seconds that felt like an eternity.
This guy thinks he is…actually… a god. Austin squeezed his own chin for a moment. And he’s getting off on this.
-Yeah.
-Don’t respond to my thoughts, darling. He can hear you; he can’t hear me.
-Good point.
Tundra smirked, knowing exactly what was going on. Then he stretched, raising his arms carelessly and lengthened his spine as he contained a yawn.
“How come I can’t hear your thoughts?” Marielle asked Tundra.
“Because I’m not thinking anything,” he replied quickly.
Marielle swallowed hard, and looked away from a look that said- we were married once, you don’t think that I know exactly how to escape you?
Austin felt the full weight of what his reply to her meant, and exactly how Marielle would be interpreting that. -Shit.
-You’re telling me.
Everyone stayed silent for the duration of the ride, and neither Austin nor Marielle looked at one another, or Tundra again, although both were aware that he was staring at them, mostly her… like he was hungry and she was a rare cut of perfectly cooked beef.
Marielle tried to keep her thoughts quiet, but found it incredibly difficult. Every time she started down a path of panic, she was tempted to glance back at Tundra, but refused to give him the pleasure. She could feel him smirk each time, however.
Neither Austin nor Marielle had a strong sense of how long they’d been driving, but after what felt like forty-five minutes to an hour, they felt the van slow, and stop. Austin knew that gates were opening, and sensed the van going over a pathway or bridge. It was still concrete but the road had changed.
This was also the first time that he was aware of other vehicles around them, as well as a few motorcycles. Good. Motorcycles were an easy way for him to get out of here with her alive if he could get ahold of one later.
Tundra was creating icicles in his right hand and twirling them like he was bored until they melted.
The trip across the bridge lasted about two minutes. Then the van drove for a few seconds before it came to a stop along with the other vehicles.
Austin and Marielle flicked their gazes to one another, and away as the doors opened and Tundra leapt out first. He gave Austin and annoyed glance as if to say, ‘get out, you moron,’ and Austin did, then Tundra reached in and grabbed Marielle’s arm, pulling her out against her will. She tumbled a bit, and smacked into him, body to body; he looked pleased.
“Don’t touch her!” Austin raged.
Tundra glared at him with extreme annoyance; the insect was speaking to him again. He rolled his eyes and smacked his gum.
Cory approached them. “He’s right, leave her alone for now,” Cory said looking to Tundra.
Tundra released Marielle, who went to Austin, and buried her face into his chest, terrified. “Give her to me,” Tundra growled. “She’s mine.”
Cory shook his head, “Not until later.”
“We had a deal.”
“We both have a deal with them,” Cory reminded looking to the twenty other men and women standing around them. He put his hand on Tundra’s right shoulder, “Go home. You know what I need you to do back there. Go do it.”
Tundra glowered at Cory. “If I leave, I can’t come back for twenty-four hours.”
“I know. I’m following shortly.” Cory replied. Then he walked past Tundra, but whirled, grabbing his neck, and biting, drawing blood. Tundra’s eyes filled with black, and he froze. Cory kept his hand around his neck. “Go home,” he whispered.
Tundra staggered a few feet away, in a trance, lifted his arm, where something that resembled a watch was on his wrist, and tapped three buttons. A swirling pink portal opened, and Tundra went through it, disappearing. “I don’t need him screwing things up,” Cory growled under his breath as the vortex vanished.
“Are you going to pay for that one, later?” Austin asked sarcastically.
“Nah, he’s used to it,” Cory replied with a sneer. Austin shuddered and looked down, wide eyed. He didn’t like the idea of being controlled by Cory one bit.
Barbara approached. Austin had forgotten all about her, but glared, “Barbara, what are you doing?” he growled.
“Oh, I’m sorry… were you under some impression that this wasn’t the plan all along?” She gestured for them to take he and Marielle away.
The men separated the pair, causing Marielle to look to Austin with pleading eyes and he kept his on her. -You can talk to me now, Tundra’s gone.
-Austin, please don’t let them separate us.
He momentarily felt helpless, realizing that this moment was what everyone had been dreading; it was here, and he’d allowed it to happen, hadn’t he?
He cursed himself for not seeing this coming. How had he missed Barbara? What was the plan, here? Why was he important? He wasn’t, was he? Not after a point anyways. They’d need him for a bit… then they’d kill him and turn her over to Tundra. He couldn’t let that happen.
He was also realizing how honest Marielle was in these moments. She didn’t want to be apart from him. That stung in multiple ways. He never wanted to be apart from her. That way she’d be safe. This couldn’t end this way.
He started to take stock. What was the situation? Where were they? What objectives were there? What could he use? What was the surrounding terrain like? There was forest to their right, and the bridge was behind them. It was a long run to the gates.
Ice powers, down… what now? There was one bullet in his arm. No one knew about it. In fact, Tundra didn’t know about it either, did he? Good. Keep it that way. It’s just a tattoo for now.
He looked up, there was a building in front of them that looked like a prison. It was beige, old, there were rusty bars on the outsides of windows; several levels. Noted. They’d be taking them to the first floor immediately, then where? What was the most likely, a holding cell.
He started to count the men, and note what they were carrying.
There were nineteen that he could see, minus Cory- he made twenty, and all of them were either holding large weapons or carrying sidearms on their hips.
Several of the figures were on the smaller side, there was only two or three of them that were taller than Austin at nearly six feet tall, and two or three of them were on the heftier side. Despite what people thought, or what movies said, these guys were some of the easier to take out.
One of the reasons that the government kept him leaner was because it was easier to move, get away, and you were faster when you were leaner. When you were bigger, you looked more intimidating, and if you were bigger in the arms and chest like Vincent, you could deliver deadly blows to your opponent, but bigger didn’t necessarily mean more skilled, or swifter.
If you knew what you were doing, you could be Marielle’s size and take down one of these doofuses.
They were meant to intimidate, nothing more. Austin was the least concerned with them.
The men, Barbara, and Cory marched them up the steps and through the doors, then shoved them down a dank hall and to a room at the back, where they proceeded to put both against a wall face first, and pat them down.
One of the men took Austin’s wallet out, and rifled through it. When he pulled out the playing card, he gestured towards Cory with it. Cory took it, smirked, and tore it down the middle. Austin glared at him, possessed with rage. “You’re going to die for that,” he seethed.
Cory scoffed, “it’s a card, you pup. Grow a pair.”
He walked away with Barbara into the hall as he tossed the two pieces into the trashcan on his way out.
Marielle turned to him, eyeing his handsome face as if searching for something. Presently, a man was feeling her up and there was nothing that he could do about it with a gun in his back, drugs running through his body, someone doing the same to him, his arms restrained, and no ice powers.
She kept her gaze on his. -You kept it?
-I’ve had it since you slid it to me.
Her eyes welled, and no other thoughts past between them. Her chest burned.
Both were uncuffed, and pushed towards the back of the room, after the goons were apparently done molesting them. They were shoved into a cell at the end of the room that was blocked off simply by a wall of bars.
There was a bench, and two, one piece orange jumpsuits waiting for them. They were officially prisoners, here.
What struck both of them next was what they were being told to do. Undress, change into them. “Everything, let’s go,” the man at the bars was saying, gesturing with his gun.
Both she and Austin side glanced each other. They’d never so much as kissed let alone seen one another naked.
-I’ll just turn away. He said, wanting to give her some kind of privacy.
He took the one that was obviously his, and turned towards the wall. Shakily, she did the same, slowly going deeper and deeper into herself.
-Marielle, I know what this is doing to you. Stay with me. Don’t think about the actions, don’t think about them. Think about me. Talk to me.
He was losing her as she slowly vanished inside of herself. He knew the men were looking at her, and it made him insane. He had to stay calm. -I…
He reached out, -I know. Talk to me.
Trembling, she unhooked her bra. -About what?
-Tell me about a memory that you have from when you were little.
-A memory?
-Something fun. Something that you loved. She dropped her panties, and drifted, going numb. -No, Marielle, come on… stay with me. I’m here. I’m with you. Stay open to me. Close everything else out if you have to, but stay open to me. She knew the men were staring at her, and even though she wanted to get the jumpsuit on, her hands felt like they were ten times bigger than they were, and they weren’t working.
She dropped the jumpsuit, and shakily bent to pick it up again.
Austin was done, but didn’t want to turn around out of respect. At the same time, he wanted to do so if nothing more than to help her cover herself. -Darling…darling, I’m with you. Stay open to me. Do you need me to help you?
She was collapsing internally, he heard and felt nothing. Against what he wanted, he quickly turned. Luckily, her back was still to him. He went to her, and reached around her front, finding the zipper, and finishing it for her.
Her little body was shaking like a leaf in a strong wind, and he pulled her back against his chest. -You’re done. You’re done, you’re so brave. You’re so brave. I didn’t see anything. You’re still okay.
She glanced at the men outside of the cell as icy tears moved down her trembling face.
Which way did he go? Rage at the men? Or comfort her… Comfort her, he decided. Stay with her. He’d need her to help him, and she’d need him to be strong for her. The others were unimportant now. He’d deal with them later.
Austin had done nothing to her and yet, somehow, she still felt the most violated by him. She understood why; because she knew how much he wanted to see her naked and vulnerable, and he was easier to take her emotions out on, but he’d done nothing wrong.
Both of them were guided out of the cell, forcing Austin first. He raised his hands in surrender as one of them smashed their gun into his back. Austin could tell that Marielle was fading.
As they made their way towards the door, she wavered and fell taking some papers from a desk just by the door, and the trashcan with her. Things flew everywhere. Austin tried to go to her, but they pinned him against the wall, ordering him to control himself.
Marielle sat up, dazed, and pulled herself to standing as she reached up and finished zipping her jumpsuit up further. Austin narrowed his eyes at her, curiously.
But forgot everything as they were dragged to another room where they were thrown into it, and locked inside.
It was all white, with a gray, icy cold floor. There was a single cot bed against the far wall. No windows; a cold metal sink, one cold metal toilet.
Marielle collapsed.