bamber_344

  whooo boy, this chapter. prepare yourselves. it is a ROLLERCOASTER, and the girlies do NOT keep their hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times.

  No, seriously, heed the warnings. This is the whumpiest chapter yet. Though be wary that the warnings have spoilers in them. If you choose not to read them. Just. Be ready for Any Means Necessary :)

  Grab a snack and a bnky, my dear readers, cuz it's a long one. Enjoy!

  CWs: torture, interrogation whump, beatings, broken bones, waterboarding, electrocution, noncon undressing and touching, inappropriate usage of a car battery, self-harm (implied and explicit), sexual references, defiant whumpee, urination, drugging, addiction, so so many bad decisions oml

  “And I told him, I told him, you’re gonna cause an accident! But nope! He didn’t listen, and guess what he did. Guess!” Maddie said, eyes half-lidded with a big, amused grin on her face.

  “Uhh,” I mumbled, trying to get my drug-addled brain to work. This time, I had – under Maddie’s guidance – taken a much lower dose of the dried pnt than my accidental first experience with it a few days ago, so instead of the horrible feeling of melting into the floor, I was simply enjoying a buzzing numbness tingling through my limbs. Had I been somewhere else, somewhere less safe, it would’ve felt awful being so out of control like this. But here, in this cabin, with Maddie here to protect me should anything happen, I was free to let myself unwind without a care.

  “He backed the fuckin’ forklift into a shelf and knocked the whole damn thing over!” Maddie said, continuing without my input. “We spent the entire rest of the day cleaning up after him, and the st I heard, he got the boot. He’s lucky no one got hurt. Man, what an idiot.”

  “Wow,” I replied, trying to wrap my head around the scenario she was describing. It was a little difficult, as I wasn’t sure what a ‘forklift’ was, but I was pretty sure I got the gist.

  It was just the two of us tonight. Vivienne was away studying at her school’s library. Apparently, it was too difficult to focus here.

  She’d been a little distant tely. I missed her.

  I missed a lot of people. I missed Brianna, and the way she would make me ugh. The way she could totally pull all my tension away with nothing but a few kisses. God, but I could go for some positive physical contact right now. Leaning against Maddie’s shoulder was nice and all, but it wasn’t enough.

  I just… wanted to feel wanted. Brianna made me feel wanted. Vivienne, for that brief moment, had made me feel wanted, right before my entire life fell apart in front of me, and then she told me she didn’t want me anyway. It still stung, even if I knew it was just temporary. It didn’t solve the problem I was having right now. I was lonely, and I wanted to feel wanted.

  Would Madeline want me? Not for anything serious, just… enough to untie this little knot in the back of my mind. Just enough so that, for a single night, I could stop constantly thinking about Father and my sisters and Vivienne and Rosalyn and everything and I could just focus on my own body in the present moment. The weed was helping, but it wasn’t enough, and I didn’t want to take anymore in case I fell back into that vegetative state from before. Sex was a proven treatment to my particur brand of overthinking. To put it frankly, in the words Brianna had taught me: I was horny. I was sad and lonely and horny. And Madeline was the only one here who could help with any of that. Would she?

  Well, there was only one way to find out, wasn’t there?

  “Hey, Maddie?”

  “Mm?” she mumbled.

  “Do you wanna make out?”

  Madeline’s body stiffened beside me. I turned and looked up at her.

  She frowned. “I… I thought you were with Viv?”

  “Vivienne didn’t think a retionship was a good idea, with everything going on. This is just for fun though, if you want,” I crified. “I could use a distraction.”

  Maddie was silent for a long moment. She stared into the firepce across from us, unmoving. Finally, she let out a breath.

  “Fuck it. Why not?”

  Something akin to relief flooded through me. I grinned, pushing myself up and cmbering over her until I was straddling her p, inches away from her face. Madeline put her hands on my hips, eyes jittering between meeting my gaze and looking down at my lips. I couldn’t quite decipher her expression.

  “How’d you get that scar?” she whispered.

  “Training accident,” I replied.

  She hummed, reaching up and stroking her thumb across it.

  Briefly, some small part of me acknowledged that that scar was one of the only things differentiating my appearance from Rosalyn’s. I wondered what this must be like for Madeline. What could be going on inside her head as she caressed my face; the face of her dead wife, only imperfect and damaged, stolen and repurposed?

  Was this a bad idea?

  I had no time to consider it. Madeline kissed me like the first lightning strike of a thunderstorm. I sucked in a breath as her lips moved against mine, quick and bruising. It was intense and all-consuming, and exactly what I needed.

  I moaned, stroking my hands through her hair and kissing back, sucking on her bottom lip and gently biting down. Madeline made a noise like a wounded animal, squeezing my hip with one hand and cradling my jaw with the other. Her tongue snaked into my mouth, flickering in and out almost like an invitation. I took it eagerly, pushing back with my own tongue and taking control of the exchange with practiced ease.

  She whined, and the sound shot straight through my body to the heat between my legs. Every nerve ending lit up like an electrical surge. This was what this form had been yearning for since its creation. It almost felt like there was another pair of hands above my own, guiding me with the familiarity of years together.

  Madeline had always been the key. Rosalyn’s love for her was so strong that it persisted even beyond death, beyond the replication of her cells into a new body. It was the sight of Maddie that awakened my memories of Rosalyn, all those months ago when I was first deployed. This felt like finally fitting into pce. This was exactly where this body was supposed to be.

  A floatiness seeped through my limbs, lifting me away from myself and robbing me of the sharp edges of awareness. One moment, I had been present and in control – if slightly inebriated – and the next, it was like my body was moving on its own, and I was just a passive observer, watching from outside. What… was this feeling?

  I watched on, still experiencing every wonderful sensation, as Maddie separated from my lips and feverishly kissed my neck. My body groaned, and I felt my throat vibrate with the noise, but I had no input over it. I tried moving my hands, tried saying something. Nothing.

  Despite the inherent wrongness of being totally out of control of my own body, I wasn’t afraid. Somehow, I knew… Whatever this was wasn’t a malevolent force. All I could feel was… Love.

  “Rosie…” Madeline whispered against my throat.

  “Yes, my love?” my body said, in an accent that was not my own.

  Maddie whipped her head back up, eyes going wide.

  She screamed, shoving me off of her, and all of a sudden I was back in control, right as my skull smmed against the floor. My healing ribs loudly protested the impact.

  “Ow.”

  “Wh-why’d you say that?!” Maddie demanded, her breaths coming in rapid, shallow bursts.

  I sat up, rubbing the back of my head. “I… don’t know.”

  “Y-your eyes were… fuck. FUCK! I can’t do this. I can’t do this.”

  She stood up, stumbling over to the kitchen counter and picking up the phone in fumbling hands. She held it up to her ear.

  “Vivienne, I- I need you to come take me home. I can’t be here right now. I- I just need to go. I know, just… please.”

  Maddie put the phone down and sighed, not looking in my direction. I was too scared to move.

  Vivienne appeared, gncing around with a confused expression. Her eyes found Maddie and she frowned. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

  Madeline walked up to her, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Please just take me home,” she whispered, voice husky with emotion.

  “Maddie, it’s dangerous! De Vygon is looking for us.”

  “I know, I- I’ll stay in the apartment. I’ll be quiet. I just… I need to get away from here. Just for tonight.”

  After a long moment, Vivienne sighed. “Fine.”

  With a pop, they disappeared.

  …What was I thinking?! Making out with Madeline, of all people?! Was I stupid?! I might as well have just stabbed her in the chest myself. God, what an idiot. I deserved to be thrown onto the floor like that. I deserved worse. Screw this stupid body, pulling me to her when I knew it was a bad idea! My body may have wanted her, but she wasn’t right for me. The only person she wanted was Rosalyn, and I could never be her; just a poor imitation. Stupid foolish IDIOT!

  I needed to get this feeling out of me somehow; this horrible, agonising burning in my gut. I wanted to tear something apart. I wanted to ruin the fucking idiot who caused so much pain to my friends. Father was right. I was just a useless, pathetic animal. I needed to be punished.

  I put the meat of my hand into my mouth and bit down as hard as I could. Pain spiked and fred, shooting down my arm, but it wasn’t enough. It was nothing compared to the pain I caused Madeline, just because I couldn’t bare to be alone for more than a few fucking days. I ground my teeth until my skin split and blood spilled across my tongue. An involuntary whimper crawled out of my throat, but I ignored it, digging deeper into my flesh.

  Stop it.

  I froze, blood dripping down my chin; my entire body quaking and my cheeks wet with tears. Everything was quiet, all of a sudden. The burning was gone, repced only with a still emptiness and the cold truth of reality. The hairs on my arms fttened with the ghost of a warm touch, and I carefully took my hand out of my mouth, examining the damage.

  I would need stitches, that much was clear. But first I needed to clean myself up.

  Time progressed in a blur as I stumbled to the kitchen, rinsing off the wound and washing the blood from my face. I found the first-aid kit, and picked through it for a needle and thread. Patching myself up was such a familiar routine that I barely even needed to think as I wiped the wound down with iodine and began stitching it closed. That was good. The silence in my mind was a refreshing reprieve.

  Vivienne finally reappeared as I was about to dress the wound. She approached wordlessly, taking my hand and examining my handiwork with sad eyes. I let her take the bandage from me and wrap it around my palm, securing it with a metal clip.

  “Jordyn,” she said, swallowing. “Please, tell me what happened.”

  Slowly, I took a deep breath and sighed. My voice shook.

  “I made a mistake.”

  —

  Madeline powered down the sidewalk, trying to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other as the world wobbled around her. Yes, she’d promised Vivienne she’d stay in her apartment, but she’d run out of alcohol, and the liquor store was only two blocks away. It wasn’t like she was gonna get noticed in such a short span of time. She needed something with which to try and cloud the memories she just made.

  Maddie was trying very hard not to think about what she’d left behind in the cabin. That face, so familiar and yet different. Her lips felt the same, at the very least. Maybe that was why Maddie had gotten so lost in the moment that for a single, beautiful second, she thought Jordyn was Rosie. It was easy to remember the truth when they were apart, thanks to the scar and Jordyn’s dark irises and her ck of accent, but once they came together, the bounds of memory and reality became a very fine line.

  Accidentally saying Rosie’s name definitely killed the mood, but that hadn’t been what scared Maddie. No, what did that was hearing Rosie’s fucking voice come out of Jordyn’s mouth – saying ‘my love,’ no less – only to look up and see Jordyn’s eyes were now a warm brownish amber. That wasn’t Jordyn’s eye colour. That was Rosie’s.

  Madeline had never hallucinated from weed before. It sounded ridiculous to even suggest it. But it was the only pusible expnation for what she’d seen and heard. Maybe it was her brain's way of telling her that having any kind of sexual or romantic contact with Jordyn was a really stupid idea. She just wished it told her that a little bit sooner, before grief ripped another Rosie-shaped hole in her chest. It was like having her back, if only for a second. It was the thing she’d been craving for the past five fucking years, dangled right in front of her eyes before being ripped away again.

  She needed to forget it, or she might not survive. Nothing was better for that than a dangerous amount of alcohol consumption. Fuck sobriety, she couldn’t do it. How was she supposed to face this world with an unclouded mind when it seemed that the very fabric of the universe itself was out to torment her?

  Someone bumped into her; she hadn’t been watching where she was going. She didn’t see their face.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, looking back. The person had wings; big and covered in bck feathers. Huh. Hadn’t she heard about someone like that?

  Eh, not her problem. The night was dark and the chill of autumn’s end was setting in. She needed to keep moving.

  It was a couple minutes ter that it happened. Madeline felt a sharp prick in her neck, and the cold rush of something spreading under her skin. She jerked forward, stumbling and spinning around, holding the spot that had been attacked.

  “What the hell?”

  A man stood across from her, watching her intently, hands hidden in the pockets of his trenchcoat. She tried to take a step towards him, but he just stepped back in turn, maintaining his distance. His footsteps were silent.

  “What was that? What did you just do to me?”

  Something fell over her head, plunging her into darkness.

  “Hey, what the- oof!”

  A fist in her gut knocked all of the air from her lungs, preventing her from calling for help. She tried to reach out and freeze one of her attackers, but her power failed to respond. An arm snaked around her throat and constricted the sides, right as her legs were kicked out from under her. She could do nothing but scrabble ineffectually at her assaulter’s sleeve as her head became foggier and foggier from the ck of blood flow.

  Fuck. Vivienne was right. She should’ve stayed home.

  Madeline passed out.

  —

  “Wakey wakey, Mrs. Garcia-Holmes.”

  Something tapped her cheek. She opened her eyes, groaning at the pain in her neck. What happened? Where was she?

  Madeline found herself looking down, head hanging. She was sitting in a chair, wrists secured to the arms with shackles. Her shoes and jacket had been removed, but otherwise she couldn’t see anything else missing. How did she get here? Everything was still so foggy…

  She looked up, slowly lifting her head. Her neck ached.

  Oh. Maddie didn’t know whether to be enraged or terrified.

  Andreas de Vygon stood in front of her, in all of his terrible glory. The navy military bzer he usually wore during public appearances was missing, repced with a simple white button-down; the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. They were in a small room, with a dim yellow light on the ceiling and sound-proofing foam lining the walls. Madeline recognised it as the interior of a van. If she focused, she could even hear the engine still running.

  Behind him were an assortment of objects. A toolbox. A gas canister. A car battery. It didn’t take a genius to guess what they were for, given her situation, and what she was now finally remembering about how she got here.

  It was fine. She just needed to stay calm. She could get out of this.

  She flexed her hands and focused, trying to see if there was any give in the shackles around her wrists. Nope. She tried to lower the temperature and freeze them; make them brittle, but nothing was happening.

  “What… What did you do to me?” she mumbled, her words slurring from the alcohol still coursing through her system. “Why can’t I use my power?”

  De Vygon hummed. “I had the boys down in R&D formute a little compound designed to inhibit power usage. Surely you’re not so intoxicated that you don’t remember that little injection my man gave you?”

  Ice flooded through her veins, contrasting with the hot burst of adrenaline in her chest. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. If she really had no access to her power, there was no way out of this. She hadn’t let herself get scared yet because she thought she’d be able to just freeze this asshole and break free. If she couldn’t do that…

  Oh god. What was gonna happen to her?

  “Hey now, shhh,” de Vygon whispered, gently cradling Madeline’s face as she began to hyperventite, uselessly tugging at her bonds. His expression was almost soft. “There’s no need to be frightened. If you just tell me what I want to know, I can undo your restraints and let you go right now.”

  For a split second, hope sparked in her chest that she’d be able to get away from this. Then it registered what he was actually asking, and that hope turned to ash in her mouth.

  “What… What do you want to know?” she asked, in an attempt to py dumb.

  The expression dropped, leaving a cold bnkness in its wake. His grey eyes stared through her.

  “I’ll give you one chance to answer this unscathed. Where is Jordyn?”

  Giving him what he wanted was incredibly tempting, especially with the sight of those… implements behind him. They spelled a very clear picture of what would happen if she angered him.

  But there was no way she could give Jordyn up. Not only would it mean that she would be back in his abusive hands, it would also give Andreas the means to free the Godling. There was just too much at stake. The entire fucking world was depending on her in this moment. She couldn’t do it.

  Madeline could handle pain. She’d been soaking in it non-stop for the past five years. What she couldn’t handle was throwing away the st remaining piece of Rosie alive in this world. Jordyn had to live on. Maddie would just grit her teeth and bear it. Really, how bad could it be?

  She gred at Andreas and spat on his stupid, horrible face.

  Pying dumb was never gonna work, anyway.

  Despite having prepared herself for it, the feeling of de Vygon’s fist colliding with her face and breaking her nose shocked her all the way down to her bones. She gasped, ears ringing, blood pouring down her lips, as pain blossomed in throbbing pulses, creeping under her skin like an infection. She’d been punched before, but not like that. He hit like a fucking freight train.

  “Make this easy for both of us, Madeline. Where are you hiding her?”

  Fear already threatened to overwhelm her, but Maddie clenched her fists and forced herself not to whimper. “Kill yourself.”

  Andreas actually chuckled at that.

  “Good. I’ve been needing a new punching bag.”

  It wasn’t just one hit this time. He came at her over and over, splitting her lips and bckening her eyes and straining her neck from the sheer force her head was getting knocked around with. He would sometimes wait a few seconds between punches, giving Madeline time to suck in a single ragged breath, just long enough for her to dare to hope it was over, before coming back in and crushing that hope in a single blow. The pain very quickly became a universal, constant buzz, rippling across her face with every new strike.

  She lost count of how many times he hit her. After a while, it felt like she wasn’t even present anymore. Like someone else was being beaten, and she was just along for the ride. By the time he was finally finished, it took her a second to get back in the driver’s seat and do something other than just try to breathe.

  Blood filled her mouth; its coppery fvour permeating her taste buds. She gingerly leaned over the side of the chair and spat it onto the floor. Something solid came out with it. A quick inspection with her tongue found that her upper left-most incisor was missing. Huh. She didn’t really have the capacity to feel any sort of way about that right now.

  “Thank you for that, Madeline,” Andreas said. “I really, really needed that.”

  “Eeh… Eat a dick,” she mumbled, blood dribbling from her ruined lips.

  He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked, holding her head up and forcing her to look at him.

  “I’ll ask again. Where is Jordyn?”

  Madeline didn’t know if she could do that again. It felt like one more punch might kill her. Every instinct was screaming at her to just tell him the truth to make sure she wasn’t hurt again. But she wasn’t so weak as to give up after one measly beating. She took a breath to centre herself, and answered to the best of her ability.

  “I… I don’t know.”

  He sighed, letting go of her hair and crouching down so that he was still within her field of view once her head dropped.

  “Do you know how many bones the adult human body has?”

  Oh god. Maddie barely suppressed a whimper at the implication.

  “S- Save the clichéd speech and get on with it,” she grunted, forcing up a defiant facade to hide the terror.

  Andreas huffed a ugh. “Very well.”

  He stood up and grabbed the pinky finger of her right hand, too fast for her to try to hide it in her fist. In one quick motion that betrayed a terrifying amount of experience, he bent it backwards until it snapped. Maddie screamed, back arching, thrashing in her bonds in a futile attempt to get away from the pain.

  “Want to try again?”

  “I- I don’t know where she is! I swear! They didn’t tell me!”

  “Not good enough.”

  With her pinky already locked in an extended position, it was all too easy for him to wrench her ring finger out from her fist and do the exact same thing. Madeline sobbed; a wave of nausea washing over her. It wasn’t any worse than the first time, but that didn’t make it good.

  “One st time?”

  “V- V-Vivienne’s the one who knows, n-not me,” she whimpered, trying to keep her dinner down. “Wh- why would they tell me anything?!”

  Guilt flushed through her body as the words left her mouth. It was risky to throw Viv under the bus like that, but Maddie’s resolve was quickly fraying, and Viv was much smarter than her. She wouldn’t get caught out like this. Maddie just needed to give Andreas something so that this torment ended.

  Andreas sucked on his teeth, tilting his head. “See, I just don’t believe you, Madeline. You’ve been unaccounted for at the Union and your apartment for the past week. You have to have been hiding somewhere, and I’ll bet that if I can figure out where that somewhere is, I’ll find Jordyn. So, another finger?”

  “N- No, no no, please! Not another finger!” She closed her eyes and winced, waiting for the next wave of agony, but it never came.

  “Alright, we’ll do something else.”

  “Wh… what?” she asked as she opened her eyes, more out of confusion than any real desire to know.

  “I’ve found that if your target isn’t going to talk after two or three fingers, they’re likely not going to talk after ten. It’s a waste of time to keep going, and unlike some of my peers, I’m not a sadist. I’d rather we keep this as short as possible.”

  “F-forgive me if I find that hard to believe,” she panted.

  “It’s the truth. I don’t enjoy hurting you, Madeline. You simply leave me with no other option, and I don’t happen to have any qualms about it, either.” He turned and walked to the other end of the van, fiddling with something she couldn’t see.

  “Wh-what about Jordyn, huh? What you did to her? A-all the… the scars and bruises? You’re telling me those aren’t the actions of a sadist?”

  He didn’t reply. After a while, he turned back and approached her again, hiding something behind his back. She only had a moment to wonder what it was before he swung it around and smmed the wrench he was holding against her knee.

  “FUCK!” she screamed, rocking back and forth as if that would make it better.

  “That was a punishment for asking a stupid question, much like the punishments Jordyn required before she functioned at her full potential. It was never about my own satisfaction. She’s closer to an animal than a person; she needs the extra guidance to ensure she’s on the right path.”

  “Ffffuck you!” Maddie growled, breathing heavily. “You fucking monster. How could you say something like that?”

  “What would you know about it? You didn’t raise her.”

  “How…” she muttered, her rage simmering down from exhaustion and melting into sorrow. “How could you treat Rosie that way…?”

  “Rosalyn Garcia-Holmes is dead, Madeline. I can’t do anything to her. Jordyn is an entirely separate entity. The only thing they share is a genetic structure, and even that isn’t exactly the same. Had to make a few edits to ensure she came out right.”

  For some reason, that got to Madeline. She sobbed, letting out a quiet, broken whine. How could he do that to her? Rip the genetic material from her body, only to butcher and bastardize it, then use it to create a sve? What kind of man could do that to another person?

  “We’re getting off track,” Andreas muttered, walking off again. Madeline had nothing else to say. All she had left were the tears, blood, and sweat staining tracks down her face.

  She heard the sound of water swashing in a container as he approached again, but she didn’t care enough to look up and see what it was. There was something freeing in knowing whatever happened was totally out of her control. She clung to that small modicum of apathy, because the alternative was the all-consuming terror of her pounding heart.

  Andreas kicked her chair over. She fell backwards and her head smmed against the floor, throwing sparks across her vision. It didn’t matter for long, though, as a wet cloth was pced over her face; the damp fabric sticking to her skin and becoming impossible to remove with her limited mobility. Ah. She’d heard of this one before.

  As, the foreknowledge of what waterboarding was didn’t save her from the initial shock of the cold water coming down and drowning her. It flooded up her nose into her sinuses, blocking her airways, and there was no amount of thrashing and sputtering that could clear them, so long as the stream continued.

  It was not a simple matter of holding her breath. Andreas had begun pouring right at the peak of her exhale, so there was no air in her chest to hold onto. She had nothing, and all the desperate expansion of her lungs was doing was choking her further, sucking water into her windpipe.

  Her entire body lit up in a panic, every cell crying out for help, shrivelling up from the ck of oxygen. Her body was dying. She was dying. She was gonna die. This was it. It was over.

  She was dead.

  Finally, the stream stopped. Madeline coughed and gasped, simultaneously trying to expel all the water from her system and suck in air while she still had the chance. It wasn’t easy with the saturated cloth still covering her airways.

  “Where’s Jordyn, Madeline?” Andreas asked, sounding impatient.

  She needed to tell the truth. She couldn’t handle dying like that again. She couldn’t.

  It was only then Maddie realised that she didn’t actually know where the cabin was. It could have been in another country, for all she knew. Fuck!

  Her brain scrambled for an answer he would accept. Only one thing came to mind.

  “Union!” she blurted between coughs. “She’s at the Union!”

  “Mm, no she’s not. Already checked there.”

  Maddie heard the swishing of the water can again. Her heart jumped into her throat.

  “Secret room! There’s a secret room! A- uh, a safe room!”

  “My officers were very thorough in their search. They would’ve found it. Nice try, though.”

  “Please!” she begged, sobbing. “I don’t know I don’t know! Vivienne took us there, I don’t know where it is! Please don’t!”

  Much to her surprise, he actually listened. Madeline heard him sigh, and after a few seconds, her chair was lifted up, its legs pced back on the ground. The cloth fell off of her face and onto the floor with a wet thwap.

  “For once, I believe you,” Andreas said. “Give me some details. I’m sure I can figure it out.”

  Madeline’s entire body shook, her breaths coming in quick gasps. Okay. Crisis averted. She could salvage this. He broke her once, but he wouldn’t do it again.

  “D-details? What kind of details?” she asked.

  “Describe the pce you’re staying at. Is it a house? An apartment? Something else? What’s around you? Any ndmarks?”

  She nodded slowly, trying to formute a lie. “Okay, uh… It’s, um… it’s an apartment. Th-there are… lots of buildings nearby. I… I don’t think it’s in Tombguard. A s-smaller town, maybe.”

  Andreas sighed harshly, scratching the beginnings of grey stubble on his cheek. “See, now you’re lying to me again.”

  Madeline tensed. “No I’m not, it’s the truth!”

  “You’re really not a good liar. Stop trying.”

  “I’m not lying. I swear!”

  He turned around, walking to the back of the room again. “Oh well, I guess we aren’t done after all.”

  Fuck.

  When Andreas came back, he was holding a pair of scissors. Thankfully, all the horrible ideas about their purpose that her mind came up with were quickly dashed, as he simply used them to cut through her shirt and bra, before pulling the pieces apart to expose her bare torso.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” she whispered, almost scared to know. Surely he wouldn’t…

  “Rest assured, I have absolutely no interest in your body, Madeline. There’s just something I want to try, and… well, your nipples are the best testing ground.” He shivered, shaking his hands as if they were wet. “Ugh. I hate that word.”

  That just left her with more questions, and a horrible sense of dread filling her gut.

  Andreas brought the car battery over, setting it down in front of her. He attached jumper cables to each of the nodes and ccked the ends together. A shower of sparks sprayed forth. Madeline swallowed nervously.

  “Usually, the voltage of a car battery isn’t strong enough to get through our skin’s natural resistance, and under ordinary circumstances, something like this wouldn’t do anything but annoy you. However, should your skin be sufficiently wet, like yours is, it can deliver quite a nasty shock. Would you like to see for yourself, or are you going to finish telling the truth?”

  Don’t break. Don’t break. Don’t break. Don’t break. Don’t break.

  “Just do what you have to do,” she whispered hoarsely.

  Andreas nodded. “Very well.”

  The pressure of the first cmp attaching alone was enough to have her writhing in her seat. Its sting was a pain she’d experienced before, albeit in a much more pleasant context. Having that memory juxtaposed to this… situation, was extremely uncomfortable. She felt dirty.

  But it was nothing compared to the experience of the second cmp making contact.

  Madeline’s entire body locked up, her back arching, her jaw clenching until it felt like her remaining teeth were about to crack. Fire sshed through every muscle, peaking in a horrible burning at her nipples. It was all-consuming, overwhelming. She could think about nothing but the feeling of her body being charred from the inside out and ripping itself apart all at the same time.

  Andreas removed one of the cmps after a few short seconds, and Maddie’s whole body defted. Something warm and wet poured out from between her legs, spreading over her inner thighs. She just pissed herself. That… wasn’t too surprising. She didn’t have it in her to be embarrassed about it.

  At least she could take some satisfaction in knowing she peed all over Andreas’ chair. If there was any satisfaction to be gained from that, anyway.

  “The truth, Madeline. All of it, this time.”

  That was it. She was done. There was nothing left in her. All she wanted was to curl up and go to sleep. So what if she gave him details about the cabin? As if he’d actually be able to track them down by picking her dumbass brain. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

  “It’s, um… It’s a little cabin in the woods,” she admitted in a whisper, refusing to look at him.

  “Oh? What’s around you?”

  “Trees, I guess. I haven’t looked around that much.”

  “What kind of trees?”

  She frowned. “I don’t fucking know. The green ones with the brown trunks.”

  Andreas hummed. “That’s not very helpful. What’s the climate like?”

  Maddie did her best to shrug. “Dunno. A little colder than Tombguard, I think. Hard to say.”

  “Is that really all you can give me?”

  “It’s a little fucking cabin in the woods, man. There’s not exactly a lot around.”

  He sighed, rubbing his eyes. “What was the point of all of this fighting when the only information you have is useless?”

  “I have more information,” she muttered.

  He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “You have a tiny dick.”

  He pulled the remaining cmp from her nipple without loosening it, effectively shredding her already burnt skin. She shrieked, smming her foot against the ground with her good leg.

  “Charming as always, Madeline. We’re finished here.”

  Hope blossomed in her chest as the pain subsided and her heart slowed again. “D-does… does that mean I can go home?”

  “Of course,” he said, coming back from his tools with a medicine cup in his hand. It was full of unfamiliar pills. “Just take these, and I’ll let you go.”

  She eyed them warily. “What are they?”

  “You don’t need to know that.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m not taking anything unless I know what it is.”

  “The thing is, Madeline, what I’m really offering you here is a choice. You can either take these pills and I can leave you on the side of the road where I found you, or I can slit your throat, watch you bleed out right in that chair, and feed your remains to my next batch of clones. Which will it be? There is no third option.”

  The stark brutality of that threat was matched only with the horrific knowledge that Jordyn may very well have eaten human flesh during her training and been completely unaware of it. Madeline swallowed, her mouth filling with saliva at the onset of nausea.

  “I… I’ll take the pills.”

  Andreas smiled. “Good girl.”

  He held the medicine cup up to her lips and emptied its contents into her mouth. Some water from the canister he used to drown her earlier helped wash it down.

  “There you go. Isn’t it so much nicer to do as you’re told?”

  She grit her teeth, ignoring his patronizing goading. “Are you gonna let me go now?”

  He pulled out a pocket watch and checked the time. “In a minute.”

  Dread washed over her. “...What did you just give me?” she asked, afraid to know the answer.

  “A lethal dose of sleeping pills. It should start having an effect soon, don’t worry.”

  Her heart kicked into full gear, pounding so hard in her chest that she could feel it throughout her entire body. “Wh… what? Why?”

  “You didn’t think I could actually let you go after this, did you? You know far too much.”

  She clenched her good fist, rage burning in her gut. “You won’t get away with this, you bastard. They’ll… they’ll find my body! They’ll know you did it!”

  “I assure you I will get away with it, actually,” he said matter-of-factly, approaching her. “Do you really think this will look like anything other than a suicide? It’s a well-known fact that you’re deeply depressed. I mean, just look at your arm.”

  He pulled up her sleeve, revealing the dozens of neatly spaced lines carved on her skin, usually hidden by her clothing. Her cheeks burned with shame. “Th-that’s not… I haven’t done that for a long time.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’ll still just look like Madeline Garcia-Holmes finally had enough of life without her wife and overdosed on sleeping pills. That’s all any newspaper will ever report.”

  “Wh-what about my injuries?!” she demanded, as if proving him wrong would change her fate; the fate she already sealed by swallowing those pills. Or maybe she sealed it the moment she agreed to kiss Jordyn. It was hard to say. It probably didn’t matter now.

  “You’re drunk. Maybe you got into a brawl with some other lowlife. Regardless, no one’s going to look into it very hard. I’ll make sure of that.”

  The hopelessness of her situation finally set in, sinking to the bottom of Maddie’s stomach like a stone. She looked down at the floor, already beginning to feel the effects of the pills. There was so much left for her to do. She still hadn’t started a band. She hadn’t made a proper life for herself. She couldn’t apologise to Jordyn and Vivienne and Ashley for being such a constant goddamn burden. It was too soon.

  “Don’t be sad. Isn’t this what you’ve been waiting for? Just think of it; you’ll finally get to see Rosalyn again. Won’t that be nice?”

  Oh. Oh yeah. Rosie. She’d be waiting, wouldn’t she? Finally, after all this time, they could be reunited.

  Fuck, that sounded good. Darkness pooled at the edge of her vision. Her heart rate sped up as if it knew something was wrong, but it was a futile effort.

  “That’s right, Madeline. Just go to sleep. Just let all your pain drift away. Be at peace.”

  Madeline closed her eyes, went to sleep, and died.

  —

  “The van just drove off. Do you have eyes on her?”

  “Yeah, he dumped her in the alley. She’s not moving. What should I do?”

  Maggie took a breath. There was still time. There had to be. She hung up the phone and leapt from the building, flying into the cold night sky.

  —

  Surprisingly, when Madeline woke up, it was not in whatever form the afterlife took. She was in far too much pain for that. The smell of cooking bacon and the sound of saturday morning cartoons assaulted her senses. Childhood nostalgia washed over her like a warm bnket.

  She opened her eyes and found herself lying on a couch. Based on the view out the window in front of her, she appeared to be in some sort of apartment. If she looked down retive to the angle she was at, she could see the TV, and an armchair. In it was a girl who looked like Rosie, only she was young; maybe thirteen or fourteen. She was watching the cartoons with an intense, captivated expression. Huh?

  Maddie let out an involuntary grunt as she tried to sit up through the pain. The girl looked at her, and her eyes widened.

  “She’s awake!” she called to someone out of sight. She didn’t have an accent.

  “Oh thank fuck,” someone replied. They sounded uncannily simir to Jordyn. Then again, everything about Jordyn was ‘uncannily simir.’

  A person came around into her field of view. All Madeline could see was a pair of trousers, and the bottom end of a pair of wings.

  “Here, lemme help you up.”

  Strong hands supported Madeline until she could finally reach the promised nd of up-rightedness. It was a massive downgrade from being horizontal. Her head throbbed like someone was doing construction work inside her skull. She groaned, rubbing her temple with her good hand.

  Surprisingly, most of her memories of st night seemed to be intact, so she knew better than to use the hand with the broken fingers. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing remained to be seen.

  “Water?” a new person offered – a man this time – holding out the gss from the edge of her peripheral vision. She reached out and took it, gratefully swallowing it down.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled hoarsely. Her throat hurt. Probably from all the screaming.

  Finally, she summoned the courage to look up, confirming what she’d already begun to suspect as her mind put together clues. Another clone of Rosie. The bck-winged one Jordyn had mentioned when her identity was first revealed.

  “Morning,” the clone said. “You’ve had a hell of a night, huh?”

  Without Jordyn’s scar, and with the long hair, it was much harder to remind herself that this wasn’t Rosie. Thankfully, the ck of accent helped just a little. Not to mention the huge wings.

  “Um, y-yeah.”

  “The name’s Maggie. I’m number five. That’s Hex. Number six, if you couldn’t figure it out from the name.”

  The girl on the armchair waved, smiling softly. Maddie awkwardly waved back. “Um, why is she…?”

  “A kid?” Maggie crified. “It’s a long story.” She sat down next to Madeline. “That’s Diego.”

  Maddie looked where she was pointing, at the man with the tan skin and buzzed hair who’d handed her the water. “I… I see.”

  “Hope you’re hungry,” he said. “I’ve got breakfast on the stove right now. You should get some food in your belly before we go to the hospital.”

  Hospital. That reminded her. She turned back to Maggie. “What happened? How did I get here? I thought… I thought I was dead.”

  “It was a close thing,” Maggie replied. “We found you in the alley. Managed to get you to throw up most of the pills. Brought you back here, cleaned you up and got you dressed, then id you down to sleep and hoped for the best.

  Madeline frowned. “But… how’d you know? Where I was, a-and… about the pills?”

  “I bumped into you before, remember? Pnted a listening device under the hem of your shirt when we made contact, so that I could keep track of… proceedings, if you wanna call it that. From there, I followed outside the van and waited.”

  It took Madeline a second to register what she’d said. “Wait, but… If you knew it was gonna happen… Why didn’t you stop it? Wh-why… why would you let him… do that?”

  Maggie winced. “Look, I’m really sorry about that. It’s just, I’ve gotta look out for myself and Hex. It was random chance that I happened to be monitoring de Vygon’s movements when they came after you. By the time I realised, they’d already locked on to you. The most I could do without risking exposing myself was bump into you while we were in a blindspot, and do damage control after. For what it’s worth, I am really, truly sorry that happened to you. Andreas is a bastard.”

  That made enough sense that Maddie couldn’t fault her for it. She sighed. “I guess I should just be grateful that you saved me. So… what happens now?”

  “You need to go to a hospital, Madeline,” Diego said. “We only had the equipment for basic first-aid here. I’m gonna take you there once breakfast is done, and after that…” He looked at Maggie expectantly.

  Maggie nodded. “Well, I think it’s about time Hex and I introduced ourselves to the Union properly. Don’t you?”

  bamber_344

  real talk i have been waiting AGES to write this. it has existed in almost this exact form for months and months, since madeline was introduced, pretty much

  also, excuse the inaccuracies with the car battery. I know they don't really do that much. But i took some creative liberties for the sake of the whump <3

  Hope y'all enjoyed! lemme know what you thought! cya next time :)