Daisy Hughes (cyberblonde) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-07-04 10:32:00 |
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The hallway made Daisy nauseous. She felt a sickening kind of dread that was compounded by her own memories of the place, both as a visitor and then as a prisoner herself. Of course, they were all prisoners here -- this building only served to make it glaringly obvious. As they passed by a row of cells, Daisy wondered if each one of them was designed for one of her friends. There were places for all of them here. She shuddered as the guard unlocked the cell. As the door clicked, Carter sat up. Who was it, he wondered, that he'd be facing on the other side? He knew enough about the IVF's resolutions to know that this wasn't going to be an ordinary 48-hour stay. He hadn't skipped training. He hadn't talked back to Li. What he'd done was subterfuge -- rebellion, plain and simple. What he had in store was experimentation. Or worse. After all, what was this? His third stay in solitary? His fourth? But the door swung open, and it wasn't an ominous face in a white lab coat that greeted him. It was his girlfriend, pale and worried. Two minutes. That's all they'd have; he was practically a fucking expert by this point. "Hey," he muttered, pushing himself off the cot and reaching for her hand. "Hey," Daisy mumbled as she rushed toward him, feeling a wave of relief at the sight of Carter, whole and unharmed. Her hand grabbed his for only a second before she wrapped herself tightly around him. She could feel her own heart beating in her chest. "You alright?" She looked up at him but didn't release her grip. He didn't respond right away, eyes flashing to the camera lodged between ceiling and wall. Solitary, they called it, but not even here was there any fucking privacy. Me, myself, and the entirety of the fucking IVF -- that's how it was, and that's how it always would be, wouldn't it? "I'm fine," Carter muttered at last, reaching to return her embrace. Her hair smelled like vanilla, at odds with the harsh chemical smell of his tiny cell, but he welcomed it; the scent was so very Daisy. "You? It's gonna be fine, Texas." "They haven't -- done anything to you, have they?" She asked, ignoring his question and pressing her cheek against his chest. Daisy felt her face grow hot; she'd barely been there for 20 seconds, yet she was already thinking about how soon she'd have to leave him again. "I swear to God, if they hurt you..." Her voice broke and she tightened her arms around him, as if worried that someone might already try to pull her boyfriend away. "No, they haven't," Carter managed, hands reaching to loosen Daisy's grip, "but Jesus, Daisy, you might, if you don't let go." He grabbed her hands in his own and pulled them into his lap, forcing a halfhearted smile to show he wasn't being serious -- but the joke fell flat in the heavy atmosphere. How much time did they have left now? A minute? "It's gonna be fine," he repeated, hand reaching to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "How many times do I have to tell you, blondie? I've got luck on my side, right?" Carter jerked his head towards the windowless walls. "They may be able to trap me in here, but they can't take that away." His reassurance felt bland and untrue, especially in light of Carter's own confession to Daisy just two nights before: that he'd been lying to her about the odds, that no matter how he tried, luck just didn't seem to be on their side. He was powerful, she knew that, but he wasn't God. Now, even if he was telling the truth, Daisy still assumed that his words were all for show. That they were all just for her sake. How then, was she supposed to answer his false assurances? Daisy didn't know. So she kissed him, a motion that felt both natural and necessary. It had been nearly a year since their first kiss, and the sensation was now so much a part of Daisy's daily life that she couldn't imagine going without it. It didn't matter who was watching, but in an angry decision that she knew she might later regret, she sent a mental command to the video camera, turning it off. She felt its line of power go dark in her mind. And because Carter had nothing left to say, no false reassurances left to give, he kissed her back. His hand reached for her waist, the other for the back of her neck, and while Daisy had been all too aware of the camera's presence, Carter forgot it entirely, until -- "Both of you! Don't move!" The guards that burst into the room were not the bored, half-asleep ones that had left Daisy there. These two had tasers at the ready, stances tense and ready for a fight. Confused, Carter jumped up, positioning himself in between his girlfriend and the IVF men. "The hell is going on?" "Carter, don't," Daisy said the words almost simultaneously, hysteria already rising in her voice as she moved an arm in front of his torso, trying to create some kind of barrier between him and the guards. Another face appeared in the doorway. "Turn the camera back on, Miss Hughes." This guard's voice was deep with an Australian accent; his face showed no indication of empathy. "Okay, it's on!" She replied quickly, mentally cursing her own stupidity. She was pushing back absolute panic. Her fight-or-flight instincts were ratcheting into high gear, and flight wasn't an option. "It's back on, I'm sorry, just -- don't, please don't, please just let us both go, you can't keep him here!" Realization dawned. Daisy. Daisy had turned the camera off. Carter's eyes flashed towards the guards ready to spring into action, and back to his girlfriend clinging tightly to his arm, and he knew what he had to do. It was the only thing he could do, because like hell was he going to let her go to solitary, too. He could handle what he had coming. He could handle their experiments and their needles and their white rooms. But not Daisy. "Leave her the fuck alone," Carter all but growled, eyes glinting ominously. In his mind, he was already pulling at possibilities, sensing for a way out. It was risky, but... Carter's thoughts were interrupted by one of the guards who moved in and reached for Daisy. "Don't make this any harder than it has to be," the man grunted, but Daisy barely heard him. She was hysterical now, pulling on Carter's arm wildly. "No!" She screamed, "Please, don't, I won't go! Just let him out, he didn't do anything wrong, I won't leave him!" The guards exchanged a quick look, years of training kicking in as their eyes met. Even though neither Carter or Daisy had powers that could be considered especially dangerous, conflict with Vols was not an area where IVF soldiers were advised to take many risks. The tasers came out without warning and before either Carter or Daisy could pull back, the devices were shoved in their direction. A click of plastic could be heard, but nothing else happened. The light above flickered off and then on again as Daisy's powers flared. There was a brief moment of silence while the guards and students considered each other, waiting. And then one of the men reached for Daisy's arm and yanked her toward him, his other arm pulling a gun out of its holster. And Carter, who had been swinging his arm back to punch the guard nearest him, froze. 'Powers paired with the wrong mentality - some Vols are too dangerous to live.' There was a long silence, so thick with tension Carter could feel it choking him, making it harder to breathe with every beat that passed. The metal glinted in the guard's hand, close -- too close -- to Daisy's body, grasped tightly in his other arm. "Let her go," he gasped at last, arms dropping weakly to his sides. "We won't fucki -- we're not gonna do anything. Let her go.." With Carter's surrender, Daisy let out a heavy sob. Her panic was laced with dread now. She didn't need probability powers to see how this situation was unfolding. She'd messed up, she'd gotten Carter in even more trouble than he's already been. Even still, even though she could see that they had reached a dead end (they'd always been there, really, they were living in a perpetual dead end) Daisy didn't release her hold on the tasers, keeping them disabled. But her powers wouldn't work on guns. "I'm so sorry," she cried, although the words were directed at Carter, not to the men who were already starting to pull her away. "I didn't mean to -- I love you, I love you so much, I'm sorry..." The door slammed shut with an ominous finality. For a moment Carter stood there, hands still balled into fists at his side, body tensed and ready to fight. But there was no one to hit, no face to strike. There was only the memory of Daisy's face as the door had swung shut, stricken and tear-stained, and the thought that he had done nothing to stop them from taking her away. To where? He didn't know, and he wondered whether he ever would. |