Cell 10, Brenna and Sarah
((super-duper long, 1,769 words, hence the cut tag; also, uh, really bad things happen))
Brenna heard sobbing before she was fully conscious, a soft, pitiful sound coming from somewhere near her middle. Her head ached something awful, pounding hard with the beat of her heart that was suddenly going faster as she realized something wasn't right; memory was slower to return and when she finally opened her eyes she saw the reality of the situation.
A cell. Maybe eight by eight, stark white, sealed off by a door that was half bars. Two cots on either side (including the one she was on) with a toilet and sink between them against the wall. The hallway she could see was the same cold white lack of color and she couldn't see anyone in it.
“What...?” she asked, licking her lips when she found them and her mouth cotton-dry. There was a squeak and someone tightened around her middle. She looked down to find Sarah holding onto her, the girl's nose and eyes red from crying. A collar that was a little too big hung around the girl's neck, made of some mix of metal and plastic with one slowly blinking red light on it. She reached up and found one around her neck, too; she reached for her TK and found it gone, completely shut off, and she realized it was an inhibitor collar.
“Brenna! I didn't think you were gonna wake up, Brenna.” She hugged her tight again.
“It's okay, sweetie.” Brenna stroked her pink hair. The girl's bone protrusions, her mutation, weren't visible (not that they ever really were, she'd learned to pull them back into her body but sometimes gave herself horns or something silly), making her look younger and a little strange. She'd been born with them and only recently learned to control them. “Have you seen anyone else? Not just our people, but anyone?”
Sarah shook her head quickly. “No, no one, not since I woke up. It's been three hours since then,” she said, pointing to her Daffy Duck watch. The cartoon character looked absurdly cheerful.
Brenna stroked her hair a moment before getting up and going to the bars, touching them before she'd thought of the fact they might be electrically charged, but they were inert. Cold, smooth, but otherwise not harmful insofar as touching them went. They were inherently harmful just for keeping them locked in.
“Hello?” she shouted. “Is anyone out there?” At the very least maybe one of her friends was awake and they'd be able to hear each other, but either everyone was out or their cell was isolated and they couldn't be heard anyway, because no one responded.
“I'm scared.” Sarah stood beside her, slipping her hand into Brenna's. “I'm scared they're going to do things to us like what happened to Mr. Logan.”
Brenna stared down at the girl, shock plain on her face. First, she didn't know that any of the kids knew anything about what had happened to the headmaster in the past, and second because the thought hadn't even occurred to her that this might be a facility like that, one that would take mutants and experiment on them. “Everything will be okay,” she lied. She put her arm around Sarah and pulled her close. “Either we'll find a way out of here or Logan will round up the cavalry and come get us.” Dear goddess please let that be true.
* * *
Footsteps were coming down the hallway, strangely muffled against the floor until she saw the guards and their rubber-soled boots. They were dressed in black, slightly less-armored and without helmets for being secure in their facility, but she recognized them, from the dark alley she'd escaped and from the last thing she'd seen before what they'd drugged her with had taken affect.
There were two of them, one easily the size of Logan and the other only slightly smaller, but to a small woman they might as well have been giants for all the good it would do her. Her head turned to look at Sarah, fitfully asleep on one of the cots. The girl woke as soon as she heard the noise of the door opening and Brenna turned back to find one of the guards pointing a gun at her. “You're coming with us,” the taller one said. “Don't put up a fight and we won't hurt you.”
“Well, we won't hurt you,” the shorter of the two said, grinning. “The testing might.”
“Testing?” Brenna's stomach twisted, going back to what Sarah had asked her. Even so she was much more clear-headed now and her mind started working. “Both of us?”
“Just you, for now.” The one not pointing his gun took her by the arm. “Her, later. Let's go.”
“Brenna!”
“It'll be okay, Sarah.” More lying, totally not her style but what the hell else was she going to do?
She let the guards lead her out, pulling her arm out of his hand. “Don't touch me.” As they entered the hallway she saw that the cell was indeed isolated inside a short hall.
The shorter snickered, the one who seemed to find everything amusing. “Better get used to it, cutie,” Chuckles said. “With that collar you can't hurt us.” She felt him press his gun into her back. “Anything we wanna do, we'll do, so just be quiet and we'll get on with it.”
The implication was obvious and she shuddered, stumbling a little when Stoic (the serious one of the two guards) came to a stop in front of her and she bumped into him. He swiped a card attached to the front of his vest through a reader and punched in six digit code (6 2 8 9 6 4, she memorized it by repeating it in her head in case it would come in handy). The door clicked and he opened it, stepping through and holding it for Brenna and Chuckles, who was still pressing the gun against her. She obeyed and would continue to do so until either she found a way to fight or she couldn't obey any longer.
They brought her to a room perhaps double the size of her cell wherein a man in a white labcoat sat behind a metal table, a small device sitting in front of him along with papers and pencils, a clipboard in his hands. “Ah, this is designation #2293??” he asked. He was small and harmless looking, medium brown hair receding slightly, medium brown eyes alert behind glasses.
“2293,” Stoic confirmed. He pushed her further into the room and he and Chuckles took up posts one on either side of the door.
The labcoated man reached for the device in front of him. “I will be deactivating your collar. Please be aware that I will reactivate it at the first sign of rebellion, and it is capable of delivering an electric shock that will render you insensible. The gentlemen at the door will also not hesitate to tranquilize you.”
“Why am I here?” she asked. “What is this place? Why did you take us?”
Labcoat ignored her questions and pressed a button on the device. Instantly she felt the buzz of her TK and telepathy and it was like the first time they had manifested, making her skin crawl and the hair on the back of her neck stand up, voices suddenly whispering loudly enough she expected their owners to be in the room. She clamped down on the telepathy and realized she heard nothing from Labcoat or the two thugs, they must have been shielded somehow. Her TK, however, crackled to life in her hands and she raised them, not sure if it was in a threatening gesture or just because she wanted to see her power. She heard the the sound of the weapons behind her powering up and she lowered her hands again, letting the TK die.
“Very good. Now, tell me, what exactly are your powers?” Labcoat said it in such a way that it was like being at a job interview, matter-of-fact and dispassionate, clearly not because he was interested but because it was his job.
She did as she was asked, the whole time hating herself for it, but she couldn't help thinking that if she weren't too cooperate they'd hurt Sarah or one of the others, and she didn't see much harm in telling them what her powers were. Labcoat wrote them down on the clipboard diligently, continuing to ask clipped questions until finally it seemed they were finished. Her collar was reactivated.
The two guards led her back into the hallway but not to the cell with Sarah. Instead they ushered her into an unoccupied cell that was identical and Stoic shoved her inside before he shut her in with Chuckles.
“Oh fuck no,” she said, shaking her head and taking a step back that bumped her back into one of the cots. She teetered a moment before righting herself. “Please, don't.”
He grinned at her, unhooking his weapon and placing it on the other cot before turning back to her. “Could always do it to the girl in your cell, y'know. Would hurt her a hell of a lot more, though, she's tinier than you.” He advanced on her and for the first time she saw that his grin didn't reach his eyes, there was nothing in them. “So cooperate, sweetheart. I don't care what you are or aren't, I don't care what you could do to me without that collar. You're going to turn around and bend over that bed and you're not going to fight me, because if you don't do what I'm telling you to, I won't hurt you. I'll hurt her, and every other girl we took from your group. Are we clear? Your cooperation buys them freedom, at least from me.”
When she was led back to her old cell she kept her eyes on the floor, didn't protest when Chuckles slapped her on the ass on the way back out. Inside she was raging but it didn't seem like it would do her any good to let that out, not yet at least, not with Sarah coming over and hugging her. She pulled the little girl onto the cot with her and curled up, and despite her best efforts she shook with the pain and the anger and the helplessness.