So, how exactly do we set this up?" The voice floated down and she clenched her hands into fists, then carefully unclenched them. A force smacked her hand, not dangerously but hard enough to smart. "Cooperate." said a second voice, presumably the one that smacked her. She nodded slowly, trying to show nonthreatening agreement. Still she received another smack, this one on the back of her head, and the second voice insisted she didin't move.
"Honestly," repeated the first voice, "she's still so young, don't hit her." thinking, she realized she knew that voice. It was the blond man who'd captured her. She felt her cheeks flush slightly, but she suppressed the embarrassment."I'm more than enough to take you," she snapped, "I'm eleven and you're what thirty something? And yet you need to keep me tied to a chair to subdue me?"
The first voice didn't answer, but the sight that came from the same direction sounded somewhat hurt, as if the speaker thought he'd been being nice. Nice enough to argue against her being smacked. Not nice enough to stop the smacks, or to untie her. Not nice enough to let her go home. She inhaled and exhale deeply, realizing she was about to start crying. She suppressed this feeling too. She gathered control of all her emotion and hauled them inside her, allowing cool rationality to prevail. No sorrow, no anger. Just indifference. "Where is Laerke?" she asked calmly. Or she tried to; her voice cracked slightly on the name.
The second voice interrupted, "You'll take care of this one. I'll go talk to the other." Eden tensed, the abusive voice was going to see Laerke? She automatically threw up a shield, ready to protect her friend at whatever cost. This sent a jolt of pain through her body; she'd forgotten the limitations they'd placed on her. She made no move to show she'd felt anything, her face had set to one blank expression, and there it would stay until the world was better again. The first voice spoke apologetically, "We are going to let you join here, where we can monitor you properly. If we can't get your Alice under control, then the higher ups will eliminate you. Watch yourself..." he paused, and she could hear the puzzlement in that.
"I don't have a name." she replied. Laerke called her X. Just the letter, but that was hardly a name. She didn't really want them to all her that anyway. It would seem like a poison if they said it.
The source of the voice paused. He was actually a nice person, and he felt very bad for the girl tied up in front of him, and felt bad that he couldn't help her. Maybe a name was the first nice thing anyone would give her. What wa a good name? He smiled, "then perhaps I can help. Eden Saiai." Eden blinked. "Eden like the garden? I'm not religious. And what's Saiai?"
"Eden like paradise. Saiai means..." he faded off for a moment the continued resolutely. "beloved."