Author's Note: Well guys, here it goes. Now some of you have sent me messages about me breaking my promise to update November 1st. But when I said November 1st, I mean that as the date when I would start writing again. Haha Remy and I needed some space before we began the next chapter of her life. So here it is: First chapter of the sequel to "No Risk, No Reward." It's a bit short, but only because I needed to get things going once more. I am super excited and I hope you guys will continue to enjoy your reading experience!
Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice.
Chapter One: Breathe
Her eyes opened, air filled her lungs, and her heart beat wildly in her chest.
Remy was alive.
Frantically, she sucked in air, feeling her heart pump the blood to her body extremely quickly. She turned her head, hoping that she was simply waking up from a bad dream.
Alas, this was not the case. She was still strapped to a freezing cold medical table, wires protruding from her body. Dr. Van der Rhys and his goon were still there.
"Try to relax," the doctor was saying to her as Remy greedily gasped for air. The beeping of her heart monitor seemed to be screeching in her ears.
"What did you do to me?" she demanded, noting that the doctor's voice seemed abnormally loud and the room just a little bit too clear.
"Mr. Jones would you mind giving us a moment?" Jones nodded and turned to walk away before vanishing into the shadows.
Dr. Van der Rhys turned and smiled at her. "You were clinically dead for two minutes." He held up a syringe. "Then, I brought you back with this."
Remy closed her eyes, struggling to calm her rapidly racing heart. She felt out of sorts somehow, but not in a bad way.
Her vision seemed noticeably clearer—she could see the small gray hairs protruding from Dr. Van der Rhys' nose. She could—were those red cotton fibers on his pants?—see everything.
The smells of the lab chemicals were even more nauseating than usual. The uncapped sharpie sitting on the edge of the desk was filtering through her nose and making her dizzy.
Every little sound seemed to grate on her ears. The heart monitor, Dr. Van der Rhys' steady breathing, the sound of her own teeth clicking together.
And the way she felt. The table felt freezing and the metal felt different somehow underneath her bare hands. It felt alive.
"My vision—I can see—and my hands—" Remy sputtered.
"Ah yes," he said, pacing around to the other side of the table. "In order for my 'miracle serum' to work, you're heart needed to stop completely. Your vision should be amplified, as well as all of your senses. Your heart and lung were made stronger than the average human."
Remy shook her head quickly. "That's impossible."
"Anything is possible with science," he said. "I killed you and brought you back to life, Remy. And in the span of two minutes I gave your body a renewed energy and strength. Don't deny it. I can see it in your eyes that you know I'm right."
Remy closed her eyes again. She knew he was right. She felt stronger, fitter, better. She could feel every single drop of blood racing through her veins and hear every beat of her heart.
"Exhilarating isn't it?" he asked slyly.
"What do you want?" Remy asked, cutting straight to the point.
The doctor chuckled, walking over to turn the heart monitor off. "We haven't even begun the game yet, Remy. I can't show my cards too soon now can I?"
"Do you want me to kill for you? Steal?" Remy snapped at him. "Just tell me what you want so I can tell you to go to hell."
"That won't be necessary," the Doctor assured her. "You see, the compound that's making you feel so wonderfully alive right now? If you don't receive consistent injections of it, you'll die a very slow and painful death."
He turned around and walked over to a computer desk, taking a black briefcase off the top. "There's enough of the serum in this briefcase to last you two weeks as well as a phone that I will use to contact you."
"This doesn't make any sense," Remy growled. "Why don't you just kill me? Ransom me off?"
The doctor snorted. "You're much more valuable to me alive and free. You said yourself that you wanted to play the game, Remy. I'm just giving you the tools to be able to play."
"You're sick," she snapped. "And so help me, I will make certain that you rot in prison for what you did to my mother."
He shook his head. "Your mother was just collateral damage. Try not to take it too personally."
Remy growled, and struggled against the restraints, as the sudden urge to strangle the Dr. Van der Rhys came over her. The doctor sauntered back over to the desk and started typing something.
Click, clack, click. Remy gritted her teeth against the sounds of the keyboard.
"These restraints will release in fifteen minutes," he told her. "Mr. Jones will come back to escort you out of the building where you will find Ms. Lance." He looked down his nose at her. "You would be ill-advised to try and find me."
"I'll kill you," Remy promised. "Screw the Justice League's rules. One day, I will kill you."
Dr. Van der Rhys raised an eyebrow and nodded. "It had been a pleasure Miss Vanderbilt. Enjoy your newfound skillsets until such a time when I will be able to contact you. And do try and remember: I own you now."
On that note, Dr. Van der Rhys disappeared into the shadows, leaving Remy to her own devices.
Remy felt strange as Mr. Jones 'escorted' her back to the ground floor of the Van der Rhys Institute. The sounds of her own heels clicking on the linoleum floors echoed back to her, amplified tenfold. She could see the very beginnings of a breakout forming on the base of Mr. Jones' chin.
The fluorescent lights were practically blinding her and she sighed, feeling the familiar pressure of a migraine building up in her head.
If this doesn't kill me by the end of the day, Remy groaned internally, I will be thoroughly surprised.
As they approached the lobby, she breathed a small sigh of relief when she saw Dinah waiting on one of the leather couches.
"Don't come back," Jones warned, his voice low.
"It was nice meeting you too," Remy rolled her eyes, watching as he stalked back to the elevator.
Click, clack, huff. Click, clack, inhale.
Remy recognized that Dinah was coming towards her and turned. "Could you not walk so loudly?"
The blonde furrowed her eye brows, worry etched into her features. "Remy you've been gone for over an hour, where did they take you?"
Remy swallowed and glanced towards the door. "Let's take a walk."
The park Remy had selected was devoid of any human life forms. She had made sure of it. Walking through the parking lot of the Van der Rhys institute had been pure torture with all the sounds. People chatting loudly and laughing, car engines revving, and the supply truck and it's goddamn beeping.
At the park, there was nothing but the crisp, and infinitely more quiet sounds of nature.
"What's going on?" Dinah asked sharply.
"Everything is clearer, brighter," Remy said, taking a seat on the bench. "Louder too."
Dinah raised an eyebrow. "They drug you while you were down in the labs?"
"Yes and no," Remy snorted. "I died." She glanced away and shook her head before muttering, "I guess that would make me a zombie?"
Dinah scoffed. "Remy that's ridiculous—you look fine to me. Now did you speak to the doctor or not?"
"That's what he told me," Remy shrugged. "He killed me, injected me with some sort of miracle serum, and then brought me back to life."
Dinah did a double take as she sat down beside Remy. "Explain."
Remy turned to look down her nose at Dinah. "It's pretty self-explanatory I think."
Dinah shook her head. "No, explain this miracle serum to me. You said everything was brighter, clearer?"
Remy nodded, breathing out slowly. "I can hear your heart beat right now. I can hear that there's a squirrel rummaging through the bushes across that bridge. I can even see that you're starting to get wrinkles on your forehead from raising your eyebrows too much."
"That's ridiculous!" Dinah snapped.
Remy could only shrug. "It's the truth! You asked me to explain the serum."
"No. I meant about the wrinkles," Dinah said hotly. "I am not getting wrinkles."
Remy smiled bleakly. "Sorry, but I can see it. You also have a cavity forming in your canine tooth."
Dinah put a hand to her mouth, her nails clacking irritatingly against her tooth. "You're senses are amplified?"
"That's what I said," Remy snapped. "Do you want me to repeat it a couple hundred more times?"
Dinah's expression soured. "No, that's—how did he do it?"
"Some sort of chemical compound," Remy huffed. "Said he was giving me the tools to play the game. He did basically admit to killing my mom though. Not like we could prove it though."
Dinah thought about this for a moment before dropping her gaze to the briefcase in Remy's hand. "What's in the briefcase?"
"More of the serum," Remy answered, fingering the lock. "I have to re-inject it periodically. Otherwise—"
Remy broke off before telling Dinah that it would slowly kill her from the inside-out.
"Otherwise what?" Dinah prompted.
"Otherwise…I'll lose my abilities," Remy finished awkwardly. She really didn't want to start playing the death card right now. The last thing she needed was someone to be fussing over her health twenty four-seven.
Remy rolled her eyes heavenward, avoiding eye contact. "This is going to be a pain in my ass, I can tell."
Dinah furrowed her eyebrows. "We'll figure this out. What we should do is get you back to the League as soon as possible. We can run some tests and find out what this serum did to you."
Remy was silent for a moment. "Dr. van der Rhys said he owned me now. Because he'd brought me back to life after having been clinically dead for two minutes."
"Nobody owns you Remy," Dinah assured her. "We'll fix this."
I own you now.
You'll die a very slow and painful death.
You said yourself that you wanted to play the game, Remy.
Remy was unable to look Dinah in the eye and instead settled for getting up from the bench.
"We'd better," she said, glancing steadily at Dinah. "Because I am seriously this close to throwing the biggest shit fit you've ever seen."