"She's glitching. She's glitching," Topher exclaimed, his tone laced with a bit of worry. He should have been more worried, but Echo was looking for Ms. DeWitt, not him.
"Thank you, I'm aware of that," Adelle said primly, squinting at the monitor screens.
"Aren't you gonna do something?" Topher asked.
Adelle looked at him with incredulity, and the only reason she didn't slap him was because Echo was getting violent downstairs and she had to do something. It was her fault this was happening, somehow it had to be her fault. She didn't know how, but she knew she'd take the heat if word got out to the higher-ups. "Bloody fucking hell," she cursed under her breath, leaving Topher's 'office' and stalking quickly down the stairs. "Echo, I'm here, I'm here," she announced exasperatedly. "Let him go. There's no need to draw him into this, he's as clueless as you were ten minutes ago."
Echo threw Victor aside and turned on Adelle, eyes blazing with a quiet fury. "My name is not Echo," she said through clenched teeth. "And you know that, don't you Ms. DeWitt? In fact you know everything that goes on here, don't you Ms. DeWitt? Ms. Fucking High and Mighty, Queen of All That Moves and Breathes, DeWitt?"
Adelle actually liked that description of herself, but the smile died on her lips when Echo lunged forward and grabbed her by the collar in a deceptively strong grip. "There's no need to get violent," she said, trying to sound in control. She knew Echo was physically stronger than her, and could snap her neck in a heartbeat if she so chose. She didn't think the active would do something like that, but then again, this wasn't really the active she was dealing with now. It was the girl between the lie and the truth. Remembering her past, struggling to make sense of it, but knowing she wasn't who they said she was. Knowing she was more than an echo.
"Shut up," Echo said with a bitter laugh. "Just because you don't hold us down doesn't mean what you do here isn't violent."
And they were moving, Adelle having to walk much more quickly than normal to keep up and prevent herself being choked by the grip on her collar. Now she'd have to have the blouse dry-cleaned. This entire situation was absurd. "Let me go, Echo, I don't know what you think you're going to do with me. Security will be here shortly and you'll be contained."
"Guess I'd better be quick, then," Echo snarked back, reaching their destination and forcing Adelle into a vacant bedroom, giving her a violent shove onto the bed against the wall farthest from the door.
"What are you going to do?" Adelle asked, hating more than anything that she had no idea what Echo was capable of. What was running through her head?
"For a start, I'm going to find out what it takes to make you scream," Echo said darkly, closing and locking the door. It must be a staff bedroom, if it had a lock. Just to be safe, she dragged a heavy oak dresser in front of the door... to give her a few extra minutes if nothing else.
"What are you doing with the bureau--" Adelle started to ask, but Echo's intent became clear before she finished the question, and she stopped, closing her mouth and just staring.
Echo spun to face her captor-turned-captive, adrenaline coursing through her veins. "I remember you," she said desperately. "I remember Rossum."
Adelle's eyes went wide. "I don't work at the laboratory," she said quickly. She knew what Echo had been doing the night her boyfriend was killed, and she didn't want the backlash that would come with it if the active thought she had taken part in animal experimentation.
"But you work here," Echo said in frustration. "I don't know what you did to me, but you fucked with my brain and I can only remember parts of myself! This is a laboratory!" she yelled, desperation giving way to anger once again. "What did you do to me? To them? To all of them?! Tell me right now or I will fucking kill you, I swear..."
Adelle's pulse picked up speed, and she had to make the better of two bad choices here. Say nothing and risk her life, or confess and risk her career. Either way would not end well, she was certain of that. But Echo deserved the truth, even if she would only know it for a few minutes before her mind was wiped again. And if she were honest with herself, she really didn't want to risk death right now. "We... I... wiped your memory. You had nothing left. I gave you a fresh start. A chance to help people."
Images flashed through Echo's mind at lightning speed, one after another after another, and she shook her head to clear it. "Rebecca. As Rebecca, how exactly was I helping people? You whored me out to the highest bidder!"
Adelle scooted backwards on the bed as Echo advanced. "What about Esther? You saved at least a dozen lives from a fanatical zealot!" she said, her tone gaining an edge she didn't like to hear in herself. She was not prepared for the swift punishment she received in the form of a powerful slap across her face, forcing her head to the side and the wind from her lungs. She gasped, bringing a hand to her throbbing cheek, the unwelcome sting of tears in her eyes as she looked back at Echo. "Echo, please," she said, her voice shaking. Where was security?
"My name is not Echo! What is it?!"
Another hard slap, and she could feel her face burning with shame. "Caroline," she whispered.
Another round of images flashed across Echo's mind when she heard that name. Her eyes widened and she grabbed Ms. DeWitt by the hair, staring into her teary eyes as she continued to berate her. "You're a murderer," she hissed. "And those animals... you knew what was going on and you did nothing! That makes you as bad as Rossum whether you worked in the lab or not! How do you live with yourself, huh? Knowing you could've saved the poor innocent little creatures and you chose not to? What did they ever do to you, Ms. DeWitt, to warrant your sentence of torture and death?!"
Adelle was shocked, stunned into absolute silence. No one had ever dared speak to her in such a manner, and as foreign as the words were to her ears, somehow they rang true. She cursed the tears that began to slip down her cheeks, and reached up to wipe them away, but her hand was slammed into the headboard of the bed instead, hard enough to break her fingers, though she didn't think any had broken. "Stop!" she pled with the angry young woman. She wanted to apologize, but her pride wouldn't let her.
Echo-- NO, she was Caroline now. Caroline was so furious that she didn't know what to do. She remembered so many things, but she still didn't have the whole puzzle sorted out, and she wanted that. She had most of the pieces, though, which was better than the zero she'd started off with. And the pieces she did have told her that she wanted this woman in front of her to be helpless, just like the people she'd been controlling. "You don't control me anymore," she said quietly, letting go of Adelle's hair. "Now it's my turn. Until security manages to break in here, you're mine. And your first taste of helplessness will come with a real pain in the ass."
--
Topher was watching the scene play out on screen. He had somehow failed to alert security to the situation. Ahem.
--
Caroline continued as her hands went to Adelle's belt, undoing the buckle and sliding it from its loops. "Turn on your stomach," she ordered.
Adelle just blinked and stared. She couldn't be serious, could she? This was so highly improbable that it bordered on impossible. And yet, it was happening. And she had no way out. The upside was that Echo didn't seem to want to kill her. The downside was that her pride was about to be obliterated completely. She thought about refusing, and trying to fight back, but she knew she'd lose, and instead of viewing the situation as an active gone crazy, she decided to view it as a chance for absolution. She wasn't a highly religious woman, but she knew she had done wrong by many people, and some of the things she'd done were irreversible and irreparable. Some she felt very badly for. She hated admitting it even to herself, but there were things she'd done that still haunted her to this day and kept her awake into the night on occasion. So she grudgingly rolled over onto her stomach and hid her face in her hands, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
Caroline was surprised at the compliance. She thought she knew something about this cold-hearted bitch, and submission just did not compute. She wasn't going to complain, however, and she started the satisfying task of whipping Adelle's ass. The leather was high quality, of course - the Queen of All That Moves and Breathes wouldn't wear imitation leather - and it made a loud popping sound as it landed on the seat of her slacks.
Adelle jumped, not really having expected to be hit that hard, and not ready for the sound that echoed around the room when the belt impacted her pants. The belt landed again, and she gasped, moving her hands from her face so she could grip the bedsheets in her fists. It actually hurt a great deal.
"Selfish, greedy bitch," Caroline snarled as she wielded the belt with righteous fury, making Ms. DeWitt squirm beneath the assault and start breathing harder. "You sit in your palace and collect handfuls of money for stealing people's lives... overlooking torture and experimentation on helpless beings just because it means you can afford another designer suit or fancy car..."
"Stop," Adelle ordered, though she knew she wasn't in control of the situation. Echo's words were getting to her more than the physical pain, though it was considerable by this point, and she needed her to stop. "I didn't torture anyone," she exhaled sharply.
"Oh no? Then why couldn't I even remember my fucking name?!" Caroline shouted, uncurling the belt across Ms. DeWitt's thighs and getting a grim sense of satisfaction at the whimper she received in return. "Oh, I'm sorry, did that hurt? What's the matter, you don't like not being able to make your own choices about what happens to you?"
Again Echo landed a strike to her thighs, and again, and she let out another whimper, clutching the sheets tighter and burying her face in them to muffle the sounds coming from her traitorous mouth. The worst part was that she knew deep down that she deserved to be punished... and Echo was damn good at making her feel repentant. If she wasn't careful she was going to start apologizing.
Caroline's anger wasn't fading, and that was starting to scare her. What did she want from Ms. DeWitt that she wasn't getting? An apology? The whole truth? Her life back? She wasn't even sure anymore. And where was security? They should've come in and stopped her by now. Wiped her memory again so she could forget about this, forget about the responsibility of knowing what she didn't know, relieve her of the duty to make an informed choice. What would she do if she got her life back now? Nothing would be the same... everything was tainted now.
The more blows that fell across her backside and thighs, the closer Adelle was to losing her resolve. She was holding onto herself by a very thin thread, and Echo was stretching it to its limits.
After a dozen or so more stripes of the belt, Caroline realized that Ms. DeWitt was crying. And saying something.
"Please, Caroline, I'm so genuinely sorry," the older woman said through her tears.
Caroline stopped. Ms. DeWitt had called her 'Caroline'. She wasn't sure why that meant so much to her, but for some reason it did. Her own tears streamed down her face and she set the belt on the floor, sinking to sit on the bed with her head in her hands. "Sorry because you took so many lives or sorry because I spanked you?" she asked bitterly.
"I really don't know right now, I'm just sorry," Adelle said, feeling completely out of control. She hated feeling so much at once, it became hard to manage and even harder to suppress. She couldn't feel things like this if she intended to keep her job. And at this point, losing her job meant a memory wipe for herself, or possibly worse. She was stuck between a rock of survival and a moral hard place. "What do you want from me now?"
"I really don't know right now, I'm just angry," Caroline echoed Ms. DeWitt's words almost exactly.
They both stayed silent for a long time, both having realized by this point that they weren't going to be interrupted. Finally Adelle spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. "You're wrong, you know. About the animals."
Caroline snapped her head to the side. "What?"
"The first I knew about it was the night you broke into Rossum."
"What? Why didn't you tell me that before?"
Adelle shrugged a little, the best she could while laying on her stomach. "I suppose I figured I deserved what I was getting either way." When Caroline said nothing, she searched for something else to say. The silence was uncomfortable. "My ass really hurts."
Caroline glanced at Ms. DeWitt's backside and ran her hands over her face with a frustrated sigh. "You're bleeding a little. The belt must have broken the skin."
"I'm not surprised. You certainly weren't pulling any punches, now, were you?"
"I'll go get some fucking antiseptic and gauze. If you're not here when I get back, I'll assume you went to security, and I'll wait here for them to find me."
"I'll be here," Adelle said, not a hundred percent sure why she wasn't going to run and tattle, but a hundred percent sure that she wasn't.
Caroline pushed the desk out of the way and unlocked the door, throwing one last glance over her shoulder before she left the room, heading for one of the bathrooms. Victor and Sierra steered clear when they saw her coming, not knowing whether their friend would attack them again. She mumbled an apology and slipped into the bathroom, gathering some gauze, tape, cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide, and returning to the room in which she'd left Ms. DeWitt. To her surprise, the older woman was in exactly the same position, and there were no agents in the room. "I don't know why the hell you didn't get security," she said as she stepped in and closed the door, locking it again.
"I told you I wouldn't," Adelle said mildly.
"As if you haven't lied to me before," Caroline frowned, sitting on the bed beside Ms. DeWitt. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Do you expect me to do this with your pants on?"
"No, I expect you to take them down. They're undone for you already."
Caroline didn't respond to that, she just set the supplies down and took hold of Ms. DeWitt's slacks and underwear, carefully pulling them down until the small break in her skin was revealed. She noted the hiss that escaped from beneath her as the fabric moved against sensitive skin, but there was nothing she could do to make it more comfortable. And besides, they both agreed that Ms. DeWitt had deserved what she got.
"How bad is it?" Adelle asked, turning her head in a half-assed attempt to see the damage. Her attention was pulled to Ech-- Caroline's face though, and she was struck by how intense she looked when she was concentrating.
"The cut? Or your ass in general?" Caroline asked, pouring some peroxide onto a cotton ball.
"Both, I suppose," Adelle replied, laying her head back down.
"The cut is barely there. Your ass in general might bruise. Right now it's striped different shades of red."
"Well isn't that just lovely, thank you," Adelle said in that sarcastic way of hers that seemed a little less sarcastic because she was british.
Caroline ignored her and swiped the cotton ball across the thin cut on her left cheek, then once more to make sure the peroxide permeated the entire welt.
"Bloody Christ, that stings!" Adelle shouted, nearly bolting upright, only stopped by Caroline's hand on her back. She gritted her teeth and lowered herself back to the bed, cursing a blue streak.
"Hydrogen peroxide isn't supposed to sting," Caroline informed her, though it wasn't of any help whatsoever. She ripped a piece of tape from the roll, then tore it in half, taping a gauze square across the cut securely.
Both women had the exact same thought after that: what do we do now?
TBC
