AN:
It's been a while again, I'm sorry. But don't worry more ideas are coming your way!
Hopefully before next year. JK Next chapter is in the works!
Ha.
I own nothing.
Summary: "Those who escape hell, however, never talk about it, and nothing much bothers them after that."-Charles Bukowski She didn't think she would be anything other than ordinary, didn't think they would lock her up for being a conduit. She didn't think Augustine would train her to kill her own kind. But she definitely didn't expect to be dumped in Seattle at the feet of her next target.
Please let me know if you spot any grammatical errors via PM or review. I have no Beta.
Warning for use of language and violence.
"Well now I know. I know a little more how much a simple thing like a snowfall can mean to a person." – Sylvia Plath
Captured II – Five Stages of Grief
…
Three years before Seattle
…
Aster was completely unaware of the events that followed.
The DUP reinforcements scoured the area for Daughtry, but any leads were swept away in the descending storm.
They found her, and other survivors, amongst the wreckage leading up to the tunnel. She lay prostate in the middle of the icy road, unconscious, and devoid of any injuries upon inspection despite what left of her clothing in pieces to suggest otherwise.
The retrieval team quickly collected the debris from the 'battle' for immediate disposal, before staging the tragic accident of a Semi, driven over the bridges rails by an intoxicated driver, taking the lives of several other cars upon impact. The public's thirst of a tragic news headline would be quenched, and the victim's families would bury bottomless coffins without warranting any further investigation of the DUP's involvement.
Case closed.
…
She cracked her eyes open, blinking through the sleep, and found herself sitting upright in a corner of a crowded cargo hold. She was wearing the same bulky cuffs that she wore on the DUP bus, but these kept her hands behind her back and morphed her into a giant magnet stuck to a refrigerator, or in this instance: the wall.
Tensing up she gave a few hard tugs before crumbling in defeat. She halfheartedly opened her eyes and realized she wasn't alone. Her heart sped up as she noticed bodies lining the walls of the compartment siting on benches quite like her own, all restrained in a similar fashion and in varying states of consciousness. She carefully measured the other occupants, some who appeared to be still comatose, and then the very few like her, that were stirred awake or appeared to have been awake for some time. A wave of bile rose in her throat when she did not see the woman or her children from the DUP checkpoint, but she swallowed her survivor's guilt and told herself that it was probably for the best they weren't here.Wherever here was, her memory between the bus crash and everything up till now was a blur. All she could recover were flashes of metal, fire, and pain. To distract herself from her dark thoughts, she analyzed those whom had already awakened.
To her left sat two disheveled men, crouched uncomfortably in the corner opposite of her, whispering to each other conspiratorially with worried looks darting across the cabin.
Across the hold closer to the center, a woman in leggings and a dirtied yoga top kept to herself on the floor, arms wound around her legs in the fetal position, and her light brown hair with expensive highlights tucked under her elbows. She was surprised when she caught a glint of a large carrot diamond on one of those spindly fingers, a fact Aster thought was interesting seeing as something that valuable wasn't stolen, yet. Aster was mildly upset seeing as she was, aptly put, free to move around at all as she pleased, but would rather do a poor impression of a turtle. But who was she to judge really?
She sighed and turned her head slightly without notice and looked through her bangs at the other man on her wall to her right, who sat under one of the four lights in the space. He had his hood up covering a dark face, so she wasn't sure of his age, but his eyes were not really gazing at anything. If he was hiding his panic he hid it well under his mask of apathy, or he could just be trying to block out the cumbersome laser beams overhead.
How he managed to do that handcuffed was impressive in itself.
A few others stared to stir and she pursed her lips then turned her head to take a head count of the cabin.
Four, seven, thirteen…
Straining her neck, she tried counting the bodies fallen over halfway to the floor, or resting against the wall like herself. Fifteen... Sixteen people. Sixteen prisoners. Fellow suspected bio-terrorists.
But where were they headed?
...
Sometime later after an internal debate, she turned and leaned toward to the stone faced guy as much as she could, wincing a bit at the awkward angle, her mind scrambling for friendly conversation to squeeze some semblance of answer about where-the-fuck they were, luckily from someone who might have been conscious for the ride longer than she had.
She grunted and he shot a side glance of vague interest her way, she offered what she hoped looked like a tired smile in return, then shifted in the new position to look more comfortable than she really was.
"How long were you awake?" The words poured out of her mouth. She really didn't think they had time to mince words and dance around the obvious, but she knew she would need allies in whatever encampment they were being herded off to.
He let out a soft breath and relaxed before he jerked his head at the guys in the corner. "Those two woke me up. That was a couple of hours ago, but all the others were still under except for her." The concern in his voice melted his frozen demeanor, despite his awful attempt to hide it. He shifted back as much as he could to lessen the strain on his back that she was beginning to know all too well. His hood fell back just enough for her to see a clean shaven buzz cut, but no other distinguishing marks of any kind. Now thinking about it, his presence was a little more neat and tidy than some of the others in the car with them, and was wearing a basic navy zipped jacket, dark grey slacks, and some cheap black laced leather shoes. He held himself in a way that screamed pride and restraint, but most importantly a practiced calm and also a decent amount of muscles that certain people only achieved through military or police training. She was leaning towards the latter, seeing as he was piled in with the rabble and not receiving some kind of preferential treatment from Uncle Sam.
She turned her head discreetly in the direction of the woman, and asked without words 'what about her?'
He didn't immediately answer, but answered a few seconds later. "She wasn't cuffed when I came-to, and has kept to herself since."
She rose a brow, "?"
"Take my word for it, she's harmless." His tone was firm and implied he would not discuss her further. Aster nodded along, pretending to forget all about the obvious sentiment in his eyes, and decided to store that information in her arsenal for later use.
"So what were you? Cop? Military? You seem to be holding yourself together better in here than the rest of us."
His face betrayed nothing, but his eyes narrowed and raked over her form, no doubt reassessing her less than intimidating form. Her own assessment had been correct though when he answered in a clipped tone "I'm a Detective. Homicide Unit in Denver."
People are more or less more forthcoming when you catch them off guard like that, they always give away something whether they're conscious of it or not.
"But you seem to be, if not, more 'held together' as you say, than me." He stated.
It was a just statement.
"Well you know, I deflect my emotional distress with wit and boundless sarcasm."
He wasn't so convinced.
"I doubt that."
Aster let out a theatrical sigh, and muttered under her breath but loud enough for him to hear, "Well, you can't please everyone."
...
He chose to be quiet for the next few minutes, intently trying to ignore her not so hidden stares. The lights would flicker every now and then, the whole cabin would deftly shake and tremble up and down with the occasional loud gust of wind roaring in their ears. She was mildly curious about what kind of transport they were in. Aster really hoped it wasn't one of those flying machines that could fall out of the sky; she already had enough experience witnessing fiery heaps of metal soaring through the air in her general direction. She herself had never flown before, and given the amount of vomit she would project after a simple amusement ride, she really never had the care to.
He watched as the trepidation snuck its way past her defences, with small beads of sweat trailing along her temple, and her complexion turning a tad greener with every bump and fall.
"Not too fond of flying are you? Is this your first time?" He seemed more amused than concerned on her behalf than she would have liked.
"What are you talking about? I'm just fine see?" she leaned forward to try and hide her features, but could not resist the small flinch and closed her eyes when the floor pitched once again.
"Hey, don't worry yourself too much. These things are built for tougher things and a little wind." He tried to calm her, his protective instinct of the weak and feeble kicking in, despite his previous annoyance with her.
Yeah no shit Sherlock. But we're both in an enclosed space filled with people who can potentially force this bird into the ground.
A couple of deep breaths, through the nose and out the mouth, that's all it takes.
In. Out.
In. Out.
We're so gonna totally die.
Mr. Detective, who probably wasn't used to just leaving people alone in crisis because, that was his job, began to just talk out a random topic to help reel her back into reality.
"They got me when I was working a case on a residential break-in turned deadly. The crime scene had undertones of Bio-Terrorist activity, and one of our greenhorns contaminated some of the evidence. So they insisted that everyone get re-printed and do some other tests. At first they cleared me, and let me go on my way. But a week later I was called into my captains office and they told me right then and there that I was a suspected BT, but they said they would rather "handle this quietly than let the public find out that one of their best and brightest in blue was really the enemy." I told them that was a bunch of horse-shit, and if they thought they could try to imprison me without a warrant they had another thing coming. Of course the next thing I knew, after leaving my house the next morning, they put a black bag over my head and I found myself here."
Her heart rate started to even out and the pounding in her ears lessened a bit. To regain her footing, she shot a jibe at his bedtime story. "Aw, you poor, poor policeman. Did they forget to ask politely to kidnap you too?"
He brushed off her abrasive attitude, getting more used to their conversations, and suddenly had a thought.
"You never told me your name."
"Mama said I shouldn't talk to strangers," she joked in a cracked voice.
He stared at her in mild amusement and growing irritation, "You started this conversation."
"I didn't ask for your name"
"It's Dominic. Dominic Richard Carver. And no you didn't."
She was having a little fun, so she remained silent.
"Come on I gave you mine, now give me yours."
She gasped, "Did Mr. Police Detective just proposition a complete stranger? The shame!"
He turned away in clear frustration, "I guess I overestimated your maturity level-"
"Hey-!"
He was back to ignoring her, at least until he said, "as I was saying before I was interrupted, I was misguided in hoping there would be another adult on this damn cargo plane that could shed some light on the situation."
She was quiet. He huffed out his anger in a violent breath, tilting his head toward the ceiling in exasperation. He saw her shift slightly in his direction, and internally he growled. This girl was running circles around him and teasing him when they were both in a very serious situation like it was a game. It pissed him off. He was very determined to ignore her existence for the duration of the transport, and probably after that too, until he heard her speak quietly. Her expression was grave, but he could see fire in her eyes that convinced him that she was the farthest thing away from giving up.
"Touché Dick. So what are we going to do about it?"
…
AN:
Thought that this was a good place to stop, initially this chapter would have been Aster's arrival at the DUP facility. But that in itself would have been an easy 4,000 words on its own and I wouldn't be able to divide this chapter with that one without it feeling disorganized.
Even I was eager to introduce more inFAMOUS characters in this chapter instead of some boring OC's, but hey, hopefully this will be better.
On the bright side I can always revise this again and confuse everyone who is reading this story :)
Sorry again.
Please let me know if you spot any grammatical errors via PM or review. I have no Beta.
Bye guys!
TBC..