When Jemma woke, the first thing she wanted was air. She had to lift her head above the surface and suck in a breath, gasping. There was a roof several feet above her, and it made Jemma panic. Once there was oxygen in her lungs again, she dove back underwater, but then suddenly she remembered. They'd caught her.
Everything was wrong. The water looked too blue, and when Jemma tried to take refuge at the ocean floor, it wasn't the ocean floor. It was a rough, blue surface that reminded Jemma of a road or sidewalk. There were no plants, no fish, just blue. She was closed in by three blue walls matching the floor. When she turned around to see the fourth, Jemma swam away so fast that her back slammed against the wall of the tiny enclosure and scraped across it, stinging her skin. Ward was right there, along with Garret and a few others Jemma didn't recognize.
She tried to curl up in the corner, stay as far away from them as possible, but she couldn't escape their prying eyes. Were they underwater? It didn't look like it, they were standing and breathing and speaking, and Jemma was sure the words were about her.
The water was cold. Jemma wrapped her arms around her body and curled up in the corner, but it wasn't enough and Jemma longed for Skye's touch, to be in her arms and snuggled under blankets like she had been for the last few nights. The only comfort she had was the starfish hanging at her neck, and Jemma reached for it, grasping it in her fist.
It took a long time for the humans to leave, and Jemma spent the whole time going over the memories of her capture and shaking in fear, wondering just what exactly they planned to do with her if she was still alive.
When they finally did leave, Jemma charged at the space they had previously been in, hoping to find some kind of escape. Instead, she crashed headfirst into something she couldn't see, an invisible wall. Her vision blurred for a moment and it added another wave of pain onto her headache and bruised torso. So that had been what was separating them from the water.
Even though Jemma knew there was something in the way, she wouldn't relent. She backed up and slammed into the wall, over and over again. If she tried hard enough, she could get through whatever this was.
No matter how much it hurt or how much closer she was to the realization that she was trapped, Jemma kept slamming into the wall. She only stopped when her skin was almost a darker version of her scales, purples and blues and pinks. All her energy was gone, and Jemma slunk back to the corner, curling up and whimpering for Skye. She wanted so badly to be with her right now, and Jemma wondered how Skye would feel when she came to the beach and Jemma wasn't there. When she kept coming to the beach and Jemma was never there, because she was here. Would Skye think Jemma had abandoned her? She hoped not, after Skye had thanked her so profusely for staying so many times. Jemma didn't want to leave her.
It was so quiet. The only sounds she could hear were her own heartbeat and whimpers, which gradually grew in volume until she was crying out, yelling for Skye or her pod, but the sounds just bounced back at her off the walls and rattled around in her skull.
It was a long way back home, but Skye peddled as fast as she could, even down the hills. She knew that she couldn't do anything about Jemma right now…but she could plan, and boy was she forming one. Ward had made her walk around his dad's awful park before. It sure hadn't been Sea World. Skye had been to Sea World and although she hadn't liked it, at least the tanks were bigger and they had actual marine people there. She was pretty sure Garrett only hired fisherman and people who only knew half of what they were supposed to know to actually take care of marine animals.
The thought of Jemma in one of those small overly blue tanks all by herself…Skye couldn't even imagine what she was feeling right now. She felt responsible and angry with herself that she wasn't there to take care of her. That she had even let her get captured in the first place. She should have sent her away the second Ward had tried to get her the first time. She had known he would try again and now he had succeeded. Her stinging bruises reminded her of that.
Oh yes, she had gotten the special tour. He had showed her all around. She had even gotten to go in their pathetic excuse for a research lab. A quaint little run down building on the outside, barely with five computers in the entire facility and half-assed old equipment she doubted anyone should be using on any sort of living thing. If they were gathering information and studying Jemma, and Skye had no doubt that they were, that's where they would keep it. She knew Jemma was too big for the small tank they had there, so they had to be keeping her somewhere else…it had been so long since she had been there though, she wasn't sure if it was still all the same. She would have to wing it once inside.
She did know, however, that she would need clothes and a towel at least. Once she somehow got Jemma out, she would give her the potion, dry her off, put clothes on her and get her out of there. She should bring a knife…just in case anyone caught them. She would need at least something to look threatening so they would let them leave…but she didn't plan on being caught. It was in and out, fast as lightning if she could manage. Skye thought of all the evidence they would have by now…she needed to think of some way to destroy that too and as she rode her bike past the hardware store on her way home, she got an idea. She would need more money than was currently in her wallet, but she would certainly be coming back to make a purchase or two.
It only took her a few minutes longer to get to her house and when she did, she sprang off of her bike and opened up the white picket gate, walking her bicycle inside and leaning it against the fence. She was up the porch steps and reaching for the door when a voice from behind her stopped her.
"I see you healed up nicely."
Skye whirled around so fast it should have made her dizzy. Ward was standing there, leaning against the outside of her fence, looking smug as ever.
"Why you bitch ass mother f-"
"Ah ah, I wouldn't be calling me names if I were you," his grin widened as he stood up straight, escorting himself in through the gate, "not unless you want me to finish what we started the other day."
Normally, his intimidation tactics worked, and Skye was scared…but she was more angry than scared now.
"I dare you. Come at me, right here, in my front yard where anyone walking by can see you," She challenged, and it must have taken him aback, because his face twisted into a sour frown. She'd made him angry. Good, because she was pissed as hell.
"You know it was easy to follow you. You took the same route every day at the same time every day. Whatever you promised her, you didn't do a very good job of keeping it. I must admit, when I saw you gone when I woke up I was a little bit worried I couldn't find you again, but then I remembered that there were only so many parts of beach to this island that people didn't go," He kept talking and Skye didn't like where this was going, but she was glad she was hearing it. It was practically a confession, not that she needed it because she already knew it was him.
He mentioned something about a camera…he had set one up that day he stole her sketchbook, having followed her and come back when they were gone. He needed proof of course, and boy had he gotten it. To him, the smile on his face was priceless, but it made Skye want to take a knife and rip him a new one, Joker style. She noticed his hand. It was bandaged up, looked like it had been wrapped in a hurry and some blood had seeped out over the edges. She hoped Jemma had done it, whatever it was, and she hoped it had hurt like fucking hell.
Skye hadn't said anything, just standing there, keeping a stone cold face, hands balled into fists. The only way he would be able to tell she was even listening was because she was shaking all over. Apparently this wasn't enough of a reaction from her, and he had just the bait.
"You know…I thought it would feel slimy, like a fish did, but it didn't. It was just as smooth as ever, and co-"
"You keep your fucking hands off her!"
He had been too smug for his own good, too busy gloating, because the moment Skye realized what he was talking about, that he had laid his rough, bruising hands on Jemma's tail, she was done. Ward let out a loud cry and fell to his knees, Skye's own knee having come into sharp, quick, hard, and unforgiving contact with his balls. She was only sorry she hadn't been wearing steel spiked knee pads to castrate him at the same time. He had put his clammy man hands on Jemma's scales without her permission. He had not only captured her, but violated her in one of the worst ways imaginable to merkind, and now to Skye.
"Fucking bastard!"
Skye hit him first with her fist, and when it collided with his face, she felt her knuckles ache and bruise with the effort, but she did it again anyway. He was so shocked and dizzied that he didn't notice her elbow come after. Thanks to biology class, she had learned it was one of the strongest parts in the body, and when it collided with his nose, it broke it. The crack was loud and clear and he fell back, yelling like a baby and trying to scramble away, blood running down his mouth and chin. She got a swift kick in as well before she was running back to the porch.
"You better fucking run away, Ward! If I catch you, I'm going to kill you, I swear to god!"
Skye was yelling at him, cursing at him and throwing rocks from the garden at him as he scrambled to open the gate to get out and to run. She hit him a few times too, one even in the head, but not enough in her opinion. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to wrap her hands around his neck and squeeze till his eyes popped out or his throat exploded, but getting herself in that sort of trouble wasn't going to help Jemma. She could finish with him later, once Jemma was safe and back with her pod and far far away from this island.
She was radiating anger, pulsing and shaking with it. The only way to calm herself down was to hold her necklace and hope that they had at least let Jemma keep hers to hold onto as well. She needed to utilize this…she needed to use this adrenaline to get to the store, get supplies for her plan, and do her best to wait till nightfall instead of storming in there and taking her out right now. She'd never make it if she did that. Skye knew waiting was the logical and best chance she had…even if she hated it.
Jemma lost track of time. It felt like it had been days since she was in the ocean and not her tiny box of a cage, when in reality it had probably only been hours. She was already freezing cold and if it hadn't been for the necklace tightly gripped in Jemma's fingers, she probably would have lost it by now. If she hadn't already. Jemma couldn't tell.
Just when Jemma was getting used to it and was starting to calm down, almost enter a dreamlike state of peace and calm, she heard a splash above her and began to panic. There was a diver, with one of those awful poles in his hands, and there was nowhere to run. All Jemma could do was press herself into the corner and try to curl into a protective ball, but that didn't stop the diver from getting the loop around her neck and yanking her towards the surface. Jemma had no choice but to follow, not unless she wanted to be strangled. Even once Jemma's head was above water the pressure didn't release and she whimpered, clawing at it, but her captor only pulled harder. He and two other men that had slid away the covering over the small pool dragged her up and out of it so she was lying on a platform, completely exposed and feeling like she had on the boat.
"I would give it a sedative, it's a fighter." She heard Garrett, and fire burned through her veins. She had absolutely no power, though, and was forced to endure the same rough treatment until another needle was shoved into her neck. It was like it drained her willpower, Jemma suddenly had no desire to get away, it would require too much effort.
"Can it speak?" Someone in a long white coat asked, talking to Garrett. Jemma wanted to cry every time one of them called her an it, they definitely didn't see her as an emotional being and would have no problem torturing her.
"My son says he's had a conversation with it. He said it's English, from the North Sea." He explained. Jemma's burning hatred for Ward increased in that moment and she so wished she'd never left that railing or talked to him at all. What Jemma didn't understand was how they could know she spoke a language, that she was an intelligent being, and were still willing to treat her this way just because she didn't look like them.
"How many of you are there?" Jemma didn't realize she was being spoken to until someone roughly grabbed at her face and forced her to look in his eyes. She couldn't- wouldn't- give any information away, no matter what they did. Jemma may have been stupid enough to get herself captured, but she sure as hell wasn't going to out her whole species. It was better they thought she was the only one.
"Speak!" The man demanded, and he brought her head up a few inches before slamming it back down again. Jemma yelped and tried to struggle, but someone else was holding her down, an arm slung over her tail. Her entire body was shaking, but none of them seemed to care.
"I need a blood sample." The man in the white coat said, and Jemma's eyes widened in fear when she saw another needle. White hot pain flashed through her chest as she panicked. Her breathing quickened and her body thrashed wildly, though she had no chance against the sheer power of her captors, especially when she was drugged like this.
One of them pinned Jemma's arm to the ground with so much force she was sure it would bruise, and the man in the coat stuck another needle in her, pulling it away when his tiny device was full of her blood.
"I still need a few other samples for analysis..." He was muttering, and Jemma practically growled when she saw where his eyes wandered. Adrenaline pumped through her veins and Jemma freed her arm for long enough to get a good swing in, knocking the man in the coat in the face. He could have a taste of his own medicine.
Garrett didn't take kindly to this, however, and his boot quickly came down on her arm, successfully pinning it to the concrete and causing a pain to shoot all the way to her shoulder. While Jemma was rendered helpless, the man in the coat quickly stole one of her scales, and Jemma let out a yell at a pitch she knew would hurt them. She wanted to make their ears bleed, if she could.
The sound had its desired effect and suddenly all the hands were off her, being used to cover human ears. Garrett didn't let her get away with it, though, he swiftly shoved her back into the water with his foot. The unfortunate timing of one of his goons almost killed Jemma in that moment. Her body quickly fell over the edge back towards the water, but one of the men had grabbed onto the pole and the wire around her neck, jerking her short descent to a stop by her throat. A strangled cry choked out before Garrett had the sense to knock the pole out of his employee's hands, to save his new park attraction if nothing else. The moment Jemma was in the water, she freed herself and swam to the bottom, pressing herself up against the wall opposite of the horrendous object that had almost hung her a moment ago and now sat a few feet away from her.
Jemma's hands carefully wrapped around her own throat, already feeling bruises there, and she took some comfort in the necklace, but not much. Skye seemed like a distant memory at this point and Jemma didn't think she'd ever see her again.
The thought made Jemma start wailing again as the cover was replaced at the top of the tank. She was bruised and beaten and she would rather be killed on accident like she almost had before than continue whatever horrific thing they were doing to her. Jemma couldn't even keep track of how many times they violated her, and she wished Skye was here to run her hand over her scales, kiss her on the cheek, and make her smile.
