Disclaimer: I don't own The Hills Have Eyes.
Oh my goodness, has it really been so long since I last updated this fanfic? I just feel so bad for neglecting it. I really hope that y'all enjoy this newest chapter. I really just can't apologize enough for this. Time just got out of hand and everything, but now I'm back and hopefully ready to update more regularly! Thanks so much for sticking with me, and thanks to the reviewers for the last chapter - Berry's Ambitions, Alex, takara410, and FerretSong. Please enjoy!
Edge
Chapter Fourteen: Monsters in Cages
The incessant drip, drip, dripping of the water from above him was enough to make Chameleon particularly on edge.
The mutant knew that it was ridiculous to feel that way, knew that nothing productive would come from sitting so precariously on the knife's edge that just one slip would result in blood.
Maybe that water was just magnifying what was really bothering him.
Chameleon tried not to focus on that, tried thinking about other things. His eyes focused on the wall adjacent to where he lay on his bed, arms folded behind his head, feet propped at an angle on the wall in front of him. The bed was carved almost completely out of the rock itself, padded with several old sleeping bags from various other trespassers and nestled underneath a broken window that gave the view of another rock face. It wasn't much of a view, but it allowed fresh air to flow in, and that was all he could ask for in a place such as this.
He tried to shut his eyes, tried to focus on the way the rare breeze would come in through the open window and slightly relieve the tension that was building in his muscles.
And then, a scream would pierce the air, rendering it all moot.
Chameleon closed his eyes as tightly as he could.
It was commonplace to hear screams in the mines. Chameleon had grown up hearing them, had caused a few of his own - but not in the manner that his father preferred. Not in the manner that was going on right now. Gradually, as he had come to understand the ramifications of what was going on, Chameleon began to hardly stomach what was going on, retreating to his room and attempting to find some semblance of normalcy.
Most of the time, it worked.
Except for today.
This day had been particularly maddening for several reasons. Chameleon couldn't put his finger on exactly what started it. The day began normally enough - well, normally enough for the mine mutants. Screams and hunting and capture and pain.
Normal. Chameleon felt he should scoff at the word, but he had no idea of what normal life was like outside the mines, other than the glimpses of the Test Village clan. And even from those tiny moments, he could see that things were run very differently from the way they were conducted in the mines.
He could not help but imagine what life must be like in places other than this.
He also could not help but think about that maddening woman from earlier - the one with dark eyes and dark hair and dark temper. She had given him the biggest fight he'd had in a long while, pushing him to his limits before he even realized what was going on. Then again, his heart might not have been into it.
If he were to be honest with himself, his heart hadn't been into this for a long, long while.
Chameleon raised his hand and placed fingertips to his forehead, wincing as he came across a particularly tender spot - the very spot where that maddening dark-haired woman had cracked her skull against his. A slight smile spread across his lips at the memory against his own volition.
In all his life, in all the lives he had taken or had helped take, Chameleon had never met a woman as...vexing as that soldier, with her determined stare and her cunning and her guile. It was something that he found himself musing over - the struggle, the capture, the captivation, the escape.
And that one moment of hesitation. That one moment where he had let her go.
The tall mutant hadn't the slightest clue as to what had taken him over in that moment. He knew that his father would come to discipline him sooner or later - unless he had forgotten. Chameleon winced as he heard another scream pierce the relative silence of the mines. After all, he had a new plaything. It was easy to forget the small losses when, in his father's mind, he had gained something even more valuable. One breeder was better than none, and maybe that balanced things out.
And yet...
He had but a glimpse of this new girl as she was dragged through the mines, unconscious, two arrows in her back, barely breathing. She was thin - he could tell that despite the bulky clothes she wore. Her hair was yellow and, mixed with the dirt and grime, it resembled tarnished gold. What skin was exposed was littered with cuts and dried blood.
It was a scene that he had seen far too many times. A group of youths stray into their territory. They take them out. Kill the men unless there is some other use for them around the mines and keep the women. However, Chameleon could think of no other time where the people that had wandered into their turf were as qualified as these soldiers.
Another scream pierced the darkness.
The next breath that Chameleon took was equally as shaky on the way in as it was on the way out. He couldn't help but think of the young blonde woman and how defeated she looked as she was dragged back to one of the rooms. They were separate from each of the mutants' own quarters, in their own little corridor. Several rooms were along that particular hallway and - depending on various other factors - were sometimes occupied with up to five women, one to each room.
There was only one occupant now.
The next scream that resonated throughout the minds was blood-curdling. Chameleon physically winced from the sound of it, almost as if it was grating against his bones.
He tried to count the hours since she'd been here, tried to determine just how long she had been suffering. And then he found that task far too distressing - which was selfish of him. How could he even compare the pain of hearing her screams when she was having to physically experience the horrors of that laid beneath the hills?
Chameleon closed his eyes and allowed a few more shaky breaths to consume him.
Again, he found himself remembering the moment in which the girl was dragged by him, limp as a rag doll, almost lifeless, the ragged and uneven breathing the only sign of her life. When he saw the girl at first, he assumed the arrows had mistakenly taken her life - it was always an accident when the females were killed prematurely.
And then she had opened her eyes.
Blue was all he could see.
There was something in those eyes that caused him to pause. He hadn't been doing anything in particular at the time, just passing by and trying not to let his father's jubilant howls get to him. He should have known that there was something that made his father treat the loss of the other potential breeder as an afterthought.
Breeder, Chameleon thought, almost cringing at the word and what it implied.
This female was pretty, yes, but in a way different than the dark-haired female. This female was all light colors - yellow and blue and white - and the other was dark hair and dark eyes and dark skin. The two of them contrasted interestingly in Chameleon's mind. The way the dark-haired woman had fought, had escaped, had utterly dumbfounded him. The way the light-haired woman had been dragged, been broken, hurt him almost in a way that felt personal.
Because you could save her, too.
Chameleon tensed, jolting up and sitting ramrod straight in bed, as soon as the thought crossed his mind. It was such an odd notion, yet it was one that he couldn't escape as soon as it fell along the fringes of his mind.
But...could he?
His father was a wrathful being, one that could snap into a murderous rage at even the mildest provocation. If he found out that Chameleon had helped not one, but two, of his breeders escape, then the results would be...would be...
Chameleon would rather not finish that thought.
Yet, now his fingers twitched at his side, aching to do something. Now that the thought had been presented to him, he felt as if he had to. As if there was no other option but to help that poor, broken thing.
A scream broke through his thoughts. He would have jumped at the suddenness of it, had he not had years of practice being still, of ignoring the worst, of weathering the storm and picking out remnants from the aftermath. Chameleon swallowed, though, unnerved at how the scream morphed into a sob which then gurgled out altogether, and then that was followed by his father's warped laughter, and more pounding against the walls.
"Pop must really like tha' 'un."
Chameleon's eyes darted to the doorway, where his brother stood, looking every bit nonchalant. That angered him more than it should have.
"You took the girl."
Letch looked at him, quirking his head to the side. "Wha'?"
"Ruby," Chameleon snapped. "You took her. The Test Village clan will not forget that."
"Just like you almost killed her an' her big ol' brother earlier?" Letch remarked.
Chameleon twitched. "I had not meant for them to be flung from the cliff."
Letch's eyes narrowed. "Then why did you throw th' girl?"
"It was an accident."
His brother scoffed. "Don't let Pop hear you say tha'. That was the happiest I've seen 'im since that red-haired girl was here."
Chameleon watched his brother's face; to his credit, the only evidence of his discomfort with the topic was the tightening of his fingers, despite the fact that he brought it up himself. "The last breeder?"
The word breeder caused Letch to stiffen, his resolve cracking somewhat, fire sparking in those normally mischievous eyes of his. "Yeah. The last one."
The elder brother decided to not push things any further than that. It never ended well, discussing such things with Letch, and really, Chameleon wasn't in the mood to deal with the rage that followed such conversation.
Letch, however, didn't seem to be too perturbed any more. Probably because his mind was far away. Chameleon didn't have to guess as to where. That was something that endlessly fascinated Chameleon about his brother - he could be completely jovial, or angry, and then come out with something surprisingly profound despite his crass nature.
Now, it was just stony silence.
"Don' get any stupid ideas," Letch finally said, his gaze harder than Chameleon ever remembered it.
Chameleon felt a sense of amusement. "And what would those ideas be?"
His brother looked at him as if he were particularly lacking in the intelligence department. "You got tha' look on your face...the one...the one you get when you thinkin' about doin' something stupid."
"I do not believe I ever do things stupidly," he replied, although he knew exactly what his brother was talking about.
He also knew that Letch was right.
His brother only gave him a look that Chameleon associated with pity. Which, really, was ironic considering that his brother was the one who needed the sentiment, all things considered. The eldest of the two gave his brother a contemplative look, as if weighing the words of what he was about to say - weighing it against Letch's loyalty to their father and Letch's loyalty to Chameleon himself.
Yet, he found himself saying the words regardless of what his thoughts were telling him.
"Have you ever wondered what it would be like, if things were different around here?"
Letch looked at him, the previous subject of conversation long forgotten, his eyes hard and yet somehow sympathetic at the same time.
"I can't allow m'self to wonder tha'," he said, his voice sharp, barbed, yet with a vulnerability that Chameleon never associated with him.
Before Chameleon could ask for further clarification - though, he knew perfectly well why Letch couldn't picture life any differently than what it was at the present - Letch turned abruptly, striding from the room almost with an almost violent stride, the warped wooden door shutting harshly behind him.
Silence surrounded him.
Silence, and the still-screaming, still-crying, voice of their newest captive.
No, not their. Chameleon could not have himself thinking that. His father was the one who held her here. If Chameleon had the gumption, he could free her. He could go in there and free her and then she would never have to deal with this wretched place again - except in the nightmares rendered by setting foot in the mines in the first place -
His eyes moved to the door just as another flesh-prickling scream pierced the air, this time coupled with the words, "Please! Please, stop! No, please, help me! Someone!"
Maybe those words were the catalyst the solidified his decision.
And, as the screams continued, Chameleon kept his eyes on that door while his mind formulated a plan.
End Chapter Fourteen.