AN: WARNING! Chapter contains very disturbing content and torture. Ratings for this story have jumped to M because of this (not due to any sexual content). Thanks for reading, but please be aware that this chapter is very dark.
She had been preparing dinner, a stew, and it smelled wonderful. Andy's stomach was growling ravenously as he sat on the floor and tried to distract himself with his book
He didn't notice the tension in his mother's shoulders, the way she jumped at every little noise, the way she kept glancing at the door. Every time he looked up at her, she smiled down warmly at him, pushing aside any other emotion other then the love she felt for the young boy.
They had seen her today. They would have caught her, if it hadn't been for Mink. He had run at them, attacked them so she could get away. She had heard the gun shot as she had fled. She knew he had sacrificed himself for her, her son, and the Resistance.
But they had seen her. It would only be a matter of time.
Noises outside the door. A persistent buzzing and droning, getting louder. Footsteps. Voices.
They were here.
She turned from the stove, stricken. Her eyes wide. Her face white.
"Andy!" Her strained, anguished whisper immediately sent fearful chills through his body. He dropped his book and was on his feet in an instant, trembling.
"Under the bed, now. And don't come out!" Tears were pooling in her large brown eyes as she took one last look at her son, and prayed to any power that would hear her that he would escape. That the suits would only take her. And that someone would look after her little boy.
Andy obeyed, mutely, terrified. The covers nearly touched the floor, and at first he could only see his mother's feet. Then the door flew open, hitting the wall with a bang, and more feet rushed in. He heard yelling, heard his mother scream, and tears started streaming from his eyes.
His hand moved slightly, pushed the covers just enough for him to see a little more. They had her by the hair. They were dragging her out the door. She was still fighting them, and looking anywhere but at his hiding place. He smashed his arm against his mouth to stifle his sobs, barely able to breathe.
Then they were gone. She was gone. They had taken her, just like they had taken his father years earlier.
Silence. He lay there for what seemed like an eternity, afraid to move, afraid to make a sound. Choking on his sobs. Trembling. He kept waiting for them to come back, to take him too. But no one came.
The smell of burning stew finally prompted him to move. He pulled himself out from under the bed and pulled the pot from the stove, dropping it as it burned his hands. It made a hideous, loud clank as it hit the floor.
He froze, his eyes flying again to the door, hanging crookedly on its hinges and slightly ajar. He waited for the sound of returning footsteps. There was nothing.
He couldn't stay here. The suits would come back. They would take him away like they had taken his mother, and his father. And they would kill him.
Tears streamed from his eyes as he ran out into the growing night.
…
His cell had opened up – grown from a box into a full sized room. Then a door had opened, the light streaming through temporarily blinding him. Two men in white lab coats entered. They only glanced summarily at him, before one grabbed him by the hair, and started pulling him out the door. He flailed and fought, one hand grasping onto the man's wrist to ease the pressure on his scalp, the other striking out, trying to free himself.
The other man grasped his free arm and wrenched it backward, and Andy howled in pain. He barely kept his footing as he was dragged down a long white hall, and then through a doorway.
A plethora of stimuli hit his senses all at once.
The room was large and white. It was lit, too brightly, by numerous naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling. His eyes watered mercilessly as he squinted against it. The room was full of all sorts of strange and ominous looking steel machines. There were people, some strapped to machines, others in white lab coats, working over them. Somewhere in the room, someone screamed in agony.
But the worst was the smell. The harsh, metallic scent of blood, combined with the heavy chemical smell of disinfectant. The air was thick with it.
He wasn't going to be beheaded. No, whatever they had planned, this was going to be far worse.
A crippling wave of nausea dropped him to his knees, and he retched and dry heaved, all his strength gone, his body weak and trembling.
The two men picked him back up and threw him forcefully onto a cold metal slab, and firmly fastened his arms with leather bindings. Someone else grabbed his legs and put them into clamps. He thrashed against his restraints, but they held firm.
Inside his mind was screaming, but his mouth wouldn't make a sound.
A tall, thin man wearing a clear plastic covering over his lab coat approached, a look of dismissive disgust on his face, and a long, empty syringe in his hand. Andy recoiled, but it was hopeless. His arm remained outstretched, and the needle painfully found its mark. He wanted to turn his face away, but all he could do was watch in horrified fascination as the syringe filled with blood – his blood. Then the scientist turned and emptied the syringe into a machine.
The dark crimson swirled up through narrow glass tubes, and into other larger containers. Andy didn't know what the machine was doing, all he knew was that was his blood.
The scientist watched the machine for a long minute, silently. Then, without turning, he stated, "He'll do. Hook him up."
His shirt was yanked open roughly, and he could hear the sound of buttons hitting the floor. Something hard and sharp pinched into the left side of his neck, then another on the right. He whimpered, his voice still not working well enough to scream. Then he felt the same pain on the insides of his elbows, then his shoulders. He clenched his eyes shut, willing this nightmare to end. But it wouldn't.
His eyes opened again, just in time to see the thin scientist standing over him with another syringe. It was filled with a murky, yellowish liquid. Andy felt his heart nearly stop, as every muscle in his body tensed and quaked.
The syringe came down, and Andy found his voice at last, screaming as it was impaled and emptied into his abdomen. It burned like fire, and the fire quickly spread through his chest and his arms and his legs.
His mind blew apart, and he lost all awareness of anything except the excruciating, burning pain.
…
Fuck. He was still alive.
His eyes opened to blinding white light, and several men leaning over him.
Being selected by the queen, to be her assassin, had saved March from death. But not from torture or pain. The White Rabbit had lost three of their men because of him, and their thirst for revenge had not been sated.
They had knocked him out again, almost as soon as they had exited the throne room. And then, they had waited for him to regain consciousness before they started removing the bullet from his shoulder. Without anesthetic.
At first, it had been manageable – barely. They had taken a scalpel and sliced the skin above where the bullet was imbedded. He gritted his teeth and cursed and hissed, but refused to give them the satisfaction of hearing him cry out.
But when they introduced the next tool into the intricate torture, he blanched and screwed his eyes shut, bracing himself for agony. It was made of dark metal, and shaped roughly like two spoons facing each other.
The screams of pain came, involuntarily, as the device moved inside his shoulder, digging around for the bullet. His body bucked and twitched, but it was no use. White-hot pain shot through him as the tool found its target and ripped it from his body. And then there was nothing.
March lay there, panting and trembling, his shoulder bleeding freely, the left side of his body completely numb. He heard the approach of footsteps, the clack of hard soles on the cement. Agent White stood over him, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
"This is just the beginning, my friend."
March writhed against his bonds, his eyes black with hate.
Agent White turned to walk away, then looked back pointedly at one of the men. "Best stitch him up. We can't go killing the queen's favorite assassin." He smirked once more at March, before his footsteps faded away.
…
As his mind slowly pieced itself back together, Andy's first thought was of his hat. His lucky hat, the one that Uncle Madigan had made for his father. He had lost it. Somewhere between the street and where he was now, the hat had gone missing, and he didn't know how to get it back. And he clung to his knees and cried.
He was in a cement cell, full of people, curled up in the corner on the cold floor. The fire that had been racing through his veins had cooled to embers, but his body was still wracked with pain. He didn't know what they had done to him, but the markings on his arms indicated that the procedures hadn't stopped with the syringe full of fire.
Where was his hat? He tried desperately to keep his mind focused on that. He didn't want to think about what had happened to him. Or to March. What happened to March? Was he still alive? Was he being tortured too?
And above all, he didn't want to think about his mother. His mind flew involuntarily to her.
He had always believed that his mother had just been executed, beheaded for being Resistance. He thought, when they caught him, that it would be his fate too. But his reality proved far different. And the thought that she – his beautiful, loving mother – might have gone through the same only added to his agony.
He curled into an even tighter ball, and sobbed into his knees until all his strength was gone, and his body collapsed into unconsciousness.
…
AN: Wow. That was an extremely hard chapter to write, and I promise that not all of these will be as graphic. I do hope that I gave it justice though, as it plays strongly into the rest of this story.
Please review. I really want to know what you think.