CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Adrenaline coursing through her limbs, Madelyn tore down the long white hall that led away from Dahl. She didn't know where she'd go, all she knew was she had to get away from him. An alarm sounded and every open door in front of her began to slide shut, its keypad light turning red. Panicking, she flung herself through the closest doorway, barely missing being caught between its firmly closing panels. The corridor she found herself in was older, with bare concrete floors and walls, and metal air ducts lining the ceilings. She briefly took it in before sprinting down it, the floor catching her bare feet like sandpaper. She had a faint sense that someone wasn't far behind her.

She came to a fork in the corridor, and was forced to decide to go left or right. She had no idea which way to choose but she wasn't about to stop and turn around. Taking a chance, she went right, hoping to see some sign of a way out. She went around another corner and felt her heart drop in her chest. It was a dead end. She tried the door there but it was locked. She'd have to make a run for it down the other hallway.

She ran back around the way she'd come. When she got to the intersection of hallways again, Owen Gallagher appeared out of the main corridor, blocking her escape. Her running strides slowed to a halt. He held his arms out, shrugging a little. "Sorry, Maddy. I told you it would be easier if you just cooperated."

She felt herself backing away but he advanced faster. He reached down to grab her wrists, but she swung her cuffed hands up and caught him in the jaw. The action hurt her as much as it did him and she immediately regretted it.

His eyes grew wide with fury as she attempted to scoot around him but he was too fast. He seized her by her shirt and flung her against the wall. Her head collided with exposed metal piping and her vision clouded. She came to her senses just in time to see Gallagher curl his hands into fists and pummel them into her stomach.

The air was forced from her lungs and she dropped to her knees in agony. She clutched her belly, as though that would keep the baby safe, barely managing to glare up at Gallagher as he towered over her.

"Stupid bitch," he muttered. He reached down and slapped her. Not daring to look at him again, Madelyn felt him pick her up by her shoulder and wrap his arm around her torso. Breathing laboriously under his intensifying grip, she felt a slight pain creep into her pelvic region.

She thought about kicking him, everywhere, in any way that she could, or maybe when he loosened his grip she could reach back and poke her fingers into his eyes, disorienting him, or make a well-placed swing with her cuffs, recalling what they'd done to Dahl. And if Gallagher released her completely, a kick to any number of places could cause him to fall face first onto the rough concrete, or at least trip him up and slow him down. But she was too afraid to act on her impulses. Whatever Dahl had put into Gallagher's system had not only strengthened him to Khan's level of capability, but had caused him to have no qualms about hitting her. She swallowed as another needle of pain inched its way through her belly, spreading briefly into her legs. The small of her back felt as though someone was sitting on it.

A burning sensation ripped through her pelvis suddenly and she gasped. Gallagher's arm tightened around her, making it harder to breathe. She clenched her teeth to withhold her reaction as another wave of pain hit her. It spread through her stomach and legs and tears stung her eyes. This couldn't be happening to her, not now. Not here.

She crumpled to the floor in Dahl's office, clutching herself, willing the pain away. Dahl and Gallagher stood over her, the former giving frantic orders through a communicator in his native language. There was a pause, in which Madelyn almost straightened herself and began to stand, until she was stabbed in the gut. At least it felt that way. She clenched her jaw, breathing rapidly through her nose, as she vaguely heard Dahl confronting Gallagher angrily. She realized Gallagher hadn't known she was pregnant.

"Now get out of my sight and stay far away from Khan," Dahl was saying as he lifted Madelyn from the floor. "I don't want to risk losing my only asset."

Risk losing… what? Madelyn had trouble piecing together a coherent thought as the pain in her belly intensified. She felt like she was burning from the inside out.

"I should have been more clear I suppose," the doctor muttered, pressing a hand to her stomach. Madelyn grimaced. "So much for my original idea. I suppose you're still useful to me in some fashion."

She hissed in pain as he pulled her back against him, his hand sliding around her throat until he held her jaw in his fingers. Just then, Khan appeared in the doorway.

When he first recognized the panic glimmering in Madelyn's eyes, Khan considered crossing the room to eliminate Dahl right then. But the doctor wasn't stupid. He'd slid a scalpel from the pocket of his lab coat and his shaking hand was holding it dangerously close to her throat, while his other hand cupped her jaw, baring the tender skin he was threatening to slice open. One cut right over her jugular would bleed her out faster than she would be able to heal. Anger surged through Khan like electricity as for the second time in less than a year, the life of someone he loved was being casually held over a precipice by a monster.

He couldn't help but feel a slight indulgence at the state of Dahl's face however. He noted the bits of flesh and blood clinging to Madelyn's handcuffs, the red spattered across both her face and shirt and the doctor's. She was proving herself to be a fighter, but the expression on her face reminded him she wasn't as strong as he was, and by the way she was breathing, Khan sensed something more was wrong. But first, he had to get that scalpel off her neck.

"Let her go and perhaps I'll give you quick death, doctor."

Khan did not intend to mitigate Dahl his future suffering, but an offer needed to be presented to give the doctor a sliver of something else to latch onto besides Madelyn's neck. A trail of salty liquid dripped from the corner of her eye as her body tensed. She was swallowing through pain, he realized. It took everything within him to remain where he was. One threatening step could mean the end of her life. Khan felt his lips twitch as Dahl smiled glibly at him.

"I don't think you want to do that, Mr. Singh, if you want Ms. McGivers to make it through the next hour of her life."

The rage inside him made his fingers slowly curl into fists. "What did you do to her?"

Dahl sighed and momentarily slacked his grip on the scalpel before repositioning it against her skin. "I did nothing, except perhaps make a bad judgment call with one of my men. But now your… girlfriend? I believe she means something to you or you would not be here—is miscarrying. I expect she will be losing lots of blood internally, and the dead fetus will need to come out or she'll go into shock. You are not a doctor, are you Mr. Singh?"

This news was shocking, grating to him, and he knew he had no choice but to let Dahl live for the time being. He saw the unbearable look on her face, the tension in her body, the way she was breathing as though Dahl was choking the life from her though his fingers merely gripped her jaw. Her body was aborting their child; or perhaps someone had sparked the process, Khan considered furiously. It was something that he'd witnessed several times in the past, when he first lived as a lab rat alongside other Augments under the scrutiny of their creators.

The excruciatingly painful and potentially deadly ordeal of miscarriage at this stage in an Augment pregnancy was one that his creators had studied thoroughly some three hundred years in the past. There were theories that addressed manipulated chromosomes and the miniscule abnormalities that could be present within them, whether there were one too many copies of a certain gene, or whether it was the factor of the actual manipulation of the chromosome itself. Regardless of their cause, in the initial stages of testing, the number of recorded Augment miscarriages went sky high. It had gotten so bad that eventually the scientists in charge of those studies decided it would be better to create new generations of Augments using artificial means. But since the Federation had banned all known genetic manipulation and embryonic research after the Eugenics Wars, those studies had been halted and those theories never tested.

Despite knowing what was happening to Madelyn's body, Khan had never felt so personally unnerved by the process as he did now. And yet there was something in the doctor's words that made him suspect there was more to it. "A bad judgment call" with one of his men? That could've meant she'd put up so much of a fight that Dahl couldn't handle her on his own, and given the state of the doctor's face, Khan found that pleasant scenario very likely. But his slight pride with Madelyn's determination to survive was replaced with ire as he desired fiercely to hunt the man down who had foolishly chosen to assault her. He knew Dahl couldn't be the one responsible; he would have wanted the child for his own twisted experiments. Now that there was no child, Dahl was using Madelyn to save himself. As disconcertion and anger vibrated inside him, Khan couldn't help but make one small step towards them.

"I said I don't think you want to do that," Dahl repeated, his voice laced with panic, his fingers gripping the scalpel. Khan held his smile inside. It didn't take much to rattle the doctor.

"Can you save her?" It was more of a command than a question.

Dahl nodded.

"Good, because if you don't, I will end you in the most painful way you can imagine."

Khan only said it to spur the doctor into action. In the end, he would probably just snap Dahl's neck and be done with it. He cared more for Madelyn's welfare, and finding out who was responsible for murdering his unborn child than for wasting precious time on a man he viewed as less than human.

Khan narrowed his eyes at the doctor and the scalpel dropped to the floor. Dahl released his grip on her neck and Khan strode towards them just in time to stop Madelyn from crumbling to the floor in agony. He tenderly scooped her into his arms, then turned his gaze to Dahl, whose quick hands were preparing an anesthetic. Madelyn clutched at his shirt with shaking hands, her fingernails scraping through the synthetic fabric. The doctor motioned to the medical bed on the other side of the room and Khan gently laid her there. He noted the blood that was soaking through her pants as he made quick work of her cuffs, breaking the locking mechanisms and tossing them away. She cried out in agony as a contraction shook her, and he briefly wondered if she was still coherent. He watched Dahl like a hawk as the anesthetic was administered and he began to prepare for the procedure.

Khan's attention was distracted briefly when he felt a shaky hand brush his arm. Madelyn's tear-filled eyes fluttered open and a hint of recognition flashed across them before the anesthetic could take over completely. Her skin was pallid and her dry lips faintly parted. He pressed a hand to her face, drinking in the look she gave him. She was too weak to form words so he leaned down and whispered in her ear. There was no lingering scent of hormones, only sweat and blood.

He barely backed away to give the doctor room, feeling his anger rise again when her shirt was pushed back to reveal a blue and black hematoma on her abdomen. His suspicions that she'd been attacked were confirmed. Khan had forgotten she was much more human than he'd led himself to believe. He'd never seen her look so frail.

But what she was didn't matter anymore. He loved her. She was everything he had left and someone had foolishly tried to take that away. He eyed Dahl as the doctor set to work. He may not have been directly responsible for Madelyn's current situation, but the damage he had caused her in the past was more than enough to give Khan an excuse to end him.

After he was sure she would survive, he would take the doctor's throat in his bare hands and slowly crush it.