Chain Reaction

Chapter 27 – the price you pay

What if, in the escape of '09, Max hadn't escaped with the others? What if Jondy tried to save her when she fell in the ice, but in the end, they both got caught?

'13

Manticore

Jondy wanted to scream. She wanted to kick something, or punch someone, or run away. But most of all, she wanted to scream. She couldn't. If she did, Maxie would die. If she moved, Maxie would be hurt. Hurt worse than she was already being hurt.

They had tried to find out where Max and Alec had gone, but had instead found Lydecker. A Lydecker who knew about the seizures. A Lydecker who knew about their rebellions. A Lydecker who would make them pay, thousands of times over, for their crimes.

Jondy had thought the psy-ops was the worst of it. Solitary she could stand. They had been taught a form of meditation the year before, and it was easy to slip into a trance like state for most of the time. The torture was hard, harder still when they were forced to watch the others being beaten. Forced to watch Maxie being beaten in an attempt to gain knowledge that they had all removed from their brains.

But the psy-ops had been the worst of it. They were horrible creatures, who could make you do whatever they wanted, with just a few choice words. They could look into your mind, and read everything they saw. The only fleeting relief Jondy felt was that their commands didn't stick. They couldn't force you to be what you weren't for more than a day. But they could make your life hell.

Only now, did Jondy realise that Lydecker had kept the worst for the very last. They had been released from solitary only that morning, and forced to march through to the infirmary wing, where all this had started. There, they had been separated into groups, and each group sent into one of the operating rooms. A doctor had given them a bunch of tablets, and watched each one of them as they swallowed them. The doctor had had a kind of mad look in his eyes, a gleam of power and pride and something akin to great pleasure.

And then, oh what happened then had been the worst. Maxie had fallen down, in the grips of her horrible seizures. And right after her fell Jace, shaking almost as bad as Maxie. The gleam of pleasure in the doctor's eyes had intensified absurdly, before he'd turned to one of the guards and instructed them to bring Lydecker.

He came quickly, too quickly. And the look in his eyes had been just as bad as the strange doctor's. While the doctor's had been full of pride and pleasure, Lydecker's had been full of anger. Anger, and something else. Something Jondy hadn't been able to identify. A minute had passed, while Lydecker watched Maxie and Jace seizing on the floor. Then the door was flung open, and three bodies were carelessly dumped onto the floor, also seizing. Scout looked terrible, blood running down his face from what looked like a broken nose. Beck also had blood all over him, though Jondy hadn't been able to see where it came from. And the third body...

The third had been thrown down on the wrong side of the room for Jondy to be able to see clearly, until their seizures peaked, with such energy that their whole body was thrown to one side. Jondy could then see them fully. It was Toni. Tiny Toni, who had grown so little in the last years that she was almost smaller than Maxie. Jondy had almost bit through her tongue to keep from crying out. To see Toni, who looked so much like herself, seizing just as badly as Maxie… it hurt so badly.

Before she had had any time to think more, the door opened again, and the rest of the unit was marched into the room, and ordered to line up behind Jondy's group. Lydecker had waited for them to form lines before he stepped in front of the whole group.

"This is a lesson. A lesson to be learnt by all of you. You can hide nothing from me. I know your every secret. I know your every fear. There is nothing about you that I do not know. This… fault has been ignored for too long. It will be remedied."

With that, he retreated to the doorway. The seizures of the five on the floor had started to weaken, although Jondy could see that both Toni and Maxie had been rendered unconscious by the sheer force of them. The doctor, who had been watching the five carefully, ordered the guards to pick up Maxie and Toni. They'd looked to Lydecker for confirmation, and he had nodded. And the worst of it all had started.

The last thing Max remembered clearly was opening the door to the four Manticore guards at the hotel. There were glimmers of memories, of someone hissing at her to forget everything, of a pair of pale blue eyes staring at her, staring through her. Of something breaking inside her. Of pain. And Jondy's eyes, so full of worry and pain. She had to tell her that everything would be all right. She had to let her know things would be fine. If only her eyes would focus, she would tell her. She just had to get up, but moving was so hard. A brief thought ran through her head, a horrible thought that she was tied down but shaking and oh there was that pain again and how could anything be right again fear! it was so painful she couldn't move helpless! but she was moving but that pain it hurt it hurt it hurt! and blackness was coming again and she could go to black and not be hurt tired shaking pain! blackness came.

Jondy woke slowly. They had been kept awake for days, forced to watch as those butchers pretending to be doctors had played with the seizing five's insides. Forced to stand at attention, and not make any move, any sound at all. Moving would have meant more pain for any one of the five. Noise would have meant death. And through it all, Lydecker stood at the doorway to the operating rooms, and watched. Watched as they were cut open, one by one.

A tiny sound from the other side of the room drew Jondy out of her thoughts, and she quickly got up. Maxie was waking, and she was in pain. Checking to make sure no guards were visible through the small window in the door, Jondy walked quickly over to Max's bed, and knelt down beside it. Gently, she took one of Max's hands, and held it in her own.

Minutes passed, and Max didn't move at all. Twice, a soft whimper escaped her mouth, and each time Jondy flinched. Finally, after what seemed like an hour, Max's eyelids fluttered. The whimper was louder, this time, but cut short. Jondy took this as a good sign. If Max could stop her whimpers, she must have her mind still, enough to know that any admission of pain would just get her more pain.

Slowly, carefully, Jondy reached out and touched Max gently on her cheek. It was one of the few completely scar free places on her body at the moment. Max shifted slightly, almost leaning into the gentle caress, before another whimper escaped her lips.

"Stay still, Maxie. Please, try not to move at all. You're hurt, and moving is just going to make you hurt even more. Just… if you can, if it doesn't hurt, open your eyes for me. Slowly, sweet. Don't rush anything."

Another few minutes passed before Max was able to fully open her eyes. They were clouded with pain and fear, but they were no longer bloodshot and weeping. Jondy gently brushed her hand against Max's cheek again, and gave her a tiny smile.

"You're alive. I thought… I thought for a while that… that you might not wake up. But you have, and you still seem to have your mind. And I know you hurt, a lot, but I can't help but be glad you're okay, Maxie. They hurt you so bad…"

Max's lips moved a tiny amount, and the pain shone in her eyes. She tried again, through the pain, and managed one word.

"What?"

"We got caught. We wanted to know where you and Alec had gone, so we tried to find you. Somehow, 598 heard our plans, and we got caught. Lydecker found out about your seizures, too, that they hadn't gone away. That was… weeks and weeks ago. He bought you back, when I don't know. We were in solitary. The whole group, except 598. Then there was the psy-ops. And the torture. And then the testing. They fed us all drugs, that made your seizures happen. Not just you, either, but Jace, Scout, Beck and Toni too. You and Toni had the worst of it – you were unconscious for a long while afterward, that was how bad they were. And… Oh, Maxie, they did to you what they did to Jack. All five of you. Only they must have figured out how to stop them somehow. Cos they never did anything that put you in danger of dying. They started 6 days ago. We had to watch. We weren't allowed to sleep. Just stand in the room and watch the five of you be hurt. They finished yesterday. I don't know what happened, but one of the doctors looked up at Lydecker and told him it was fixed. And they took you away. When I got back here, after drills, you were already lying on the bed.

"I… I'm so sorry, Maxie. This is my fault. If I hadn't tried to find out where you'd gone, none of this would have ever happened. I did this to you, caused you all this pain. I'm sorry. I wish I had done things differently. I wish I'd trusted that you would have told me if you could. But I was missing you so badly. I thought you'd been taken, at first. And I was scared for you. I'm so sorry, Maxie. I'm sorry."

Max's eyes had been on hers through the whole story. Now, Jondy looked down, unable to look into their depths any longer. They were full of pain, but also sorrow. Maxie blamed her for this, she knew. She had to. Jondy stared down at her knees, afraid to move again, afraid to look up in case those eyes were full of hatred.

A hand brushed against her face for the briefest moment, before dropping back onto the bed. Startled, Jondy looked back up at Max, and saw no hatred in her face, only the pain.

"Forgive." The word was barely a whisper, harsh and short. Max wet her lips, and tried again. "Forgive you. Not fault. Can't hide forever. Forgive you."

Jondy almost fell over from relief. Maxie didn't hate her. Maybe she blamed her, but she didn't hate her. And that was all that Jondy cared about.

"Sleep now, Maxie. Sleep, and heal. Hurts won't be so bad tomorrow. I'll watch over you."

A ghost of a smile flickered over Max's face, before she shut her eyes again. Within minutes, she was fast asleep. And Jondy stayed where she was, watching over her best friend.