Morrigan awoke on a different wooden bed in a different dreary place, her hair wet with what she assumed was water. She felt cold, and shivered slightly as a small amount of water trickled down her neck. She realised with a small jolt of horror that she was naked, seeing her cuts from... from... she didn't know.
Her cell was different this time: there was a bigger window made out of glass covering nearly all of one wall, and there was a steel door next to it. Out of it, she could see a pretty garden overgrown with vines, flowers, and cacti. Two seats were positioned next to a small pond in the middle of the garden, but they stood unoccupied. Morrigan almost liked this garden. Was it hers, she wondered? Perhaps Hannibal had had mercy and left her in a nice place. Perhaps he had let her go. Perhaps he had sensed that what he was doing was wrong. A flash of movement caught Morrigan's attention, and she moved her gaze into the corner.
There were two men standing there, one of them Hannibal and the other one she had never seen before. They were talking and laughing to each other in the corner, and Morrigan felt a sob of hopelessness bubble up and out of her. She was stuck here. Chances were, she'd never see Jupiter or Jack or anybody she loved ever again. How she wished she hadn't run off. How she wished she had just put up with the bickering and pleading. How she wished she was back at the Deucalion, warm, dry, and unraped. Was that even a word? Probably not.
Hannibal stared over at Morrigan suddenly, and she looked away. Shit, she thought. She heard footsteps, and flinched silently at each one as her captor walked over to her. He opened the steel door and slammed it behind him just after the stranger walked in behind him. Morrigan shut her eyes tightly.
"This is the treasure I told you about last night, Garrick," Hannibal's voice said, and Morrigan felt him looming over her.
"Hmm," the low, gravelly tone of who she could only assume was Garrick replied thoughtfully. "Bit of a miserable thing, innit?"
Morrigan chanced a peek at the men, and she opened her eyes just a crack. She hated what she saw but couldn't bring herself to close her eyes again: Hannibal had pulled out a kitchen knife and was twirling it conspiratorially as he protested, "No, no! She's rather good in bed. Put on quite a show for me on Wednesday. I'm sure her screams sound just as sexy as she looks."
Garrick eyed her suspiciously, taking the knife. "Does she moan?"
"Not this one."
Garrick rolled his eyes. "That's what you say every time, Hannibal."
"That's because they never moan!" Hannibal retorted, irritated.
"Do it harder next time, then. I've been waiting twelve years for a moan, and yet I've only ever gotten two out of Sylvie."
"It's only been a week. She'll break soon enough."
The men kept talking about this revolting topic, but Morrigan wouldn't allow herself to listen. She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that she saw green pixelated patches everywhere, distracting herself from the perverted whims of these two paedophiles who had seemingly kidnapped her. It'll all be okay, she told herself. I'll see Jack and Jupiter and Hawthorne and Cadence and Fen and all my Unit. I just have to hold on a little longer. I'm fine. This is fine.
It wasn't fine.
Morrigan heard one of the men stepping toward her, and her breathing sped up. Fuck, she thought. She couldn't afford to have a panic attack; not here, not now. She opened her eyes ever so slightly, and Garrick loomed in front of her, brandishing the knife. She gasped silently, and fought the overwhelming urge to scream in terror.
A moment passed. She could vaguely see Garrick inspecting her naked body like a complete pervert, lingering a while at her breasts she wasn't allowed to cover. And then he shouted behind him, "Oi, Hannibal! The little bitch's bleedin'. Disgust'n."
Morrigan felt her heart drop. Of course it had to be now that she got her period. She hadn't even felt it, too focused on not letting the men know she was awake.
Hannibal swore, stepping closer. He examined her briefly, and then huffed. "Now we can't fuck her." Morrigan's breath hitched, and she gulped down a sob. Garrick eyed his... what- brother? Friend?... closely, and then said slyly, "But now we get to see what her screams sound like, hmm?"
A minute later, she couldn't hold the screams in as Hannibal and Garrick kicked, punched, and cut her mercilessly. It hurt, it hurt, it really hurt. Make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop-
Hannibal aimed a particularly painful punch at the back of her neck, and Morrigan gasped in pain. He chortled. "That's what you get, bitch. That's what you get."
Jupiter ran a hand through his hair wearily. He had been awake all week trying to find leads on Morrigan's disappearance, and yet he and the Stealth had found nothing. All that they knew was that the sixteen-year-old had been either kidnapped or lost in Courage Square sometime in the past few weeks. Jupiter sighed, scrawling his name with a flourish on the bottom of a page.
Twenty-three days ago, Jack, Cadence, and Hawthorne had come into the Deucalion at around one in the morning, expecting Morrigan to be there. She wasn't, and they had all instantly gone out looking for her. Now she was still nowhere to be found.
The door to Jupiter's study banged open, and he looked up to see a frenzied Jack rush into the room, panicked and tearful. Jupiter immediately stood up and walked over to Jack as he collapsed into his uncle's arms. A few minutes passed with them just holding each other, and then Jack said in a trembling voice, 'She's not coming back, is she?"
Jupiter didn't have to ask to know who his nephew was talking about. He brushed tears out of his own eyes, pulled Jack over to the lounge, and said carefully, "She is. We're finding her, okay?"
"What if you can't?"
"We will. Fen's pulled strings; there are Magnificats all across Nevermoor looking for Morrigan. The Stealth are searching as we speak. Israfel is- well, Israfel is Israfel. He's looking, though. Don't worry, Jack," Jupiter replied, sounding more confident than he felt. His eyes started to close slightly, and he shook his head, trying to clear the sleepy sensation.
Jack scanned him, briefly removing his eyepatch. "You haven't slept in ages, Uncle Jove." Jupiter gave a short laugh. "Indeed I haven't."
"You should sleep."
Jupiter rose, gently pushing Jack towards the door. "So should you, it's eleven. I'll talk to you in the morning, okay?"
Jack nodded, giving him a quick smile before disappearing out of the room. As soon as he was gone, Jupiter flopped into his armchair with a groan. How had he allowed this to happen? How had he failed as a guardian this drastically? He should have been out there looking for Morrigan, but instead, here he was signing contracts for search parties. Here he was feeling sorry for himself, and not looking for Morrigan.
Jupiter took a sip of the coffee that Martha had dropped off five minutes ago and grimaced at the bitter taste. He didn't usually drink coffee; he just needed the caffeine to stay awake. He could taste an odd, salty component in the beverage, and frowned at it. What was in it, he wondered. Salted caramel? Why did it taste so... so...
Jupiter North's coffee cup slipped from his hands, spilling onto his shirt, and he fell into a deep sleep that would last longer than it was meant to.
On the same night, two middle-aged men hoisted a teenage girl up onto a cage on top of a cart with a horse attached in front, covering her with a blanket and placing shopping bags full of groceries all around her to disguise the fact that there was even a human there at all. The taller one closed the cage door, and they climbed onto the carriage seats. It was the dead of night, around three in the morning, and the streets were nearly empty but for a few police officers patrolling the main roads nearby. The shorter man cracked a whip, and the horse gave a short whinny and started along the cobbled street, his horseshoes making quiet taps as he pulled the cart along behind him.
The girl in the cage was barely awake, too drugged to think much. She felt the sway of the cart and the rattle of the wheels. She felt pain, dim, distant pain, like the eye of a needle digging into her, but everywhere. She stiffened as the cart went over a bump in the road, and relaxed a moment later, the ground smoothing itself over.
An owl hooted somewhere in the distance, and one of the men started speaking to the other. She recognised the voice vaguely. Was it a parent? A friend? A... a captor? Yes, a captor. Harold? Hamish? Some sort of old-fashioned name. The girl couldn't remember and gave up on trying to recall the man's identity.
She let her head drop completely, and drifted into a restless, fitful sleep.
"Don't do that."
Jack's voice cut across the room sharply, and Morrigan dropped her knife. She scrambled to pick it back up hastily, her face reddening.
Jack sat down on Morrigan's bed next to her, gently tugging the knife out of her hand and sloppily bandaging her bloodied wrist with his nightshirt. Some blood got onto his hands, but he didn't care. "Where the fuck did you get this, Morrigan?" He held the blade up angrily, and she turned her head away from him, shame-faced. "Sorry."
"I don't want an apology. I want to know where you got the damn pocket-knife from!" Jack's hands shook as Morrigan wrenched her arm out of his grip, wincing as the cotton fabric stung the cuts she had made on her arm. "Cadence smuggled it in through Wunsoc security yesterday, if you must know. She said I could borrow it." Morrigan's voice trembled, and Jack drew in a sharp breath.
"Does she know you're doing this to yourself? Does she know you're fucking slashing your wrists? Because I know you've known her ages, Morrigan, but right now she's seeming like quite a shit friend."
"No. She doesn't know." Morrigan's words were hushed; barely audible over the laughing of guests downstairs."You've got to stop doing this, Morrigan," Jack sighed softly, staring at her black eyes which were swiftly filling up with tears."I can't," Morrigan replied automatically, nearly robotically. "I won't."
"You will," Jack insisted, grabbing her hands and staring her right in the eyes.
"Or what? You'll ground me? Jack, you're not my fucking father," Morrigan spat back, pulling her hands back.
"I'll tell Jupiter."
The words hung heavy in the room, and Morrigan was instantly alert. "You wouldn't."
"I would."
"He wouldn't believe you."
"Yes, he would. He'd see the blood."
"He'll just think I'm on my period or something."
"It's on my hands, Morrigan!"
"So?!"
Silence.
"I'm going to let you think about that for a minute," Jack responded finally, and Morrigan frowned. "I don't get it."
Jack sighed. "Morrigan, why the actual fuck would I put my hands down your-"
"You could."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Okay." Jack exhaled heavily, running a hand through his hair. "Look, Morrigan, please don't do this to yourself. We've all been through depressive stages. I have, most of your friends have- fuck, even Jupiter has!"
"He has?" Morrigan was shocked by this discovery and found it hard to believe that Jupiter, who cared for her the most, who always made her laugh and asked her every single day without fail how her day had been, and knew if she was lying or not, had ever felt saddened in his life. Then again, she hadn't known him for an insanely long time period. Maybe six years or so. But still...
Jack nodded before she could ponder this any further, and replied, "Oh, yeah. A few years back, just before my parents disowned me, I think."
"Wait, what?"
"Never mind," Jack amended hastily. "Anyway, yeah. He was in a mental hospital for, like, a month. Anyway. Fuck, I'm saying 'anyway' too much, aren't I? Anyway-"
"You said it again," Morrigan pointed out, trying to process the amount of information she had just been given and pretending her wrists weren't hurting.
"- The point is, I need you to stop this. Stop hurting yourself. I don't know what's happening with you mentally at the moment, but I know that you're not in a good state of mind, and you can get help." Jack's voice shook slightly.
"I don't need help," Morrigan responded in a flat, uninterested tone.
"You do."
"I don't."
"You do!" Jack's exclamation reverberated around the room. "You do. I know you need help, and I know that when you say 'I don't need help', you mean that you think you don't deserve help. And let me tell you this, Morrigan," Jack paused for a moment, swallowed, and then kept going. "You deserve it. You've been through a lot of shit. And if you get help, you're going to be okay. Right?"
Morrigan stared at the wall for a few minutes, and then turned to Jack, pulling down her sleeves. "You- you really think so?"
Jack nodded firmly. "I do." He stood up and led her towards the bathroom, opening a cabinet and getting out a roll of bandages. Moonlight filtered in through the window-
- and then Morrigan woke up.