Selah awoke abruptly, trying to stifle the groan that arose in her throat. A bright light was shining on her from above the bed, and once her eyes managed to focus, she realized it was a surgical lamp. Then it all came flooding back.

This was the fourth surgery that they had done on her since she had come back to the Agenda, each one only a few days apart. They would operate, wait for her powers to return- leaving her to sleep on the surgical table, and then repeat it the next day. The first two times, they had cut open her abdomen and then her chest, the third time was her spine, and now as she looked down at her body, she saw a gaping incision on the crook of her left elbow that was barely beginning to scab over. Her arms were secured down to the table at her wrists, and she had an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth.

The doctor seemed to notice that she was awake, and she crossed over to the surgical bed, beginning to wipe the mostly dried blood off of Selah's arm with an alcohol swab. Hissing in pain, she felt the doctor pause, glancing over towards her before resuming the task. Once it was done, the doctor removed the oxygen mask and began setting up the sun lamp.

There had been no other doctors or nurses in the room, at least while she was conscious, which Selah thought was odd. When she was with the Agenda before, they always had full surgical teams, with at least two or three nurses per doctor, but this time it had only ever been this particular doctor. She had done all four operations, working quickly with an intense precision that was enough to make up for the lack of a support team. She was in her early forties, Selah would guess, with graying brown curls and blue eyes that kept glancing over at Selah curiously. Her powers weren't back yet, but the girl could tell that the woman was focused, the tension in her hands evident.

"Your powers should be back within the next few hours," she said mechanically, as she removed her gloves. "I will be in the next room tracking your vitals." Without waiting for a reply, the doctor exited the room, leaving Selah alone.

The restraints on her wrists had prevented her from moving around too much over the past four days, and her back was aching. While all of her previous injuries were long healed, the cut on her arm was still throbbing dully, and she glanced at it again. It was about four or five inches long, and probably two inches deep, severing muscle and tendons. Those would all rejoin once her powers returned, but it was still unnerving to be able to see inside such a deep gash. Tearing her eyes away from the cut, she took a few deep breaths, trying to swallow back the nausea that was rising up in her throat. Her whole body felt sore and tired, a familiar pain that she got each time she woke up from the anesthesia. She was grateful that they gave her anesthesia for these surgeries, as they hadn't always deemed it necessary in the past, and would sometimes operate on her while she was awake and had complete feeling, heavily restraining her to keep her from moving.

As she stared up at the lights on the ceiling, she wished that this was all somehow a dream, that none of it was real, and she would wake up in the DEO again, or in her apartment, or on Kara's couch.

'You rarely feel pain in dreams," a logical part of her mind whispered, and she shut her eyes. This was real. This was actually happening. She was back at the Agenda, as a lab rat for them to run tests on for as long as they still had tests to do. Once they ran out of them... Selah shook her head, trying not to think about what was going to happen. She could still see the light through her eyelids, coloring all of her vision orange, and she allowed herself to get lost in thought, drowning in the color.

She was surprised by how numb she felt to all of it. From the moment that she had been taken by the DEO, the biggest fear that was always at the forefront of her mind was that she was going to end up back with the Agenda. She had countless nightmares about this, where she would wake up trembling in a cold sweat, often staying awake for hours afterwards. The sheer terror at the prospect of being back in an underground lab somewhere, getting tested on was enough to make her unable to fall back asleep. But now that she was here, she didn't feel afraid, she didn't feel angry, or sad, or upset. She didn't feel anything at all, just numb. Her mind felt sluggish and somehow separate from her body, as if it hadn't quite connected what had happened and what was going on.

During her last stay with the Agenda, they discovered that she could survive underwater without oxygen, a gift from her Andromedan DNA. They began running an experiment where they kept her submerged in a tank of water for weeks, sometimes in the dark, sometimes not. She remembered just floating in the water, her arms and legs hanging loosely around her, and feeling so distant from everything around her. It felt like the rest of the world was light years away, and all that existed was her mind, trapped inside of this tank. For awhile when she was in the dark, she genuinely wondered if she had died and this was what the afterlife was, an eternity or black empty nothingness, just floating aimlessly forever. Thankfully the experiment only lasted for a few months, or Selah was certain that she would have lost all grip on reality, but now, on this table in the lab, she had the same feeling. That perhaps somewhere normal life was going on, and the world was still spinning, but she was someplace else, very far away from that normalcy, completely unable to feel or think anything. Each second felt like it lasted for hours, and all she felt was this deep, empty, numbness. It was worse than pain, or fear.

She felt her arm beginning to close up again, a warm, buzzing sensation, as her powers slowly returned. The lab must have been rigged with telepathy blockers since the last surgery, because she couldn't hear the doctor's thoughts from the next room. In fact, she couldn't hear any thoughts at all. After all of her previous surgeries once her powers returned, she had been able to hear the usual hum of the thoughts around her, but now it was all gone. She had never before understood how silence could be deafening, but lying face up on that table in a surgical suite, the sheer lack of sound was beyond deafening, it was suffocating. Closing her eyes tighter, she clenched up all the muscles in her body until she heard the blood rushing in her ears, so at least there was some noise to be heard instead of the unbearable nothing.

"You are healed?" Selah's eyes popped open, and she saw that the woman had returned and was standing in the doorway, now accompanied by a security guard, the same one from the alley the day that Kara was taken. She nodded, and the doctor walked over to the table, unlocking the restraints. The girl supposed that this meant they were done with the surgeries, as she hadn't been allowed off of the table before. She refused to move from the table until the doctor had taken a few steps back again, and then she sat up slowly, rubbing her wrists. Her elbow was closed up completely now, the skin showing no sign of any trauma at all. Selah could feel the doctor eyeing it, and she rotated her arm so that the woman could no longer see it. Nodding to the security guard, the woman walked to the sun lamp and shut it off. The man walked over to Selah, pulling one of the power draining devices out of his pocket.

"You do anything, I shoot you, understand?" he asked. Selah nodded again, and he gestured for her to stand up. They left the lab and the doctor, and began walking through a maze of corridors, one of the guard's hands firmly wrapped around her forearm, while the other kept the device pointed squarely at her chest. The hallways were barren, with metal walls, floors and ceilings. The closest thing to any kind of decoration was the light fixtures that hung from the walls. Turning a corner, the hallway ended abruptly in an ornate wooden door, on which the guard knocked twice. It swung open to reveal Director Beta.

"Wonderful," she purred, pulling the door open wider to allow the guard to enter, still pulling Selah with him. The room appeared to be an office, and it was much more well-decorated than the rest of the building, with dark red wallpaper, wood paneling, and carpeted floors. A gold chandelier hung from the ceiling, a few bookcases lined the walls, and wide desk sat in the corner with a wingback armchair placed behind it. "I trust you've recovered from the procedure?" Selah ignored the question, and continued glaring evenly at Beta, who nodded to the guard, signalling for him to exit. As he left, she crossed over to the desk, leaning against it delicately. "The doctors and I have been talking, and we have some big plans for you."

"Why can't I hear anyone's thoughts?" the girl muttered.

"Ah," she pointed to her earpiece, which had a small blue light on it. "Telepathic shields that we created in your leave. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that we won't be needing the tiara anymore."

"Fantastic."

"We also safeguarded the building with anti-Andromedan defenses. If you go past certain boundaries, they will sense your psychic powers and give you an electric shock strong enough to paralyze you." She tilted her head, smiling sweetly. "And we don't want that, now do we?"

"What are you going to do to me?" Selah asked. Beta smiled.

"We wouldn't want to ruin the surprise. You'll find out in due time." She straightened up, walking around the desk to open a drawer. "Now, one last thing before we bid our adieus, just a bit of housekeeping." She picked up a pair of white handcuffs, which glowed with the same blue light as her earpiece. "These will inhibit your psychic powers while you're in the cell. Just so we know you're not trying to play any tricks on us." She held them out expectantly, but Selah didn't move. "Come now, don't make me bring the guard in to persuade you."

"What are you going to do?" she asked again, hoping the woman would answer. Beta simply raised one eyebrow expectantly. They stared at each other for a few long moments, the woman still smiling cooly, daring Selah to defy her. Finally, the girl walked stiffly over to the desk and held her arms out, allowing the woman to put the handcuffs on her wrists. Her hands brushed against Selah's, and the girl held back the instinct to recoil.

"Good girl," The director said once the cuffs were secured, patting Selah's cheek. "Now run along, the guard should be waiting outside." Going back behind her desk, and sitting down onto the armchair, her posture pristine, the woman watched as Selah went to the door, struggling to turn the knob with her cuffed hands. Finally, she got the door open, meeting the guard in the hallway. The man grabbed her forearm once more, and began walking her back through the building.

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