DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'Mutant X'. They're not
my property. They belong to Tribune Entertainment.
***
*********
Her throat began to scratch inside and it felt dry... very dry, which meant it would soon begin to irritate her until she consumed some warm liquid. She gathered a small amount of saliva and tired to swallow it, but the mass barely moved through the fleshy corridors. This was not a good sign... she could not possibly be subjecting herself to a flu, could she? And now?
Her eyelids slowly rose up, giving her eyes the chance to scan the light room. "Oh... how long have I been sleeping?" she wondered and moved her head to her left. The sun was but a smudgy and even pale image behind a thin and annoying white cloud, but at least it was there and by it Shalimar knew it had been daylight. "Ok..." she sighed and turned her head to the other side to notice nothing new. "Jesse?" She called quietly despite knowing that he could not possibly hear her behind the closed door and with such a low tone. Gripping the edge of the covers she slid them down to her waist and used her hands again to lift herself up. She managed to lean on her elbows and began taking in deeper breaths when the last amount which flowed through her suddenly felt more like heavy weight against her wounds, forcing the Feral to crash on the pillow again. She groaned silently to this unsurprising moment and then once more to the lack of strength she had remained to feel.
The door opened and Shalimar heard quick footsteps. She didn't have to avert her eyes when a face of a young redhead appeared above her, hesitating whether to show a smile or something sadder. "Emma?" Shalimar called her.
The redhead made her decision to smile after that calling. "Hi... yeah, it's me."
"Wow, you're here. When did you get... here?"
"Some minutes ago." Emma spoke quietly as her heart was making small spins due to the happiness of experiencing this, although weak, still lively image of her friend. But she felt her unavoidable tiredness and Shalimar's annoyance and unsuccessful efforts to regain her strength and hide her pitiful appearance.
Shalimar smiled as her eyes began sparkling from the salty liquid which covered them; the face of Emma sparked a joyful emotion inside her and once more she cursed for not feeling strong enough to hug the Psionic as tightly as she could. She missed Emma.
Emma knew this and bent down; managing to catch Shalimar's shoulders with her hands and give the closest action to a hug. The Feral's hands pressed roughly on Emma's back as she heard a quiet sniffing sound. She was going to cry, Emma felt and that feeling managed to flow into her as well, triggering the liquid to rush up and stop behind her eyes before beginning to slowly but brutally apply pressure to be released.
"It's been so long," Shalimar whispered. She felt Emma's small fingers around her neck as the embrace continued for an amount of time longer than it should have been. She closed her eyes and cursed her attackers for disabling her like this and removing the opportunity for her to act like the cat which she was and pounce on her friends with pure joy before capturing them in her embrace.
"Way too long," Emma replied and covered her eyes with comforting blackness as well.
When the embrace ended and Shalimar rested her head once more on the soft pillow, Emma sat down on the floor. "Is Brennan here?" she heard her ask.
"Yeah, uh, he and Jesse went back to the 'crime scene' to try and find more clues about... what happened."
"Oh... they did?" there was a strange falseness in the questioning tone as her eyes tried to stay focused on Emma's and not drift away. Her brain battled to keep the almost crying, low emotion which was threatening to surface, away from the Psionic's radar but it should have known better. Shalimar loved her friend but she wished for only a few brief and precious moments she could disable that genetic function of Emma's. She did show the expected relief of her companion's return but the added knowledge of his own return to the site where she laid for hours, lonely and afraid in the shadows of the lifeless buildings which surrounded her, protecting her unwillingly from the gaze of the morning sun, did nothing to heighten the previously good feeling.
Her eyes stayed steadily on Emma's as she wanted to ask what had Brennan's reaction been when he saw her but her voice did not make those words heard. She could imagine his anger, worry and perhaps even a grain of stress... but anger would prevail in his mind in the end. Shalimar sighed. Why did he call Jesse with him?
"Y-eah..." Emma spoke hesitantly, her mind picking up the uncertainty coming from the Feral. "He... of course, he was worried sick when Jesse told him."
A smile was received as response to that sentence. "And knowing him, he probably wants to rip the spines from the freaks that did this." Immensely desperately Shalimar had wanted to give a short giggle or just a smirk but she couldn't. She tried and tired once more but invisible strings from the tiredness pulled those attempts down and they sank as if made of cruel stone.
Emma felt for her friend and the massive desire to show at least one emotion resembling something joyful. "That's him," and tilted her head. Their feelings and generally their psyche had changed, almost alien-like, after their mentor's death. Few things could be predicted between these four mutants after that... perhaps a frustrating feeling brought up by the notion that, although the tight closeness had remained, a strange form of subconscious alienating had began to develop; one could only hope it would not grow fully and expose itself with a disastrous result of breaking the bond between them eternally.
Shalimar's eyes shifted from the edge of the bed to Emma's blues before she asked: "I didn't hear from him," her voice still rough was kept in low volume. "How did you meet?"
"I happened to be in the same town."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah... funny coincidence isn't it," Emma smirked.
Shalimar nodded and took a small breath; she dared not take a longer one after the last painful experience.
It would be a relaxing moment if they could begin a conversation, reminiscing about their past, their year and two weeks spent apart. Yes, it would be light, with only a few small tears but at least it would feel pleasanter and better on the heart, unlike the current moment. However, Emma needed to know something else, a thought which had taken to the first lines, positioning itself thoroughly with the intention of arriving to the truth, the appetite-pleaser of the curiosity. "Shal," she started. "Do you remember everything which happened?" her voice not abandoning Shalimar's level of loudness.
"Didn't Jesse tell you?" an indication of useless hope in her tone.
"Something but we need to know more."
"Oh... ok." Shalimar's eyes lowered to the hand resting lifelessly next to her stomach as she sighed; the color of the bed sheet transforming into that of the gray and black of the alley the previous morning, bringing to life the ugliness which followed once she stepped into the covered place, away from the watchful if yet ignorant eye of the passing pedestrians.
**
A strange smell had lured her inside the closed alley. "Is this her?" she heard an unfamiliar male voice behind her, causing her to spin around quickly and meet four men in gray suits, lined up equally in front of her. "No doubt," the other responded, not taking their eyes off their target. She could not read any emotion on their faces but she disliked the unfriendly and frightening smell emerging from them; it caused her to cautiously take some steps backwards until her back was facing mere three inches from the wall.
"As it is certain that a fight will follow, may I ask who you gentlemen are, first?" Calmly she took her ready pose while waiting for their answer.
One of them smirked. "Mutants, just like yourself," he responded.
"Gee... that says a lot," Shalimar's tone was a mocking one. "Eckhart's men?"
"No," the other man answered.
"Aha... so what is the reason for your attitude here?"
"We need a sample from you."
"A sample."
Bizzare.
"Yes."
"Oh? What for?"
"Just a sample," the man repeated. "You can give it calmly without any violence or we can take it from you and kill you in the process," he told her calmly.
"You didn't answer my question."
"Our reason is no concern of yours."
"Aha. Well, in that case," Shalimar crossed her arms and sneered. "No."
Shalimar's memory had abandoned her from the first injection of pain she had received in her left rib. The precise course of the combat was difficult to access, almost as if didn't exist, making the Feral sigh both with relief and annoyance. All the images were scrambled and scattered around with growing difficulty to be properly assessed. What had remained saved by her brain cells was the insignificant damage which her attackers had received from her, unlike Shalimar, who felt as if there had been four thick knives shoved inside her skin, making an opening for her energy to quickly escape. She failed to understand how that had been possible when she had hit and even scratched at their surfaces with her entire might and yet her attempts had appeared to be felt like the touch of a feather.
One of the men had slammed her against the wall with such force that she had remained temporarily disoriented up to that moment when she felt a sharp object being thrust into her, opening a door of splitting, enormous and throbbing pain to spread blazing through her entire body; she felt her insides burning and being cruelly left with nothing else to do but express her pain with a horrible and deafening scream.
Unfortunately, even that privilege was taken away from her as the other man covered her mouth with his hand, applying full pressure in the process; if there hadn't been air entering through her nose she would have easily been suffocated to death. "We asked you in a civilized way, Miss Fox," he told her with barely any tiredness being showed by him unlike the Feral who could scarcely attain the strength to keep her body on her feet.
Her eyes shot directly at his, with not only the mix of anger and pain but also the surprise about his knowledge of her name. Sweat was bursting from her skin and dripping down on her body as she tried to read something from his deep green eyes but there was nothing in them - they were empty. The unwanted feeling of frightfulness was overwhelming her amongst the other negative emotions streaming through her like rusted metallic arrows as she was trapped not only physically but emotionally.
Another sting, only this time deeper entered her before being subdued beneath the palm of the attacker, ripping away the feel of her legs. The pain rushed the tears to her eyes, and they finally showed while angrily streaming down on her face.
Anger was fading as the barely withstanding pain was clearing the room for the rapidly growing fear. The moments which followed were absent from Shalimar's memory.
The next fragment which had resurfaced was that of the uncertainty that surrounded her as she lay helpless on the filthy ground. Her eyes wandered towards the men, forming a circle around her, perhaps preparing for the final and fatal blow. She looked down only to be met by bright red wounds which appeared more than ready to open a spring of blood and contribute even further to the draining of the Feral's energy. Even her hands were beginning to abandon the secure steadiness and give into the weakening trembling as they barely supported her upper body two inches from the moist and grimy ground.
Having been rid off of any possibilities to defend herself, the Feral had no other chance but to powerlessly wait and watch until three words announced the end of the torture.
"That is enough!" A voice was heard but the view of the source was corrupted by the now tall bodies of the men.
**
Shalimar closed her eyes, applying pressure to them with the end of her palms; the images drifted away in the newly applied darkness. She gathered the knees as closely to her chest as she could without provoking the warning pain from her wounds, signaling their still present freshness. Two tears appeared and a quiet sob followed; she could not continue further, her mind forbid her and she obeyed it. "I'm sorry..." she spoke, her voice still rough but so intensively fragile as if she would break it at any second. "I can't go on." She buried her face even deeper in the space of the hands and bed sheet. A dawning and frightful realization appeared: she felt like she had been raped with the absence of an actual intercourse.
That realization fell over Emma's senses like merciless falls of a ravaging river, flooding her. She covered her mouth, pressing her hand there, not letting the lips speak out a word for the first few minutes which followed. When those minutes passed, as gently as she could, Emma placed her left hand on Shalimar's shrugged shoulder and provided balance for herself at the edge of the bed with her right one. "Shal..." she barely spoke out the word as the hurt temporarily transferred itself over to her.
Despite the falling uneasiness, Emma wanted to attempt and pull out at least a few more details but the slow appearance of tiredness closed her lips. "Not now..." she heard Shalimar say quietly. "I'm tired... I want to sleep," and with that, Emma saw the removal of the hands which covered the Feral's face, giving the site of calmness and traces of the recent tears.
Emma wanted to embrace her friend but she received the strange feeling of physical rejection which she would endure by Shalimar. This surprised her but Emma respected her wish nevertheless. Bringing her face closer to hers, she gently kissed Shalimar's wet cheek and the beginning of her nose. Sighing, she stood up and remained there, watching her sleep; already Shalimar had drowned in deep slumber.
Emma brushed the tear from her face and slowly and silently walked out of the room to obtain a chair.
Coming in the living room, she stood next to a stool when her eyes drifted away from the object and to an invisible spot on the wall. Shalimar was hiding something from her and despite the Feral's weakened state she had managed to keep it locked securely enough and away from Emma's sensors.
Emma did not want to apply pressure and force herself into Shalimar's forbidden consciousness to grab the information which was needed; she would wait until her friend felt safer and more secure. She had always known that Shalimar was a sensitive person but the fear which she felt emerging from the Feral with each spoken word nearly stunned her. Emma had never seen her, felt her wrapped inside such a cocoon of thick anguish before and it frightened her.
Her fingers crawled over the stool's right armrest as she was ready to pick it up when the door opened and Jesse and Brennan entered.
*********
She caressed the small metallic object with trembling fingers but the reason for that reaction was foreign to her. "This is all?" Emma asked while giving a glance at another similar object with stains of blood placed on the table.
"Yeah." Jesse sat on a stool across from her and leaned forward with his arms on the wooden surface.
Emma took another glance of the closed bedroom door and sighed.
**
Emma's eye moved softly to Brennan's to this where she held their gaze longer than with Jesse; she told them that Shalimar had awoken.
"What did she say?" Brennan's eyes slightly widened as he was anticipating at least some needed revelation.
Emma remained silent for two seconds, going through her own database as quickly as she could to try and predict the reaction of her friends and especially Brennan of the two choices she could use: honesty and lying. "She... uh... she didn't say much." Emma fought fiercely not to swallow as it would surely give her away with the choice she had made.
She waited for them to reply but they only waited for more from her, so she continued: "I wish she had said more but she only repeated what Jesse already told us. I couldn't get anything else out of her." Her eyes returned to Brennan's again as a drop of disappointed fell from his gaze. She couldn't bring herself up to tell them and especially Brennan; the scenario which she predicted, much quicker than expected, forced her to choose the second option of dishonesty.
"Damn it!" There was anger in there, as Brennan took a step back and hesitated whether to lift his hands in the air or let them hang lifelessly beside his hips. "Is she still awake?" he then asked her with returning calmness.
"No, she said she felt tired and returned to sleep," Emma replied.
Brennan sighed and looked towards the closed door. "I'm gonna see her," he almost whispered and return his eyes to the redhead as they narrowed. "You've been crying?" he asked her.
Emma held her breath for a moment as she realized that she had forgotten to wash her face and cover the traces. "Yeah," she admitted. "It was when we hugged... the emotions... I was happy to see her..." It came as small bafflement to her when she noticed the quick softness in his Brennan's eyes; it lasted for only two seconds but it felt strange especially as she could sense some sudden and quick shifting of emotions inside him which she couldn't differentiate.
"Ok." Brennan nodded and brushed his hand against her arm gently before he turned around and rushed quietly towards the bedroom. The touch felt soothing and disturbingly calming for that brief second, causing Emma to form a fist with her hand during that moment.
While watching him exit the living room, Jesse asked: "Are you sure she didn't say anything more?"
Emma didn't turn to look at him; she did not want him to recognize the shifting of her eyes while she was answering his question. "Yeah." The amount of saliva stuck at the very entrance of her throat was growing; she needed to be invisible for that second when she could swallow and remain unnoticed. "I'll be right back," she said and ran to the bathroom, leaving Jesse alone. Emma had to rid herself of it or she would pretty much choke on the substance instead.
**
Her gaze returned from the bedroom door to the object in her hand. "Nothing else?" she asked him again, not removing her eyes from the object.
"There was a bloodstain on the wall but... we couldn't tell who it was from."
Emma perched her lips briefly; she knew. "Disgusting," she gave only that short reply.
"Are you ok?" Jesse asked her when he noticed the trembling of her hands.
She wanted to stop her hands from giving her subconscious reactions away like that but she was powerless to do so. "Uh-uh. Why?" Only a short glance was thrown his way as to not reveal anything else. Emma even wished to enter her realm of panic as she could not understand why with such vastness and intensity was Shalimar's ordeal beginning to affect her; sure it had been a horrible experience and Emma could not avoid the shock being stamped on her but it wasn't as if her friend had died or had been in a coma... she only appeared tired... so tired; too tired.
"Be-e-because your hands are shaking?" Jesse said.
"Oh. Uh... I just didn't anticipate seeing Shalimar like this, Jesse." She looked up at him once more and this time with longer endurance, sucking up the visibility of her emotional mixture. She felt his hand on her free one before he squeezed it gently and his lips pressed tightly.
"She's... she's going to be ok," he tried to assure her despite the uncertainty he was feeling.
Emma nodded and sighed as she responded to his comforting gesture by squeezing his warm hand, their mutual warmth almost colliding with an invisible explosion. "I wish that more than anything right now, Jess," she spoke honestly and lowered her eyes to the object in her right hand. "I so do."
*********
***
*********
Her throat began to scratch inside and it felt dry... very dry, which meant it would soon begin to irritate her until she consumed some warm liquid. She gathered a small amount of saliva and tired to swallow it, but the mass barely moved through the fleshy corridors. This was not a good sign... she could not possibly be subjecting herself to a flu, could she? And now?
Her eyelids slowly rose up, giving her eyes the chance to scan the light room. "Oh... how long have I been sleeping?" she wondered and moved her head to her left. The sun was but a smudgy and even pale image behind a thin and annoying white cloud, but at least it was there and by it Shalimar knew it had been daylight. "Ok..." she sighed and turned her head to the other side to notice nothing new. "Jesse?" She called quietly despite knowing that he could not possibly hear her behind the closed door and with such a low tone. Gripping the edge of the covers she slid them down to her waist and used her hands again to lift herself up. She managed to lean on her elbows and began taking in deeper breaths when the last amount which flowed through her suddenly felt more like heavy weight against her wounds, forcing the Feral to crash on the pillow again. She groaned silently to this unsurprising moment and then once more to the lack of strength she had remained to feel.
The door opened and Shalimar heard quick footsteps. She didn't have to avert her eyes when a face of a young redhead appeared above her, hesitating whether to show a smile or something sadder. "Emma?" Shalimar called her.
The redhead made her decision to smile after that calling. "Hi... yeah, it's me."
"Wow, you're here. When did you get... here?"
"Some minutes ago." Emma spoke quietly as her heart was making small spins due to the happiness of experiencing this, although weak, still lively image of her friend. But she felt her unavoidable tiredness and Shalimar's annoyance and unsuccessful efforts to regain her strength and hide her pitiful appearance.
Shalimar smiled as her eyes began sparkling from the salty liquid which covered them; the face of Emma sparked a joyful emotion inside her and once more she cursed for not feeling strong enough to hug the Psionic as tightly as she could. She missed Emma.
Emma knew this and bent down; managing to catch Shalimar's shoulders with her hands and give the closest action to a hug. The Feral's hands pressed roughly on Emma's back as she heard a quiet sniffing sound. She was going to cry, Emma felt and that feeling managed to flow into her as well, triggering the liquid to rush up and stop behind her eyes before beginning to slowly but brutally apply pressure to be released.
"It's been so long," Shalimar whispered. She felt Emma's small fingers around her neck as the embrace continued for an amount of time longer than it should have been. She closed her eyes and cursed her attackers for disabling her like this and removing the opportunity for her to act like the cat which she was and pounce on her friends with pure joy before capturing them in her embrace.
"Way too long," Emma replied and covered her eyes with comforting blackness as well.
When the embrace ended and Shalimar rested her head once more on the soft pillow, Emma sat down on the floor. "Is Brennan here?" she heard her ask.
"Yeah, uh, he and Jesse went back to the 'crime scene' to try and find more clues about... what happened."
"Oh... they did?" there was a strange falseness in the questioning tone as her eyes tried to stay focused on Emma's and not drift away. Her brain battled to keep the almost crying, low emotion which was threatening to surface, away from the Psionic's radar but it should have known better. Shalimar loved her friend but she wished for only a few brief and precious moments she could disable that genetic function of Emma's. She did show the expected relief of her companion's return but the added knowledge of his own return to the site where she laid for hours, lonely and afraid in the shadows of the lifeless buildings which surrounded her, protecting her unwillingly from the gaze of the morning sun, did nothing to heighten the previously good feeling.
Her eyes stayed steadily on Emma's as she wanted to ask what had Brennan's reaction been when he saw her but her voice did not make those words heard. She could imagine his anger, worry and perhaps even a grain of stress... but anger would prevail in his mind in the end. Shalimar sighed. Why did he call Jesse with him?
"Y-eah..." Emma spoke hesitantly, her mind picking up the uncertainty coming from the Feral. "He... of course, he was worried sick when Jesse told him."
A smile was received as response to that sentence. "And knowing him, he probably wants to rip the spines from the freaks that did this." Immensely desperately Shalimar had wanted to give a short giggle or just a smirk but she couldn't. She tried and tired once more but invisible strings from the tiredness pulled those attempts down and they sank as if made of cruel stone.
Emma felt for her friend and the massive desire to show at least one emotion resembling something joyful. "That's him," and tilted her head. Their feelings and generally their psyche had changed, almost alien-like, after their mentor's death. Few things could be predicted between these four mutants after that... perhaps a frustrating feeling brought up by the notion that, although the tight closeness had remained, a strange form of subconscious alienating had began to develop; one could only hope it would not grow fully and expose itself with a disastrous result of breaking the bond between them eternally.
Shalimar's eyes shifted from the edge of the bed to Emma's blues before she asked: "I didn't hear from him," her voice still rough was kept in low volume. "How did you meet?"
"I happened to be in the same town."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah... funny coincidence isn't it," Emma smirked.
Shalimar nodded and took a small breath; she dared not take a longer one after the last painful experience.
It would be a relaxing moment if they could begin a conversation, reminiscing about their past, their year and two weeks spent apart. Yes, it would be light, with only a few small tears but at least it would feel pleasanter and better on the heart, unlike the current moment. However, Emma needed to know something else, a thought which had taken to the first lines, positioning itself thoroughly with the intention of arriving to the truth, the appetite-pleaser of the curiosity. "Shal," she started. "Do you remember everything which happened?" her voice not abandoning Shalimar's level of loudness.
"Didn't Jesse tell you?" an indication of useless hope in her tone.
"Something but we need to know more."
"Oh... ok." Shalimar's eyes lowered to the hand resting lifelessly next to her stomach as she sighed; the color of the bed sheet transforming into that of the gray and black of the alley the previous morning, bringing to life the ugliness which followed once she stepped into the covered place, away from the watchful if yet ignorant eye of the passing pedestrians.
**
A strange smell had lured her inside the closed alley. "Is this her?" she heard an unfamiliar male voice behind her, causing her to spin around quickly and meet four men in gray suits, lined up equally in front of her. "No doubt," the other responded, not taking their eyes off their target. She could not read any emotion on their faces but she disliked the unfriendly and frightening smell emerging from them; it caused her to cautiously take some steps backwards until her back was facing mere three inches from the wall.
"As it is certain that a fight will follow, may I ask who you gentlemen are, first?" Calmly she took her ready pose while waiting for their answer.
One of them smirked. "Mutants, just like yourself," he responded.
"Gee... that says a lot," Shalimar's tone was a mocking one. "Eckhart's men?"
"No," the other man answered.
"Aha... so what is the reason for your attitude here?"
"We need a sample from you."
"A sample."
Bizzare.
"Yes."
"Oh? What for?"
"Just a sample," the man repeated. "You can give it calmly without any violence or we can take it from you and kill you in the process," he told her calmly.
"You didn't answer my question."
"Our reason is no concern of yours."
"Aha. Well, in that case," Shalimar crossed her arms and sneered. "No."
Shalimar's memory had abandoned her from the first injection of pain she had received in her left rib. The precise course of the combat was difficult to access, almost as if didn't exist, making the Feral sigh both with relief and annoyance. All the images were scrambled and scattered around with growing difficulty to be properly assessed. What had remained saved by her brain cells was the insignificant damage which her attackers had received from her, unlike Shalimar, who felt as if there had been four thick knives shoved inside her skin, making an opening for her energy to quickly escape. She failed to understand how that had been possible when she had hit and even scratched at their surfaces with her entire might and yet her attempts had appeared to be felt like the touch of a feather.
One of the men had slammed her against the wall with such force that she had remained temporarily disoriented up to that moment when she felt a sharp object being thrust into her, opening a door of splitting, enormous and throbbing pain to spread blazing through her entire body; she felt her insides burning and being cruelly left with nothing else to do but express her pain with a horrible and deafening scream.
Unfortunately, even that privilege was taken away from her as the other man covered her mouth with his hand, applying full pressure in the process; if there hadn't been air entering through her nose she would have easily been suffocated to death. "We asked you in a civilized way, Miss Fox," he told her with barely any tiredness being showed by him unlike the Feral who could scarcely attain the strength to keep her body on her feet.
Her eyes shot directly at his, with not only the mix of anger and pain but also the surprise about his knowledge of her name. Sweat was bursting from her skin and dripping down on her body as she tried to read something from his deep green eyes but there was nothing in them - they were empty. The unwanted feeling of frightfulness was overwhelming her amongst the other negative emotions streaming through her like rusted metallic arrows as she was trapped not only physically but emotionally.
Another sting, only this time deeper entered her before being subdued beneath the palm of the attacker, ripping away the feel of her legs. The pain rushed the tears to her eyes, and they finally showed while angrily streaming down on her face.
Anger was fading as the barely withstanding pain was clearing the room for the rapidly growing fear. The moments which followed were absent from Shalimar's memory.
The next fragment which had resurfaced was that of the uncertainty that surrounded her as she lay helpless on the filthy ground. Her eyes wandered towards the men, forming a circle around her, perhaps preparing for the final and fatal blow. She looked down only to be met by bright red wounds which appeared more than ready to open a spring of blood and contribute even further to the draining of the Feral's energy. Even her hands were beginning to abandon the secure steadiness and give into the weakening trembling as they barely supported her upper body two inches from the moist and grimy ground.
Having been rid off of any possibilities to defend herself, the Feral had no other chance but to powerlessly wait and watch until three words announced the end of the torture.
"That is enough!" A voice was heard but the view of the source was corrupted by the now tall bodies of the men.
**
Shalimar closed her eyes, applying pressure to them with the end of her palms; the images drifted away in the newly applied darkness. She gathered the knees as closely to her chest as she could without provoking the warning pain from her wounds, signaling their still present freshness. Two tears appeared and a quiet sob followed; she could not continue further, her mind forbid her and she obeyed it. "I'm sorry..." she spoke, her voice still rough but so intensively fragile as if she would break it at any second. "I can't go on." She buried her face even deeper in the space of the hands and bed sheet. A dawning and frightful realization appeared: she felt like she had been raped with the absence of an actual intercourse.
That realization fell over Emma's senses like merciless falls of a ravaging river, flooding her. She covered her mouth, pressing her hand there, not letting the lips speak out a word for the first few minutes which followed. When those minutes passed, as gently as she could, Emma placed her left hand on Shalimar's shrugged shoulder and provided balance for herself at the edge of the bed with her right one. "Shal..." she barely spoke out the word as the hurt temporarily transferred itself over to her.
Despite the falling uneasiness, Emma wanted to attempt and pull out at least a few more details but the slow appearance of tiredness closed her lips. "Not now..." she heard Shalimar say quietly. "I'm tired... I want to sleep," and with that, Emma saw the removal of the hands which covered the Feral's face, giving the site of calmness and traces of the recent tears.
Emma wanted to embrace her friend but she received the strange feeling of physical rejection which she would endure by Shalimar. This surprised her but Emma respected her wish nevertheless. Bringing her face closer to hers, she gently kissed Shalimar's wet cheek and the beginning of her nose. Sighing, she stood up and remained there, watching her sleep; already Shalimar had drowned in deep slumber.
Emma brushed the tear from her face and slowly and silently walked out of the room to obtain a chair.
Coming in the living room, she stood next to a stool when her eyes drifted away from the object and to an invisible spot on the wall. Shalimar was hiding something from her and despite the Feral's weakened state she had managed to keep it locked securely enough and away from Emma's sensors.
Emma did not want to apply pressure and force herself into Shalimar's forbidden consciousness to grab the information which was needed; she would wait until her friend felt safer and more secure. She had always known that Shalimar was a sensitive person but the fear which she felt emerging from the Feral with each spoken word nearly stunned her. Emma had never seen her, felt her wrapped inside such a cocoon of thick anguish before and it frightened her.
Her fingers crawled over the stool's right armrest as she was ready to pick it up when the door opened and Jesse and Brennan entered.
*********
She caressed the small metallic object with trembling fingers but the reason for that reaction was foreign to her. "This is all?" Emma asked while giving a glance at another similar object with stains of blood placed on the table.
"Yeah." Jesse sat on a stool across from her and leaned forward with his arms on the wooden surface.
Emma took another glance of the closed bedroom door and sighed.
**
Emma's eye moved softly to Brennan's to this where she held their gaze longer than with Jesse; she told them that Shalimar had awoken.
"What did she say?" Brennan's eyes slightly widened as he was anticipating at least some needed revelation.
Emma remained silent for two seconds, going through her own database as quickly as she could to try and predict the reaction of her friends and especially Brennan of the two choices she could use: honesty and lying. "She... uh... she didn't say much." Emma fought fiercely not to swallow as it would surely give her away with the choice she had made.
She waited for them to reply but they only waited for more from her, so she continued: "I wish she had said more but she only repeated what Jesse already told us. I couldn't get anything else out of her." Her eyes returned to Brennan's again as a drop of disappointed fell from his gaze. She couldn't bring herself up to tell them and especially Brennan; the scenario which she predicted, much quicker than expected, forced her to choose the second option of dishonesty.
"Damn it!" There was anger in there, as Brennan took a step back and hesitated whether to lift his hands in the air or let them hang lifelessly beside his hips. "Is she still awake?" he then asked her with returning calmness.
"No, she said she felt tired and returned to sleep," Emma replied.
Brennan sighed and looked towards the closed door. "I'm gonna see her," he almost whispered and return his eyes to the redhead as they narrowed. "You've been crying?" he asked her.
Emma held her breath for a moment as she realized that she had forgotten to wash her face and cover the traces. "Yeah," she admitted. "It was when we hugged... the emotions... I was happy to see her..." It came as small bafflement to her when she noticed the quick softness in his Brennan's eyes; it lasted for only two seconds but it felt strange especially as she could sense some sudden and quick shifting of emotions inside him which she couldn't differentiate.
"Ok." Brennan nodded and brushed his hand against her arm gently before he turned around and rushed quietly towards the bedroom. The touch felt soothing and disturbingly calming for that brief second, causing Emma to form a fist with her hand during that moment.
While watching him exit the living room, Jesse asked: "Are you sure she didn't say anything more?"
Emma didn't turn to look at him; she did not want him to recognize the shifting of her eyes while she was answering his question. "Yeah." The amount of saliva stuck at the very entrance of her throat was growing; she needed to be invisible for that second when she could swallow and remain unnoticed. "I'll be right back," she said and ran to the bathroom, leaving Jesse alone. Emma had to rid herself of it or she would pretty much choke on the substance instead.
**
Her gaze returned from the bedroom door to the object in her hand. "Nothing else?" she asked him again, not removing her eyes from the object.
"There was a bloodstain on the wall but... we couldn't tell who it was from."
Emma perched her lips briefly; she knew. "Disgusting," she gave only that short reply.
"Are you ok?" Jesse asked her when he noticed the trembling of her hands.
She wanted to stop her hands from giving her subconscious reactions away like that but she was powerless to do so. "Uh-uh. Why?" Only a short glance was thrown his way as to not reveal anything else. Emma even wished to enter her realm of panic as she could not understand why with such vastness and intensity was Shalimar's ordeal beginning to affect her; sure it had been a horrible experience and Emma could not avoid the shock being stamped on her but it wasn't as if her friend had died or had been in a coma... she only appeared tired... so tired; too tired.
"Be-e-because your hands are shaking?" Jesse said.
"Oh. Uh... I just didn't anticipate seeing Shalimar like this, Jesse." She looked up at him once more and this time with longer endurance, sucking up the visibility of her emotional mixture. She felt his hand on her free one before he squeezed it gently and his lips pressed tightly.
"She's... she's going to be ok," he tried to assure her despite the uncertainty he was feeling.
Emma nodded and sighed as she responded to his comforting gesture by squeezing his warm hand, their mutual warmth almost colliding with an invisible explosion. "I wish that more than anything right now, Jess," she spoke honestly and lowered her eyes to the object in her right hand. "I so do."
*********