I'm finally back with another update. School work still being annoyingly present, I think its probably gonna be like that for a while so if updates are few and far between I apologise now. And I promise that the end few lines of this chapter are not spelling errors that I managed to overlook in the editing process. All will be explained in the next couple of chapters so I'll try and get those uploaded tomorrow. Please review and let me know if its making any sense at all and thanks to all the people who have reviewed already.
***
The door creaked open swiftly and slammed against the wall. The sound echoed through the room in large resounding booms and woke Brennan and Lexa with a start. Their eyes sprang open and they both visibly jolted. Brennan knew, before the men even entered the room what was going to happen. They had talked to Lexa and now they were going to 'talk' to him. The bad guys were, if nothing else predictable. They never really liked to keep Mutant X on their toes, always preferring the safe options over the more exciting ones, he thought sarcastically. He was trying to keep his mind off the inevitable. Lexa hadn't given him any details of what they did to her and for that he was incredibly grateful. He knew that if had been told everything he would have dreaded going but as it was he resigned himself to being scared but a little indifferent. He had experienced the worst kinds of pain before and he figured that this would be nothing new.
Lexa watched Brennan as two men walked into the room. He looked prepared for whatever was coming. What he didn't realise was that this really was all about her. The Dominion and Handon weren't interested in punishing Mutant X, atleast not at the moment. Mutant X could wait. Lexa was the initial target and the Dominion were going to make her pay for screwing them over. She closed her eyes and readied herself for what was to come. At length she felt the men's hands on her arms as they pulled her roughly off of the floor.
'What the hell's going on?' Brennan said loudly. He watched on as the two silent men started to take Lexa out. She wasn't resisting, allowing herself to be taken out of the room. It took him a few moments to realise what was going on but he eventually managed to force himself into action. He stood up from the floor and walked forward purposefully. One of the men let go of Lexa's arm and turned just in time to take a hard right hook from Brennan. As his fist made contact with the man's jaw Brennan fell to the ground. Pain ripped through his nerves and his brain. It was debilitating and he couldn't even think about what it was, let alone react against it. He gritted his teeth, trying not to let it take over, trying to regain control of his own body. By the time he had opened his eyes and looked around him the room was yet again in darkness. Lexa was gone.
***
Jesse's head shot up from the table where it had been lying. A red mark blazed on his forehead where it had been resting against his arm and one of his legs had gone to sleep and was just getting to the tingly phase. He rubbed it absentmindedly with one hand as he looked at his watch, trying to work out how long he had been asleep for. He stared at the ticking hands incomprehensibly for a few seconds before giving up and sliding himself off of his chair. As the leg with pins and needles hit the floor he let out a small grunt and felt it give way beneath him. His hand banged down on the table top as he tried to steady himself and his vision flashed swiftly. He blinked a couple of times as he righted himself and put the whole incident down to sleepiness. He wasn't tired but he hadn't slept a lot the night he spent with Lexa and his body seemed to be punishing him for staying awake for such long periods of time. He groaned gently as he walked through to the kitchen, his eyes finding it hard to accustom themselves to the brighter lights which illuminated the room. He flicked the switch on the coffee machine and sat down, the gurgling sound of coffee dripping into the pot below filling the room.
He rested his head in his hands. The Dominion information that he had gathered over the past couple of hours was still fresh in his mind but he could sense that it was gradually starting to fade away from his memory. Most of it was boring and dull to read. It was all about various missions they had undertaken over the past few years, or atleast that was the initial impression he had gotten. But gradually as he dug a little deeper he had started to realise that the Dominion went back a lot further than even Lexa supposed. And as he looked underneath the surface of the Dominions operations he saw that boring missions weren't all they had a part in. There were gruesome stories, ones which showed off the true nature of the Dominion. New mutants killed, experimented on so the Dominion could further themselves in the world, so they could become more powerful. It made him sick to his stomach. He had never understood the propensity to make others suffer. Mason Eckhart had had it, Gabriel Ashlocke had had it, the upper echelon in the Dominion had it. Jesse didn't think he'd ever get it.
He considered going to bed but there was something nagging at him. He knew he would probably get very little done whilst putting the maximum amount of effort in, but he wanted to carry on gathering information. He wasn't happy about leaving any of it open ended, he didn't like having the Dominion still running around, doing what they did best. He wanted it finished, and sooner rather than later was definitely preferable to him.
***
'What do you want?'
The man looked up at Lexa with a frown marring his handsome features.
'Why do you ask questions when you already know the answers?' he replied.
'Why do you?' she bit back. He was right, she knew exactly why she was there and what was required from her before they let her go. But she wanted to hear the official line.
'Touché,' he answered as he turned away. He wrote something on a sheet of paper quickly and the room was left in silence once again. Lexa looked around her. In all her time at the Dominion's facilities she had only ever entered this room once. It was one of their torture chambers, neatly dressed up in the facade of an operating theatre. She had brought a message to the 'surgeon', a guy who actually went by that name. She had entered the room and immediately the smell of cleansing products hit her nostrils. It had been so overpowering that she had almost choked on it. She had given him the message and had left, right before the screams of the man who had been lying in the chair began. She was ashamed to think that she had done nothing, that she had known of the existence of such a facility and she had continued to work for the people who ran it. Looking back she felt physically sick. And now she was suffering for finally accepting the truth and acting on it.
The wheels of his chair drew across the floor with a squeak which made her wince and he stood up. He turned around and walked towards her, the heels of his shoes tapping against the highly polished floor. Fear began to build up within her as her eyes met his. He didn't avoid her stare and Lexa tried to find some semblance of humanity in his gaze. But there was none. His eyes were dead, completely devoid of any kind of emotion, atleast any kind that she could read. Her hand began to shake within the bindings which held her to the table but she quenched it by forming a fist. She wouldn't let him see her pain or her suffering and she wouldn't scream until she could hold it in no more.
Lexa felt his breath against her neck as he bent down to her level and whispered in her ear.
'What are the access codes to Sanctuary?'
She turned her head and looked him straight in the eye. 'I'm suprised the Dominion doesn't know already.'
'Tell me,' he said, a little more venom in his voice the second time round as he raised a syringe to Lexa's eye level. She looked at the glinting point and felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest. Her eyes slowly moved back towards his face.
'Bite me,' she replied, her eyes flashing with a courage she didn't even know she had until she had been forced to embrace it. She turned her head so that she was looking at the ceiling and saw the movement out of the corner of her eye. She had no idea what he was planning on injecting into her but she knew it was not going to be as easy as he had previously hoped. She concentrated hard and felt the twinge of pain begin in the back of her head. She knew the kind of pain that was coming but she was not prepared to let Mutant X down, not after everything that had happened between them and her.
***
Brennan looked up as the lock of the door banged dully through the room. He didn't want to see Lexa. It would just reinforce all of his own fears. She was giving up her well-being for a decision that she had been uncertain of making and one which the team had made on her behalf, giving her no option but to go along with it. But some morbid interest aroused in him. He knew she would need his support and some part of him wanted to know exactly what it was the Dominion did to traitors. He wanted to hate them more than he already did.
He looked up and waited with bated breath for the door to open. It slowly moved back on its hinges and his breath let out in a short gasp as he saw that Lexa was standing there by herself. He stood up and ran over to her. She looked weak and not entirely with it but she was standing and the only guards present were those lying on the ground unconscious.
'What happened?'
Lexa looked up at Brennan's concerned face, her eyes unfocused as she tried to remember. She had felt the pain and she had known what she was doing but now it all seemed so unclear and she couldn't concentrate on a particular segment of the experience.
'We don't have time. We have to leave now,' she said, her breath coming out in short gusts as she tried to fill her lungs. She felt like her chest was compressing in on itself and she was being choked. After a few strong breaths though she felt her body filling with oxygen and she felt stronger.
'Okay, lets go,' Brennan replied as he took her arm and led her as quickly as she was able along the corridor.
There was nobody around, all the hallways they walked down were empty, all the rooms so devoid of human life. Brennan looked around him with a frown. It was all too easy, there was no way it wasn't some kind of setup. Nobody who knew anything about Mutant X would have security this lax. He felt a shiver roll up his spine. The place was either deserted or the people were playing a really good game of hide-and-seek.
Lexa's head was occasionally shot through with sharp stabs of pain and on those occasions she stumbled. Brennan would catch her and help her along, neither one of them daring to stop. They would walk with renewed vigour, both trying to convince themselves that their exit was just around the next corner and that , even though it seemed odd that they hadn't been stopped by any armed guards, it was really just a case of extremely good luck.
Eventually the lucky corner came and as they walked around it they saw a steel door with a small window set into it. Through the window Brennan and Lexa saw a high fence but beyond that was a lush green field and even further away the grey high rise buildings of a city.
Brennan let go of Lexa's arm and she steadied herself against the wall. He pushed the large handle down and shoved the door open. There was a blinding flash and Lexa and Brennan looked into each others eyes, uncertainty obvious in both.
***
'Did you get some sleep last night?' Shalimar asked as she entered the kitchen. The sun was shining through the window leaving its changing shifting glow as it shone through the trees outside Sanctuary. Shalimar took in the dark shadows under Jesse's eyes and the mess that was his hair with raised eyebrows.
'Clearly not,' she answered in response to her own question.
'I did sleep,' Jesse insisted. 'Just not in a bed.'
Shalimar walked across the floor to the fridge. She pulled open the door, the light illuminating her face. She reached for the orange juice and poured two glasses. She placed one of them in front of him on the table.
'You'll be no good for anything if you don't sleep every so often,' she said gently as she walked past him and out of the room.
'And don't even think about helping me on the computers until you've been unconscious for a couple of hours!' she shouted over her shoulder.
He rolled his eyes. 'Fine, but will you atleast delete all the information on the Dominion and send them the codes to Sanctuary,' Jesse yelled back.
'Of course.'
***
The door creaked open swiftly and slammed against the wall. The sound echoed through the room in large resounding booms and woke Brennan and Lexa with a start. Their eyes sprang open and they both visibly jolted. Brennan knew, before the men even entered the room what was going to happen. They had talked to Lexa and now they were going to 'talk' to him. The bad guys were, if nothing else predictable. They never really liked to keep Mutant X on their toes, always preferring the safe options over the more exciting ones, he thought sarcastically. He was trying to keep his mind off the inevitable. Lexa hadn't given him any details of what they did to her and for that he was incredibly grateful. He knew that if had been told everything he would have dreaded going but as it was he resigned himself to being scared but a little indifferent. He had experienced the worst kinds of pain before and he figured that this would be nothing new.
Lexa watched Brennan as two men walked into the room. He looked prepared for whatever was coming. What he didn't realise was that this really was all about her. The Dominion and Handon weren't interested in punishing Mutant X, atleast not at the moment. Mutant X could wait. Lexa was the initial target and the Dominion were going to make her pay for screwing them over. She closed her eyes and readied herself for what was to come. At length she felt the men's hands on her arms as they pulled her roughly off of the floor.
'What the hell's going on?' Brennan said loudly. He watched on as the two silent men started to take Lexa out. She wasn't resisting, allowing herself to be taken out of the room. It took him a few moments to realise what was going on but he eventually managed to force himself into action. He stood up from the floor and walked forward purposefully. One of the men let go of Lexa's arm and turned just in time to take a hard right hook from Brennan. As his fist made contact with the man's jaw Brennan fell to the ground. Pain ripped through his nerves and his brain. It was debilitating and he couldn't even think about what it was, let alone react against it. He gritted his teeth, trying not to let it take over, trying to regain control of his own body. By the time he had opened his eyes and looked around him the room was yet again in darkness. Lexa was gone.
***
Jesse's head shot up from the table where it had been lying. A red mark blazed on his forehead where it had been resting against his arm and one of his legs had gone to sleep and was just getting to the tingly phase. He rubbed it absentmindedly with one hand as he looked at his watch, trying to work out how long he had been asleep for. He stared at the ticking hands incomprehensibly for a few seconds before giving up and sliding himself off of his chair. As the leg with pins and needles hit the floor he let out a small grunt and felt it give way beneath him. His hand banged down on the table top as he tried to steady himself and his vision flashed swiftly. He blinked a couple of times as he righted himself and put the whole incident down to sleepiness. He wasn't tired but he hadn't slept a lot the night he spent with Lexa and his body seemed to be punishing him for staying awake for such long periods of time. He groaned gently as he walked through to the kitchen, his eyes finding it hard to accustom themselves to the brighter lights which illuminated the room. He flicked the switch on the coffee machine and sat down, the gurgling sound of coffee dripping into the pot below filling the room.
He rested his head in his hands. The Dominion information that he had gathered over the past couple of hours was still fresh in his mind but he could sense that it was gradually starting to fade away from his memory. Most of it was boring and dull to read. It was all about various missions they had undertaken over the past few years, or atleast that was the initial impression he had gotten. But gradually as he dug a little deeper he had started to realise that the Dominion went back a lot further than even Lexa supposed. And as he looked underneath the surface of the Dominions operations he saw that boring missions weren't all they had a part in. There were gruesome stories, ones which showed off the true nature of the Dominion. New mutants killed, experimented on so the Dominion could further themselves in the world, so they could become more powerful. It made him sick to his stomach. He had never understood the propensity to make others suffer. Mason Eckhart had had it, Gabriel Ashlocke had had it, the upper echelon in the Dominion had it. Jesse didn't think he'd ever get it.
He considered going to bed but there was something nagging at him. He knew he would probably get very little done whilst putting the maximum amount of effort in, but he wanted to carry on gathering information. He wasn't happy about leaving any of it open ended, he didn't like having the Dominion still running around, doing what they did best. He wanted it finished, and sooner rather than later was definitely preferable to him.
***
'What do you want?'
The man looked up at Lexa with a frown marring his handsome features.
'Why do you ask questions when you already know the answers?' he replied.
'Why do you?' she bit back. He was right, she knew exactly why she was there and what was required from her before they let her go. But she wanted to hear the official line.
'Touché,' he answered as he turned away. He wrote something on a sheet of paper quickly and the room was left in silence once again. Lexa looked around her. In all her time at the Dominion's facilities she had only ever entered this room once. It was one of their torture chambers, neatly dressed up in the facade of an operating theatre. She had brought a message to the 'surgeon', a guy who actually went by that name. She had entered the room and immediately the smell of cleansing products hit her nostrils. It had been so overpowering that she had almost choked on it. She had given him the message and had left, right before the screams of the man who had been lying in the chair began. She was ashamed to think that she had done nothing, that she had known of the existence of such a facility and she had continued to work for the people who ran it. Looking back she felt physically sick. And now she was suffering for finally accepting the truth and acting on it.
The wheels of his chair drew across the floor with a squeak which made her wince and he stood up. He turned around and walked towards her, the heels of his shoes tapping against the highly polished floor. Fear began to build up within her as her eyes met his. He didn't avoid her stare and Lexa tried to find some semblance of humanity in his gaze. But there was none. His eyes were dead, completely devoid of any kind of emotion, atleast any kind that she could read. Her hand began to shake within the bindings which held her to the table but she quenched it by forming a fist. She wouldn't let him see her pain or her suffering and she wouldn't scream until she could hold it in no more.
Lexa felt his breath against her neck as he bent down to her level and whispered in her ear.
'What are the access codes to Sanctuary?'
She turned her head and looked him straight in the eye. 'I'm suprised the Dominion doesn't know already.'
'Tell me,' he said, a little more venom in his voice the second time round as he raised a syringe to Lexa's eye level. She looked at the glinting point and felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest. Her eyes slowly moved back towards his face.
'Bite me,' she replied, her eyes flashing with a courage she didn't even know she had until she had been forced to embrace it. She turned her head so that she was looking at the ceiling and saw the movement out of the corner of her eye. She had no idea what he was planning on injecting into her but she knew it was not going to be as easy as he had previously hoped. She concentrated hard and felt the twinge of pain begin in the back of her head. She knew the kind of pain that was coming but she was not prepared to let Mutant X down, not after everything that had happened between them and her.
***
Brennan looked up as the lock of the door banged dully through the room. He didn't want to see Lexa. It would just reinforce all of his own fears. She was giving up her well-being for a decision that she had been uncertain of making and one which the team had made on her behalf, giving her no option but to go along with it. But some morbid interest aroused in him. He knew she would need his support and some part of him wanted to know exactly what it was the Dominion did to traitors. He wanted to hate them more than he already did.
He looked up and waited with bated breath for the door to open. It slowly moved back on its hinges and his breath let out in a short gasp as he saw that Lexa was standing there by herself. He stood up and ran over to her. She looked weak and not entirely with it but she was standing and the only guards present were those lying on the ground unconscious.
'What happened?'
Lexa looked up at Brennan's concerned face, her eyes unfocused as she tried to remember. She had felt the pain and she had known what she was doing but now it all seemed so unclear and she couldn't concentrate on a particular segment of the experience.
'We don't have time. We have to leave now,' she said, her breath coming out in short gusts as she tried to fill her lungs. She felt like her chest was compressing in on itself and she was being choked. After a few strong breaths though she felt her body filling with oxygen and she felt stronger.
'Okay, lets go,' Brennan replied as he took her arm and led her as quickly as she was able along the corridor.
There was nobody around, all the hallways they walked down were empty, all the rooms so devoid of human life. Brennan looked around him with a frown. It was all too easy, there was no way it wasn't some kind of setup. Nobody who knew anything about Mutant X would have security this lax. He felt a shiver roll up his spine. The place was either deserted or the people were playing a really good game of hide-and-seek.
Lexa's head was occasionally shot through with sharp stabs of pain and on those occasions she stumbled. Brennan would catch her and help her along, neither one of them daring to stop. They would walk with renewed vigour, both trying to convince themselves that their exit was just around the next corner and that , even though it seemed odd that they hadn't been stopped by any armed guards, it was really just a case of extremely good luck.
Eventually the lucky corner came and as they walked around it they saw a steel door with a small window set into it. Through the window Brennan and Lexa saw a high fence but beyond that was a lush green field and even further away the grey high rise buildings of a city.
Brennan let go of Lexa's arm and she steadied herself against the wall. He pushed the large handle down and shoved the door open. There was a blinding flash and Lexa and Brennan looked into each others eyes, uncertainty obvious in both.
***
'Did you get some sleep last night?' Shalimar asked as she entered the kitchen. The sun was shining through the window leaving its changing shifting glow as it shone through the trees outside Sanctuary. Shalimar took in the dark shadows under Jesse's eyes and the mess that was his hair with raised eyebrows.
'Clearly not,' she answered in response to her own question.
'I did sleep,' Jesse insisted. 'Just not in a bed.'
Shalimar walked across the floor to the fridge. She pulled open the door, the light illuminating her face. She reached for the orange juice and poured two glasses. She placed one of them in front of him on the table.
'You'll be no good for anything if you don't sleep every so often,' she said gently as she walked past him and out of the room.
'And don't even think about helping me on the computers until you've been unconscious for a couple of hours!' she shouted over her shoulder.
He rolled his eyes. 'Fine, but will you atleast delete all the information on the Dominion and send them the codes to Sanctuary,' Jesse yelled back.
'Of course.'