iv.

part four
:-:-: theme; maps by maroon 5 :-:-:

Octavia soon notices that Jeb is only kind to her. He isn't cruel to the other children, but he doesn't treat them like human beings like he does her. Due to this, Octavia remains cautious around him, always on her guard. He tries his best to get her to open up, but predictably, she acts like a skittish cat.

'What does this man want with me?' Octavia asks herself every time he is near. 'Why am I special?'

She thinks its her wings, but there are many other children in the facility with the same attributes as her. Maybe it's because she was their first successful subject with them? Octavia wasn't sure.

Several months with the kind whitecoat, and Octavia begins to get used to his presence and niceties. She never speaks to him in anything but American sign language (something she remembered from her past life), which he doesn't understand, much to her internal amusement. Sometimes, she gets caught signing to him by the guards, and they would yell and scream.

"We told it to stop with that shit! Who even taught it that?!"

They had tried to zap her with their shock batons, but Jeb had stopped them. His voice was calm, but the guards looked like they were about to faint. Octavia couldn't see Jeb's face, so she often wondered what kind of expression those guards had been faced with.

"I am lucky enough that she still can communicate at all; the other subjects have since become unresponsive. So, if you would, mind your actions before doing anything drastic."

Even then, she didn't thank him. Only looked at him as the guards scrambled to leave the room. Jeb smiled at her anyway.

While Octavia had been training with her new wings and learning how to fight, it seemed that the whitecoats had been busy trying to perfect a new ability to implement in their test subjects.

Octavia found out when she was yanked out of her cage one night, roughly woken up when her head hit the cage on her way out. Micah had received the same treatment.

The twins looked around the room, expecting to see the guards pulling more children out of their cages as experiment sessions usually did, but that wasn't the case this time.

Micah and Octavia were the only test subjects.

Immediately, as the two were dragged up off of the floor, Micah's eyes went to his sister's. "O!"

SLAP!

"Shut up, freak." A guard is quick to shut Micah up, smacking the side of his head with his baton. Octavia's fists clench, making the guard holding her tense up.

"Let's get moving." The tense guard tersely said, pushing Octavia forward and prompting the other guard to follow.

Arriving at their destination, Micah and Octavia were separated into two different rooms, but they could still see each other through a large glass window that acted as a wall.

Octavia was strapped down to an odd looking table that had a very large freezer beneath it, and she turned her head to watch the whitecoats do the same to her twin; only his table was connected to what looked like a fire pit. Her heart beat furiously in her chest as she wondered if this was finally the end of their suffering.

Micah was watching her as well, already crying. He wasn't like her; he was a child in body and soul. He was afraid of death, and she was not. All Octavia could offer him was a small smile, even if she knew it wouldn't help at all. Micah was too lost in his mind for it to affect him; he was too frightened.

The twins were both injected with three different shots; one blue, another red, and the last one a clear fluid. Octavia flinched when the scientists began to pour water over her head, having not expected it. She refocused on her brother, and saw that he was being doused, too, but not in water.

It was gasoline.

"Micah!" She shouted, startling the whitecoats around her. Octavia began to struggle in her bonds, eyes wide and hysteric as she continued to look at her brother. He was crying, shaking his head back and forth. She couldn't hear what he was saying, but she could read his lips.

Micah was calling for his sister; he was calling for her.

"Micah!" The metal bonds creaked, prompting the whitecoats to move. They held her down as she struggled, snapping at them with her teeth. "I will kill you! I will kill you, scum!" Octavia growled at them, lunging forward, only to have her head slam back into the table as her neck was suddenly strapped down. She looked back at Micah, just in time to see his table drop down into the fire below it.

Octavia's screams were cut off as her table dropped into the freezer, a metal slab sliding over to seal her in.