vi.
part six
:-:-: theme; maps by maroon 5 :-:-:
Octavia can feel the familiar weight of restraints strapping her down to the operation table. She is conscious, but not fully. Her mind is foggy at moments, and clear the next. She can't make out much, other than the whitecoats surrounding her.
'It makes sense,' She thinks tiredly, 'I lost.'
Octavia's consciousness fades out again.
She wakes again, but the environment is completely new. The young girl isn't in her cage, or strapped down to a table. She's inside a windowless room; a cell.
Octavia attempts to quickly stand up, only for a wave of dizziness to force her back down onto her bed— if the metal slab could be called that. It's then that she notices a weight around her neck; she frantically examines it with her hands and— It's a collar.
She tries to pry it off, but is immediately met with an intense shock that leaves her on the floor with spit dripping from her mouth. It was so sudden that Octavia didn't even have the time to scream; she was only left panting, her eyes wide in shock at the random assault.
Octavia is still on the floor when the cell door swings open, revealing Jeb and several guards. He gazes at her kindly, eyes filled with pity as he kneels down in front of her. When he tries to gently brush her brown hair out of her face, Octavia spits at him. Immediately, one of the guards kick her harshly, making her curl further into herself as she coughs harshly.
"Do not harm her," Jeb says sternly, standing to his full height to stare the guard down. "If you can't follow one simple order, then I will deal with you privately after this visit. Understood?"
The guard looks properly scolded, but a sneer is still on his face as he stares down at Octavia, "Yes, sir."
"Good," Jeb says before crouching back down. He rubs Octavia's back soothingly; she doesn't bother to retaliate this time, not in the mood for another beating. Regardless of Jeb's words with the guard, he's already betrayed her trust once, and that was all it took for her to put her walls back up. "I'm sorry it came to this, but what they did to you— It improved you. You're stronger than any subject we've worked on before."
'Subject, he says…' Octavia thinks snidely, 'Am I no longer a person to him anymore? Was I ever one?'
When she doesn't respond, Jeb frowns and gently caresses the skin around her collar. "This is also a necessary precaution. You killed a lot of people when you… threw that tantrum."
'Tantrum? Tantrum? Is that what they thought that was? A tantrum.' She really struggles to keep herself calm this time. Octavia wanted to strangle this man; her brother was dead —killed— and they called her reaction a tantrum?! She was sure that she was visibly shaking now.
Octavia tried to subtly channel her new "powers" but just the thought of ice made the collar around her neck tingle. She knew that if she actively tried to use her powers, the collar would outright shock her.
"This is what's going to happen," Jeb began to explain after her silence went on for too long, "We are going to monitor you. You'll be trained and tested to see how far these powers can go. Along with that, we'll continue your usual training." He pets her head, and leans forward to whisper in her ear, "I'm truly sorry this happened to you, my dear. There was nothing I could do to stop them, but I promise you— I'll get you out of here one day. Just play along with them for now; it's how I made it this far."
With that, Jeb stood up and left. The two guards followed behind him, whispering about their theories about what Jeb had told her.
Octavia wasn't sure what to think about his parting words. Could she trust him? Should she trust him?
'Does it even matter?' Octavia stares blankly at the metal wall in front of her, 'Micah's dead. What's the point of fighting this anymore if he's not here? He was the reason I was fighting in the first place.' Tears prick at the corner of her eyes and she buries her head in her arms.
"I wanted to save him."
Octavia doesn't remove herself from the floor. Instead, she cries into her arms until she falls asleep.
Days go by in a haze. Octavia doesn't even try to fight back anymore. Her usual training continues, but with the new routine that involves her ice manipulation ability. Jeb was a constant now, whereas before she only saw him occasionally.
Now, it was like she couldn't get rid of him.
She continues to fight the other experiments, and more often than not they are near death by the time the fight is over. A part of herself feels sick at what they're making her do, but a huge part —the main part— is hollow and without emotion.
The whitecoats seem pleased about that.
'Was this what they were trying to accomplish all along? Were they going to kill Micah this whole time, just so I would break?'
Well.
It worked.