A crash is heard off-screen, like a mug shattering into pieces, before all four guys jump into the frame. Immediately, I notice they all look like shit. Private's eyes are red and watery like he'd just been crying. Kowalski looks like his only half focusing on what's going on in front of him. He usually gets that look when he's focusing on something in his mind, like trying to solve an equation but cooking dinner at the same time. Rico looks a cross between concerned and enraged, his fists clenching and unclenching. Skipper, however, looks the most stressed out of them all. He looks like he's carrying the entire weight of the universe on his shoulders. I wish I could hug them all.
"Get off our TV!" Skipper exclaims, annoyance and frustration lacing every word. His arms cross over his chest as he glares at Dr. Harris.
With a dark, rotten grin, Dr. Harris taunts him. "I've come to your TV for a reason, Skipper. Don't you want to know what the reason is? What I'm planning to do?"
Skipper sighs, running a hand down his face. I can see how tired and upset he is. "Fine, yeah, sure, get on with it."
Dr. Harris smirks, his arms crossing over the podium as he leans forward casually. "Well? Aren't you going to get the fifth family member involved?"
Dad's interest in the conversation peaks a little, and he glares daggers at my former teacher as if daring him to make a move to piss him off. He had that "challenge me, I dare you" look on his face that he normally got whenever someone questioned him on something that he knew. "She's not a part of this. Leave her out of it, Blowhole."
"Oh, but I'm afraid it's too late for that, Skipper."
I watch as Dr. Harris zooms the camera out, slowly. I watch the expression on Skipper's face drop, horror twisted with fear, and the other three mirror him.
"You sick, twisted fucker!" His horror and fear quickly go to complete fury, and I wonder how this is going to end for Dr. Harris. "Let her go. Now."
I don't know if this is just the dynamic they have with interacting with each other or what, but the former teacher doesn't seem to be phased at all. He pretends to consider the demand before waving his hand dismissively. I can't help but notice he dropped it below the podium this time. "Nah, I think I'm good. You have forty-eight hours to come surrender to me, and this little soul will be released. Fail to do so —" Dr Harris looks over at Clemson with a bone-chilling look and makes a hand gesture under the podium so the team can't see it, but Clemson can.
Suddenly, agony shoots through my side. I was so focused on the screen I didn't notice that this entire time, Clemson had a knife to my side. He slices me open pretty deep, and the pain causes me to scream and shift instinctively to get away. I look up at the screen to plead to the team with just a facial expression. Skipper is the only one looking, however. Kowalski is looking down at the floor, and Rico and Private are in each of Kowalski's shoulders, their backs turned to the screen. Skipper has a deadly look on his face that I've never seen before, and it makes the cold expression I saw during the shower incident look like a friendly smile. His face was red, his fists were clenched, and his knuckles were white. I wouldn't be surprised if he was accidentally drawing blood from his palm.
"— Fail to do so, Skipper, and you'll never see your daughter alive again."
This time, when Dr. Harris laughs, I'm not annoyed. This time it causes fear to grip my heart. Before this, I didn't fear for my life. I didn't think he would have the balls to get rid of me, knowing the information I knew. I had no idea that this was his plan all along. Now, my feet are ice cold from terror.
I see Skipper open his mouth to say something, but it was cut off by the call ending. There are so many overwhelming feelings of doubt, anxiety, dread. But one thing I didn't have until now was hope, even just a small dosage of it. Skipper knew I didn't run away. He now knew something terrible had happened to me, and now I knew he would be coming to my rescue one way or another.
As Clemson wheels me back to the little torture room, the air moving around me makes me realise I'm crying once again.
After my second torture session is done, just like before, I'm left alone to my thoughts and pains. Tears sting my eyes as I no longer try to hold them back. My mind is running a thousand miles an hour about everything in the world. It feels like everything is collapsing in on itself. I know Dad won't leave me to die, I know he wouldn't, but it's scary to think about him not showing up in time. I want more than anything for this all to be a dream, to wake up in my bunk to Dad telling me I hit my head too hard.
I turn my head to wipe my tears on my shoulders. I have to remain strong. I have to think positive thoughts, as hard as it may be. I need to not think of the several ways this could play out, resulting in my death. I need to think of the several ways this could play out resulting in my rescue, with the team coming to help me out of this damned mess.
The door slamming open startles me and causes me to yell out. Dr. Harris is walking inside, dressed in his lab gear from school. He walks up silently, a pocket knife in one hand and a test tube in the other. He slices a square into my arm, peeling away the skin and placing it into the test tube. He then presses it against the cut, forcing blood into the vial as well. I groan a bit but don't make much other fuss than that. I've encountered worse, but that doesn't make this experience enjoyable.
"Don't worry, little one," he says, making my battered skin crawl. "I only need some of your DNA and a copy of your memories. Then, I have a plan."
"Wh-What's that?" I ask, my voice coming out much smaller and meeker than I wanted it to. The response I got was a smirk, and almost immediately I regret asking the question.
Dr. Harris puts a black cover on the top of the vial. "Well, you see Liberty, I want to have you alive. But, if Skipper doesn't surrender in —" He glances at the clock. "— forty-two hours, then I need to kill you. So I'm making a clone of you. Same memories, same emotions, same markings. An exact copy. She will be the one I kill, while the original — you if that wasn't clear — I keep. Skipper won't be looking for you then, so he won't rescue you. So I get to keep you, watch my arch-nemesis go through a lot of pain at watching his daughter die on his watch, and I get to be the cause of it all. It's a win-win-win for me!"
"How do you know if Skipper's gonna get me? It's not like we've been getting along super well." I know he'll come to get me. But I want to plant the seed of doubt into his mind that maybe Skipper won't.
"You have, though." He crosses his arms with a triumphant look on his face. "Don't you remember that night in your room? Or were you too tired?" I look at him confused, and he presses on. "I sent one of my minions into your room that night to harm you. He did quite the job, I see." He nodded toward my hands, still cut up from all the broken glass.
"You're an ass."
His blade slices me across my thigh through my jeans quickly, and I bite back a yelp. "Don't talk back to me," he growls, a dangerous look in his eye. Feeling cocky, I roll my eyes at him, and with one punch to the side of the head, he knocks me out.
Everything is sore.
My head is pounding, my face is swollen, my wounds pulse with my heartbeat, my neck is sore from the position my head is in. I try to blink my eyes open, but the light hurts. I don't know if it's due to the headache or if the light is that much brighter here. Slowly, I force myself to open my eyes and get used to the brightness before taking in my surroundings.
I'm in the control room again, but this time I'm not in front of the giant screen. This time, I'm facing… myself.
Is this that clone Dr. Harris was talking about, or am I dissociating? Everything is the exact same. The haircut is the same, the wounds and bruises are all the same, even her breathing is the same as mine. I look down to double-check and compare, and that's when it fully hits me. I'm staring at an exact clone of myself.
It's bewildering to see an exact version of myself sleeping in front of me.
"You like my invention?" Dr. Harris's voice is suddenly directly next to me, causing me to jump out of my skin. I didn't hear him walk up at all. "I'm very pleased with how it all turned out." He sweeps the hair off of the forehead of my clone, and it sends shivers down my spine. It's like a nightmare I never had come to life.
"While you were asleep, I copied your memories from your brain and put them into hers. The last thing she's going to remember is you… passing out." He says that like I won't remember him punching me in the fucking face. I can see from my clone that my cheekbone has a nice bruise on it, buddy, there's no hiding it.
My eyes do another scan of my clone. "How is she sleeping so heavily?"
"It's complicated, but it's like a medically induced coma. All I have to do is pump this last vial into her, and within ten minutes she'll be awake. I don't need her gaining any memories from this and realising she's a clone. She'll end up telling Skipper before she dies."
That's exactly what I would do, too. Weird to think about the idea that there's an exact clone of me.
"Hey, Boss!" an unfamiliar voice calls from the shadows. "The team is here!"
"They've come just at the nick of time," he responds. The last time I was awake they still had forty-two hours left. What happened to those forty-two hours? Have I been out that entire time? "Savio, get the clone into the cage and wake her up. Red, do as planned. Go!"
Almost instantly, the restraints release. Exhaustion, pain, dehydration, and hunger all come together at once as I crumple to the floor, too weak to make too sudden of movements. I start to sit up slowly, but Red's creepily skinny hand grabs my throat tightly and yanks me up. He pulls me to the side of the control room, behind some boxes. I struggle out of instinct, but the feeling of a knife in between my shoulder blades makes me stop.
Red forces me to sit down with my legs underneath me so I wouldn't get up and run from him. He coughs hoarsely and it makes my nose wrinkle because I could feel my hair move from the force of his breath. Before I could even think about reacting much further though, his mouth is right by my ear. "Blowhole said not to kill you, but he never said anything about hurting you. Keep that in mind before you try anything funny."
I close my eyes and attempt to swallow the now large lump in my throat.
This isn't going to end well.