A/N: One more chapter, my friends. It's been a wild ride.
Chapter 21
2 days since last feed
Unmoving, you spend hours in the dark.
You'd shut off your radio, the barrage of questions and concern too much for your mind that just wants to shut down. But your body won't let you, bathed in liquid fire, licking at the ends of your toes and just behind your eyes. Every slight shift bleeds pain into your nerves. You wish you'd never been born.
Someone eventually slinks in. The light from the hallway sears, and you barely catch a glimpse of the same white walls and new uniforms guarding your room. Not like you'll be going anywhere on your own.
It's easy to recognize her scent.
"Leave me alone," you rasp, turning your head away from the door with some difficulty. You don't let her see how it makes you grimace.
Syu's fingers are warm as she loosens your restraints. Blood flows back into your extremities, gone white and numb, and the added stimulation makes you bite down on your pillow stained with tears. Even in the dark you can see the pity in her stare.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," she says quietly as she rolls something to your bedside from the corner of the room, "and that I couldn't stop it."
You could've, you think, but you're just so tired.
She presses something to the back of your left hand. There's a slight pinch, and then tape over it.
You recognize a needle when you feel it.
"What are you—" but she hushes you, stroking the bangs out of your eyes. With obvious effort, you turn your head back to meet her.
"Let me help you," she murmurs as she hooks up a bag with a long tube to the needle. An IV. "No more pain. Not for a little while."
You clench your hand as you feel foreign liquid seeping into your veins. It's warm.
Syu helps you prop your head up long enough to take a drink of water. The room spins a little as you settle back down.
"Wha' did you do?"
She smiles at the slur in your voice, but it's bitter on the edges. The light from the hallway begins to halo, spreading out in all directions like an exploding star.
"It's okay Britt, just sleep."
It takes another five minutes before the darkness devours you, and you swear you feel yourself lifting away from your bound and broken body. Nothing matters at all.
Every part of you is humming.
When you wake, the world swims in and out of focus. There's a narrow beam of light that creeps in through the open door, illuminating the IV needle in the back of your left hand. It itches, and you mindlessly bring your other hand to rip it out. Only when it hangs on the floor, leaking clear poison onto the tiles, do you realize your restraints are undone. The open window lets freezing air howl into the small space, but all is silent.
You rise cautiously. Your lower back twinges and your knuckles go white on the rails of your bed as you attempt to gather your knees beneath you. Every breath is pain and you cast a wary eye to the discarded IV, already feeling its loss. Still, you attempt to crawl out of bed—you get halfway over the rails before you fall, landing on your side. Agony lances through your torso and you lose your breath entirely.
Wheezing, your fingers scramble for the needle. Blood drips onto the tiled floor as you hastily shove it into the hole it left, but your skin is numb to everything but the drug. It takes a few minutes for the feeling of floating to reappear, but when it does your whole body flushes warm and you can slowly get up.
The door has opened a little more—outside is the hallway, just as quiet as your room. You smack your temple a few times, as if that would make your ears work again, but there's no ringing, no breath of noise in the quiet. Still, you can hear yourself scrabbling as you slowly rise to your feet, hanging heavily off the IV stand for support. It has wheels, and it accompanies you when you take a shaky step forward.
Like John, you think, and let your fingers run down the smooth metal stand.
"Hi, John," you whisper, but your mouth has been filled with cotton balls. Only a hoarse murmur leaves you. His necklace is cold against your collar.
The two of you forge onwards. You're sluggish, feeble, but there's no one to stop you. The hallways are empty, void of life. Even the smell has changed. All that remains of your soldiers are their boots, at attention on either side of the door.
Your staggering way takes you into the center of the compound. Still no sound, no breath, no blood and bone. Everything is suspended in artificial silence.
"Hello?" you call out. It echoes, bouncing down endless hallways. Nothing returns to you.
You wander aimlessly for a while, the drug fed into your veins blunting the worst of your pain. Still, you feel the sweat drip down your brow, matting your hair, sticking the back of your shirt to your spine. It's impossible to keep yourself up forever.
Eventually, the air changes. It grows damp and dark, tinged with the iron of hundreds of people melding together. You taste their blood in the back of your mouth, and when you spit, it comes back red. Something in you feels pulled downwards, into the basements of this place, your feet sinking through the floor to reach their destination. In the distance, a machine dings.
At the end of this hallway is an elevator you'd never seen before, painted red as your own tainted blood. You and John make your slow way towards it. All the doors you pass are locked, and if you strain you can hear the hush of whispering voices from the other side. But they flit out of your range ever so quickly, almost as if they know you're listening. You swallow, and that metal tang migrates down to your stomach where it takes root.
The elevator doors are open when you arrive. It's a metal mouth, yawning, beckoning you into its chest. Unlike the rest of the compound, it's unfinished. Crumbling. Rust gathers at the corners. There's only one button, glowing feebly, marked with a big black H.
You step inside.
Gears grind as it begins to move downwards. You should be afraid but you're still floating, anchored only by John and the euphoria he drips into your body. The earthy smell gets so strong you can't scent anything else at all. An iron flower sits on the back of your tongue.
Your breathing is the only sound anywhere as the elevator shudders to a halt. Its doors open jerkily, like they're being tugged apart by invisible hands. An empty room awaits you with nothing but shadows. Even your eyes can't see through the veil. You hold your breath, sending your awareness outwards, begging your betrayer heart to be silent for a second lest you be caught unawares.
Don't go, whispers John, they want you here.
"Maybe I should be."
You've suffered enough. Look what they did to me. To us.
You bite your lip, forcing yourself to listen. Nothing. Still only you and John, caught up in this—
An exhale.
Your eyes snap open. Despite John's voice murmuring in your ear, begging you not to go onwards, you step onto the grey concrete. Instantly, there's a hitch in this foreign breathing, caught on a sob. It's coming from ahead of you, bouncing off the invisible walls.
"Hello?"
A light clicks on. A bare bulb, swinging from an unfinished ceiling. Its buzzing glow reveals a hunched figure kneeling on the concrete, arms twisted behind them. Their head is bowed, but you recognize that mess of wild blonde hair long before her scent hits you.
"Quinn!"
You begin to stagger towards her, but another figure steps into her light. More blonde, but this is streaked with blood and filth. You almost trip over your own feet with how quickly you stop, only a few meters from Quinn and her huddled form.
Sam places a hand on Quinn's shoulder.
"You... you're dead."
He smiles. The tendons in his jaw clench.
"So are you. Sort of."
His words are nothing more than a breathy whisper—you see the rough cartilage of his windpipe ripped out by rotting teeth, exposed through the gaping chasm in his chest. The awkward, arrhythmic stutter of his heart is entrancing.
"How..."
"Come on, Britt. You know people can come back. Just like you."
Not him, John whispers, he's lying.
"You aren't me."
Sam's expression flickers in irritation. From under his skin crawl maggots that wriggle out from the hole in his cheek, dropping to the floor with soft, fleshy thumps.
"No, I'm not. I don't let people die."
A spurt of blood from his trembling heart splatters over your front. It's as cold as the grave you remember lying in, a ditch in the winter. His smile is humorless.
"I've been frozen a while. It snows in New York."
"What do you want, Sam?"
"It gets lonely, you know. Being dead."
"The dead don't feel."
"Oh, but you're wrong, Britt. You're so wrong."
He runs his fleshless fingers along Quinn's neck. She whimpers, jerking her head away, and in the brief moment before the shadows return you can see the blood leaking from her brow.
"And soon enough," he says softly, tilting Quinn's head upwards, "she'll know, too. All because of you."
Instead of hazel there's nothing but empty sockets, stained black with old blood. Quinn blinks uselessly and her eyelids dip inwards, dislodging rot that drips down her cheeks. Streaks of tears and infection ooze from the hollows of her eyes to cut through the hardened filth on her skin.
Sam steps back into the shadows as you rush forward, but you still feel his eyes on you. You tremble as you place your touch on Quinn's shoulder.
"You did this to me," she whispers even as you shake your head.
"N-no, no, it was them—"
"You are one of them."
A pale glint catches your eye. You circle around her back where her hands are bound with coarse rope—Quinn hangs her head as you see the rise of the first rib bursting out through her back, more and more framing her spine like a macabre set of wings. Her lungs rest on top of them, barely moving. The whistle that Sam makes is joined by her own.
"Oh God, Quinn, no..."
You slump down beside her, sitting in a pool of her blood. The soft, broken noises that come from her chest stay in your head even after she stops making them, and you can see Sam's grin in the shadow.
"W-what do you want?" you ask again, but he doesn't come back into the light.
"After the dark finally takes you, I'll be waiting. We all will."
You catch shapes in the darkness, all those you've slain before. The murmur of their memories turns into a torrent.
"But right now, you need to wake up."
A hand on your shoulder brings you back into the waking world. You suck in a huge breath of air, spasming in your restraints, torn between crying out when your lower back shifts and sobbing in relief.
"Oh thank God," you hear someone sigh, and you jerk your head up to see your father sit heavily in the chair by your bedside. He's aged years since you last spoke.
"D-dad—" you tremble uselessly in your sheets, shivering, and he frowns as he dabs at the sweat along your brow. It pools in the upturned hollow of your spine and wets the mattress. "Dad, I s-saw... I thought..."
He gently unlaces the back of your hospital gown and runs a rag across your back. A whimper falls unbidden from your lips as he passes over the curve of your hips.
"It's okay, sweetheart. It was just the morphine."
"M-morphine?"
"Syu gave it to you for the pain. It causes hallucinations sometimes. It also made you stop breathing."
Though it stings, you blink sweat (tears?) out of your eyes.
"I... I saw a boy. I let him die. I watched."
He brings a cup to your cracked lips. You try and drink, but most of it dribbles out the side of your mouth.
"He... he said that..."
Quinn's gaze-less face fills your mind. Your hand reaches out, but all you can do is brush the edge of his sleeve. "Q-Quinn. Is she... o-okay?"
"Who's Quinn, Britty?"
"A g-girl. They caught her. Blonde. M-my age."
A flicker of recognition passes over his features. "I know her. Feisty. She broke a guard's nose before they put her away."
"S-she's my friend. Please, help her."
"I'm not on his team anymore, sweetheart. He moved me. I do something else now."
It's definitely tears that sting this time. Sam's words float around the empty cavern of your mind.
His hand folds over yours. You fight the memories that come with it, seven years old and waiting for a cast to be placed over your broken leg.
"I'll try, okay? I'll take her instead. It'll give her some time."
There's the barest twitch of a nod from you.
"Baby, listen to me, okay? The morphine kept you sedated for a long time. It's been three days since they took your bone marrow."
What?
"You didn't wake up, not really. Your eyes were open but there was no one home. Do you remember?"
How long were you trapped in that nightmare?
"N-no. Just... just Syu. Giving me the needle."
"Boroyan came. He said you're recovering and he'd be back. It's going to be soon."
You curl your fingers in the sheets.
"I c-can't do this anymore, Dad. I'm so tired."
He gently ties your hospital gown back into place. His own tears roll down the sharp angle of his nose.
"I know, baby. But you have to keep going."
"I can't," you're nearly sobbing now, "please just kill me. Let me sleep. I want to sleep."
We'll be waiting.
Your father crouches until his eyes are level with yours—the reflection of his glasses makes them look like they're on fire. "Remember what you told me?" he asks, stroking hair away from your face. "You found something to live for. You need to find it again, okay? Whatever that thing was, it's still there."
A wet cloth gently wipes underneath your eyes.
"A person. Not a thing."
Only the rise of his brows betrays his surprise. You gesture to your bedside table, inaccessible from your restraints. He leans over and opens the drawer, sucking in a breath through his teeth when he sees the radio.
"How long have you had this?"
"Since I got here. The people I was traveling with have the other one. Quinn is their leader."
At your insistence, he hesitantly cranks the handle before handing it over to you. The familiar burst of static is cut by the clamor of a dozen voices talking over each other, each one caught with panic.
"San," your mumble is so soft it's almost inaudible, but everyone on the other end goes silent, "are you there?"
"I'm here, baby," you hear from what feels like a million miles away, and a small smile makes its way onto your face. "Fuck, Britt, it's been days. We all thought..."
"It would hurt less if I was," you swallow, glancing at your father, "but... there's someone I want you to meet."
You hand the radio over to him, and he chews nervously at his lip before muttering a small "hello?".
"Who is this?" Santana demands. It's endearing, the way her voice goes all hard and suspicious, desperate to keep you safe.
"This is Doctor..." he sighs, rubbing underneath his glasses, "this is Roger, Brittany's father."
A string of curses cascade through the speaker in a rough mixture of Spanish and English, strung together by threats so explicit you'd cringe if you had the energy. Blood drains from your father's face until he goes lily-white, the shade of your little boat in the California waters.
"... for what you've done to her, hijo de puta I swear to God I'm going to hunt you down and—"
When you gesture, he nearly throws the radio back into your hands.
"It's okay, Santana," you try to reassure her, "he's here to help."
"Fuckin' bullshit!" she snarls through the airwaves, "that piece of shit did this to you in the first place."
"We don't have much choice," you snap, but immediately bite your tongue. "Sorry. I don't really know what I'm doing."
"... if you trust him, I'll listen, but I don't like it."
"I don't, but I trust everyone else less."
There's an uncomfortable pause.
"Do you know anything about Quinn?"
"She's alive."
"Okay... alive is good."
There's a shuffle, footsteps sounding across the wooden boards. Her voice is softer this time.
"What happened, B? You never go away for that long."
"I didn't want to do anything. It hurt too much. Syu gave me morphine but it made me sleep for a long time."
You run your tongue over your fuzzy teeth. "I don't want to be here anymore, San."
"Britt..."
"He's gonna take more of me. I don't... I don't have anything left. Not anymore. I'm hollow."
"Don't say that... you're the most resilient person out of all of us. If you give up, none of us have a chance."
Your father has retreated to the far end of the room to give you some illusion of privacy, but you catch him taking glimpses over his paperwork. You're just another science experiment.
"Does anyone?"
"I don't know, but..."
Santana huffs air out of her nose, and you can see her running her free hand through her hair as if she were here. It seems a lifetime ago that she snuck into your room to play chess. "Brittany, listen to me, okay? I... I don't blame you for wanting to kill yourself. I know I probably would have. They fucked you up really badly and then they left you alone, but you've come so far."
"I'm not a person anymore, San," your breath hitches, "they're taking away all the parts that used to make me one."
"I'm not gonna lie to you and say it'll get better, but try and fight this one last time. Please, baby."
"I just want to sleep," you choke, "before they take my heart, too. It's all I have left."
"You'll always have a heart because you have mine," Santana manages to get out and everything in you stills, "and maybe I'm a selfish bitch for wanting to keep you here, but fuck it, Britt. I just got you back, I can't lose you again. I can't."
"You..."
"I'm falling in love with you. And... and maybe it's a shitty time, or this world just isn't a good place for it, but that doesn't matter. Okay? It doesn't matter. I used to think too much about what people thought of me, but now all I want is you," she sniffs, her throat hoarse, "and maybe Quinn, too. I'd like her back."
You chuckle but it ends on a wince.
"I hurt so much."
"I know, B," and for the first time since you got here, there's someone who actually does know, "and if you can't do this, then... I'll find a way to accept it. But hold on a little bit longer."
You used to think you didn't have a future and never understood the strange brand of apathy that came along with it. But now, taunted so fiercely with something just out of reach, you aren't sure whether to lie down in protest or keep climbing upwards.
(But you think you're falling in a completely different way, one that you can hear in every hidden loop of Santana's letters.)
"Okay," you say finally, "I'll try."
Santana blows out a shaky breath. You can feel her smile through sound.
"I promise we'll do everything we can to get you out of there. But we can't do it without you."
"I'm with you."
(I'll always be with you.)
There's a commotion from the other end of the radio and the creak of their threadbare couch as Santana sits down, the rest of the Glee Club clamoring in to speak.
"Now that we're all here," Tina starts, and with Santana's presence her voice lifts something dark in you, "here's what we need to do..."
It's been four days of relative silence.
The morphine has stopped feeling like you've been swallowed in a wet blanket. You can get up on your elbows without liquid fire sloshing up your spine. Bending at the hips is still impossible, but you don't get to do much of that, anyway, bound as you are. Outside, a plan begins to be sewn together.
"I think we did it, Britt," Tina's voice crackles over your radio. You curl around it on your side, unbound for the moment by your father. "We've found a way to pull this off."
"How?"
"Artie can make a bomb. Your father was right, the west wall is a lot more vulnerable. If we blow a hole in it, it should cause enough chaos that we can sneak in and spring you out."
"Q-Quinn?"
"It's okay," comes an unfamiliar voice, "I can get in through the basement. I have a keycard."
"You remember Abby, right? She's been helping them by running errands out here. She has a pass that lets her come in through the east wing."
Stale blood, fresh fear. "The garage."
"That's right," Abby says, "how did you know?"
"Seen it. They keep prisoners there. I smell it."
"We'll see if we can get them out, too. Once the bomb goes off, we'll get inside and free you and Quinn. Roger says he can put you two together when we're ready."
There's holes in this plan that you don't bother mentioning. They know they're there.
"Sue?"
"If we can, we'll try and get her out, Britt. We don't really have a plan once we get inside."
You lick your cracked lips. "I don't think it's good enough."
"I know," she sighs, "but there are still a few days until the bombs are ready. Artie says he needs three to make a big enough blast. We can think up some solutions in the meantime."
Papers ruffle from her end. "How are you doing?"
"Hungry. Head hurts. Back hurts."
"Do you think you'll be able to walk?"
You shift a little bit on your bed, grimacing. "I don't know."
"I guess we'll get to that when the time comes, then."
Footsteps appear at the end of the hallway—you fumble with your radio, nearly breaking it. "I have to go," you mumble, "I'll talk later."
Syu comes sweeping in the doorway moments after you hide your radio. Your father bites his tongue, leaning against the far wall.
"You're awake," she smiles, "this is good. How have you been?"
"Okay."
"And you've stopped sleeping all the time?"
"Yeah. I don't need to."
"What about the dizziness? Nausea?"
"Nope."
She taps her pen on her clipboard, brows furrowed. "You should be as high as a kite most of the time."
"We're on the fourth story."
Syu gives you an unimpressed stare. "Have you been messing with your IV?"
"No. I need it. My back hurts too much."
She pushes your hospital gown apart a little bit, grimacing at the heavy purple bruising that stretches across your lower back. Just above it are two little circles burnt into your skin.
"I'm sorry about the taser, Brittany."
"Are you?"
"Of course I am. I didn't want to hurt you."
You glance over at your father in the corner of the room, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Your relationship with him has been... odd. Relying on someone who's hurt you so badly before leaves a sour taste in your mouth, but there's little of the man you knew before in his face.
He owes it to you, your mother, and your sister to see this through.
"I'm going to die here," you say bluntly, "and unless you help me, you'll be responsible."
Then again, what's one more death weighing on a conscience of billions?
Syu's mouth twitches downwards.
"I can't sneak you out."
"You don't have to."
Pierce pushes off the wall. Maybe they used to be friendly—friends, even—but this world makes monsters of everyone eventually. It's impossible to trust anyone but yourself.
"Roger, they're already suspicious of you..."
"I know. Which is why you'll do it instead."
She puts her stethoscope back over her neck with a heaviness you know all too closely.
"There are eyes everywhere. I've already caught them in my office. I can't do anything drastic."
"I just need you to deliver something for me."
You fish under your bed, fingers brushing the radio that's found a new home, closer to your reach. Next to it is a folded piece of paper.
"Give this to Sue," you tell her, "I know she's alive. They won't have killed her yet."
"Britt," Syu starts, taking the scrap, "I don't have access to her. She's not of research concern."
"Then make her," your father interrupts with a scowl. "Tell them her vitals are worrying. She has a fever. Something."
"If they think she's been exposed, they'll kill her."
"Sue has an allergy to dying," you say, "just give it to her. That's all I want right now."
She unfolds the paper, scanning her eyes down your shaky, stilted writing. Her eyebrows rise steadily until she's finally done.
"Do you seriously think you can pull that off?"
"We're going to try."
It slips into her pocket. "Fine. I'll see what I can do."
Her mouth opens but the door opening cuts her off. You hadn't heard the footsteps.
"Syu," comes Boroyan's voice, floating from the doorway. You stiffen. "You're taking a long time."
"I wanted to be thorough. She sustained quite the trauma."
"She's awake, then? Very good."
You consistently forget how non-threatening Boroyan looks. He's trimmed his speckled grey hair recently, but the half-moon glasses and round cheeks are still as prominent as they've ever been. His presence reeks of aftershave.
He takes a few steps into your room but pivots to your father before you can see the whites of his eyes.
"Pierce!" he exclaims, his brows drawing close, "what are you doing here? You're no longer on her case."
"She's my daughter," your father responds stiffly. Boroyan chuckles.
"I suppose so. Shouldn't you been working on your new assignment?"
"The girl is proving difficult, but she is... strong. Much healthier than the others. I have a good feeling about it."
"Well done," Boroyan praises, "I knew that putting you at the helm was a good idea. For that, I'll overlook this... breach of conduct." He steps over to your bedside, running his eyes down your back with a type of greed you're not yet accustomed to. "But I suppose family is more important than ever in a time like this. Is she recovered?"
"Not entirely," Syu responds, "she might be able to take it, but I wouldn't advise it."
"I'll take my chances. We need to move fast before the others reach their expiry dates."
The wheels of your bed unlock. Boroyan studies your morphine drip for a moment but ultimately leaves it alone with Syu's insistence. She catches your eyes as you wheel out, and gives the slightest nod before you're swept out of the hallway.
It's quiet as you make your way back down into the basements. This elevator is different than the one you usually use, on the opposite side of the hospital. It groans and heaves as it lowers you down.
"I'm sorry our last encounter was so abrupt," Boroyan breaks the silence,"you've been causing me a lot of grief. I lost my temper."
You just clench your jaw and stare at the striated breastplate that your new guard wears. It rises in time to his breathing like a second skin.
"Your body's adaptation to these stresses, however, is absolutely remarkable. I'm not sure you understand quite how amazing it is."
"I understand I was awake when you sucked out my bones."
He grimaces. "That business was... unfortunate. We tried to put you to sleep."
"Not very hard."
"We aren't used to your physiology, Brittany. We can only do so much."
The elevator dings open and you're rolled out towards your new destination. Closer is the smell of a dozen unwashed bodies all packed together, bleeding their metal blood into the ground. To your right is a long, wide hallway with something that looks like a garage at the end, splitting off into multiple rooms that must wind much further into the complex. A keypad winks distantly with a tiny purple light.
Your view is soon obstructed by the familiar white walls. Boroyan is still talking but you've tuned him out, craning to catch a glimpse of your position. The faint outline of a wall in concrete rushes past—the secret tunnels.
Find an escape route.
You glance over to your IV stand. John's necklace presses against your collar.
"What are you doing here?" you mumble so softly your lips barely move.
You're weak. You need my help.
"You're dead."
I died a long time before you found me. That didn't stop you the first time.
"... all of that to say, I hope you'll co-operate a little better in the future. I'd like to make this experience as painless as possible for you."
When you don't respond, Boroyan visibly flushes a little red under the collar.
So much for being contrite.
You smile as they wheel you into the laboratory.
It smells like cold death. It's an exact copy of the room joined to Syu's study minus the office, and many of the tiny little shelves house unfortunate experiments gone awry. The entire place stinks of rot masked with chemicals—in the far door, a man that's on the verge of returning as the dead. You wonder if you should tell them.
Boroyan adjusts his glasses, snapping on a fresh pair of gloves. Memories of your life before seep through the cracks in your skull.
"It's time for you to meet the second star of the act," he chuckles as the doors on the right side of the room swing open. "Not as important as you, of course, but close."
They wheel in another bed, this one much thinner than yours. The figure on the bed struggles weakly in their restraints, but you smell fresh blood and sweat made from fear. Blonde hair.
You suck in a breath as you and Quinn lock eyes—her eyebrow leaks blood down her cheek and she's covered in dirt but nothing huge jumps out at you, no major malfunction or obviously defunct limb. She jerks against her restraints when she sees you, opening her mouth to call your name, but you quickly shake your head and bring your finger to your lips. Her jaw clicks shut.
Your father comes sweeping in a moment later, a worried frown on his brow.
"Sir, we haven't run all the tests yet. We don't know if she's a good match."
"Well, we can do it right now. Unless you have anywhere else to be?"
"Of course not," he mutters, barely glancing at you before busying himself at the far shelf. Two guards grasp you heavily by the shoulders.
"I can't lie on my back," you grunt, "it hurts."
They hadn't bothered to turn you at all, strapped into the bed, and the only brief time you'd been able to roll onto your side was when your father could unstrap you for a few minutes when he visited. Every joint in you aches at once and they feel jerky, frozen in place, your muscles wasting away.
"You have to," Boroyan replies placidly, "it's the only way that we can take the scan."
They lift you up and your back sparks all the way to the base of your skull—you shriek, locking your ankles in the rails to stop them from twisting you over completely.
"You said you didn't want to hurt me!"
"I said I wanted you to co-operate. The path of least resistance is the one of least discomfort. Now lie back, Brittany."
The guards manage to turn you and the howl that comes from your lips rebounds off the walls—your bruised back stretches and burns and stings in a way that almost makes you push out of your own skin. Quinn lunges for you but gets caught uselessly on her side, restraints holding.
"I can only help you if you help yourself," Boroyan says, much like a parent would scold a disobeying child. "You aren't in charge here. You can try and fight, but in the end, I'm going to get what I need to fix this mess."
The rails on your bed collapse. There's only a few feet of space between you and Quinn now, almost close enough to feel the heat radiating from her skin.
Boroyan fiddles with your IV.
"We can't have this blocking the experiment," he's almost apologetic as he says it, "so you're going to feel a little discomfort for a while..."
He hooks up another syringe in its stead and you watch the clear liquid race up the tube and into your arm—it's warm, and the heat spreads from your palm to the tips of your fingers, running up your shoulder and into your neck. When it reaches your chest you begin to sweat, your breathing rapid despite your attempts to control it.
The pain hits you like a freight train. Whatever he injected into you throws all your injuries back into your head at once, the pressure of laying on your back unbearable. You cry out, arching upwards, desperate to relieve some of the ache. Boroyan signals for the guards, and heavy straps are stretched across your chest.
"What are you doing?" hisses your father, pressing his fingers to your neck. "She needs the morphine!"
"If we're exchanging blood, we can't have it in the other participant. It'll skew the results."
A drum takes up residence behind your eyes. There's a vague feeling of a needle being inserted into the crook of your opposite arm, closest to Quinn, but your head is swimming so deeply from your shallow breathing that it's impossible to focus. Your head rolls to the right just in time to see them pushing an identical needle into her left elbow. Together, you're hooked up to an odd looking machine that beeps steadily every few seconds.
They leave you there for a long time—your eyes close and open indiscriminately as sweat slides into your eyelashes and you struggle to focus on her face. She hasn't stopped looking at you, your skin covered in bruises and needle-marks, sallow and sickly.
"D'un be scared," you mumble, your tongue thick on the roof of your mouth, "m'okay."
"What are they doing to you, Britt?" she whispers, and you give an awkward, one shoulder-shrug.
"W'hever they w'nt."
Boroyan flashes little lights in your eyes, muttering a curse when your father reads out your blood-pressure.
"She must be reacting to the naloxone."
"What do we do?"
"Circulate her stored blood. We'll give her some time to sweat it out."
They hook Quinn up to these bags bursting with blood, and they slowly begin to drip into her IV. You recognize the dark taint in it almost instantly.
"It'll m'ke h'sick," you slur, batting weakly at the doctors flitting around you, "st'it."
"Quinn's strong," your father says, putting a reassuring hand on your shoulder. Your head hurts too much to bat it away. "I think she can take it."
Everyone is on edge as they feed Quinn your blood. To stop her from bursting they bleed her in another location, looping back up to that strange machine. It courses directly through your veins, recycled and reused.
Within ten minutes, your headache lessens. Apart from going slightly pale, Quinn shows no negative signs; the scientists whisper.
Twenty minutes pass. You lie in a pool of stale sweat, shivering. It's stopped being so hot. Quinn's eyes are steady stars, grounding you, something to focus on despite the incessant pain radiating through your back.
Boroyan smiles.
"This is it," he says reverently, pulling you both from the machine. "The first live attempt."
Curtains are pulled around the space. Your heartbeat is displayed on another machine with Quinn's directly underneath. When they start to wheel out the tools, hers spikes hard.
(They call her tough, feisty, but you see the slight tremor in her fingers. She can't hide from you.)
You're now connected directly to each other. She nourishes you and you feed her in return, your traitor heart pumping your sick blood into her body. Quinn swallows, worming to the side of the bed when Boroyan goes to stand over her.
"This is Brittany," he smiles, gesturing to you, "and soon enough, you'll be blood related. Quite literally."
"My marrow," you rasp suddenly, your eyes snapping to the back of his head, "it's here."
"Smart girl. We used most of it in experiments, but we do still have a little bit."
Two syringes rest between you on a tray. His eyes trace over Quinn's body much like they did yours, and you swallow thickly. "You'll kill her."
But Quinn finally puts it together—the bloody syringes, the bruising on your back, the worry on your father's face—and you can almost witness the exact moment when the lightbulb comes on and the rest of the color drains from her face. If it were Santana, she might have lunged, but Quinn's cunning has always been in the things she doesn't say. Her hands curl into fists with the effort not to say something scalding.
"Maybe. But when she's producing your blood," he taps the syringes, "she'll have much less of a chance for rejection."
"Rejection?" Quinn finally pipes up, anxiously watching the guards move in for her. "Rejection of what?"
"Brittany's liver. It's quite a miracle organ, I'll have you know."
"M-my what?" you hiss, starting to struggle in earnest despite the weakness taken up root in your muscles. Someone pins you down—Whitefield, something too close to revenge in his eye.
"Don't worry, only part of it. You'll get to keep most."
It's a flurry of activity and you lock eyes with your father as they begin to prepare, his face drawn tight with worry.
"Doctor, her breathing is still far too shallow... I think we should wait until the naloxone dissipates completely before going forward with this."
"Nonsense," Boroyan chuckles, clapping him across the shoulder. His fat jowls wobble. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet now, Roger."
"Of course not, sir," he mutters, glancing at you helplessly.
"We can't sedate the donor," says one of the white-coats, squinting at your vitals through his thick glasses, "that much anesthetic would kill the recipient now that they're connected."
"Put in a general, then, and get prepared. We need to open her up as soon as possible."
Despite the straps across your chest, the entire bed shifts when you push yourself against them. Your back screams but you're screaming louder, thrashing in your held position, kicking and biting at any of the scientists that come near you.
"No more surgeries!" you yell, managing to catch Whitefield in the chest and send him stumbling backwards. "Leave me alone!"
It's been a week since you've been fed and the hunger has loosened your hold on the rage you carry—it comes bubbling out of you, a putrid fountain of foaming and cursing and a blind, animal fury, and you feel one of the straps against your chest give. A few of the scientists skitter back in terror as the whites of your eyes bleed red from the strain, but Boroyan's shouting for you to be subdued and Quinn is yelling your name and Pierce is standing at the head of your bed, frozen in indecision.
Whitefield is the one that puts the taser to your neck.
Thousands of volts course through you and the effect is instantaneous, your back arching and going rigid like steel. The bruised and broken parts of your lower back spasm and clench with such strength that it takes your breath away in a manner entirely unrelated to the electricity running rampant through your body. The rage doesn't die but is beaten into submission, a choked howl escaping your lips as the pain loops around and around until you can't remember your own name.
But Whitefield has a grudge, a lump on the back of his head, and he keeps it pressed to the underneath of your jaw long after it's needed. The ceiling warps, you lose feeling in your fingers, and you hear a long, drawn out hum from one of the many machines as your tired heart gives out.
It's dark for only a second until you're back in the room, but your perspective is wrong. You can see every single speck on the ceiling, the buzz of each coil inside the light fixtures, and you start as your hand brushes the air vent. Are you flying?
With some difficulty you turn yourself around. You can see the tops of people's heads as they race around the room, hair in varying states of disarray. There's noise but it's muffled, coming from underwater, a backdrop rather than a nuisance. Directly below you is your own body, lying silently on the bed, hooked up to dozens of tubes and secured by thick, black straps. The spider's web of machines makes you look tiny, a porcelain doll badly made and close to shattering.
You will yourself closer. Your eyes are lidded, a sliver of blue peeking out from underneath your lashes. They're already starting to glass over.
Boroyan is shouting orders in slow motion. Helpers are injecting your IV with varying syringes and Whitefield is leaning over to press his hands against your ribcage over and over in a desperate bid to bring your heart back into motion. You put a hand against your chest. It's silent for the first time since you can remember.
A door opens. Instead of the hallway it's a looming darkness, frost that creeps in along the floor. Whispering voices follow, eating away at the light that still shines from the fixtures above.
A silhouette stands in the doorframe.
Sam chuckles at your lack of surprise.
"Guess it came a bit sooner than you thought, didn't it?" he asks rhetorically, glancing over at your motionless body. "You still lasted a lot longer than I did."
"Is this it? Do I finally get to sleep?"
"I don't know if sleep is the right word. But something like that."
You glance over his shoulder to the angry voices that swirl, thick as mist, in the shadows. They dare not come into the light.
"They're like you," he says, "tired. We're all tired."
Sam holds out his hand. "It's time to go, Britt."
You take a step towards him, swallowing. The stuttering beat of his heart lures you closer.
"Are you sure you want to do that?"
Abruptly, you halt only a few feet away from Sam. John stands in the corner of the room, arms crossed. Unlike Sam, whose torn flesh was the last you saw of him, John is how he was when you first met; band shirt stretched a size too tight over his chest, hair falling in his eyes, shoes yet too big for his massive feet. Alive.
"John? Why are you here, too?"
"I'm dead as well," he smirks, "or did you forget?"
"But... didn't you get to go to Heaven? Or... at least, somewhere better than here?"
"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't go anywhere at all." He shrugs. "It doesn't matter now."
"It does," you stress, taking a few steps towards him, "I need to know that you're okay. That you still aren't suffering."
John smiles, brushing a strand of hair from your face. "Of course not, B. The dead don't dream."
(You don't know what they do anymore. Living your life with one foot in the grave makes everything a possibility.)
"Then why are you here?"
"To make sure you aren't making a mistake."
You glance back to your prone body, shaking from the force of the chest compressions. Pierce cries openly by your bedside, tears dripping into the growing scruff of his beard.
"I'm ready, John. I'm tired."
"I know. You've been ready for a long time."
"Then... will you come with me?"
You hold out your hand to him, but before he can reciprocate, you feel another touch sliding through your fingers. You recoil, glancing at your hand and back to him. He beckons you further into the room, away from Sam and his hissing shadows.
The two of you circle your body. Quinn is the source of the feeling, reaching over gap to hold your limp hand. Tears leak sideways into her mattress.
"You have things worth fighting for now," John says, "people. You promised Santana."
"I'm never going to leave here. They're going to take all of me."
"Are you going to give up before you try?"
You shove him, and he stumbles through a group of machines. His body leaves wispy trails of mist in its wake.
"I tried! I tried so hard! I didn't give up in the morgue, in the car, in the forest! There's nothing left to do!"
Whitefield's panting now, pressing on you with an almost feverish devotion. They've long since detached you from Quinn, her heart pumping blood into a still body, but she clings onto your cold fingers so desperately that your spirit feels it, the only solid thing in this place.
"You can go back, Brittany, you've always had the choice. Do what you think is right."
"I don't know what I think anymore," you whimper, running your hands through your hair. It reminds you of the way Santana used to do it, her nails a soothing comb that took away the pain.
I can't lose you again, I can't.
It's hard not to imagine her reaction. Sobbing into Tina's shoulder as they cry together, rocking back and forth on that little couch. Quinn wouldn't be there because she'd die in this hellhole, too, bound to you by blood and your legacy. Even Mike and Artie come into mind.
"I hate loving people," you mutter to John, wiping at your eyes, "it hurts more than dying."
"One day, it'll be the best thing that's ever happened to you. But only if you let it."
With a heavy sigh, you put your hand over Quinn's, stroking the ball of her thumb.
"This is real, right? You're real?"
"I'm as real as you want me to be."
"That doesn't answer anything."
He smiles his familiar, lopsided grin. "I know."
Your feet gently leave the ground. For the first time, your face is level with his.
"Will you be here?"
"I'm here, Britt," he says gently, "and I'll always be with you." His finger taps his necklace around your throat.
You hug him close.
"Thank you. I think I'm ready."
You float until you're hovering just over your body. Your lips have started to turn blue, and you see Whitefield's pained grimace as he stops your chest compressions. The darkness gets deeper.
"Good luck, B."
With a fortifying breath, you reach in and pull yourself back into the living world.
…
Everything is white and blinding as your lungs take their first, voluntary gasp of air. The machine you're attached to stops squealing and someone rolls you over onto your side so you can cough up the mucous that gathered in your larynx.
Quinn smiles through her tears, her hand clenched firmly around yours. You give a weak squeeze back.
"Thank you," you rasp, and she laughs despite her soft, hiccuping sobs.
"For what?"
"Reminding me that I have something to come back for."
After your embrace with death, they leave you alone for a little while.
It's been eleven days since you've been fed and your neurons are starting to misfire—you see things that don't exist, hear phantom noises in the night, Sam's shadow skulking about the corners, angry at being denied whatever soul you have remaining.
No one can feed you—they've finally installed cameras in your room.
When Syu relays messages from Sue, it's under the guise of a checkup. All this secrecy makes your head spin.
"She says she's ready," Syu reveals, checking the inside of your throat, "that's all I got out of her. She doesn't talk much."
"Is she okay?"
"She's... surviving. They've been pretty rough on her, but she's the toughest old woman I've ever seen. The General has a special interest in her."
You bare your teeth. "I'll rip out his throat."
She frowns. "You won't be doing anything in your state. That episode really overworked your heart."
"I can do without it."
"Still, I wouldn't push it." She presses a stethoscope to your chest. "I put the canister where you said to leave it. Are you sure about this?"
"No. But it's the only thing left."
"I've delayed him as much as I can," she instructs you to breathe in, listening to the tenuous thump of your heart, "but I think he's stopped listening. There's been some huge breakthroughs with your marrow. It's making him, uh..." Syu grimaces, "excitable."
"Quinn?"
"I don't know. I'll try and talk to your father soon."
There's a commotion from the end of the hallway. Syu recoils, gripping tight to her clipboard, just as four guards pour into the space. Boroyan is wearing a full set of scrubs, a bandana tied tightly around his grey hair. You instantly recognize the gleam in his eyes.
"It's time, Brittany," he announces—they hold you down and reattach your restraints, lying helplessly on your back. When he gets close you snap at him, the sharp click of your jaw inches from his nose. "You're going to make history."
Syu grabs his arm as they begin to wheel you out of your room. "She's still weak, sir, she won't be able to go through surgery—"
"We'll take our chances," he interrupts, "the other one can't withstand the treatment much longer. They're our best match."
It's a blur of white walls and elevators and people sticking needles in your swollen elbows. There's a current of excitement running through the scientists, a dawning dread in your gut, and the shadows that creep in closer still. John seems so very far away.
They take you off your morphine and leave you in a stark, empty room. There's been many, many deaths in this place before. The souls haunt these walls.
"You need some time to detox," says Boroyan, pulling the drip that used to feed you morphine out of your arm, "considering your last reaction to the naloxone. The transplant should be ready to happen in an hour or two."
He's like a kid whose birthday stretches out before him, presents around every corner, hidden between your liver and your lungs.
"I'll kill you," you snarl, jerking against your restraints, "you'll feed me for once."
He pats your hand patronizingly and leaves you alone to sweat the morphine out of your pores.
Almost immediately, you scrabble for the radio underneath your bed. The crank is turned with your teeth and you don't even wait for the crackle of static before you press the button.
"San? Tina?"
"Oh, hey. We weren't expecting you."
"Mike?"
"Yup! How are you doing, B?"
"You need to set up the bomb now."
He pauses—the footsteps you can hear on the floorboard freeze.
"What? Why?"
"They're doing the transplant. It can't wait."
"Britt, we don't even have all of them—"
"It has to happen now."
He blows out a hard breath of air from his nose.
"Okay. Okay, I'll get the others. Be ready."
The radio clicks, and you're alone.