Author's Note: Straight off I want to thank the people that beta this. Without them this wouldn't be as awesome. I must admit I was hesitant to have a beta, mostly because of pride but being a writer I think you need to learn to brush of pride. Well … in my case punch it a few times in the face than throw it the rabid beast named humility. :P Seriously though, if you're writer I would highly recommend getting a beta. Anyway enough of this sleep deprived rambling. Enjoy and please don't refrain from giving a review. I would love to know how Deceptions is being received.

Deborah had the mind of a hunter and she knew it as she paced the boundaries of the thick glass with obviously evil intentions. She tested her weight against the glass several times taking many long steps back before charging full speed only to rebound off of it with a pained yelp and further loss of her dignity. After numerous attempts and a dislocated shoulder later, she had stopped her fruitless endeavor and favored pacing more out of boredom than agitation. She had not seen nor heard another human being after she had been tossed into her cage like a sack of flour only to lie uselessly until her body had healed.

It was perhaps half a day later that the now deformed face of Dr. Marcus slithered its way to the glass of the cage adorned with a new fancy black eye patch. Deborah smirked as she strutted to the glass meeting the doctor face to face. He scowled as he looked upon the smirking woman.

"Oh I'm sorry." She called out, feigning a look of innocence while trying to hold the laughter that threatened her calm reserve. "I forgot, your eyes don't grow back like mine can." She paused letting a wide grin stain her face as she watched his expression sour even further. "If I had known that I would have ripped both of them out." Deborah finished with a sly smirk, pulling her hand up to the glass and proudly flipping the pretentious doctor off.

Deborah watched as his plump lip curled back in an enraged snarled as his cold brown eyes looked her over with a hostility that could not be described with words. This only served to further Deborah's amusement over the man that was now beyond pathetic in her eyes and she voiced this opinion with a hearty laugh.

"You'd be best to close that mouth of yours." He hissed, spit flying unattractively from his open mouth and landing on the glass. "You are nothing but a subject here. You don't even have a name to us. After we're done with you; you won't even know the definition of defiance." Deborah gave a chuckle in response, a low dark sound that resonated within the room as her vibrant emerald green eyes met his brown ones and she leaned in, her forehead pressing against the glass as she bared her pearly white teeth in a wicked snarl.

"I assure you doctor." she spat in a venomous a tone that instinctively made Marcus's skin crawl for reasons he could never comprehend and his heart beat increased as adrenaline was pumped into his system. "You will never take my defiance. I will get out of this cage and when I do, I will be standing over your quivering body and you will feel it as my jaws crush your skull." She warned and even though he did not understand what she meant by her jaws crushing his skull, the warning still had its intended effect and the confidence was wiped from the doctor. He faltered and his mouth fumbled for words as his mind refused to work fully. He huffed while he visibly inflated his chest before turning on his heels and storming out of the room with his pride severely damaged.

"We'll see." He muttered and Deborah only chuckled louder while sneering at Marcus's retreating form. She watched the door that the hated doctor had left from for some time before slinking to the very back of her cell to sit with her back pressed against the sterile white concrete. Deborah felt the chill on her back from the cold wall and for once it felt good on her sore arching muscles. She pulled her legs to her chest and rested her head on her knees as she let her eyes slowly close. Deborah needed to rest after heeling from such a fatal wound. It took a lot from her to recover like that and the involuntary action usually left her in pain and exhaustion.

It was probably the most she had slept in a good while but when she awoke she was mildly aware of the presence of another human being watching her from behind the glass. At first she was convinced it was the doctor returning to once again have his pride damaged by her but as she turned her head she saw the familiar form of the blonde soldier still dressed in his high ranking uniform, leaning his body against the opposite wall with his arms crossed. He wasn't looking at her and seemed to be in his own little world even as Deborah pulled her body off the harsh ground to greet the soldier.

"What are you doing here soldier?" Deborah called out as leaned against the glass with her arms folded mimicking his pose. The soldier stood removing his body from the concrete as he turned and crossed the distance to stand before the glass that separated her from him.

"James, please. I've been called soldier enough times to forget my own name." He said brushing a hand through his short spiky hair.

"Yeah?" She muttered. "Well at least you still get acknowledged as a human being. Me, I get the endearing title of specimen or if I'm lucky subject." Deborah exclaimed mockingly with a broad sarcastic smile. James choked out a laugh abruptly, a gesture in which the often serious man hadn't done in years.

"Well let's put an end to that, shall we? James Pollen." The soldier offered giving her a grin that enhanced his boyish features. Given the circumstances, Deborah might have thought the man to be handsome as she studied his facial features with his slight stubble and high cheek bones. She returned the gesture giving him a broad smile.

"Deborah Evens and sorry for my manners," She joked as she brought her hand up knocking on the glass with the back of her knuckle. "I would shake your hand but, well this kinda gets in the way."

"That's alright Deb. After what you did to that doctor I must admit I'm not too keen on the idea."

"Well yeah, that was just a friendly little encounter." She mocked, her green eyes holding a fierceness that revealed her true intent. "When I get out of here…" She drifted off her expression one of pure malice as her mind played the scenario.

"I assume you have a way to do that then?" He asked and Deborah shrugged her face losing all cruelty as it was replaced with consideration and deep thought.

"Tell me this," She began meeting his eyes with her own. "What if you were in the same situation as me and had a way out but that way out meant possibly losing what humanity you have left. Would you do it? Would you risk becoming a monster just so you can taste freedom once again?" The soldier paused, seemingly rolling this concept around in his mind before answering.

"I wouldn't know." He answered truthfully. "I sold my humanity to the Devil when I was sixteen. I don't even know the meaning of the word."

XXXXXXX

Marcus leaned his head on his hand as he glared at the woman with a look of pure irritation. He had tried practically everything he could think of to kill her, including but most certainly not limited to, drowning, electrocution, decapitation, evisceration, poisons, and even a good old practical shot gun blast to the head but nothing had worked. The doctor couldn't even take a DNA sample because any cell, appendage, or limb would decay at such an alarming rate that, before anyone could even get a brief moment to examine said sample all that would be left was, for lack of a better term, a thick black sludge of unrecognizable goop.

To add an even greater insult to injury, the woman sat with her legs crossed, back against the cement with both hands held leisurely in the air, flipping off the doctor directly with the widest smirk boldly plastered on her face. To top off her enjoyment, her attempts were visibly getting to the doctor.

Deborah watched as his mouth moved while he muttered inaudible curses and she could only guess at what he was saying.

"Maybe if I hang her." He said to nobody in particular as the seemingly immortal woman continued to hold her insulting pose for what now was running on ten minutes. Granted, Deborah knew it was beyond childish to act in such a way, but after six straight months of outright torture, she had reasoned that moral ethics had long since needed to be kicked out of the door. Plus, she considered, after what she was constantly put through it was an amazing factor that she was still reasonably sane, as debatable as that was.

"Still alive?" A voice interjected and the doctor jumped feeling his whole body tense as he swirled around to see the familiar important blonde woman from before when the subject had just been caught. She leaned lightly to her left side with her hand on her hip as she looked over Deborah who hadn't changed her pose even with the intrusion. The blonde looked down at the doctor's face before giving a surprised gasp.

"Marcus, what the hell happened to your face?" The woman demanded and the doctor's expression soured even further as he turned away from the attractive blonde back to Deborah.

"You're looking at it." The man grunted out between clenched teeth. The blonde slowly nodded turning her head to look out of the door before bringing her attention back to the doctor.

"And you seem to have fewer scientists and the ones that are hanging around seem to be a bit damaged?" She questioned with concern evident in her tone.

"All her." He muttered continuing his task of glaring at the woman whom he spoke about with such an audible loathing.

"You didn't sedate her?" The woman asked but her tone seemed to accuse rather than inquire. The Doctor gave a low grating snarl as his irritation increased.

"Of course I sedated her!" The man grumbled feeling insulted. "But apparently every time she's put under her metabolism increases at a freak rate and the sedation only lasts ten minutes at the bloody most! And it's not like she's the most cooperative subject!" Marcus hissed bringing his hand to rub his temple but mistakenly brushing the course material of his eye patch which only made him curse louder. The woman nodded slowly, looking at the flustered doctor. She had never seen him so stressed in his life.

"She's human." The doctor continued, waving his arms absentmindedly in his rant. "There's no doubt about that. From what I've gotten from her tissue samples, which is only possible for a millisecond at the most, is that she is human. She is just a freak mutation! Something in her genetic coding is responsible for it and there is no possible way to break it down because her damn cells necrotize the second they are removed from the original body."

"Perhaps if we breed her?" The blonde offered but even this little suggestion only seem to frustrate the doctor further.

"Not possible."

"Not possible? Why?" She repeated looking at the man with one eyebrow raised.

"She's damn well sterile, which would make sense considering that she can't die. Natural selection is obviously not working against her. She's quote un quote perfect, and there is now no need to pass on her genetics because there is no risk of her species dying out. And even if we could breed her, we wouldn't know the probability of whatever's causing her rapid regeneration to pass on to her offspring!"

With amusement boldly splayed across her face, Deborah watched blonde and the doctor converse as she continued to hold her offensive pose. The blonde woman who quite frankly in Deborah's eyes dressed like a slut, shook her head slightly before turning her head to examine Deborah through the glass. Her brow furrowed as her blue eyes studied the captive woman.

"Doctor?" The blonde questioned, causing Marcus to turn his head to face her. "How long has she been doing that?"

"What?" He asked.

"That." The woman said pointing to Deborah who still had both hands held high flipping the two off.

"Oh, that." The doctor muttered bringing his watch to his face, studying the device for a few seconds before answering. "Running on eighteen minutes now."

XXXXXX

Deborah released an exhausted sigh as she once again stood defiantly before death like she had done for the better part of the past eight months. The thought frightened her like any normal being but there was something else quietly nestled behind the rational fear. She was tired of this, both emotionally and physically as the concept of more torture played out before her mind. Each time the doctor's methods became so much more elaborate and more disturbingly twisted that Deborah was finding it so much more difficult to keep her ever present defiance. It was becoming so terrible that every attempt that Dr. Marcus made at ending her life a little part of her would wish her genetic mutation would fail and she would never wake up again. She found it almost impossible to image that something so trivial and easy to achieve for everyone else to actually end her agony.

James leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, behind the doctor and the blonde woman and Deborah gave him a grim smile while the other two's attention was elsewhere. He returned the gesture weakly, his face showing stress that had never before been there. Every single time the blonde soldier had played the role of her executioner. The doctor always made it clear that if James should refuse to comply he ran the risk of some "accident" befalling his five year old daughter. Despite his reasons, Deborah was finding it harder to forgive the soldier and much easier to hate him like she hated the many others in this facility.

"You people disgust me." Deborah heard the soldier mutter as he often muttered before a usually heinous act. "You're not human." He cursed again but neither the doctor nor the woman paid him any mind as the two quietly whispered between themselves, discussing their newest plan.

"What about the damage to the cell?" The doctor asked the woman but the blonde only gave a wicked chuckle.

"This place?" She asked in a mocking tone. "This place can survive a downright nuclear war!"

"Well, in that case." The doctor responded but Deborah could no longer listen to their speech and instead turned her back to them to glare at the ever mocking concrete wall. She couldn't stand not knowing what her possible fate was, but even more she feared actually knowing what was going to happen to her. It was the few seconds that her mind actually was able to comprehend her fate that was the worst. It was best not to know.

The air in the cell seemed to thicken with premature sense of impending doom as Deborah both sensed and hear the movement in the other room.

"At the ready soldier." The doctor commanded and Deborah clenched her fist as she inhaled all of the air her lungs could possible contain. She turned to face the horrid creatures in human form and stared each one in the eyes including the blonde soldier, her personal executioner. She would look each and every one of them in the eyes as she died and they would know her suffering.

James held what seemed to Deborah to be a type of modified grenade. Similar to the infamous "Lucy", the grenade illuminated a steady sanitary blue at the recognition of his genetic code. His face was solemn and his eyes held such a self loathing that hatred Deborah was harboring for him retreated. The soldier was just as much of a monster as the rest but he was the attack dog ordered to kill. His only purpose in life was legal homicide. The soldier was both an innocent victim in this monstrous torture, just as much as he was a vicious perpetrator. Hating him was the same as hating the fox that broke into the chicken coop. It was a pointless waste of energy to despise something for its natural behavior. He was a soldier conditioned to kill. It was all he knew.

The small glass door opened and James tossed the circular device into the cell. It bounced once, the blue light blinking in slow succession before landing before her feet. She gave a weak chuckle as she bent down and picked up the device as the flashing light increased speed followed by a high pitched foreboding set of beeping.

"Shit." Deborah managed to say as they closed the glass. "Don't beat yourself up about this James. The worst that could happen is that I actually wake up from this." She joked as the beeping and the flashing both seemed to stop quite abruptly. All was silent for a split second before the small cell was filled with an unbelievably bright light and a searing heat that Deborah only felt for a brief moment before she felt nothing at all.