Surprise! I finished this chapter much sooner than I anticipated, so I decided to just go ahead and post it because honestly the excitment of what's to come is really getting to me. Also, and I've been meaning to do this before, but I get lazy: thanks so much to EmmaMarie, Poodle warriors, The Cynical Nerd, Benedict'sZombieGirl, Bliss123, peerme, Vintagegirl1912, All-I-need, dancinwmypinkipod, and CLTex for all of your reviews. I really really appreciate hearing your responses to my work, and hope to continue hearing from all of you!

Chapter 27 - Perfidus

"Where do you think you're taking her? She needs continued medical supervision! Let Joaquin wait another hour! Cecelia Rodriguez, stop!"

Kati's indignant Indian accent echoed across the medbay as Cecelia dragged Madelyn away. The Augment woman's grip on her arm hurt to the point that she wanted to pull away, but she stopped when it hurt even more, her long fingers, practiced fingers pressing into sensitive tendons and blood vessels underneath her skin.

"Cecelia, goddammit!"

"These are Khan's orders, not Joaquin's," was her deadpan reply. "I'd advise you to stay here, Kati. Thing's aren't looking pretty."

Khan's orders?

What the hell…

Madelyn pulled at Cecelia as they neared the medbay doors, but stopped the moment her grip tightened, hissing at the throbbing pain that shot through her arm. The last thing she needed was another injury and Cecelia showed no signs of letting up. She shot Kati a pleading glance right before the medbay doors hissed shut between them, leaving her trapped in Cecelia's grip in the relative darkness of the corridor. The Augment didn't slow her pace and Madelyn struggled to keep up.

In the time between Khan's departure and Cecelia's unannounced arrival, Kati had been able to scan the rest of her properly, her results revealing two cracked ribs on her left side, and one on her right that was pressing dangerously against her lung. Her other internal organs were bruised, but not serious enough that Kati thought she should remain in bed. Still, she had ordered Madelyn to take off her shirt so she could wrap her. Now her entire torso from her sternum to just above her hips was completely constricted by a tightly-wound bandage, but it made her breathing no more difficult than it already was. She couldn't twist her back as easily, but feeling so confined within her loose t-shirt was somewhat frustrating. Especially now that she was trapped in the grasp of a frightfully strong female Augment who looked like she didn't take shit from anybody.

"I'd really like to know what's going on... Cecelia, was it? Khan will hear about what you're doing to me."

"Believe me, Khan would like nothing less than to see you. I'm taking you to him now." She sounded so disinterested that Madelyn wondered if she was even listening.

"Could you at least ease up? Jesus, you're about to pull my arm off!"

Cecelia finally glanced at her, her brown eyes masked with indifference. "I thought someone told me you were part Augment. Must be a very insignificant part." Despite the shrugged off statement, she did not ease up. Madelyn gritted her teeth, picking up her pace in an attempt to ease the pressure on her trapped limb. It was enough that her entire body already hurt.

"When he sees the way you're manhandling me, maybe you'll change your mind," she added.

Cecelia sighed as she paused in front of a wide double door and plugged in the security code. "I doubt it."

As it hissed open, Madelyn recognized Khan immediately even though his back was turned to her. He was leaning over a large control panel in the center of the room, his fingers splayed out on its lip. He'd changed out of his wet clothes and was wearing a tightly-fitted black shirt, with black trousers tucked into sturdy black boots. She eyed the tension in his back and shoulder muscles, clearly visible through the fabric of his shirt. Something was wrong.

The doors hissed shut behind them and Joaquin appeared out of a room off to the side. He walked casually over to her, his arms crossed over his broad chest as he regarded her with a smug look and narrowed green eyes. She glared up at him, not ignorant of the alarms going off in her head. Khan had yet to move from his position on the other side of the room. He hadn't even turned to acknowledge her presence.

Cecelia's grip tightened as Joaquin towered over her, but Madelyn lifted her chin to meet his gaze, wondering if she looked as broken as she still felt. "Your plaything is here," he said.

She frowned, realizing he was referring to her. Khan turned from the console, pulling his hands behind his back, his cheeks rippling subtly as he ground his teeth. As he closed on her, she suddenly felt as though she was more prey than person. His eyes were ice cold, zeroing in on her with a fierceness that struck her as dangerous, even animalistic. She was reminded of how he'd appeared while being held captive on the Enterprise, but this time the beast had no cage to hold it back.

"How dare you." The words slid off his tongue with electrical gravitas that sent a chill down her spine. She wanted to take a step back and put more space between them, but Cecelia held her firmly in place, lest she pull her arm out of its socket.

"Wh-what?" she stuttered. She sounded so small, her tone matching the timidity that had taken hold of her. Khan stared down at her with no mercy, not even a hint of empathy. It was as if he'd never known her.

"How much of a reminder do you think she needs?" said Joaquin.

"She does not need a reminder," Khan replied, his upper lip twitching. "You know exactly what you have done."

She swallowed at the lump of confusion and fear threatening to strangle all coherent words from her throat. Her brain wracked itself for an answer that she couldn't find in the jumble of panic that was quickly taking hold. "Khan?" She had to say his name, to make sure this was him.

What had happened?

He exhaled faintly, tilting his chin upwards as he regarded her. Was he exasperated with her? The gears in her mind turned violently but she couldn't grasp what it was he was referring to. Only that his behavior was… disconcerting.

"You've lied to me about something that is very dear to me." His voice vibrated deep within his chest, swelling with calculated fury. "I cannot overlook this very deliberate, very foolish action."

Suddenly she was grateful for Cecelia's stranglehold on her arm, keeping her from backing violently away and revealing to everyone in the room just how terrified she had suddenly become.

She should have seen this coming.

Her mind was flooded with every sort of reasoning, every possible excuse she could use. "Khan, let me explain—"

He advanced in two swift strides and snagged her jaw in his hand, pressing his fingers into her cheeks and neck, forcing her to look up at him. He was not gentle. Tears pricked her eyes as he put pressure on the bruises Owen had placed there—bruises that, hours earlier, Khan had done his very best to avoid.

"My crew, Madelyn! My family!" he roared into her face. "I offered you everything and still you kept my family from me!" He released her face, thrusting her backwards hard enough to make Cecelia adjust her footing. His voice dropped, shaking with a predatory urgency. "I will find this very hard to forgive, if I choose to forgive you at all."

Madelyn struggled to hold onto her composure. She knew she had never made, and then promptly ignored, a bigger mistake in all her life. He was going to kill her for this. Her gaze fell to his balled up fists, his knuckles as white as the whites of his eyes. He looked the way he had right before he'd murdered Admiral Marcus.

The desperation to make this right hit her like a lump of steel. She wanted him to understand. She wanted to fix this now. He must have felt just this desperate when he'd admitted the wrong of his deception to her. He had done everything he could to win her back and she had fallen right back into him. But this…

This was so much bigger.

"Khan, please hear me out. I can explain everything." Her voice still shook but she looked him right in his angry, burning blue eyes.

"What is there to explain? It is clear to everyone in this room what you have done to me, what I, through sheer, utter ignorance, have allowed you to do. You have shamed me, Madelyn! I was so pathetically eager to have you back that I did not even give account to the possibility that you could still be hiding something from me!"

"Still?" Her panic was edging back into her periphery. "What was I ever hiding from you? I let you walk into my life and take everything!"

She wanted to snatch her words from the air. He had the room and she had just spoken out against him, in front of his friends and confidants and people who had once stood by his side while he ruled a quarter of humanity. She expected him to explode on her any second now, or lunge at her and slam her against the wall and choke the life from her. Even Joaquin glanced back and forth between them with frenzy in his eye.

She waited on the edge of a razor as Khan took one threatening step towards her, unclenching and clenching his fists at his side. There was no way to be ready for what he might do. But he came no closer. He pulled his hands behind him, squaring his shoulders, composing himself and drawing himself up to his full height until his body seemed to become an animal of its own. "No," he said, his voice softening until it ran like velvet over her ears. Velvet covered in poison. His raw and distant gaze was tearing her to pieces. "I gave everything back to you that I could possibly give, and you withheld the only thing you could ever truly offer in return. I find myself repulsed by your presence."

Something in her chest twisted and clenched. He turned his back, and Joaquin butted in before she could respond. "What do you think should be done with her?" he said, his predatory gaze fixed on her like she was a wounded animal, whose death was being postponed solely for their leisure. She had nowhere to hide. She only had words to defend herself with and those were quickly slipping away.

"You have to let me explain," she pleaded. She didn't care that her voice dwindled and cracked in the middle of that last word. She didn't care that she sounded like she was begging.

Khan kept his back to her as he spoke. "What about this lie could possibly be explained away? What you have done is quite clear to me. You wanted to keep my family from me so you could control me. You wanted me to feel forever indebted to you, because you know you have no one left but me."

His words cut slowly like a hot knife through butter and she fought to keep from believing them. Joaquin's smirk had grown wider and then she realized.

"The only reason you can say that is because of him." She pointed at Joaquin, tears pricking her eyes again as she stared at the tanned Augment who was suddenly looking a little less pleased with himself. She wished she could see Khan's face. His back was still turned and she had no way of knowing if what she was doing even meant anything to him, if the gears inside his ego-inflated brain hadn't rusted up from Joaquin's influence. He had to see what was happening here, what he had let happen. Finally, he turned to face her again, his upper body twisting enough for him to look at her without much effort. "That does not negate the fact that you kept this vital information from me. You have given me no choice."

"But you know it's not true! I didn't do it to control you!"

"So you admit to your lies."

He'd caught her. The air was stolen from her lungs as she realized this. She ground her teeth together at her own desperation, unwilling to admit to herself that this was happening.

"Khan, is this really necessary?" Joaquin pushed.

Khan raised a hand, turning completely to face her now and stepping in front of Joaquin. "Let her speak, while she can."

She couldn't let herself get dwell on his threatening words. "You are not all that I have," she forced herself to say. "But at the time, I felt like you were. And I didn't… I didn't want to lose you." It hurt so much to say it, especially in front of these Augments who probably would have liked to squash her like an ant beneath their boot by now, if Khan wasn't set on… whatever it was that he wanted from her.

There was barely a response from him. Not an eyebrow twitch or a wrinkle in his brow. Not even a tilt of his head. Just a faint tightening in his jaw and slight narrowing of his eyes. He gazed at her with a frustratingly unreadable expression and then turned away, his fingers drumming against the knuckles of his other hand. He leaned over the room's central control console, removing his hands from his back and gliding them over the console's surface. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for his response. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be at his mercy in the time he had ruled a quarter of the Earth. She certainly felt at his mercy.

It was terrifying.

He continued to slide his fingers across the surface of the console, not lifting his eyes to meets hers or Joaquin's or anyone's. "There are… techniques for gaining information from unwilling subjects. You know I am capable of these techniques. I would rather not be forced to use them on you." He slid his hands from the console and pulled them behind his back, turning around to regard her coolly. "I am going to ask you a question and you will answer truthfully."

She wasn't sure whether she nodded of her own accord, or if subconsciously she thought it might placate him. Placate this whole situation.

"Where is my crew?"

All she could hear was her own shaky breathing. Inhaling. Exhaling longer. It roared in her ears.

No, please.

Slowly, she shook her head, dropping her gaze. He knew better than this. He wouldn't do this to her.

"I don't know," she said quietly, raising her eyes again to meet his piercing, expectant ones. It was the truth.

Please believe me.

Joaquin shifted nearby. "Khan, you know as well as I that she's lying. She spent enough time with Kirk—"

"I don't know where they are," she repeated, raising her voice in a last desperate attempt to convince them all of the only thing she was capable of saying. "And I would never lie about this." She knew this would be the final straw but she didn't care. "And if I did know, I would tell you, but not with him in the room." She glanced at Joaquin and then back to Khan.

"He was the one who alerted me to your deception," Khan said, each syllable sliding carefully off his tongue. "You should choose your words more carefully."

"I promise you, I don't know where your crew is." She sucked in a desperate hint of a sob. "Khan, why don't you believe me?"

His face softened. He advanced on her slowly, his chin lifted as he gazed down at her. A lock of hair had fallen into his forehead, and days ago she would have reached up to push it out of the way just because.

Now his breath on her face made her cringe.

Please, please, please. God, please.

"Oh, Madelyn," he said softly. "I wish I could believe you."

Her only source of security on this entire station had slipped away from her.

"Cecelia," he boomed. Madelyn stared into the blackness of his shirt. She thought she was going to throw up. "Take her to the brig. She needs time to decide how to tell the truth."

She struggled as she was pulled away, as though she still had something of him to hold onto. Tears pricked her eyes, blurring her vision. "I've told you the truth! I don't know where they are!" Cecelia yanked her out of the room until her arms burned. Still she fought. "You're making a mistake!"

The last thing she saw was Khan's hard face turning away from her before the doors hissed shut. She choked on saliva and tried to catch her breath, but it hurt too much. It hurt too much to even cry. She pulled at Cecelia with every last bit of strength she had, until she was pushed into a small dark cell and the door was slammed shut and locked against her bunched up hands.

She screamed at the door until her chest felt like it had caught fire. Her palms pressed to the cold dark wall, it took her several minutes of steady, rasping breathing until the pain subsided. Still her chest hurt, like someone had slid their sharp fingernails underneath her ribcage and squashed her heart in a single clench.

Her mind whirled, trying to come up with a reason for this, trying to explain why he had turned on her so violently and with so little regard for everything he had previously apologized for. It was as if the last four days had never even happened. But more than his shift in behavior stung, even more than his betrayal. His hypocrisy burned like an out of control forest fire. While she had initially turned against him for lying about the core of his identity, for using her for his own selfish purposes, for impregnating her without her consent, his desperate pursuit for redemption had convinced her he was worth it.

So why suddenly did her solitary lie give him the grounds to destroy everything?

And she hadn't even technically lied. She'd only left a truth unspoken, a truth that she was afraid would drive him to act out of control, putting them both into danger again. But it didn't matter now.

She pressed her back against the wall and sank to the floor, allowing herself physical respite for the emotional and mental wreck she was becoming. He was right. She should have known better than to keep this from him. She should have realized he would find out sooner or later. She'd underestimated him. For Christ's sakes, he was Khan Noonien Singh, the Augmented Tyrant, former dictator of twenty-five percent of humanity. He'd given her something no one else in the universe had ever seen and instead of trusting him with her own secrets, she had kept them to herself.

She stared into the dark corners of the brig, visible through the glass panel walls that kept her imprisoned. What if he had never intended to truly give her full restitution for his actions? What if he still had an agenda, and wearing emotional blinders, she had walked right into it all over again? Just knowing who he was… knowing what he was capable of…

Did their relationship really mean nothing to him? Was she really little more than his plaything, his possession?

The thought that Khan would purposefully allow Owen to take her, to beat her within an inch of her life and try to do god knows what else, in hopes that she would somehow succumb to the pain and the trauma and eventually break—it made her want to shrivel up inside.

But that was how Joaquin had described her.

Broken.

If both men believed she was the key to finding the rest of their family, then they would not stop until they had what they wanted.

What they wanted just happened to come at her expense, and the worst part was she didn't even have it.

She had no idea what Starfleet had done with Khan's people. As far as she knew, neither did Kirk or Spock or anyone she'd met. For all she knew, they could actually be dead, deemed a threat or a waste of resources, discarded in secret. She couldn't find it in herself to believe that someone in Starfleet would be willing to take those measures. It had been hard enough to believe that Spock had initially done the deed, and when it turned out he hadn't, it had made sense. But if Joaquin had a mole in Starfleet, then they either weren't doing their job, or Starfleet was preventing them from doing their job.

But it didn't matter, since whatever was happening outside the Io Facility couldn't affect her as long as she was locked inside it.

She was lurched from her thoughts when a door opened at the end of the brig, briefly letting in a rectangle of light. Aidan appeared in the doorway, holding the cuffed arms of a tall, lanky man in front of him. Madelyn stood up, watching as the ginger Augment forced his captive across the room, pausing in front of her cell door to open it and then shoving him through before sealing it shut again. Then he swiftly turned and left without a word.

"He's really got a way about him, don't he?"

She regarded her new cellmate silently. She'd never seen him before and didn't know him, but he didn't seem to care. He pushed himself to his feet with little trouble despite his arms being locked behind his back in sturdy cuffs that Aidan hadn't bothered to unlock. He tried to wipe away the blood dripping from his mouth with his shoulder, but only succeeded in smearing blood across his jaw.

His gaze was genuine and curious, but the half-grin on his face made her wary in the dim light. He didn't seem to care that he was bleeding or locked in a tiny cell, and she wasn't exactly happy that she was locked in that same tiny cell with him.

"How long ya been in here?" he asked, his voice soft and throaty. His accent reminded her of Bones', but softer. His hair was light, short, and tousled like he'd recently put up a fight, and his long legs probably offered him more speed than the strength he had in his lean muscles.

"Maybe an hour? I don't really know." She eyed him, grateful that he was at least keeping to his corner of the small cell.

"I'm Otto. I'd shake your hand, but…" He shrugged, his half-grin widening until it covered his face, white teeth flashing.

"What are you in here for?"

He ducked his gaze and shook his head like he was ashamed, but he laughed softly to himself. "I'm in here because I don't do well with authority. I end up in here a lot actually." He sniffed and tried to wipe the blood from his face again. When he met her gaze, she realized the cut on his lip was almost healed.

"You're an Augment." She felt like she was stating the obvious, but feeling surprised in this moment seemed a little out of the ordinary given the turn of events.

"You think I'd be alive if I wasn't? One of seven walking around right now. Or should I say eight?" He cocked an eyebrow at her, his eyes skating over her briefly. "I haven't seen you before."

"I'm… not really supposed to be here." The understatement of the century.

He nodded slowly, his frown thickening. "I heard Kati yellin' earlier. You're the one who killed Owen, aren't ya? You don't look so good."

Madelyn knew she had visibly tensed upon hearing his name. She swallowed and ran a hand through her scalp, unable to meet his gaze. She needed to be careful what she revealed at this point.

"It's ok," he said. "He had it comin'."

She looked at him and felt the tension ease off.

"I told Joaquin it wasn't a good idea, but he didn't listen obviously so I ended up in here. Then it turned out he had more in mind anyway and I'd honestly love to beat the shit out of him right now."

Though she appreciated the sentiment, she didn't want to think about Joaquin anymore than she had to.

"Listen," he said, lowering his voice. "I don't know what you did to get yourself thrown in here, but if you ain't Augment then the fact that you're still alive says a hell of a lot more than you might think."

Madelyn pursed her lips. If he actually asked her why she was in here… there was nothing stopping him from doing whatever he wanted once he knew.

"Just that fact alone makes me inclined to want to break you out of here."

She raised her eyebrows, the corner of her mouth twitching up in a faint smile. "You can't even get the blood off your face."

He shrugged, grinning again. "A minor detail. If I can get Kati to come in here, she'll open us right up and we're free. Put you on a ship before anyone even realizes we escaped. You'll be back home before dinnertime."

She stared at him, finding this really hard to believe or even take seriously. "I just met you a minute ago and you already want to help me escape."

Otto's grin faded and he took a couple careful steps around the perimeter of the cell, still leaving her space. "You do realize this is your only chance, right? I don't know the details of your bein' here, but I do know that I saw a very pissed off Khan just an hour ago and I imagine—seein' as he's been missin' for a while and then suddenly he shows up same time as you—that it has something to do with you. And while I don't know this for sure, I do know that once Khan and Joaquin are in the same room, they will do anything to get what they want."

Madelyn eyed the casual way in which he circled the cell, despite the sudden drop of his voice.

"You wanna know why Aidan doesn't talk? A month ago, that fuckin' ginger never used to shut up. He had a response to everything. He was the king of punch lines. And then he started speakin' out against the shit Joaquin was doin', particularly with the experiments and with Owen. So one day Joaquin's clearly had enough. You can just see it on his face. He gets all wild, like an animal. A lot of us do, but Joaquin really gets this thirsty, wide-eyed frenzy about him that scares the shit out of people who aren't payin' attention. He goes up to Aidan like nothing, puts his fingers to the man's neck and digs in. He ripped that ginger's vocal chords right out and tossed them over his shoulder. Then he just walked away and kept on doin' what he was doin' before."

As he spoke, he took careful steps towards her, looking her dead in the eye. It wasn't hard for her to imagine Joaquin doing something like that, but all she could think about was Khan and what he'd been willing to do before. A shiver crept down her spine.

"Any ordinary man wouldn't 'a survived that, but Aidan… Aidan's as tough as they come. He was laid up for about a week while Kati fixed him up. He don't even have scars—but I s'pose that's our nature. But you can see it in his eyes. He's scared as fuck now and he hides it well. Hard as a rock. He does what he's told and doesn't cross anybody no more. Now my point is that Joaquin did this and didn't flinch. He just ripped his throat out and walked away like it was somethin' he did everyday."

Otto paused, shaking his head like he was still coming to terms with the story himself.

"Did anyone try to stop him?"

"Why else would this be my third visit to the brig this week?" he replied, his smile growing but only briefly. "I don't know if you heard the story about how Khan killed that Starfleet Admiral. It was right before I believe his ship crashed into San Francisco, but that's a whole other deal. Back in February. Anyway, he took that Admiral's skull in between his bare hands and he crushed it like a ripe cantaloupe, right in front of his daughter too. Some sorta revenge for keepin' him locked up in slavery for the better part of a year, but my point is this: these two have a flare for the dramatic and ain't afraid to do whatever the fuck it takes. You do not wanna cross either of them, but especially not at once. People who survive that, well they're either worth a little something more than your standard cookie-cutter, dimwitted, breakable human—no offence—or else someone's not tellin' the whole truth."

The silence in the cell was overwhelming.

"What was your name? I never got it."

"Madelyn."

She'd known what Khan was capable of. She'd seen it. And she wasn't grateful for the reminder.

Violence was the strong suit of these people. She'd always known that. Even with her minimal Augment DNA, she'd grown up experiencing mood swings and emotional instability that seemed wildly out of tune with the hormonal patterns of her friends.

She also knew that not only were Augments more prone to fits of rage and uncontrollable tempers, but they were intelligent enough to control it all. A simple reading of the little Augment literature available to her in the past had opened up a wider realization of this struggle to her: it was one thing to be ruled by your emotions as an Augment, but it was another entirely to be able to control them, to center them, and to use them at the most opportune moment.

This was what she could hope for out of Khan. Whether it was misplaced hope or not, at this point she didn't care. She'd seen it before. His carefully calculated advance on Kronos, his subtle manipulation on the Enterprise, his brutality on the Vengeance, his desperation in those last moments on the ground in San Francisco, which she now realized was the most emotionally exposed she had ever seen him—outside of their brief time spent underground. She could look back at that awful day in February more clearly now and see exactly how he had played everything to his advantage.

Had he not turned on her for keeping the truth from him, she might have actually found new admiration for him, a feeling she faintly remembered having during their first few encounters in London, before things took a more intimate turn, before she completely lost herself to him.

But instead of faint admiration for what Khan was capable of, she only felt fear.

Coupled with Joaquin's influence—a man who didn't seem as capable of centering himself as Khan had clearly shown himself to be—the knot in Madelyn's stomach tightened. What if this was really all Joaquin? She knew her grasp for hope in Khan could be totally misplaced, but maybe she was striking out towards something concrete when she wondered if Joaquin was really the one being played here.

Maybe she was only kidding herself.

She had no proof either way.

Khan could even be pretending to be playing, knowing that she might see through him eventually, when in fact he and Joaquin had joined forces once more, this time to wreak havoc with the most advanced technology ever to fall into Augment hands.

It hurt her head to think about it.

It hurt her chest even more.

"Madelyn, we're really running out of time here. Either I can help you get out of here, or you can stay and hope that Khan isn't itching to crush more skulls. It's your choice."

She tried desperately to ignore the pang of fear that shot through her.

He would never…

"You sure you can get me out of here?"

Otto grinned. "I'll do my best."

Suddenly he gasped and choked, his grin vaporizing. He doubled over, his head colliding with the cold floor with an audible smack. Madelyn was ripped from her momentary shock when he started convulsing. His eyes rolled back into his skull and his arms, now dangerously rigid, were trapped between his back and the floor.

She scrambled over to him, watching helplessly as saliva dribbled from his shaking mouth. His skull slammed into the floor again, and she quickly slid her hands around it to protect him. Her eyes flew around the cell and up to the ceiling where she realized they were probably being watched through security cameras. Someone would have to come. They did.

Kati raced into the room, her lab coat flying out behind her. Keying in the cell entry code, she avoided Madelyn's gaze and quickly knelt to assist her in holding Otto down until the episode passed.

Suddenly, Otto's out of control shaking transformed into a calculated bodily twist. His legs careened through the air and knocked Kati to the side, then he leaped to his feet and grinned at Madelyn again, and in her daze she realized this was part of the plan. "Hurry up. The hangar's about a mile away."

There was no key for his cuffs but it didn't matter. The cell door slammed shut behind them, trapping Kati inside, and leaving Madelyn and Otto free to make their escape.

Her heart felt like it was pounding out of her chest and it hurt, especially when she took deeper breaths to run faster. Otto wasn't too far up ahead. He glanced back every now and then to make sure she was following him. She had little trouble keeping up. He ran a little funny with his hands cuffed behind him.

A searing blast through her skull sent her flying against the wall. Dull pain throbbed through her body and for a moment she thought she was on fire. She gasped for air, struggling to get back on her feet. Everything around her spun like the entire facility was falling out of the sky. She grappled for something to keep her upright until things settled, finding a firm, soft handhold. A second passed and she realized she was clutching someone. She looked up at the ginger curls framing a pale, dead face. Aidan.

Struck with fear again, she let him go and backed away, glancing wildly around for Otto. He was on his face further down the corridor, Joaquin standing over him with a boot on his back and a phaser held to his head. She froze.

She knew when Aidan came up behind her, his strong hand sliding around her arm again, this time the cold head of a phaser prodding the back of her neck through her hair. She fought to catch her breath, still blinking to try and clear her vision from the blast.

"That was a predictable move, Otto. Shame she was thick enough to fall for it." Joaquin shoved his boot into Otto's ribs. "Aidan, take them back to the brig and get Kati out of there. Khan will be needing a little more time to deliberate. Perhaps Kati's presence will be able to spur him on. I doubt she's in a good mood right now."

Madelyn gritted her teeth, not even daring to look at Joaquin as Aidan pushed her down the corridor, digging his phaser into the back of her neck. She'd probably just sealed her fate.

"On second thought," Joaquin growled behind her. "I'll accompany. Just to be sure." He pulled Otto up and shoved him beside Madelyn, held firmly in Aidan's grip. She tried to glance at Otto again. She wasn't angry. She wasn't even frustrated. She wasn't sure why they'd thought that would work. He gave her a vaguely sheepish look.

"I'll be telling Khan about this," Joaquin continued. "He won't be happy to hear that you're still refusing to cooperate."

When they reached the brig, they were quickly herded back into their small cell. Aidan's phaser slipped and hit a series of bruises on her shoulder, making her hiss and inhale a pained groaned.

"Better get used to it," Joaquin said with a faint chuckle.

She glared at him. "Tell Khan that I've told him everything. I don't know where his crew is—" Her face was shoved to the side with a violent slap. She ground her teeth as the sting raced across her skin.

"You can keep saying the same shit over and over again, Madelyn," Joaquin sneered at her. "It won't make a difference. Besides, Khan's crew—our family—is far more important than you. What you are, what you've always been, is his plaything. You're dog food compared to what he could easily have." He scoffed, shaking his head. "I don't know why he put up with you for as long as he did. He'll get what he wants in the end, you can count on it."

"Just let me talk to him, Joaquin. I need to explain!"

Her plea was ignored. He spun on his heel and headed for the brig doors, Aidan locking the cell behind him.

"You're not even worth the tiny bit of energy it'd take me to kill you," he called. "Remember that."

She pressed her palms to the glass, willing Aidan to suddenly change his mind and turn on Joaquin, but the two men had already disappeared from the room. Her face still stung. She raised a hand to her cheek and winced. Her cheekbone was tender.

Otto was right. Joaquin wasn't afraid to do real damage.

But his words hurt even more.

His plaything. Dog food.

What he could easily have…

Nothing that Khan ever really wanted was easy to come by, she was learning.

She had to believe he was playing Joaquin. She had to. It was the only thing keeping her from believing that she'd been a complete fool to forgive him—and that was an idea that was quickly beginning to haunt the back of her mind.

For all his efforts to win her back, Khan was a master of manipulation. Her skin crawled at the thought that the moments they shared in Kati's bathroom were just another part of that manipulation.

She'd sunk to the floor of the shower because she had absolutely no strength left to stand. She had been emotionally, physically, and psychologically finished. She still felt like only a semblance of herself, her current train of thought riding on the outskirts of a dark abyss she was doing her best to avoid, but with each passing moment was getting closer and closer to falling into it anyway.

Khan had walked into that shower and given her something to hold onto—literally. She could have managed without him, but at the time she'd been so exhausted, so spent from what she had done, that being in his presence was like docking a boat during a violent storm and being able to stand on solid ground, safe while dark waves crashed around her. A distant threat, visible, audible, but not able to touch her.

And now the ground she was standing on had turned out not to be solid at all, but quicksand, sucking her down and suffocating her mercilessly.

That thought alone made her lean back against the cell's cold glass wall and let out a long, exhausted sigh. Her gaze fell on Otto, hunched over against the opposite wall, looking just as frustrated as she wanted to feel, except she didn't.

She didn't feel anything.

She only felt empty.

Quietly, she slid to the floor with her back pressed to the wall. When she stretched out her legs, the soles of her boots almost touched his. "I appreciate the effort," she said quietly. "It was worth a shot."

He glanced up at her without moving, crinkling his forehead. His light eyes glittered, reminding her that he wasn't nearly in as dire straights as she was. This was probably a regular occurrence for him.

He chewed on his lower lip, staring down at his scuffed boots. A sudden inhalation drew her attention back to him. "Probably shouldn't have done it in the first place. I just put you in a worse situation. Now they know you don't wanna cooperate."

"It probably wouldn't matter even if I did."

Otto lifted his head, looking back at her more directly, his brow wrinkling. "You can't just give up. What've you got to live for outside of here? You got a family? Friends that care about ya? You seem like a smart gal. I bet you've got a great career that's just waitin' for you to come back and keep punching through those glass ceilings."

She exhaled softly, a bitter sound to her ears. The subtle grin on his face made it worse. "That's just it," she whispered. She sniffed and shifted on the floor, pulling one leg up under herself. "You have no idea what I've already lost because of Khan. And Joaquin, come to think of it." She swallowed as she did. Her grandfather. Her career. Her first child, dead before he was born. All lost under a combination of both men's influence, even if one was indirectly through Owen. Ultimately, it was Khan, and Joaquin.

Otto cocked his head, shaking it a little. "Nah. I think you've got somethin'. When you get outta here, name me one thing, or person, or place that you can say 'I've still got that'."

She had to smile a little at the way he said when she got out of there. He was clearly more optimistic than she was, given what they had just tried—and failed—to do. But instantly, one glowing, grinning face popped into her mind. Her smile widened.

"My friend Kelly. Kelly Beckett. I think she's the first person I'd want to go see."

Otto made a face like he was pleased and gestured for her to continue.

"She's a little younger than me, maybe a little naïve, but…" she paused, realizing that Kelly was probably one of her best friends. "She's a great listener, when you can get her to stop talking." She grinned at the thought, but it faded when she remembered how Kelly had been the one to introduce her to Khan—John Harrison rather. She chalked that up ultimately to Kelly's insistence that she start dating again, which was really Kelly's unspoken method of saying "I care about you, Maddy, and I want the best for you," and she smiled again because she could hear Kelly's strong accent in her head. "We used to share an apartment together in London, before everything... It's funny—well, not really. More ironic. I told her I'd be back in a few days, but that was over a month ago. I haven't seen her since, and we've only spoken once."

The cell was silent for a while. Madelyn looked up at him, wondering if she'd waxed too much and he'd grown disinterested. Instead, he was looking at her keenly, his eyes faintly narrowed like he was trying to figure something out. Then he shrugged and ran his fingers through his hair. "See? You haven't lost everything yet. I like the sound of her."

He offered her another crooked grin that she managed to return half-heartedly. She appreciated his effort. She really did. He wasn't like the others in that regard. He was certainly his own man.

They both looked up as the door of the brig opened and Joaquin strode in. Madelyn rose to her feet, expecting this to be it, but it was Otto who was taken roughly from the cell.

"I'll be seein' ya," he called right before Joaquin socked him in the gut. He took it like it was nothing.

Joaquin glanced over his shoulder at Madelyn, a slimy grin forming on his features. "Oh you'll be seeing each other, that's for sure."

She watched them until they disappeared from the room, and then the brig doors slammed shut, and she was left alone in the dark again.