As a child, I'd been incredibly skeptical of magic. Many times my parents offered to take me to magic shows or offered to hire a magician for one of my birthday parties, but I refused, believing that magic didn't exist and it was simply full of trick steps and holes. As long as I can remember, I believed in concrete evidence, facts, and science to prove that events did or didn't occur.
When I found myself standing in what appeared to be a small auditorium, I wondered if maybe I had been wrong all along.
Around me were metal tables, upon which was a silver briefcase. Cables hung from the ceiling and brick pillars were scattered across the room. I stood there for a few more moments, unable to believe that a few minutes ago I stood in the boiler room of S.H.I.E.L.D. in New York City.
My eyes looked again at the silver briefcase, and an image of Directory Fury holding it came to mind. I stepped forward towards the case, wondering if the Tesseract was still inside. Halfway through the motion, a tightening sensation on my forearm reminded me of who I was with.
Out of the corner of my eye, Loki stood still, his arm still wrapped around my wrist. I studied his profile for a moment, and then I began to notice that my wrist was becoming numb. I gripped his armor and attempted to pull myself away. At that, he turned to face me and bent his head towards mine, his green eyes narrowing into slits.
"I can't feel it," I whispered weakly. "Let go, please."
"My lord?" a confused voice asked from behind me. Rolling his eyes with irritation, Loki turned to face the visitor, who was Dr. Selvig.
"Doctor," I mouthed with surprise. He stepped into the room, holding a tablet between his hands. The plaid shirt he had been wearing when I lasted saw him was dirty with stains, his pants brushed with dirt. Like Sullivan, he developed light scruff on his face. "I have news!" he added excitedly.
As if he'd forgotten about me, Loki released my arm without a moment's hesitation and strode towards Dr. Selvig, tossing the spear in his hand like it was a toy. I stepped backwards from them, pulling the sleeve of my suit up to see five individual bruises turning purple on my arm. Quivering, I lightly traced my new marks, incredulous. Force enough to bruise? I cradled in my wrist in my free hand. I attempted to rotate it, and was rewarded with a sharp throb of pain shooting through my forearm. I hoped that it wasn't broken, or sprained. There was no way I'd be able to use a computer for weeks.
In front of me, Loki and Dr. Selvig spoke like old friends, discussing their plans. Selvig attempted to explain to Loki, in simple terms, what he had discovered from his experiments on the Tesseract. I took a few careful steps backwards until my back hit a damp, cold wall. I groped behind me and discovered I'd rammed into a pillar.
"What have you done to him?" I finally said, holding on the pillar for life.
Both Loki and Selvig raised their heads, clearly not wanting my input. However, Dr. Selvig's Tesseract blue eyes lightened with recognition and I smiled briefly at him, wondering if the man I knew for only a few days was back.
"Pedagia! Welcome! I wasn't aware you were coming to join us!"
My smile faded as quickly as it came.
"You wouldn't believe it," he gushed excitedly, pointing to the Asgardian standing next to him. "This guy has done everything. I got a team coming together, it's brilliant."
"You see?" Loki told me, clasping his hand around Selvig's shoulder. "He's never been happier." The astrophysicist nodded for emphasis.
I looked away from Dr. Selvig, feeling repulsed and saddened at the same time by his behavior. I looked around the large room and took a deep breath. The air was damp and humid, and smelled musty, like my basement. I attempted to change the conversation. "Where am I? And how did I get here?"
"Magic, of course," Loki responded obviously, arching one eyebrow in response to my apparently idiotic question. "I have the power to teleport where I like."
"Are all Asgardians like that?"
"I'm especially skilled," he responded, preening himself like a peacock.
"I'd rather you knocked me unconscious and brought me here," I muttered under my breath.
"This is an old S.H.I.E.L.D. base," Dr. Selvig offered, motioning around the room. "Completely forgotten."
"How in the world did you find it?" I said on an exhale, knowing that S.H.I.E.L.D. has knowledge of all their bases, present and past. I found it hard to believe that someone casually mentioned this one base that had been abandoned. I'm surprised it wasn't destroyed to remove any remaining intelligence.
"One of the guards was kind to direct us to it," Selvig explained. "But Pedagia, you haven't explained what you're doing here. Are you here to help us?" As he finished his sentence, his face became blank and free of expression. I stepped forward with alarm, wondering if he was about to suffer a stroke, or worse.
The moment passed as quickly as it came, and he turned on his heel and strode out of an open door, mumbling to himself. Loki followed Dr. Selvig to the door, and then closed it gently, pressing his hand against it. Not facing me, he reached for a metal lock, and turned it with a quiet click. Warning bells went off in my head and my fight-or-flight instincts kicked in.
The sensation of two hands applying pressure around my wrists kept me pinned to the damp pillar while Loki made his advance. I struggled uselessly against invisible bonds.
"Magic?" I panted, my legs threatening to buckle below me out of fear. The tremors started in my legs and slowly advanced upwards until my entire body was quivering in his presence. Cool breath tickled my face and green eyes bore into mine while the sensation of something cold sliding up towards my neck made me shiver again. I began to register the sensation of pain in my head, and when my head was roughly tilted upwards towards his face, I gritted my teeth, looking into the soft glow of the lamp above me. A whimper escaped my mouth when his hold tightened in my hair and nails scratched against my scalp.
Tell me this is just a nightmare! I thought wildly, feeling cold fingers dance against my collarbone. Tell me I'm at home, right now, wrapped in my green comforter, tell me this isn't happening to me!
"I'm going to tell you all of the things I will do to you if you don't give me the information I require," said Loki, his voice soft and dangerous. I swallowed quickly and kept my eyes turned towards the lamp, even though the sensation burned my eyes. I couldn't face whatever was waiting for me if I looked at him.
"It begins with mind control. A simple tap of my scepter and your mind is mine. There is nothing you can hide from me. Your secrets will be laid out before me like a virgin bride, so ready and willing to be taken," he purred, playing with the chain that held the disk. That voice was clearly meant for seduction. Instead, he used it to calmly lay out methods of murder.
"And unfortunately for you, Elliot," he continued, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. I stilled when I felt his smooth cheek brush against mine, and then his cold breath was near my ear. I looked past his armor-clad shoulder, wishing that Dr. Selvig, or anyone would walk in and distract him.
He took his time finishing the sentence, stretching the moment that it felt like eons had passed.
"That is only the beginning."
The Asgardian left me to my own devices in the empty room after he had finished with me. After he left, I crawled underneath one of the metal tables, my head on fire from his ruthless grip on my hair to force my head upwards. My wrist laid limply to the side as I ducked my head between my legs and closed my eyes, wishing the nightmare would end, and I would wake up to find myself lying on bed, surrounded by my mint green comforter that smelled of home. I squeezed my eyes shut and refused to let hot tears leak out of the side of my eyes.
All of my life, I sat in front of a computers. I wasn't anyone important. I was needed, but I could be used a scapegoat, if need be. And I was alright with that. I had been satisfied with it for nearly ten years, remaining an unknown, part of the background. I could never be an agent. I knew I wasn't able to handle the fighting, the torture, or the mental aspect of just being one. 10 minutes was all it took, and Loki had successfully wrung a promise to provide any and all information he needs to succeed in his plan, or else he would follow through with all he had planned for me.
I squeezed my eyes tighter and tried to erase the smooth, silky whispers reverberating in my mind. Those haunting green eyes cut through my defenses like a knife slicing through butter.
While Loki laid out plainly what he intended to do to me, I watched as pure elation filled his eyes while I winced and whimpered in pain from his hold on my hair. I thought that having short hair meant that no man...or Asgardian, would be able to grab hold of my hair and drag me off somewhere. Maybe my hair was longer than I thought. If I ever escaped alive, I was going to get a haircut.
Already, I was in the midst of calculating a plan. If I could hide my emotions, I could frustrate him, irritate him, because he would never know exactly how much pain I was in. I'm sure it would be easy. I don't like showing emotion. I can't handle them well. Anger, crying, grief, joy...I'm not very good at experiencing them or showing them. When my grandmother died last year, I was the only one who didn't shed a tear.
It wasn't because I didn't care. On the inside, my heart broke. Perhaps it's in my nature-calculating and looking for the concrete.
I was so used to thinking about how I was going to keep the database running smoothly, not wondering how I could hide my emotions from a God from another world with a lust for pain and suffering. I knew it was going to be hard. I had never met someone with the ability to provoke fear and anger in me so quickly. This doesn't make any sense.
For a moment, I turned my frustrations towards Sullivan. I almost didn't regret killing him, for all that he had put me through. He could have trusted anyone else to hold this disk. All it's done is gotten me into a situation I had no control over. I was out of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hands and in the middle of nowhere, with an alien who was bent on ruling the Earth. Sometimes I compared this scenario to plots from comic books. You never really expect these things to happen to you.
I exhaled again and thought about my family. Katie, Megan, and my parents have no idea that I'm not even in New York anymore. For all I know, they could think I'm dead. Now I wish I'd sent that email.
My thoughts continued to race. I remembered that Fury was there with Loki transported me to this place. What is S.H.I.E.L.D. doing right now? Organizing a search? That made me a feel a bit better. I knew Fury wasn't going to let this disappear quietly.
Maybe I shouldn't have killed Sullivan. Maybe they would have been able to remove his mind control and get information out of him.
The sounds of Loki's angry voice disturbed me from my thoughts and I raised my head as his voice came closer. It sounded like he was arguing. Accompanying his voice was the sound of footsteps, and there were at least 20.
"Silence!" his voice barked angrily. "You will have your turn to observh the Tesseract. For now, this is where you will labor." The door swung open and I tensed, watching a pair of dark boots enter the room. His footsteps stopped in the middle of the room, and he rotated. I pressed my mouth into the crook of my arm to silence my breathing. In a perfect world, he would assume that I escaped and run off, giving me time to run.
A chuckle that held no amusement escaped from his mouth. "Elliot," he sang in a whisper, like a mother would to a child, "Where are you?"
It sounded like something out of a horror movie. Like where the killer opens a music box and a creepily eerie sound comes out, and you know that the murderer is behind you, drawing a knife. I pressed my mouth further into my arm.
"What is it?" a male voice called from outside, sounding curious.
"Silence!" Loki snapped again, marching to the door. "You are not allowed to speak until spoken to!"
There were a few moments of silence. "Sorry," the man mumbled, sounding clearly embarrassed. I watched as Loki entered the room again, and the bottom of his spear came into view from where I sat.
"Elliot, if you do not show your face, our agreement will be severed. And I do not take broken promises well," he whispered, a threat in his voice.
That alone was enough to bring me from my hiding place. Sighing with defeat, I crawled from underneath my hiding place, shoving away thoughts of the curved tip touching my chest and ruining me. Taking a deep breath, I stood upright and turned to face Loki, whose eyes had stopped darting around the room and settled on me. A look I had seen way too many times, a look of satisfaction, filled his face and I noticed the group of people standing outside in a darkened hallway, holding briefcases and tablets. They peered around Loki's frame to peer at me. I glared at every one of them. Most of them were white coats and some were guards. Traitors. I glared at every one of them. They responded with blank, nonchalant looks.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. has many enemies, as you may know. You will help them," he stated, no room for argument in his voice. "They will build a replication of the item used to hold the Tesseract, and then harness its power for my use. Do not forget that I have anytime access to your mind," he added as I opened my mouth to speak. "Do not be so foolish to assume you have the upper hand, mortal. I am in control no matter what you do. You think that your weak training will find some angle," he hissed on the word, "To save yourself." He raised his scepter and pointed at my chest. "I can take that disk from you anytime I please."
My eyes darted to the glowing sphere in his scepter, wary of it.
Triumphant in his words, Loki exited the room, his green cape billowing behind him and the group walked inside, excitedly buzzing about the project. They were all people I'd seen maybe once or twice in my life, pushing up their glasses, talking about modifications. I stood in the room and watched as they began to pull out laptops.
"I thought I'd never get the chance!"
"This is completely unbelievable!"
"I can't wait to write about this in my memoirs."
Just samples of the things the scientists eagerly chatted about while they set themselves up. A few scientists shoved past me with irritated looks on their faces. I refused to remove myself from the middle of the room, still staring at the open door that might lead to freedom.
At the same moment, 5 or 6 armed guards walked into the room.
"Are you going to help of not?" an irritated female scientist asked behind me, lugging a big cardboard box. "You're in the way."
"No, I'm not going to help," I mumbled, shuffling towards the door dully. "Not at all."
please leave reviews, they encourage me to write! i am trying to improve my description skills, let me know what you think, or what could be improved. i sort of...enjoyed writing that little scene, does that make me weird? XD