Chapter Ten

Given Freely

Zofia sat in a cold corner, boxed in by stone. She'd curled herself as tight as she could manage, with her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin awkwardly perched on a knee.

Her company was misery, who'd brought three friends along: a pounding headache, fear, and far too much time.

Most of the latter, Zofia spent thinking. Sluggishly, at that, with the constant undercurrent of fear making it difficult to give her thoughts a clear direction.

She tried anyway. Oh how she tried.

Mostly, she thought of getting out, but that got her nowhere. All she came up with was a mess of What Ifs and wishful thinking, while, deep down, she knew she'd have to be patient. To wait. To watch, to listen, to hope something might change that'd give her an opening.

Awful, that was.

Awful.

Zofia slipped her chin between her knees. Her head pounded on merrily.

When she didn't think of flight, she thought of Lady Séraphine and how she'd brought a command down on Zofia like a whip.

Was it worse than not getting out? Maybe. Potentially. Was hard to judge, what with her thoughts getting turned around all the bloody while, but if she did know one thing then it was this: she'd not imagined it.

She'd have liked to. But even though the pressure that had nearly made her sit while she had not, in fact, wanted to sit, had gone, an imprint of its touch remained. It tickled at her mind, just out of reach; an intrusive thought with a mind of its own, playing hide and seek with her conscience.

She chewed on her scabbed bottom lip. Her head came alive with pain.

It was very real and not something she could blame on fear or stress or how she liked to catastrophize out of habit alone.

No. She knew better. Unfortunately.

Years—and a handful of tragedies—ago, Theo had brought up his brother. It'd been a warm night, Zofia remembered. A peaceful one, too. They'd had no work to do, except to watch for morning to come while their friends were safely tucked away in the abandoned rehab centre they'd found a few days ago.

Up until that night, Theo hadn't ever talked about his brother. Each time someone tried to tease information out of him, he'd either deflected or he'd fled.

'I had to know I'd find the right words,' he'd confessed. 'And that I can say them. Properly Without stumbling.' He'd rubbed his nose against his hand. 'And I had to practice.'

Practice, so he could tell them all about what'd compelled a child of fifteen to walk among the nightmares and terrorise an entire city.

It'd been his brother's voice, Theo had said. A voice which had occupied all of Theo's mind, filling it to the brim with thoughts that weren't his own. He'd paused. Frowned. No. A voice-not-voice, Theo had corrected himself; an overwhelming number of them that'd come together as a droning buzz. As if he'd stuck his head into an enormous bee hive.

He'd looked thoughtful then, his knobby brows pinched, and rasped: 'Or maybe my skull turned into a hive. And the bees were my brother's thoughts. Crawling. Stinging. Biting. Telling me what to do.'

Them, had been a quick correction. Plural.

Because not only had Theo forgotten his name, he'd forgotten the entire concept of individuality. No longer was he a singular. He was a cog in a wheel that ran on shared anger, and an insatiable hunger for terrible, terrible things.

Zofia scratched idly at the side of her head.

Up until today, she hadn't known what to make of it. Ashamed, she'd often assumed it'd been an excuse he'd made up; something that'd allow him to distance himself from the horrors his hands and teeth had inflicted on Harran's people.

No. He'd been honest, alright.

And now it was her turn to be honest with herself.

This. Had. Been. Real.

Real as her being locked in here. Real as the Witch muttering across the lab and her neighbour (Luc?) mumbling nonsense against the wall between them. Nonsense to her, at least. Maybe it made perfect sense to the rest of the world when he said he needed to taste smoke or he'd never sleep again.

Real as the soft beep of the lab entrance's locking panel, the soft creak of its doors, and the three footsteps coming near.

"Fetch her," Waltz said.

Panic lunged for her, and just like that, Zofia glitched through an old, creaky trapdoor somewhere at the back of her mind. She didn't mean to. Didn't want to. Had, in fact, thought she'd never have to go there anymore. Not after Rais's garrison, Fraser's lab, and a brief visit back when Theodore had died.

Disassociating wasn't going to get her out of here. But nothing was. She had nowhere else to go — couldn't make what was about to happen any less happen.

Her cage's door opened. Boots stomped over the floor. Hands clamped around her arms. An upwards motion followed. Zofia did not bother walking.

Her head kept pounding.

The chair they strapped her to smelled of disinfectant (or very strong alcohol). It was padded and so were her restraints. She was aware enough of it all, though in a distant, floaty sort of way, much as she was aware of Ollie hovering by her side, every bit the woodsy monster as before.

She was aware of Waltz, too. And of the Hound he sent away. And of how the veins of her lower arms had gotten dark. Terribly dark.

It ought to have scared her (again), but where fear should've stacked itself atop of more fear, there was the beginning of something else: a living anger.

Anger over where she was. Over what might happen, here, in this stupid, dank hole for a lab. Over how it wasn't fair. The anger filled the numb void she'd glitched into, where it turned what'd been a refuge into a riot packed into too small of a space.

Any more of this and her head might explode.

"I've met Crane." Waltz's words stung as much as the needle going into her arm and Zofia's teeth clicked together. Great. Now she had to think about Crane, too, even if she'd worked so hard on keeping him out of her thoughts (impossible as that might've been). Because thinking of him meant hope. Meant fighting. Meant being present and not glitching from her own skin.

But with the living anger roiling around in what should've been a small measure of peace— what the hell, right? So she thought of him. Aggressively. Of how he'd come through the lab's doors (like he'd done in Rais's garrison, putting a bloody end to Tahir while she'd been swimming in a drug induced haze); and how he'd pull the restraints off her (like he'd pulled the sack from her head after they'd been stolen out from under Fraser's nose).

Zofia turned her head straight up and stared at the ceiling.

They were silly flights of fancy, of course. Crane was hurt and had no way of knowing where she was. But at least it kept her distracted while Waltz took vial after vial of blood from her.

"He's still in good health, in case you wonder," Waltz eventually said. Somewhere between vial five and five-hundred. "At least he was when I left. Ollie?" He paused. "Label these. I need the date, time of day, and her name. Then put them into the fridge with the others." Another pause chased this one, before his voice took on a mildly chiding tone. "Gloves, Ollie."

"Yes, Doc."

Waltz's shoulder leaned near her peripheral vision. A soft click of a button being depressed followed. Zofia refused to look at him. The ceiling was far more appealing.

"September 16th. Subject is Zofia Sirota, age forty-eight." Waltz's tone had shifted to a quick, flat cadence. "Infected with strain THV-W-F28 at a suspected twenty to twenty-one years ago. Preliminary blood work from the day of capture verifies that the variant has since then progressed as anticipated, and leads to the assumption of Windfall having mutated subject's t-cells. Viral load was uncharacteristically low. Overall, the first samples proved not viable for a full makeup, but I expect better results after withholding UV exposure for the last nineteen hours."

Another click. Waltz's monologue stalled.

Zofia kept studying the ceiling. It was clean. Scrubbed, almost, and washed with white paint. A spider scuttled across it. She watched it slide into a crack.

Oh, to be an itsy bitsy—

"What is it, Ollie?"

"You haven't done this in a long while."

"Haven't done what?"

"Recording."

"Hm," Waltz hummed. "No. But I haven't seen a reason to." Click.

Zofia felt how he lifted the legs of her trousers, one by one. "Previous examination showed minimal physical changes. Subject lacks the dermal or muscular mutations typical for long-term exposure to any THV variants, Windfall or otherwise. Light marbling was present on initial examination and has now progressed at the nineteen hour mark. Marbling remains contained to the upper body, specifically the arms and clavicle region—"

Zofia's throat clamped shut when she felt her shirt lift. Unwanted cold touched her. She glitched sideways and down, tumbling for the comfort of a dull nothing (where she only found anger and a faint, distant buzzing).

"—though minor webbing can be observed as far down as to the pubic bone."

She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Interesting. What I mistook for scarring yesterday appears to be striae distensae."

"What?" Ollie asked.

"Stretch marks." The clarification came with a sudden, thin touch to her skin; twice on her arms, once at her neck, and two quick circles spun on her stomach. Markers, she guessed. To indicate where she'd 'marbled'. (I'd like to go now. Go now. Be a lovely, itsy bitsy spider—) "To prevent the subject from progressing any further, a dose of one cc Antizin will be administered post-examination."

Click.

The pause which followed this time was longer. Heavier. Her eyes remained stubbornly shut.

"Did you carry to term?"

More of the living anger rose in her. "Walk off a cliff," she muttered back.

"Whether you did or didn't doesn't affect my research. Believe it or not—" She felt his shadow move beyond her closed eyes. Yet another needle pressed into her arm. —"my curiosity is of a much more personal nature."

The needle came free, and even while Waltz began to cover her needled arm much as he'd done yesterday, Zofia's living anger was chased from her head by a muddled sort of clarity.

Antizin.

Working quickly as ever, too, and while it didn't fix her situation (by breaking her out), it did at least remove the immediate threat of her— not being her anymore. Strictly speaking.

On the topic of speaking… Waltz continued.

"Parent to parent, you see." Waltz took off his gloves. The snap of rubber bit at Zofia's ears. She'd heard it so often in Fraser's lab, it'd claimed a spot in her least fav sounds, right up there with old wall clocks going tick tack tick tack tick tack.

And, presently, Waltz's voice.

"I don't assume you brought your entire family to Villedor," he said. "The boy might have been the right age, for all I know." He clicked his tongue. "No. Of course not. If he'd been yours you'd have asked about him by now." Waltz moved around her, his shadow gliding by. "He's alive, by the way."

So Aiden was alright, hm? He'd survived getting thrown off a roof. Thrown by the very man whose daughter was named Mia. Which just so happened to be the name of a long-lost sister.

Coincidence?

In her thoroughly upended life? Not likely, she thought and opened her eyes to fix them on Waltz. She had to know.

"Do you have a son?"

"Me? No." His expression lifted with surprise.

"But you have a daughter."

A nod.

"Is she an only child?"

Suspicion sharpened his eyes. "Always been."

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-two."

Zofia and math had long been waging a war of attrition, but with a little help of landmarks in her own life (none lovely), she made it work. "So when your baby was only—What, six? Seven?—you went ahead and stole other people's children? Children who were six, five, seven, just like yours. Mirrors, really. You took them from their parents and you put them through hell? Babies like your daughter?"

"Hey." Ollie sounded offended off by the side. "Doc Vince was always good to us. And no one—"

Waltz's hand snapped up. Ollie went quiet.

"How do you know about the kids?" His eyes narrowing slightly, Waltz began a slow walk around her chair in its most unfortunate vertical position.

Zofia offered him a flat stare in return.

He didn't need her to spell it out though and once he'd reached the shoulder on her other side, realisation shuttled across his eyes. A smile followed. A strangely genuine one.

"He's one of mine, isn't he?"

She kept staring, her expression blank.

"I had my suspicions, but it didn't seem likely. One of mine? With you? What are the odds?" Still smiling, Waltz spent a moment adjusting the lapels of his coat. "What's his name?"

Stare on she did.

"Look, I'll learn his name regardless. But if you tell me, who knows? You may find me more agreeable if I don't have to exert myself for answers."

A point she couldn't well argue. Wasn't like they'd been particularly secretive (or had considered using fake names since who on Earth did that).

"Aiden."

Waltz's face grew… still-ish? At least until he reached up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. The smile he'd carried soured with a touch of sadness.

"Aiden. I thought he'd died when the GRE took my research." He dropped his hand and sighed. "He was a breakthrough all by himself. And a good kid."

"A good kid you stole from his family. Who you tortured. What sort of father does that?"

"We weren't—" Ollie started up again, but Waltz silenced him just as quickly. This time, Ollie followed up with an irritated grunt.

"I didn't take Aiden from anyone." Slowly—casually, really—Waltz pulled over a wheeled stool. He positioned it by her shoulder, sat, and leaned forward to bring himself somewhat level with her eyes. His hands folding under his chin, he continued. "Aiden's parents brought him to the GRE voluntarily. I merely—" His eyes flicked left, then right. "—diverted him and some of the others to a different project than the GRE originally intended. Mine, to be precise, which at no point was designed to harm these kids. The opposite, really. See, these kids were sick. All of them." His head leaned into (what Zofia assumed to be) Ollie's direction. "Oliver had sickle cell disease. Luc had deliberating cystic fibrosis. And Aiden suffered an immune disorder that would have killed him within the year. Quicker, I suspect, with the Fall around the corner."

All Zofia managed in response was a confused blink.

Of all the things she'd expected to hear—

"And the GRE promised these parents results. We'll cure your kids, they said. We'll save those who'd otherwise die, and all you have to do is accept this tidy sum of cash and sign this NDA. These parents were desperate and so were we." He sighed. "You have to understand that the years between Harran and the Fall were nothing short of an arm's race. The GRE knew the vaccine was pointless. Yes, it worked on the predominant strain coming out of Harran, but, ultimately? Ultimately it was a control measure. A way to convince the world we had everything under control while we pulled into every possible direction trying to get ahead of it. Or conquer it, like Fraser and his Genify sponsors."

Waltz's eyes dipped for only a moment; one long enough for Zofia to find a few words of her own. Which wasn't easy, considering she might have been more clear headed than before, but by no means less confused.

"Which one of the two did you belong to? The ones wanting to, what… fix this? Or own it?"

Waltz's lips pursed. "I was the desperate father wanting to save his daughter." When his eyes cut up again, meeting hers, Zofia wanted to see deceit in them. Or contempt. Or anything at all that'd convince her he was yanking her chain. She didn't.

"And I would have," he said. "I was close. If you hadn't escaped Fraser and if the GRE hadn't hijacked my research? I'd have managed. Another few months and she'd have gotten better, but, instead, her body began to fail her. Year by year she deteriorates, no matter what I do, and all I get to do is watch."

Without warning and with no mercy to spare, Zofia's chest compressed. Violently. Old tears scratched at her eyes.

She knew another man who'd been ready to move mountains for his dying child. And who'd watched on, helplessly, when no amount of shifting the Earth itself would have made a difference.

"Hm." Waltz leaned back. Sorrow had settled in his features, out on display right along with his scars and the gnarly black veins framing one half of his face. Honest sorrow. Shameless. And shared. He'd read her reaction as plainly as one did the title off a dusty book. "I should suspected as much. But— I'm sorry for your loss," he said.

Thoroughly confused, Zofia latched on to whatever decency she might've just seen in the man. Because there must have been some, right? You didn't lay it all out so bloody plainly if you'd burnt up your moral compass entirely.

"Let me go," she said, hoping. "Please."

Waltz shook his head. "I'm not giving up again. I will save her. And you are going to help me."

Taffer Notes: This concludes Part One of Blood from Stone!

And I seem to have grown a bit fond of the Waltz-variant I'm playing with, though I apologize to any readers who'd been hoping he'd be Aiden's father in the fic. Funnily enough, that was what I had originally planned, but characters have mouths and can talk and the entire goddamn fic would've been over in the next two chapters if that'd been the case.