[Day 17] The sleeper has awakened
Jun. 26th, 2006 11:55 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
Stale air, disinfectant, something earthy. It triggered a wave of nausea she had a hard time fighting back.
Then there was pain. Her head not only throbbed with her heart beat, it felt like someone had been shoving white hot needles in her skull. She lost her battle with her stomach. She was barely able to roll to her side as she vomited. She was vaguely aware that it was over the side of a bed as the bilious smell of her own sick triggered further wretching, until nothing was left, and she suffered through dry heaves as her head screamed agony at her.
The straining also made her aware of a pain, less than her head, but not unnoticeable, in the side of her neck. She pressed a shaky hand to that spot, recalling a flash of pain before waking up here, wherever here was. She looked around with eyes still watering from the pain and sickness. White walls, medical equipment, and a she was in a hospital bed. Hospital? Was she in hospital?
There were no windows. Cameras, in the upper corners of the wall she was facing, one door, also with no window. She could tell this despite the face that her head was spinning with dizziness, adding to her nausea, headache and general misery. No, this wasn’t a proper hospital.
Think, she berated herself, despite the overwhelming urge to curl into a ball of misery. She had been in the garden, laughing with Ami, Claire and Daisy. Where were they? She grabbed the rails of the hospital bed as she looked around, as the room seemed to tilt wildly, dipping then rising.
Some more dry heaves and she was able to manage to lay back down and try to be as still as possible. It was so hard to think with her head like this, and the taste of sick in her mouth. Her stomach was still rebelling.
Okay, drugs. She’d been drugged. Even a hangover never felt this bad. Now she couldn’t see Ami or Daisy running off if she’d been drugged. Claire most likely couldn’t run off if she’d wanted to. So they were most likely here, in this not-hospital as well. But they were separated.
Oh God! Claire! What would the drugs do to her baby, if she had been drugged, if she hadn’t, the additional stress…
Focus, now her inner dialog seemed to sound like the Doctor. Focus on what’s around you, and what you can do.
The door clicked, the sound of a locking mechanism, then opened. Rose made out the form of a large man outside the door, holding it open for a middle aged woman in white hospital scrubs. She had a stethoscope and a metal tray in her hands.
“Looks like you’re having a bad reaction. We’ll get that cleaned up.” The women spoke softly, but with no warmth.
“Where am I?” Rose struggled to sit upright again, and the room went into it’s spinning tilt even as her arms shook from the exertion.
“Dizziness, nausea, and most likely a headache.” The woman commented, setting the tray on a counter set against the wall. She took an old fashioned hypodermic off the tray and added enough pressure to release the air from inside, a bead of liquid forming at the top.
“What’s that? Who are you? Get away from me.” Rose managed to press against the rails of the bed. But her limbs were still shaky, and felt leaden.
“Now struggling will get you nothing but the possibility of the needle breaking.” There was a sharp jab in her arm and the fiery heat of a chemical being injected into muscle.
“What was that? Where are my friends?” Rose managed to grab the woman’s wrist as she pulled away. But she twisted free easily enough.
“You may as well rest now, till the effects wear off.” The woman set a plastic cup on a table that was built into the wall along-side the bed. “It’s water with some ice.”
With that the woman turned and left. Rose heard the click of the lock being re-engaged.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 11:43 pm (UTC)Her inner arm was bruised, and she examined it to see the evidence of needle. It didn’t burn like an injection site. Maybe they had drawn blood, but why? They could have injected her with anything, from whatever they gave her to knock her out the second time to… something more unpleasant.
With her head more clear she took total stock of the situation. Locked, windowless room. Two cameras trained on the bed, but able to cover most of the room. Hospital atmosphere and the wall behind her bed had that metal plate full of knobs and connectors like hospitals had. Someone had cleaned up the mess she’d made by being sick. She was wearing a hospital gown. She shivered. Some ill intentioned stranger had undressed her. Her stomach roiled again. She reached back… at least the gown didn’t have an open back. There was a plastic cup of water on the bedside table.
The bedside table! She struggled and managed to shift down the rails of the hospital bed. But the table was bolted to the floor. No drawers. She didn’t know how solid it was, but she doubted she could kick it apart with bare feet. The counter the fake nurse had placed her tray on was built into the concrete walls. It was white painted concrete, Rose ran her hand over to be sure. There was a covered light on the ceiling providing illumination.
There were two air vents, but they were near the ceiling and about ten centimeters high by third a meter wide. No using the clichéd air duct trick. Not that she hadn’t before.
Okay… what did she have? Her wits. There was the hospital bed. Weapons… Nothing… wait… Blaise’s hand to hand lessons… she knew a few tricks now. True it was aimed at strike and run, but that was her plan. There was also…
The Cameras were up to high to undo. She took a deep breath as a plan came to mind. She hoped she had time to settle her stomach first.
Escape attempt, part 1
Date: 2006-06-30 07:10 pm (UTC)The cover and bulb shattered, plunging the room into darkness, as the broken glass fell into the pillow case, sparing her bare feet the risk of stepping on the shards.
She lept down from the bed and pulled off the top sheet as she moved to place her back to the wall beside the door.
It was only ten seconds before the door unlocked and the goon that had held the door open for the not-nurse emerged, with a gun in his hand. The nurse was behind him, fixing another needle.
Rose tossed the sheet over the goons head, pulling back to use the momentum to crack his head into the wall even as she kicked out to throw the aim of the gun off. The nurse screamed, dropped her syringe, and ran, no doubt to get help. In the light of the open door, Rose dove for the needle as the big guy seemed to gather his wits from cracking his head on concrete. Rose jabbed the needle into the guy as his free hand started to pull the sheet off his head. He yelled and pulled away, sending the now empty needle into the dark of the room. He was swinging the gun her way and tugging the sheet again.
Rose grabbed his and bit down on his wrist. She tasted blood ant felt a heavy blow on her shoulder. It hurt, but so did her bite, as the goon actually dropped the gun.
She grabbed the gun from the floor. The big guy managed to get the sheet off, but he was already fading. Whatever was in the needle taking him out for now. He hit the floor with a slapping sound.
Rose, gun in hand, moved into the hallway. She heard running feet coming from the left so she ran right.
Oddly, the adrenaline seemed to have cleared her head and nausea.
She rounded a corner and found herself face to face with a officious looking man. He held a clipboard in his crossed arms and just raised an eyebrow at her. She raised the gun to point it at his chest.
“Going somewhere Miss Tyler?” He arched a black brow. “I admire your resourcefulness. Quite the clever little girl, you are.”
(OOC: Part two will be put up tonight.)
Escape Attempt part 2
Date: 2006-07-01 12:04 am (UTC)"Oh, I don't think so. You're not a killer, Ms. Tyler. I can't see you shooting an unarmed man just because he's in the way." He looked amused.
"You don't know anything about me, or what I'm capable of." She moved to step around him, while keeping the gun on him.
"We know more than you think. But we would like to learn more. But cold blooded murder isn't your style. I doubt you've ever even held a gun before."
Rose knew she was holding the gun right, because Jack had shown her how with some of his assorted weaponry. But she refused to carry one, no matter how much he tried to insist.
"I've held a gun before. Fired one, too." Her eyes darted down the hall, the route of escape.
"But I'm guessing not that kind." The smiling man moved fast, grabbing the gun and twisting it out of her grip even as he landed a resounding backhand to her face.
Rose saw stars as she staggered to hold herself upright, Her cheek was on fire and her eye echoed the pain. She tasted fresh blood, and realized her cheek was bleeding inside her mouth where impact had shocked the flesh into her teeth.
The smiling man held up the confiscated gun. "The safety was still on." He explained with a false politeness.
By now three more members of the goon squad had arrived.
"Now, we'll take you back to your room, and you'll answer our questions like a civilized young lady." Smiling man nodded to the goons. One of whom grabbed her upper arm in a steely grip.
"Cause civilized folk drug and kidnap women all the time." Rose tried to ignore the pain. Brave face, she had to keep her brave face. "You need a few lessons with miss manners."
"Miss Tyler, if you want to make this difficult, it can be. You have three friends here. Your actions so far has already earned one of them punishment. If you refuse to be helpful, one of them will die." He wasn't smiling anymore.
Rose glared at him. "I don't think so. You took the four of us for a reason. I think you want us all alive for whatever that reason is."
The not so smiling man raised a brow. "So clever, but so naive. Bring her.”
The goon holding Rose pushed her before him as they headed back down the hallway.
“Which shall it be, hmm? Ami… close to gibbering now, trying to hold it all together? Claire, just ready to pop… a two for one affair… or… Ah…” The man unlocked a door.
Rose was pushed inside by the brute behind her.
Daisy was sitting on the hospital bed in the middle. The room looked identical to the one she had been in.
“Daisy,” Rose struggled to pull out of the goon’s grip.
“Miss Adair,” The not so smiling man looked at the woman in the bed, “It appears Miss Tyler made a rather daring attempt at escape, and is most uncooperative. I believe we spoke of reciprocal punishment before, did we not?”
The man raised the gun he’d taken from rose, and thumbed off the safety.
[Daisy] Collective Punishment (tag Rose, et al)
Date: 2006-07-01 01:28 am (UTC)"Daisy," Rose cried. She struggled, but couldn't escape the thug's grip.
"Miss Adair," Dr. Mengele said. "It appears Miss Tyler made a rather daring attempt at escape, and is most uncooperative. I believe we spoke of reciprocal punishment before, did we not?"
Daisy felt a sudden terror as Mengele raised the pistol she only now noticed he was carrying. "What? Wait--" she said.
Mengele shot her. The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed room. Daisy felt it like a blow to the sternum with a baseball bat. Then another. This time she felt it as the bullet exited through her back, for just an instant, then she toppled over as she lost all feeling in--and control over--her lower body.
(He hit my spine,) Daisy thought distantly. She tumbled backwards off the bed, utterly limp. She might have blacked out for a moment. When she opened her eyes again, she lay in the narrow space between the side of the hospital bed and the wall. She saw blood splashed across the wall above her, running down it in heavy rivulets. Daisy could feel it pooling up beneath her on the hard floor.
Someone was screaming and pleading. It took Daisy a moment to recognize Rose's voice. Dr. Mengele stepped into view around the foot of the bed. He glanced to his left. "Bring her," he said. "I don't want her to entertain the slightest hope that we don't mean what we say."
Daisy stared at Mengele until Rose was thrust into her line of sight. Rose's eyes were wide and filled with horror. Daisy tried to speak to her, but only bloody froth spilled from her lips.
Mengele raised the pistol again until he met Daisy's eyes over the sight. "You will still have two friends here, Miss Tyler," he said while never taking his eyes from Daisy. "Count yourself lucky."
Daisy flinched. The pistol barked.
Then nothing.
OOC W00t!
Date: 2006-07-01 01:43 am (UTC)You two,
Re: OOC W00t!
Date: 2006-07-01 02:28 am (UTC)::Hmmm... I wonder if Ami and Claire can hear the gunshots? I don't know how soundproof the rooms are, but that had to be loud.::
Re: OOC W00t!
Date: 2006-07-01 03:19 am (UTC)/bow to the evil masters :)
Re: OOC W00t!
Date: 2006-07-01 09:38 am (UTC)[Rose] Collective Punishment (tag Daisy, et al)
Date: 2006-07-01 02:44 am (UTC)She couldn't breathe, couldn’t think, could only stare at the blood. So much blood. It smelled like copper and death, and acrid tang filled her nose.
Rose couldn’t even count it a small victory when she through up the little water she’d had on the murdering bastard’s shoes.
She was crying now. She couldn’t make herself stop. She took great gasps of air through her tight throat.
“Da… Daisy,” the name was close to the sound of a wounded animal.
A viselike grip clenched her chin and forced her to look at the Bastard.
“I do not bluff, Ms. Tyler. As you can plainly see. Your lack of cooperation did this. Your defiance brought about your friend’s death. You will cooperate, answer all questions put to you, and not make another foolhardy and doomed attempt to escape. If you do not comply, I will make you choose which of the others I make pay. And you will choose, or I will make both pay. Your friends will also comply, as I will offer them the same deal. You had best hope they are more tractable than you have been thus far.”
Rose could not remember being dragged back to her own prison.
It was still pitch dark. Rose lost herself to her sobs in the darkness. Monsters. They were monsters. She couldn’t get the image of Daisy’s death out of her head. It replayed over and over, every detail, including the terror in her eyes, her last bubbling breath.
Rose pulled herself into a corner and wrapped her arms around her legs, rocking back and forth as she wept in grief and despair.
OOC
Date: 2006-07-01 09:41 am (UTC)[Wilson (aka Dr. Mengele] Collective Punishment (tag Daisy, et al)
Date: 2006-07-01 08:31 pm (UTC)The guard stood a little straighter. "Yes, sir?" he asked.
"Get a crash team in here ASAP," Wilson said. He thrust the weapon at the guard. "And take this."
Shooting Daisy Adair had been a spur of the moment decision. And it had been a brilliant stroke, if he did say so himself. It had destroyed Rose's will to resist and at the same time provided an opportunity study Daisy's fascinating metabolism.
Even as he turned away from the door, Wilson heard a gasp from behind the bed, followed by a wracking cough--and a cry of pain. "Ow, shit!" Wilson strode around to the end of the bed once more.
Daisy was moving again, feebly. Wilson glanced at the stopwatch. Remarkable! The door to the room was flung open and an emergency medical team burst through th doorway, one of them pushing a rolling cabinet full of supplies.
Wilson stepped back out of the way. One of the doctors glanced at the splash of blood on the wall, then down at Daisy, then at Wilson. His face paled a little, but he swallowed and then went to work. He began an initial exam, Wilson interrupted him. "Just get her up on the bed."
"But she could have serious--"
"Just do it," Wilson snapped. "Now."
The doctor frowned, but then gestured at one of his team. "Help me lift her, Alan." Alan climbed over the bed and stepped down into the narrow space by Daisy's head. Together the two men lifted her onto the bed. Wilson moved closer, ignoring the medics.
The bullet wound in Daisy's forehead was gone already. He wondered idly what happened--or what would happen--to the bullet itself. Would she absorb it somehow? Expel it? Carry it around indefinitely?
Wilson watched the doctors strip off her gown and examine her. The bullet wounds in her chest had nearly vanished--and so quickly! The medical team stopped what they were doing, pausing in mid-motion as they watched the bullet wounds between her breasts close up and vanish. "Keep working," Wilson snapped.
The medics went back to work. The exit wounds, when they turned Daisy over, were healing but nowhere near done. Wilson could see the splintered ends of vertebrae glitterly wetly in one. The medics swarmed around Daisy, hanging IV bags, putting an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose, connecting her to electronic monitors.
When one of the medics shifted position, Wilson got another glimpse of the spinal wound. It looked less jagged. Wilson leaned closer. He couldn't actually see the bone knitting, but every time he looked away and then looked back, it was less raw.
Fascinating.
[Rose] Truth and Consequences
Date: 2006-07-01 11:00 pm (UTC)Finally she sniffled and wiped at her eyes. It hurt to think, and to breathe. Daisy. Poor Daisy. She had been nice. Some people judged her a bit harsh after Lucy, and for a few hours, so had Rose. But sense had kicked in. What could she have done, really? Called for help? Maybe, but someone determined to commit suicide would find a way, eventually. Could Lucy have been talked out of it? Maybe. Maybe not. But Daisy had been there for her. Made sure, in some way, Lucy didn’t die alone. If Lucy had asked for help, Daisy would have, Rose thought so, anyway.
And she’d been getting to know and like Daisy over the past couple of days. She was definitely moving solidly into the friend category.
Daisy hadn’t deserved to die like that. She’d just found happiness with John. Oh…. John. Someone was going to have to tell him. Life was so completely unfair. It would crush him.
Rose felt the burden of guilt. It was almost crushing. But she refused to take it all. She had not pulled the trigger. Murdering Bastard had. Had made her watch. Had threatened the same to Ami and Claire. He made the decision and carried it out. Not Rose.
However, Rose did know now that Ami and Claire’s safety was her responsibility. Because that demon in human form would likely just look for any excuse to kill again.
The darkness was split as the door opened and light spilled in from the hallway.
“Bring her,” a female voice ordered. Two goons entered and took up Rose’s arms, , making her walk out into the hall.
Not-nurse was there, looking almost excited. Rose’s stomach clenched again. The fear making her shake a little.
She found herself marched to a room with a metal table and three metal stools, all bolted to the floor. It reminded her of any of a dozen authority interrogation rooms. How sad that she was familiar with so many.
One goon pushed her down onto a stool as not-nurse sat across the table with a clipboard and set a tape recorder on the table.
“Subject five, Rose Tyler. Human female. Please state your age.” The woman looked at Rose.
Rose knew her eyes and nose were swollen from crying, but she straightened her back. She wasn’t going to risk Ami and Claire unless there was absolutely no choice.
“’M twenty. Almost twenty one.”
“Subject is chronologically twenty one, although her birth records show her to be eighteen. The anomaly is the result of temporal travel. We will start with the simplest questions,” the woman seemed to be filling out some sort of form.
“State the race of your traveling companion,” the woman’s eyes, sharp, brown and beady, bore into Rose.
In a way, Rose was somewhat glad the Doctor was so sparing in the information he parceled out. If these people knew about her, about her traveling in time, then they knew bits and pieces about the Doctor as well. But how much?
“He never really said. He never told me where he was from. He got very upset when I asked. Even yelled a bit.”
The woman pursed her lips. “You were aware he is non-human, and yet not aware of his origin?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t like to talk ‘bout his own past. Changes the subject a lot when it comes up.” It was the truth to a degree, and Rose felt she was betraying him by telling that much.
[Rose] Truth and Consequences 2
Date: 2006-07-03 12:06 am (UTC)"Your traveling companion is known as the Doctor. This is a title, not a name. What is his name?"
Rose wouldn't let further tears fall. "I don't know. Really, I don't. Only ever called him the Doctor."
"You seem to know surprisingly little about a man you've spent considerable time with. Need I remind you of the consequences if you do not cooperate?" The woman almost smiled.
Rose decided her eyes weren't beady. They were like a reptile. She was staring down the prey before she pounced. She gave cold blooded a bad name.
"I'm tellin' the truth," she protested. If there was a God in this fucked up universe, she prayed to him now, not to let Ami or Claire die because people wouldn't believe her even when she was cooperating.
"Why doesn't your key open your transport?" The woman asked flatly.
Oh, there was something she could answer, and it wouldn't help them one bit.
"You tried to get in." It wasn't a question. All these questions about the Doctor and they had her key, of course they tried to get in. "Had an incident, a while back. I lent my key to a temporary passenger, of sorts. Others almost got it. So the Doctor placed a key on the key. Called it genetic, biofeedback recognition. The lock is set to open for only certain people. And it reads emotion. If there is none, or if there is coercion, the door won't open. The person has to be alive and willing to open the door.”
Rose didn’t tell them the ship itself read those emotions, that she was alive. She’d protect what she could.
“There are foreign and unknown chemical compounds in your blood. What are they?” Reptile woman was making notes again.
“Immunizations. Got a whole round of ‘em when I got a bit sick once. Like you’d get malaria shots if you were going traveling. I don’t know they’re names, or where he got them. I just trusted him to want to keep me from getting sick.” Rose’s heart ached with pain to match that physical sensation along her face and shoulder.
She hated giving this much away. But she couldn’t get the sight of Daisy, of the blood, the fear, out of her mind. Mentally she saw Ami and Claire’s faces superimposed.
She could only hope the Doctor would get here soon. She didn’t doubt for a moment he was trying to find her. Him and Jack. Most likely Scott and John as well. More people too, as they were mostly a descent sort. She hated waiting for rescue. She wasn’t the damsel in distress type. But look where her efforts had gotten her. Had gotten Daisy.
The light was growing a bit dimmer on the left side of the room, and her field of vision was narrowing. She’d most likely gotten a black eye. Felt like it. At least the pain meant she was alive. Daisy wouldn’t feel pain again.
She missed the next question as she shivered. The room’s temperature was dropping.
Where was she, again? There was blood everywhere. Why wouldn’t the woman just shut up and let her alone? Her teeth began to chatter.
[Rose] Losing time
Date: 2006-07-03 11:26 pm (UTC)She was under two or three blankets, and it felt like her feet were slightly elevated. She moved to sit up, but her wrists were handcuffed to the railings of the hospital bed. Not good.
There was something clipped to her finger and some beeping to her left. She looked to see a machine monitoring her heart, blood pressure and blood oxygen levels. There was also an IV line in her arm, the one that wasn’t bruised from their earlier taking of blood. It wasn’t cold, like previous IVs she’d had.
She’d been in the interrogation room, for lack of a better name, being drilled with questions. She couldn’t get the image of Daisy dying out of her head. And things got confusing after that. Had she been drugged again? Maybe.
Her face and shoulder still hurt, and there was a dull ache along her upper arms where the goons had held her. She was guessing there was no pain medication involved. Would anything narcotic relieve pain? She’d only experimented with some weed when she was younger, so she wasn’t certain.
So they had her hooked up to a machine now, and an IV she couldn't reach because she was cuffed to the bed. This was not looking good. What now? Medical experiments?
((OOC: her earlier symptoms were for shock))
[Daisy] Science Fair Exhibit
Date: 2006-07-03 03:58 am (UTC)Mostly she was aware of pain--the pain of her spinal cord healing, nerves reconnecting. They were stabbing pains, increasingly frequent and exquisitely sharp, too irregular to anticipate. Every jolt was unexpected and the more she tensed up, the more it hurt. The vicious cycle spiraled out of control until she was screaming. After some indefinate time Daisy felt a prick in her arm, something cold flowing into her vein, then nothing.
* * * *
Daisy woke with a terrible thirst and a mouth so dry she felt that if she tried to drink, the liquid would roll off her tongue without effect. She was back in her bed in the hospital room. She groped for a plastic tumbler of water on the bedside table. Her fingers were clumsy, but she managed to retrieve it. Lukewarm water had never tasted so good.
She emptied the glass through the flexible straw, refilled it from a small pitcher on the table, and emptied it again. It occurred to her belatedly that the water might be drugged. Daisy hesitated for a moment, then continued drinking. If they wanted to drug her, there wasn't much she could do about it.
When her thirst had momentarily abated, Daisy looked around. (Maybe it isn't the same room,) she thought. There was no sign of blood or bullet holes in the wall to her left, nor even evidence of recent cleaning or patching.
Dr. Mengele had clearly intended to convince Rose that he'd killed her. He was a real bastard. Unfortunately, he was a bastard who knew far too much; he'd also clearly known that he hadn't really killed her. So perhaps they'd moved her so there was less chance of Rose learning the truth.
(Or he was pretty sure he wouldn't really kill me,) Daisy thought, (and just didn't give a damn whether it was true or not.) But odds are that she was still in the same facility, just in a different room. Maybe a different wing. So maybe the facility wasn't all that large. Which meant a relatively small staff.
Daisy was aware that she was operating from far too many assumptions, but it was the best she could do at the moment. She poured herself some more water and sipped it. There was nothing she could do now except watch and wait. An opportunity to act would present itself eventually. Maybe not a good chance, but something.
The sound of a bolt turning caught Daisy's attention. She looked toward the door as it swung open.
[Daisy] Unwelcome Visitor, Pt. 1
Date: 2006-07-03 11:10 pm (UTC)She threw the glass of water at Ethan Rom. Ethan ducked and the tumbler bounced off the wall. It didn't even shatter satisfyingly, it just clattered to the floor and rolled out of sight. Ethan straightened up and grinned smugly.
Daisy saw red. Lucy's last words to her ("Watch Ethan.") echoed in her memory. Now he was here--clearly one of the jailers, not a prisoner. She threw off the sheet covering her and took two steps across the cold tile floor. Daisy wasn't sure what she was planning to do.
She was pleased to see a momentary hint of fear in Ethan's eyes as she advanced on him. Then he recovered his composure. Ethan met her eyes and stopped her with a word. "Rose."
Daisy halted. The faintest hint of a smile played around Ethan's mouth. Daisy knew that the fear was in her eyes now. He stepped forward. Daisy backed away, maintaining he distance. "Ami," Ethan said.
He took another step forward as Daisy retreated. She bumped into the side of the bed. "Claire," Ethan said.
"Get back into bed, Daisy," Ethan said.
The depths of her loathing for Ethan surprised Daisy. She didn't think she had ever hated anyone as much as she hated him right now. Even her hatred for Dr. Mengele paled in comparison. Mengele was an evil bastard, but Ethan's betrayal of her--of all the survivors--was far more personal.
To hate him so badly and be helpless to act on it was galling. Daisy glared at him for a face-saving moment then did as he told her, climbing back into bed. She drew the sheet back up over her, as if it would afford her some protection.
"Rose is quite distressed over getting you killed," Ethan remarked conversationally. "She's a complete basket case."
"Fuck you, Ethan," Daisy said.
Ethan clucked his tongue at her. "Such language, Daisy. You're usually so much more genteel than that. Not like your foul-mouthed little friend."
"George?"
Ethan grunted his agreement. "Oh didn't they tell you? She's here. Just down the hall."
(He's lying,) Daisy thought. She couldn't say how she knew, only that she did. She couldn't let on, though. That knowledge was the only card she had to play. "N-no!" Daisy said, letting a little despair creep into her denial.
"Oh yes," Ethan said. "Mara, too. Strking out to set up their own camp that way made it more difficult for us, but they're here."
"What do you want with us?" Daisy asked, putting a little quiver in her voice. Not that it was difficult to do under the circumstances.
Ethan smiled. "Oh...there are so many answers to that question, Daisy. But you'll find out what you need to know when you need to know it. The important thing--for me--is that I no longer need pretend."
All the humor left his face. "Pretend to be one of you. Pretend to be a harmless, helpless victim. Pretend not to notice the contempt in which you held me, held everyone who wasn't special."
"Bitter much?" Daisy asked with a malicious grin.
Ethan's slap wasn't a surprise. Daisy rode with it, so it didn't even hurt all that much, and then pressed a hand to her cheek in mock surprise and teared up.
[Daisy] Unwelcome Visitor, Pt. 2
Date: 2006-07-03 11:14 pm (UTC)"Why are you telling me this?" Daisy asked in a small voice, still pressing a hand to her cheek. (C'mon, Ethan, boast a little. Tell me something useful...)
Ethan opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. He cocked his lead slightly to one side, studying Daisy. Daisy cursed inwardly. A smile spread across Ethan's face. "Why, Miss Adair, I believe you're trying to manipulate me."
"What? No, I..."
"I suppose we should have expected it, though. A woman who has spent her life--well, her afterlife I suppose I should say--as a golddigger is going to be adept at manipulating men. It's not surprising that you should fall back on old habits under stress.
"However, I am not some matinee serial villain from your heyday. If you're hoping that I will spill the master plan, so that you can heroically escape and foil my...nefarious plot, you're sadly mistaken."
"Still," Ethan went on, "trying to manipulate me shows that you are not yet fully committed to cooperating. I would have thought that you'd already learned the consequences of resistance."
Daisy's heart was pounding now. She wanted to flee--or attack. Neither course was really an option. So she sat still, face blank, hiding her reaction as best she could.
Ethan moved toward the door. Daisy noted that he backed away from her, never turning his back on her. Interesting. He clearly wasn't as confident in his control over her as he'd like her to believe.
"I'll consult with my colleagues," Ethan said. "When we've determined a proper punishment..." He paused theatrically, and rapped on the door. Daisy could fill in the rest of the statement: We'll let you know.
The door opened. "...we'll implement it," Ethan said, and was gone.
OOC shock and awe
Date: 2006-07-01 03:20 am (UTC)I'm terrified and in awe of both of you,
I need a stiff drink...
Re: OOC shock and awe
Date: 2006-07-01 05:37 am (UTC)(And in honor of this heaping helping of angst for Rose, I advise one and all to check out the trading cards page of the Wiki. I've added the ANGST! card.)
Re: OOC shock and awe
Date: 2006-07-01 10:31 pm (UTC)Thanks all for the positive postage. Idea may have been mine, but it was definitely a team effort. No demurring
This is so fun…. I must be completely sick and twisted. Yup.
Re: OOC shock and awe
Date: 2006-07-02 01:29 am (UTC)