"Why'd you thank him? He literally did nothing." Nora glanced over to Rowan and ignored the pounding in her head and the burning sensation on her back. Her complaints were quickly cut short. "Smell what?" She raised her head and sniffed at the air.
"I don't know . . . he made sure you weren't about to drop dead." Rowan sniffed the air again. "It smells sickly sweet or something." She blinked slowly a few times. "I feel . . . foggy." The vents behind them had a white powder blowing out of it, though neither girl could see it. "Do you smell it?"
"Do you honestly think he would have helped me if I were about to drop dead?" Nora sighed and shook her head. Her vision blurred after a moment and her head felt heavy. That was when she started to smell an oddly sweet scent. "Yeah, I smell it." Her head started to loll to the side. She was starting to fade back into unconsciousness.
"I dunno. . . . " Rowan's blinks grew longer and more frequent. Her head felt like it was filled with cotton. The smell grew stronger. "He could have warned us or something." Her words started to slur together as everything started to grow dark.
Nora's head dropped to her chest and her eyes grew heavy. She didn't have the strength to stay awake anymore. Her body felt heavy. "Rowan……" That one word was slurred beyond recognition. Only a minute later, she was completely unconscious.
"Love you, . . . " Rowan murmured. Her eyes blinked a few more times before they finally closed. She drifted off, the sickly sweet smell lingering in her nose.
She woke up having no idea how much time had passed. Her watch said around the same time it had when she had been knocked out. It could have been a day later or a week later, Rowan didn't know. She did know that the world felt fuzzy and everything was confusing. Where were they? Why were they strapped up? Her stomach no longer hurt, and the crook of her arm was bandaged as if someone had stuck an IV in it. The lights were too bright. "Nora?" she whispered in a croaking voice.
Nora was still out cold. Bandages had been wrapped around her back and stomach and her leg had been out in a splint. All of her deep cuts had been stitched up as well. Just like Rowan, she also had a small bandage on the crook of her arm.
When she ended up waking back up, the process was slow. She groaned and forced her eyes open. They instantly shut again. The light had been way too bright. She felt like she was fighting her way through fog just to remember her own name. It was a lot to deal with. At least some of the pain was gone.
Rowan blinked, trying to clear the fog from her mind. She couldn't remember why it was so important that Nora was okay, but it was. "Nora?" she asked again, a little louder this time. How long had it been since she had used her voice? She allowed her eyes to close, the light was getting too bright. Her mouth felt dry and her body felt sore.
Nora glanced over to the side, hoping that she would catch glimpse of Rowan. No such luck. She did, however, hear the sound of her name being called. "Rowan." She desperately hoped that she was okay. What happened? One minute the doctor was leaving and the next…….She suddenly jerked forward and panicked. How much time had gone by since then?
Rowan heard a sharp rustling noise behind her and the croaking voice of someone calling her name. “Nora? It’s me, Nora it’s me. It’s Rowan.”
Nora straightened up, relieved to hear Rowan's voice. "Are you okay? Do you know what happened?" She was really hoping that at least one of them had an idea.
“No. I know we’ve been out at least a day, maybe longer.” She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a breath. “My head hurts but I don’t feel hungry anymore.”
"A day?" She glanced around, her eyes narrowed. "What did that doctor do to us?" A quick glance told her that her clothes had been changed. What she was wearing now were clean but simple. Just that fact made her feel violated.
"I do–" Rowan was cut off by two guards entering the room. their boots echoing loudly against the metal floor. One came straight at Rowan and punched her right in the stomach. Rowan yelped. The other came at Nora, punched her and kept punching her. Rowan could hear his fists coming into contact with her. "Stop!"
Nora turned her head when the guards entered the room. Here they go again. She sighed. She had the wind knocked out of her the second the first came into contact with her stomach. She didn't have a chance to recover before the beating continued. "Fuck off, you rat bastard!" The words had barely left her mouth before she received yet another punch.
The guard punched Nora a few more times before backing away. "Which one of you is the mechanic?" the voice asked. Rowan groaned and slammed her head back against the metal table.
"Just fuck off," she whispered. The guard next to her started slamming his fists into Rowan's stomach. She yelped and cried out. She had been in plenty of fights before and had taken far worse hits than this, but this was the first human contact she had gotten in who knew how long, and it hurt more than anything ever had.
"Stop." The guard stopped. "I won't ask again."
Nora spitted on the guard, defiance was in her eyes. She couldn't believe that they were starting this again. The beatings were getting old. It was annoying. They could at least get new material.
Pride swelled up in her chest the second she heard Rowan whispers that statement. It was the first time she heard her actually tell those idiots to fuck off. "We aren't going to tell you anything. I don't know what kind of sick games you're playing, beating us up and then patching us up, but it's not going to work. We will never tell you what you want to know. Just stop asking and wasting our time."
"You know, you're right. That previous arrangement wasn't really working out anyway, was it? We should switch it up, you're right Ms. Wallace. Thank you for that suggestion." The guards unstrapped Rowan and threw her to the ground so Nora could see her. She tried to get up, to fight, to do something, but whatever they had used to put her under had made her too weak. They shackled her wrists and ankles and dragged her out the door, which closed with a bang. "We'll try it again with the other one."
Outside, Rowan's chains were attached to an anchor outside of the door in a narrow hallway. Guards and people in lab coats walked past her. The two guards finished chaining her up and left, turning down the hallway. Were they just going to leave her there? What were they doing?
Nora's entire body tensed up the very second they unstrapped Rowan. "If you hurt her I will break out of these straps, rip off your balls, and choke you to death when them." The words were delivered in an icy cold tone, much more different than her usual harsh words but they were twice as deadly. She would do anything to keep Rowan safe. They hurt her and she would hunt them down until the end of time.
She twisted her hand as much as she could before she slammed it down on the metal table as hard as she possibly could. Her thumb broke instantly. She inhaled sharply before she jerked on her hand. It slipped out of the restraint. Freedom! She used her now free hand to free her other hand and her legs. Time for action.
Rowan sat on the ground with her hands above her head. She had come to the conclusion that this was probably to make Nora think something was happening to her. The thought made her sick, but the only thing she could do was find a way out in which both of them would be safe before they hurt Nora anymore. That was all that mattered.
In a room deep in the ship, the man sat at a desk in a dark room. At the desk, many screens showed different footage of different parts of the ship. He laughed as he watched the girl break out of her restraints.
Nora freed herself from her restraints and headed out of the door. She nearly collapsed the second she put pressure on her leg but she forced herself to keep going. The room took a moment to clear but she managed to get there and break out. She hissed in pain and leaned against the wall. Everything was hurting but she had no choice. She had to find Rowan.
"Rowan!" She called out quietly and looked around. This place was a maze and she had no idea where she should even start. Everything was crazy.
Rowan sighed, trying to think. They hadn't dragged her too far. Why? So they didn't have to waste too much energy lugging her back? She slammed her head against the wall in frustration. The guards walking by still didn't pay her any attention.
Dr. Matthews walked down the hall. He had just finished filing Nora and Rowan's files and was about to go check up on another patient. He heard something down a hallway that made him freeze. Someone had called out the name 'Rowan'. He knew that name and he knew that voice. He started down the hall the voice had come from after looking around to make sure no one else was there. He stopped when he saw Nora limping at the end of the hall.
Nora continued on her journey and grit her teeth the entire time. The pain in her leg was almost unbearable. This was the first time she put weight on it since she broke it. It all hurt like hell. Her back throbbed and the pain in rest of her body was only getting worst by the second.
"Rowan!" She called out again, worried. Where was she? What were they doing to her? She started to panic when she couldn't find her. The thought of loosing her was…….there were no words that could properly describe it. No! I won't think like that! She's okay. She has to be okay.
Dr. Matthews walked down the hall, watching Nora. He winced to himself. She really shouldn't have been applying pressure on her leg like that. He looked around to make sure no one was there and cleared his throat.
Nora glared over to the man the second she noticed him. "I'll kill you if you try to stop me or try to call for any help." She was completely willing to throttle the man if he provoked her in the slightest. In a sense, she blamed him for what was happening.