Widow (001/Peter Ballard x reader)

003

I slept through the night, waking up at 8 am and going to the white room. I was still taking in what happened yesterday. I sat at a table. Just staring at it and trying to think. My brain wasn't working, no clear thoughts were coming out. 

"Hello twenty-seven." Peter sat across from me, I hadn't even noticed. 

"Hi." I say looking up at him.

"So. Did you take your medication?" I was about to open my mouth and answer, but I thought about it. What if he had just been sent to set me up? To see if I would disobey the rules. I trusted this man though- his eyes held a sort of twinkle, that welcomed me. That reassured me that he wouldn't go behind my back. I slowly shake my head no.

 "You saw then? What'd you see?" His voice was calming and like honey to my ears. 

There was a lot to explain. The pictures, the experiments, the tank. I kept it simple, "A tank. They put me in a tank." 

Peter nodded his head. "Sounds about right."

I felt extremely tired since I had lost a day of sleep. And also extremely disorientated. "I was there t'ill ten pm. I was there the whole day." I explain.

"You're correct." There was a silence in the air for a moment. I stared into space as I tried to sort my thoughts. "Twenty-seven?" He called. 

"Hm?" My eyes went back to his. 

"How many days do you think you've been here?" 

"I've been here for.." I thought for a second, "One thousand two hundred and seventy seven days."

"Which would be how many years?" I squinted at him, confused on why he was making me do the math to this.

"Three and a half years." I slowly say suspiciously. 

"How old do you think you are?" 

"Twenty-one." 

"You would be wrong."

I crossed my arms, slumping back in my chair. "And how would you know?" I say sternly glaring into his eyes.

He just chuckled. "Because every night, you've been taking those pills and going into a deep sleep. For over 24 hours." 

I sat up in the chair, leaning in. "You wake up, come here every other day, then go back to sleep. So if you times one thousand two hundred seventy seven by two.. you get two thousand five hundred fifty four. Do you know how many years that is Y/n?" 

I tried to do the math in my mind. But it was too hard. I was never good at math. I failed it in high school. 

"That's seven years." He solves it for me, seeing that I was obviously struggling. "So that would make you...?" 

"Uh.." 19 plus 7, 19 plus 7, 19 plus 7... "Twenty-four?" 

Peter shook his head and chuckled. "Not quite. You would be twenty six." 

"Oh." I said under my breathe. "Why? Why do they do that?" 

"Well." He folded his hands. "You were much too stubborn to comply to their experiments. You told me a long time ago that you were having nightmares, correct?" 

"That's right.."

"Those night terrors weren't really... night terrors. They were memories, that they forced you to relive." 

"Yeah." I nod my head. "After my um.. my outburst during my check-up you protected me. Why?" 

"Because..." He tapped his finger on the table. "Because this place isn't a work area. It's not a home either. It's a prison. And I want to help you." 

He picked up a bag he had been holding in his lap, opening it and pouring out chess pieces. I was so focused on our conversation I didn't realize there was a chess board on a table. 

"You know how to play, right?" I nod. He sets up the black pieces, I set up the white. 

"White goes first." He says. I moved a piece. 

"Brenner is going to experiment on you tomorrow, but he's not just going to put you in a tank. This time, he's going to send you somewhere else. And this time he's going to tell you to not take the pills." He moved a piece. 

"What? Send me where?" I moved a piece. 

"That's what I'm trying to figure out." He scratched his neck, then moved a piece. "But, I know it's not good." 

"Why didn't they tell you?" I moved a piece. 

"They don't trust me much. Not anymore." He moved a piece. "But I'll be there. They put me on night duty." 

I moved a piece. "Checkmate." 

-

"Don't take your medication tonight," Brenner says. 

"Why?" 

"We made a new supplement and we want to see if it's better, to do that you can't take it tonight. And since you won't be taking it, it'll throw your sleep schedule off. It's okay if you can't sleep tonight. We'll leave the hallways open for free time." 

I shrugged. I knew it was all lies. "Okay then." 

I sat on my bed with my legs crossed. I was always bored in this place, sure I had these complex abilities but I didn't even know how to use them. I heard a knock at my door. I didn't say anything, hoping whoever was there would go away and assume I was asleep. 

Brenner pushed the door open. "Hello twenty-seven," he says. 

"Hi." I looked at him, eyeing him up and down. He held a box in his hands. 

Walking over to me and sat on a chair next to my bed, he handed me the box. I opened it. "What's this?" 

"Earrings. I know how much you like sparkly stuff." 

I observed the earrings, they weren't hoops and they wouldn't hang heavily on my ears. They were two little diamonds. Why would they spend money on me? 

"Why? Why'd you buy me these?" I ask suspiciously. 

"You're going to make history twenty seven."  

"What?" 

"Soon, you'll change everybody's perspective of the world. You'll find out." With that he stood back up and left the room. I went over to the small mirror on the other side of the room to put the earrings on. I tuck my hair behind my ears, turning my head to the right, then to the left. They looked.. nice. 

"Y/n? Y/n?" I heard my mother's voice.