Indigo (NaNoWriMo13)

Chapter 38 - One is Two

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Chapter 38 - One is Two

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Athira discovered something about herself in the few moments she surfaced from unconsciousness. 

She didn't like being knocked out. 

She also didn't like being manhandled. She didn't like the way these whites thought they could come into her home and pluck them like birds from a nest, and whatever was in these injections they kept giving her during her lucid moments could go to hell. 

Distorted conversation acted as a pinprick of light, leading Athira's consciousness back to reality. 

"There's not much we could do--she's out again!" 

"She can't be, we only gave her the last lot twenty minutes ago!" 

"We're not going to have enough left at this rate. None of the others have needed extra yet except the Spectrum and the green colour. Why's this one different?"

"I've had enough of this. Double it."

Hands grabbed Athira's shoulders before she could take control of them. Fingers pushed her head to the side and something wet licked the side of her neck. A dull pain followed, sinking itself into the skin and once more pushing Athira back into the darkness. 

 She could still see the pinprick. She could have fought towards it, but her mind felt still. Clear.

Let them drug her. Let them think her subdued, their plans safe. She'd wait until they played their hand before she made her move. 

Wrath didn't have to be swift, she was realising. 

Wrath could be patient. Wrath could wait, wait until the full extent of its fury could be felt in vibrations across the universe as it delivered the strike. 

Athira submerged. 

*+*+*+*

The next time Athira surfaced, the voices had been replaced with silence. 

The thick blanket of darkness that'd suppressed her earlier had thinned to a sheet, easily brushed aside as she opened her eyes. 

Glinting metal greeted her to an otherwise isolated awakening. The room, tiled in the same pale grey from the Elite's now destroyed facility was empty of everything except the basics. Two strips of light on the ceiling, one blacked out window on the wall opposite, a sleek door to her left and the chair Athira found herself in. 

It took a minute, but feeling spread down Athira's body, through her chest and down her legs until the cooled fire of colour could be felt inside her veins. Even then, she let it simmer, biding her time, using it to take in her situation.

They'd secured her to its solid frame with unyielding silver bands around her waist and ankles, while her hands were still confined up to the elbows in the cuffs. The dark blue runes were still burning strong on their surface, which was surprising. Runes in contact with her colour usually an average of two seconds. 

Talon must be working overtime in--

The thought cut short. 

Her amulet was gone. 

Athira twisted in the chair, frantically searching the room for any sign of pale gold, any sign of the trinket she'd bound Talon's essence to so many years ago. The runes on the cuffs flared as the colour responded to her emotions, but even so, they held. 

Nothing but grey, grey and the darker grey of the window made itself known. For the first time in Athira's life, the brightest thing in the room was the indigo colouring on her clothing.