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When Maelstrom caresses her again, it is so normal that it makes her want to vomit.
Carmen is strapped to VILE’s table. While her body writhes, succumbing to blinding panic, her deadened mind marvels at how he’s managed to recreate the helplessness of a child in her. A perfect copy of how she used to feel. A slave to his hand.
He reclaims her body and mind.
When his hand lands, rough and cold, on her skin, she kicks and jerks away. It is a choreographed game. She knows it will do nothing. The past strength of his hand has been replaced by the strength of metal, and the muscle she has gained since she left the island where she was denied the ability to be a child is nothing against it. She wonders how she ever thought it could be.
I was just a child. She had dreamed of being strong enough to escape him. Black Sheep had dreamed too big.
She remembers when she jokingly mentioned to her team something Maelstrom said to her as that child (“And does the sheep have any wool?” hands halfway down to see for himself-). She remembers, quite clearly, the look on their faces that told her that was not normal. She remembers when they ask her delicately if that was all he ever did. She does not remember saying no, but apparently her face had said it for her.
Player had logged off quickly and didn’t come back online for a few hours. She could tell he had shed tears for her. Her own had long since dried into little spots on the fabric of Maelstrom’s suit before she grew old enough to learn that crying did nothing. She tells Player it’s okay, and he tells her that it isn’t. She can hear the murder in his voice.
Zack, that fumbling sort of sympathetic that she appreciated and hated through no fault of his own, makes her favorite food for her and then seems to not know what else to do but leave her. But Ivy…
Ivy knew.
It was in her eyes when she just sat nearby and put a hand out for Carmen to hold. Ivy knew much better than anyone else ever could, and Carmen was Ivy, and Ivy was her. And they lived with it.
Ivy’s demons (Carmen made sure) were only memories now.
Yesterday, sitting in Seattle, Carmen’s own demons had electrocuted her, tossed her in a van, strapped her to a table, and told her that they owned her. Which she already knew. They had owned her for as long as she could remember.
Struggling, she almost laughs. What a wishful fucking thought, that she would never be here again. Being this vulnerable thing, this toy. Her head slumps against the metal. God knows she won’t be allowed rest until one or both of them are dead.
He touches her. She can’t help but wish she was still at the age when she didn’t know what was going on. When everything was over as soon as it was finished. When he didn’t linger inside her body and her mind like mold.
He touches her again. This is the only time in a long time she has wished Coach Brunt was with her. She would stop him, even if, now, that meant killing Carmen first.
Bellum didn’t seem to care. She never had. Cleo, on occasion, had watched with apathy. And Shadow-san, growing up, was distant, and did not protect her. He was too distant even now to make up for it. Not for lack of trying.
Bellum speaks to her, and Maelstrom draws away. Relief, even if it is only the calm before the storm.
As they fit a headpiece over her eyes and she feels her mind start to snap, Carmen hopes that the person they rewrite her into will be free of this.
She hopes that, as she forgets what hope is, that person will have the ability Carmen lacks to murder Maelstrom where he stands.