Chapter Text
Attachment is a dangerous thing, as brother Sophis used to say, and to Maya's annoyance, his quasi-philosophical statements ring true long after she put the bullet between his eyes. Then again, say a broad enough aphroism often enough, and something is bound to fall under its heading, thus making it true.
Maya faces down this realization at the precise moment when a supposed almost-victory spirals out of control. The injectors aren't budging, Angel is screaming and crying in pain but she's still alive, and everything just takes a turn for the worse when Handsome Jack appears out of nowhere and re-orders the scene in the blink of an eye, nipping out Roland's life in such a crude way that it's insulting.
Don't meddle where you have no place; another thing Sophis said. Maya's entire career on Pandora, short and fresh as it has been, is a dedicated effort to go exactly against that. He used to say that inserting oneself where one does not belong is to disrupt the flow of events the way they are meant to unfold. As if destiny is a thing that actually exists. Her viewpoint is that destiny and fate are malleable, shapable by the hand willing enough to raise up against it.
She drops her gun and raises her hands...
And she meddles in the flow again, defiant and wild enough to change how things surely are meant to be. She causes a blast that knocks them all back, then upon seeing Lilith get up and prepare to lunge at Handsome Jack with the frothing rage of a wild animal, she does not hesitate, using her powers to force Lilith to turn around and phasewalk away. The way she reaches into another person's mind and turns them around is crude still, a vague touch fumbling around in the vastness of another, but she manages the feat. It hurts her though, in ways she had never before anticipated. Lilith is a stronger siren than her, but with her emotions in turmoil it's easy to breach past any mental barrier and force the matter.
Lilith vanishes, the room is consumed with light, and Maya's throat constricts.
After that, she remembers little: a loud boom, a heavy pain piercing through her, and the abrupt darkness that engulfed her. She does know one thing, instinct never failing her: she has made all too many mistakes in the span of just a few seconds, and she will pay for them.
She wakes up only once, aware that she is being carried, and thinks of Sophis' words again. She used to argue against him, but the more she did, the wider he'd smile, pat her on the head, and say that generalities make up life. That attachment is a dangerous threat to one's peace of mind. Above all, attachment for a goddess is the same as tying herself to the mortal realm.
Without attachment, Maya doubts she would have pushed Lilith away. She thinks, but is not sure, that she would not have forced Lilith to escape. If she had hesitated, if she had not stepped between Handsome Jack and Lilith, then things might have ended up differently. If she had lowered her hand, released the built-up energy, and let things escalate on their own instead of interfering...
“I never was a goddess,” she mutters, delerious, and a man laughs above her.
“You certainly weren't.”
No one calls her 'child' on Pandora. They don't see an impressionable girl, someone to talk down to, but they see a woman proudly wearing her siren tattoo as if she has no shame. Which is true. The tattoos work as a better deterrent than any gun at her hip. Of course, some still get that glazed look in their eyes and they fall to their knees in front of her, begging to kiss her feet for a blessing. Others want to cash in on her. A group of mercenaries show up at the boarding house she's staying in, demanding that she surrenders to them.
It's almost cute, the way they think she'll meekly collapse from the sight of their feeble pistols. She throws a grenade and has her fair bit of adrenaline-pumping fun throwing them around.
They fall easily enough, though she gets thrown out for causing too much trouble. Also for breaking some precious vase and splattering the walls with an abnormally large amount of blood. She spends the night in a bar, drinking nothing and merely staring at everyone else. Nobody approaches her, nobody gives her a bad eye. In the dimly lit place, she measures the people up one by one.
She is alone, but a different kind of alone than in the abbey. It is not a state of being she finds uncomfortable; loneliness liberates her, solitude placates her. Though it's not what she wants, because she's had peace and quiet and tranquility for twenty-seven long years, and now she wants to stir up shit, make mistakes, create chaos. The tension in the air is rife with potential for all three.
Her observational skills do not fail her: something happens by the bar, a disagreement of sorts. The voices rise, heated arguments slung back and forth, fists clenching and the skin stretched taut over knuckles. She slides her fingernail between the shell of the pistachio nut to pry it open. By the time she finishes chewing she has to duck to avoid a bottle flying her way.
The brawl soon engulfs the entire bar, everyone eagerly jumping in to join in. She stays on the sidelines, smoothly punching anyone who draws to close, sparkling energy flaring up around her fingers each time.
Pandora is a strange, aggressive, inhospitable world that despite the odds houses a population who all shake dust out of their clothes and sigh in the harsh light of day. Everyone is one step away from murder if pushed a little too hard. Pandora draws in the amoral, the seedy, the unwilling, the willing; its magnetic power attracted her and she's not alone in that. The planet will test her far beyond her wildest dreams, and she is ready, oh so ready.
She sticks around, the fight ongoing, never shrinking or growing but kept constant. Where one contestant drops out, another joins in, doubtlessly attracted from the streets by the inviting sounds of raw fists and fresh blood. The violence breeds violence, the senselessness of it all intoxicating to behold.
She nods off on a booth couch and wakes up to find a man drinking beer across the table. It's light outside, the huge dirty windows letting in small slivers of sunshine in vertical stripes. The bar is dirty and war-torn, but no worse off than when she walked in the other night.
He looks like military, and she almost wants to get up, but he pushes a plate of food in front of her and her stomach churns madly. “Thought you looked hungry,” he says, cocky grin as he reclines.
“What do you want?” she says between bites.
He says he knows of something that might interest her. As she eats, letting grease drip down from her mouth, letting flecks of food remain on her cheek until she's finished, he outlines a plan he has, tells her of the other people in on it. There's promise of money, of riches beyond her wildest dreams. When he sees she's not perking up at that, he switches tactic, dropping words into his sentences. It's 'vault' that catches her.
“Sure.” She snags the bottle out from his hands, drinks down and burps. She does not apologize, because she is done apologizing for anything she ever does.
Maya knows exactly where she is and keeps her eyes shut tight for hours on end, pretending to be asleep since it far outshines the idea of getting up and facing the situation she finds herself in.
Handsome Jack, however, shows her no such mercy. “Oh goodie, you're awake.”
Brisk steps across the floor leave her no doubt who comes for her, and she wants to twist away, wants to jump up and run in the other direction, but instead she throws back the cover and tries to use phaselock on him. Nothing happens, except the sharp pinpricks traveling down her arm, following the icy blue tattoo patterns. He smirks, walking up to her bed without the least bit of hesitation.
“That's not even a nice try,” he says, shaking his head. “You'd think I actually let you just wander around without some way to keep the whole siren thing in check? Please.” Handsome Jack leans down and with an unnerving smile that makes Maya's skin crawl, he flicks a finger against the collar around her neck. “The harder you try, the worse it'll hurt.”
She clenches her fist with the intention to punch him right in the groin, but a paralyzing shock goes down her spine. Her hands drop down on the bed and all she can do is glare angrily. He doesn't care, pulling up a metal chair that scrapes against the stone floor with such a terrible noise that she has to grit her teeth not to let out a whine.
“We'll have to talk business later, when your mental capacity goes beyond looking like a hungover dog. I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were trash. Well, bandit, trash, same thing. You're all a blight on Pandora.”
Jack scoots the chair closer, the noise unbearable. She tries to punch him but her hand just falls down over the side of the bed, fingers numb.
“Cute. I wanted to let you know one thing though. See, your friends are all perfectly alive, Roland excepted of course. Still out on how healthy they are – between you and me, we know they must have been dropped on their heads as kids, right? – but they're alive. So there's a bunch of fun possibilities to explore there, huh?” When she fails to respond, he shrugs. “I'm going to have fun at least. Your enjoyment was never really going to be catered to, anyway.”
With a bit of work, she finally dislodges her tongue. “Why keep me alive?” she asks, her voice a hoarse whisper due to the sore throat.
He cups a hand behind his ear. “What's that? You can actually speak?”
“Just answer me, dam-” She is cut off as he places a finger over her mouth.
“Language.” She wants to bite his finger off, and she snaps her teeth, but too slow to catch him. “Ooh, feisty! Killing you is such a waste. Sirens don't come around every year. Plus, it's nice to have a back-up, seeing as your gang is hellbent on killing Angel.”
An image flashes by, where she sees herself suspended in the air, acid-green wings spread wide as eridium is pumped into her veins. She has no idea what it feels like, but she knows what it does, how it creates a dependency. Though she can only guess at how it might change her, she does not want it. Even worse, she starts to fear the possibilities of what he can do to her.
“Oh, don't worry your pretty little head. I won't do anything right now. Thanks to you thugs, I only have so much eridium, and long story short, it's a tedious process to build up tolerance. I mean, a quarter of the dose I give Angel daily would kill you.” Again, the laugh, and he fakes wiping a tear from his eye, the dry sound of hand against mask almost distasteful.
She grimaces, too exhausted to do much else. Even keeping her eyes open is a struggle, and her heavy chest aches with each breath. Being near him is a drain on the energy reserve she has left. He, however, has more to say.
“I see the morphine is still in your system. Just one more thing.” He breathes in deep and sighs. “I don't get you, Maya. You're a siren. I mean, a fucking siren! The potential of your power is still so untapped, but you had it all and you threw it away.” He checks his watch, looking annoyed. “Nothing to say? Just going to sit there and sulk? Come on, turn that frown upside down.”
“It wasn't real.”
“What wasn't? The piles of money?”
“Riches do not absolve poverty of the soul.”
“Philosophy undoubtedly taught by the monks. The very men who lied about everything to you, and those are the words you take to heart? FYI, though, money does fix everything. Don't be so stupid.”
“Not everything they told me were lies, but the important things were.”
“Must be convenient to just pick and choose what's true.”
“And you don't?”
He presses a button on the side of her bed, and her thoughts begin to blur at the edges. “It's been real nice talking, but I have things to do, and you're being a pain in my ass.”
She sneers, tongue too heavy to hurl an insult at him, mind too sluggish to think one up.
“Look at that wrinkle. Right here, between your brows.” He places his finger between her eyebrows, pressing until the muscles relax. “Don't do it. You'll end up ugly from worry. Terrible way to ruin a pretty face.”
Clearing her throat, she spits at him. The glob hits right between his eyes and drips down the mask's elastic surface.
His hiss is the last thing she hears before passing out again. “I'm going to make you regret that.” She wants to say 'good, I'm ready for the worst' but knows she isn't, realizes she is destined to be surprised in the worst kind of ways. She never underestimates a man as terrible as he is.
When everyone else files out of the headquarters to attend to other business across town, Maya lingers on. It's not the first time she is nervous since embarking upon her new life path, but it's the first time it goes so deep into her that her hands tremble. She still smells of dead bandits and smoke from Frostburn Canyon, but the conversation cannot wait.
“Hey, so. You're a siren.”
Lilith doesn't look up from the screen, relentlessly tapping her fingers against the keyboard. “And so are you. Now that we've got the first obvious fact out of the way, no, I don't know anything either.”
“I–“
“I know, disappointing. But there's not much information to find on Pandora, just... Connections. Clues that mean absolutely nothing. We belong here but it's like poison being here.” She turns to look up at Maya, sighing. “Sorry. Bet you expected more than that.”
“It's fine.”
“As I said, that's all I can give you.”
Their first conversation ends there, cut short as Lilith resumes her work. Maya expected more, but as it turns out, Lilith keeps coming up short on her expectations, always.
Lilith avoids her after that, conveniently finding something else to do the minute Maya walks into a room. It's a statement, one that even Maya can interpret flawlessly. She gets it, and she goes. Grabs her guns and a car and rides on out. Her head races as she struggles with the throttle, the car going too fast when it shouldn't and too slow when she needs to outrun some wild creature swooping down upon her. She thinks about Lilith, about how no one knows anything valuable, about how stupid she is for coming to Pandora and thinking she'd find answers.
She's just... Disappointed. Extremely so. And she doesn't know how to handle it, because she seized freedom by the throat and it's still coming up short.
She admonishes herself for lacking patience, swerves off the road, and kills the engine. The swell of the sea against shore, pebbles being pulled out before the wave sweeps them back in place, silences her raging thoughts.
Axton finds her there three days later. He says she left an obvious enough trail, then admits, “that guardian angel let me know where you were” as he sits down on the sandy shore besides her. She's tired, having eaten little, and he gives her a few stale sandwiches to chew on. The dry, crusty bread builds up in her mouth until she can't swallow it, and discreetly spits it back up as Axton skips stone down by the water.
She's had three days of silence in which to choke out her minor grievances, and in that time she has come to one conclusion: she's through with being quiet for a long time. Isolation is no longer a place of solace for her – maybe a little – she vacillates, wonders. The hesitation is that she doesn't want it to be, not anymore, but things don't change that quickly. She just wants to be done with who she was up until three weeks ago, and become the new Maya she's aching to be.
But the chrysalis is still wrapped tight, and she's far too rough to be let out yet. She doubts she'll even emerge as a butterfly – too delicate, too flimsy, too easily torn apart by someone else's hands.
He doesn't ask if she's ready, just goes over to his car and kick the wheels, one by one, doing some half-hearted check on how well it survived the rough journey. She takes the driver's seat, even when he asks if she's fit to drive. “Not like there's road safety on Pandora,” she says. He doesn't argue but he does look a bit worse for wear when they pull up outside Sanctuary.
No, she decides, when her chrysalis shatters, she'll claw her way out and be whatever the fuck it is she is growing into, but it sure as hell isn't going to be weak and prone to be destroyed by anyone's whims.
In the tallest skyscraper of Opportunity, Maya tugs at her collar and gets a small electric shock for her effort. She keeps pulling at it though, undeterred, and is rewarded with worse and worse shocks that make her teeth ache.
Behind her stands a table decorated similar to the banquets that took place during Bountiful Blessings, a celebration that occurred twice a year on Athenas. The closer she looks, the more it makes her skin crawl: it's an exact replica of it, down to the decorations and arrangement of the sliced black apples.
Maya doesn't understand what he wants to evoke, but the entire recreation of her most loathed times is getting under her skin. Perhaps that's enough for him.
There is only her in the room, and she wears the the ragged and torn combat suit she loves. The yellow is stained beyond recognition, and large swaths are missing completely with frayed and burnt edges, but it is better than the option she left behind in her cell. She walks barefoot across the floor, measuring it with her steps. A hundred strides into her counting game, the door slams open wide and Jack marches in, so smug that she would rush him at once and punch his teeth out if he wasn't flanked by four guards. She knows when she's cornered, but she straightens up and holds her chin high nonetheless.
“So I found some pictures from Athenas,” he says, throwing them onto the table. She doesn't need to look to know what they depict: Maya with her hair flowing long, dressed in white and adorned with gold jewelry. She still remembers the bracelets like shackles, heavy and polished to a shine, that she'd slip off when she read books and kept 'accidentally misplacing' in the library. The necklace, wrapped in layers around her neck and dripping down between her breasts, was equally bad, and left the skin discolored.
Jack pushes her down in the seat and forces her to look at them, holding her head in his tight grip. “Look. Look at what you were. Look at what you had. You may have cut your hair and changed clothes, but trust me: you're still the same. A fake goddess. A lie.”
“I see,” she hisses. When one of his fingers strays too close to her mouth she snaps her teeth at him, but it only elicits a snicker, and the guards join in on the mockery.
“And now, look at you. The chained beast, aching to be let loose and yet knowing the truth: you were meant for this kind of life. To serve those who would give your powers a higher purpose.” He squeezes her head so tight that her eyes begin to feel too big and sinuses like they're being crushed, then pushes her away with enough force to slam her against the table's surface.
“Fuck you.”
“Watch your tongue.” He pulls out a chair and sits down, taking a cluster of sweet grapes from the overflowing cornucopia, picking one off at a time and popping them in his mouth, chewing loudly. “Let's discuss what you can do for me.”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, this is easy! You're meant to go 'oh no, Handsome Jack, please don't, I'll do anything!' and count up a hundred names and I'll wipe Sanctuary off this planet. Blam, everyone's happy and your merry band of thugs are dead. So go on, do that for me.”
She fixes her cool gaze upon him. “Oh no,” she says in a toneless voice, raising her middle finger, “please, let me flip you off.”
“Trying my patience here, Maya. I'm not asking much. Just play by the rules for once. It's not hard!”
She shrugs. “There is nothing to gain from dealing with you.”
“On the contrary. You are just being too stubborn to see it, because you have these ideas, these petty ideals you force yourself to live by. Shooting kids, for example. Now, I personally don't see how anyone could construe that as being the righteous thing to do, but I guess that's how your twisted mind works.” His voice rises towards the end, a twitch in his right eye that only stills after a few long breaths. “Know what? This is the only chance you're getting. One. You could have had more, but you tried killing my baby girl, so I crossed a few off. In fact, had it been anyone else than you, they'd be dead by now!”
“Can't bring yourself to kill a siren?”
“You lot are too valuable to simply toss aside.”
“What do you know about sirens?”
He steeples his fingers and leans back, smiling smugly. “A lot more than anyone else. This isn't a negotiation though. You aren't getting anything out of this deal, other than the glory of furthering my goals of saving Pandora. But maybe... Just maybe... If what you do pleases me, maybe I can share what I know.”
Maya says nothing, but he takes her silence for assent. She can't exactly say it's a wrong assumption.
He wipes himself off on a napkin. “Great! You're going to do your part, just like Angel is going to do hers.”
“How is she?”
“Oh, just recovering great, but not thanks to you. Your fake concern is duly noted and dismissed.”
“Now. Let's discuss your abilities.” Jack pushes a platter of food closer to her, the ripe fruits spilling over and covering the pictures of her from Athenas. “Let's discuss... Possibilities.”
Maya breaks off a piece of bread and eats it, tasting nothing but the bitterness of her present situation.
The bar in Sanctuary is where Maya spends most of her time, trading books with Sir Hammerlock or sampling her way through the meagre selection of Pandoran beer. The others are out, but she has stayed behind, healing up after sustaining an injury trying to play hero. It's her fault, and she doesn't mind. Secretly, she hopes for a nicely gruesome scar.
On her third night – or day, time blends together – she sits down at the bar, bored with the heavy classic novel she's been struggling through. Besides, she's in the mood for conversation and interaction, aching to clear her mind of the sentences so complex she has needed to reread them over and over.
Moxxi immediately puts down a bowl of over-salted pretzels in front of her. “What do you desire?”
“Surprise me.”
“Will do. So what brings you to Pandora, honey?”
“Vacation.”
“Then you've come to the wrong place.”
“No, trust me. This is bliss. I spent twenty-seven years in a monastery filled with monks and books.”
“You poor thing,” Moxxi purrs, straining the moonshine party mix in with the cactus juice. “This one is on me. Careful, might create some sparks. You sirens tend to carry so much tension in your mouths, isn't that right, Lilith?”
Lilith plops down on the bar stool next to Maya. “No comment.”
Moxxi smiles sweetly, pushing the drink into Maya's waiting hands. “I'll be back soon.”
When she's gone, Lilith puts a finger over the glass and shakes her head, leaning in close. “Trust me, you don't want to drink this.” She takes it for herself, sipping it cautiously before spitting it back up. “Moxxi does not mix them well. I'll get you something else.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“No problem. What are you doing here, anyway? The others left a few hours ago.”
“Cracked rib. Zed suggested I rest up a few days.”
“Oh.” Lilith pulls a quick switch as someone turns their back on their drink and immediately knocks back some of the newly acquired cocktail, drinking in deep gulps before repeating the trick as flawlessly with another customer and giving it to Maya. “You do know he's not a licensed physician?”
“Not like you have anyone else here doing that kind of thing.” Maya raises her arm to drink and winces. “I think his examination made it worse.”
“They tend to do that.” A few moments of silence, Lilith pushing a napkin around on the counter. “Look, I probably came off as rude earlier.”
“A little.”
She laughs. “Yeah, I'm not that good with people. Good at being bad, not much else.”
“It's cool.”
“You just... It's a weird situation. I have never met another siren this up close without one of us ending up dead.”
“You never know where we will end up,” Maya says dryly. To her surprise, Lilith actually laughs at her terrible joke. Her laughter is infectious but then the sharp pain stabs at her side and she wheezes instead. “Goddamn, this rib. How do you do it? I mean, just–“ she snaps her fingers in the air, “like that and you're back in the game. No wounds, no bruises.”
“Yeah, the eridium helps with that. Picks you right back up.”
“Maybe I'll have to try some one day.”
Lilith makes a face that barely lasts a second before leaning over the desk when Moxxi's back is turned, lifting a new bottle of beer and an abandoned drink, putting the glass in front of Maya. The ice has melted and formed a watery layer on top of the thick liquid.
“She won't mind,” Lilith says with a shrug, tapping the bottle-neck to the glass. “Bottom up.”
They keep drinking and talking, circling around inane topics, though they lean a little closer the louder the bar gets and Lilith puts all the drinks on someone else's tab. Maya feels like she's floating, shedding care after care until her focus is solely on Lilith who appears to be glowing, magnificent and brave and sharp in all the ways that Maya strive to be.
“I want to do bad things with you,” Maya lets slip out, and Lilith smirks.
“Drink up, and let's go.”
They're loud and obnoxious as they walk back to Crimson headquarters, but so is the entirety of Sanctuary, a mad city roaring with desperate energy. As they drag themselves up the stairs, past the rows of bunk beds and into the command room, where Maya leans over the map. “So, going somewhere, yes.” She traces her finger over the unfamiliar topography. “What's a nice place to visit?”
“No need to go very far.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah...” Lilith stumbles forward and knocks against Maya, giggles, and still smiling presses their lips together. Maya doesn't think, doesn't overanalyze, just responds enthusiastically, pushing Lilith back up against the wall. Their tongues meet, pushing and nudging, the taste of alcohol heavy on their warm breaths. Hands move over clothes, grasping and tugging, but as Lilith struggles to find a way inside Maya's suit, Maya simply slides her hand up under the pink tank-top and cups a breast.
“Unfair.”
“Shut up,” and Maya seals the deal with a deep kiss, pushing the fabric up further. They crash against a desk and push a stack of papers to the side, fumbling hands working on buttons and zippers and belts that refuse to open.
What she knows she gathered from books and from her own body, and Lilith guides her head with a nudge of the hand. “There, yes, oh!” Lilith throws her head back and thrusts her hips up, and Maya struggles to keep up with the wild gyrations. She can't find an easy rhythm, her teeth sometimes bump against soft flesh and she murmurs an apology into Lilith's thigh, but Lilith only strokes her head and urges her to keep going.
The variances in anatomy, subtle and barely there yet making all the difference, leaves Maya clumsily trying to hold on to Lilith's hips who is too drunk to care and grinds against any friction she can find. To her frustration, Maya can't keep up, though she tries valiantly, but Lilith sighs and gently nudges her away. “Let me show you.” She stands up on shaky legs, leaning heavily on Maya as she unzips the pants and tries to lift Maya onto the table. The angle is all wrong though and she sighs after a few adjustments. “The command... Thing. I keep forgetting what it's called.”
“Strategic map?” Maya suggests, squeaking as her ass sits down on the cool surface. Lilith kneels between her legs and grins up at her.
“First time?”
“No.”
“I meant with a siren.”
“Oh. Uhm. Yes.”
“I'll go easy on you.” She winks and sticks her tongue out, a spark of pink shimmer dancing on the tip.
Upon contact with Maya's skin, the electricity moves through her too, familiar but... Oh so strange. It's almost like her own powers and the strange feeling they evoke in her, but the sensations are so unexpected and new that she lets out what she thinks is going to be a quiet gasp, but instead turns into a loud moan. She wraps one leg around Lilith, heel pressing against the back, hand holding on to the edges as she aches for more.
There is a foreign quality to Lilith's powers, a feathery touch fluttering through her nerves at first before settling in and drumming up a hot pulse. She's on the brink and she's feeling so good and it's over way too quick. Maya falls back disappointed and panting, but Lilith stays, the electric touch receding until it's just a pair of lips kissing a path back up.
She takes one of Maya's hands and guides it between her legs, straddling one thigh in the process. Though Maya's hand shakes and slips, the fingertips gliding over the slick folds too easily, Lilith just smiles gently and rides against the thigh. Eventually Maya catches on that when she flexes her leg muscles, Lilith moans, loudly and carelessly. With the combined effort of hand and thigh, both of them work together to bring Lilith to an orgasm as well.
She collapses forward, sagging down on top of Maya to rest her head between the breasts. Maya strokes the red hair away from where it's tickling her nose, but starts giggling anyway.
“What's so funny?”
“It's just... I thought you were a bitch that hated me.”
Lilith giggles too. “Yeah, that's kind of funny actually.” Their eyes meet and just as quickly close as Lilith pulls herself up for a quick kiss before jumping off.
They kiss once again as they dress, slow and easy, pulling clothes back on as good as they can though they can't find Lilith's panties anywhere. Lilith phases out, winking as she goes, while Maya breathes deep and goes to the bunk room. All the other beds are occupied and she wonders how long they have been, if Lilith noticed as they made their way into the command room because Maya sure didn't, but she flops down on a low bed, the springs creaking under her.
Gaige gives a low whistle, clapping her hands slowly as she grins down from the bunk above her. “Bravo!”
She punches the mattress from underneath, then rolls over onto her side. Facing the wall, she curls up and smiles to herself.
“Wake up.”
Angel's familiar voice forces Maya to rise from the hard cot she sleeps on. The cell, walls made entirely out of glass, offers her no privacy in any direction, though at least the streets of Opportunity are deserted. It's intentional. Handsome Jack wants them to see, and for her to be seen. She knocks on the bulletproof glass, then punches it. Not a crack anywhere but in her knuckles.
“You're in for the long haul now. Welcome to hell.”
The morning routine is simple enough. She brushes her teeth, washes her face, and briefly considers filling the sink up with water and drowning herself right then and there. Though she values life enough to resist, she wonders if she will be pushed to the breaking point. If Jack will waste her life like he has with Angel. She wonders and wonders and it drives her to pace the cell, anxious and frustrated.
“We need to find Lilith.”
“Please,” Maya says softly as Angel flickers by in front of her eye. “Please, shut up and go away and never mention her again. Ever.” Outside, the sunlight catches a restored statue of Jack, and it strikes Maya how futile life has turned out to be.