![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My name is Nikita. Seven years ago I was taken off of Death Row and trained to be an assassin by a covert unit of the government called Division. Five years ago, my boss, Percy, sent me to infiltrate an organization suspected of selling plutonium to terrorists by ‘getting close’ to the leader, Nicholas Brandt. I seduced Brandt and slept with him. After Brandt broke the arms of a woman to ‘motivate’ her husband, I took him down and asked Percy for five minutes alone with Brandt, no eyes on me, to show him there are women out there who can hurt him too. Now Percy set Brandt loose from prison to get to the plutonium we never found, and the sadistic bastard killed Senator Madeline Pierce, the last surviving member of Oversight, Sean’s mother, and our last hope for presidential pardons, just to flush me out. Brandt found me. And I’m going to make sure I’m the last person he ever lays a hand on...
Brandt wants to hurt her, but he has no idea how much pain she can take. He has no idea that while he’s jolting her with electro-shocks and talking her to death between punches, she’s worked one hand halfway free of her restraints. He may think he’s scaring her, leaning kissing-close with the face she ruined for him, threatening to rape her, but he’s just pissing her off.
It’s all going according to plan, right down to the fear in Brandt’s one eye when she tells him that yeah, they do have something in common. “I regretted most of my missions for Division, but not all. Not yours. You’re right. I enjoyed hurting you.”
All right, so maybe electro-shock therapy on a handmade frame administered by a psycho in the basement of an abandoned house wasn’t really the plan, but a good agent learns to improvise. She thinks on her feet and uses what she has. Right now, what Nikita has is that no matter what he does to her body, he can’t hurt her. As long as he’s beating on her, expending his rage on her, he’s not targeting anyone she cares about.
Alex is watching Sean. Michael is watching Nerd and Alex. Percy is, doubtless, relishing watching her and Brandt, and the longer she keeps Brandt here, the longer no one else is in danger. So she’ll just keep taunting this sadistic son of bitch until he kills her or she gets free. If he kills her, it’s over because he wanted her. If she kills him, well now. The world is minus one worthless piece of trash and she gets karma points for waste disposal. Nice and tidy, just how she likes it.
But why has Brandt been upstairs so long?
Her eyes strain through the gritty, grainy semi-dark toward the staircase. Her ears are ringing, pulse jumping around like a scared rabbit from the current, but she can just make out sounds of a something heavy being dragged. Nikita’s no more scared than usual, and she hopes her people are smart enough to stay the hell away from here, but she’s also human. She hurts and it’s about a 60-30 chance she’s going to die today. Part of her wants those sounds to be a rescue.
But it’s not. It’s not a rescue. It’s Michael. Every bit as captive as she is. She’s so pissed, she doesn’t even know how he got down here, and Brandt might as well not even exist. For the moment. But he will, oh god, he will, because now he can hurt her. He has Michael. He can destroy her.
She’s so pissed and scared and tangled up, she doesn’t know when her inside thoughts bleed out and she starts in on Michael bound to that chair. Nikita doesn’t know anything. She forgets to keep working on her cuff. There’s just pain until Michael starts talking.
Tall, smoky voice, very sexy. The memory comes to her unbidden, the first of many Brandt will use to torture her with.
“He didn’t...capture me,” Michael’s saying. His eyes seem greener from the bruising on his face and the shadows, or the intensity of the stupidity he’s spouting. “I came on my own. I gave myself up. It was the only way I could find you.”
“You son of a bitch!” Nikita yells. How can he be doing this?
“What?” Michael’s eyebrows knit, but it’s not cute today.
“You dumb, stupid son of a bitch!” She throws herself against the frame, trying to break free, trying to get to him.
“Nikita--”
“The situation was contained. The damage was limited,” she insists, raw red rage shredding her voice. “And now what?”
“You were in danger!”
“I was lost! I am lost. Michael... you’d just sacrifice yourself for a dead woman?”
“No.” Stubborn, stupid son of a bitch. He won’t see what’s right in front of him. Telling her no, like he can’t see the writing on the wall as well as she can. “You’re not dead, we can still--”
“Shut up, just shut up, shut up!” She wishes her hands were free so she could put them over her ears. “So typical. Always gonna do the right thing, right Michael? Can never be selfish, pure, noble Michael. You just had to give yourself up to this psycho like you’re some kind of martyr.” The words are pouring out now, pent-up anger spilling out, carried on a rising tide of fear. Fear for him, not herself. “Like you had to go and be with Cassandra and you just had to see your son. Why can’t you ever just say: I want this, I don’t care if it’s wrong!”
There’s more shock in Michael eyes than Brandt ran through her body, and her face contorts with tears she’s trying not to shed. She doesn’t want to give that to Brandt. Not the satisfaction. Not the power.
She’s expecting Pot-Kettle, but she gets, “You think I can’t be selfish?” instead. Michael, her Michael, her beating heart, looks more wrecked than she feels. “This is the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. I did this because I had to see you one last time, even if I was killed.”
Oh no, no no. No, no. Michael, no.
“I did this because I love you.”
Somehow that inner plea pushes out, out to where Michael can hear it and she’s twisting in her restraints. “Don’t do that.” Oh Michael, Michael... Why couldn’t he just have stayed safe? Why come and make her vulnerable, expose her weaknesses with the tears on her cheeks and the beatings she’ll willingly take for him? “Don’t do that.”
“I don’t have a choice.” His eyes implore her to understand. She loves his eyes, but she wants to stab them out right now.
“You have no idea who I am!” He doesn’t know how much she was enjoying this little showdown with Brandt. How much she looked forward to getting free and having all the time in the world to punish him, not just five minutes this time. Her stomach twists, bile rising in her throat. “If you did, you could never love me.”
“No, no...” He’s being rational. Damn him, he’s trying to be soothing. Trying to comfort her when he should be trying to save his own life. “I know exactly who you are.”
Fine, confession time. Michael’s the closest thing she has to a confessor anyhow, and he’s the only person she completely trusts, so she spits it out along with her tears, “I have evil inside of me, Michael.”
“Maybe you do. Maybe that’s a part of you--”
Michael’s voice is carried away on a hibiscus and jasmine wind, and Nikita knows without knowing, she’ll never hear it again. She’s not dead, but somehow, she’s gone. Somehow, he’s gone.
Tears stream down her face and choke her. She can’t wipe them because she’s still not free. “Michael...” she whispers to the nonsensical palm trees and birdsong, blinking at tears and moonlight in a midnight blue sky. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Because without her there, he’s going to die, and whatever Division hellhole paradise she somehow got ripped away to, she’s still bound to the frame and she can see from here, the charger is damaged. She’s going to die. Alone. In Division custody.
Without Michael.
The electricity rattles through the frame and up into her. But it’s the knowledge she’ll never see him again that finally draws the scream Brandt wanted out from between her teeth.
Brandt wants to hurt her, but he has no idea how much pain she can take. He has no idea that while he’s jolting her with electro-shocks and talking her to death between punches, she’s worked one hand halfway free of her restraints. He may think he’s scaring her, leaning kissing-close with the face she ruined for him, threatening to rape her, but he’s just pissing her off.
It’s all going according to plan, right down to the fear in Brandt’s one eye when she tells him that yeah, they do have something in common. “I regretted most of my missions for Division, but not all. Not yours. You’re right. I enjoyed hurting you.”
All right, so maybe electro-shock therapy on a handmade frame administered by a psycho in the basement of an abandoned house wasn’t really the plan, but a good agent learns to improvise. She thinks on her feet and uses what she has. Right now, what Nikita has is that no matter what he does to her body, he can’t hurt her. As long as he’s beating on her, expending his rage on her, he’s not targeting anyone she cares about.
Alex is watching Sean. Michael is watching Nerd and Alex. Percy is, doubtless, relishing watching her and Brandt, and the longer she keeps Brandt here, the longer no one else is in danger. So she’ll just keep taunting this sadistic son of bitch until he kills her or she gets free. If he kills her, it’s over because he wanted her. If she kills him, well now. The world is minus one worthless piece of trash and she gets karma points for waste disposal. Nice and tidy, just how she likes it.
But why has Brandt been upstairs so long?
Her eyes strain through the gritty, grainy semi-dark toward the staircase. Her ears are ringing, pulse jumping around like a scared rabbit from the current, but she can just make out sounds of a something heavy being dragged. Nikita’s no more scared than usual, and she hopes her people are smart enough to stay the hell away from here, but she’s also human. She hurts and it’s about a 60-30 chance she’s going to die today. Part of her wants those sounds to be a rescue.
But it’s not. It’s not a rescue. It’s Michael. Every bit as captive as she is. She’s so pissed, she doesn’t even know how he got down here, and Brandt might as well not even exist. For the moment. But he will, oh god, he will, because now he can hurt her. He has Michael. He can destroy her.
She’s so pissed and scared and tangled up, she doesn’t know when her inside thoughts bleed out and she starts in on Michael bound to that chair. Nikita doesn’t know anything. She forgets to keep working on her cuff. There’s just pain until Michael starts talking.
Tall, smoky voice, very sexy. The memory comes to her unbidden, the first of many Brandt will use to torture her with.
“He didn’t...capture me,” Michael’s saying. His eyes seem greener from the bruising on his face and the shadows, or the intensity of the stupidity he’s spouting. “I came on my own. I gave myself up. It was the only way I could find you.”
“You son of a bitch!” Nikita yells. How can he be doing this?
“What?” Michael’s eyebrows knit, but it’s not cute today.
“You dumb, stupid son of a bitch!” She throws herself against the frame, trying to break free, trying to get to him.
“Nikita--”
“The situation was contained. The damage was limited,” she insists, raw red rage shredding her voice. “And now what?”
“You were in danger!”
“I was lost! I am lost. Michael... you’d just sacrifice yourself for a dead woman?”
“No.” Stubborn, stupid son of a bitch. He won’t see what’s right in front of him. Telling her no, like he can’t see the writing on the wall as well as she can. “You’re not dead, we can still--”
“Shut up, just shut up, shut up!” She wishes her hands were free so she could put them over her ears. “So typical. Always gonna do the right thing, right Michael? Can never be selfish, pure, noble Michael. You just had to give yourself up to this psycho like you’re some kind of martyr.” The words are pouring out now, pent-up anger spilling out, carried on a rising tide of fear. Fear for him, not herself. “Like you had to go and be with Cassandra and you just had to see your son. Why can’t you ever just say: I want this, I don’t care if it’s wrong!”
There’s more shock in Michael eyes than Brandt ran through her body, and her face contorts with tears she’s trying not to shed. She doesn’t want to give that to Brandt. Not the satisfaction. Not the power.
She’s expecting Pot-Kettle, but she gets, “You think I can’t be selfish?” instead. Michael, her Michael, her beating heart, looks more wrecked than she feels. “This is the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. I did this because I had to see you one last time, even if I was killed.”
Oh no, no no. No, no. Michael, no.
“I did this because I love you.”
Somehow that inner plea pushes out, out to where Michael can hear it and she’s twisting in her restraints. “Don’t do that.” Oh Michael, Michael... Why couldn’t he just have stayed safe? Why come and make her vulnerable, expose her weaknesses with the tears on her cheeks and the beatings she’ll willingly take for him? “Don’t do that.”
“I don’t have a choice.” His eyes implore her to understand. She loves his eyes, but she wants to stab them out right now.
“You have no idea who I am!” He doesn’t know how much she was enjoying this little showdown with Brandt. How much she looked forward to getting free and having all the time in the world to punish him, not just five minutes this time. Her stomach twists, bile rising in her throat. “If you did, you could never love me.”
“No, no...” He’s being rational. Damn him, he’s trying to be soothing. Trying to comfort her when he should be trying to save his own life. “I know exactly who you are.”
Fine, confession time. Michael’s the closest thing she has to a confessor anyhow, and he’s the only person she completely trusts, so she spits it out along with her tears, “I have evil inside of me, Michael.”
“Maybe you do. Maybe that’s a part of you--”
Michael’s voice is carried away on a hibiscus and jasmine wind, and Nikita knows without knowing, she’ll never hear it again. She’s not dead, but somehow, she’s gone. Somehow, he’s gone.
Tears stream down her face and choke her. She can’t wipe them because she’s still not free. “Michael...” she whispers to the nonsensical palm trees and birdsong, blinking at tears and moonlight in a midnight blue sky. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Because without her there, he’s going to die, and whatever Division hellhole paradise she somehow got ripped away to, she’s still bound to the frame and she can see from here, the charger is damaged. She’s going to die. Alone. In Division custody.
Without Michael.
The electricity rattles through the frame and up into her. But it’s the knowledge she’ll never see him again that finally draws the scream Brandt wanted out from between her teeth.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-01 07:21 am (UTC)From:It sounds true. Too close to what she wants to hear. Especially if it's one of Amanda's lucid dreams, she must remain skeptical. If it's not and this is somehow real...
"Sorry," she whispers, even as her freed hand comes down, hard and fast, for the (non-lethal) knockout blow that might be her only chance to regain the advantage. To save Michael. And kill Brandt.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 04:57 am (UTC)From:Dancing back a safe distance, Jason's expression folds with anger and a hurt whose intensity makes no sense until one remembers his youth, and the endless string of losses he's faced of late. "Stop it!" he shouts at her. "I'm trying to help you!"
no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 05:19 am (UTC)From:Why is he trying to help her? Doesn't he know she's a dead woman? Why couldn't he just let her die and let the damage be contained and... but no, no, no that's not him, that's Michael.
Oh god, Michael.
One ankle kicks free and then the other. She drops to a crouch, snarling through the too quick pulse rising panic and haze of pain and confusion. It feels too real to be a dream, too surreal to be real, he's not acting like Division and only one thing matters anymore:
"What did you do with him? Where is he? Where is he?"
no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 05:36 am (UTC)From:"I don't know," he says, beginning to circle, "I didn't do anything, I don't know who he is."
no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 05:49 am (UTC)From:Another time, this might be fun, but Brandt has Michael. The longer she's gone (if she can even get back) the less incentive he has to keep her alive. That doesn't make any more sense than the tropical bird calls, the jasmine wind or the boy in front of her. But focusing on Michael has kept her alive before.
Her attention locks on the kid. She moves with him, waiting for an opening or for him to show a weakness.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 05:59 am (UTC)From:"You don't know where you are, stop trying to knock me out and listen. You don't know where you are, you're on the island now!"
no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 06:11 am (UTC)From:"Then let me go." Please. I have to find him. I have to find, Michael. "Let me go."
Vulnerability doesn't have to make you weak, Nikita, Amanda's voice across an eternal divide. The lesson's still valid after all this time. Nikita uses the pause, the susurrus of four booted feet in jungle grass to lull him, then lunges.
Straight into him. She's not aiming for a kill. Just to knock him out, roll and run into the night. Let me go.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 06:21 am (UTC)From:- but no, one minute she's across the clearing and the next she's there, but Jason's ready, gets his forearm up in time to deflect, free arm rearing back to strike a blow of his own but she's gone again.
"Stop!" Jason barks, fingers twitching, and now there's a miniature pressure explosive in his hand. One way or another, she will stop.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 06:35 am (UTC)From:She's past him and into the trees, no idea where to go but go, go, flee. The boy is nothing and everything is Michael. She has to find him. She has to. Her pulse beats loud and erratic in her ears. Her chest hurts. Eyes bulge painfully. Her hands tingle, too numb to feel the breeze. Her feet too numb to feel the ground. But it's her heart that betrays her--
Her heart. Broken. Skips beats.
She stumbles and falls, crying out quietly, "Michael." If his face won't be the last thing she sees, his name will be the last thing she hears.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-02 08:29 pm (UTC)From:Disengaging the device, Jason lets his arm fall as her body does, the slender length of it folding to an unconscious sprawl on the forest floor. Though he's careful of a ruse, Jason comes forward anyway, and when she doesn't move, presses his fingers to her throat. She's alive, but her pulse is erratic. Shock, he decides, and after the device he's freed her from, he isn't surprised.
He pulls her carefully into his arms, hesitating only a moment before he begins to carry her towards the path. She'll wake soon enough, and if she's still fighting him, he needs to be ready to restrain her.
On this part of the island, the nearest safe house belongs to Finnick O'dair, and Jason runs.