Chapter Text
Today, Brenner had him working on endurance. Will had spent all morning on the treadmill and thought he probably could have kept going if they hadn’t stopped him. When he’d first arrived, he couldn’t go for more than half an hour before collapsing and earning impressive burns from the still-running belt, but today he’d run for almost two hours and had energy to spare.
As much as he hated to admit that anything good could come of this place, all this training had its perks. He was stronger and fitter than he’d ever thought he could be, and moreover, he actually enjoyed it. It was kind of…cleansing? A productive way to let off steam and burn through the energy he had no outlet for.
They shut off the treadmill a little before noon and, after a shower and grayish colored lunch served on a matching grayish tray, he was escorted down the hall for telekinesis training.
The room he was brought to was a familiar one. He often did his telekinesis training here, and it was often decked out in different sets or structures depending on what he was meant to practice. Today, the room was largely empty except for a tall, enclosed tube wide as Will was tall. It was made of a thick glass and inside, to Will’s bafflement, was a shaggy brown dog.
The dog looked up when Will entered and wagged its tail. There wasn’t much behind his eyes, truth be told, just the sort of trusting joy all dogs seemed to possess. He barked once and hiked his paws up on the glass as if to push open a door, scratching at it a few times, but he just slid down the smooth surface. He jumped back down and simply stared at Will, tongue lolling.
For a moment, Will just stared back at it. What did they possibly have planned that involved a dog? Perhaps he would have to lift it out of the tube without hurting it or something? He’d done similar practices before, lifting delicate objects through mazes to work on his precision.
He moved to get a closer look. The enclosure went all the way to the ceiling and beyond; he couldn’t even see how far up it went. Could have been miles for all he knew. There were no doors or openings in the glass. It looked thick enough that Will wasn’t even sure he could shatter it telekinetically.
Huh.
Not knowing what else to do, he just hung back, awaiting instruction and trying to avoid eye contact with the dog.
He could see Brenner and a couple of his goons from the watch room, protected behind layers of glass so thick even Will couldn’t break through. That was odd. Brenner didn’t usually watch his training exercises.
Besides the ominous enclosure in the center, the room was normal. Blank walls and slick floors Will had bled upon many times before.
“Thank you so much for joining us.” Brenner’s voice crackled through the intercom in the ceiling. “I, for one, am very much looking forward to today’s lesson. I think it will prove to be particularly educational.”
When Will didn’t say anything, he continued. “Nineteen, may I introduce you to the newest member of our team, Milo.”
Will looked down at the dog, and the dog looked dumbly right back at him.
“Milo here is a seven-year-old Briard. He’s a rescue. We found him at a shelter in the south side of the state. When he was brought in, he had an infection in his hind leg and was so malnourished you could count his ribs. He almost didn’t make it. But after a few good meals and some careful supervision, just look at him. Good as new. He actually looks quite happy, don’t you think?”
Indeed, Milo was panting and wagging his tail, breath fogging up the glass enclosure.
Will said nothing. For one, he wasn’t sure Brenner’s comment expected a response, and for another, he was too preoccupied coming up with all possible scenarios to come up with an appropriate response.
“We thought he would be an appropriate partner in today’s activity,” Brenner continued. “I think he will prove useful in testing the true extent of your abilities and show us whether or not you are ready for the next phase.”
No further instructions came.
He fidgeted nervously. Brenner often came up with bizarre tasks for him to complete, meant to measure his progress or push his limits. But he had no clue what he had planned that required this dog, which was now scratching his ear with a hind leg and trying not to tip over.
Soon enough, he heard a creak and a groan from above, as if the building were about to cave in on itself. Cautiously, Will stepped forward, flexing his fingers, trying to keep one eye on Milo. He’d barely halved the distance between him and the dog when the creaking intensified, and they both shot worried glances upward.
“What’s that noise?” he asked. Was this part of the test, or something else entirely?
No sooner than the words left his mouth did he receive his answer. From the hole above, there was a scrape and a streak of dust drizzled down, accompanied by a few dirty pebbles which adorned the bottom of the enclosure.
The creak intensified and time slowed down and sped up all at once and Will acted on pure instinct, thrusting his hands out and stopping the concrete just before they would have smashed Milo flat.
What was going on? Huge, jagged chunks of concrete had just rained out of nowhere. A landslide in the middle of Hawkins, Indiana. It made no sense. How was this happening? Why? All the thoughts flashed through his head like lightning bugs and disappeared just as quickly.
Ha barely caught it all in time. The debris hung in midair, maybe three feet above Milo’s ducked head. He barked and growled at the concrete, then gave it a curious sniff, already forgiving the offender for nearly smashing him to bits.
“What are you doing?” Will cried, jostling against gravity while throwing an outraged glance at Brenner. “You could have killed him!”
“We?” Brenner said from behind the glass. “We can’t stop him from being crushed any more than we can get the earth to stop spinning. We are powerless here. But you’re not. You can save him. Let’s see if you do.”
He couldn’t be serious. They were gambling with the life of this innocent dog just to measure Will’s growth. But as depraved as the situation was, Will saw no alternative. He had to cooperate, or else Milo would die.
He grunted and started pushing the concrete up, through the glass enclosure where it had fallen. He could feel blood oozing from his nose already. You’d think he’d be used to it by now and able to ignore it, but it still distracted him. Knowing that he couldn’t move to wipe it away made it all the more maddening.
Up. Up. More. He didn’t know how far high up the enclosure went, so he’d just have to keep pushing until he could shove it all to the side where it wasn’t at risk for falling on poor Milo again. Will was pretty sure he could do it, though. It was heavy, certainly, several hundred pounds worth. But well within his limits. As long as the glass walls didn’t extend too high, he should be able to do it.
If only that’s all Brenner had in mind.
He’d barely pushed the rubble to ceiling-level when another groan echoed through the chamber. Trepidation washed over him in the form of a cold sweat.
No, he thought dubiously. He wouldn’t…Even Brenner wouldn’t…
But he did. A second load, equally large, collided with the first and a shower of stones and dust rained down, temporarily obscuring everything inside the enclosure.
Milo whined and pawed at the dust scattered in his eyes.
“Stop!” Will cried. He’d barely been able to catch it. His arm was already shaking from effort, and his left hand immediately reached out to assist his right. “You’re gonna kill him!”
“Oh, we can’t stop this,” Brenner said, and Will thought it sounded like a gloat. “Only you can do that.”
He could barely focus enough on the task at hand, so he didn’t bother coming up with a response and instead poured all his attention on pushing the debris up as fast as he could. Maybe if he was quick enough, he could get it out before more fell. But again, as soon as the debris started inching up, thunder rolled and Will didn’t even have to look to know that his load had just doubled again.
Will cried out as the weight was thrown on. He couldn’t help it. It was difficult to describe, his telekinesis, but the strain felt almost physical. That happened in extreme circumstances like this. It didn’t feel like he was physically lifting all this rubble, exactly, that would have been impossible, but the mental exertion was so intense it started feeling physical. Like in moments of extreme grief, the pain seems to bloom inside you like a weed. The roots spread through your chest and pull at your heart and the more you want it to go away the more it grows. It felt like that, only a hundred times more intense.
He had one idea, but he had to act fast, before his load became unbearable: He had to break the glass. Then he could mentally pull Milo to safety and let the concrete drop.
He shifted the weight to one arm and his elbow buckled from taking the brunt. The concrete shuddered under the mental shift and Milo cowered against the wall in fright. Will moved one arm, shaking violently, to the side a little, and extended his fingers in a flicking motion. With all his might, he pictured the glass rupturing from the inside out, exploding throughout the room.
It didn’t. The glass didn’t so much as tremor, even when he diverted some mental energy away from the debris, sacrificing a few precious inches in the process. He could let it all drop entirely, he supposed, and hope he was fast enough to break the glass before it fell. But then what? The enclosure might be destroyed— might being the key word—but Milo would still be there. No way could he drop the rubble, break the glass, and move Milo out of the way in time.
Another pile of rubble added to the mass. He had no choice now; it was starting to fall in slow motion and he had to abandon the glass just to catch the debris, which was low enough now that it scraped the top of Milo’s head, even as he cowered. The dog was trembling violently, his tail tucked, and a puddle of urine gathered between his paws.
Milo’s eyes darted around, first to impending threat, then around the room, then finally to Will. Where before he hadn’t seen much intelligence, Will could now see undeniable, human-like fear in the dog’s eyes. They were wide and dark and pleading, staring directly into Will’s own, as if he knew that his life was in the hands of this young boy.
“Please!” Will cried, throwing all his hope at the one person he knew would never deliver. “I—I can’t hold any more!” He gasped, tasting blood in his throat.
“If you can still talk, that means you still have energy to spare,” Brenner said matter-of-factly, completely at odds with the terror spinning around Will’s head.
“N—wait!” He cried as more rubble rained from the ceiling.
He screamed again. This time not only out of agony, but desperation. He’d tried everything he could think of and nothing had worked.
What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
His chest heaved, sweat poured down him in rivers, blood coated his nose, his lip, his chin, his ears. The veins and tendons stood out starkly against his pale wrists.
“ P —” his voice mingled with his hoarse breaths. “ Please! ”
“Oh, it’s far too late for that, Nineteen.”
He couldn’t take any more.
But he had to.
Just a little longer.
He didn’t know that.
Keep going.
Another load fell, he felt his consciousness swimming.
I have to.
But he couldn’t.
He had to.
More .
I can’t.
You have to!
But he couldn’t.
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!
And all of a sudden, it was true. With no warning, in a way he’d never experienced before, his ability failed him. He felt a snap inside him, a rubber band being pulled too tight for too long. Solid looking ice breaking under unsuspecting footsteps.
The rubble fell. A moment later, so did he. Milo wasn’t whimpering anymore.
He couldn’t look, couldn’t do much of anything, but he could hear the thousands of pounds of debris crash to the ground. He heard how it shifted, filled in every gap, fighting to reach the ground like a crowd straining to get a closer to the stage. He tried not to, but he heard—or maybe imagined—the sound of stone smashing against flesh, pounding it into the ground—further, further, reshaping it to accommodate the will of the stone.
His consciousness faded in and out and for a few delirious seconds, he wondered if he was dead. It certainly felt like dying. But no, faces were all around him, crowding him, checking his heartrate and pupils and breathing and he just wanted them to go away and maybe he’d wake up and this all was just a dream, that he hadn’t just killed this innocent animal…
“Nineteen.”
He recognized that voice. Brenner.
Will’s hand was shaking, vibrating to the point it was almost comical. He kicked against the slick ground, pressing as many units of distance as he could between himself and that man.
Brenner drew nearer, and Will turned his face, green spots clouding his vision, a stark contrast to the spots of blood decorating the floor.
He found himself being pulled up by his shoulders. Not gently. Nails in flesh.
He said something and gave him a shake, but the words lagged, and Will had to try very hard to even keep his eyes open.
He dug his fingernails into Will’s shoulders. “Not yet, Nineteen. You need to hear this.”
When Will still didn’t respond, a claw wrapped around the back of his neck and squeezed. He cried out, certain he felt the skin tear. But it worked.
“Harte,” Brenner barked, keeping pressure on Will’s neck. “How much weight was that?”
A moment passed in which there was no response. Then, garbled from the static in the microphone or the buzzing in his ears, a voice piped up.
“89 tons,” it said and everyone in the room sucked in a breath. “It was 89 tons.”
Brenner made a satisfied sound, but he did not release Will. He was twisted at an awkward angle, but he was too numb and too sickened to do anything but allow it.
“89 tons,” Brenner mused. “Excellent.”
Will felt Brenner’s gaze refocus on him and he squirmed away best he could in his current state. He didn’t get far though, as Brenner just grabbed him more firmly and yanked him back.
“You are so… simple, Nineteen.” He said in a sing-song voice. “So easy to control. I tell you to do something, and you do it. I give an order, you follow it blindly. You know why?”
He leaned forward so his hot breath was right against his ear. Will cringed against it. “Because you’re weak. You are so concerned with the well-being of others you’re willing to do anything to keep them safe. It’s why you obey me. It’s why you’ll never run away. You know that if you try anything, I won’t take it out on you. Oh, no. I’ll take it out on your loved ones.”
Sweat turned to ice.
“Your friends,” Brenner taunted. “Michael, Lucas, and Dustin, isn’t that right?”
Will shut his eyes and shook his head deliriously.
“Your brother. Jonathan.”
His throat closed up, but not before a broken, choked sound escaped.
“And your darling mother,” he said, louder this time, making sure he heard even in his state. “Joyce. She’s a tough one, I’ll give her that. Imagine how disappointed she must be to see you now.”
Will wished he would just pass out. He knew it was cowardly, but this man terrified him. ‘Terrified’ didn’t quite capture his feelings against the man, the demon that lingered behind every passing thought, that haunted his dreams and poisoned his soul. The man he would never escape.
Then, Will was being dragged forward until he was right up against the enclosure, close enough to see his own reflection. Will did nothing to stop it. He couldn’t.
“Look,” he said in a cold, detached voice.
When Will made no motion to indicate he’d heard, Brenner repeated, “ Look!” Will’s forehead was slammed against the cold glass.
He didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to see what Brenner did.
What I did.
The claw at his neck forced him against the glass so his forehead nearly bruised.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t…
Instinct was too powerful to resist. His eyes opened and immediately sought out the creature in front of him. What was left of him, anyway. All he could see was a tuft of fur and a streak of blood. If he hadn’t already known, he never would have guessed it was the body of a dog in there, somewhere between the shards of rock and jagged stone.
“Do you see now?” Brenner’s voice sent shivers down his spine.
He just stared, panting. Like the dog.
“ This is what will happen to them if you do not cooperate.” Brenner said in a purr. “In your next assignment, you will be asked to complete a task for me. If you fail…if you do not cooperate…”
He did not finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. If there was any doubt in Will’s mind as to Brenner’s character, it had just been demolished. There was no good in that man. Not a sliver. And as unconsciousness took over, Will wondered not if, but when it would be the death of him.