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Ashlyn woke up on the surgery table, she knew she was awake but didn't open her eyes and kept her breathing steady and slow, when she felt the cold metal beneath her.
As it was not a surgery in the medical sense she woke up from.
This was one of Maverick’s disgusting ideas as he grew more and more impatient with his lack of progress.
Ashlyn felt a bit scared while simultaneously going over the reassuring facts in her head:
1.He wasn't going to kill her, that would only ruin his own plans and destroy his replenishing supply of her blood.
2.Thank God, it was her and none of the others.
- He wasn't stupid enough not to give her enough anesthesia after she broke a doctor's arm while awake and high on morphine.
- Thank all the deities out there that this wasn't recorded and her parents wouldn't see.
He was smarter than to not give her enough anaesthetics when he did these, so it must be over. She didn't hear him, so she assumed she was alone and sat up.
Even though she just woke up she felt exhausted,soon she found the little spot on her arm, in the crook of her elbow where she had been injected.
She looked around the white room, she usually woke up back in her little room, or in the infirmary ward. She hadn't realised she was ever left alone either. A thought made her wildly look around the room to see if she could see any glass and what would mean a room she was being watched from like the time with the infected.
However she didn't see any glass or camera’s. She was alone, maybe for the first time since they were trapped here, in the facility, she was alone.
Trying to grab anything to fight or maybe escape was pointless so she sat back down on the table and waited until someone came to walk her back to her room. She didn't see any papers that could have any test results on them and Maverick wouldn't leave his pass card so carelessly. He was very meticulous and manipulative, which she could brace herself for and her friends when they interacted with him.
She didn't tell them how she got more knowledge on the dimension and the Crane's plans, she was careful to make theories that weren't exactly true and let them work it out themselves, with her guiding them to the correct track.
So far it seemed to work pretty well.
They didn't know about what she had to do and she never wanted to tell them, she was careful to keep track of what and how much she said and since she was never talkative it didn't really bring too much attention to herself or that anything was wrong.
Sometimes though she wished that they would figure it out so she wouldn't have to carry the weight on her shoulders alone as it crushed her, stole the breath from her lungs and broke her bones. Yet at the same time she was terrified of them finding out they would be so furious with her, so disappointed and it could put them in the very danger she was desperate to protect them from.
There was no point in even thinking about it really. It had been her decision and only hers to make a deal with Maverick to keep her family and friends safe. It had to be this way, they could never know, even if they escaped, she could never tell them she had to bury and hide it and let it die with her.
In a way she sold a piece of her soul away forever, a piece of her mind, heart, fear and soul would always belong to Maverick and the little white rooms. The doctors, the syringes and cold facility walls. It would live on here forever and in a way she let Maverick win as even if she would beat him one day and destroy his plans, the hours spent on the experimentation of her, would never go away. Disappear. They would always live on, hide away in the shadows, with bright white, wide smiles.
Ashyn would put them behind her but even then they would always haunt the facility walls, live and thrive in the white tiles.
Besides, he experimented on her for a reason. Because it worked and it brought him the results he wanted. Wasn't she technically aiding the enemy?
Helping the Cranes. Cause even if she didn't want to she did.
Ashlyn was fully aware that her connection to the phantom dimension was different then for her than others was. It was why her blood worked. She wasn't sure why but she had her theories. Cause hasn't she technically always lived with them? The shadows, the screeches, and voices. Her hearing, her hallucinations, her childhood and nightmares were filled with connections and references to it even before Savannah.
Before she knew about how she was born, her parents had seen the phantoms for the very first time that day, and that it scarred her dad.
She had many questions, theories and answers she couldn't share even if they were proven to be beneficial, as too many questions directed for her would come if she revealed them. Everyone knew a bit of the truth and what she thought and pieced together, her friends, her parents, the other adults, Alex, Maverick and herself.
Ashlyn honestly didn't know what to do about all of this mess. There was nothing that she could do, without exposing herself and her deal with Maverick and all what surrounded that.
All she could do was wait and see what would happen. As there was as Maverick said, many ways things could happen from here on out.
Ashlyn looked up at the white tiled roof, as everything else here it just had to be.
Once she got out of here once and for all, she would never have anything white-tiled in her house. Never.