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Panting breaths. Cold feet slapping against yellowing linoleum tiles. Running as fast as she can but not fast enough; as if the world had turned into that nightmarish state where the air was sludge, and her movements much, much too slow.
Except that it isn't the air which is turning to sludge. It's her blood.
Moxie's aching knees buckle and give out beneath her, sending her sprawling. She tries to push herself up but her arms- they're useless. She's useless. It's like the Teachers always say; she's So Damn Useless.
High heels echo down the hallway; slow and mocking.
"Subject two!" Teacher Sharon Haines' begins, "You never listen, girlie. I said you're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be in the playroom with your little friend!"
Moxie chokes back a sob and grips her hands round Sharon's extended arms, allowing herself to be carried. Well, 'allowing' is a strong word. She digs her nails hard into the woman's forearm.
"Four isn't -my frie-nd. Or even my-" Moxie hacks up a large clot of ink which spills over the front of her papery hospital gown, splatters landing on Haines as well, "associ-ate. -She's a liar and-a-" More ink burns the back of her throat, forcing her to purse her lips tight together.
"There, there," says Teacher Haines, cradling Moxie to her chest like a stray cat. Moxie, fighting both waves of nausea and blinding fluorescent lights, forces her eyes to stay open to glare at Haines for the whole walk.
Perhaps she should've switched her attention to her surroundings instead. That way it wouldn't have caught her by surprise when she's dropped onto hard metal as opposed to the playroom's bristly carpet.
The door slams shut and the lock clicks into place, leaving Moxie with only metal walls and darkness for company. She's sweating, shivering, and smiling.
***
It's a half hour later than planned when Lemony finally manages to slip out of S. Theodora Markson's sight and down one of the building’s identical redbrick corridors. VFD had allowed him to start his apprenticeship here (the organisation’s first lab. Disguised as a boarding school.) three full months ago and yet the only way Lemony could guess what corridor he was in was by smell; most corridors reeked of antiseptics, others of sickly-sweet gas, and others of a metallic scent which was not metal. This one smelt faintly of ink.
Lemony had overheard that scientist with the shiny blonde bob and the attitude boasting to Theodora about how she'd "put that insolent subject 2 in its place". Five minutes of jostling a skeleton key in the lock of a huge heavy door and Lemony is swinging it open to get the 'insolent subject' out of this place. And not just the room. The lab. He'd get her out of the whole damned country if he could. The more miles between Moxie and these "teachers" the better.
A rectangle of white light shines through from the open door, illuminating Moxie. Her knees are tucked to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them. Ink dribbles from her mouth like blood and purpling bruises decorate her body like paint splatters from a particularly careless artist.
Lemony steps inside, "What's the news, Moxie?"
Her eyes snap open and meet his; her irises dark and endless as if he were staring into a black hole. In a way, it's true. There's no chance of him getting out of the mess she's sucked him into.
"Snicket. Yo-u got paper?" Each word comes out strained. If she just coughed and drained herself of the excess ink in her bloodstream, she'd be fine. But Moxie's not going to do that. She'd rather keep on poisoning herself than let their efforts go to waste.
Lemony shakes his head.
"Ugh..of course you don’t-mhphhhm," a strangled sound escapes her throat. Moxie shuts her eyes. "Give me your coat."
Lemony removes his long white lab coat and wraps it round Moxie who -under the cover of said coat- shucks off her thin pale blue hospital gown. Lemony observes, with guilty fascination, as Moxie uses her powers to seep ink out of her fingertips and into the papery fabric of her gown.
The girl vehemently detests it when anyone sees her doing magic (she was the only one of the test subjects who used that term; the others preferred 'additional abilities'), she hates being goggled at and had told Lemony as such the first time they'd met.
Back then, he had been amongst five others in long white coats clutching clipboards and yet Moxie -strapped to a chair with wires poking through tufts of her shorn hair- had directed her withering glare at Lemony as she told them all off. "Never mind your experiments being unethical and unnecessary-they're impolite too! You're all nasty and-" Initially, he'd hated the experience. Now, he was grateful for it.
Relief floods through the girl as ink floods out of her. Her shoulders slump, a weight being taken off them, and her senses clear once more. But that's five paragraphs in. There's seven more to go.
Eventually, it's as though Moxie is draining away with the ink. Her eyes fade to a watery grey and eventually to white. By then, the deep worried furrow between Lemony's brows has morphed into the same vague blob as the rest of his body.
"Finished," she mumbles, pressing her burning forehead against one of the cold metal walls, trying and failing not to shake.
She hears the crinkle of Lemony folding the paper gown and stuffing it beneath his hat. Moxie used to have a hat, once, but they took it when they took her, and she has not seen it since.
"Soon all the world will know of Hangfire's treachery and about these immoral experiments, and all because of your findings. You are an excellent associate, Moxie, and someday you will be an even better journalist."
Moxie is in too much pain to lift her head to nod or shake hands, so instead she curls up her mouth into a crescent moon smile. She had stolen information from the scientists; had sucked the ink from the documents into her bloodstream and then bled it onto the hospital gown for Lemony to take to the press.
If all of Stain'd knew what was going on at Wade Academy, then someone would put a stop to this. Then she could go home. She could see Pip and Squeak and the lighthouse, and she could eat delicious meals at Hungry's, and her dad wouldn't have to look after himself anymore; he was doing a terrible job of it, Moxie was sure.