Spliced 4-14

[flighty_dreams]

TITLE: Spliced 4.14
AUTHOR: flighty_dreams
WARNINGS: NC-17. slavefic. scifi setting. M/m. some graphic violence.
WORD COUNT:  5,452
SUMMARY:  In a world where clones are made and sold as commodities, Matt Muldane can't resist purchasing an intriguing slave.
NOTES:  The index to this story available here. Thanks to aurila and tuawahine ! I'm sorry for the delay on this chapter. Warning: graphic violence.
FEEDBACK: Always welcome, even if it's just to say that you read it.

Chapter Fourteen

 

Min’s breath rasped in the quiet air, too loud for his jagged nerves.

The hallway was empty still, but his eyes continually strayed to the nearby door. Sharra was taking too long. Only the knowledge that he needed to keep watch, to prevent anyone from interrupting, stopped him from intruding.

That room, like many others in the building, was soundproof. For a moment Min wished it wasn’t, so he would have some idea of what was happening inside. But under the circumstances, it was better this way.

At least no one should be seeking Watkins anytime soon; most Kristech employees were at the retirement party downstairs. After making their customary brief appearances at such events, Kristeer and Watkins had retreated to their respective offices. Upper management didn’t mix much with the lower orders.

Except when slumming, he corrected himself. Watkins had certainly never had any problem using Min’s sisters however he liked, and the bruises he always left behind showed just how ‘gentle’ he was.

Forcing his mind away from that subject, Min glanced around the corner again, wishing Kristech’s labs had kept some motion sensors in storage that they could have ‘borrowed.’ Guarding the hallways would’ve been much easier then. The other corridor was clear in both directions. Sighing, he slumped against the wall. Waiting, he decided, was worse than acting.

At least they’d been able to acquire communicators, and the intermittent chatter of the others in his ear assured him things were proceeding smoothly—so far. Kret was in the monitoring room, Vik was securing the exit, and the other four were busy at their appointed task. It was only Min left with nothing to do, for the moment.

At last the office door slid open, and Sharra appeared, carrying the bag she’d brought inside with her. He’d thought it best not to ask what was in it.

They strolled towards each other as if it were an ordinary day, her expression and body language revealing little. She had on the same loose synth-cott clothing they were all given here, and nothing looked wrinkled or out of place. How she’d managed that after just killing a man, he’d no idea.

“It’s done,” she said in a low tone.

“Are you all right?” he asked, studying her face. It had been her decision to take Watkins on herself—she’d had her own score to settle—but he hadn’t been happy about it.

“Yes,” she said in a familiar tone that warned him not to ask again. All business, that was Sharra. She reached up to turn her comm device back on. “Kret, any setbacks?”

“Not so far,” his brother replied, strain in his voice.

“Right,” she said, her eyes steady on Min’s. “Onward then.”

He nodded and fell into step beside her, ignoring the churning of his stomach. But when they got close he hesitated, brushing the bulge in his hip pocket.

“If there’s trouble-”

“I know,” he said, not needing her to finish.

A hand on his arm and intense amber eyes trapped him in place. “I’ll be right outside.”

He smiled briefly, glad for her soothing presence, and squeezed her hand before heading for Kristeer’s office. It was his turn.

His fingers found the communicator hidden by his hair and turned it off. Like Sharra, he wanted no audience for this.

Taking a breath, he knocked on Kristeer’s door.

“Yes?” Annoyance at the interruption carried through the speaker.

Aware of the comm camera, Min kept his face neutral. “Mr. Watkins sent me to give you a message, master. Privately.”

Normally it wouldn’t be an odd request from Kristeer’s right hand man—if he were still among the living. The heavy door unlocked, and Min closed it behind him when he entered. His loathsome master was seated behind his desk, the glow of the computer screen revealing his impatient expression.

Thinking of Arri, gone forever now, rage filled him, destroying any instinct to obey. It was that rage Min clung to as he stepped deeper into the room. He halted before the desk with lowered eyes, as if waiting for acknowledgment.

“Well? What is it?”

He remained still, saying nothing. Patience, he told himself.

At his refusal to respond, the old man stood, using a cane to support his bad leg. Min’s eyes darted to it, habitual fear rising and his knees weakening on instinct. His master had demonstrated the cane’s other uses many times. Arri, he thought, shoving the fear away.

The hated voice lashed the air now, brooking no argument. “What was the message, boy?”

In one quick move Min grabbed him, slamming him back onto the desk. Papers fluttered to the floor, and the wood shuddered under the impact. Looming over him, he sent Kristeer a predatory smile. “Arri sends her regards.”

His master’s shock lasted only a moment before he swung the cane. Min blocked it with his forearm, Kristeer’s awkward position giving the blow only bruising force. Ripping the cane from the man’s grip, Min flung it across the room. It hit the wall and tumbled to the floor with a clatter.

“Computer,” Kristeer called out, “emergency call to security!”

Min let him utter the command. There was no response from the tech, thanks to Kret. “Communication to anywhere outside this room has been disabled.”

Fear filled the old bastard’s eyes, a sight that overjoyed Min. “Revk na’des,” the man cursed, “what the fuck are you doing, slave?”

Kristeer tried to push him off, but Min’s youth and strength kept him pinned uncomfortably over his own desk. He wrenched the wildly swinging arms, trapping them against the hardwood surface.

At last he was free to show his hatred openly. “Don’t bother. You made sure I was well trained.”

Momentary despair glimmered in Kristeer’s eyes before fury overtook it again. “You’re going to pay for this, boy. Release me before you make it any worse.”

Restraining him with one hand, Min removed the switchblade from his pocket, letting delight creep into his voice. “Oh but I want to. I want to make it so much worse.”

He guided the shiva knife to the man’s throat, and Kristeer squirmed beneath him, arching his neck away from it.

“Release me!” he ordered, but it left Min strangely unmoved. Now that he had Kristeer at his mercy, revenge overrode everything, even instilled obedience. He made a shallow cut along each collarbone, savoring the low whimper dragged from the old man’s throat as he realized Min was serious.

He watched the twin lines of blood drip slowly towards the open collar of his shirt. For all the power that he’d held over them all their lives, the bastard could bleed just like anyone else.

Kristeer stared up at him with rising horror, and Min smiled. “You thought I wasn’t like the others. You were wrong.”

His master’s skin paled, Min’s words sinking in.

“I raised you, boy, trained you. Does that mean nothing to you?” the man asked, appealing to a better nature Min didn’t have at the moment. He did briefly admire Kristeer’s backbone though—he wasn’t begging, despite his desperate situation. But Min would shatter that spine before he was done, among other things. He had to.

As he made another cut, Min said, “You created us for your own gain, master. Not out of any caring for us. I’m no longer a child, too blind to see through your lies.”

Kristeer’s voice rose, becoming more desperate with each word. “What lies? This is all a misunderstanding!”

His conniving master sounded so earnest, just as he always had. Min didn’t entirely blame himself for believing the caring father façade as a child. Kristeer, Master of Lies.

When he didn’t respond right away, the man added, “Let’s talk, Min. Isn’t that what you call yourself? Min?”

“So you do know our names,” Min snapped. Kristeer always using numbers or stupid nicknames of his own had been intentional then.

“Of course, Min,” his master said, confidence leaking back into him.

“Fuck you,” he replied, pressing the knife to his throat. “Say my name again and it’ll be the last word you ever utter.”

Kristeer blanched, and his mouth snapped shut.

Min glared down into his fearful eyes. Once, he would’ve given anything to hear his master say his name, but those days were long over.

“Now where do I begin?” Min mused, forcing his attention back to the present. As he spoke he slid the flat of the blade leisurely along Kristeer’s arm, drawing a tremble from the man beneath him. “You’ve told so many lies. Let’s start with the worst ones. There is no other facility. You sent my siblings to their deaths.”

Arri had discovered the truth months ago. Min, I hacked into our files. I found out what happened to them, she’d said, tears streaking her face and rage in her eyes.

“What? No, they simply needed extra correction before entering the field.” Kristeer clung to the same story he always had, since Norn had been taken away years earlier.

“Then why do they never return?” Min growled, the leash on his fury growing taut.

Sweat glistened on Kristeer’s forehead, and he swallowed before saying, “Because they finished their training. There was no need to return here.”

The ridiculous words pushed Min over the edge. “Don’t lie to me!” he yelled, plunging the knife into Kristeer’s palm. The resulting agony made the man cry out.

The faces of all his ‘missing’ siblings flashed through Min’s mind, from Norn, the first of them, to Arri, the latest. Over the years, a dozen of them—half of the original group that had survived past age five—had vanished.

“Admit the truth,” Min said, drawing the blade out slowly. “Their files show their status as ‘deactivated’, and give a reason for termination.”

Even through the pain he caught the surprise that flickered across Kristeer’s face. He hadn’t believed they’d ever find out.

He moved the knife, until it was hovering over Kristeer’s other palm. Reading his intent, his master blurted out, “Okay, it’s true! They’re gone.”

The admission gave Min only mild satisfaction. Nothing would bring Arri and the others back, but at least he could coerce honesty from Kristeer.

“Gone where? Say it,” Min snarled, the need to peel all the answers from Kristeer as vital as air now. He lowered the tip of the knife, brushing it against the man’s palm.

“They’re deactivated! Dead!” Kristeer screeched, his voice rising. He tried to slide his hand out from underneath the weapon, but Min’s grip was too firm.

Min ground the end of the blade a little harder into his skin. His eyes bored into Kristeer’s as he said one rage-filled word: “Why?”

Even while panting, his master managed a sneer, disgust in his eyes. “They were flawed. Like you. Defective.”

Enraged, Min impaled his hand, pinning it to the desk. Arri’s face shone bright in his memory. Beautiful, stubborn; she’d been those things, but not defective. Never that.

Incoherent whimpers slipped from Kristeer’s throat, and his other hand reached out desperately, attempting to pull the knife out. Min allowed him to try, but similarly injured, his hand lacked the strength required, and the struggle only caused him more agony. Tears and snot dribbled down Kristeer’s face, his helplessness all the more apparent as Min easily batted his hand away.

Always before Kristeer had been the one to hurt him and his family, and they had been forced to endure it. Now he was the one with the power, and it was a heady thing. He realized he was aroused, the rush of it affecting his body as well as his mind.

He wanted Kristeer to hurt, the way Arri, himself, and the others had been hurt over and over again. Sharra and Ten’s empty expressions, after the first time they’d been handed over to the guards, Fen’s swollen-shut eye and broken arm after one of the trainers felt he hadn’t been working hard enough, the harsh introductions to sex the trainers had given all of them—those memories flashed through his head amongst a myriad of others. So much pain, and all of it done with his master’s approval.

He drew the knife out slowly, making sure to cut the tendons in the man’s hand on the way out. A sharp cry was his reward. Putting the blade down for the moment—it wasn’t like Kristeer would be able to use his hands to grab anything ever again—he kept the man’s body pressed against the desk as his right hand reached for Kristeer’s fingers.

He looked down into his master’s grimacing face. “Shall we see how long it takes your bones to heal?”

Fresh horror made the man’s eyes widen with dawning comprehension. “No…”

“But you so enjoyed breaking mine,” Min said with forced cheerfulness, his fist surrounding the index finger. “I thought I would share the pleasure with you.”

Panicking, Kristeer struggled beneath him and finally yelled, “What do you want?!”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Min said, smiling as he broke the finger.

His master screamed, and then tried to buck him off again. This time Min stepped back, letting him tumble forward onto the floor. He didn’t give him a chance to go anywhere though, seizing the collar of the man’s shirt and dragging him around the desk. His bleeding hands left two long smears across the carpet, and the rough handling made the man whimper again.

Min looked over at Kristeer’s computer screen. He’d left his account unlocked; one less thing to ask for.

His master had curled onto his side, cradling his hands against his body. Sitting down in Kristeer’s chair, Min planted a foot on either side of him so he couldn’t move away.

As he looked through his files, Min said, “Give me the codes to your bank accounts.”

“What?” Kristeer said, shock temporarily overriding pain. “You want money?”

We won’t get far without a lot of money, idiot. Min kept the thought to himself.

Unbelievably, his master laughed then. “Money, how pedestrian. What good will that do you, slave?”

Min kicked him instead of answering. “The codes. Now.”

Of course the bastard wouldn’t just give them up. Min pushed him onto his back with his foot, looking down into the man’s mulish gaze.

“You don’t seem to realize your predicament. The question isn’t if you will live. The only choice left to you is how much you’ll suffer before you die. If you remain stubborn about this, you will beg me for death before I finish with you. Spare yourself the pain and give me what I want now.”

Despite what he’d already done to him, he could see Kristeer’s mind whirring, too stuck on denial to believe he truly meant what he said. He had to crush that denial; Kret’s hacking of Kristech’s security systems had only bought them a two hour window to escape. The lack of time pushed him to be more brutal with Kristeer.

He picked up the bloody knife from the desk, and upon seeing it the man tried to scramble away. But he was in his sixties, no match for Min’s speed.

When Min tripped him, Kristeer crashed to the floor again. “There’s no escape,” Min told him, stomping on his bad knee.

The old man howled. The bum knee was the reason he used a cane in the first place, but Min suspected the damage he’d just caused it was irreparable. Since Kristeer didn’t have more than an hour left to live though, whether he would put weight on that knee ever again wasn’t really an issue.

Watching him writhe on the floor, Min asked, “Rethinking your decision yet?”

Hate flared in the man’s watery eyes before he curled onto his side, still holding his knee. “Yes,” he said quietly, between panting breaths.

Min cocked his head, deciding he looked defeated enough to mean it. While he didn’t mind hurting Kristeer some more, he needed the man coherent enough to pass along the information he desired. Sitting down at the computer, he found a site for one of his bank accounts and demanded the access code.

At the moment of truth, the man hesitated, remaining stubbornly silent.

Min met his glare calmly. “I will pick up that cane and beat you with it.”

His master flinched, his eyes dropping away as he gave up the code. Once he divulged the first, the others came more easily. When seven balances of comfortingly large amounts had been transferred to accounts Kret and Dera had set up, he paused, looking over at Kristeer again.

“Are there any others?” It was possible he had secret accounts their investigation had missed.

When his master said no, Min caught the way his brow twitched.

“Don’t lie to me. I’ve had years to learn your tells,” he told Kristeer, planting a foot in his ribs.

The man wheezed as air returned to his lungs. “There’s another one…”

When he’d gotten the last account, Min shut down the computer. There was only one thing left, but it was crucial. “The combination to your office safe. What is it?”

Kristeer’s eyes widened, and he shook his head. Rising, Min picked up the knife again. “Give it to me, and this can all be over.”

“No,” his master growled, and Min wondered if something inside the safe inspired this sudden resistance. With the right tools and time he could open it himself—they’d taught him that—but at the moment he had neither. Their attempts to acquire the safecracking tools had accomplished nothing more than punishment for himself and Fen.

Kristeer didn’t try to move away when he approached this time. But he lost none of his newfound stubbornness, glowering up at him.

“Tell me,” Min said, forcing all uncertainty out of his voice. Without the cash inside that safe, they’d never acquire the IDs to access those accounts.

Perhaps his master had realized that too. “Fuck you.”

With grim satisfaction, Min kicked him in the balls, watching Kristeer whimper and thrash against the floor.

“Should’ve… killed you too… monster.”

“You’re the monster,” Min spat, fresh anger filling him. If his master insisted on making this difficult, then he had no qualms with complying. His thirst for vengeance was far from sated.

Pinning him to the carpet, Min cut the shirt away. The next shallow wound he made along the chest, following it as intently as the first cuts he’d made on the collarbones. There were so many ways to inflict pain; Kristeer had taught him that lesson.

He made more cuts next to the first one on Kristeer’s chest, one for each of the dead. The last he pressed in deeper than the rest; Arri would’ve appreciated that.

Sifting through his memories of other times his family had been hurt, he made the monster behind it all suffer matching agony. A cut along the back of each heel, severing the tendons there, for the day he’d beaten Sharra so hard with his cane she hadn’t been able to walk for days. More cuts along each arm for the time he’d left Ten chained up for so long that it had taken surgery and weeks of physical therapy to regain full movement of his hands.

As he made slice after slice, the thing beneath him became just a canvas, covered in red paint, the sobs and pleas just a soundtrack. He reveled in the feeling of absolute power, his body throbbing with need. After a life overshadowed by countless rules and the constant fear of punishment, for the first time, he didn’t have to repress anything; he could do whatever he wanted.

It took him a long time to remember there was a reason why he was drawing this out for maximum pain, a reason beyond the way the pattern of his cuts changed the withered flesh.

An answer. He was supposed to acquire one.

With a smile and soft words, he asked for it. A fumbling answer came a moment later. Min crooned gentle words of praise as he stroked the grey hair, soaked with sweat and blood.

Then he rose and began emptying out the safe. The files and PC he found inside along with the cash made him pause, but he dumped all of it onto the desk.

Finished, Min crouched down beside Kristeer, who whimpered at his return. The man was a mess, almost unrecognizable now, and barely conscious.

Clenching the knife in his hand, Min stared down at him. The rush of power that had consumed him earlier drained away, leaving sobering reality in its place. He had done this. Bile rose in his throat. Suddenly wanting it all to be over, he plunged the knife into the bastard’s chest.

His hand trembled as he released the weapon. For a minute all he could do was sit there, unable to shift his eyes away from the abomination he’d created.

I’m a monster, just like he said.

Stumbling away, he collided with the wall, bracing himself against it as he heaved. When he had nothing left to relinquish, he moved to the side, gasping as he leaned his back against the wall.

He gazed down at his hands, stained with blood up to his elbows. He knew there was too much blood, but he still had to check, to see if that heart still beat. Slowly he made his way back to the body, forcing himself to feel for a pulse. There was none; Kristeer really was dead. His legs gave out and he sat on the floor, uncaring of the blood soaking his pants. He wasn’t sure how long he remained there, a great hollowness inside him, unable to move away.

A touch on his arm startled him, and he turned to see Sharra beside him. A blank expression on her face, he’d no idea what she was thinking.

“Come on,” she said, tugging his arm.

He stared at her; it was better than looking at the bloody floor. His feet still couldn’t seem to move, and he saw sorrow leak into her gaze.

Sorrow for him, he realized, and for all of them.

“Min, let’s go,” she said, determination filling the amber eyes. She tried to drag him up again, but he was a dead weight, too heavy for her. Scowling, she slapped him, the pain of it shocking him out of his apathy.

He forced himself to move, but when she headed for the door he stopped her. “Wait,” he said, his voice raspy. “The money.”

A supportive arm around him, she helped him to the desk, where he’d left the safe’s contents. They used Sharra’s duffle bag to store it all and then turned to leave, stepping wide around the body. Min gave it one last involuntary look before jerking his eyes away.

As he let her pull him down the hallway, a promise echoed firmly in his heart. Never again. He’d never let it happen again.

In his surreal state, he wasn’t sure where Sharra got him new clothes from, and he barely registered the precious minutes she spent in a small bathroom with him, cleaning the blood off his skin. He followed her blindly, trusting her to do what was needed.

Just before they left the bathroom, she conferred with Kret under her breath, but Min couldn’t focus on her words. Everything seemed hazy and faraway, Sharra’s arm around him his only anchor. He let her lead him as they carefully made their way downstairs and towards the south side of the building, his legs unsteady.

As they neared the exit, Sharra suddenly pushed him towards an office door. Although confused, he followed, only belatedly identifying the sound of footsteps coming from the stairwell. They ducked into the room, but weren’t quite fast enough.

“Hey, get back out here!”

Dimly Min recognized that the voice belonged to Harding. They knew him well; he was one of the cruelest and most suspicious of the guards.

The cluttered shelves of an office surrounded them, and across the room was a half-open door, from which typing could be heard. That eliminated any chance of them disabling the guard unnoticed. Sharra cursed under her breath, kicked her bag under a table and dragged him back out into the hallway.

There stood Harding, one hand carrying a plate with cake from the retirement party, while his free hand reached for the stick at his waist. They faced him with slumped shoulders and bowed heads, striving to appear harmless.

“What are you two doing over here? You’ve no reason to be in this area.”

Min had improvised countless excuses over the years when challenged by Kristech personnel, but at the moment he might as well have been asked to sprout wings and fly.

It was left to Sharra to cover for them. “He’s not feeling well, sir,” she said, patting Min on the arm. “We went to the infirmary, but nobody was there. I guess everyone is at the party.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re in the south end of the building.”

“We ran into one of the nurses in the hallway,” Sharra told him, her words tumbling out faster. “She said she’d seen Dr. Beverson go out the south door for a smoke. We hoped to catch him on his way back, sir.”

Unconvinced, the guard frowned. “Go back to the infirmary and wait. If I see him, I’ll tell him you were looking for him.”

Sharra’s rising tension began to transmit itself to Min, breaking through his haze. They couldn’t go back; he knew without Sharra saying a word that he’d taken too long with Kristeer. The party would disperse anytime now, and there’d be even more people around preventing them from leaving. And yet they couldn’t simply overpower the man either. They were in the central corridor, which ran the length of the building from north to south. At any moment someone else could appear within view.

“Please, sir,” Min said, his voice as fragile as his mind still felt.

“We’re afraid he’ll go back to the party afterwards, and not come to the infirmary for a long while, sir,” Sharra added.

The guard scowled at them. “What’s the rush? You’re a bit pale, boy, but you can walk. Must not be too serious.”

Tongue-tied, looking pathetic was all he could manage in response.

Thankfully, Sharra’s wits were functioning. “He’s supposed to serve tonight, sir.” She hesitated before adding, “But he has these er, sores down there.”

The man stepped back from him so quickly it was almost comical. His muttered words weren’t amusing though. “Fucking whores.”

Min’s face heated. As if they’d ever had any control over who used them. Revk, Harding had fucked him just last week when he’d been given to some of the guards as punishment.

Min suspected it was this that finally convinced the man. “Fine, let’s go see if he’s out there,” Harding said.

They followed him to the end of the corridor, turning left onto the adjacent short hallway to reach the exit. The chair at the guard post was occupied, and Min studied the uniformed man from a distance. The cap of the security uniform covered Vik’s hair and was pulled down low over his eyes. It was a flimsy disguise, but hardly anyone used this back door. They’d just needed someone there, so the post wasn’t empty.

Harding frowned as he got close to Vik. “You aren’t-”

Sharra jumped him from behind, pushing the man to the floor and sending the plate flying. Grabbing the guard by the hair, she slammed his forehead into the tile beneath them. Once, twice, three times. Harding barely had time to cry out before he was knocked unconscious.

Vik came around the desk, shaking his head. “Now we have to clean up the floor,” he said, gesturing at the blood dripping from Harding’s forehead. “I would’ve choked him.”

Frozen in place, Min stared at the blood, another body taking the place of the one before him.

“Min, could you-”

Startled, he turned at the sound of his name, seeing Vik holding Harding’s arms, trying to drag him out of sight. But his brother stopped mid-motion, something in Min’s expression alarming him.

“I’ll help you,” Sharra said, reaching for Harding’s legs. As she straightened, she added, “Min, go get the bag.”

The calm, sensible order stirred Min into action. He paused at the corner, checking to see if the central corridor was clear. Far down the hallway someone in a lab coat walked several meters and then ducked into a door.

Sharra was wiping the floor with a cloth when he returned with the bag. A brief glimpse inside the nearby utility closet when she tossed the rag into it told Min where they’d stashed Harding, and the guard whose place Vik had taken.

Vik gave him one worried glance before heading for the door. “Come on, let’s go.”

Holding his hand, Sharra tugged him out the door after her. Timing their movements carefully, waiting for others to pass, they made it to the parking garage unchallenged.

The cargo van they’d agreed upon was parked on the side closest to the south exit. The back of it had no windows, which would keep them concealed from sight. Kret and Fen were inside, while the other three had already left in another van. It was Vik who drove, as he was the one still wearing the guard uniform, while the rest of them rode in the back.

They passed through the guard post at the perimeter unmolested; Vik’s uniform and badge granted them easy passage. As they’d never attempted an escape before, the guards there were lax.

Once they were clear, they stopped on a ridge above the Kristech campus. Still out of sorts, Min didn’t understand why they had halted. It was only as he saw the others looking at Fen that he remembered.

Fen was holding the remote control.

Somehow the explosion still took him by surprise. It shouldn’t have; destroying all the evidence—and as many Kristech employees as they could, to minimize the hunt for them—was part of the plan, but he was still too distracted to be fully aware of his surroundings. Still, he found the sight of the Kristech building in flames satisfying.

Geri and Fen had set charges in the labs, ensuring the genetic material didn’t survive. Between that and personally guaranteeing the two men running the company were no longer a threat, Kristech wouldn’t be able to clone others, not without starting all over again. Meanwhile Dera and Bey had placed explosives along the bearing walls and major offices, to ensure the building’s collapse.

The ground shook beneath the van at the blast’s initial rumble, and then they drove off from their prison, the only home they’d ever known. As they got farther away, he could hear some of the others talking about their next steps, the need to dye their hair and acquire fake IDs and prosthetics. For a while he let the conversation flow around him, too drained to participate.

There was another important phase to their escape plans though, important enough that the rising need to speak of it broke through his numbness. He put a hand on Sharra’s arm, shaking her. “Ten.”

Nodding, she met his gaze. “Yes, we need to get him and the others still out there. Ten needs us, Min.”

That reminder forced him to focus. Ten had been gone on a mission for a few months now; he didn’t know about them escaping. He needed to be found before whoever was left from Kristech came for him.

Kret was sitting on the other side of him. Giving Min a brief smile, he picked up the bag Min was somehow still clutching in his arms. He sorted through the money inside, counting it. “This should be enough to get some of us IDs and whatever else we need.” He squeezed Min’s shoulder, his face solemn, and Min wondered how much Sharra had told him. “You did what had to be done.”

The reassurance helped. As appalled as he was with himself, he knew he’d still make the same decision if faced with it again. Just escaping would never be enough; they needed the money to disguise themselves and to bankrupt Kristech at the same time. The authorities probably wouldn’t believe Andorians capable of such mayhem.

But today he’d learned how much evil he was capable of. Even in his outrage and grief over Arri, he’d never expected to enjoy any of it.

He was more like his sadistic monster of a ‘father’ than he’d realized.

 

Comments

[flighty-dreams.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much. Yep, Matt is the 'villain' in the sense that he's the squeaky wheel holding up the show, even if he considers himself perfectly reasonable. *grin* I enjoy exploring how people can have such different outlooks. Glad you liked him from the beginning.

Oh wow, thanks. I used it because it seemed to make sense given Min's background that he would develop uncommon ways of dealing with things. The natural desire to set certain aspects of himself aside when starting a new life could lead to such a division.

Thanks for reading, and for commenting. :-)