dot.

35: Bite Marks, Failure and a Mother

"What the hell have you done here?!"

  Nimue half-yelled, half-whispered at Digorn as he stood in front of her with his hands on his hips, showing no sign that her furious words affected him in any way.

  Tiro was sleeping soundly in the next room, collapsed on the bed, wearing a shirt for the first time in days and having the best sleep of his life. After a week of having to make do with a misshapen pile of leaves for a mattress, this proper bed was a godsend.

  The boss took his hand up to Nimue's face and cupped her cheek, only to be smacked away at once. "Don't touch me! Answer me! Why did you do all this to Tiro?!"

  He frowned and grabbed her face this time, pulling her towards him possessively with a strength she was not able to match. "I'll do what I want to either of you." He said coolly, and let her go.

  She wanted to hit him, punch him, to make him hurt: but in the moment, all she could manage to do was flee the scene. Nimue ran from the room and jumped into the bed with Tiro, forgetting to lock the door behind her.

  Holding the sleeping man tight, she wrapped herself around him and backed up against the wall so that he was like a barrier between her and Digorn.

  The door handle turned, clicked, and then swung open. She dared not look up, because she knew what she would see. A sight all too familiar.

  He grabbed her hair and dragged her upwards, waking Tiro up in the struggle as she thrashed around and kicked out at him.

  "What's going on- hey, get off!" He jumped up from the bed and tried to punch the boss, only to miss and fail in his mission.

  He was not disheartened, however, and ran at the man again, biting him as hard as he could when his attempt to punch him in his stupid smug face failed once more.

  Digorn howled and smacked Tiro off of him, letting go of Nimue in favour of throwing the man against the wall and kicking him in the ribs.

  Nimue picked up the chair that sat by a nearby desk and hit Digorn with it, snatching Tiro up and making a break for it, taking him with her.

  They didn't get far, however, as Crita tripped them up as they ran and jumped on top of them, pinning them down underneath her.

  "Thank you, Crita." Digorn finally caught up to the troublesome pair and grabbed Nimue, holding her arms tight behind her back so she couldn't escape while Crita held Tiro in an identical fashion.

  "If I can't trust you not to run," Digorn spat, twisting Nimue's wrists so she cried out, "Then I am going to have to force you to stay."

  And with that, he unlocked the door to Dot's room and threw both doctors inside, locking it before either had a chance to run out and walking off with Crita while they banged on the door behind him.

  "I think that was a very good decision, sir. They're not trustworthy enough to let them run about the lab as they please."

  "Quite right. As much as I would like to keep Nimue out, for my own enjoyment..." He peered back at the sealed door and licked his lips, "It's simply not practical."

...

  "What are you two doing back here? I thought you had gone to go be in charge again." Felix spoke with a voice laced in spite, especially whenever he looked at Nimue. The woman was giving the door a weak kick every few seconds, head hung in misery as she slowly came to realise that they were stuck here for good.

  Tiro had already given up on slamming against the door and had slumped down against the wall next to her, staring off into space. "Digorn got annoyed with Nimue, then hurt her, so I attacked him, and he got annoyed at both of us, and then," he gestured to the room around them, "We ended up here." He scratched at the still swollen lumps on his arm from the injections he had been given the other day, making them look even more irritated and sore.

  "Don't do that, you'll get an infection." Nimue gave up on kicking the door too and sat down next to Tiro, sliding her head onto his shoulder.

  "We don't want you here anymore than you guys want to be here." Felix said very matter-of-factly, making it clear that the miserable pair was not welcome to stay with them. Dot was hiding behind his legs, and it hurt Nimue to see how he avoided her line of sight in particular.

  "There's not much we can do about that." She muttered, and took Tiro's hand in her own.

  "Well yeah, but..." Felix struggled to form a sentence in response, and so eventually just settled on another, quieter, "Yeah."

  He picked Dot up and took him to the other side of the room, as far away from the others as possible. There, they picked at the grass and talked about family, about love and who was waiting for them outside the lab.

  Nimue felt a pang of guilt stab her as she remembered how she had told Felix's family that he was dead, wincing as she thought about how the man who had picked up the phone- presumably his father- had sobbed and sobbed as she spoke, barely able to finish a complete sentence in his utter shock and grief at the awful news. From how he spoke of his family now, it was clear they loved each other dearly.

  There was a time when Nimue believed she could have a family like that too: one that cared for and loved each other, where no one got hurt and the arguments were over petty things like homework or messy rooms.

  But as she looked at Dot, as far away from her as he could get, she knew that was no longer possible.

  Then the topic of conversation moved on to a touchier one- Dot's family. Felix spoke about how he could be the dad, and how he'd have to try and up his romance game to find him a mum.

  They kept talking about what his mum would be like, how she would be kind, and loving, and never hurt anyone- each word stabbed into Nimue like barbed daggers until she couldn't bear it anymore.

  "You still don't get it, do you? I'm your mother. There's nothing out there for you. Stop dreaming."