Loki Laufeyson - The Experiment {1}

Chapter Forty Five - Trapped

I was pulled back free out of the ash, from a memory or nightmare I couldn't tell anymore. My fire was bubbling back up inside me and it was trying desperately to break free from inside me. But the bracelets on my arms and the bands holding me down to the table kept it bubbling in my stomach and in my veins.

"There is no denying it." Strucker's voice dragged me back, my whole body trembling as I gasped. "That was you. No one else can burn people like that."

"I'm not a monster!" I tried to yell at him, but my voice cracked and I choked on a sob. The fire lept in my stomach and for a brief second, my vision flickered to orange. It was gone in an instant, but I still saw the curiosity in his eyes. A sharp stabbing pain went through my stomach and I let out a pained cry, straining against the bands, feeling the bone in my broken left wrist shift.

"We'll break you in again soon enough." Strucker shrugged, handing the controller back over to Zola, who handed him another needle full of the pale blue liquid. Strucker didn't hesitate and jabbed it straight into my arm, the bone in my wrist snapping back together with a painful sound. I cried out and the fire in my veins rippled again, breaking through in some parts.

Suddenly, the bands around my neck, wrists and ankles loosened and I immediately bolted upright, only to tip to the side and fall straight off the metal table and onto a cold hard tiled floor.

"We can't have you burning yourself inside out, can we?" Strucker smirked, only his boots visible from where I had collapsed on the ground. "Get some rest, you'll go through testing in the morning."

I looked up at him weakly and saw him looking down at me with a smirk. He swung his foot out and it connected with the side of my face, pain flaring along my jaw as blood filled my mouth. I rolled onto my back and winced as I looked into the bright lights again. I struggled to sit back up, spitting out blood onto the floor as Strucker stalked out of the room.

People dressed in the awfully familiar white Lab coats from my testing swarmed the room and picked me up and dragged me towards the door. Zola stepped in front and the Lab coats dragged me out of the room and into a white hallway. Everything was hazy and my whole body was throbbing. The bracelets had slid down my arms and my clothes became splattered with more blood as my mouth continued to bleed. The Lab coats continued to follow Zola, who took several turned until we reached an elevator. Zola stepped inside and the Lab coats dragged me in after him, my vision becoming more blurry as the pain from my jaw worked its way up to my head.

When the elevator doors opened up again, the colour of the walls had changed from white to dark grey and black. Zola stepped out and the Lab coats dragged me after him. The walls around us were no longer walls, but rather cells that reeked. Most of them were empty, bar one or two that had people inside that looked like they about to die any day now.

Zola opened up an empty cell and the Lab coats threw me inside, my still shivering and trembling body tumbling to the floor as more pain flared through me. I whimpered and slowly tried to rise up, but my arms buckled under me and I fell back to the dirty floor, narrowly missing hitting my bruised jaw. The Lab coats slammed the door shut and Zola locked it before they walked away and disappeared around a corner.

Suddenly, something stirred in the cell next to me and I looked over sharply to see a figure sitting in the corner of it, their face hidden by shadow. All I could see was a pair of legs clothed in black cargo pants, a pair of steel-capped black boots and two hands, one metal and one flesh.

"Bucky?" I whispered, my voice cracking. He didn't reply, the only side he heard me was the clicking of his metal arm. "Bucky, it's me, Emily." He still didn't say anything, though he shifted slightly in the shadow. I tried to sit up but my arm gave way from underneath me and I tumbled back to the ground, my whole body protesting about any movement. I gave up and just lay there, fighting back unconsciousness as I wiped away the blood trickling out of the corner of my mouth with a shaky hand.

"Buck, please." I whispered to him as I looked up at the ceiling of the cell, hoping he would recognize Steve's nickname. "You have to help us get out of here. Terrible things are going to happen to me if I stay here. To us." Yet again, he didn't respond.

"Don't bother trying to talk to him." Came a voice and I slowly looked over through the cell bars to see Strucker approaching me. "I forgot this before." He held up the little silver controller with a smirk and fear filled me. "Can't have you thinking about questioning us."

He placed it down on the ground in front of my cell and put a small weight over the top of it, the last thing I saw before I was thrown back into nightmares.