Aberration | Bucky Barnes

xviii. torment

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Eloise was cold; maybe even colder than she'd ever been before. She sat curled up in the corner of her room, though it was starting to feel more like a cage than a living space. She shook uncontrollably as tears spilled silently from her eyes. She hurt everywhere, not an inch of her mind or body escaping from her last incident unscathed. 

The long, thin cuts from the shattering glass had stopped spilling her blood long ago, but they still stung with a raging fury. Her heart burned inside the hollows of her chest, but it was nothing compared to the fire raging on inside her head. Her mind was being torn apart piece by piece. She felt like she was losing her mind, and it only got worse.

She had her head buried in her hands, as if trying to hold it together. Her cold palms felt like frozen fire on the skin of her cheeks, but she made no effort to move them. She thought she would stay there, already completely broken but somehow still falling apart until more Hydra agents broke through the door and implemented their last resort measures, but even after what felt like hours passed and she ran out of tears to cry, no one showed up.   

"Are you really just going to sit there and wait for them to come back and torture you some more?" 

Eloise's head shot up instantly, her eyes filled with frantic desperation and crushing confusion. She recognized the voice that had just spoken, and she knew who it belonged to. She knew her senses had to be lying to her, that she was likely so utterly distraught that her mind had finally snapped for good, but she chose to ignore all common sense she had in favor of drinking in the wonderful sight before her. 

His broad shoulders and tall frame seemed larger than life from her spot on the floor. His short hair curled in a soft tousle at the top of his head, and his beautiful blue eyes were just as entrancing as she remembered.

She couldn't seem to bring herself to speak, so he continued. "Are you just going to let them ruin you even more than they already have?"

"They didn't ruin me, they fixed me." She didn't know where the words had come from, but the minute she said them, she realized they were true.

His expression hardened and he slid down the wall so he was sitting at eye level across from her. "You can't possibly think that."

She furrowed her brows, glancing away from him and down towards her own hands. She hadn't ever noticed it before, but after decimating her reconditioning room, it had become impossible to ignore the power swirling around inside her. Just under the thin skin of her once impossibly frail body was unimaginable power, just waiting for her to tap into it and see the extent of the gifts that had been granted to her. She looked back to him, a new found clarity apparent on her face.

"Yes, I think I do. Before they found me I was weak; dying. Now . . . well now I am something different; something better."

"Have you looked at yourself recently? You look pretty much the exact opposite of better. You look like you've been through hell, and I know for a fact that you have."

"You're right, but my hell began long before the dark room. I've been trudging through for years, the only difference is that now I'm strong enough to bear through it."

He raised his eyebrows, refusing to believe what she was saying. "You were always strong enough to bear through it, all that's changed now is the source of your strength. You used to fill your heart with love, now it is filled with with something else. It's in your mind as well, and it's clouding your judgment."

"My judgment isn't clouded. I can see things more clearly now than I ever could before."

He hung his head and ran his fingers through his hair like her words caused him physical pain and he was trying to shake it off of him, but he didn't relent. "You're not thinking straight. You're so drunk, so high on the power they forced into you that you don't realize how crazy you sound."

Eloise frowned, eyes falling back to her trembling hands. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

He smiled, the same heart-wrenching beautiful one that had stolen her heart, but his eyes were tormented; burdened with emotions he couldn't let show. "You know that's not true. You never would've even dreamed of killing anyone before that serum infected you. It's a disease; a virus. If you don't fight it, it'll eat you alive."

"Maybe I want to be consumed. I already told you, I'm tired of getting hurt. If staying the way I am, the way I've always been, is what is destroying me, then maybe I have to change."

His face fell, she could see that she was tearing him apart, and it would've broken her heart if it hadn't already been shattered like the glass in the room she'd blown to hell. 

"Do you really think it will be better this way? That it's better to give up then to keep fighting?"

"That's the thing," Eloise cried, "I've been fighting! For years I've been trying to hold a crushing weight over my head, I'm ready to let it fall now."

His voice was hoarse when he spoke next, tears glistening in his iridescent eyes which had turned a violent, stormy grey. "You never had to hold that weight alone, Elle. Your friends were always there for you."

"WELL WHERE ARE THEY NOW?" She shouted, all the anger she'd tried to keep at bay finally spilling out of her in a catastrophic eruption. "They said they would always be there for me, but I've been alone for months. I can't rely on them anymore, I can't be dependent on anyone. The only thing I have now is myself; just me and this power coursing through me."

"They didn't abandon you. They would never leave you. These men that 'fixed' you are the ones that tore you away from your friends. They tore you away from everything and doomed you to this cold, dark, lonely life."

Eloise cocked her head to the side; considering his words, but he wasn't done talking. 

"You keep talking about the power you have now, and we both know you have enough in a single fingertip to blow this door off it's hinges and walk out right out of here, so why don't you?"

Her eyes shot up to him and she clenched her fists. "I have a job to do. I have to stop the war before my friends die because of it, if they haven't already. I have to do this for them, so even if I can't be with them they can at least still be with each other. I can't run away from my destiny."

"It's not your destiny, it's just another manipulation. Why can't you see that? You're turning into the same kind of monster you used to be afraid of."

"I think it's time for you to go." She said firmly. "I'm right where I need to be, and you're not going to change your mind."

He shook his head, clearly upset that she still wasn't getting it. "I am your mind, Eloise. I'm saying everything you don't want to admit you're thinking."

"Well then I'm done thinking it." She raised her hand and narrowed her eyes so they were focused on the tips of her fingers. She felt the same powerful tug that had torn through her earlier, but this time she was controlling it instead of it controlling her. Her palm grew so cold she thought it might break off, but she didn't stop. Soon a faint blue glow was emanating from her hand and she smiled triumphantly, unaware that she same gleeful hatred she had always despised seeing on the German's faces was present on hers. 

"You're not him. You're not really here." She said quietly as a concentrated burst of energy shot from her palm and rocketed into his chest. He gazed at her in horror before he began to melt away. The image her tormented mind had projected into the air dissipated and she sighed in relief, ignoring the pain that had erupted in her chest at the sight of him fading away. She knew what she had to do and she wasn't scared of it anymore.

Eloise Lancaster was finally ready to comply.