Refracted

- - 3 - -

I kept my eyes shut so they wouldn't know I was conscious.
My heart was hammering and I felt myself building up to a full-blown panic attack.
Close to exploding, I forced my chest to continue easy, even breaths until I was sure that I was turning blue.

"What do we do with her?"
A cautious voice was the first to seem to speak after a long pause. I thought it was a guy but his timid tone didn't seem to match his low voice.
"Well, do we think she is a threat?"
A girl's voice replied this time. She seemed more confident but I could tell this was a situation that neither of them had expected.

Slowly, I opened my eyes just a crack and tried to make out the figures through my blurry tears. Luckily, both people were angled just away from me, caught up in their frantic discussion, and there didn't appear to be anyone else around.

I dared to open my eyes just a little bit more and scoured the area for any ways of escape. Just a little bit to my left, there was an alleyway that where a building had partly collapsed. Perfect. I recognised the alley as the one I used to get back to the facility on my previous escape attempts and the debris from the building would provide suitable cover if the people had guns.

Carefully, I edged out of the cover I was in and it only just occurred to me that I was pretty concealed. How did they find me?

My blood ran cold at the thought of somebody even higher up in the hierarchy than the VISORS trying to pursue me. All of a sudden, my knees felt weak and I wasn't sure I could do this.

"No. You have to."

I thought of everything that those awful people had done to me and it fuelled me with a fury the likes of which I had never even come close to experiencing before.

1... 2... 3...

Without hesitation, I fled out of the cover and headed towards the exit.

But then the world tipped sideways and I was flat on my stomach.
I blew it.
They had me.

Something sharp was being forced into my back and it was agonising. I screamed and cried and howled but the gun only pressed into my back further as my worst fears were confirmed.

"Shut up."
His voice came out a whisper, nothing like the timid one before when asking his superior what to do with me, but it terrified me even more than if he had shouted. It was the way the carers at the facility spoke to us, constantly sparking with anger and silent ferocity: the voices my nightmares were filled with. Evidently, they had now made their decision.

My voice cut off and not just because he was crushing my windpipe.

The girl peered in front of my face, her face filled with malice.

"Quite the screamer aren't ya?"
"Did we finally get one?" they guy asked but his voice was now more curious after I shut up.
"I can't see," the girl replied, "stand her up."

Then I was upright once again and my head was spinning as oxygen flooded my brain. I felt queasy and nauseous. Darkness was crowding my vision at the edges, threatening to consume me.

"No. We didn't get one." The girl's voice was filled with disappointment and when I finally saw her face, I noticed she was probably only seventeen. I imagined that must be something close to my age now; we didn't keep track of such trivial things like birthdays at the facility.

"Who is she then?" The guy inquired, suddenly furious again.
"How on Terra does she keep up with your mood swings?" I whispered, instantly regretting it and waiting for his exceptionally large hand to collide with my throat again.