FicWad

With that, she left. At the next door, she took a breath, gestured for the same guard to follow her, and entered the airlock. When the first door closed behind them and the second opened, she almost had to cover her ears. The room had been sound proofed, but once she got inside, she found that music was blasting loud enough from the speakers in the far right corner that it made her ears hurt.

The boy in the room - Vex, she remembered - was doing push-ups with his feet on his bed, his hands on the ground. She stayed there for a minute or so after the door closed and watched silently. From the labored breathing and beads of sweat she could see, she could tell he had been at it for a while, but he showed no signs of stopping and continued exercising steadily.

After nearly five minutes, he finally got to his feet. He saw the stares the two others in the room were giving him, but continued with his routine anyway. After a minute or two of stretching, he had finally wound down from his exercise and stopped. Walking over to the stereo, he turned it down to a more manageable sound level and turned to look at Natalie questioningly.

She held a hand out towards the bathroom door. "Cool down first?"

He nodded, took a change of clothes from his dresser and went into the bathroom. She sat down at the table while her guard stayed at the door. Five minutes later, Vex came back out of the bathroom, shaking water from his still damp hair.

He walked over and sat down at the table. "What are we doing?" He asked without preamble.

Definitely not as well-mannered as . . . Blight. Natalie thought. "Just a few basic tests. Nothing very extensive. I won't be drawing blood until tomorrow."

He made a face that was somewhere between disgust and nervous anticipation. "Ugh. Needles."

She smiled a little as she stood. "Don't worry. You'll barely feel a thing. I promise."

He looked away, expression still a little sour. "I don't like promises." He mumbled under his breath, "No one ever keeps them."

She decided not to comment and started right in with the examination. Nothing was out of the ordinary with Vex. They didn't say much to each other throughout. When she offered a goodbye, he only nodded and went back to his stereo to turn the volume up once more. She left quickly.

At the next airlock, she motioned for two guards to follow her in. The third stayed outside. Thinking back on Blight's warnings, she knocked before opening the second door. Once inside, she was surprised at what she saw. This one - Havoc - had been described as having a sweet tooth, eating candy and junk food almost all the time. But now, he was watching a movie while lying out on the floor with his feet on the bed, a bowl of fruit sitting near his right hand. He was eating an orange. It seemed . . . out of place.

Fighting off new levels of confusion, she walked calmly closer to where he was lying, stopping a few feet away. "You've been informed of my visit, yes?"

He turned his head away from the television and looked at her, uninterested. "If not, I wouldn't be surprised, anyway." He looked back at the movie a little huffily. "You people are allowed to barge into our rooms whenever you want. Cameras everywhere." He sat up, sliding his legs off the bed at the same time. "We're just lab rats. What does it matter to you?"

"From a medical perspective, I care about your health. Are you going to get up or am I going to have to come down to your level?"

He stayed sitting where he was.

Holding back the urge to sigh, Natalie kneeled next to him, then sat on her knees and started to open her bag. Havoc moved and she flinched away, but everything happened too fast for her to react. He shifted onto his knees, grabbed her arm, pulled her towards him, and just as fast was gone. The guards that had been hovering nearby moved nearly as quickly as he did and picked him up by his arms, slamming him onto his bed face down.

Havoc only laughed. "You're too easy."

Hands shaking, Natalie quickly checked where his mouth had just been. On her right shoulder, there were two holes in her jacket and shirt. She suspected that there was a matching pair on the back of her shoulder too, but she breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that his fangs hadn't broken skin.

He was still grinning maliciously when she stood up, not struggling against the guards' strong grips. "Did I scare you?"

Keeping her expression carefully neutral though her heart beat hard against her chest, Natalie stood up. "Let him up."

Warily, the guards released him, staying close by, just in case. Natalie sat next to Havoc as he sat up, reminding herself over and over that he hadn't tried to kill her. If he had been trying, she would have been dead already.

"Your brother, Solace," She said as she listened to his heart and lungs, "Seems like a good kid. I saw the puzzle on his floor." She smiled a little, "I know I wouldn't have been able to do that so fast."

"None of you can." Havoc said, sounding bitter, but less predatory than before. "He's probably got a higher IQ than any of you. Not that you would care."

"Deep breath. I do care. And I believe you. He probably is smarter than us. Exhale. You know, there's a nice grassy area fenced in on the north side of the complex, not far from Blight's greenhouse. . . You think Solace would like going there?"

Havoc thought about it as she took his blood pressure, oblivious to what she was doing. "He would love that. . ." His voice was distant. "He doesn't get to go outside much. . . He likes to walk barefoot in the grass. . ."

She let him continue, asking occasional questions throughout the procedure. But Blight hadn't been lying to her. Havoc stayed calm and distracted the whole time, following her directions as she kept the conversation aimed at Solace. It reassured and frightened her at the same time. She knew that she could trust Blight's advice about Havoc, but that also meant that he had been telling the truth about Chaos, too. She would have to be careful. Most likely, her life depended on it.