not knowing where the words are coming from. I was planning on lording my triumph over this weak human, of breaking her for my satisfaction. But she’s already been broken, horribly and completely.
“I’m going to pick you up and take you to the medical bay. You’re hurt, and I want to make you better.”
She nods a little, and I do as I said I would, scooping her up from the cold unfeeling floor of the container. She’s even lighter than I thought she would be.
The feeling of the human in my arms is strange and warm. It’s a warmth which goes all the way into my chest and fills it with the weirdest sensation I have ever felt, warmth which grows when she makes a small sound and curls up into me. She trusts me. She shouldn’t.
“What is your name?” The question emerges from her.
“Scizzor,” I tell her.
“I’m Eleven.”
“I thought your name was Ella?”
“I was eleventh in my section. They called me Eleven.”
Eleven is close enough to Ella. Her name hardly matters. What matters is that she is in my possession, and under my control.
“Hermes, you have room for a patient?” I stick my head into the medical bay where the doctor is lurking as usual. I don’t know what he does most of the time. We hardly ever need medical attention ourselves, but he certainly seems to enjoy it. Vague medical things, I suppose.
“Always,” he says.
“The human needs medical attention. She’s been…” I don’t know how to finish the sentence. Beaten. Neglected. Abused.
There’s rage forming where the heat used to be. I am not supposed to care about this human thing. She's supposed to be a pawn in my plan.
I set her down on the bed, and Hermes starts working on her, gently and carefully. I should leave her to her own devices, and return to the bridge. I have to make sure we are still secure.
“Don’t go, Scizzor,” she says when I make a motion to get up. “Please.”
I turn back to look at her, and feel my breath hitch in my throat. She is beautiful. I thought she would have dark eyes like her mother, but she has two piercing blue eyes, like rare jewels, set in a wide, and frightened face. I had begun to unravel the moment I first saw her. At this second glance, I come completely undone.
"Why do you want me to stay?”
“You’re my owner. Owners always stay with their pets.”
Hermes glances over at me, and shakes his head. This is not going as I planned. But life rarely plays out as planned. This girl looks at me with those big dark eyes, and I can’t leave her side.
“Got you wrapped around her little finger already,” Hermes murmurs.
“Just because I’m taking care of her basic needs doesn’t mean I’m wrapped around anything,” I growl.
But I don’t go. I stay. I sit by her bedside and I hold her hand and I give her the last thing I ever thought I would give a human — comfort.
Soon enough, her eyes begin to close. She tries to fight the impulse to sleep, but she can’t. Watching her struggle with the most basic of human drives gives me that feeling again, that warm, uncommon flush of heat through my chest.
“She’s sweet, isn’t she?”
Hermes murmurs the words when Ella drifts off to sleep. She is exhausted, poor thing. She is also sweet. And fragile. She is everything her mother is not, and I no longer think I can take the sins of the mother out on the daughter.
“She’s brainwashed,” I say out loud, keeping all my softer thoughts inside.
“Aren’t we all,” Hermes shrugs.
“Not like she is. They’ve made her believe she is a pet. Most humans fight that designation. They try to prove that they are not less than us, that they do not need our protection.”
“Maybe those are the humans who have washed their brains,” Hermes replies. “Maybe this one knows where she belongs.”
He is giving me one of those smiling, smirking expressions which I do not care for. He knows as well as I do that my plan is unravelling. This is what happens when one engages with humans. They are messy little creatures, and things never go as planned when they are involved.
Perfect Oblivion
Silver
“I want my baby back, Warden.”
I’m whimpering in a fashion even I find pathetic, but I can’t help myself. To have had my hopes raised so high only to have them completely dashed has broken me all over again. I feel