Chapter Text
She was the only one left in her containment unit when the gunshots rang out in the halls of the facility, echoing down the long winding halls burying bullets in walls or doors or bodies as they ran either too or from the firefight. The sound of frantic voices, the heavy footfalls of boots and sneakers, overturned desks and filing cabinets crashing to the floor all outside the high security locked door to the room she was left in. A cold, dark, empty cell lit only by the flickering fluorescent light of the halls and lab slithering under the cracks of the door as if it too were running from the invaders outside. She knew no one would come for her. No one was brave enough, or stupid enough, to get close enough to unhook her from the chains that kept her tethered to the floor. Muzzled and leashed like a dog, lying defeated on the cold linoleum floor of her cage, all she could do was hope that if whoever was outside those doors burned this place to the ground, the fire would find her quickly.
By this time she had given up hope of ever seeing the outside world again; something her training had taught her never to do… but you can only believe in mantras for so long, and “long” didn’t even begin to describe how long she had been here. Or maybe it did? Time had a way of slowly slipping out of your grasp, as unknowable and unreachable as the world outside when given no indication of how the world seemed to progress outside of her enclosure. With motion sensor lights in the hall, and her own cell kept during almost all hours but testing (which was done whenever one of the experimenters was feeling particularly sadistic at their leisure) time passed without paying her any mind. As if she was never there at all.
It hadn’t always been that way. In the beginning she was kept on a strict regimen, watched around the clock, tested to her limits and past them with every question they could possibly fathom putting her body and mind through. The scars lacing over her skin were proof enough of that. At first she had tried to be compliant, follow along as best she could to keep herself from any additional harm until she could try and make it out alive. For a while that was enough… until they started with the fear experiments.
The idea was that if they could eliminate fear responses from the body, when thrown into a war zone or survival scenario, she could maintain purely rational thought to achieve the best outcome, not just the one that kept her alive the longest. Conditioning through punishment, extinction of her body’s natural unreinforced responses to stimuli to eliminate the flight response from her actions. It started slow at first, typical torture techniques she was used to seeing in interrogations. It wasn’t easy to get through by any means, but they weren’t trying to break her then… just trying to figure out what made her tick. An electro shock collar was placed around her neck, turned up to a painfully high voltage that was strong enough to burn her skin. A shock would be delivered for each reaction she gave to fear inducing stimuli. Increased heart rate and blood pressure triggered it automatically, in hopes that it would train her body to not exhibit this response. She could still feel the indentation from the metal prongs when she brushed her fingers over her neck, though that technique had long been abandoned for her.
What they had not accounted for was the production of adrenaline. Without fear of retaliation from those that controlled her, the increased adrenaline only sought to make her more viscous. Over time she became too much of a risk, a liability for those considered her “handlers” as she started to lose sense of her humanity. They called her feral, a beast, a nasty spiteful creature. She was a monster of their own design, and just like Dr. Frankenstein, they abandoned their creation when she became exactly what was expected of her.
Cold. Unfeeling. Feral.
They tried everything to break her, to curb that aggression for their own will; to work with it instead of it working against them. But it had been too long, too much. She was far too distant from that sense of humanity and understanding she once had, left behind with the hordes of animal experiments. It was too dangerous to have her around human subjects, for their sake and those running the studies. She was too viscous, lashing out at anyone that came close, and too far tempting. Too enticing, too tantalizing to try and be the one to tame the beast, to break the feral animal by any means necessary. Many had tried… it all ended in bloodshed. Maybe if they had survived to tell the tale it would’ve been enough to keep the others away… but that was never an option. So she was removed all together. And as they faded away from the animal experiments in favor of human subjects, she was forgotten in the lab. Left to rot, cared for only by those still daring enough to hope they might get funding again. She wished they wouldn't come. She wished they would leave her. She wished they would kill her… that would be too easy, too good for her. She didn’t deserve that, not after what she’d done.
Not that any of this mattered now, the facility was being raided, and she would be dead soon. Whether by the hands of a soldier or the hands of a scientist, it didn’t matter. As long as it ended. Defeated, she lay her tired body against the cool steel plate floor of her cage. A sterile, lifeless prison was the only thing this cage had ever been to her before now, before it would become her grave. She pulled at the wire cage of the muzzle that stayed locked around her head, with a key long forgotten by someone who might not even be here anymore. It was a reminder of what she was, that she was no better than the dogs it was made for. Maybe it was better to be canine, if humanity was capable of this.
The dog tags around her neck had once meant something, her status as a soldier, a special operative in the top of her class. Now it reads only a simple string of numbers “31149145”. A moniker and reminder of her status here as one of many. Expendable, disposable, a lab rat and nothing more. She remembered a time where she would have been on the other side of this firefight, the one sent in to recover the information, and clear the building; not the one waiting inside for it to all be over. But that soldier was gone, or at least she felt too far away to call out to again now… her real name and life gone with the person she had been before her capture and containment here. If they wanted a ferocious animal, she was more than willing to give them exactly that. A violent, vicious thing snapping and snarling enough to give you a story to brag about to whoever on the other side. If they wanted a creature to fear, she could be that creature. It wasn’t her fault that ferality came with no loyalty to anyone but the hand that fed her… and she had been starved for far too long.
She rolled over onto her back sprawling across the steel floor, as much as she could in the enclosed space, once she realized the metal wiring on her muzzle would never allow her to lie comfortably on her stomach. She could hear the shots in the halls getting closer. It had been so long, she barely recognized the sound of military issue boots thundering down the corridors, the quick concise shots sweeping through the labs and offices.
It wasn’t until she heard the sound of the heavy metal door to her containment unit slide open. A lone soldier stood in the flickering fluorescent light of the hall now flooding into the dark room. He entered with his gun raised, taking the room in confident lengthy strides as the sight on his rifle swept through each of the empty cages, until he stopped short at the one that held her. Each one before was abandoned, save for leftover chains and harnesses, spots of blood and memories of former subjects. But hers… hers held life. Barely beating, bloodied and bruised, but life nonetheless.
The soldier's gaze fell on her face then, as he crouched in front of the bars of her cage, his rifle propped against his shoulder but aimed at the ground. He looked cautious, but not afraid. Barely hesitant, as he approached her. It was a confidence she wasn’t used to anymore, one she had learned to be afraid of... especially with a weapon involved.
She crouched in her cage, back pressed against the smooth metal bars at the rear of her enclosure. Teeth bared behind her muzzle, a feral, primal growl bubbled up in her throat as the soldier drew closer. He slung his gun over his shoulder by the strap and raised his hands in defense, a sign that he was a friend, not a foe.
Before him was a broken and brutalized girl, muzzled and chained to the ground like an animal. Though the tenacity in her snapping jaw and narrowed eyes was meant to intimidate, to frighten, to scare him away, he saw through it. Many other subjects had been freed when the raid started, either in an attempt to slow down this soldier’s team or as an act of sympathetic mercy by the few researchers who had let themselves get attached or feel guilt for their captives. That mercy had not been extended to this one. They had left her alone, deliberately abandoned to let her die in the clean sweep of the firefight.
He knelt before her, sitting back on his heels with his hands resting on the metal bars of her cage as he looked in at her. She looked savage, ready to kill. To anyone who had never known that same primal fear, that dreadful ache in their chest as they fought to keep the strength to survive another day, would fear that glint in her eyes; the way her sharp incisors snapped behind their wire prison even if they closed around nothing, as if yearning to sink into flesh and bone. But this soldier had known that fear. He had seen it and brought himself back from it. She didn’t need to be restrained, she needed to be understood.
“My name is Captain John Price,” his voice was low and calm, almost soothing as he called out to her in the back of the cage. The deep rumble of one too many cigars smoked hung heavy over his accented tone, surrounding him with the scent of smoke and gunpowder. “I’m here to get out of this shithole, what do you think about that, lass?”
She remained impassive, unmoving; a snarling growling beast backed into a corner playing into the very idea of the monster they had made her out to be. Somewhere along the way in her time here it had stopped being an accident. It stopped being just a terrified way to defend herself from attacks from those around her, and became a deliberate way to drive people away and prevent them altogether. She had heard these sweet, tender, coaxing words before. She’d fallen for them one too many times to believe it could be true. The silver tongued coos attempting to call her out of her defenses, spilling from the mouths of those who believed they were strong enough to “tame the beast”. None had succeeded… a few had gotten close, close enough to harm her body, mind, and soul. And close enough to watch helplessly, lifelessly as she soaked herself in their blood.
Her gaze lingered on the gun slung around his shoulders, hanging at his side. For one brief fleeting moment, fear seeped through through her intensely frightening façade, before she steeled herself against Price’s coaxing voice again. The shift didn’t escape him, a lifetime in the military had left him able to read even the smallest cues in people's expressions, spotting tells they sometimes didn’t even catch in themselves. He saw the way her gaze flickered between him and the rifle. In response, he offered her a comfort no one ever had before. An act of mutual trust, or mutually assured destruction. Only time would tell. She watched him intently as he moved in slow motion, his hand coming to rest again on the stock of his rifle.
She lunged then, snapping uselessly with her teeth sharp enough to tear his flesh had there not been two separate metal degrees of separation between them… until he took the strap off from around his shoulders, setting the rifle to the ground and sliding it out of his reach, far across the floor. She paused for a moment, not expecting such an active display of acceptance, an understanding of her fear behind the voracious façade.
It was only then that she began to register his features, as a whole person rather than just a threat. She met his gaze then, holding eye contact while the rifle was all but forgotten, gunshots and firefights fading into the background of her mind.
The soldier, who she now knew as John Price, was tall but not intimidatingly so. He held himself with an heir of confidence, as if he could command a room with just his presence alone. His eyes were kind, creased around the corners with clear evidence of a life spent smiling, despite the uniform he wore and the burdens it carried with it. She guessed that if she could see beneath his well kept facial hair, there would be faint smile lines there too.
As he reached forward and unlocked the door to her cage, he stayed crouched at her level. Hand outstretched it looked as if he wasn't afraid of her at all. She froze completely. She wasn’t used to that genuine expression, that soft smile and outstretched hand begging her to come back to the real world with him. Her brain nearly shut down in a panic before he spoke again, breaking her out of her racing thoughts, desperately running through every scenario possible.
“C’mon sweet girl, let me help you.”
That broke something in her. Her shoulders dropped and tears fell from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks at an increasingly rapid pace despite how desperately she tried to wipe them away. She pulled desperately at the chain around her neck and the bindings around her wrists as she sobbed. She was fighting. For the first time since she had become that beaten, broken, defeated beast she was fighting. Not with Price, not with an experimenter, not with anyone else; but she was fighting for herself. She was fighting to stay alive.
She barely noticed how close she allowed Price to get to her as she let him unclasp her from where she was restrained. She didn’t even feel the sting of pain in her wrists when they were finally free. She shuddered as he felt his hand come and rest on the top of her head, patting her choppy matted hair as he let her fall against his shoulder. A moment of comfort and compassion despite the raging fight outside the doors of the laboratory. For now they could stay here, for now they could wait. Let her adjust to the feeling of being untethered, unbound and free again, though the muzzle stayed pressed against her face. Though Price made an effort to unlock it, the clasp was very nearly rusted shut. He had attempted to cut the straps, but re-sheathed his knife as she saw the fear flood back into her body. She knew he would let him help, when she was ready.
After a moment of silence, the room filled only with the sounds of her sobs and sniffles as she tried desperately to collect herself, she finally sat up and looked at Price. It was only then that she recognized the look in his eyes. It wasn’t aggression, it wasn’t confidence, or cockiness, or the pitiful glare she was so accustomed to falling upon her. It was protection. It was a warm, all enveloping look of a desire to keep her safe, to guard her from everything that she would face from then on, since he hadn’t been there to prevent what came before. It had been a long time since she had seen that kind of look… and yet any trace of it she had held close to her chest before was nothing as intense as this.
His fingertips brushed against the dog-tags around her neck. She watched the way he turned them over in his hand, mouthing the numbers that labeled her as if he was trying to memorize it. It wasn't until he read her real tag, her military tag that had been strung along with her experimental identifier. Two titles pulling her in two separate directions, a number in both systems and nothing more. She didn’t know which one she belonged to now… she didn’t know where to go. She was likely already pronounced dead, MIA at least. No one was waiting for her to come home.
Price let the tags fall through his fingers, back around her neck, before he pressed the button on his comms, speaking into his mic to whoever was listening on the other side as if he could hear her internal monologue.
“Gaz, this is Bravo Six, call a medical evac in to bring us back to base. I’ve secured intel that’s coming back with us.”
“Copy that, Captain. Meet you at the rally point” A voice crackled back through the speaker clipped to his vest as Price rested his hand on the top of her head.
“Welcome back soldier.”
Price said with a smile, ruffling her hair before scooping her up in his arms and carrying her through the doors of the lab, not trusting her legs to take her through the building as quickly as they needed in the state she was in. As much as she wanted to fight it, the closeness of this stranger, the way he held her and patted her head as if welcoming back an old friend or a small child… she couldn’t find a reason to pull away. She couldn’t bring herself to threaten him or snap at him… not at the hand that finally fed her.
The look in her eyes shifted then, as he gazed down at her softly, supporting her body underneath the crook of her legs and arms. No longer frightful and brutish, she was only able to reflect loyalty back to him. She smiled then, for the first time that she could remember in so long, tears spilling her eyes again as she tried to ignore the broken sobs rising in her heaving chest. Resting her forehead against his shoulder, she clung to him like he would slip away, like he would disappear if she didn't hold on hard enough, until the wind from the helicopter whipping around her hair shook her from her thoughts and she looked up to see the medical evac, with a young enthusiastic shoulder waving them over.
“Good to see you made it out alive again Captain,” he said with a playful grin “And I see you’ve managed to pick up a stray."
“Get your arse in that helicopter, Gaz. We’ve got a lot to talk about back at base.”