The Last One (young justice/robin)

38. the two months pt. 2

I'd become convinced Neretha was bluffing after what seemed like days passed. Only men in lab coats would come into the room, force feeding me to stay alive, but not enough to make me strong.

That didn't change the fact that she was running out of time. Sooner or later the mobility in my fingers would come back, and the ache in my stomach would fade. I'd be able to overpower her and whatever waited outside of these doors. 

Neretha had to know that too, because this morning the men in their lab coats returned lugging a machine of some sort with Neretha trailing behind it. 

"I really hoped it wouldn't come to this," she sighed. "I thought you might reassess your stance with the time I've given you, but the clock is running out and so is my patience."

They put the brakes down on the machine's wheels, and attached two pins to my head. Only then did I begin to understand what would happen. 

"No," I begged, writhing in my seat despite all the pain it caused. 

"This was a practice developed during the war." Neretha couldn't seem to look me in the eyes as she said it. Instead she focused on toying with the machine's wiring. "The Arcanes began experimenting on which frequencies could break Etheran spies, or reprogram them entirely."

"Please," I whimpered. It already felt like there was so little of me left, I can't let her take the rest away. 

"I have no choice, Irena. You have such a large part to play in the future of our kind, you just don't see it yet..." Her hands stilled and a solemn look appeared on her face. "We'll be like family. You'll see." 

I think I began to cry at the sound of the machine whirring to life. 

Neretha grabbed my shoulder. "It'll all be worth it, I promise."

As the shocks began to intensify, Neretha didn't speak. Then again, my first programmers weren't Etheras. They couldn't take advantage of my mind's vulnerability the way she could. 

Mustering whatever power she had left, she walked through the newly opened doors to my mind. She perused every corner of it, inserting herself into every memory I held dear. 

I could feel her smudging her fingerprint over every moment of joy I ever felt, warping her image into every tender moment. 

I felt her tinkering with the pain too. All the grief I kept locked away. The overwhelming despair that sank the pit of my stomach when I had realized Fenix and Jason were gone. The incredible loneliness that's followed me at every turn in my life. How I'll never belong anywhere and haven't from the moment I was born. 

She exploited the heartbreak too. Every night of staring at an empty left side of the bed. Years of trying to make something broken work.

Then she found the betrayal that I so carefully had ignored since she found me. The lost feeling that festered at the sight of Dick leaving me behind. Not only did she find it, but she magnified it. She turned a whisper into a chatter, which grew to a scream. And suddenly, a wound that was still fresh had begun to bleed.

Every fiber of my being she marked, until slowly, no matter how hard I tried to fight it, nothing began to make sense without her in it.

In the dark, warm arms held me tightly. They rocked me back and forth, softly humming a traditional hymn.

"It will be okay," she whispered. "I will keep you safe." 

As if my eyes were opened for the first time, I saw her staring down at me. Deep-set purple eyes, long silver hair, and a smile that made me feel so loved.