The Guadeloupe Squadeloupe

Chapter XXXXV: Janis

"But if you close you eyes, does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all?"- Pompeii // Bastille

"Bob!" I accidentally scream. Hopefully henchmen don't hear us and come to get us.

But his voice is so mangled. He's in pain, so much pain.

Tears flow down my face and I raise my pistol, the one that killed Diana. Who's to blame for Bob's strife that I can shoot?

"It's alright, Janis," Ashton assures me in a calm tone, the way he always does. "If he's over the intercom he must be in the control room and I know how to get there."

"Le-lead the way," I choke.

In a second he's got us turned around and we sprint in the opposite direction, even faster this time.

It's terrible, because as we run, the screams don't stop. I just keep jogging. It's like conditioning in tennis practice, I try to convince myself. But I can't. I've never had to run while listening to the horrible sounds of Bob's suffering.

About 5 minutes into sprinting it gets worse: he tries to speak.

I subdue my own heaves and pants to listen. "Janis! Don't come any more! I'll be fine! Just remember that I-" A second later his screams get even worse. "AAAAAARRRGHHHH!" HEXA obviously isn't wanting him to pass any information onto us.

This only makes me cry harder and after that his screams grow continually worse. I only listen as he moans in pain and sobs loudly. "P-ple-" he pleads before howling even louder.

Alice jogs by my side, keeping Perry in her sight and tries to comfort the best she can when we're running down a hallway.

"It's going to be alright."

"You don't know that."

"I don't. I just think it will be alright."

My sister isn't the greatest at comforting people.

On our way to the control room we only run into one guard. Kicking him in the shin he falls to the ground and Ashton lets me shoot him. I've stopped feeling bad about it by now.

No less than 5 minutes after that we arrive.

The control room looks how you would expect a control room would: computer screens and buttons everywhere. But the rest of it I wouldn't have expected to be in a control room a couple weeks ago.

Two HEXA guards sit on either side of where he sits in his chair, writhing in pain, moaning, grunting, and cursing. I remember what he told me on our date in Guaybitos: HEXA used to pour scalding water on him and then ice to see how his skin reacted under the aging serum.

They're going along these same lines now. He's wearing only a pair of gray sweat pants and no shirt. His feet are submerged into a pot of almost boiling water. I watch as every time he tries to pull them out he's prodded by the guards with sticks of red hot iron. Each prod makes him howl and wince and shove his feet back in the scalding in the water. Marks on his chest tell me this has been going on for a while. And since I've never seen him shirtless before, I notice other marks and nasty gashes that I know aren't from tonight.

I notice all this in the seconds before I shoot both of the surprised guards to the ground. I believe they expected us to arrive, but not with weapons. Thank goodness we had Ashton to find the armory.

"J-Janis," he sobs. I've never seen him cry before and I never expected him to, but right now his face resembles a small child. Large, actual tears fall from his eyes that crystalize with their presence. His lip quivers.