Guardian

Chapter 3

1053.

Still bruised and bloodied from the last time they had taken her out of the cell, Liv allowed the guards to guide her to her punishment. She had turned numb, her gifts that had once been praised were now condemned as a curse to humankind. She had one mission and she had failed, she knew that she deserved to be punished. But she could not help but notice that her captors has shifted from punishing her justly for her crime to finding a sadistic pleasure in it.

They pushed her into a room that smelt sickly of her blood, strapping one of her fingers to ceiling so that she was hanging solely from her thumb. Beneath her they lit a fire, the hungry flames threatening to lap up her skin until she was burnt to crisp. Pain tore through her arm and she winced at the warmth below her, but no sound left her lips.

But even if she had wanted to, only whimpers could have escaped as any possibility to cry out was thwarted by the threads holding her lips shut. They would be removed in a few more days so that she could eat and then sown back together, a process that had been repeated for months now.

She hung for hours, trying to keep her mind from drifting into terror. If she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, she could find an inner peace that would keep her from thrashing about and thus prevent the flames from consuming her. But hovering just a few centimeters above, her body tightly bound together with rope so that she could not break her fall should the rope holding her body break, she was safe from the savage flames.

-

(Loki's POV):
The pain began to fade away as my eyes closed, feeling far too leaden to keep open. Part of me still wanted to resist, but I soon discovered a blissful ignorance of the pain that I was in. It wasn't just an escape from the physical pain of all of my injuries, but the cumulative internal pain from life as well.

I don't believe I ever felt so liberated before in my life, and certainly not since falling into the hands of Thanos. It made me wonder if seeking medical attention really was worth it, death suddenly did not seem all that intimidating. But perhaps this woman would still fail in saving my life, she was just a veterinarian after all.

Why I had chosen her still made me curious. Of course I knew she was a veterinarian and that indicated that she would help me in my cat form. But beyond that, I hadn't seen anything in her mind that would indicate her being special. But that was the very thing. There wasn't much in her mind that I could access. How was it that I could only read a few superficial things about her, like her name, but fail to penetrate any further?

The pain came flooding back a moment later and my eyes fluttered open to find this woman, Olivia, crouching over me, our faces mere inches from each other. The eyes that I had first assumed were blue were now clearly a stormy grey, filled with a look that almost appeared to be concern. The sudden return of everything threatened to bring tears, but I clenched my jaw as I tried to keep those emotions hidden from my face.

I raised my eyebrow at Olivia and inquired, "May I ask what exactly you are doing?"

She climbed off of me as she muttered, "Saving your life, douchebag. But don't worry, I've been in your presence long enough to know better than expect thanks."

I watched her silently as she began to clean up everything she had used to save me, finding it curious that she seemed to trust me enough to turn her back to me. She knew that I was back in Midgard and could easily alert the Avengers to my presence. Shouldn't I kill her to keep her silent? Even if I left now, which I feared my body would not agree with, she could still get the Avengers to kill me before I made it out of the apartment complex.