Yuri's team bought it when they thought Anya believed her uncle had come to rescue her. Not as an SSS agent, but just a regular person. That it was a coincidence the secret police were there too. It made sense to them someone so young would believe that. Children could be pretty gullible.
Yuri kept her by his side the whole time, Loid's glare still fresh in his mind. He wouldn't have let her out of his sight, either way, but now he was paranoid.
With Anya there, he couldn't work like usual without the others catching on that Anya knew, anyway. But they had gotten everything under control, so it didn't really matter.
The problem were the children.
They had found a dozen of them throughout the lab. Not including the dead ones.
Social workers and ambulances were called in for them. Paramedics taking the four who needed immediate attention first. Sedating them, unable to calm their hysteria. Driven off to the hospital. The other eight stricken, as they watched them do this.
There were a couple more ambulances that would have taken them as well, but the kids refused to go anywhere near them of their own accord. They had learned long ago to be wary of adults. The social workers had a hard time just convincing them to go into town with them.
Anya had gone with her uncle, traveling in an SSS van where they sat on a bench lining the wall. The agents, believing another lie that she thought Yuri lost his car. They went with it, not having any reason to doubt a kids naivety. It was easy to make an adult think a kid didn't know things.
They remained fairly silent as the vehicle rumbled on for at least an hour before it finally stopped, door in front opening, footsteps coming around to the back. Yuri stood as the doors opened, jumping out first. Lifted Anya down after him.
Her previously acquired relief, vanished, the moment the van doors closed, the hospital standing tall and haunting in front of her. She immediately backed away from Yuri as the SSS drove off and her breath stuck in her chest. Yuri started towards the doors, expecting her to follow.
"Chihuahua, what are you doing?" He asked, when she wasn't beside him.
She shook her head, wringing her hands. She couldn't do this again. The doctors. The needles. Everything that came with it. She just escaped this. Her eyes tearing up again. She was so tired of crying, but she couldn't stop the sob rising up her throat. Forced it's way out.
"Uh. . ." Yuri's hand raised hesitantly. 'What happened?! She was fine a second ago! Why is she crying?! What do I do?!' He panicked, glancing back at the hospital.
The hospital. Realization dawned. Looked back. He wondered how to calm her down.
'Yor! Just do what you'd do if Yor was crying!' He thought. But when he reflected, she comforted him more than he, her. His first instinct, being to execute those who hurt his sister, but that wasn't useful in this moment. "Chihuahua-"
A distressed cry rang through the lot. A fitful hysteria from a child, taking Anya and Yuri's attention. A boy struggled in the arms of a social worker, one of the lab kids, as a nurse ran over from the hospital. Something was in her hand. She was coming to sedate him. To bring him indoors. His reaction, impossible to quell without it.
Anya noticed it happening to other kids now, too, they all having arrived around the same time. The hospital must have been alerted to the incoming patients.
Anya back farther away from Yuri.
She couldn't tell.
His thoughts were consumed mostly with how to calm her down. She didn't know if. .
He looked back from his view of the lot, seeing her moving away from him. Her gaze going back and forth between him and the other kids.
"Chihuahua?" Another glimpse where she directed her gaze.
"Hey! Hey, hey, hey." Yuri came to crouch on his heels in front of her. Took her head in his hands as she hiccupped through her gasping breaths. "No sedatives. Okay? I promise." He said which didn't seem to do much at first, but eventually her pulse slowed, hiccups lessening.
Less likely to bolt.
He let go of her head and let her catch her breath. Her tears left his hand wet. "You still need to get checked out though." He said.
Anya shook her head, more emphatic than the first. Complete refusal.
Yuri had to convince her somehow. He had no idea what was done to her body. What kind of experiments.
It might not be apparent, but she could be in bad health: Harmful things in her body, failing organs, modified genes. A few things he had seen in subjects from the other labs. There were a host of things that could be detrimental to her health they didn't know about. Hence the documents he sent ahead with an ambulance, an agent accompanying it. He hadn't had a chance to look through them, but there should be something useful to glean for the doctors and nurses treating them. He'd get them back later.
"You could be sick." He said. "Yor would want you healthy." Anya had been entrusted into his care and he was going to do it properly. She could be dying for all he knew and he couldn't risk Yor grieving over her.
Another shake of her head.
"What if you dropped dead right now because you didn't get checked out?" He argued. "Yor would be really upset. You don't want to make her sad do you?"
'Dropping dead' was dramatic, but he was trying to get a point across.
Anya's gaze dropped to her hands as she shook her head yet again.
"You need medical attention as soon as possible and your parents will be here soon. I'm sure they'd be glad to know you're already inside." He continued. He lowered his head, trying to get a view of her face. "Nothing bad's going to happen. I'll be right there the whole time, so you don't have to worry."
Anya wiped at her face, lifting it. Considered.
The thought of going in there made it hard to breathe, made her anxious and jumpy. Her skin prickled with fear. She didn't want to. But she also knew from Yuri's mind that she shouldn't be worried, even if she didn't agree. He felt she needed this. He felt that Yor would want this for her. And if her Mama thought this place was safe, maybe it wouldn't be as bad as she was imagining.
But the doctors. And the needles. She hated doctors and the needles.
"Doctors are scary." She told him, another step back.
Yuri sucked in a breath and thought about what she said. Had she never been treated at a hospital before? "Okay listen, there are bad doctors and good doctors. The ones you knew were bad. But these ones are good. They won't hurt you. All they want to do is make sure you're healthy." He assured her.
Yuri sounded very confident on this matter. It was comforting if only a little. She also had a feeling he wouldn't let this go until she agreed.
"No needles?" Anya asked.
"Um. . ." Yuri paused. He couldn't say no, they'd need to at least take blood. "Maybe one. But it's just a pinch then it's over."
Anya accepted that rather well, he thought, as she moved on. "No wires?"
Yuri didn't even want to know what that meant. ". . .No."
"No straps?" She whispered, near inaudible.
More disturbing than that question was that it was asked by a six year old. "No! Goodness no!" Yuri instantly answered. Straps were used occasionally for highly difficult patients or convicts but he wasn't telling her that.
Anya lowered her head and he had to lean in to hear her.
"No knives?" A bare whisper that was swallowed into the darkened sky.
Yuri was disturbed that he should have expected a question like that and it stilled him. Expected it from the lab she just came from. He'd seen awful things before, but it was always worse when it involved children. He'd never had a particular liking for them, but he wasn't made of stone. "No." He said firmly. Quietly. "No knives." His response followed by the silence. The breeze the only sound as it rustled the trees that lined the border of the parking lot.
Anya made one last swipe at her face, raising it. "You'll make 'em stop if Anya asks?"
He nodded.
She considered for another moment. Looked nervously to the hospital doors. Her fingers fidgeted. Looked to Yuri. Held out a hand for his.
He gave it.
She held tightly as he escorted her inside, where the pictures and bright colours distracted her as he talked to a man in the emergency room. A nurse came to retrieve them, leading them to an examination room and passed through an area holding beds divided by curtains. Many of them held lab kids who lay unconscious, nurses taking blood and checking vitals. A doctor stood at the foot of one, clipboard in hand.
The nurse had Anya sit on a cushioned table after she'd given the lady a urine sample and she turned to grab tools from the cupboards.
Anya only got on when Yuri agreed to sit next to her, still holding her hand.
The nurse quickly turned back holding a stethoscope. She listened to her heart and breathing, checking any other abnormalities in her health, and moved to roll up her sleeve for the blood pressure cuff, revealing the bandages.
"Anya, what happened?" Asked Yuri before the nurse had a chance to.
But Anya kept her gaze on the nurses nimble fingers removing the small grip clasping it together, unwilling to answer.
The nurse was able to un-loop it once around her hand, before it stuck on her skin. The viscous substance of blood and ooze stretched between flesh and bandage. A little like a spoon lifted from a puddle of honey. Reluctant to let go.
The nurse carefully unwrapped it, showing the raw, open strip of red across the width of the back of her hand.
She unwrapped the rest of it.
A hand raised to Yuri's mouth.
Yor was not going to be happy about this.
Various slashes of width, length, and depth covered her arm. A mess of blood, both dried and fresh, that left almost no skin untouched. It looked like someone had tended to it earlier, a salve sheening over them, but it wasn't enough. Only a couple wounds were covered with gauze taped to her arm that was now coming loose. The nurse removed them to see the deeper wounds stitched together.
Anya lifted her gaze from her arm to the horrified faces of the adults. She heard Yuri think it before he said it.
"Anya, how did this happen?!" He asked again.
She didn't answer.
She would lock the memories away and never think about it again. She'd never mention it, never tell them what happened, never relive it. Never feel her parents pity if they found out. She didn't want to deal with that. Better to leave it unsaid. It didn't matter, anyway. She'd never see him again. She'd never have to deal with it. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. It didn't matter.
The nurse didn't ask, figuring it pointless if she didn't even answer her uncle and fixed up her arm.
Yuri questioned wether it was good or bad that Anya seemed to handle it okay though she flinched and hissed at the antiseptics as it was used on her arm.
With it torn up as it was, the nurse didn't use the pressure cuff, but took a blood sample before dressing it up again. She found that Anya's other arm needed attention as well and the lower parts of her legs, Anya having huddled on the floor when she was in the dark room, her limbs taking the brunt of it.
The doctor came in a bit later to talk to Anya and ask questions, Anya clamping tighter to Yuri at her entrance. She wore the same white lab coat.
Yuri told Anya everything was okay and it was the only reason she wasn't screaming and running out of there. He'd stop the doctor if she tried anything.
But all the doctor did was ask about any symptoms she might have or any pains they didn't know about. Things that would point to other problems. But she also wanted to know which subject Anya was, from the files the SSS gave them. To know what was done and to know how to treat her. The files hadn't specified which subject was which child. Just numbers.
Anya kept her mouth shut.
It seemed Yuri hadn't given the doctors everything. Just papers that reminded the scientists what they had injected the kid with. Which organs had been replaced. What phase they were on. The subject's number.
He'd kept everything else.
Anya still couldn't risk her secret being found out. If she told the lady what her number was, Yuri would hear it too. He'd find out what the experiments were for soon enough from looking at the lab records.
The scientists rarely used the subjects names, she hoped it was the same with the papers. If she stayed quiet, maybe Yuri wouldn't know she was one of the successful ones.
It ate her that he might realize it, but there wasn't much she could do.
So, she evaded a lot of the questions, and eventually, the doctor had to give up asking. She had everything else she needed from her, and other things to do.
It wasn't too long after, that Yor and Loid arrived. Yor squeezed the life out of her. Yuri left Anya to them, ready to go home.
They waited for a while before the doctor came back, who had gone over her information. She told Loid and Yor about the lacerations and some concerning elements in her body, but that Anya was okay so far that they could tell. They wanted to keep her for a couple nights for observation and run a couple more tests in that time.
Anya didn't like that.
Yor and Loid conceded to bringing her home when she had a panic attack, confirming that they'd bring her for the tests. Anya was glad to go home, but she didn't want to go back.
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Becky melted when she received the phone call the next morning. Anya was safe. They found her and was now resting at home. Becky immediately suggested a visit, but was denied. Anya was sleeping a lot, needing it, and wasn't ready for visitors.
It worried Becky that Anya was in such a state, but it was overrun by her overwhelming joy.
Anya was back and she was safe.
She was going to be okay.
Becky cried and cried until she had no tears left. Pent-up emotions she hadn't let herself feel, and now finally relieved of them.