Damian was too wrecked with nerves to be frustrated with Forger anymore. Too exhausted, too scared. After the first ten minutes it had melted away and was absorbed into intrusive thoughts of horrifying images and frightening ideas. Of how the director would deal with them. Of what kind of experiments were conducted here and if they would happen to him.
There was still a part of him that resented her just a little bit for not telling him. A passive begrudging that she didn't alleviate his fears. It had also crossed his mind that maybe it was worse than anything he could imagine and that's why she didn't say.
He peeked over at her where she'd taken to sitting in the corner to bury her face in her knees and hold her ankles.
His irritation melted all over again and it was annoying. His reluctant understanding of her situation crept in again and he wanted to bat it away. But every time he was mad, he felt bad for being mad. He hated that each time he looked at her, was a reminder that she knew what would happen because she had already experienced it and there was good reason she didn't want to talk about it.
His justification would feel flimsy and he had to build it up again.
Damian let go of his legs to study his hands and they still shook. He held his face in them and planted them on his knees.
Who was he kidding? He couldn't really be angry with her. He wanted to be, he wanted to blame her, he would rather be angry than fall apart. But she was only trying to cope and he didn't know what to do with that. Where did that leave him? Forger was a mess and had no answers for him, he was locked in an underground room waiting for who knew what, and Damian felt alone, fumbling blindly through nightmares and horror stories, the emotions that dug in his chest, confusing and frustrating. How did he do this on his own? How was he supposed to feel? Why couldn't he just be angry? Why did it have to make him feel bad? When it was gone, he felt helpless, which was worse, and that made him angry again. This was so freaking infuriating! What the heck did he do?! What did he do, what did he do, what did he do? He wanted to go home. He wanted his mother. He wanted his father to fix this.
His hands came wet away from his face and he aggressively wiped at his cheeks. Forger was watching him uneasily and Damian's gaze caught on her's. She broke it off as if she'd done something wrong and her hands searched awkwardly for a purpose. She seemed distressed, debating something he couldn't discern and he watched when she finally got up and came to sit next to him. She opened her mouth. Closed it. "There was a tracker on Anya's arm." She disclosed and Damian blinked.
"What?"
She glanced at him as if he might get angry with her and repeated it.
"What's that?" He asked.
"It's—um. . .so people can find us. . .She mumbled into her legs.
"Wait, what? Really?" Damian said breathlessly. "Are the police coming for us?" Damian was too hinged on the idea of hope to be mad she kept this from him the whole time. But she shook her head and it dropped like a hot potato in his hands.
"What do you mean they're not coming? Who's coming? Someone's coming right? Isn't that why you had it?" Damian rushed out and she nodded.
"Who?"
She wouldn't say.
Damian wasn't entirely surprised and slumped against the wall. If it wasn't the police, who was coming for them? The Blackbells? Did they manufacture tracking devices?
There was suddenly a piece of comfort in the back of his mind, a bit of assurance to hold onto until they were rescued, to get him through this. He grasped it tightly like a child afraid of the dark holding their most precious toy, their most comforting companion while they slept. The morning would come, it wouldn't be dark forever.
Forger did that on purpose, he thought. She knew he needed something to cling to. She was probably clinging to it herself and he felt a little less alone.
Damian checked his hands and they were still shaking. He fisted them and wrapped his arms around his stomach, leaning against his legs.
"Hey. . ." He said and Forger looked to him. "Why didn't you tell anyone about this place?" Damian needed a distraction and he'd been wondering about this for ages.
Forger looked down as if she needed to consider. She sighed shakily and played with the hem of her uniform. "I didn't think I'd need to. . ."
"But . . .at school. . .you were watching for them. You knew they were around and you still didn't say anything. . ."
She looked sharply up at him.
"Am I wrong?" He asked though he had never been so sure he wasn't.
She grimaced and cast her gaze down again. It didn't seem she would elaborate.
Damian fell quiet and let it rest. He didn't have the energy to pursue it, and he found it harder to care in that moment than he thought.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
The room felt sullenly empty, a silent grave of their spirits that rung in their ears with subdued nothingness and bated apprehension. It seeded chills on Damian's skin and fostered an anxious stillness in his mind.
He wanted this all to be over. The waiting was almost worse, the unknowing.
The quiet was strongly present and the longer it went, the less it felt it should be broken. So when the faint echo of footsteps came from the hall outside, it was jarring and harsh. An unwelcome sound as the kids tensed.
He was coming, they both thought. A shot of adrenaline. A creeping panic. Damian deciding waiting was better as they inched away from the door they couldn't look away from.
And then the person passed.
And their steps receded.
Damian took a deep breath through his nose and found his arms were shaking now too.
He wanted to go home.
"How long do you think we'll be in here?" He asked softly and Forger shrugged morosely. Damian did not find that comforting. The impending return of the director haunted him and he'd rather stay in this room until they were rescued. He didn't know what he was looking for from Forger, but he was hoping for more of a solid answer.
She turned her face away from him to rest a cheek on her knees and held a tight grip on her legs.
Damian buried his own face and took a deep breath. Another one.
His father paid little attention to him and seemed to hardly react to important events in Damian's life. Even the hijacking. He hadn't come and Damian felt the crushing dejection that he'd hold little response to this as well. Would he care? What would he say? Would he be disappointed in him for getting involved? The thought left him even more scared and a new kind of inadequacy.
Damian shivered though the room wasn't particularly cold.
How did it end up this way? He was supposed to be back at the dorms by now. He was supposed to ride the bus back to school with his friends and complain about how terribly common the field trip was for an elite private school no matter how much he'd enjoyed it. He shouldn't have gone after Forger. He should have left when she told him. He shouldn't have gone digging into her life.
The gun.
He'd have nightmares for the rest of his life.
Why did he have to stick his nose into this? What a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do. And in the end, running after her was even more stupid. She'd had a tracker. She would've been fine if he didn't interfere. This situation wasn't worth what'd he'd learned. He regretted ever. . . . .
Damian turned his head ever so slightly to peek out at the girl who sat beside him. She had seemed so small in the mess hall when the director loomed over her. He had terrified Damian and he didn't ever want to know what it was like to have all that rage directed at him. He didn't want to imagine Forger here alone and. . . and he didn't regret it. As stupid as it was, as pointless as it might've been, he wouldn't want to deal with not knowing what had happened to her again. There was a strange, terrible peace of mind he couldn't explain. It was thin and faltering, though, wavering under what might happen to them, the things he imagined that he didn't want to see.
He shuddered and a chill seeped into his skin.
He wanted to go home.
His gaze had lingered a moment too long and Forger tensed as her shoulders scrunched. It was like a signal went off in his head and he immediately looked away.
Damian hadn't thought of it much since that afternoon, the scarily accurate sixth sense she had, and he was beginning to think she was psychic or something. How did she do it? She wasn't even facing him most the time and it freaked him out a little. It was as if she had eyes in the back of her head, could feel when he focused on her and it made him prickle when he thought on it. It didn't feel natural at all and it was as if. . .
It was as if. . .
Damian wasn't sure if he'd noticed this before.
At the school, she knew those people were there. She felt them. How? How could she possibly know that? It was way more than simply noticing when his attention on her, and Damian felt sick at a rising notion.
Damian hadn't ever thought it could be connected to the kidnapping.
And he began to wonder.