Pyotr watched Regan's reflection in the mirror as he approached her.
'Interruptions,' he said. 'I could have told them they would fail. Our time together has left me closer to you than anyone else on earth. Closer than friends, closer than lovers, closer even than your mother and father. We're connected now by invisible bonds. I know what you're thinking with every passing moment.'
He rubbed his giant hands together, massaging the tendons and making the veins bulge against his skin. As he walked towards her, he took a deep breath that expanded his chest and whistled through his nose like a train.
'We're so close to completion now. I can feel it in my bones and my blood. We're so close that it pains me to be away from you. Your flawless skin, the delicate bone structure of your face, your mind like steel: all these things combine to make a subject whose very existence is,' he sighed. 'Perfection.'
Pyotr rested a heavy hand on her shoulder.
'It is time to begin again,' he said.
His gaze met hers in the mirror.
'So strange,' he said. 'There is a smile there that wasn't there before.'
He looked down at Regan's injured hands, chained together on the metal surface of the table, and realised that they were no longer secured to the chair. His lips parted in a brief mixture of confusion and surprise.
Regan's hands shot up with the speed of a snake. She grabbed the hand Pyotr had left on her shoulder and jumped to her feet in one fluid circular motion that instantly contorted his arm into a hideously unnatural angle. Regan twisted her body into the joint and gave a jerk. There was a loud crack as his elbow bent backwards.
Pyotr let out a deep, primal scream.
He tried to use his vast strength to push her away, but she swept his legs out from under him with a kick. He hit the floor face first with shocking force. The grimy metal grill in the floor slammed into his cheek and opened a deep cut down to the bone. He put his good arm under him and struggled to rise, but Regan delivered a kick to his stomach that sent him onto his back. White hot pain shot though him as he landed on his broken arm.
His vision started to waver as she stood over him and looked down coldly. For the first time he truly saw the steel inside her. To think, he believed he could break her!
She dropped down and sunk one knee into his chest and the other onto his broken arm.
His screams rose to a hyperventilating crescendo.
With clinical precision, Regan carefully placed her thumbnails on Pyotr's eyes and pushed down. He struggled frantically, but she held him in place, feeling the resistance against her thumbs as she pushed through the flesh. She saw blood.
She continued to push as she felt Pyotr's struggles weaken, until he gave a final defeated shudder. Her thumbs made a wet sucking noise as she pulled them free and stood up. The fight had left her out of breath, and her hands were covered in blood and worse. She wiped them on Pyotr's shirt, and winced as she accidentally caught the broken fingers of her right hand against the material. Pyotr was clutching his empty sockets with his good hand and trying to stem the flow of blood that leaked between his fingers. She ignored him as she searched his pockets for the key to her handcuffs.
Once her hands were free, she clutched her injured fingers and limped over to the metal table in front of the mirror. It was sturdily built with four square, aluminium legs. She gave it a speculative look, then kicked it over so that it was on its side. Another well aimed kick snapped off one of the legs. She grunted as she she bent over and picked it up. It had broken off to form a wicked, serrated point.
Regan looked across at Pyotr.
'So,' she said conversationally. 'What do you think I'm going to do now?'
***
Regan held the broken table leg in her left hand and used her bodyweight to shoulder open the heavy metal door at the back of the holding cell. It opened with a screeching sound of metal on metal. She almost tumbled through the doorway as the door swung open and cursed at how unsteady her legs were. Her muscles felt like they were made of gelatine.
She was in a grey metal corridor lit by a line of bright, caged bulbs that ran along the ceiling. The floor was painted in a non-slip coating and yellow lines ran parallel to the walls. There was no decoration here. Everything was functional and spartan. She could feel a throbbing mechanical hum reverberating through the floor and up into her feet.
Regan realised she was on a ship.
For the first time in days, she smiled. No escape. All of her enemies were trapped here with her, and now the chains were broken.
***
Trevellian rubbed his face as he walked down the corridor towards the observation room. He was exhausted. Jordan, the Unity psychic, walked with him but hung back slightly.
'It's okay,' he said. 'She won't be able to see you this time. I just need to know how close she is to breaking. We'll be in and out in less than a minute, I promise.'
Jordan nodded. 'You need to get some sleep,' she said quietly.
He laughed. 'Did you skim that thought off the top of my brain?'
'No, you just look really tired.'
Trevellian pushed the door open and stood aside to let Jordan through. She walked past him into the darkened room and stopped.
'What is it?' said Trevellian.
Jordan didn't answer him.
A ball of unease began to grow in his stomach.
'What?'
He stepped around her into the room and felt his heart push against his chest.
Blood was splattered across the mirror. In the room beyond, Pyotr's limp corpse hung like a soiled rag from handcuffs attached to the chains in the ceiling. There was a deep gash running across his stomach that had released a cascade of scarlet down the front of his legs and across the floor. Splashes of blood were sprayed in arcs around the room, where Pyotr's dying convulsions had painted the walls in his blood.
Trevellian heard Jordan being quietly sick in the corner and ran the few steps across the small observation room to a sleek black telephone mounted on the wall. He dialled quickly and swore as he pressed the wrong numbers. He dialled again and stared at the scene of carnage as he waited for an answer.
'Seline,' he said evenly. 'Regan is loose.'
Across the prison decks, an alarm started to sound.