Before any of them could relax, Marie was at Logan’s side. She didn’t know what she was trying to accomplish. There wasn’t anything she could actually do for him, but that didn’t stop Marie. She wanted to be able to do something for him. Anything.
As soon as she caught sight of the monstrous wounds on Logan’s forearms, Marie felt nauseous. It looked like a seam had been ripped apart and the insides of Logan’s arms were spilling out. And the amount of metal in Logan’s arms was staggering. She could see no sight of any bone. Just metal. Where bones should have been.
“What the fuck are ya doin’ t’ him!” Marie shouted, placing a light hand on Logan’s shoulder. She met his eyes briefly, whimpering at the incredibly amount of pain she saw swimming in the hazel depths.
“Dwyer, please escort Rogue from the room,” Dr. Montgomery said absently, not looking up from what he was doing.
“NO! Ah’m not goin’ anywhere when yer doin’ this t’ Logan!” Marie informed them, her eyes blazing. “If yer gonna tear Logan all t’ shreds, Ah’m gonna be right here fer him. An’ ya can’t stop me!”
Of course, Marie knew that they could have easily stopped her. She was completely powerless. There was nothing she could actually do for Logan except let him know that she was there.
That he wasn’t alone.
“Come on, little girl, let’s get going.”
“Hey! Hey! Let me go ya bastard!” Marie shouted as Dwyer looped his arm around her waist and began dragging her across the room. “No! Ah’m not goin’ anywhere! Leave me alone ya fuckin’ prick! Let me down!”
Marie’s struggles took an abrupt end when Dwyer wrapped one of his large hands around her throat and started to squeeze. The gloves he was wearing protected him from her powers. Breathing was becoming a problem and Marie had to focus all of her attentions on that rather than trying to get away.
“Keep squirming like that and I’m going to think that you enjoy my attentions,” Dwyer murmured in her ear. Marie hated the fact that he had such a sensual voice. Every so often it made her forget that he was really a worthless bastard who got off on hurting her.
Marie began to tremble when she felt Dwyer press his face into her hair, inhaling deeply. She squeezed her eyes shut, a solitary tear sliding down her cheek. Soon his face was rubbing up against the side of Marie’s head, his face protected from her lethal skin by her thick hair.
“What do you say we retire to more private accommodations,” Dwyer murmured in her ear, his teeth latching onto her ear lobe.
Marie couldn’t contain the whimper that formed in her throat at that comment. She kept her body completely rigid, though, refusing to show any other signs of fear. Breathing wasn’t quite as much an issue, but still difficult.
Without any further preliminaries, Dwyer preceded to drag Marie from the room. Considering the circumstances and her present predicament, Marie was more than willing to go along quietly. Fighting would only get her hurt more. Dwyer like it when she fought.
Marie’s lack of resistance was brought to a sudden end when one of Logan’s pained screams reached her. Dwyer was going to hurt her regardless, so the least she could do was try to help Logan before it happened. She didn’t know what she could possible do that could help, but she wanted Logan’s pain to go away. Even if she could just get them to give Logan something that would knock him out Marie would know that she had done something.
Drawing up almost forgotten memories of self-defense classes from when she was nine, Marie slammed her head backwards into Dwyer’s nose. The results were instantaneous. Dwyer released her in favour of tending to his smashed nose. Scrambling across the room on bare feet, Marie came up behind Dr. Montgomery and put him in a head lock. She kept one bare hand inches away from his face as a hint of what she would do, glaring at the other men in the room.
“Really, my pet, what do you hope to accomplish by this?” Dr. Montgomery inquired, seemingly unfazed by her attack. “One word from me and those guards standing off to your right will shoot you in an instant.”
Marie didn’t so much as flinch at the threat, but Logan made a choked noise that sounded like a frightened shout.
“Bullets will be welcome after what ya’ll are doin’ t’ me. Bullets can kill me an’ then Ah won’t hafta go through this anymore,” Marie told him, keeping her eyes focused on the men in front of her, waiting for them to give some indication of an attack coming from behind her.
The only warning she got was Logan straining his upper body against the restraints.
By then it was too late.
There was a sharp, stabbing pain in her neck and Marie was overcome with a sudden bout of dizziness. She lost her hold on Dr. Montgomery and staggered back. Her legs felt like Jello and it was all that Marie could do to keep her eyes open.
“Come on, little girl. Let’s you and I have some fun,” Dwyer said softly as he scooped Marie up into his arms.
As Dwyer turned towards the door, Marie was given a brief glimpse of Logan. His eyes were trained on her, unblinking and filled with so much pain and terror.
“Logan....” Marie moaned, her eyes sliding shut.
“He can’t help you now,” were the last words that Marie heard before her entire world went dark.
The completely and utter nothingness that Marie found herself in was comforting after everything that had happened. Everything was peaceful.
Calm.
Relaxing.
“Aaahhhhhhhh!!”
Marie’s eyes snapped open as an agonizing pain flared up her arm. She attempted to roll onto her side in order to curl in on herself only to find out that she couldn’t move. Moaning in agony, Marie strained against the restraints holding her in place. For the first time, Marie understood the helplessness that Logan had often spoke of. While her previous situation hadn’t been all that great, her newfound inability to move made it even worse.
“Awake so soon, little girl?” Dwyer sneered, appearing suddenly in her line of vision.
“What are ya doin’ t’ me?” Marie moaned, turning her head away from Dwyer.
Dwyer glove covered fingers wrapped around her chin, pulling Marie’s face back towards his. “Now now, little girl. I think that you should play nice. I can make this either very easy for you or very difficult. The choice is yours.”
“Bastard,” Marie hissed, her eyes dark and lacking any emotion. She refused to let Dwyer’s words get to her.
“That’s not very nice, little girl,” Dwyer murmured, lowering his face still closer to hers.
Suddenly, Dwyer’s hand latched onto her arm creating a fiery pain that shot up her entire left arm from write to shoulder. As she opened her mouth to scream, a new set of hands clamped onto her face, holding her mouth open. While Marie struggled and fought, she could feel a tube being shoved down her throat.
“Take it easy, little girl. It’ll hurt a lot less if you stop fighting,” Dwyer informed her, his voice coming from somewhere around her left ear.
Soon Marie could feel the coppery taste of blood on her tongue, making the tears come harder. Despite all of her struggles, the tube went in and Marie could soon feel air pumping mechanically in and out of her chest.
“I’ll bet that you’re wondering what we’re going to do to you,” Dwyer sneered, appearing once again in her line of vision.
Marie could only moan and attempt to blink away the tears that filled her eyes.
“What’s this...?” Dwyer inquired, wiping away a tear with his latex covered finger. “Are you scared, little girl? You should be. This is a very nasty procedure. Well, for you it will be anyway. Turns out your skin is a highly prized commodity. That means we have only a limited amount of time to find out just what exactly you are capable of.”
Screaming around the tube in her throat, Marie began squirming and pulling at the nylon restraints wrapped around her wrists, elbows, shoulders, waist, hips and ankles. She strained and fought, nothing budged. All that she managed to accomplish was rubbing the exposed areas of skin completely raw.
“There’s no need to fight, little girl. You can’t get free. You’ll just have to sit tight and wait it out,” Dwyer informed her, winking at her. He then glanced over at someone else in the room. “Get the table in the tank. We have three hours to get this finished.”
Marie’s screams turned into sobs as the table began moving. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the large tank that Dwyer had referred to.
“Take it easy, little girl. Pretty soon you won’t feel any of it,” Dwyer assured her.
That didn’t assure Marie in the least. If anything, it increased her panic by about a thousand times.
What Marie had thought was water felt much to jelly like to actually be water. It slithered around her, molding around her bound form. Marie squeezed her eyes shut in order to keep it out of her eyes. Oddly enough, the green substance didn’t hurt whatever injury Dwyer had created on her arm. The pain Marie had been bracing for wasn’t there.
Seconds later, the pain Marie had anticipated finally came.