Chapter Two : Size and Strength

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     There was no place for her to go. No matter what, the only place she had was the little room she woke up in. She knew that if they were telling the truth, nobody was looking for her. The only reason she even knew what day it was because of the little glances at the notes they took whenever they took her out of the room for whatever reason they had. It always ended with her strapped to a metal chair and a syringe pumping some unknown substance into her system. She used to ask what it was they were doing but they only responded by tasing her until she screamed. After days or weeks of the same response, she learned to stay quiet and avoid asking questions. The only time she did speak was when she was spoken to, which already rarely happened.

     Valencia only caught the names of the man who drugged her and the man who shot her. The others were apparently doctors or guards to make sure she didn't try to make a move. She started to forget what it felt like to have the sun on her skin or to feel the fresh breeze. She could only imagine what went through her family's heads when she "died" and she hoped that one day she would be able to see them again. After crying for days over how much she missed them, it was like everything was dried out and she was no longer able to cry.

     Even when one of the doctors stuck another needle in her arm, all she could do was stare blankly at the ceiling. Compared to the day they took out the bullet from her leg where they refused to give her any anesthetic and she couldn't stop screaming and crying but she was unable to move. But now she would choke on her own voice to keep herself from letting them see how much pain she was in. She turned her head to see one of the doctors writing something in his notebook. She looked at the top corner of the page for the date but he already closed it before facing her again.

     "Who are you?" he asked.

     Was that a trick question? Valencia thought to herself as she stared at the old man in the face. "Valencia Parrish," she said bluntly and bit her tongue when the doctor used the taser on her.

     "You are nothing," he spat. "For now."

     Valencia kept her breathing steady as the doctors connected a bunch of wires to her arms and her head. Her wrists were still pinned down with metal restraints and so were her legs so she was unable to move. She came to a theory that they were conducting human experiments and she was one of the unfortunate subjects, assuming she wasn't the only one. The liquids they were pumping into her system came in weird colours and they always attached wires to her body to observe any reactions.

     Everyone in the room was talking but to Valencia, it was all white noise as she looked at the ceiling like always. She didn't hear a word they were saying but winced when she felt a sharp pain in her head. She wanted to rub her skull to make the pain go away but her hands were still restrained. She refused to let these people see the kind of pain she was in but her mind started to run a million miles per hour when she noticed her skin fading away. Her arms and legs completely vanished and then the rest of her body disappeared as well. Every single part of her was invisible and the men around her smiled.

     "Serum is a success. Now to make her visible again," one of the doctors said as he pulled out the taser. He touched her side with the device and electricity flowed through her body until it was completely visible and everyone could see her. "Again."

     Valencia looked at him through her messy hair but she didn't know what the hell she was supposed to do. He wanted her to make herself invisible again but she had no idea how she was supposed to do that.

     "I don't know how," she said and nearly flinched when she heard the sound of the taser again.

     "Think of it like this. Make yourself invisible again or I will increase the voltage on this thing until you're begging for the sweet release of death," the man growled through his teeth.

     Valencia leaned forward as best as she could due to her restraints and whispered, "I'm already dead."

     The man kept his word and increased the voltage of the taser that made her wish they had just killed her when they had the chance. The sound of her screaming filled the room but everybody remained unfazed as they silently watched. When they had enough of tasing her, they decided there was no point in continuing and took off the restraints. Her legs gave out of her when she tried to stand and she fell onto the cold surface of the floor. One of the guards roughly grabbed her arm and dragged her back to the cell like room and threw her onto the floor where she continued to lay there as he left and locked her inside.

     She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, wishing that she could just wake up from this terrible nightmare. When she opened her eyes, she raised her hands so she could see them but she couldn't see them. Once again, they were invisible. She sat up straight to look at her legs but they were also invisible. Her entire body had vanished again but she was still there. She started hyperventilating but decided she needed to get herself together before she passed out from the lack of oxygen to her brain. She closed her eyes tightly and took a moment to breathe. When she opened them again, she was able to see her limbs and she sighed in relief. She carefully stood up and walked over to the bed and sat down. She focused on her hand and watched it vanish while the rest of her body stayed and it reappeared again. Whatever serum they gave her that was labeled as a success had just given her the ability to make herself invisible.

     A thought about using her new ability to escape came to her mind but for the longest time, she hadn't seen anything outside of the room she slept in and the room where she was a lab rat. She wouldn't know where to go and how to get out and those people would catch her before she could figure it out. At this point, it would be stupid to try and escape when she didn't know much about her enemies.

     But even if she did escape, she had no idea how she would get home or even if she should go home. Her entire family thought she was dead so just showing up out of nowhere would confuse them, especially after they saw her body. Her car was totaled so she couldn't drive and she didn't have her I.D. anymore. She had no money to take public transport and even if she did, she couldn't trust anyone. One of those people was able to go undercover as a barista to drug her coffee and stage a car crash to make the world think she was dead. She came to realize that it didn't matter what happened, she had nothing, nobody to turn to and nowhere to go.

     Ever since she was taken, it had been nothing but experiments, sleepless nights and many volts of electricity. She would often look at the hideous scar on her left thigh where she was shot before she was forced to choose between herself and her family. Her arms had marks from where the doctors would stick her with needles containing many serums they created. Burn marks could be found everywhere on her body from when they would use the taser on her to either shut her up or scare her into compliance and submission.

     The metal door opened loudly and Valencia looked at the man dressed in a uniform that let her know he was a guard. He dropped a pile of clothes onto the bed but he didn't leave.

     "Put those on," he said gruffly.

     "Can you at least step outside so I can change?" Valencia asked while narrowing her eyes at the man.

     "Don't flatter yourself," he said and Valencia reluctantly picked up the clothes he gave her.

     She tried not to think about the creepy man standing by the door and watching her as she took off her clothes and put on the dark red combat suit and red boots. Once she was done, she was led out of her cell and followed him down the dingy hallways to another room. She didn't dare ask why she was there when she saw a man in dark clothing. He had dark brown hair that just reached his neck but the one thing that really caught her attention was the metal arm attached to his left shoulder. His steel blue eyes were cold and empty as they fixated on her and she had no idea what was going on in his head.

     "Parrish, meet Sergeant Barnes. Barnes, meet Parrish," Pierce said before closing the door, leaving the two prisoners locked inside. "Fight."

     "What?" Valencia asked but before she could do anything, the man with the metal arm grabbed her and threw her into the wall and she landed on the floor.

     She quickly got up on her feet but he just didn't stop. She took a deep breath and she disappeared right in front of his eyes. He looked around the room for her but the wind was knocked out of him when he received a kick to the stomach and his head was violently knocked to the side with a punch to the face. Valencia was about to land another punch but he managed to predict her next move and kicked her legs from underneath her and she fell on her back, losing her focus and becoming visible again. He was about to punch her with his metal arm and she raised hers to block it and closed her eyes but the impact never came. When she opened her eyes, there was a force field between them and it blocked his punch from hitting her. She pushed her hands forward and the force field moved forward as well pushing the man off of her and onto the floor.

     Valencia quickly got up but so did Barnes. He was much bigger than she was and he was much stronger as well. If it wasn't for the new abilities she obtained from the serum, he could have crushed her skull and she knew he would do it too. Why did these people even put her in a room alone with a man who was bigger and stronger than her, not to mention that his entire left arm was replaced with a metal one?

     Barnes continued to charge at her but she made herself invisible again and made another force field. She used it to lift him up until he hit the ceiling and let him fall to the floor. He groaned as he tried to get up but Valencia used a force field to push him into a wall. Were they just going to leave them in there until one of them killed the other?

     Valencia didn't even see it coming when her opponent got up and grabbed her by her throat. She gasped for air as he lifted her off the floor and she clawed at his wrist. She kicked her feet around, hoping to hit him somewhere. She let go of his wrist with one hand and used it to punch him in the jaw. She continued to punch him, even when her hand started to hurt while he seemed unaffected. Did this man have a jaw of steel or what?

     She used whatever strength she had to wrap her legs around his waist and take some of the pressure off her neck so she could breathe. She took her free arm and used her elbow to hit the top of his head. Her mother used to tell her that when her opponent was bigger and stronger, she should use her elbows and knees to her advantage. Unfortunately, she only angered him and he shoved her against the wall. Next thing she knew, he slammed her right into the floor and her head felt like it was about to break if it took one more hit.

     "That's enough," Pierce said from outside the room and Barnes removed his hand from Valencia's neck.

     Her mind was racing like a sports car as she inhaled deeply. She got up just as Barnes was taken out of the room and watched him walk away. She was also taken out of the room and led somewhere else away from him. She didn't know who he was or how he got there. She didn't even know why they chose someone twice her size to fight her. But the more she thought about it on the way to her cell, the more she realized that it was to test her new abilities and see how far she could go with them. She didn't even know how to make herself invisible on command the last time she was taken out of her cell. She didn't even know that she was able to create force fields until they put her in a room with a large man and ordered them to fight each other. What if she still didn't know how to control her abilities by then? That man would have killed her in a split second and nobody would even care. She was just another lab rat they could easily replace if something were to happen to her, which raised another question. Was Sergeant Barnes also a test subject? Did they experiment on him as well? If that was the case, then that would mean that Valencia was not the only one. Was there anyone else or was it just her and him?