Ember Phoenix🐦‍🔥

in order: threats (from government officials), coercion (from government officials), torture (from a stun gun), pretty graphic depictions of pain from electrocution, minor vomit mention, mentioned/risk of death

The metal of her handcuffs presses into Roxie’s wrist at all the wrong angles, clinging and shying away from her skin in a way that suggests it wasn’t built for human comfort. Even if her wrist weren’t sprained, this would be painful. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s not like these three people, silently fixing her and Dave with expectant eyes, care about her wellbeing. Every movement of her hands — even the slightest shift of her right hand — tugs her left wrist with it, making her bite back a wince as needles of pain prickle up her hand.

No part of her is comfortable. She’s been sitting on this chair for what feels like an hour, handcuffed for at least double, and her body is still catching up from the argument-turned-fistfight with the security officer. She hopes his nose stays crooked even when the break heals. It’s the least he deserves for the sickening punch he gave to her stomach. She swears she can still feel her insides rolling, her palms throbbing from where they absorbed the entirety of the impact. They’re both lucky Dave pulled her away when he did — but he didn’t escape without injuries of his own. From the corner of her vision, his black eye twitches with a mixture of pain, tension and focus. She takes it as a reminder of their situation, stares back at the expectant eyes, and waits.

“Are you going to say something?” Her voice cuts through the silence, and she cringes at how loud she sounds. The only noise is the buzzing of electricity in the walls; there isn’t even air conditioner, and the atmosphere is growing thick with heat.

Flanked by two men, The man in the middle — a faceless navy suit with badges pinned neatly to his lapel — gives her a strange, inquisitive look. “We were hoping you would start us off, Ms Malhotra.”

“What about—” Dave starts to say, then shuts up. Roxie’s somewhat glad; at least this means she can take the fall. No point in them both getting hurt for her mistake.

She hopes he follows her lead — like he has done so many times, so fucking patiently — and stays silent. Roxie doesn’t know what these people want with them, but she guesses it isn’t good. Nothing good ever came from being locked and handcuffed in a building. If they want something from her, she’s determined not to give it to them.

The electricity whirrs in the walls. Roxie doesn’t say a word and neither does Dave.

“Very well then.” Badges huffs after a while. “I’ll start. Who was in charge of the camp?”

“It was both of us,” Dave says valiantly.

“No, it wasn’t.” Roxie sighs. “It was me. Just me. I was head counselor.”

Dave glances sideways at her, and she tries her best to say sorry with her eyes. It’s generous of him to try to shoulder fifty percent of the blame, but she can’t let him. It wouldn’t be fair.

It was her call to leave the kids, after all.

“Very well.” Badges seems satisfied. His focus turns to Roxie, and a chill rolls down her arms. He sits there, silently staring. His blue eyes are like crystals, the sky on a cold winter’s morning, and they seem to pierce right into her soul like a needle. His stare settles under her skin, and she’s uncomfortably aware of its presence chewing at her muscles. And something about his eyes seems to slowly drain something inside her like a parasite.

He stays silent, waiting for her to talk. Roxie presses her lips shut, and tells herself, over and over, don’t fall for it.

“Sooo...” Dave’s voice trails, wavering like a melody. “When will we... get to go back?”

“Go?” Badges’s eyebrows quirk. He looks almost amused. “What do either of you have to go back to?”

Roxie almost flinches. The question is wildly jarring, and the last thing she expects anyone in any official capacity to be asking her, of all people. Sure, she hasn’t spoken to her parents much in a while, not to mention anyone else she knew back in England — but how on earth would he know that? She risks a glance at Dave, and he looks similarly stunned. His lips twist into a look of deep thought, and it’s then Roxie realises, for all his constant chatter, he never actually mentioned having anyone back home.

“I— that’s irrelevant,” Roxie says, straightening her spine. The man to the right of Badges, clad sharply in military uniform, frowns. His upper lip twitches with the carefully-buttoned urge to show his disdain.

“If you insist.”

“So,” Dave ventures after another spell of silence, “When are we going home?”

“That depends,” Badges says. “When you give us the answers we want, you’re free to go.”

Roxie’s chest tightens. “And if we don’t?”

Badges slowly shakes his head, a chuckle tugging at the corners of his mouth. The air suddenly feels ten degrees colder, and Roxie looks at Dave with a flash of panic. His eyes brush hers, and his lips form a word Roxie can’t make out.

But before she can ask him, Badges says, “How about you tell us exactly what happened at Camp Cretaceous?”

“Well— we were appointed camp counselors, and on the first day, we welcomed the—”

“Oh, no, Ms Malhotra.” Badges shakes his head again. It’s getting infuriatingly patronising. “I don’t need all the details. Just clarify a few things for me: you and Mr Fisher were supposed to be supervising the kids at all times, yes?”

“Yes.” Roxie dreads where this question will undoubtedly lead.

“So... What separated you two from them? Dinosaur attack? Teens being unruly?”

“We—” Roxie sighs, her shoulders slumping with the planet-sized guilt that rests on them. “We left them.”

Badges fixes her with an unblinking stare, an unwritten question of why?

“For context, we’d had two incidents in the last forty eight hours. Three of the kids had escaped during the night and got into the raptor pen, and the other incident was when the kids ran off during a thunderstorm.”

“Right.” Badges pushes his hands together, tapping his index fingers in a rhythmless pattern of thought. The man on his left, holding a clipboard, scribbles something on a sheet of paper. Roxie tries to peer over the top to see what he wrote, and he firmly jerks it out of view. She looks back to the table, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

“And why weren’t you watching them during those times?”

“We— the first time was in the middle of the night. We couldn’t lock the doors from the outside for safety reasons.”

“And there were no night staff personally watching them?”

Looking back, that feels like a glaringly obvious precaution. She feels full of shame when she says, “No. There weren’t. But we weren’t in charge of hiring staff for that.”

“And we got the kids to safety the moment we were alerted,” adds Dave.

“And were these... kids punished?”

“We told them off, gave Brooklynn a warning, and Darius and Kenji were barred from tomorrow’s activity.”

“Ah, yes, the genetics lab.” Roxie’s stomach flips. “Dr Wu told me about Brooklynn sneaking around. Were you watching her then?”

“We— we had four children we were in charge of. We couldn’t possibly have supervised all of them at once,” Roxie splutters. “And the lab was safe and full of people, so there wasn’t a safety risk.”

“A security risk though, no?” Badges’s eyebrows raise. “An influencer with millions of followers wandering around highly secretive areas of Jurassic World, while filming...”

Roxie winces. She should’ve known better than to let Brooklynn film, should’ve known better about this whole damn thing! Every worry about the park was brushed off, buried under the majesty of the place. Something so enormous and wonderful couldn’t possibly cave into such a disaster. So she thought.

It’s always easier in hindsight, isn’t it?

“I suppose,” she says, subdued. “But nothing was actually released, right?”

“Thankfully, no,” Badges says warningly. “But you still created that risk.”

Roxie suddenly feels very small. “I did.”

“We did,” Dave corrects.

Roxie doesn’t meet his eyes. “Don’t do that.”

Dave pushes on. “The second incident was when we were taking the kids out in the gyrospheres to follow a dinosaur herd. We followed them in the jeep, a storm rolled in, and we told them to turn back. They...” Dave winces. “Didn’t listen.”

Badges hms. “Why didn’t they?”

“Well— they’re teenagers. They aren’t known for their rule following.”

“Don’t be insolent, Mr Fisher,” Badges says sharply.

He was just making a joke! Roxie almost finds herself saying, then wonders why defending him is so important. Maybe it’s because he’s just as deep in this mess as her.

“We went after them as soon as we could,” she says instead. “The next day, we knew we had to call for more staff to help us supervise them. We’d had too much trouble already. And if Jurassic World couldn’t give us that, we needed to send the kids home. So we took matters into our own hands to try to find someone who could help.”

“And you separated yourselves from the campers?”

“After hours of radioing for backup, yes.”

“So it was you two who left them at Camp Cretaceous?”

“It was me who made the call—”

“I could’ve disagreed with her, it’s on me too.”

“David, stop that,” Roxie hisses, her teeth clenched. He shouldn’t be taking the fall too. This rests on her shoulders. He doesn’t need to be involved.

“I’m not a pushover, Rox, I backed you up.”

“Well it was still my idea.”

“That I agreed with.”

“Ahem.” Badges clears his throat, and they fall silent, like two schoolchildren caught swapping notes. “If you two are done bickering, I’d like a clear answer. Did you, or did you not leave the campers unattended at Camp Cretaceous?”

“We did,” Roxie says. It’s the hardest words she’s ever said in her life. “We lost—” Her voice breaks, and she hurriedly clears her throat, swallowing, blinking, doing anything to stop tears from traitorously bubbling into her eyes. She cannot cry now. Not now. God, not now.

“And you leaving them meant they weren’t with you when you were able to evacuate the ship?”

Roxie nods her head, not trusting the tightness in her throat to hold back her tears.

“Yeah,” Dave says quietly. “That’s, um... that’s true.”

“So you take responsibility for their death?”

Roxie feels like someone shot her through the heart. “N— no, they’re not dead, sir,” is all she’s able to say through a dazed rush. “We saw them alive minutes before we got onto the boat, we tried to get their attention — once it became clear no one on the island was going to help us, we did everything we could to get back to the kids ourselves. And— and they made us get on the boat. We would’ve gone back for them otherwise, I swear! We just... couldn’t.”

“They call them the Nublar Six, you know,” Badges says, his tone pondering. “The public are already talking about them. Or they will be, once the world catches wind of the tragic teenage campers bound for Isla Nublar and left for dead.”

Roxie can hardly breathe. She feels like a talon hooked around her throat and tore it out, ring by ring of tough, sinewy cartilage. They... they’re leaving them for dead? They’re really leaving them for dead? But— how can they? Dave and Roxie saw them alive just hours ago. They can’t be dead. They aren’t.

“The families have been informed of their children’s deaths. It won’t be long before this story catches fire. People are starting to ask questions about what happened.”

“Already?” Dave says incredulously. “We’ve barely got off the island.”

“Well... You know how it goes.” Badges shrugs. “All it takes is one video, one post, one... misinformed rumour, and that’s enough to pick at the thread that unravels the whole cloth. And if nothing else, don’t you think their parents deserve the truth?”

Her mind buzzing, her head pounding, Roxie tries to lay out the situation: they’re in a room, two against two (where did the third man go?), handcuffed and legally detained, and Badges has them cornered with logic. On paper, it looks like Roxie and Dave’s mistakes got six children killed, and he wants them to say so. But they know it wasn’t all their fault — and most of all, they know the kids are still alive. They have to be.

Now, they’re in... somewhere they don’t know, taken in for questioning and handcuffed for “extra security.” Badges wants a confession, Roxie and Dave want a search team, and the public is hungry for answers.

But if they confess now, the tragic death of the so-called Nublar Six will be written off as the incompetence of two camp counselors, and no one will ever think to go back for them. Dave and Roxie will probably never get another job in their life — but a million times worse, the kids will be left alone, abandoned on that godforsaken island, their chances of survival dwindling with each passing day... No sane soul would even try to save them.

“They’re still alive,” Roxie says firmly. “No thanks to Jurassic World—”

Something crackles — and pain rolls through Roxie’s body, prickling to the ends of every nerve in her body. Her muscles seize, feeling like they’re on fire, locking her in place — and it’s over, but her body hasn’t got the message. Her jaw was clenched too hard to scream, and her teeth still feel glued together. Her breaths come rough and ragged from her throat, and she feels like she’s going to be sick.

For a second, one blissful second, she thinks it was an accident. Faulty wiring, or... something. She doesn’t pay it much thought beyond, never in a million years would anyone — let alone the government — do that on purpose.

Then, Badges says, his voice low, “Now answer me, Ms Malhotra. Who lost the Nublar Six?”

It takes a moment for it to click.

Her heart drops into her shoes. Terror makes her head spin, and it takes all her willpower to force the vomit bubbling in her throat back into her stomach. The stun gun behind her hisses threateningly, an unspoken promise her first shock won’t be her last. Not if she steps out of line.

But six faces, young and bright and smiling, flash in her memory, and she knows then, that she cannot abandon those kids. Not again. They will get justice if it’s the last thing she does.

“Jurassic World.”

Dave sucks in a gasp. Roxie stiffens her chin, and repeats, “Jurassic World, sir. They ignored our requests for help and left us unsupported in a time of need. If we had someone take our complaints seriously, and sent out a search party to look for the kids — not to mention enough staff so that we didn’t have to leave them alone — we could’ve saved the—”

Another crackle. Another crippling wave of pain grabs her, locking her in a prison of historical pain. She swears the second one lasted longer than the first, and Roxie can already feel her resolve starting to break. The shock stopped seconds ago, but her arm muscles keep rippling, roaring with pain, and somewhere in the back of her mind she realises that is not a good sign.

“Muscle spasms already?” Badges says, a curl of disdain in his voice. “I really thought someone who’s caused us this much trouble would be stronger than that.”

“Hey, she’s plenty strong!”

“Not the time, David,” Roxie says through clenched teeth, but she manages a smile. She’s being— they’re being legally detained, and he still finds the time to call her strong.

Badges lets her arms tremble for a little longer. Dave seems unsure of whether to help her, or leave her, and Roxie truly doesn’t know which would be better. As gentle as she knows he’d be — she’s seen him stroke tears off Ben’s face in the middle of the night, seen him lovingly squeeze Sammy in a hug — she doesn’t know if she can handle touch right now.

“I really don’t like doing this,” says Badges, “And neither does my colleague.” Roxie spots a missing space where Uniform sat, and realises he’s the one with the stun gun, standing behind them like a horror film jumpscare waiting to pounce. “So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make us.”

“We’re not—” Roxie lets out a whimper of pain. “Making you do anything. We’re just telling the truth.”

“The truth, Ms Malhotra,” Badges says, sitting forward, leaning his elbows on the table, “Seems to be that you made the call to leave those kids.”

“We wouldn’t have had to if someone just listened to us,” Dave argues.

“Stop making excuses, Mr Fisher, it’s pathetic.”

A twitch of anger rushes through Roxie. If they can’t defend themselves, then what can they do?

“What do you want from us?” She says, hating Badges and hating herself and hating the despair that leaks into her voice.

“A confession, Ms Malhotra. That’s all I want. Just admit to losing your kids, and confirm they’ve tragically passed away. Let us wrap this dealing up nicely, and you’ll be free to go.”

Free to go is almost a laughable concept when her whole upper body is almost incapacitated with pain. A confession is laughable, when she has no other choice. Resisting now seems futile.

But damn if she won’t try. 

“Fuck your confession.”

A crackle — and Roxie breaks. Pain thrashes through her legs, every muscle spasming, setting her nerves on fire with a kind of anguish that makes her want to drop everything and scream and scream and scream. Her jaw is locked in place, but her lips are open enough to feel tears dribbling down her cheeks and into her mouth until all she can taste is salt. It lasts forever and a day, and she wants nothing more than for it to just stop, please, stop.

She doesn’t notice when it’s over. She would sob and scream and writhe and cave to all those bare, childish impulses she’s too frightened to be embarrassed by, but it’s too much to even move. She can’t even stop her head from falling forward, thunking onto the table with a final crash of pain.

It suddenly becomes very easy to cry. Tears drip onto the table in pools, the edges of them valiantly trying to harness the glow of the scratchy lights above. Sick — bile, really — trickles from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. Her shoulders tremble as ragged breaths rip from her throat — high, frightened noises of pain that sound nothing like her, so much so it terrifies her.

A hand rests on her shoulder, and she subconsciously jolts away. A faint stab of pain swells through her wrist, but that seems like the least of her problems now. Dave whispers, “sorry,” and Roxie remembers he’s there, he’s watching her get— get hurt, and the thought of him seeing her cry is enough to dare her to swallow the tears. Let alone Badges and his men. Crying is for her eyes only: a sacred ritual she performs with only the moon and her shower mat as company. This is horribly violating in more ways than one.

“Hey, that’s— that’s enough,” Dave’s voice rings through the silence, its fearful wobble clear as day, and she’s equal parts thankful and terrified for him. “You’re hurting her.”

“D... don’t...” Roxie makes a pathetic attempt to shake her head that just hurts her forehead.

Dave drops his voice to a whisper. “Rox, I— I can’t let them do this to you. Please.”

And she wants to trust him. To relax into his arms and trust that they’ll shield her from the world. But that will only get him hurt too, and there’s no point in him shouldering anything he doesn’t have to.

“Leave him alone,” she says, her words squeezing past the panic sitting like a rock in her throat. She barely manages above a whisper, and she says, again, “Leave him alone. He did nothing.”

“Neither of you are in here for the fun of it,” Badges says warningly. “You’re both here to tell us what happened with the kids. And we have your evidence. You said it in your own words what happened. All we want is to tie up our loose ends. So tell me: are the Nublar Six dead, or alive?”

“Alive,” they both chorus, knowing what will come next.

A crackle — but this time, there’s only the world-rocking spike of terror in her heart. She shuts her eyes, curling inwards, and braces herself for the torment she knows will hit.

When it doesn’t, her eyes hesitantly peep open. To her left, someone lets out a strangled, guttural cry.

A second later, it clicks.

Dave’s body goes slack, and he cradles his limp hand in his lap, watching it tremble and spasm with dismay. His shoulders shake sporadically, and it takes a moment for Roxie to realise he’s crying.

“David...” The words ‘thank you’ barely seem to scratch the surface. He saved her from a world of pain, without her even asking him to — without her wanting him to. He doesn’t deserve to get caught in her mistake.

But the smile he gives, slack and toothy, a small twitch of his lips, tells her that, to him, it was all worth it.

“Your... your head,” he explains, his voice shaking. The fluorescent lights glint off his glistening cheeks. “They aimed f... for your head. I thought...”

“God, David, don’t ever do that again!” Roxie almost cries, forgetting, for a moment, their awful situation, and grabs his arm as much as her handcuffed hands allow. The shooting pain in her sprained wrist is worth it to finally feel something warm and steady under her fingertips.

“Can’t promise anything,” Dave says, somehow still smiling in spite of all this. “I mean... I wasn’t exactly thinking. I guess protecting you is a reflex.”

Somehow, Roxie finds her cheeks burning. But they turn ice-cold again when Badges says, “That wasn’t your punishment to bear, Mr Fisher.”

“What has she even done?” Dave exclaims. “So she made one bad call? So what? That doesn’t deserve being tortured.”

Roxie’s body goes ice-cold. It... that’s a big word. It’s not that. It hurts like mad, but it’s not that. She can’t wrap her head around... that. It’s so much easier if this is just a punishment.

“It’s not torture, Mr Fisher, don’t be ridiculous,” Badges says. “We’re not savages.”

Dave’s whole face is teeming with the urge to argue back, but he controls himself. His voice is slow and steady, when he says, Roxie still clutching his arm, “Uh... sir? We would like to be let go now. We’ve given you all the information we have.”

“I’m afraid we can’t let you go yet. Not without a confession.”

“We—” Roxie scrunches her eyes shut. A few more tears soak the bags under her eyes. It would be the easiest thing in the world to just say yes. To put the lid on this nightmare and hope for it to be over. Surely they can find the kids another way?

But how could she justify searching for six people declared dead? How could she get anyone to believe her, let alone give her a boat and special permission to visit a private island? Could she and Dave even hope to cut through the sticky web of red tape? One thought of the six kids, their smiling faces, the sound of their voices, the thought of them alone and scared on that hellish island, and she just... can’t...

“The kids are alive.” Her voice rings bold and clear. “And we’ll go back for them ourselves! Please!— Just let us—”

A crackle (she lets go of Dave just in time) — and she’s paralysed. Unable to move as agony courses through her once again. It doesn’t get easier. It gets worse. So much worse. It’s over, and she barely has time to set free the howl of pain from her throat before it happens again. Again. Again. Again. Waves of bitter, excruciating pain wash through her, over and over, and she can hardly come back up for air before she’s back underwater and fighting for her life.

“Stop it!” Dave shrieks. “Stop it, please! You’re going to kill her!”

The word— the thought— it stabs through her like a lightning bolt. This hurts like hell, but she’s not actually...

She’s not dying. How can a body this alive with pain be dying?

But every shock saps a little more of her energy until she feels like there’s nothing inside her. Every nerve in her body feels like it's being ripped apart by dinosaur teeth. Every second is so full of pain, she doesn’t notice falling off her chair to the floor, nor does she notice the light slowly being swallowed by darkness.