2OOOs.

She stared into the distance, like she had practiced. It had been months of torture, frustration, fucking humiliation. Not everything was the same in this place but the memories swept back in that cruel way, washing over her, seizing her nerves and keeping her face in her hands. 

The last time she was here, she was barely ten. Now she had returned - returned to  the place she fought everyday to forget and fight. 

If one day she were so lucky to die, she would remember this moment. She’d remember every horrible detail - scent, emotion, temperature - and be so very glad she was going.

Elizabeth Renfro checked her watch. “Code and report?”

As if the bitch would ever forget.

“X5-452, successful copulation, Ma’am!” she yelled. 

My name is Max. 

Her hair had gotten thinner and longer. The blue shirt fit her loosely now. For months she hadn’t seen the friends who thought she was dead - out there the gist was Manticore finally brought down their finest, Normal losing another employee (not that he’d care.) But whatever happened to her, she was still Max.

Renfro knew it, too. She wasn’t dumb - the small teen’s brown eyes remained strong and defiant. The only thing that wasn’t like her was everything else. The military responses, the staunch obedience . . . she had figured Max out a long time ago, and she wasn’t this.

The woman’s heels extended and forged a path around her. She knew how she was made: built yo sense everything and anything. So she was sure she felt her eyes on her, even with her back turned. Let her feel them. Wasn’t she used to it? No one could blame her. 452 was easy on the eyes. All of that genetic makeup created a slim girl with the littlest waist and bee-stung lips, all of which she would have found more delectable had she not spouted lies and lies and lies.

But she could forgive an ugly little sin from a pretty little girl.

Still.

“Don’t you get tired of pretending?” sighed Renfro. “You’ve been here a while. I don’t imagine it’s a lot of fun.”

Slow blurs of the black suit and platinum hair circled her. Max squirmed. No matter how far out she looked, the Bride of Satan remained and promised to bring her hell. She could hear her steely voice; the click of her heels; the vibration in her words. Max was prey counting her final minutes. 

Her life flashed before her eyes. Coming into the real world, frightened and shivering in the snow. The only father she ever had prowling her new home. And - take the bad with the good: laughing with Original Cindy at the bar and pretending to her core that she didn’t feel anything about Logan. Even the pining she missed, and now it was her little coping mechanism.

Funny how she tried to avoid it.

Max didn’t reply. She looked straight into the wall of Renfro’s office, shoulders straight and jaw tight. They wanted a soldier? She’d give them one. This is what they trained her to be after all. The need for a weapon was the only reason she was here. So, she was going to stand emotionlessly and not say a single word. She had no feelings, no identity, nothing.

She couldn’t keep lying to herself when her heart thundered in her chest. Zack’s heart. The thought made her want to burst into tears. Suddenly Max’s throat felt jammed. God, she couldn’t do that here.

Renfro stopped in front of her. Finally. The dizziness was gone but she still felt like she was going to throw up. She sucked in her stomach and forced herself not to blink. There was only the wall and the picture frames to look at. Only the cold to feel. This was just an intrusive horror in her head she had to banish.

Renfro leaned down. “Is it, 452?” she asked softly.

If Max were dumb, she would have believed that her tone was gentle. For a moment, she almost appreciated the lines on her face; the flattering lower of her body so her words were clear. Max thought she saw someone who wasn’t so evil.

And then she saw Tinga bound in the water. She saw Zack barely hanging onto life. She saw how brainwashed the transgenics were here, believing their only purpose was to kill. Even Lydecker - the miserable fuck - was redeemable compared to Renfro. A kinder Madam X was a fantasy never coming to life. 

Yet it was all so sudden when she tamed a strand of hair from the side of Max’s face and, carefully, back behind an all too red ear. 

Max’s eyes widened. Her breath seemed to stop completely. She hadn’t been touched like that in months. Not that she ever was, platonically or romantically - she didn’t have parents and Mr. Eyes Only wasn’t willing to admit he liked her. Fucking coward. The last person she expected that from was the woman who killed and tortured her friends. The woman who would have done that to her too had she not been too important.

Renfro’s fingertips were smooth as they skated along Max’s jawline. With an upward tip of her chin, Max was forced to look at her. Wrinkles embedded the curves of Renfro’s face. Short, white hair propped against a neck Max yearned to see broken. 

She was, however, beautiful. Maybe that’s why the men let her get away with so much. Renfro was beautiful, alright - but dangerous.

Max thought she heard that about herself somewhere, sometime.

“I asked you a question,” pressed Renfro. 

Her eyes bore down on the younger girl. Max wanted to punch her. The bitch was enjoying this. She knew Max had gotten thinner, weaker, needier. She should have predicted she’d take advantage of that, like everything else.

The toughness in her voice was back yet her face - open and vulnerable - gave away everything.

“No, Ma’am.”

Renfro gripped her chin harder. She tried not to feel anything. That was usually easy. She was born to be a weapon. She was born to stand at command and play the gun she didn’t even want to hold. 

“You’re still faking.” 

The sound in Max’s throat barely managed to fold.

Renfro ghosted her mouth over her lips. “I don’t like that.”

But God-

Max’s teeth clenched. This was so wrong, this was so wrong. She wasn’t a girl who sought it out when a woman just perfectly older, perfectly meaner touched her just perfectly right. She wasn’t going to compromise her grudges for Renfro just because she suddenly broke character. 

Shit, she might break character too. Max kept eye contact but her mind ran fast and hard about the thought of dropping the act. She could be a good girl. If she complied, she wouldn’t have to worry about the lack of food or sleep. The transgenic who looked too much like Ben wouldn’t haunt her dreams anymore.

That was what Renfro wanted her to think. She knew every little fantasy she’d written was simply that: a dream that would never come true.

“Or perhaps” - Renfro tilted Max’s head to the side, studying her like a germ under a microscope; she wasn’t two-faced enough to pretend that the girl was nothing if not a genetic mistake - “there’s other things you don’t like. Is 492 not doing it for you?”

“I am trained to fulfill my purpose regardless of my preferences.”

“I told you to drop the act, Max. It’s not flattering.”

Max blinked for the first time in minutes. Renfro had never called her that. She was a number among statistics to her. But the syllables curled in her mouth in such a sweet, poisonous way that a switch turned on.

And she could suddenly feel everything. 

Renfro’s scheming stone-hard eyes on her. The wind filling the large sleeves of her shirt. The sweat on her forehead. The coldness in Renfro’s fingers tangled around her jawline that sparked some kind of feeling in her.

No no . . . And the worst part was she couldn’t blame it on her heat. It wasn’t due for a few more months, but the burning feeling was there. She needed something, somebody - and the only one here was Renfro.

She hardened her face. Over her dead body.

“You know what my theory is?” Renfro smirked, thin painted lip pulling to one side. Max’s legs trembled under the camouflage pants. “We ought to put a woman in that cell. Someone who can handle you. Someone who bites back. Maybe boys aren’t your thing, huh?”

Max abruptly forgot to play her role. Her eyes were large. “It’s- I’m not-” 

“There must be a reason why you refuse to copulate with 494, all those false reports.”

For a woman so smart . . . 

Max seized Renfro’s hand from her face and yanked it away. The engineered strength almost broke her wrist. She didn’t care. She needed her as far away as possible. She thought she was strong enough to chew what they dished out. The starving; the pain; the humiliation. 

But it turned out she was just like the rest of the prisoners: desperate and deluded.

Disgust tasted bitter in her mouth. She couldn’t believe she was actually considering surrender. All for a head between her legs. This was the lowest she’d ever gone.

The reward for her outburst was the shock painting Renfro’s face. Dark eyeshadow framed the silent scream in those cruel eyes. Max could live off it forever.

“I think having to be a damn breeder’s dog is one.” She allowed a little squeeze on a fragile tendon. Just enough to hurt but not actually break it. “But that’s my own theory.”

She choked the captured limb tighter. She could change her mind, actually; let herself crush skin and bone and let bleed blood and bile. A fractured wrist wouldn’t equal to the torture she’d been through. 

Her eyes scoured over Renfro - matter of fact, Max thought, she deserved a bruise for every little pain, every little tear she cried at night. One punch in the chin for daring to hold her like she was a child. A kick in the stomach for the emptiness in her own. A knife through her chest for keeping her brother alive through her in the worst way possible. 

But she wasn’t like that.

Max swallowed a sob and let go. 

“And you seem to forget,” she added, despite of. Her eyes roared with flames. One day this place would burn to the ground and she’d be holding the match. “I could still kill you, and you wouldn’t see it coming until the blood’s drawn.”

Renfro stared at her. Max wished she could see people’s brains clearly, too. Maybe she’d see the wheels churning in Renfro’s head. She would comfort herself with knowing the fear that raged in her permanently fucked up brain . . .

-lasted for approximately three seconds.

Renfro was laughing. No sarcasm or shortness in it. Loud, haughty, terrifying. This was the last time Max ever wanted to see her smile. She was beautiful, but the evil drowned that out. By the time the hysterics heightened in Renfro’s thundering voice, Max was convinced already: this was the stuff of nightmares.

She tried not to throw up. Renfro was a fucking sadist. Each life she ruined was another on her resumé. Every time Max made the slightest move of protest, her smile was unmistakable. The pleasure she got from being this evil was so twisted that Max felt the reality creep up to her:

She was alone. 

Max slowly backed away. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t fight. No one was coming to rescue her. She never felt the need for anyone to do that but all she wanted now was a savior.

“See, that’s what I like about you, Max.” Renfro shook her head fondly. As her laughter died, her smile did, too. “Pretty thing, such a pretty thing - but sharp. Like a ribboned sword.”

Max was shaking. Her mouth was still agape. “You don’t get to say my name.”

“You’d rather you say mine, don’t you?” 

“Son of a b-”

Renfro wove her fingers through the transgenic’s hair and pulled hard. It all happened too fast. It all happened before Max could run. The shock came before her logic and now she was whimpering, bound and tied. She could try and fight, sure, but there were cameras in here. There were soldiers outside that would overpower her with sheer belief that it was their purpose.

She couldn’t escape.

Maybe she didn’t want to.

Renfro’s lips brushed over the pillar of her neck. Her breath was warm and hot, and Max hated that she liked it that way. Liked the way the woman’s fingernails dug into her scalp. Liked the pain that made the tears rise up from the corners of her eyes. God, this wasn’t her. She couldn’t be.

Max closed her eyes as Renfro kissed her. Her tongue flattened behind her ear, then when she least expected it, Renfro bit down hard. Max flinched at how quickly she whined. She wasn’t supposed to like this. 

“Shh,” Renfro whispered. When Max’s whining increased, she soothed a thumb along a blemishless cheek. “It’s alright. I’m simply conducting an experiment.”

Max’s voice failed to stop shaking. “A-An experiment to see if I wanna fuck you? Yeah, let’s see how that turns out.”

“Sure.”

Renfro slipped a hand under her shirt. The tight midriff tensed under her touch. Max was gasping for breath by the time it stopped creeping up her breasts and stayed over her waistband. As if to ask for permission. 

Renfro smiled. “Let’s.”

Max’s head bowed as she drew in a bladed breath. She was frozen but her hips kept rolling down Renfro’s fingers. Suddenly everything about her was too sensitive. Goosebumps popped out from her skin. Her legs squirmed together, trapping Renfro’s hand. God knew the strong thighs prevented her from going anywhere. She was going to use that to her advantage. If Renfro was going to use her, she might as well do it, too.

“Mmm!” Max whined. She shook her head, refusing what her body told her to do. “No, mmm, no, please-” 

She begged herself not to give in. She was smarter than that, wasn’t she? She said it aloud and pushed herself off Renfro but she kept coming back. 

Max’s eyes squeezed up. Renfro was thumbing her covered clit so fast that her knees shuddered. She wanted to fight her off. She knew she could. But Jesus, was it too blissful to think of someone holding her down for once. Ordering her to do this and that. Making her beg.

She hated how Renfro was the first person to ever make her grovel. 

“You sound really beautiful when you beg, Max,” Renfro said. The girl’s wetness transcended past the thin cloth of her underwear. She retrieved her hand and tasted her from her fingertips. “Shame you’re a little rebel.”

“You’re evil. God.”

Renfro smiled, continuing on as if she didn’t hear her: “Nothing I can’t fix.”

The cat in Max wanted to bare her teeth, claw at the woman and tell her to back off. Renfro grabbed her hair again, like an owner seizing the scruff of a kitten’s neck. The anger never melted off her face. Who did Renfro think she was?

“Down.”

Max, hating herself for trembling at the authoritarian tone Renfro used, stuttered, “What?” 

“Down, sweetheart,” she repeated. Renfro tugged a little harder until Max was shoved into the side of the central desk. “On your knees.”

Max glowered. The little pout was strong but she slowly set a weak leg on the ground. Her thin brows arched with hatred at Renfro’s deepening smile. 

Renfro, for one, liked how despite it all, Max maintained eye contact. She could handle the glare of a defenseless girl itching for the slightest touch. She slipped her knuckles through the night-dark hair and pulled her south.

“That’s it,” she coaxed. Massaging the aching scalp, Renfro’s sigh of satisfaction made Max want to beg again. “Good girl.”

Max gulped. She knew what to do. Her greedy hands tore at the button of those trousers. The fabric slid down Renfro’s surprisingly long and smooth legs. As if there wasn’t enough drool in her open mouth. 

She got those panties out of the way and wasn’t disappointed. Knowing that Renfro, who tortured and imprisoned her, was wet from controlling her . . . she didn’t know if she should be revolted or turned on. 

Her moral dilemma reached its deadline. Renfro grew impatient. She always did: waiting for Max to be desperate and finally fuck that soldier boy stud. Waiting on her reports. It didn’t help that those large brown eyes looked incredibly innocent, as if she didn’t know what to do. Or that her lips looked swollen and needy waiting for something to quench her thirst.

She wasn’t sorry for how hard she shoved Max’s skull into the table. She wasn’t sorry for pushing her cunt onto her mouth. Renfro had never felt apologetic in her life, and this wasn’t going to be the first time.

Max growled. Her tongue opened Renfro up and the juices spilled limitlessly. Renfro was sure she was going to lose it - those lips felt as good as they looked. Just the mere brush of them against her clit impulsed her to grind harder into the girl’s face. What more when they hollowed around and suckled?

“Would you look at that. I figured you swung the other way too.”

Renfro’s nails dug into her scalp. Max tried to breathe but the taste intoxicated her again. She kept coming back. She was starved for more and for nothing, burying her face into Renfro’s center as if to drain her. Each time she got a little taste of heaven.

But Renfro didn’t belong there.

“Oh there you go.” Each insult and praise got Max to eat her out harder. Renfro stroked thr girl’s hair, playing with a stubborn curl that withstood the test of time. “Just made for it, aren’t you? To get on your knees, have your pretty mouth between a woman’s legs?”

The sounds she made, Lord. Max tried not to like it. Why wasn’t it easy? “Shut up,” she gasped, “shut up God, just-”

“You’re smarter than that. You ought to know I can’t when you’re so good at giving me what I want.”

Max shoved three digits inside her and proved her right.

The hiss that came after would have been heavenly to her. Pity she didn’t hear it. Thighs that were stronger than she thought sealed around her and she was sure she was going to die. Renfro rode her messily, getting endless juices on her nose and cheeks. She could smell nothing but the musk that made her dizzyingly thirsty; touch nothing but surprisingly firm flesh; taste nothing but Renfro.

It was sick. She was sick.

And still her fingers kept curling. Her mouth kept working. Her eyes kept tracking Renfro’s orgasmic face. Her ears kept in tune to the sound of Renfro’s drumming heartbeat.

Bliss, yes - but there was pain everywhere. The back of Max’s neck dug into the desk wood. Renfro’s strong fingers maintained a tight hold on her hair. Her jaw ached to death. Hips rolled continuously on her face like waves. The tears filled her eyes as her breath was nowhere to be found.

Renfro released her. She collapsed against the desk, whimpering incessantly. Renfro couldn’t help the rise and tense of her shoulders. The girl knew how to eat pussy. And she had to admit that she looked pretty as she lay there fatigued. There was just the type of woman who was most beautiful with her lips wet and pouty from use. Max fit that category perfectly.

She lowered herself to the ground. Max’s hands shook with the need to wrap themselves around her neck, but she couldn’t do anything. Was she having a seizure? Sort of. Or was she meant to tremble this lightly but warm up this-

Fuck. No, it couldn’t be. 

Max made a noise of protest. Renfro knew. She knew that the heat symptoms were bound to creep up on her. She could’ve had sex with anyone, God - anyone but her. Renfro was out of her damn mind.

So was she.

Renfro smiled. “Got nowhere to run do you?” she asked. 

The piteous words knifed Max’s dignity and pride. It was all her fault. She hugged her legs up to her chest as the throb inside her worsened. She needed someone to touch her. She promised it didn’t have to be Renfro specifically but her body yearned to be pinned under her. She needed it rough, the kind that would make her forget this ever happened. 

“It’s alright,” Renfro said. Her fingers glided along Max’s thigh. “You put up a good fight. But in the end, you just needed to be touched.”

“You’re an evil person. Fuck you.” Max cried tears that mixed with sweat and slick as she came to a realization. “No, just . . . please, fuck me please, fuck me-”

The look on Renfro’s face was the final straw. All that smugness and self-importance made Max lunge at her.

Her legs locked around her. Her fingers tensed under the crop of Renfro’s hair. She could have killed her at that moment. It would all be over. No one would know who broke her down. But the heat tingled in her skin. The throb in her core was too strong. Logan didn’t cross her mind at all when she leaned in and devoured Renfro’s lips.

God, she hated how good it felt. Renfro’s hands were all over her. Under her shirt; around her waist; between her legs - Max nearly came right there when Renfro forced her down on the desk. This was the exact kind of painful all the boy toys hated to do to her. Apparently she was too pretty or whatever. Too intimidating. 

Max bit down on Renfro’s slim lip, a little reminder of what she could do. Maybe it was a reminder for herself, too. 

She could taste blood. It was the most delicious thing she’d had in months. 

Renfro hissed and pulled her off. Red drooled down her chin. She turned Max around and drove her face into the wood, squeezing up those perfect features and somehow making them imperfect. Max gasped for air.

“Shameless. Always trying to fight back, always trying to be trouble.”

Max didn’t realize her pants were off until she felt the sting on her ass. Her shrill cry only brought forth another unconstrained spank.  

“When will you realize you can’t win, 452?”  Renfro asked. She abused the soft flesh, hitting and tearing and squeezing, until Max’s throat burned from yelling. “No matter where you go, you’ll forever belong here, right at home.”

Max panted and sobbed. Her sweat made a puddle on the desk. Renfro’s monotone words rang true in her head. She barely fit in the real world. It was simply not made to be her home. She was manufactured to wage war against it until a bullet made her a flowerless corpse. Only then would it be her home: an unmarked spot in the earth.

Max sniffled. Here was her home in Renfro’s office, where they kissed and bit each other until they felt alive for once. This was forever unless she took a stand.

“Doesn’t mean I won’t try,” she whispered.

Her scream betrayed her promises once Renfro entered her. Four fingers swiftly moved into her, not giving her time to accommodate them. Renfro spared no mercy at all. She had Max crying and arching with just the curl of her wrist. She owned this girl, like she did so many others.

While her right was stone heavy on the transgenic’s back, her other hand was wet and working, drenched in Max and Max only. Max’s quivering pussy was as tight as the rest of her. It was so easy to enjoy breaking her. She got to feel the delicious wetness of her cunt; watch the struggle of her wide hips as they thrashed and fought; hear every raw scream echo knowing they would never haunt her.

“You maniac, fuck, I need-” Max was in heaven while being in hell simultaneously. Renfro knew how to do it perfectly, curving her fingertips right where she liked it and dragging her digits along her walls. “Harder. Almost there.”

“Bet you are,” Renfro hummed along her neck. She eyed the barcode, barely hidden through the mass of black hair - the thing that made her Manticore. Renfro watched it glisten with sweat, watched it distort as Max threw her head back.

But even she didn’t anticipate her teeth sinking into it.

That was when Max screamed. Renfro’s lips caressed her skin as if to comfort her, yet nothing could take away the pain spreading through her skin. Max was sure it wasn’t supposed to feel good either. She tried to tell herself it must be the fingers flicking at her clit or the steady thrusting, but Renfro bit harder and she began to beg again - something she swore to never do. 

Max reeled as she saw white. Her shaking body sent mixed signals, moving away unsuccessfully from Renfro’s touch while whining something like please don’t stop, I’ll be so good just please don’t stop.

And Renfro, for the first time, listened to her. She kissed and touched Max like it was a different setting where the younger girl was just a curious explorer and she helped her out. She gave it to her as hard as she wanted and didn’t want it to be. She lightened her nibble on the seared flesh and breathed her scent in, eyes closed. Max always smelled like petrichor, like she’d been in a storm without a raincoat, and it fit with how she covered her hand with her blissful rain. She liked that. It could’ve been like that.

She ultimately decided she didn’t want it to be. She liked how Max was now. Poor, tiny, vengeful Max pinned under her and submitting to how good she made her feel. Max whose sweat and blood she could taste on the tip of her tongue. Max who whimpered powerlessly when she kept fingering her, whose walls spasmed and shivered as she beckoned out the fight left in her. 

Max who shivered when she said “good girl” and kissed on those pillow lips.

The symptoms didn’t take long before leaving. The horror quickly kicked in. She felt the imprint of Renfro’s teeth on her neck with shaking fingers. She didn’t have to reach down to confirm the mess she made.