fandomhigh | Detention, Depths of the Castle, Friday

"And here I am without any marshmallows," Karla said regretfully from behind him. "What a waste. Well, I suppose not for you. But for those of us with tastebuds, I mean."

Hello, Jono. Karla had important information to pass along to you. But since she didn't really know you, she was going to have to get you good and mad before she trusted the cover enough to pass it along.

//Never had much of a sweet tooth,// Jono replied, hands balling into fists at his side so tightly that his knuckles went white. //You here to babysit your friend there? Make certain she doesn't murder anybody else? Or are you just bored?//

He wouldn't hesitate to try to throw a punch, if she tried his patience enough.

Karla wrinkled her nose at Raven. "I'd hardly call her a friend," she sniffed and that was true enough. "Especially after that mess yesterday. It was all so..." It took Karla a second to spit out the word. "...Wasteful."

It was probably a good thing she hadn't strung up a psychic link between them yet. Jono would have gotten to remember what an intense feeling of nausea felt like.

//Th'likes of you only get to consider it a waste if there's any chance in hell that you'd have been able to put her to use.// He clenched his fists a little tighter, relaxed them, and then clenched them again. //Sookie was better than that. Better even rotting down here than she ever could have been, under the brainwashed command of your mad queen.//

Karla flinched--that was fine. Let him think that she was intimidated by his fist clenching. It was just--Sookie.

"Yes, I suppose she is much better off, down here and rotting in an icicle cage like that," Karla said, struggling to inject the appropriate amount of boredom in her tone. "I'm so glad her real friends would rather see her dead than about and alive, enjoying the sunshine and freedom again. You Resistance types are sure showing us the value of friendship!"

She grinned at him. "Come on then. Rant. You know you want to. Tell me exactly what you think of us. Share your feelings. Let them out." Give her an opportunity to talk to you over a psychic thread.

Jonothon's blood ran chill, and his flames sank down to a low blue as he stepped forward, stopping just an inch shy of grabbing the front of Karla's shirt and shaking her by it.

//And what'll you do with them once I do? I'll keep them to myself, there's no point in reasoning with puppets. Especially when the puppeteer is a madwoman like Umbridge. But you will not talk about Sookie that way. You have no goddamn right.//

"I'll talk about Sookie any damn way I please," Karla snarled, more frustrated that he hadn't taken her up on her offer. She stuck her her face very close to his and hissed, "Just what are you going to do to stop me."

And, damn the timing, Karla was just going to yell, *This is a facade, damn it! I'm with the Resistance and I have a message!

Jono's eyes widened just slightly at the yelling in his head, but he managed to keep from rocking backwards, keeping control of his wits enough to project a snarled, //Nothing! I'll do absolutely bloody nothing, thanks to the dampeners you bloody cowards have up! Why don't you take them down and ask me that again?//

And, at the same time, just between the two of them, he added, //Prove it.//

He'd seen her down here yesterday, watching as Raven brutalized Sookie within the confines of their minds.

At first, Karla was left grasping at straws. How could she prove her where her true loyalties lay. But then... *Sookie was my friend,* she sent, letting him taste her grief and horror and regret. *I will never be able to forgive myself, Imperio'd or not, for watching her die and feeling nothing.*

Real tears began forming in her eyes and Karla had to quickly look away before they could fall. "That's right you'll do nothing!" she snapped, struggling to control her emotions. So much would be ruined if she broke now. "Because you are nothing. Remember that."

Jonothon hadn't been shaking before. Had managed to even keep from doing so yesterday, when he'd been yelling at Sookie's killer.

Now, with Karla's grief sweeping over him, mingling with his own, it was all he could do to stay on his feet. He took a half-step backward to steady himself, and then squared his shoulders, looking sideways at her and raising a fist to shake in her face.

//I am free,// he projected, on that open channel, letting anyone close enough to listen pick up on what he was saying. //You might have me locked away and I might not be able to touch you, but I'm more free than you'll ever be. Pawn. Puppet.//

Between the two of them, there was just a note of question. Nothing more, nothing less. What the hell was she doing down here?

*We needed someone with magic to examine the defenses down here,* Karla sent, even as she began railing insults to him about being a hideous, worthless freak. Her mindvoice was flavored with regret at the words, but she didn't stop insulting him. *We've never gotten past them before, so we needed to learn more about them now. I'm one of the most powerful witches we have on the other side, so I volunteered to take a look. The only way to get in here and out again is to become a Loyalist. So I did.*

Have some of that nausea and revulsion from before, Jono.

Jonothon's own return rant was more about how she'd sold out, about how she was nothing more than a slave to an overpowered sociopath, how he'd take any insults flung by the likes of her as a compliment.

He wasn't entirely remorseful about it, either. Three years in this room had left him with little in the way of regret, especially when he was only playing the part.

//And did you find anything interesting?// Anything more than any of them had seen for themselves in their time down here?

"I'd rip your balls off and feed them to you if you weren't lacking the necessary equipment!" Karla snarled aloud. "And I don't mean your mouth!"

*The defenses aren't actually keyed to anything down here,* Karla sent. *They're linked somewhere else, up in the school. After I leave here, I'm going to try and track it down. But all the other times, when we tried to remove the defenses from right here? They failed because we were looking in the wrong spot this entire time.*

//Oh, trust me, Sunshine, I've got a pair. Perhaps your chastity vows have you a bit confused about the definition?//

So help him, Jono would almost be having fun, if a conversation like this happened to come under different circumstances...

//That explains why rescue hasn't come sooner, I suppose. And you figure you'll be able to make use of that information to free us?//

He'd been down here for three years. He'd believe that one when he got to see the sun again, perhaps.

"From the way you sat with your thumbs up your ass--"

*Mother Night, I am so sorry about this!*

"--when Sookie died, I just assumed you were neutered!

*If I can figure out how it works, we can turn it off. And considering what the Hell I spent the last twenty-four hours doing, if you think I'm leaving before I do figure it out, you're out of your damn mind.*

Jono stepped back slightly, looking something as though he'd been punched in the guts. That last blow had come with an apology, true enough, but that didn't lessen the sting of it.

//And there wasn't anything I could've done, even if I had suspected that it was going to go well beyond Raven's usual torture methodology.//

And the sting found its way into his words and clung to them.

//You're lucky I don't break your fucking jaw for that one. After what the hell you spent the last twenty-four hours doing, you had best deliver. I'm not in any mood to watch any more of my family die this week.//

When you were stuck in a single room with the same people for years on end, eventually you started to accept that they were more family than the ones you left back home had ever been.

*I'm glad you didn't,* Karla said. There was already an impressive bruise blooming on one side from Dinah's punch. *I don't think I could have brought myself to dodge and that would play Hell on my cover.*

Rather than responding, Karla just shoved at his shoulders, trying to knock him backwards.

*Hate me when we're done. I'm not trying to play who suffered more, because I'm not pretending like I can even compete. But I'm doing this to get everyone out.*

Jono rocked backward slightly with the shove, and then he did reach out and grab her by the front of the shirt, giving a shove right back and aiming to slam her backwards against the nearest wall.

//Then we had better make this good. Tell me if there's anything else I need to know, and then do whatever you need to keep that cover of yours.//

He didn't trust her as far as he could throw her. But all things considered, he could throw her fairly far.

*Make sure you tell anyone you can,* Karla sent, locking eyes with his. Even within her sneer, her eyes were deadly serious, locked on his. *And be ready. We're breaking out tomorrow. Can you be ready by then? And ready everyone else?*

Jono would have cast a glance around the room, at the broken and the mourning. But he couldn't afford to break eye contact. Not if Karla wasn't here demonstrating a new torture method or something. Build up the hope, and then rip it down again and laugh...

//We're as ready as we're ever going to be. You don't spend this much time rotting in hell without constantly keeping your eyes open for a way out again.//

He shook her, screaming something for the rest of the room about how she wasn't worth the time it took for him to tell her off, calling her a murderer, and worse.

//But I'll do what I can to round people up without rousing suspicion.//

*Keep an eye on the most broken, will you?* Karla asked. *The rest of you can get out and flee or fight as they wish. But the rest of them...they're going to need help.*

And with that, Karla brought her knee up directly between his legs. It stopped, just barely grazing his balls, but he should be able to guess the correct reaction she was going for, there.

"Oh, look," she said. "Guess you had a pair after all."

Wasn't it so very fortunate that when you only had half a face to worry about, you only had to bother making half a face look worried? Jonothon closed his eyes the moment he realized what she'd been going for, dropped her onto the floor, and sank to his knees, keeping his head bowed and letting his fire grow dim while he radiated anger for anyone within range to feel.

Anger, at least, was an appropriate emotion that wasn't exactly difficult to dredge up.

//I'll be holding back as long as I can, if this works. I have no intentions of letting this building stand, and everybody had better he out by then. Godspeed, then.//

The 'and thank you for not really kneeing me in the nads' part went unspoken, but you had better believe he was thinking it.

*You have my word we'll try,* Karla sent, stalking off in high dudgeon. *For whatever that is worth, you have it.*

Detention, Depths of the Castle, Friday

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