Chapitre 35: 35. Bruises.
Damon sat next to Mimi. He wanted to stroke her, comfort her, reassure her that everything was okay, but again, for the sake of the future, he had to torture her first. He put everything ready, trying to make this as traumatic as possible. considering Mimi's fears is not difficult at all. All it took was just a few trays of instruments, and several different colored bags dripping into her, her mind messed up by drugs. Few chemicals made the air smell more like a hospital or nasty place to be.
I woke up, and I was all drugged up, trying to fight it and move, and my hands were tied. A little pinch on my elbow told me there was a cannula, and panic surfaced. I was in a dimly lit room and saw the IV bags. There were several. Different colors and they were all dripping into me. I felt very helpless. I had no idea where I was, other than I did not want to be here at all. Then, there was a small metal table with instruments for autopsy or something similar. I could smell the air.
I knew the memory had been taken away, but in this room, my condition was threatening to bring others to the surface, and I tried to fight the medicine out. I saw the infusion pump move, pushing more medicine when it noticed that the concentration was decreasing.
I was pretty damn confused. I wasn't sure if this was a dream or real. I knew the memories were trying to surface. Sark, opening me up, seeing how the jelly bombs had worked, my friends, dead when I'd finished them, or the innocent ones I'd maimed though I couldn't help myself, killing innocent people, mauling them in my bloodlust and then the horrible cleansing afterward, months of forced feeding of human blood and all the time spent cleansing.
My pain, spiked shackles, the damn polish scientist, drugs, metals, weakness. Sickness, need to get away. Waking up in the grave, digging myself out of there. Shot, wounded.
Damon controlled himself as the first flashes came through. He squeezed the rail in the observation room and watched as Mimi writhed and thrashed. He put more medicine on the remote, making the memories surface better.
They were so horrible that he felt somehow overwhelmed by helping Mimi. How do you recover from something like that, and when you've had to recover without help? What more could he do? Those experiences had left their mark on Mimi so deeply and so violently that Damon felt powerless.
Sure, he could dispel the experiences, but their impact. What could he do about it? He didn't think about Mimi's armor at all now, and he wondered if he'd just have to learn that Mimi always had it. Mimi would never again allow herself to be vulnerable, safe, or trust another.
Mariella said, " Honey, you've already caught the memories and found the place. Let Mimi sleep, and I'll tell you a few things."
Damon sighed and said, " I don't know what will become of us, me and Mimi. My alpha side wants to take Mimi to the nest and take care of her. It's not even thinking about breeding yet. Those experiences are something that no one, especially Mimi, should have to go through. And that girl has taken a beating from them. How can we help? How you help someone who has dug herself out of the grave, several times, shot, or tortured."
Mariella stroked for a while, and Damon pressed the button three times. The infusion pump flashed, and Mimi's thrashing and jerking stopped. Damon closed his eyes, put his head down, and felt around.
He pressed twice more so that he felt Mimi fall deep enough. The two walked into the room and sat next to the bed. He took Mimi's hand in his, closed his eyes, and started to remove and dispel what he could find. None of those were excellent memories.
Memories had been muddled with drugs, with Mimi's emotions and desperation, making them almost weapons in her mind, ready to bruise and hurt her. Number two wanted to experience what Mimi had gone through, so he created a place in his mind, where he copied everything that he removed. So he could learn, he could feel. Understand too. To help repair and recover. He loved deeply Mimi.
Mariella took Damon by the hand and led him to the medbay. She said, " Colin knew and didn't give us that information. Mimi had said that it would never be given to anyone else. But I have the information now, the password. Are you sure you want to read it?"
Damon nodded. Mariella went to the computer, opened a menu, opened a folder, and gave the password.
Damon said," Go help with number two. Make sure he doesn't copy everything. He's doing that at the moment, by the way, into his head. He loves Mimi, he truly does, and he wants to live through what she has been through."
Mariella sighed and said," Fine, but are you okay?"
Damon nodded, and Mariella then went after number two.
Mariella wrapped herself around this one and said, "You stop that, you hear me? I am gonna be naughty and use my white power and erase them in your mind. You are not supposed to suffer like she did. We will help her move on, get over it, and start over. No need to blow your own head into pieces in the process."
She used her white power, erased all of them, and prevented this very stubborn individual to doing it again, this was so much like number one but then again, this was an even more dangerous one, a brutal, cruel version, and love for Mariella was not as strong as number one's was. This loved Mimi more, had always loved. Nothing would change it.
Damon read. It was like a horror story, and often, Mimi had fought her way out of there. She had come to a safe house somewhere and had been there before she had called anyone. Her rage had been fully blown out, and it had been one of the five or Taylor who had gotten her calm down enough for Colin to help her. She had been in a dangerous place, a very dangerous creature.
But Damon went through it all clinically. Now, he really understood better why Mimi had been in that condition all along. Also, when he was done, he started calling around, putting out inquiries about who was chasing Mimi. He knew this one guy, from memory, that he wasn't dead and Mimi was planning revenge, but he would get to him first.
Colin had also given him their patient files from Mimi's clinic, and there was an actual surprise. He got the information that Mimi had been helping the alphas who had raped her, and he brought this information to the attention of Curran. He had contacted Curran, and they were almost becoming friends. He didn't see Curran as a threat but as an ally, and he sorrowlessly told him what Mimi had been through when those alphas raped her. Curran had worked with Mimi and she had never mentioned rapes by those alphas, not a one time.
He was so fucking angry, and he wanted to show them, tell them who had solved their problems, and Mimi had helped so many. But they need to know this. Curran had been furious and said this would not stay hidden. He'd take care of it.
That had not been ever accepted by the shifters and they had their ways to find out the truth, rape and forced breeding, paying for cubs. Those alphas would go down and it could be that they would have to pay compensation to Mimi. To pack, and Curran would make sure that would happen too.
Damon got a read on everything and gave them time to sort themselves out in his head. He knew a lot more now about Mimi's condition and the changes in physiology than he had before, but he also knew that somewhere, she had files on those places. They were still there. But he would get them.
He had read those files she had had in her base and he called Magnum, told him about those files, and called Colin too, who swore quite a long time as he could have that information too. But they were now gonna clear as much as possible stuff out from Mimi's offices and they would inform Damon what they would find. Damon also gave them a few dozen phone numbers of high-ranking vampires who were bored and would be more than willing to provide always hordes of hungry vampires to eat naughty scientists.
Number two had finished with her and Mariela had taken that one somewhere to be handled and made sure that he had no memories in his mind.
It was his time to be with Mimi. Now, he went to Mimi, untied her from the IVs and shackles, lifted her in his arms, and took her into one bedroom. He took off his shirt and pulled his chilled wife against him.
She had become more sensitive to cooling down under the anesthetic; her thermoregulation was very delicate. Damon knew that time would probably help with that, and he would just have to remember that. Her physiology had changed so much and she had changed so much. There had been little blips on Colin's notes like he would have not written everything, but Mimi had been Mimi and there had been at least 13 times when she had cooled herself down, every one in five and Taylor had been ones to found her.
He warmed her up and kept his pheromones open so that she could always smell them, and the feeling of safety would be there when she woke up even a little. The dose he had given her was brutally large, and she would probably sleep for a long time, but he felt her fighting the medicine, so he took her next to him, trying to comfort her and security so that she wouldn't be so busy chopping the medicine off. He could feel her panic, and it drove him to protect her even more.
I was safe, I slowly realized it, and I was close to someone, in someone's arms. Someone was holding me and giving me security, warmth, and closeness. Somehow, something in my mind was starting to believe that this would last. That this would be something I could trust. I let to this feeling. Now, I was not alone, not desperate, not in an impossible situation where I would have to survive on my own, not even close.
I calmed down and let the feeling of safety wash over me. I started to trust. Even a bit. I let it help, and I realized I was home, that I was in the pack and safe, and I was so tired of all the shit. Every terrible memory. Every death. I was so exhausted that I just wanted to rest, to sleep, to be safe in the warmth, and I let the drugs keep me asleep. I stopped fighting it, and I relaxed and accepted the help. I needed rest. I was tired, and this would help.
I could feel myself drifting deeper and deeper into sleep and rest. Where there were no nightmares, there was just the familiar security of being at home, in a pack, in someone's arms. Being fully safe, safety that I could trust.
Damon held Mimi for a couple of hours. He felt her fall asleep again and calm down again. That was good. The drug would last for a while, and Mimi's body would digest it as fast as it could, but still, Mimi would get some rest. It had been a hard time for her to be in the pack and it felt that she had slept most of the time, but better times would come.
He left Mimi snuggled warmly under the covers, pulled the curtains forward so it was dark and safe, and went to Mariella. As Mimi slept, parts of her had been aware of Damon and his pheromones too.
Mimi was a strong alpha female, and she did not want to breed, not yet, and it would be her choice when to breed as it would be up to her fertility. So her alpha side got on with things and ensured that Mimi's fertility would be in a few weeks later very low and it would be time before she could breed.
This was not Mimi's conscious decision but her alpha side's. She had her sides too, and the alpha did not see that this was the right time to breed. Soon the alpha male would not pay attention to her in a few weeks as she slept, and then it would be too late.
Mimi's ovaries started to grow and shed eggs into her breeding uterus. Those eggs would be alive for a month and this side was going to empty Mimi's ovaries fully. Thus rendering her infertile until her hormones start to ripen more eggs.
Mariella was in the kitchen, and Damon went to curl up.
They kissed, and Mariella said, " Should we do some unpacking or what? I think you're pretty full. Come on, sweetheart, let's unpack, and that'll help. You have pieces of those memories still in your mind too, so I need to do some spring cleaning same time. "
Damon grunted, and he let his wife lead them to the bedroom, where he unloaded all his frustration with all the shit, self-loathing, and pity for Mimi because Mimi didn't need pity, not at all.
They unloaded for a little over a week, about ten days, and went to breakfast, but Mimi wasn't there. There were several Salvatores too. all of them were happy and relaxed too. Mariella frowned. She was not so experienced as an alpha female but something stirred her alpha side in and bad way too. She was not just aware of what.
Damon looked around for a moment, and Mariella asked the number two," Where's Mimi?"
Two grumbled," Still asleep, her metabolism at rock bottom. She's not digesting the medicine, just sleeping. She's under the electric blanket in the bedroom, and the medicine will disappear on its own. I tried to put some splicers on, but Mimi destroyed my splicers, so she wanted to sleep. She sleeps. Charles and Adam have been holding her, but there has been no change, so we have now concluded that she really needs sleep and is now sleeping off her sleep debt. She needs to rest. So no disturbing. She feels safe and wants to rest."
Mariella pondered, normally number two would not just let go and let Mimi just sleep it off, she said to Damon in her mind, "Damon, there is something that really riles up my alpha side, how come number two just lets Mimi sleep, and not doing anything, I mean, use teeth more, put an antidote, or something. That is peculiar. "
Damon grunted and replied, "It is a bit, but let's make a test, as soon Charles comes here, he is the one who has been holding Mimi in his arms most recently, I will announce that I will look Miss through, lets' see, I have little theory but question why is still not answered."
Charles came to the kitchen. He had gone into the shower, but Damon could smell Mimi on his skin. He felt his alpha side reacting, too. Well, this is interesting.
Number one thought for a moment, looking at Charles, who was getting food for himself, and said, " Fine, let's eat now, and I'll see what's going on with the young lady. I will give her a good once over and let's see if I can get that drug out of the system."
Charles snapped, and fast, with a terse voice that made Mariella raise her brows too." Let her sleep. She has a lot to sleep and no need to pull her out of that drug, as she is not digesting it. Leave her hell alone."
Mariella furrowed her brows and said, "Mimi's metabolism is really low, 0.4, and she doesn't even try to digest the medicine. Damon needs to check her out. "
Charles gritted his teeth but said nothing after one look from Damon. Damon sneered and wondered how to get her to perk up again, but once he'd seen what was going on, he'd know better. They ate enough, and Mariella made sure everyone ate properly, including the boys and Adam and Charles. They smelled faintly of strawberries, all four of them, which told him that Mimi always had company and a lap to be in.
Damon was disturbed by the thought, and he realized that his jealousy was flaring up again and in a proper way. Mariella had her suspicion as well as Damon too.
He said, "I'm going to see her through, and no one will interfere with her unless I say so because she could wake up already."
Two grunted, " Good luck to you,"
Marielle got up, and they put the dishes on the machine.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone