Chapter Two

It was only a matter of time now. The poor man had sat huddled in the corner, quietly crying until a shock from his collar caused him to cry out. Jade felt no pity for him. They all broke eventually, some sooner than others, but she knew that ultimately, all the men they threw in with her would break and go against their "moral code." Well, she thought with an unnoticed smile, all but Raven.

The man's body began to jerk once more as his screams masked the faint electric zap that came from his neck. After a few seconds, his body landed against the floor like a rag doll left in the rain. His dark hair was drenched with sweat and clung to the sides of his mouth while the black wings against his back spread over him like a tattered blanket. This time, he did not begin anew with fresh sobs. His eyes glared at her, as though it was his cellmate who had inflicted the excruciating pain.

Jade only watched with callous blue eyes. He was about to break, and she would need every ounce of strength she possessed once he found his own. It wouldn't matter anyway, in the end. They always over-powered her, always achieved their objective, and as always, Xenna Corp. won. It was the circle of Jade's life, and here in this vast savannah of steel and wires, she was the mutilated gazelle in the heart of the lions den.

Hours of minutes passed, yet her eyes stayed on the man. His breathing was no longer labored and had settled into a steady rhythm. Her heart pounded against her bosom. Very soon, he would turn on her, just like the countless others before him. They all come in with friendly smiles and promises of being different, Jade reflected bitterly. No matter how much their code of morals mean to them, they always break it. When it comes to Xenna, only your will to survive allows you to live.

"Sasha?" the man gasped.

Jade's eyes turned back to the man. He had quietly risen to his hands and knees and was staring at her with a dreamy expression. And so it begins. "I am not your wife," she snarled softly as she drew her own pale wings against her. "Your wife is dead."

The man crawled slowly towards her without hearing Jade's words. "Oh, my Sasha!" he cried. "Darling, hold me! Please, Sasha… oh the horrible things…"

Jade rose to her feet and let her wings open behind her. "I'm not Sasha!" she shouted to deaf ears. "Get a hold of yourself!"

Her cellmate reached out to her with open arms. "They did things to me… ungodly things. They forced me into such unspeakable things…"

Jade pressed herself against the wall. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no way could she defend herself. She knew what to expect, and they expected her spirit to break and relent to their experiments after all these years. Yet Jade would not be broken. Test after test, she fought until they over-powered her. She decided long ago she would die before she would submit to the humiliation of their "reproduction study." They would never let her die, though. Even if it meant keeping her attached to their machines until the moons fell from the sky, they would do it. She was far too valuable to die.

The man continued to ramble as he crawled closer to Jade. His hands inched towards to her knees with groping fingers. "My love, please, let me forget… show me I'm still alive. Please, don't stop loving me… I didn't want—"

His rambling was cut short as Jade kicked him across the face. "Get away from me!" she shrieked as the man fell to one side. She jumped over him while he was down, her head rubbing the low ceiling as she attempted escape.

The man let out a half-crazed laughed. "Oh darling, please… no games tonight. I need you, Sasha."

Jade crouched behind the man, poised and ready to fight as she began to pray. Lor, my god above, forgive me my transgressions, for I want to live to see my baby girl one last time. The priests say we are to honor all life and never needlessly kill… but I figure you'll understand, given my situation. With the prayer said, she dove towards the man.

Unfortunately, he rose at the same time with a fist drawn and ready.

Jade hit the floor, shattering her nose and any control she held over the situation. With her senses temporarily lost, she couldn't fight off the groping hands of Sasha's husband. He had her now, and struggling at this point was hopeless. Yet Jade continued to flail her arms and legs, sinking her teeth into any unprotected flesh until he finally pinned her head with one hand and her arms with the other. "You soulless eritachi!" she spit into his face. "You'll pay for your weakness!"

"Poor, poor Sasha," he cooed. "So angry… so beautiful…"

"You are beautiful," her newest cellmate told her. "But I ain't gonna hurt you. You've been hurt enough already."

Jade merely scoffed. "That's what they all say… Let them shock you a few times and see how long your precious chivalry lasts."

The redheaded man merely shrugged. "Guess we'll see, but you mark my words, miss… I won't lay a hand on you."

Jade said nothing as she stared frigidly at him. He was very large for a Winged, perhaps nearly five feet tall she estimated when they brought him into her cell. His shoulders were very broad and his body was defined under his Xenna-issued "uniform." Had she not known better, Jade would have guessed that the man was of Dwarfish and Human descent. Xenna Corporation, however, killed mixed bloods once their background checks came back. They only tested on the purest of "creatures."

There's not too many of us left, she thought sadly. Between the Old Wars and generations of Xenna capturing them… we're practically a dying breed.

"So," came a voice from across the room, "You gotta name? Or are you just Experiment W-1F2-JE to all your friends?"

Jade smiled slightly at his accent. He was obviously from one of the eastern farmlands. "Dub-ya?" she mimicked.

"Maybe they call you 'Dub' for short?" he suggested with a grin. "Here they call me W-2M1-RF, but I'm just Raven to anyone who doesn't try to poke me where they've got no business poking… Raven Steele."

She could feel her defenses soften. Raven was very charming in his own farm-boy way. "I'm Jadeira… or just Jade."

Raven smiled, but his neck and shoulders quivered like a nervous shrug as the first of many shocks were emitted from his collar. "Pleased to make your acquaintance," he replied with only a slight hitch in his voice. "I'd come over and shake hands, but I figure you'd probably rip it off and have it for lunch or somethin'."

Jade gave a small laugh. It was the first laugh she'd felt in six weeks. "It'd be a lot better than the crap they give us here. I've seen livestock fed better food than what we get here."

"Yeah, so much for the classy reviews in the papers, huh?"

This time they both laughed, and the echo in the room lingered for a moment after they had stopped. Jade smiled slightly at her cellmate. "Raven, I haven't slept on my own free will in about four weeks… I either pass out from a fight or struggle, or sometimes they just drug me to make me sleep. You claim to be a man of your word so… if I curl up on this bed behind me and rest… you won't make me regret it, will you?

Raven put a hand over his heart. "You've got my word, Miss Jade," he said. "I'd swear on my mama's grave, but she didn't get such decency. I'd swear on my hammer or my weapon, but I ain't got neither one, so I guess it's my word that'll have to do."

Jade nodded as she felt around behind her for the bed. Slowly she stood up and backed against it, keeping her eyes on the red Winged across from her. "I don't trust you," she said. "Eventually they all do exactly what Xenna orders them to do, and you'll be no different. But I think I can trust you to long enough to sleep for a little bit… so I can put up a decent fight when the time comes."

Raven just shrugged as another quiver raced through his body. "Miss, you can believe what you wanna, but they'll have to kill me before I'll harm a woman."

Jade curled into a tight ball on the bed. "Xenna can give you a fate worse than death. They'll make you wish for death."

"Well," he replied, resting his head against the wall, "I guess I've got a lot to look forward to during my stay here."

Ten years had passed since that day, and Jade found herself once again curled into a ball in the corner of a Xenna cell. This time there was no sense of peace, only hatred as she laid there naked and cold, her face covered in half-dried blood on the metal floor. Her cellmate lay in the middle of the room, unconscious from Xenna's punishments and crazed rape. Soon they would come and take him back to his cell, leaving her alone until her next meal. After that they would begin the seemingly endless tests for the next three weeks. She already knew the results they were looking for. They would all be negative, just like before, except the one time after she had escaped ten years ago.

Raven and Jade gave birth to their first child, Laila.

A/N: I never expected to get any reviews! lol So yay, I've got one! Please be patient, as I am posting before editing. I plan on editing the chapters as I go, but in the meantime I'm posting for story progression's sake. I'll post in the latest chapeter(s) when previous chapters have been cleaned up and such. Please give any helpful advice or suggestions! I'm always improving, but have little time to go about it at a pace I'd like so...

Please keep flames to yourself. I'm not trying to be the best here... just trying to write.

Janne Doe