DISCLAIMER: Women's Murder Club and its characters are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. Dollhouse belongs to Joss Whedon and Fox. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Thin Ice
By Demeter
She has completed the engagement successfully but something isn't quite right with her. They have to drag her to the chair kicking and screaming.
It's kind of silly, Adelle thinks as this is a petite woman whose crime has been trespassing, and yet Alpha is still vivid on all of their minds. They've been careless once. That can never happen again.
Before she closes the door behind her, she looks down at the lower level where everyone, thank God, goes about their day, very much oblivious to this latest disturbance. Sierra meets her gaze, the active's expression thoughtful and much too aware.
Adelle suppresses a shudder, then turns away to join the others in the room where Libra has been secured to the chair now. She isn't resisting anymore but quietly sobbing.
Adelle has never given much thought to how this procedure could possibly be uncomfortable or even painful; at least not before she was given some more time with her friend Margaret through Echo. It wasn't Echo she'd thought of first, at the time.
Boyd and Ashe stand each on one side of the chair, watching the proceedings closely, but she can sense a tension between the two men. She'll have to ask Boyd about it later; while he has the annoying habit to challenge her, she trusts his instincts.
"I hope you know what you're doing, because lately there was quite a bit reason to doubt it," she tells Topher who is much too nervous for her liking.
"It's under control," he assures her.
She stares at the young woman in the chair whose body is jerking, fear, pain and confusion, and she sees right through it to be once again confronted with her own. Any more problems in this house, the powers that be are going to shut it down.
Adelle won't let that happen, even if it means that one more doll is going to the attic.
The End