In the catacombs...
The floor was cold under her hands as Isabel fingers traced the lines on the floor, realizing quickly that it was tile. The light suddenly came up and Isabel couldn't help an involuntary shudder as she recognized where she was. Except this time she wasn't dreamwalking Max in an attempt to rescue him.
This time she was the one in the White Room.
The door opened, and booted footsteps moved into her line of sight. Then an amused Texas drawl accompanied the tapping of fingers on a gun-belt.
"Well, little Miss Evans. You sure are in a world of trouble, aren't you?"
"Agent Pierce," Isabel said calmly, even though her heart was racing. This couldn't be real. Pierce was dead. Michael had killed him. Slowly she climbed to her feet, all the while keeping her eyes locked on him.
"How?"
"You didn't think that little event wasn't a little staged at the time, did you?" A slow curl of a grin, as he looked her up and down, expression amused at her defiance. "Wellll, we have our ways." He tipped his Stetson back, and dropped the drawl. "Fooled you for months the first time. One little 'death' to keep from really dying wasn't that much harder."
Staged right up to the point where they'd burned his body in the desert, she thought. Still the acrid smell of disinfectant in the air, combined with her confusion on exactly how she wound up here, was enough to make a tiny bit of doubt start to curl through her mind.
"They'll get me out. Just like we got Max out." And this time there was an even more powerful calvary. With Wyatt leading the way, she was certain. She'd just have to keep it together and keep herself alive till then. "You're not going to like dealing with my boyfriend. He's going to be pissed."
"What makes you think we don't already have him?" Agent Pierce took a step back, paced a short distance, and was now wearing his FBI-in-charge suit, every hair still in place, blue eyes looking at Isabel like she was the most interesting specimen under the microscope. Waiting for a reaction. Examining her in the minutest detail. "If we can restrain you, we can restrain him."
"You don't." There was no way. Her world had no experience with magic and demons. There was no little device to mute his powers they way they could hers. Isabel held his gaze, trying hard not to back down. "You have no idea what you're dealing with."
"We will. We're not letting him wake up until we have a better idea what he is, first." Pierce's lazy smile was accompanied by a stroll over to a bank of monitors that had materialized along one wall. Flip, flip, flip, and a press of a button. The FBI agent turned and leaned one shoulder against the wall, watching her for her reaction. "Do you think I'd lie, when the truth serves me so well?"
She didn't want to look, afraid of what she would find. But Isabel was drawn to the monitors and what they displayed.
Max, screaming in protest against what ever was displayed on the VR visor he was wearing.
Michael, still defiant despite the bruises that marked his face, yelling in his own white room.
Wyatt, pale and grey, unconscious and unresponsive as the technicians moved around him.
"You can't do that!" she said rounding on Pierce. "We just want to be left alone!"
He applauded, slowly, eyes fixed on hers. "Brava. Great delivery of your lines, Miss Evans. Diverging from the script, you can see that we can and have." Pierce shrugged, then finally glanced at the monitors. "Of course, you can make this easier for us. We might give the boys a rest, if we have your willing cooperation."
"Like I'd really believe any promise you'd make."
But if he would...even for a little while.
"What do you want?"
"Your agreement," Pierce said, stepping forward to circle her. "Relax. Stop fighting us. We've already won, but they're wasting our time. If you let us get a baseline, do a few simple tricks-- well." He stopped behind her, and leaned in to whisper, "Your choice: you, your boyfriend, or a random friend from that oh so interesting school of yours. I'll leave it up to you."
There had to be a catch. Isabel knew that. Knew he couldn't be trusted. But powerless in the White Room, she didn't see any other way she could help them. At least not at the moment. I cooperating would buy them time, if it would keep other students at the school safe...
"Fine. I'll do it."
Pierce stepped back with a satisfied smile, then dropped the expression into the withdrawn watchfulness he usually wore. "Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Evans. The sooner we get this over with, the happier we'll all be."
No particular emphasis to indicate who that 'we' referred to.