Snippet #1740653

West Wing Corridor.
0729.

Jack had never been so horrified in his life. The people in this place were not only insane, but blatantly out of control as well. The woman with the green hair had been bad enough, screaming and showing no respect for personal space, but the boy- Jack didn’t know what the lad had been taught by this parents, if he even had any, but the idea of hitting a woman no matter the provocation was totally repugnant to him. Both in dance and at home, Jack had been instructed on proper behaviour, so much so that the idea of using his size and strength against someone was little more than a distant pinprick on his moral horizon.

Vinny, of course, had grown out of his respectful stage and moved right onto obnoxious, but the lessons had always stuck with Jack. He never physically stopped his twin doing what he wanted, but Jack was more than willing to disapprove when Vinny came home with a black eye and an overlarge grin.

“We’ll be all right, miss,” he told Karissa, steering her closer to this Sam person. “If we stick together and don’t do-” he gestured back towards Devan. “-that, then we should be fine. Some breakfast, and then we’ll see if we can’t sort this whole mess out.”

He glanced back, seeing pandemonium, before shaking his head. “I really don’t with that sort of behaviour at all, so you will certainly not be seeing any such treatment from me.” Even if he was mad, Jack knew himself well enough to speak the truth; nothing in the world would turn him into that sort of man.

Carefully, he looked at the people who had broken off to go to breakfast along with him, and offered them a sweeping smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” he reiterated, hoping to smooth the way to better conversation in time.

West Wing Corridor/Dining Room.
0735-0745.

Once everyone had gathered, Sam, who seemed to be unconcerned with the fighting, nodded his head and gestured along the corridor. “Come with me please; I will show you to breakfast.” He then turned, moving along towards the main block. “Once we arrive, I would like you all to take a seat; your meals and medication will be brought to you. Just to make sure you all know, violent behaviour is not permitted anywhere here, so please show your fellows the respect they deserve.”

That said, he escorted them carefully towards the main building, scanning himself through several sets of double doors before throwing open the entrance to the dining hall. The room revealed was painted in a washed out yellow and hosted a series of bolted down picnic benches and a manned nurses’ station. “You can sit where you like. Go ahead and find somewhere.”

When he was certain that everyone was inside, Sam scan-locked the door and made his way over to the nurses’ station to begin the drug round.

West Wing Corridor/Infirmary.
0730-0750.

The team dealing with the intervention paid little mind to Sam’s group or Stepford’s careful words, more intent on getting their charges under proper control in the shortest possible amount of time. The two who were caring for Aveline made a quick check of her physical condition before deciding that she was safe to move. Almost at once, a wheelchair was summoned from a storage room and the girl was deposited into it before the two nurses whipped her away towards the infirmary.

The room they took her into was as institutional as the rest of the building, but was clearly well run and very clean. There were five beds partitioned off by curtains, all able to be seen from the central desk, and several more rooms branching off behind closed doors. At once, they moved to position Aveline on one of the main beds, fully prepared to use restraints if she didn’t remain where they had placed her.

Already, a doctor had been summoned, and the staff at the desk were preparing medication without having to be asked. There was no wariness, only a resigned calm as they went about their business.

West Wing Corridor/Solitary Confinement.
0730-0750.

Devan, by far the more challenging patient, maintained his thee-nurse team as he struggled and fought. Rapidly, it became apparent to the intervention party that Devan was not going to be calmed or go down without a fight, so rather than attempting to move him, they worked in conjunction with each other to hold him still so that he would not be able to harm himself or others while Aveline was taken away and the other inmates were escorted to breakfast.

They remained in place until the coast was clear, only moving once Sarah’s group had been followed by Stepford into her room and the door had been locked behind them. Thus secure, they awaited Stepford’s return with a hypodermic syringe filled with a mild sedative, which she calmly attempted to deliver to Devan’s rump via intramuscular injection. There was not enough to put him to sleep, but it was a hefty enough dose to make him drowsy and pliable.

Once they had achieved control, the group moved Devan to a wheelchair and took him under heavy observation to the solitary confinement block where he was placed inside a secure room to recover. Padded to prevent injury with nothing but a window set very high in the wall and a viewing flap in the door, the room was designed to offer little in the way of distraction and nothing that could cause injury. It was well insulated and silent, neither cold nor warm, and the only light filtered weakly in through the bars of the window where the smallest chink of sky could be seen.