You don't think for a single second that maybe you'd be better off leaving Six. That wherever she is, whatever she's gotten into, you ought to stay away and stay out. Doesn't cross your mind. All you think is that she's gone, and you have to find her. You hunt through the room, to no avail. Then retrace your steps. Heart pounding, but too afraid to yell for her.

A few rooms down, it's her yell you hear. Except she isn't calling for you. It's a scream twined with a snarl, the sound of a carnivorous animal trapped and screeching to escape. It's not a good sound. Although it cuts off quickly, there's crashing. Another deeper voice. That voice is the same one you heard crooning patients to sleep: it's the doctor's. Your blood runs cold. How did he find Six? Or how did Six find him? Either way, you don't hesitate. Towards the sounds you streak, profile cautiously low, because getting caught yourself won't help you save Six.

You slip around a cracked doorframe, and -

There's the doctor, a tower in a white coat.

Six, clutched in his grasp, is suspended many feet above the ground, thrashing and growling. Her shadows are out, but none of them are reaching the doctor. Something holds them back. An invisible force that meets them midway each time, and deflects their attack.

The doctor's smiling. You understand, sluggishly. He has his own powers, aside from his whispering hypnotism. He has something that can rival Six: something that can subdue her. Luckily, he hasn't noticed you yet, but what can you even do against him? You're worse off than either of them: you have no powers at all.

Still, your blood roars in your ears. If you don't act… he might kill her, or take her soul. Twist her into something she isn't. The carving knife slides from its place on your back. Slinking around the edges of the room, you hear the doctor murmuring to Six, but the words themselves are too low to catch. Only the tone, low and sadistic. Six struggles and whimpers. His worst effect on Six might not be the physical restraint of her powers, but rather a more sinister attack on her mind. You need to do something. The knife trembles in your grasp. Nervous shudders run along your back. Facing the doctor, exposing yourself… he could destroy you, with much less effort than Six. It's strange how that doesn't stop you.

Six's scream ratchets up an octave. It hides the sound of your feet as you bolt recklessly towards the doctor. There's a spot, just above his sock, and below the bottom of his pant leg. A target.

Before you even know what you're doing, you've plunged the carving knife straight into the doctor's Achilles tendon.

Far far above you he roars like a speared beast, and you know you're playing with fire, but you grit your teeth and use all your strength to drive the knife as deep into his flesh as you can. To hurt him bad. Bad as you can. The meaty substance of his leg squelches horribly; blood blooms over his sock. The knife handle is ripped from your grasp when he kicks you and sends you sprawling halfway across the room.

Disoriented, your head raises in time to witness all the doctor's tools are arrayed around him, hung suspended in midair by thin arms of blackness. Like a twisted kind of spider web. Every tool is pointing directly at him from all angles.

Your breath catches. Six. Your attack gave her the time she needed.

The doctor's mouth wrenches open: he begins to yell. Then every tool, in perfect sync, shoots into his body. Knives bury deep enough that even their handles jam into his flesh. One sinks straight into his eye and from there, into his skull. A dozen needles puncture his skin. Scalpels pierce between his bones and stick there.

The doctor sways in place, looking like some horrific pincushion, and you still blink in dizzy disbelief that all that had turned around so fast. How swiftly Six (because of you) took ahold of the situation.

Whumph, his huge body collapses to the floor. Dust sprays. You throw an arm in front of your face against the onslaught, until it settles. The doctor lays on the floor, like a great rock. Motionless and very dead. A thick scent clogs the air, some cloying mixture between machine oil and blood, while greasy-red substance oozes from under his immense weight. It itches your throat and turns your stomach. But where's Six? She didn't - she wasn't caught under him, was she-? A fall like that would crush her. Terrified, you lunge forward, only to glimpse a tiny yellow figure rising up on the other side of his body, coughing. Six!

Relief surging through you, you scramble around the doctor (you're not so brave as to climb over his corpse), and nearly knock Six over with the force of your hug. She stiffens.

"We did it! I'm so glad you're okay! Why did you run off? Or did he catch you?"

Despite her verbal limitations, Six absolutely could answer the questions. She doesn't though. She stands stiffly, leaning away slightly. Wary.

Why, though? She has no reason to be wary of you, of all people. Especially not with her… abilities.

Slowly, you release her. "Talk to me," you press. "Six, I was so worried… you can't just run off like that."

She takes a step back. As you scour your mind for what might be the source of her reluctance, you find the answer. Right before she disappeared, you had brought up your displeasure with her consuming the lives of so many children. In fact, with her arms wrapped around herself, her gaze sliding away, you're reminded distinctly of when you were in the forest, the very first time you addressed her appetite. As soon as you started asking hard questions, Six withdrew from you, and began to consider leaving. Same thing earlier in the Factory. You questioned her, and her demeanor suggested that she'd hurt you to get you to shut up. She's incredibly honest and upfront about her actual actions, but whenever you question whether or not she should be doing a particular behavior, she immediately braces herself for abandonment.

It makes sense, now. She assumed you didn't want her around. She left before you could leave.

You're so happy just to see her alive that for a moment, you almost assuage her fears. You almost say, I'm sorry, look, I won't get upset again-

You even open your mouth, ready to say something like that.

Then you stop yourself.

You think about the bodies that had littered the floor. Not the doctor's, mountainous and once evil. But small. Children's bodies. You think about how little she hesitated. How, when she gets hungry, even you begin to feel unsafe. How this keeps happening. The cycle of her eating, you feeling horrible… it's getting worse and worse.

Your stomach flip flops. Bringing that up… voicing your displeasure… she might just want to leave. But she might instead decide you're more work than you're worth.

She scares you.

Six moves to step away, evidently deciding by your silence that you're done with her. It could have been that easy. Instead, you grab her wrist. Utter, "Stop."

She narrows her eyes.

She scares you but she's your friend. "It's about the kids you killed, isn't it?" Not that, not exactly. "Or my - my reaction to that."

Six says nothing.

"I'm right, though," you dare to continue. "What you did back there… that wasn't… good. You didn't need to do that. You get that, right?"

She tucks her chin down stubbornly.

"We could have just ran. Like we always do."

Six bares her teeth. Leave me alone.

You get it. Sort of. She's probably had a lot of kids ditch her - frankly, you don't blame them. So to some extent, she's always been waiting for things to be too much for you. Yes, she's attached, yes, she likes you, but she's perpetually readying herself for the moment you draw the line. At which point, apparently, she would abandon or kill you first.

That last one makes you nervous as hell, especially considering what she did. But you're not done.

"Look, I still want to travel with you, okay?" You snap. "Just because I'm upset with you doesn't mean I - I want to leave, or stop being friends."

Hope trickles in her frame as she lifts her head.

"But this isn't how friendships work. You can't pull away every time I ask questions. And you can't do whatever you want and expect me to be okay with it!"

She blinks slowly.

"What you did back there -" you cut off, grinding your teeth together. "I get needing to eat. Okay? I understand. But that… That was no better than the adults. That's scary, Six."

She bristles, but you have no patience for her being upset. "Instead of just waiting until you do something awful enough for me to leave, why don't you - not do awful things?"

She growls.

"No," you snarl back, "You don't get to just retreat and feel sorry for yourself because people keep ditching you. I want to be your friend, Six. But that's kind of a two-way street, okay? And when you just-" you wave your hand weakly, "slaughter a dozen kids because you feel like it - I deserve answers! I deserve to know what the hell is going on in your head!"

Something outside of the room clatters. Only then do you realize just how loud you've been speaking, and in a place so very unsafe. Instantly, Six tries to skitter away from the sound: you, however, haul her into a nearby cabinet with you.

For a time, you're both dead quiet. Nothing enters the room.

Only after you've waited many minutes do the two of you slip out, Six's head tilted down meekly. She knows you're not done.

You whisper shortly. "You'll wanna do something like that again, won't you? Like hurting all those kids?"

She's a terrible actor. That at least you can rely on. A faint smile flicks at her lips, her eyes already ravenous at the implication, even after having eaten more than you've ever seen her. She nods. Yes, she'll want to eat. Yes, she'll want to eat more than she needs.

"Don't you want to do the right thing?" You ask, dismayed.

Again, she nods. Not with the accompanying excitement or light. Just a, yeah. She does want to do the right thing, but she doesn't seem to feel anything about doing so. She doesn't have that sense of heroism you do, maybe, or any emotional idea that it's the right thing to be doing.

That's… scary. She loves killing, loves eating. But she fights to do good, for the sheer sake of it being the right thing to do. That… says something, doesn't it? Maybe it's more meaningful, that doing the right thing doesn't move her in any way, but that she does it anyway, or at least tries, through sheer force of will. She isn't doing a good enough job on her own, though.

Clenching your fingers, you utter, "new rule. You need to to tell me whenever you're hungry." Six blanches. "And - AND - you're not allowed to kill anyone without asking first." A pause, then, "except maybe adults. The scary ones." Which was just about all of them, really, but still.

Six huffs, and seethes. You don't think anyone's put any kind of restriction on her, and she clearly harbors animosity about the idea, but, "you can't just run around wild and do whatever you want. Not when you're playing with people's lives like they're nothing."

She rolls her eyes.

"This isn't a game. If you can't promise me those things, then I'm not going to the Signal Tower."

All playfulness sweeps from her face, replaced by a bitter, dangerous look. You don't think she'll kill you, but if she does - well, you would have been dead without her anyway. She needs to hear this.

"I'm not being mean," you grind out. "I'm trying to do something good, Six. And I want you to as well."

It takes time. Her shoulders slunch in defeat. She clutches herself in a self-hug. Those actions alone might indicate her retreating back into her comfort zone, where she doesn't listen to anyone else and does as she pleases. You know better, by the gentle bite of her teeth into her lip, by the way you could nearly see the gears turning in her head. She's considering. Which is a hell of a lot further than you've gotten with her so far about this topic.

"So?"

She nods.

"You agree to tell me as soon as you're hungry?"

Nod-nod.

"And you won't kill anyone until we both decide it's the right thing to do?"

Hesitation. Then nod-nod.

You exhale heavily. "Pinky promise?"

Six smiles softly, shyly. Her pinkie links with yours. One solid shake, then you're pulling away. Pact made.

"Good."

There's still an itch in the back of your mind - an unpleasant sense that she hasn't truly changed her mind about her own actions. Because most likely, she hasn't. Still, that wasn't the point of this whole spiel. Her mind is not something so easily changed, especially when she's spent so much time building walls to keep out anyone else's opinions or perceptions. The important thing is she listened. And agreed to change her actions first. It's a start.

You won't forget what she did back there. Can't forget it. Even now, you're chilled by just how much twistedness you had allowed to become a normal part of your life. Likewise, you're uneasy around Six in a way you hadn't been before, but maybe should have been.

You shake your head. "C'mon. Let's see if we can't find a way to the Tower."