Another drabble between chapters eleven and twelve. This one regarding what happened while Nyx was in prison.

"Hey,"

I looked up from my book at the raccoon who had come to sit next to me. "Oh, hi,"

"I uh. Wanted to ask if you're okay," said Sly, not completely meeting my eyes. That didn't surprise me, really, emotions weren't always Sly's strong suit.

"Okay? Yeah, I'm fine. What makes you ask?" I replied, raising an eyebrow at him. Did I not look okay? Was I staring at my book with the look of the damned?

Sly sighed. "You spent weeks imprisoned by, as you put it, a 'grade A psychopath' who was trying to brainwash you with spices. ...You couldn't have just walked away from that unscathed,"

Now, emotions weren't really my strong suit, either, and I wanted to just completely avoid this conversation, but. Sly's tone was very genuine, he clearly was worried about me and I supposed that he deserved to know what had happened in there.

"You want the long version or the short version?" I asked, closing my book and setting it aside.

"The long version would be nice, but whatever you're comfortable with is fine," Sly answered.

"Well. She asked a lot of questions, to begin with, before we noticed anything actually unusual," I began. "She basically interrogated me. Actually, I'm pretty sure that's what the door said, even though I can't read Czech,"

"She asked so many questions about the gang. She was desperate to learn something about you, but Murray and I made a pact to not tell her anything. So I didn't. Even when she started making vague threats, I kept my mouth shut. The last thing I was going to do was tell her anything relevant about you guys," I continued.

Sly looked sort of shocked to hear that I had so stubbornly refused to tell Contessa anything about his gang, as if he hadn't completely figured out that I was dedicated to this yet. He didn't say anything, though, so I went on.

"I guess Murray didn't tell her anything relevant either, so that's when the spice and the hypnotizing came into play. It didn't take us long to get a vague idea of what she was trying to do, but there wasn't much we could do about it. If we didn't eat the disgusting spice covered food, we'd likely be in trouble, so we decided to bite the bullet. After all, we didn't exactly expect the hypnotizing thing,"

"But then that became a thing and we had no idea what to do. Murray broke first I guess, because when it was my turn, Contessa started talking about you and Bentley, asking me if protecting you was more important that protecting myself..." now we were getting into the uncomfortable part of things. Having your mind invaded by a psychopath isn't exactly fun. I was glad that Sly or Bentley didn't have to go through it. Especially Bentley.

"She was trying to get into your head," said Sly. "That's what she's good at,"

I sighed. "Yeah, but she got me thinking. And I decided that yeah, protecting you guys was a little more important that saving my own skin at that moment,"

Sly had that look on his face again, that shocked look where he almost couldn't believe what I was telling him. "...You're really dedicated to this, aren't you?"

"I'm dedicated to you, Sly," I corrected. "You and Murray and Bentley. The thief stuff doesn't matter to me, you guys could be doing anything else, and I'd still be here. Though don't get me wrong, the thief stuff is pretty damn cool,"

Sly blinked a few times as he processed those words. "I don't really know what to say to that, Nyx. This is definitely a new concept for me,"

I nodded. "I know. It's always just been the three of you, and I'm used to just being on my own. It'll take time, but we'll figure out how to work with each other. We've been doing pretty damn good so far, haven't we?"

"That we have," Sly agreed.

"Anyways," I sighed. I had to get back onto topic. Sly wanted to know what had happened with Contessa... "When I continually refused to give Contessa what she wanted, she moved onto the hypnosis. Now, I didn't really believe in hypnosis the way she seemed to, so I dunno if that helped any, but I learned that in one way or another, hypnosis is definitely a thing,"

"It's this. Really weird sensation of having someone else inside your head. Everything Contessa said felt like it was inisde my own brain and it made me feel compelled to answer. Even when I knew what she was doing it was hard to not give her what she wanted..." it had been an extreme mental strain to keep from telling her anything useful about the gang; Where they'd been, where they were going, how they operated. I honestly didn't want to talk about all of it, but I figured that I probably needed to.

"I held out for as long as I could, but I guess it wasn't long enough," I mumbled. "I broke at some point and started telling her really random things that weren't completely relevant, just to try and circumvent the strange desire to tell her anything at all. I told her that you're a huge dork and that Murray's a great cook, and that Carmelita really really hates you and that sometimes Bentley hates us all,"

"...You shouldn't have had to go through that," said Sly, sounding some form of dejected. "It should have been me,"

"It shouldn't have been any of us, Sly," I corrected him. "I chose myself over you because you were in ridiculously horrible shape when I got you out of that basin. I couldn't bear the thought of you ending up in prison instead of with Bentley where at least he'd make sure you were okay,"

Sly sighed and for a moment he was quiet. "You're really something, you know that?"

I smiled. "That I do," And then I was quiet, before deciding to finish the story I'd been telling.

"I hate to say it but, eventually I completely broke. I couldn't evade Contessa's weird methods forever, and eventually she got to me. It feels like some form of truth serum, where you feel compelled to say something and eventually you'll say what the other person wants to hear," I said slowly. "I don't entirely remember what I told her, but I sure hope it wasn't anything useful..."

Sly put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. "Don't feel bad, anyone would have broken under that kind of interrogation,"

I snorted. "I'll bet you any money that you could have held out,"

"We'll never know, will we?" Sly asked.

"I guess not," I agreed. And for that I was thankful. I wouldn't ever wish that kind of mental torture on anyone. "Now, I have a question for you, Sly,"

"Do you now?"

"Yeah. What happened in solitary with Murray? ...I heard a lot of yelling," I asked. It had disturbed me during the mission to hear those gutteral yells coming from Murray, and I wanted to know exactly what Contessa had done to him. He didn't seem to want to talk about it, so asking Sly was the second best option.

Sly sighed, as if he were hoping I wouldn't ask that. "...Contessa broke him, too. Had him hooked up to some machine that amplified the effects of the spice. He'd gone completely berserk by the time we got to him,"

I found myself staring blankly at Sly, unable to imagine what Murray could have been like under that kind of hypnosis and mental stress. He wasn't the most mentally strong guy around, that was obvious. And Contessa had definitely abused that.

"With the machine still going, we couldn't get through to him, so I had to lead him in his blind rage to get him to destroy the generators that were keeping him under Contessa's control," Sly continued, also sounded rather distressed by this concept.

I found myself hating Contessa more and more by the minute. She was one dirty cop and I couldn't wait to give her what was coming to her. Neyla, too. "I'm going to tear her limb from limb. Am I allowed to do that, Sly?"

"If you can manage to do so, be my guest," Sly laughed lightly. "Though she's a lot bigger than you,"

"So? I'll get a chainsaw!" I declared. "Either way, she's going to pay for doing this to us,"

Sly smirked. "Don't worry, she will,"