He didn't scream this time either, though he badly wanted to. It was stupid, petty and cliche and he knew it, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction. A small sound of pain did escape him as the fluid was injected with torturous slowness. Whether she was really doing it that slowly or it was just his panicked perception he couldn't tell, and he didn't really care.

Worse than the pain was the not knowing, what the yellow liquid in the syringes was, why she was putting it in his eyes, what it would do to him. He didn't think it would blind him, if that was the intention she wouldn't have told him to keep still before the first injection. Somehow, that made it worse.

When the needle was finally withdrawn he clenched his jaw, breathing harshly through his nose as he tried to calm himself. He needed to be calm. He couldn't do anything if he wasn't calm. And just then he wasn't anywhere near calm.