Enough rope to hold a man in place for a series of electric shocks.
Water is the first part of the plan. At first I think there’s two of them coming with the bucket but it’s only double vision. It’s the ringleader, Blue Shirt, his face split open with a smile.
“You’re going to talk,” he says, his grin gruesome and deranged.
“The prisoner’s dilemma is a paradox,” I tell him.
He pauses, glares at me, then dumps the bucket over my head. It’s hell frozen solid and it stings the cuts on my skin and forces a gasp out of me. Not my best moment. “What the fuck did you say?”
“You wanted to talk, I’ll talk. The prisoner’s dilemma. It’s a paradox.” Goosebumps pinch the back of my neck and sprint down my arms. My stomach is hot with the injuries and cold with the water and I’ll give them some credit. It’s miserable. “It’s where two people in two different rooms are questioned. That’s what happening here, in case you needed me to spell it out.”
In exchange for this I get a punch to the jaw that snaps my head around, followed by the first electric shock. He aims it at exposed skin above my collarbone and it arcs around the front of my throat and squeezes. Pain follows a second later.
My teeth grind together. It’s a hell of a thing when your teeth fight to crush themselves. The pressure in my jaw from the combined reflex to shiver and the activated muscles keeping my teeth shut tight could make my head fall off and flop onto the floor. They’d be so pissed if that happened. A headless guy can’t say a damn thing against the woman he loves.
I think of Holly in that basement in France.
I heard her voice before I saw her. I was hurt then, too.
Were you shot?
In the back. It’s all very Roman.
She’d touched me then, her touch lighter than air. Holly had no idea who I was. She had no idea what I’d already done to her. No idea what I would do. Her fingertips circled the wound. I heard the hitch in her breath. And what did she say?
You can’t die.
I’m serious.
So serious, and all for a small wound. If Holly saw me now she wouldn’t know where to put her hands. There are too many cuts and bruises. Too much blood. A smile twists the corners of my mouth and Blue Shirt notices. He doesn’t like it. He stomps one foot down on mine, and damn it, I don’t have my own pair of steel-toed boots. At least one toe breaks. Maybe more.
“So Prisoner A—that’s me in this example, fuckface.” Grinding pain splinters off from my foot and drives into my chin. “Prisoner A betrays Prisoner B in order to earn himself a better deal.”
“Go ahead,” he says, laughing his demonic laugh. “You aren’t getting a good deal, though.”
“Yes, well, that’s a flaw in your plan. You’re not incentivizing me to speak.” The word incentivizing comes out jumbled. I’ve taken quite a few punches to the mouth. “You’re only punishing me for not speaking. It’s only half as effective.”
In light of my explanation the three of them decide to work as a team. One of them pulls my head back, exposing my throat. The second one lines up a boot with my other foot. And Blue Shirt goes for the heart.
The electricity is a nice touch, it really is. It lights up every muscle in a sick parody of the way I feel when I’m with Holly. With my head back like this it’s impossible to move through it. You can’t die, whispers Holly from somewhere else. Oh, sweetheart, but I can.
When it’s over my stomach is twisted inside out. Blue Shirt tops it off with a blow across the face. A tooth comes loose. I cough it out before I can choke on it. “Prisoner B, though. She has the same idea. She betrays A so she can get a better deal.”
“Your girl’s going to sell herself to get free, is that right? And leave you hanging here by your wrists while we fuckin’ electrocute you? Yeah. Yeah, I could see that happening.”
Someone has their fingers in my hair and there’s no way for me to leverage myself back to the ground. I am suspended on the back two legs of the chair. My neck could snap at any moment.
“And that’s how—” My own cough interrupts me. It’s soaked in blood, soaked in salt and metal, and it’s the taste of something gone very wrong. It’s the taste of imminent death. It would be dramatic to even think it if it weren’t so true. “That’s how they both end up with the worst possible outcome. That’s how they both end up being tortured by the dark side of the Army until they fucking die. You want to talk? Let’s talk about that.”
12
Holly
The man in the room with me folds his arms over his barrel chest and taps his fingers over his elbow. He does this every time he stops to consider me, which is often.
My head aches from crying, from screaming, from the flashbang in the basement. My back aches from the metal chair. My ankles hurt from the chains. And of course my side still aches from the bullet wound, but none of it hurts as much as my heart.
I’m connected to the metal table in front of me by two lengths of chain. I think this is meant to convince me that the people who brought me here are not all bad. Same goes for the day-old sludge in the Styrofoam cup I keep cradled in my hands. It’s something to hold on to.
The man stops tapping his fingers and takes a chair on the other side of the table. He looks like he belongs here, in this concrete room. I belong anywhere else.
I belong with Elijah.
I have a sinking feeling that he could be close. That should make me feel better, because if he’s close then there’s a chance I can get to him.
But if they have me chained to a desk, what are they doing to him? This could be one of a hundred concrete rooms all used for varying and terrible purposes. My pulse pounds. Would it be better or worse if I could hear his voice right now?
“Elijah North is a traitor.” The man on the other side of the table drags a fingernail across the pitted metal surface. “That much we already know. We’ve been tracking his movements for some time, but it may come as a surprise to you. I understand you were… close.”
He says this, and then he waits.
And waits.
The coffee trembles in the cup, though I could swear I’m staying still. There’s nothing else to do. I’m chained to a table. Pulling at the chain isn’t going to do anything but give away how much each passing second weighs on me.
It’s a stupid weight, too. I shot one guy. That doesn’t mean I can topple the U.S. government. The military. Especially with no weapons and lacking even the ability to stand up.
In the silence I can stay still, and I can listen for Elijah, and I can be afraid of what I might hear.
It goes on forever.
I clear my throat.
What does he want me to say? Yes, we were close. When he burst into the basement I wasn’t wearing any pants, and I can still feel the fullness from when Elijah was inside me. Clearly we were close, but I don’t know what the right answer is.
I’m going to burst out of my skin. That would put a wrench in his plans. The energy making itself at home in my nerves feels dangerous and raw and completely at odds with the fact that my options are down to two: answer or don’t.
I stay silent. I’m listening for Elijah with so much focus that it feels like a knife through my temples. Like a bullet through my brain.