Sounds filter through the ringing in my ears. One of the men, cursing me out steadily and fluently. Knuckles meeting someone’s cheekbone. The grunt as a punch clears the air from someone’s lungs.
And a high, keening cry.
Me.
I’m the one making that noise, and it strangles itself into words. They’re having to work for this. A detached part of me is proud that I’m putting up a fight, even though it hurts like a motherfucker. There’s no way I haven’t undone all Elijah’s careful healing. Even that doesn’t hurt as much as being separated from him.
He’s still fighting, but they’re piling on now with me out of the way. “Leave him alone,” I shout, a hot tear dripping into my mouth.
Leaving Elijah alone is not on the agenda for the day and anger screws itself into my spine. They’re monsters. They’re monstrous. There are too many hands and arms to keep track of. One of those hands rises and comes down to meet the side of Elijah’s head and I scream again. A black-clad arm locks itself around my neck and pulls. I claw at body armor and get no response.
He drags me up two more stairs, his partner huffing beside him. It’s a narrow space and I kick out again and again, trying to sink my heels into their shins, into the steps, anything. Anywhere.
Elijah falls again and the metallic anger is replaced with fear the color of his blood. It’s red like paint, red like pretend, but it’s real enough to stop my heart.
We’re almost to the top of the stairs now and an animal cry tears itself out of me. I don’t want to lose sight of Elijah. I want to keep my eyes on him for as long as possible. In the process I manage to wedge myself against the wall, one man’s hand pinned underneath my shoulder.
For a moment we’re face to face.
I can hardly make out his features through the haze of my tears. He’s half hidden under a tactical helmet, dark glasses covering his eyes, and if I could rip those glasses off I would. Letting go of his arm to do it isn’t an option.
My only option left is to beg.
It cracks me open, having to do this, but what wouldn’t I do for Elijah?
Nothing. The answer is nothing.
“Please,” I sob at my blurred reflection in his glasses, then swallow the crying like it’s broken glass. I set my teeth. “Please don’t do this. You’re killing him. Your friends are killing him. You could make them stop.”
His arm tenses under my hand and then he moves, too fast for me to fight him off. His fingers lock tight around my biceps. I’m caught in a trap now, a trap of my own making, goddamn it. This man’s options are practically unlimited. He could lift me straight upward, he could throw me over his shoulder, he could throw me back against the wall hard enough to knock me out.
I freeze in place. “Let me stay with him. Please, please, let me stay with him.”
The corner of his mouth turns down and that single, tiny movement makes my whole body thrill with hope. There—a crack in the armor. Please, please, let it be enough to let me reach the man beneath the hard asshole facade. I can see him. He’s so close. This man must be someone’s husband. He must be someone’s father. Someone’s son. He must still be those things even while he’s leaving bruises on my arms.
“Please. I can’t let him die.”
His mouth returns to its stoic line. Hope snuffs itself out in my heart, weak as a candle in rain. A sob balls itself up at the back of my throat. He’s gone. The moment is gone. In the bathroom, a fist connects with Elijah’s face and his head snaps back. I see it out of the corner of my eye but it might as well be playing on my own personal movie screen.
The man who has my life in his hands gives me a sharp tug. Elijah disappears behind the black shirts. He’s gone, he’s gone, and as much as I twist, as much as I fight, as much as I hurt myself, I can’t get him back in sight.
“Forget you ever knew him.” The voice in my ear is as rough as the sound of his boots on the ground. It’s the sound of the end of the world. “That’s the best advice I can give you. No matter what happens next, he’s already dead.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elijah
The interrogation room where I’m going to die is the least impressive place I’ve ever seen.
They’ve taken it straight out of a B-movie set with its drain in the floor and its cinder block walls and ungodly fluorescent lights. No, of course that’s not true. The movies stole from this room. What’s that saying about art imitating life?
I’m doing a pretty good imitation of dying. This room is doing a pretty good imitation of a morgue. And these guys could be doing an autopsy of all my life’s mistakes. They could be. They’re busy, though.
Three guys in a room, me tied to a chair, and oh—here comes another one.
Another fist, I mean.
It connects with the soft part of my gut and I’m past the point where I can stop making noise. That’s one thing the movies never get right. Those guys are always crying too early or too late. I’m not going to cry, but I will grunt and cough.
It’s not some tough guy routine. It’s just that I used all my tears up early in life. Look at me, getting all poetic in my last moments. The thing no one ever tells you is that a man can be aware of his own death for a cruel amount of time before it happens.
My resistance to the process isn’t speeding things along, either.
Or maybe it is.
The bastard with the blue t-shirt leans into my face. It’s not standard Army issue, that blue T-shirt, but then nothing about this is officially sanctioned. This is all dark ops, secret room shit that the higher ups would rather pretend didn’t happen. “Tell us what she knows.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
He punches me for the pleasure of it. One of my teeth is loose, maybe more, and I don’t have much time before my jaw gets broken. I taste salt and blood.
When Blue Shirt gets close I spit it into his face.
He breaks a rib in return.
There’s a dance to torture. A rhythm.
The rhythm of this torture, it’s fast. You get more information if you draw it out, the same way I drew out playing with Holly’s clit while she rocked on my lap. But this guy doesn’t seem to know the finer points of torture. Or he doesn’t care.
That means I’ll wind up dead sooner rather than later. Small favors.
It takes me a minute to cough the pain and the blood out before I hang limp. I’m tied up with both hands behind my back, wrists wrapped together behind the chair, chest exposed for the beating. I wasn’t wearing a shirt when they grabbed me and I’m not wearing one now.
It’s not an amazing way to go, but it’s about the death I expected.
I always had this coming, from the moment my dad threw me down a well and went to bed to sleep it off. Sometimes he’d come back to see if I survived the night. Sometimes he wouldn’t remember for days. You had to be strong to survive the well, but you knew, you always knew, that it would end in terrible agony.
That’s for guys like me. Not for the Hollys of the world. Only good things for her. A man who stays faithful. Probably a doctor who coaches their kid’s softball team. A long life. And at the end, a peaceful drifting away during sleep.
“Your girl, your pretty little girl, her skin all smooth and white. It’s a beautiful canvas. They’re holding her for me.” The man gives me a small, almost abashed smile, as if he’s a boy proud of a frog he’s brought home to his mother. It’s so disturbing it sends a shiver skating over my skin. “That’s one of the benefits of being senior here. You get to keep the good parts to yourself. And she’s a very, very good part. I commend you on your choice.”