“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.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
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.
A sigh. “I want to help you, Holly, but you have to understand, this is a very serious charge. Whatever he told you, you need to let go of that. He was lying, probably.”
“He’s not a traitor.” My voice sounds flat and contrary and as soon as the words are out in the air a new fear strikes. “And neither am I.”
Maybe I don’t understand what’s really happening here.
Maybe the choices aren’t what I think they are.
There’s not enough time to think it through, because the man across from me straightens. The movement is so deliberate that I know he’s relieved. He’s been waiting for me to say something so he can continue with his job. “Do you know what treason is, Holly?”
“He didn’t try to overthrow the government.”
“That’s a big word, overthrow.” He’s trying to look sincere, this guy. Trying to look like he means what he says, with the corners of his mouth turned down and his eyes on me like I’m a difficult student and not literally chained to the table. “I’m not sure that’s what Elijah North did. But did he take money from the wrong people? Yes. Did he trust the wrong people? Yes.”
He trusted me. “I don’t believe you.”
He folds his hands in front of him. “Evidence doesn’t lie.”
“I explained to you what happened with the colonel.” I didn’t break my promise to Elijah, not really. I did say that he shot the colonel, but I also explained that it was self defense. That the colonel was hounding him through France and Italy, that he refused to let him go. That he was going to use me as a pawn to get Elijah to obey him.
“If a foreign agency paid him to assassinate the colonel—”
That’s the word they’ve been using. Assassinate. As if the colonel was some high-ranking political leader who was targeted by extremists. I can’t prove that there wasn’t a political agenda unless I admit that I shot the colonel, and that would break my promise. “It was self defense.”
“He didn’t only betray his country.”
It takes effort not to crush the styrofoam cup. I know what he’s going to say. I should have known this whole time. I should have stayed silent.
“He betrayed you, too. He’s doing it as we speak.”
“Really?” I’ve already given enough of myself to this man and all the others who took me away from Elijah. “Is that true? Tell me how. Give me every last detail.”