I’m thrown into a chair and the zip ties are cut and my hands are re-tied to the arms of a metal chair within seconds. There’s no give, so I’m guessing it’s bolted to the floor. The last thing I hear is the door slamming shut and I’m alone, shivering, and bound to this chair.
Of course. The Interrogation Exam, the RT I. There’s no way an outside force stormed the Academy, kidnapped me, and stayed on school grounds.
“A little dramatic, isn’t it?” I sighed, not expecting an answer.
It’s hard to tell how long I’ve been down here. I managed to doze on and off for a little while, but my hands and feet are numb from the cold, so I’m guessing it’s been a few hours at least. Grimly rotating my wrists and wiggling my toes, I wonder what the plan is. I shut down every nightmare scenario that tries to invade my mind. That’s what they want.
The captive’s mind will handle much of the torture for you,Professor Campbell told us,leave them alone, uncomfortable, bound, and let them envision every terrible thing that they can imagine.
I jump a little when the door slams open. “Good morning, princess. Have a nice rest?”
I say nothing.
My head snaps to the right as someone backhands me. It hurts like hell, but there was a certain amount of control behind it, like they knew just how much force to use.
“Tell me your name.” The voice is unrecognizable. Do they bring in outside talent for the exam? He’s got an American accent.
Don’t answer their questions, don’t be tempted to be a smart-arse.It’s Professor Campbell’s voice in my head again.Everything you say will be twisted to take the interrogation into a new direction you won’t expect. It’s too easy to blurt out information.
So, I say nothing.
It’s then that I feel his hand on my ankle, and my entire leg seizes with agony. A scream rips from my throat as the burning from my little toe sears up my foot like it’s been doused in kerosine and set ablaze.
“Well, damn. You’re a bleeder, huh?” He sprinkles something on my toe that sends another bolt of torment through me and I cry out again. “Jeez, princess. It’s just QikClot powder. You have to toughen up. I yank off one itty bitty pinkie toe and you scream like I chopped off your foot? Though, that could be next. Wanna tell me your name yet?”
Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you I hope you die you evil fuck you fuck you…
Nothing. I’ll never say a word.
“I’ll come back in a while, give you a chance to think about what you want to say to me.” The voice is laced with humor and this does not reassure me. “Are you thirsty?”
Not a shrug, no nodding of my head.
“That’s fine. I’ll give you a drink of water before I go.”
A bucket of cold water splashes on me, drenching the hood on my head and soaking my skimpy clothing. There’s laughter before the door closing cuts it off and I’m alone again.
I shift, moaning as the movement disturbs my toe, beating agony in time with my heartbeat. I’m so thirsty… I tried to suck the moisture from the hood covering my face but don’t get enough to even wet my lips.
It feels like it’s been longer this time, and my thoughts keep drifting back to Lucca, the inexorable gravity that’s always pulled me to him. Is he all right? The few times I’ve seen him in the distance on campus, he always looked so angry. Mariya told me several girls offered to “comfort” him after our breakup, but he ignored them all. Is it wrong that I’ve been so relieved, hearing this? She says Lucca’s sullen and uncommunicative and when she visits Konstantin, he goes into his room or leaves.
Aleks told me that his father sent him an engagement ring for me, some giant, ostentatious piece of crap. He sent me a picture from the purloined iPhone I gave him after programming it to my Skylink account. It gives us a chance to share any bits of information about what’s going on with our families, and it does seem like the influx of soldiers from the Rostova Bratva is helping my brothers in the battle to hold our territory.
He texted me the picture of the ring with an assurance that I didn’t have to wear the thing until we left the Academy. I don’t think I could endure the constant reminder weighing down my arm.
“Rise and shine, princess!”
The door slamming open and bouncing off the wall yanks me out of a fitful sleep. I can’t feel my arms and legs anymore, and there’s a bone-deep shuddering that I can’t seem to stop. On the bright side, I can’t feel my toe, either.
“You really should tell me your name. You’re blue. I mean, like Smurf blue. I’d hate to see you die of pneumonia before we even get a chance to chat.” I hear a scrape of a chair, and he settles himself in front of me. “Your tank top is still wet. You have great tits, princess. Tight little nipples.”
I say nothing. There’s a dark part of me, a small voice but growing louder that speaks up after his threat of dying from pneumonia. I’ve had it before, when I was fifteen. I ended up in the hospital when the standard antibiotics couldn’t clear it from my lungs. The doctor said I would be more susceptible to getting it again.
Would it really be so bad,the cold little voice suggests,if you just… let the pneumonia do the work? You don’t want to exist as just a breeder for the rest of your life. Longing for Lucca forever and knowing he’s in love with someone else? Another woman having his children?
“...getting hungry yet, princess? You must be…”
You’re not really disobeying your family if you die, the voice whispers this time, more intimately, it wouldn’t be your fault. They’d figure out something else if they can’t use you.
