"Why are you protecting someone who doesn't give a shit about you?"
CLANG.
And the heavy iron door of the cell had swung shut, choking out all but a thin shaft of light from Evey's cell. She lay on the bare concrete floor. She clenched her eyes shut as bitter feeling flooded back into her numb arms. All blood had drained from those stick like limbs as she hung in the showers. Now blood flowed freely though them once again, but it was barely more tolerable- the only tangible was the cold.
Evey let out a little wail. She had long since stopped trying to count the days she had been in prison. At first, she feverishly attempted to divine the length of her stay just to pass time. Her period had come after her imprisonment, meaning she had been there atleast three weeks. That cycle was her only calendar; food came at erratic times, she had no way to differentiate between night and day. But she could not eat from pain and disgust, so her gaunt body could not muster the energy to bleed again. Her body had given up hope.
That body had been already thin from years of war rations. Her captors had wracked her body so badly that she devoted her time to minimizing her pain. She knew lie on her left side; the bruises on her right made her believe atleast two ribs were cracked. Left arm outstretched meant the torn muscles in her shoulder blades would hum with warm pain. The black of the boots that inflicted the wounds horrifically contrasted with the white bolts of pain they caused.
The words reverberated in her head like bullets. Where was V, she wondered. Had he been captured, too? Won't he come for me? For two months, he had cooked her meals, shown her films- once, he had even brushed her hair. Long, even strokes had unknotted her dark auburn curls after she had awoken with a start in the middle of the night. She had called out to him, trailing her quilt like a child. V heeded her quickly, so quickly that he wore only thick black socks and a high-collared robe. He guided her back to her bedroom. Wearing cotton mens' undershirt and boxers, she fumbled with her hairbrush as she tried to explain her nightmare. He sat on the edge of the bed and she faced him. He gently took the hairbrush from her and she acquiesced, turning to face the door. In a singularly thrilling (she had realized with a hot flush to her belly) moment, he had lifted her sweaty hair and placed a cool gloved hand on the back of her neck. "Let me, Evey" he said, "let me tell you about Jane Austen". As the brush worried through layer after layer of hair, he recounted the plot of Pride & Prejudice . Evey had sat perfectly still, eyes heavy-lidded, until he fluffed the curls out over her shoulders. She had fallen into a dreamless sleep before he had closed the door.
I'm so sorry, she plead noiselessly. I was afraid. I thought morals were set in stone- Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal... I wasn't told there were exceptions! She laughed without mirth- as if appealing to V would make the secret police set her free. She had followed those morals, but she had still been forsaken. V did not care for her as she had thought in quiet moments, did not even care for her as she had supposed in broad daylight. V had been a far more benevolent figure than the 'god' that the Wyncote Reclamation School had proselytized. Yet neither was going to help her now.
Slowly, Evey rose to her feet. She had come to a decision several beatings earlier. She could not endure much more, she thought. She did not think she would last until they killed her, but she already could not forget that she had betrayed V. She could not betray him again. Even more slowly, she stripped the orange smock from her skeletal frame. Evey ripped the underarm seams apart. She knotted one end around the iron bars barricading the tiny window on the cell door. She looped the other end through the neck-opening, creating a circle of cloth wide enough for her head to slip though. With a small sob, she slipped the makeshift noose over her head and dropped her weight backwards. She waited for darkness to close over her head.