She had always found fortune telling interesting. There were no illusions harbored in her mind that it was anything but a hoax, of course— her belief in the accuracy of tarot cards and crystal balls and palm reading had long since dwindled and died alongside her belief in magic altogether. Rather, she found the concept itself intriguing. How easy things would be if she only had a map of her future to guide her… Life would be a stroll through the olive orchard. She would swerve and dodge and weave her way through life's obstacles.
Some situations, however, made her question whether foresight would make any difference at all. Some situations, she came to realize, were necessary, despite their unpleasant nature.
This was one of them.
She had known this was coming. She hadn't known when, or where, or how, but she knew. While the others wrote it off as a rumor—it is inhumane! Mossad would not condone that—spread by past trainees to scare the new recruits, Ziva had seen it as the truth. The others saw nothing but what they wanted to see, and lived blissfully in the notion that they themselves would be the ones conducting the interrogation for their final exam.
But in the long run, it did not matter. The only advantage Ziva had is that of lack of panic and surprise. Her hands were still bound and her mouth was still gagged and she was still secured to a metal, straight-backed chair just the same as the others recruits.
She was still about to be tortured.
Eli's words of advice rang through her ears, something she had been hearing since she was five and fell off her bike and scraped up her knee.
Ziva, stop your crying. It only hurts if you let it.
She heard it again when Mahmoud, her dearest friend, was ripped from this world in an airstrike.
He is in a happy place with his God. We all have lost people. Be strong. It only hurts if you let it.
Again, when her mother's soul passed on.
It only hurts if you let it.
When a man entered the room, Ziva did not flinch. She did not blink. She did not move her blank stare from the cracked concrete wall straight ahead of her.
According to Ari, this test would last a maximum of two days. She only had to hold out for two days in order to pass. There is no multi-faceted grading system on this exam. "Pass or fail, just like the real world," Ari had informed her with a grim expression on his face. "There is no in between."
Pass, and she could move on to knife throwing. Fail, and she would repeat the course along with the same exam at the end. She would not fail. Failure was not, was never, an option.
Clamps were attached to her skin, making her body a part of the car battery's electrical circuit.
It only hurts if you let it.
A wet cloth was placed over her face, and her lungs burned with lack of oxygen.
It only hurts if you let it.
The rope binding her wrists together was secured to a hook in the ceiling.
It only hurts if you let it.
The dryness in her throat got worse with each passing second.
It only hurts if you let it.
There was no way in hell she was going to let it hurt, and in those two days, the final piece of the mask that she spent the first seventeen years of her life trying to perfect fell into place.
Ziva is emotionless, and Eli is proud.