Chapter 13
Achilles Heel
Lucas had slid down the wall, hand covering his mouth in horror, the naively smiling photograph being crumpled in his hand as he murmured incoherently in mixed Russian and English.
Ruth watched him, horrified, both needing and never wanting to know who was being painted into the nightmare they were being forced to call reality. She did not however think that Lucas was in any condition to tell her and prising the ball of paper from his shocked fingers seemed wrong...
This was somehow worse than anything else they had done to him. She watched as he quietly fell apart before her eyes. After everything he had endured this had broken him and it was breaking her too.
She needed him. She needed him to pull himself together and remind her how to do the same thing. She was a strong, independent woman, there was no denying that, but she was out of her depth. She was out of her depth and the one thing she had had to cling to was drowning.
The sheer denial that he was struggling with terrified her. Willingly or not, her head was telling her that it was Harry. Whether or not there was any reason for this, whether or not her heart and head had their wires crossed did not much matter to her.
The fact was that Harry fit, whether she made it or not, he fit and that was killing her.
Their host had already delighted in telling them that because of the 'recent mistake of their friends, he had found someone who would make them talk'...It could only be someone from The Grid and her mind had chosen to fill the blank with Harry.
And Lucas had been sure that it wouldn't be anyone from The Grid, couldn't be anyone from The Grid. But if they had angered their interrogator they must have communicated with him in some way, what if their mistake had been meeting him? Throwing fuel on the fire and leaving themselves to be burned.
It couldn't be Harry. It couldn't...But what if it was?
"Lucas?" she breathed, shakily, needing to know one way or the other, "Lucas is it-"
At that moment however the door opened and their charming host calmly entered the room. He had barely taken two steps into the room when he found himself pinned against the wall by Lucas, an arm across his throat and another pinning his own to his side.
Ruth jumped in fright at the unexpected violence of the usually calm, quiet-spoken man as he hissed,
"How did you get to her?"
Her?
A gun was pointed against Lucas' temple and a knife pressed into the small of his back but did little to disuade him.
"Oh very good Mr North...I believe this sounds promising." He said, silkily, waving away his would-be protectors as he leaned forward and breathed, "Release me, or I'll kill her now and use the lovely Miss Evershed in her place."
Lucas pushed himself away from him and slumped to the floor, his legs giving way beneath him as the adrenaline hit drained from his now shaking muscles.
"And so it begins..."
This time they were both left in the room with the laptop and they were left alone once again.
"Lucas..." Ruth murmured cautiously, "Who is it?"
However at that moment her question was both answered and not answered as the monitor flickered in to life.
A woman was seen being forced to her knees but not without putting up a considerable fight. She looked pale and terrified but still slapper their interrogator across the face as he knelt down beside her, leaving deep, bloody furrows in his cheek before spitting on the floor at his feet. She was struck in the stomach for this causing her to choke, doubling over in pain.
"I'm sorry..." Lucas whispered almost inaudibly through his fingers, eyes closed, as far from the laptop as the confines of the cell would allow.
"Bastards." She snarled in Russian.
Her large brown eyes were filled with pain and concern as she too stared at a screen and breathed, softly, in disbelief,
"Lucas?"
The simple sound had more of an effect on him than two hours of beatings, whips and knives as he responded instantly to it, now within inches of the monitor.
"Vyeta, I..."
"You said they would not find us..." she whispered,
"I know I'm sorry. I..."
"You said we would be safe."
"You will be. Vyeta, I promise...Vyeta, look at me."
She did.
"They're going to kill me." She whispered, her eyes filling with defiant tears.
"No." Lucas hissed
"Maybe." A third voice interrupted smoothly, "If you'll forgive the irony, we're going to play a little game."
He told them, cheerfully, producing an empty revolver as he spoke.
"A little Russian Roulette to see if we can't fix our little problem...It's quite simple. I load a bullet into the gun."
He slipped one deliberately into the barrel.
"Then I ask a question." He continued, turning to look at Ruth, "The codes if you please Miss Evershed?"
Ruth flicked her eyes towards Lucas' tortured ones as the unmistakeable snick of the chamber being spun and locked into place echoed around the tiled room.
She shook her head, horrified as she breathed, "I don't know...I can't. I..."
"You refuse." He said, calmly, in an almost bored tone, "I do this."
Elizabeta covered her mouth with her hands to muffle to scream as, in one fluid movement, he pointed the gun at her temple and pulled the trigger.
The barrel gun harmless sifted to the next as it hit an empty round, but not before Ruth and Lucas both jumped.
"Every time you fail to answer one of my questions, I will give her a choice, heads or tails..."
"Fuck off you bastard." She spat in Russian, even though tears were beginning to roll down her cheeks and she was shaking violently.
"Tut, tut, Elizabeta, you don't answer, I'll have someone shoot dear Lucas in a joint of their choice."
The door behind Ruth and Lucas slammed against the wall.
Elizabeta jumped and shrieked, "Tails..." pitching forwards, still on her knees.
"Tails it is..." He flipped the coin mockingly in front of her, "Dear, dear, heads."
He placed another bullet into the barrel, directly opposite the first.
"Fairly simple is it not?" he said, genially, spinning it again. "We will continue with this, either until I have those codes or the contents of her pretty little head are painted across the walls..."
"You bastard...If you hurt her, I'll kill you..." Lucas snarled, in a dark whisper, his eyes never leaving hers.
"What you mean like this?" he said, striking her across the face with the butt of the gun, splitting her lip. Lucas slammed his hands against the tiled floor, howling in anguish, tearing the skin on his knuckles, "You are not really in a position to be making threats Mr. North." He hissed, coldly.
The anger that had flashed across his face for a moment, colouring his words, vanished, instantly as he turned to Ruth,
"Really Miss Evershed, to save me repeating myself, as I fear, or perhaps hope, I may have to do rather a lot if we don't do this, there is only one thing I want. Those codes. One little string of numbers and letters and she leaves unharmed. Otherwise...Now then, attempt two. Miss Evershed?"
"I can't, there's nothing I. I'm sorry..." she said, turning desperately to Lucas.
"It's alright..." he murmured, his voice flat, emotionless.
"Please..." Elizabeta murmured, as he turned back towards her, raising the gun, "Please no." The second plea was choked through a sob as she closed her eyes and her shoulders began to tremble, partly from her tears and partly from terror.
"Vyeta." Lucas breathed, hoarsely, "Vyeta look at me, please." She turned her large, velvety brown eyes to stare into his deep blue ones. "Don't." He murmured. She nodded, shaking, refusing to break the eye contact between them until he stepped in front of her, blocking them and breathing,
"I'm afraid Ms Starkova, this is out of your control."
Lucas closed his eyes while Ruth did not believe it were possible for hers to be opened any wider as she stared at the screen in horror as the trigger was pulled once again.
Again they all breathed again as the gun found a blank.
"It would appear luck is with you my dear, now then, heads, or tails?"
"Tails." She managed to choke through her tears, the threat of harm coming to Lucas hanging over her head.
"Lucky indeed." He murmured, simply slotting the barrel in place and spinning it once more without adding a third bullet.
"Third time lucky Miss Evershed?" he asked, mockingly turning back to face her, gun resting casually at his side.
Ruth could not bring herself to speak and Elizabeta took the opportunity to stretch out a hand, her pale fingers closing around those of her captor as she whispered,
"Please...You can't...Do, do you have children?" she whispered, "I..I have a son, I have to pick him up from school in an hour please..."
He pulled himself away from her in disgust, turning away from the screen to answer her, giving Ruth the opportunity to whisper desperately to Lucas,
"Lucas I can't, you know I can't, it will put thousands of people at risk I-"
"You don't have to explain yourself to me Ruth. I understand, it's not your fault..." he murmured,
His words would have been far more convincing if he had been able to tear his eyes away from the woman in front of him.
"I did have a child..." he told Elizabeta softly, beginning to pace around the thing, "They're very special aren't they, and it is the cruellest thing you can do to a parent, to take their child away from them...Most unfortunately for you, Mr. North and his people do not care about separating parents and children, so I cannot see that I should either. Now." The sudden change in volume made them all jump as he abruptly turned back to the screen saying, "Miss Evershed, I think you've had more than enough time to ponder that, it is not a hard question, you're answer, if you please."
Ruth turned back to the screen, the poor woman was rocking backwards and forwards, twisting her fingers together in terror as tears ran down her cheeks, Lucas' soft, murmurs doing nothing to soothe her.
"I can't..." she whispered, hating herself.
"Shame." He replied, spinning around and pulling the trigger again without hesitation, sending her into hysterics as it once again hit an empty round and shredded her nerves in the process.
"Heads or tails?" he said, coldly.
She refused to answer, incapable of doing even that.
"Heads or tails?" he snarled, shaking her roughly,
"Heads." Lucas spat, looking sickened,
"Very well..." he said, a cruel smile twisting his lips, "You should have chosen yourself Ms Starkova..."
He calmly slipped another bullet into the gun, marking out the points of the compass in a triangular formation.
"Fifty fifty now, I would start saying your goodbyes, unless of course, Ruth, would you be so kind?"
Lucas turned to look at her a second before she answered. Tearing his eyes away from the woman on screen for the first time, something more than nothing in his intense eyes. She closed hers before saying in a flat tone,
"No..." she saw Lucas' eyes flicker away from hers and she breathed, "They won't, it's all a set-up, they won't really kill her..."
"Why not? They don't need her."
"They don't need her dead either, it's all psychological, it's all about control, remember?" she breathed, not sure she could keep this up if he started thinking with his heart and not his head. She had a feeling this was not just a pretty girl to Lucas either, she meant something, more than Sara Caulfield or even Maya Lahan...
"Heads or tails? I suggest you pick this time." He told her, smoothly, flipping the barrel open again, bullet suspended threateningly over it.
"Heads." She whispered in a dead voice.
Her tears had run try and stubborn determination burned in her eyes as she looked at Lucas as the coin spun, as though in slow motion, through the air before them.
"Congratulations." He said acidly, returning the gun's insides to their proper place once more, slipping the bullet back into his pocket.
"Well?" he said, turning to Ruth.
She stared emptily at him and was about to tell him to go to Hell when Lucas' hoarse, strangled voice choked beside her,
"Ruth..."
She did not have to answer him however, Elizabeta distracted him for her,
"Lucas, no..." she breathed in Russian.
"Vyeta..."
"Whatever they want, it affects the people here and that means it affects my son, I would do anything to protect him..." she whispered to him before swapping to English and murmuring to Ruth, "Do not tell them anything..."
Ruth nodded, tears in her own eyes now as she turned to the man with the gun and said, "I can't tell you...I won't."
He sighed, beginning to tire of this game and the bloody stubborn buggers he had chosen to torture.
As he turned back to face her, Elizabeta began whispering in rapid Russian to Lucas, "My luck cannot last forever. If this is goodbye, then so be it."
"Don't, don't say that." He choked, voice cracking on the words.
"It is true." She snapped, fiercely, "I loved you Lucas...When you were taken, when they told me what you were, that did not change...It never really did...But I had to move on...We could never have been after that. But after all of these years I still think of you, and I know you thought of me in that place and I will never regret choosing to help the FSB to bring you home."
Tears were beginning to fall from her eyes again, but this time they were controlled, defiant, as the gun was levelled against her head once more.
She closed her eyes and they all felt their hearts leap into their throats, catching there as once again the trigger was pulled. The gun jammed.
She opened her eyes again and stared, unable to believe what was happening.
Jamal smiled in delight, revelling in their terror and pain.
"You have another chance." He said,
"Tails." She whispered, without being asked, resigned to the inevitable,
A fourth bullet was placed into the barrel and she knew. They all knew.
"Lucas." She breathed, "You have to promise me."
"I don't have to promise you anything we-"
"Yes, you do and you will." She snarled.
Ruth shook her head violently, unable to speak through the steady flow of tears streaming from her own eyes, body shaking.
"I am going to die Lucas." She whispered, "Stop this, we both know it to be true. I am going to die, and I will, I will but I need you to promise me that you will look after Nikki, swear to me that you won't let anything happen to him." She said urgently,
"I promise..." he whispered,
She nodded as Jamal raised the gun again and walked, with painful slowness towards her.
"Ruth..." Lucas said, desperately, she closed her eyes and refused to look at him, "Ruth, please." He tried again, his voice breaking.
Jamal hesitated.
"Lucas, no..." Elizabeta cautioned, though her own voice caught.
"I can't." Ruth murmured,
"Yes, yes you can, you have to. She has nothing to do with this, she shouldn't be here, she shouldn't be involved." He said, urgently, pulling himself across the floor to sit in front of her.
"Lucas, after everything we've been through." She said, pointedly, trying to convince herself as much as him.
"I deserved it, after everything I've done I deserved it, she doesn't. She doesn't deserve anything of this, she doesn't deserve to die!" he howled, placing his hands on her upper arms and forcing her to look at him.
"They never do Lucas!" she screamed, thoughts of Cypress and what had happened on her return flooding back to her as she now painfully empathised with Harry and the impossible position he had been put in, "They never do and that's why they're doing this! They're doing it because they want you to break. We can't let them win..." she finished in a strangled whisper, placing her hands on his arms, linking them together.
"This isn't about winning or losing. This isn't a game. This is life and death. This is about a six year old little boy not losing his mother because we wanted to play God with people's lives, not this time Ruth, not this time."
"No..." she said, "Lucas I can't you know I can't please stop this." She cried, "It will always be a game, we can never stop it...What if I tell them and they kill her anyway?"
"What if they don't?" he breathed, "I won't play dice with her life, I can't, please."
"No!" she screamed, tearing at her hair in frustration hating him, hating the grinning monster with the gun who was doing this to them," We have to, we have to because otherwise how many others will die?"
"I don't care about the others." He snarled, reminding her forcibly of herself, in his position, with someone she loved, someone she cared about.
"I do." The voice was Elizabeta's. She turned to Jamal, "Do it." She whispered, "Do it, she will tell you nothing."
The trigger was pulled. The gun exploded. She fell to the floor. Blood gently rained down upon the camera...
A/N: