A/N Hey everybody. Thanks for the reviews. Please continue to review with any comments or suggestions. If you find this chapter to descriptive or gruesome (I use that word loosely)please tell me. Until next time, enjoy.
Day: 1
Somebody had tied a blindfold onto my face just as we had arrived at the base. Pointless because I already knew where it was. The car ride had been silent and the windows of the van they'd stuck us in were so tinted you couldn't even see outside. I try not to think about the last time a circle member had blindfolded me. It had been on the way to the little stone house where they'd tortured me, then taken my slowly returning memory from me. I have a sudden moment of panic, what if they take my memory again? What if they do that to somebody else? I can't believe I'd told my friends to stand down. The more reasonable side of my brain says that if I hadn't we'd all either be dead, or injured and captured instead of healthy, alive and captured. The only drawback is the captured part. And the guy who's pushing me ahead of him with his hands on my butt. I don't think I like that. I spin still blindfolded and kick him in the crotch. "Get your hands off my ass." I hear Zach choke on a laugh and Macey give a very undignified snort. The guy I'd kicked groans. I sense him raising a hand to slap me. "I wouldn't do that if I where you." I can just imagine his face. Bex laughs out loud and even Liz giggles. I smile. Even blindfolded, captured and with a very good chance of being tortured again, it's nice to hear everybody laughing. The guy tells us to shut up then motions for his guard friends to take us inside. I hope they're taking us to our cells, I could use a nap.
Turns out they were taking us to our cells. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, I'm not sure yet,) the circle only gave us one cell. One cell for the five of us. At least it is decently sized, has a toilet and one bed. It even has a sink, albeit ugly sink, bed and toilet, no walls which means no privacy and only one single bed and five of us. It's still better than my summer living arrangements. For now. Sort of. My cellmates are kind of angry at me.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Asks Bex, her accent strong like it always is when she gets angry.
"That was me saving your lives."
"By getting us captured?" She yells.
"Yes Bex. By getting us captured. If you had told us you were going to run off to Paris, I could have confirmed there was a circle base here. I know because I threw a couple of grenades into here over the summer. This is Catherine's favourite base. It's the first one she took over once her splinter group was strong enough and it is the best protected. You can't get anybody out unless it's an inside job, and that kind of job would require months of carful planning and more backup than the CIA would be able to provide. The men that attacked us were armed. We weren't. We were just going to grab you and fly you back home. We weren't prepared for an ambush, weren't prepared for Catherine. My choice was to let you all die, or keep you alive. I chose to keep you alive." My voice sounds tired. "If you parents are here, we'll find out. We can try to keep them alive and we can try to keep ourselves alive. If we get the chance, we can try to get out, but I doubt we'll get he chance."
"How can we keep Mr. and Mrs. Baxter alive?" Ask Liz and Zach at the same time. Everybody turns to me waiting for my answer. It takes a long time to come out.
"We bargain and we deal with the consequences."
Nobody liked my answer, but everybody knew I was right. I don't think anybody really realized what I meant when I said bargain. I really meant distract and bargain as a last resort. Distract as in let them torture me. I don't know what I have (or can say I have) that Catherine will want, but I'm sure I'll think of something, after all, I was the one who ordered the stand down. I'm still unsure as to whether that was the right thing to do or not. Doesn't matter, I did it. I need to stop thinking so I get up and walk over to Zach. I sit down beside him, let him pull me against his side, his arm is around my waist, my head on his shoulder.
He kisses my hair. "It'll be okay."
"No. It won't. The first thing they are going to do is take me to an interrogation room and torture me. I'm going to tell them what they want, lead them into thinking I know something I don't so they'll leave the rest of you alone. It'll buy us time and it the Baxter's are here, it'll buy them time too. In the end, it isn't going to make a difference. I won't let them touch any of you. They won't do to you what they did to me. It isn't going to be okay."
He pulls back. "You can't. Cammie, you can't."
I give him a sad smile, a defeated smile. "I can. I have to." I kiss him before he can reply. "I have to," I whisper against his lips. I feel his arms tighten around me. We sit like that for a little over an hour. His arms around me, my head against his shoulder, our legs pressed together. Macey, Liz and Bex sit in a line on the floor beside us. Nobody talks. We sit defeated. Hopeless. Charlie comes to get me and I know it is starting again. Same as the summer. Zach yells as I get up and start to walk towards the barred door of our cell. He tries to follow but I kick him in the stomach. "No Zach. Not today, not ever. I won't let them touch you. I won't let them touch any of you," the look he gives me is hurt and scared. Zachary Goode is scared. The door slams shut between us, cutting me off from my boyfriend and my best friends. I wipe a tear from my eye. "I love you," I whisper.
Charlie looks at me, sympathetic, sorry. "Lets go Cam." I give him a weak smile, touch the door and follow him down a dark. Narrow hallway with cell doors lining it.
"Hey Cam, I hope you like your new living arrangements." The voice is dripping with malice and fake cheer. The hate in it makes me want to turn and run in the opposite direction.
"Yes," I say pleasantly, vowing that she won't get a reaction out of me. "We found them quite to my liking. Thank you so much for supplying us with a bed Catherine, it was much appreciated." Madame Dabney did her job well.
Catherine sighs, "So then anything we should know about? Plans to take down the circle? Your memory turning up anything worth getting out of it?"
I smile pleasantly, "of course not Catherine, why on earth would I know anything like that."
"I don't believe you." She turns to Charlie who is hovering by the door to this white room. I look at the floor and see that it is tiled and has a drain. A drain. I wonder how much of my blood will be washed down it once they decide they are done with me for the day. I wonder how many days will follow. I wonder what I can try to convince them I know. I wonder if it matters if they think I know anything anyway. Maybe they'll just enjoy torturing me. I hear Catherine talking and it brings my thoughts back to the room, to today. "Charlie, would you be so kind as to invite will into the room? Tell him to have fun." She leaves then and after throwing me an apologetic smile over his shoulder, Charlie follows. I sit down on the table attached to the floor in the middle of the room. I swing my legs bored out of my mind until a guy, Will I take it comes into the room. With shock I recognize him as the one who raped me.
"Hey," he smiles at my face. "No sex today honey, just good old torture."
I laugh, a mean laugh. One that promises pain. "How disappointing." My voice is dripping with sarcasm. He doesn't seem to like that. He punches me in the jaw, then the ears. I swing and catch his nose, it almost breaks. Damn it. Why couldn't the stupid thing break?
"Forgot you like to fight back." he grabs some rope out of his pocket, forces me down onto the table and ties me down. Then he pulls a knife out of his pocket. "Feel like talking sweetheart?" I spit in his face. "Didn't think so." He drags the knife down my arm. Then my leg. Then he pulls my shirt up, something I avoid doing because of the scars on my stomach. He digs the knife point into the skin on my stomach and twirls it.
I just smile at him, ignoring the pain. "How's this going for you? Want a coffee break yet? I've got nowhere to be." It's what I used to say when they would torture me over the summer. I know that Catherine will be watching this, probably through some window I don't see. I also know that she hates that line. Charlie told me that it became a line her people would use when they were fed up with something, that they would turn to whoever was with them and be like 'How's this going for you? Want a coffee break yet? I've got nowhere to be.' I guess even though they hated me they respected me in some weird twisted way. Respected my silence and unwavering loyalty to the organization I was training to be a part of. Catherine hated that. I can see in Will's eyes that he knows this because he looks scared. He hits my head so hard that I see black at the edges of my vision. I laugh "Good job, wouldn't want me to tick off Catherine. Can't have that now can we?" I shout the last part, wanting Catherine to hear, wanting her angry. She is. She storms in with a fire poker, the edge glowing red and white. She presses it to my stomach, her smile maniac. I only smile though. I got a reaction out of her. I made her angry. No matter what happens next, we both know I've won this round. I ignore the pain the hot metal pressed to my skin is causing me and bite my tongue to keep from shouting. Once the metal has cooled against me and the shape is branded into my skin, Catherine lifts the poker. She isn't done though. Her eyes tell me that much. She slams it into my wrist. It breaks and training or not I cringe at the audible snap. She brings down the poker again and again, I know I'll have bruises, broken bones, maybe a fractured rib or two. I know I'm bleeding but I fight to stay conscious. Eventually I can't though and I fall into a deep, dark oblivion.