Chapter Seventeen
I glared up at the soldier from underneath my fringe. I could already feel an angry swell puffing up under my eye. "What are you going to do?" I spat the words viciously. "Beat a confession out of me?" I could tell just by the look on his face that that was the plan. I smiled grimily. "No dice," I murmured.
Just for that he slammed his fist into the side of my head. Again. I could feel the blood running down my cheek. But I didn't care. I'd spent half my life learning to ignore pain. You spend that long learning something and it doesn't go away easily.
I glanced over at Duo. He kept his eyes pinned to the floor. He'd guessed that he wouldn't like what he'd see if he looked up. He'd guessed right. I'd be doing the same thing in his position.
"I'll ask you again. What do you know?"
"Nothing, and if I did do you think you'd be the first to know?" A pause. "Somehow," I growled, more to myself than the soldier, "I think not."
Quickly, the soldier brought a knife from his belt. At that moment Duo chose to look up. He's a great guy, but he always did have a habit of doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. He took in the knife, which at this point was under my chin, and put two and two together.
He opened his mouth.
"Don't you dare," I muttered through clenched teeth. I felt the knife nick my skin, but ignored it. "You tell them anything and I will come from my grave just to hunt you down."
He took my advice, but gave me the dirtiest look I have ever had off anyone. I knew how he felt. I'd been in his position more than once.
"Admit it!" Yelled the Commanding Officer hoarsely. You see, he'd been yelling that for several hours now. He had Nikki by the hair by this time, and she was bloodied and bruised. God, she looked a mess. But by the time they were yelling their heads off at you, you knew the worst was over.
I'd been in that position dozens of times before that. It was a favourite game of theirs. They would make up a reason to kick everything out of your friends and make you stand by and watch. But what we'd all already agreed is that we'd tell them nothing, whether we did it or not. And they only wanted a reason to kick the stuffing out of someone, so they didn't really care. I'd been beaten in like this before when Karen, another of my friends, had left the dorm after hours. They'd beaten the living daylights out of me, left me almost for dead. But we'd said nothing. Not a goddamned word!
That's what made life worth living here. Defying the system. That and the hope of escape.
He dropped her roughly. "If you little rodents don't care for your own, then who do you care for?"
I stood up and looked down my nose at the tiny, fat man in front of me. "I care for the truth. That's what I…" Something cracked into the side of my skull, and I vaguely heard Nikki cry out despairingly.
When I woke up they'd left me in solitary. They did it deliberately you know. They knew I hate being confined.
I jerked my head roughly away from the blade. The cut opened up as I jerked away, but I was just glad to have the knife away from me. "Is this how you treat young ladies? You're going to have a lonely life."
"Say that again." He sounded shocked more than anything else.
"I said you're going to have a lonely life. No one will ever care about you if they find out what kind of job you have. I'd be amazed if your mother still loves you, you pile of…"
They hilt of the blade cracked into the side of my head. For a second my mind swam, seeing dozens of tiny stars before me. I shook them clear. No military man was going to get the better of me – ever.
The soldier turned to Duo, a mocking grin on his face. "Don't you regret letting me do this to your little friend? It would all stop if you talked to me." He turned towards me pointedly. "Either of you."
So, he'd resorted to the invitation to surrender? Ha! Not likely.
I nodded to myself. "Yeah, sure I'll talk to you."
The look on Duo's face was halfway between panic and curiosity.
The soldier was just as sceptical. "Then talk."
"Get outta my face! I can't stand the sight of you, you freak!" I cleared my throat, trying to hide the fact that it felt like sandpaper. "Enough talk for you rookie?"
He sighed. He motioned towards Duo with the blade. "You should watch carefully." Then he turned back to me, brandishing the knife carefully. He reached towards me and held my head in a vice-like grip. I tried to wrench clear, but it was no good. And the way he was holding me was making my shoulder hurt like hell.
But bare it Kin, bare it. You've had worse.
Then I felt a stinging across my cheekbone, from near my temple down towards my nose. I'd never had this before. What was going on? I tried to look to the source, but my head was held fast and he had a hand over the eye that would be able to see what was going on. Any attempt at movement just made the whole thing hurt more. So I stayed still, hoping that it would be over soon. It was driving me mad. What the hell was it?
Duo was just inside the field of my free eye. But he was just staring at what the guy was doing. He was as pale as a sheet. But, thank god, he was holding his tongue.
"You want me to stop?"
"Stupid question," I responded. "Not quite the stupidest thing you've ever said, but coming close."
He let me go in disgust. He turned to one of the guards by the door. "Get rid of them," he spat. "Tell Lady Une that they won't talk." He cast his eyes over me. "What are you? A Devil child?"
I stared up at him with a mockingly sweet expression. "A holy man, are we?" I paused. He waited for me to continue. "Well, let's just say I was trained that way."
The guard bent down behind my chair and unfastened the cuffs so he could untangle my arms from the chair. He gripped my wrist firmly as he forced me up.
"Ow! Quit it!"
And that second of lost concentration cost him his consciousness. I wrenched the hand with the heavy cuffs out of his grip and swung hard to connect with his head. He went down like a load of bricks. A searing pain leapt up into my shoulder, but I forced it back again. There would be time for pain when I got out of this.
I reached down for a split second before bobbing back up with the unconscious man's gun. I levelled it as accurately as I could at the main soldier. Him and his bloody knife.
The smug voice came as a small jolt for me. "Guess what." What was he going to do? He looked too confident. "We have one of those too."
Suddenly a horrific thought popped into my head.
He saw what I was thinking as my eyes darted around the room. "Yes, you're pretty quick on the ball, I'll give you that."
Duo must have been behind me. I couldn't see him, but I suddenly became acutely aware of his eyes, which were trying to bore a tiny hole in my back.
"Now, give us the gun."
I swore harshly at the soldier, using words I barely realised I knew.
"Hardly very lady-like. It's a good job I follow my orders, or you wouldn't be alive right now."
My left hand gripped the gun harder. I wouldn't have been a sure shot with my wrong hand, but they didn't have to know that I wasn't left handed. And I was going to stand there until it killed me.
I didn't take my eyes off my tormentor as I addressed Duo. "You okay?"
The soldier cut him off. "Right now he has a gun to his forehead. Give me yours and we won't use ours. Do you understand?"
I paused, considering my options. This wasn't just a matter of getting beaten up. This was a question of a friend's life. But the whole idea was not to give in, wasn't it? Giving them what they wanted? But, a human life…
I frowned for a second, before bringing my eyes level. Hesitantly, reluctantly, I loosened my grip on the gun.
"Don't!" I could hear the dismay in Duo's voice, knowing it was hopeless.
My brow furrowed. I shook my head sadly. "It's just not worth it." I didn't even realise I'd let go when I heard the clang of metal bouncing off the floor. I raised my good hand into the air in surrender while letting the other hang limp by my side.
Quickly I was forced to the ground. Something hard connected with the back of my skull. Instinctively I tried to force myself to stay conscious. The enemy could do anything they liked to you when you were unconscious, and you couldn't keep an eye on them.
"What you do that for? She gave in didn't she?"
I blinked hard, trying to see through a haze building up behind my eyes.
It's hard to imagine how comforting oblivion actually is.
