A/N: The beginning of this chapter has sexual assault themes. If you find this subject difficult to read, please skip down to the second part after the break which looks like this:
***BREAK***
Part 15
A throbbing ache in her left leg pulled her from the deep black oblivion of sleep. She didn't know where she was for a moment until taking in the unfortunately familiar smells of the dank cell, a mere ghost of light not enough to illuminate anything. Trying to sit up she found that her body ached beyond allowing it, and a sharp stabbing pinch from that damn left leg had her flop back down to the metal cot.
"Hopefully that was some good sleep because it's all you're gonna get for a while," a garbled voice echoed in the blackness, the nasally and grouchy cockney accent making her jump before she rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh.
Licking her lips and pushing to speak past the sore dryness of her throat, "why do you have to be the first and last thing I see each day?"
"You know," he started, and with the scant light coming through the crack underneath the door she could make out the edge of his outline sitting in a chair to the left of her bed. "I always considered myself too good for basic, syndicated television torture. I take pride in my work unlike those other wannabe electricians or power-hungry psychos."
His words were mumbled and came from behind closed teeth, Sydney smiling in the darkness. "I broke your jaw, didn't I?"
His sigh was her answer, but she took it straight to heart. "Do you know what percentage of women held captive are raped?"
A ball of heavy dread sobered her immediately, making her stomach sink. That subject had been one she'd been preparing for each night in the dark solitary confines of the cell, and each night that nothing happened and she was left alone ate at her bit by bit.
"But not me," he continued slowly. "Those and other means are for bottom-feeding mob or...or gang scum. What I do is different. I'm an extractor of information; of...intelligence."
She heard him move and leaned up to look, but holding her head up created an awful ache as it pulled the stab wounds in the trapezius muscles on both sides of her neck. The moment his fingertips grazed her shin she jumped, another bout of fire radiating from her stomach as her abdomen tensed around the stapled holes. While she knew the damn machine wasn't connected, her brain made her think it was and stiffened everything despite the fact that no actual pain happened.
"Nothing else I've tried has worked, Sydney. Therein lies my frustration." His fingers traced swirling lines atop her fabric-covered lower leg before moving up toward the knee. "While I've never seen the appeal in that barbaric approach, I'm beginning to come around to the idea as everything else fails."
She breathed in shallow pants trying to hide the creeping fear and gave up on holding her head at an angle since she couldn't see him in the dark anyway. That damn calm voice, mealy-mouthed behind his broken jaw, set her on edge. The touching stopped for a moment, her ears hyper-focusing, and she heard a clatter of something plastic hit the floor and skitter away. Flynn expelled a sigh of relief, but she had no clue what it stemmed from.
A sharp and sudden stab twisted her knee as he pushed her left leg off the bed with a quick shove, the subsequent zipping sound accompanying a tight, biting ring of plastic wrapping around her ankle and binding it to the leg of the bed. Adrenaline poured into her bloodstream and she fought back with her free leg, but he caught it easily as the muscles were too weak and aching to deliver an accurate or damaging kick. It was wrangled and fastened in the same fashion off the other side of the metal cot. As quick as he had moved before, he was gone, the darkness of the room his advantage, but she could still hear his harsh breathing.
A finger traced the upper part of her shin and painfully dragged across an unnatural swell in her kneecap, both realizing for the first time the new injury. "That's dislocated, darling. It must be quite painful," he said softly though continued to put light circles of pressure over the inflamed joint.
The mistake she made was swatting at his hand. Sure she made contact, felt the padded fabric, and heard him hiss in pain as she hit his broken fingers, but his good hand wrapped tightly and painfully around her already sore wrist. Twisting her arm she uttered a panicked and pained whimper, he pushed it down past the metal edge of the cot. Jamming his knee against her forearm to pin it, one of the staples pushing deeper into her damaged muscle, she growled in the back of her through from the strain as more zipping plastic bound it to the cot's front right leg.
Every expletive she could think of spilled from her lips as fear turned into rage, all multiplied by the throbbing agony of her already abused body. She took a swing the moment his hand touched her again. She wasn't completely sure of where he was but knew that his weak spot was his jaw and that even a baby tap against it would send him to the floor.
She missed, the sudden waft of air passing his face the only indication that she'd attempted to hit him. His response was to laugh and step back, though the darkness kept him from admiring his progress.
"That was the punch not to miss, darling," he mocked.
Another bout of breathy, angry name-calling bounced off of the cement walls.
He tutted through his teeth, "tisk, tisk, Sydney, what language. Though, as an English major, your inventiveness is impressive."
Several agonizingly slow moments passed, Sydney's harsh breathing masking her ability to hear him move. A flick against her distended knee made her groan behind clenched teeth, her free hand cupping the injury and falling victim to his grip once more. She summoned what strength she could from the remaining adrenaline as it began to wane and tried to free her arm with a tug, but he turned it against her.
When she pulled back trying to yank her wrist free, he followed and ended up above her legs hovering over her hips in a straddle. Pushing downward and feeling the resistance in her lithe frame, he reached his bandaged hand up and dug his thumb into the stapled wound under her collarbone, sticky liquid leaking from around the metal bit. The pain made her whimper as her arm was painfully angled down and to the side, though with his other hand occupied he wasn't able to pull the zip tie from his lips to cinch the last remaining limb to the cot.
Spitting it down to her chest he pinched the plastic between his pointer and ring finger and slid it down. Her body went full into fight mode, her hips bucking up but not gaining much purchase with her legs immobilized and his thighs squeezed over hers forcing her injured knee to turn in on itself.
While she put him off a few extra moments, the tie zipped with a forceful jerk against the already rubbed raw skin of her wrist. Knowing she wasn't able to move any of her extremities, he settled on his backside against her thighs making sure to angle his weight and cause as much discomfort in the dislocated knee as possible as they both gasped into the darkness.
Minutes went by as his breathing calmed down, and he held his broken right hand against his chest happy that she couldn't see his moment of weakness or the pain on his face from clenching and holding the tie between his teeth with his fractured jaw.
He laughed through an exhale feeling her tremble from exertion between his legs. "I'm starting to get why this form of control is used, Sydney. I poked you full of 22 holes and yet this feels so much more powerful."
Flynn leaned forward, his unbroken left hand grasping her chin in his palm and digging his fingers into cheeks as he forced her head back and to the side. His breath was hot on her skin as he buried his face into her neck and inhaled deeply.
"How is it that after three days of everything you've been through I can still smell your perfume?" He sucked a wet kiss to the column of her throat knowing it would likely leave a mark, though perhaps not seen through the finger-shaped bruises already adorning her neck. She sucked in a frightened and shuddering inhale making the man above her groan.
He pulled her face back down and she knew that if there was more light she'd see the icy fire in his eyes. The fingers of his wounded hand skimmed over her breast and down her stomach to the waistband of her trousers.
"Do you have a boyfriend, Sydney?" His pointer finger slid inside and around to the front to undo the button.
Tears flowed down her temples and into her hair, her chin quivering against the granite-like grip of his rough palm.
She couldn't answer through the tightness in her throat but gave a minute and negative shake of her head.
Flynn laughed as his fingers played with the cool metal of the zipper. "Your only tell is when you're trying to lie to me about something personal." Tightening his grip on her face, his finger pushing the needle-like ends of the staple deeper into her cheek.
"What will you give me to stop, Sydney?" His ask was whispered against the pounding pulse point between her collarbones, his tongue dipping out to taste the salty skin.
"This...won't make me talk," she growled trying and failing to sound unfazed.
His laugh was a rush of hot air. "That little fear-filled tremor in your voice is delicious."
He dragged his finger over her cloth-covered center as a pounding knock at the metal door startled them both, Flynn growling deep in his throat as he sat up.
"What?"
"You've a phone call, sir."
The Brit nodded though none could see. Pressing his lower half against hers, his hands gripped her hips as he placed his mouth against her ear, his lips brushing the lobe as he spoke.
"Don't ever forget who is in charge." Picking up his head he brushed her cracked lips with a soft kiss feeling the rushing pants of air as her body panicked beneath him, and she snapped her head to the side in an attempt to get away from him. "Because I'm sure your boyfriend and father and friends would love to see this instead." He punctuated his statement by grinding the bulge in his trousers against her core.
With painful pressure against her knee, he sat back up, both hands still at her waist where he slipped the button back through the hole securing the pants in their original state. Climbing off with a grunt the door slowly opened revealing a thin beam of light that made her wince.
"Sir?"
"Get her back in the chair," Flynn ordered.
"The camera is still in the other room if-"
"No camera. Just us."
Despite everything that had just happened, the knowledge that she would actually be alone with him made her panic all over again.
For the first time in three days she was truly scared of him.
...
***BREAK***
...
"Any update?" Vaughn poked his head into Marshall's field of view, the techie jumping mid-sip into his drink of freshly poured coffee, the liquid sloshing and staining his clean shirt. "I'm sorry, Marshall," he apologized.
"Vaughn, I said I'd let you know, and I will. The website hasn't been updated; it's still sitting at zero on the time with no next stream; I'm sorry."
Michael tried to hide the disappointment from his face, but wasn't doing a good job. "Any luck with that signal strength test?"
"I wanna say yes because you, you know, probably need a...like a boost right now, but no...not yet. But I'm still working on it."
"It's day six, Marshall. They may not have updated their clock, but a week is a week."
Weiss rescued the computer whiz, pulling Vaughn by the shoulders out of the Rotunda. "Weiss, c'mon, man, I got a lot to-"
"You got nothing to do but worry. C'mon. We're going home to get clean clothes and have a shower."
"No," Vaughn growled and fought, though Eric used his size against him and with a single instance of wrist control, the appendage tightly pinched behind his back, Michael was forced into the parking garage and pushed into the passenger seat of a car. He stopped fighting when each time he went for the handle Weiss pushed the lock button, effectively keeping the furious green-eyed man inside.
The drive to the apartment was so far silent, Eric taking a red light moment to look over at his friend. "I never realized that you can't grow facial hair."
"Yes I can," Vaughn said defensively, his hand coming up and running fingers over the multi-day scruff spotted over his chin and cheeks.
"Dude...I haven't shaved either and I'm killing it. Look," Weiss ordered, Michael finally focusing to see the darker hair stand out on his friends rounded face. He also saw the prominent worry lines creasing Eric's mouth, eyes and forehead.
Heaving a sigh he patted him on the shoulder and faced forward. "Thanks, Weiss."
Sitting on the comfortable couch as the shower ran at the other end of the apartment, Eric let his head loll back feeling sleep pull at him after far too many hours awake, but vibration of the cell on his leg jolted him awake. *SENOR SCARY* flashed as Jack Bristow called.
"News?"
"They updated the website and will be live in an hour. Where are you two?"
"I dragged Vaughn home to shower and get some clothes, he needed it. We'll be there soon. Do you need anything?"
A curt negative reply and the hanging up of the phone was more than he thought he was going to get, the water shutting off as he walked into the bedroom and started grabbing a few pairs of pants and button-up shirts hanging in the closet and stuffing them into a duffle bag he found in the corner.
Stepping out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and another rubbing at his wet hair, Vaughn frowned as Eric haphazardly packed for him. "What the hell are you doing?"
"They updated the site, it's going live in an hour. Grab shit and get ready, we gotta go."
Forty-five minutes later, they walked into the rotunda, Vaughn tucking the shirt into his waistband as they made their way to the conference room, the main room empty save for Marshall typing bleary-eyed and oblivious at his desk.
Kendall waved them in, the room packed though Jack had saved Vaughn his usual seat between himself and Will. Apparently, everyone was curious enough to brave the view in order to see what state Sydney was in after an almost two-day hiatus. The overcrowded room was split between those that could handle more than a slap to the cheek seated for the long haul, and those that were sure to bolt at the first instance of violence standing so they could easily exit the room.
The nervous energy felt like that first day, Michael bouncing his knee and twisting his pen around between his knuckles. By the time the feed flashed to life everyone was almost too afraid to look.
Sydney wasn't in the frame yet, though the battered and stitched-together face of Flynn was front and center. It was likely that his jaw was broken, the left side swollen and purple, and he moved it as little as possible once he started talking.
"You...remember back to that - that second day? Where I said my...first assistants had made mistakes and were punished?" Flynn chuckled, though a pained grimace cut it short. "Boy is my face red. But I know you were all rooting for me, and for those that were wondering: I'm fine, but I do apologize for the extended gap. I'm sure that you were all very worried about me."
He settled his hip onto the wooden desk getting comfortable. "While I wasn't in any condition to stream, I want everyone at the CIA to know that I took very good care of your agent in the interim." He made a show of checking his watch. "We've spent the last couple of days getting a lot of quality time together, haven't we, love? When I took some naps, my assistants were nice enough to take my place and keep our little firecracker awake with a lovely drug cocktail. I don't know what her record is, but she's at 33 hours so far."
Relief settled into Vaughn's soul where worry had been gnawing: she was still alive.
The mumbled voice of the Brit came from off-screen as he moved out of frame, "normally, I'm not one to stoop to such petty lows, just so you know. I'm the farthest person from being goaded into a fight. But she...she got to me."
Flynn turned the camera to face his subject, Sydney finally coming into view. She looked almost the same as when last they'd seen her, though the staples over the wounds in her arms had been replaced, the angry red slits inflamed, probably with mild infection. She'd actually been cleaned up a bit, dried blood mostly wiped away leaving the bruises more prominent against her skin. It was everything else that was different.
There was a stark definition to her collarbones and Michael could see that her cheeks bore deeper shadows against her tight skin. Her breathing was shallow and skin pale, and her eyes were bloodshot with deep circles that were dark despite the bruises.
It was obvious that she was exhausted and in an intense amount of pain, her muscles twitching randomly as her body ached. Missing were the electric nodes that had previously been attached daily to her skin.
The man moved in a slow monotonous circle around her, but she ignored his trek as her eyes slowly closed. His fingers ran softly over her shoulder and she winced pulling away, her eyes flying back open.
"Something happened. He...he did something during the hiatus. That reaction, without the nodes..." one of the psychologists said quietly, the other specialist beside her agreeing.
One of the medical staff countered, "those pads charged her skin. It's very possible that her brain is now wired to expect the electric shock any time she's touched. Add to the fact that she looks sleep-deprived, that reaction is normal."
Flynn spoke up, unknowingly cutting off the conversation. "Ah ah, darling. Don't you want to see how long you can stay awake? No sleeping yet."
He moved back to the desk, slid a drawer open, and pulled out a syringe.
"You know what's really good, Sydney? Morphine." He stuck the needle into his thigh giving himself a dose, the relaxation and calm spreading across his features. "If you tell me one little thing about that EMP weapon or the map, I'll give you a hit of this morphine." He set a second syringe on the edge of the table within view, surprised when her eyes didn't even look in its direction. He continued as she stayed silent.
"You must be in a lot of pain, love," he mumbled. "You've been sitting in that chair for a day and a half, and I can't imagine how everything must just ache."
"I'm fine," she said, her voice almost unrecognizable, those that knew her best flinching at the raw tired sound that scratched from her dry throat.
"Have the last two days taught you nothing? Should I turn the camera back off? You seemed more...flexible and talkative yesterday, love." The anger that tensed her features as her eyes dropped to look at the floor below the camera made the psychologists share a worried glance.
"That behavior is psychological. He did something or...or said something."
In the absence of any stream over the last two days, the JTF was only marginally closer to locating the source of the signal. While Marshall was still trying to narrow it down, they had some promising leads the analysts were working through. Still, the deadline was looming, and the fact that he'd said a week and had been so far sticking to his timetable meant they had today to find anything viable. While everyone thought it, no one said it: it didn't look good.
In the meantime, she had to keep going, unaware of the fact that her team was trying their hardest to get to her, but every time she didn't fall for his goads was a reminder that she hadn't given up, and it gave those listening a renewed sense of purpose. If she could still fight, so could they.
Rolling the chair over on his last pass around the room, the Brit settled down with a groan and lifted a thick folder filled with papers using his good hand. Crossing one leg over the other, the shining shoes cleaned up and glinting even in the low light, he set the folder to his knee and opened it.
"What say you give me some information today?"
Hours later, Flynn was still seated casually in the chair a few feet from her firing questions left and right, Sydney mostly answered honestly, though when it came to details about agents or those she swore to protect, she clammed up appropriately despite the sleep deprivation.
"So you faked Hassan's death?"
Sydney gave a slow nod, her eyes unfocused. Her stomach ached from lack of food and water, though it got lost in the cacophony of pain signals the rest of her body was sending out every second. The spots of skin beneath the sticky pads itched and caused her to twitch which in turn caused pain to flare up from the stapled wounds and overexerted muscles.
"You know, we've been at this for over nine hours today, and you've given me a hell of a lot of intel. I'm glad that I was so persuasive earlier."
Flynn rose and stretched, a wince making him rub at the sore muscles of his neck. Moving across the room after peeking at his watch, he opened the drawer of the desk and removed another small syringe of morphine. Administering it into his bloodstream he relaxed once more and moved to sit back in the chair. She stayed silent through her observation.
"But...it's not the information I've really needed. You're still not going to give me anything useful to get even a few minutes of reprieve from the pain?" He lifted and wiggled the unused syringe he'd set out as bait.
Sydney took in his bruised face with stitches prominent on both cheekbones and right eyebrow, her eyes a brown flash of annoyance surrounded by pain. "The first step is admitting when you have a problem," she said softly.
"You're an amazing bullshit artist," Flynn growled, Sydney finding a chink in his bravado.
"I didn't...mean to upset you. It's okay that you're the - the second toughest person in the room."
His eyes flashed, and she could see tension stiffen his jaw followed by a grimace of pain from the pinch in the swollen left side.
'He couldn't be goaded into losing it again this early, could he?'
"Why don't you just tell me why you're being so cooperative today? We'll save our aggression for later."
She sat quietly for a moment thinking over if she wanted to give up her strategy as it had been working all day and had saved her a lot of energy. "You're streaming everything I say to...give or take...100,000 people," she swallowed taking a breath, "the CIA is watching...along with probably a - a half-dozen other agencies across the globe."
Her tongue licked at her dry lips, the metallic taste of the cut on the lower left side her focus for a second before running over the still slowly bleeding puncture he'd stabbed through her left cheek. She could feel the metal ends of the staple as they'd pierced through from the outside, but the inside hadn't been stitched and was still raw to the touch as the familiar taste of blood hit her tongue when she worried the spot.
"Whatever I tell you...becomes worthless five minutes after it leaves my mouth. So...keep talking until you get tired and...send me back to my room, or...skip to the end and kill me. I'm not gonna give you what you really want...no matter your threats or - or promises." Fatigue pulled her head low as she squeezed her eyes closed.
Flynn chuckled. "And here I thought we were having such a pleasant chat." Setting the file back on the desk he leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees, the bulky wrap around his broken right hand pulling his attention for a moment. "We could just go back to the knife if you'd like," he offered. "Pick up where we left off a few days ago, though I don't think you've much blood left to bleed, darling."
She looked up and made eye contact at his suggestion, "I don't care...what you do with your day."
"Aww, tell me you haven't given up, Sydney, that would be so very disappointing." She followed him as he moved to the table and lifted a pair of needle-nose pliers, testing them a few times as the muscles flexed in his lower arm.
He circled around behind her, and though she knew no one watching could see what he was doing, the second the pliers wedged underneath her left thumbnail pinching it tightly, she squeezed her eyes closed and tensed her whole body.
"Me personally, I recommend breaking the fingers before removing the fingernails. That way, the pain is two-fold. But," he paused, his hand yanking downward in a jerk.
A strangled scream hurt the back of her dry throat. Flynn rose with a bounce in his step holding something in his palm. "Remember when you told me yesterday off-camera? You said that I could take the nothing you had left because you weren't going to break. Well...you have nine nails left, love. Shall I take them all? One by one?" He punctuated his words by tossing the piece he'd torn off to the floor at her feet.
"Tech - technically, you're...wrong," she panted, her eyes still closed as the pain of her thumb throbbed in time with her heartbeat. "I have 19 nails left."
His jaw clenched with another wince against the pain belying his frustration, his voice still trying to sound calm. "There are over 200 bones in the human body, Bristow. Shall we explore them all and see which are hardest to break?"
She grinned at his threat and knew that she'd been the one to do the breaking - figuratively of course. "Again with...formalities. I thought we were...just having a pleasant chat, darling." Swallowing nothing and wishing it was cool water, "you said the intel came last. That...that all they wanted from me were screams, but they must be...putting the screws into you about that second prototype."
Sydney thought that perhaps today was the last of her sarcasm he could take as he learned that keeping her from sleeping for almost two full days hadn't done anything for his cause. This was probably the first moment where she was happy to have been secretly subjected to Project Christmas as a child as it had been saving her life this week.
Keeping his frustration in mind, she kept pushing, "two-hundred and six, by the way." At his confused and angry frown, "bones in the human body. Well...for those of us with a spine."
Everything went black as his fist shot out and caught her in the jaw.
"Fuck," Flynn growled seeing that he'd hit the sweet spot and knocked her unconscious. Stalking to the camera, he killed the feed with a frustrated growl.
…
The echoing of low voices bounced off the wide white walls of the hallway, Jack trudging to his room meaning to change his rumpled and sweaty clothes before heading back upstairs. Glancing to his right as he passed the half-open door of the lower recreation room and found that the noise was coming from a television news program set to low volume. Pausing to listen, he saw two talking heads arguing above a ticker banner, though he couldn't tell which channel from the angle.
"There's no doubt any longer that she is some government agent that is highly trained to handle torture. A civilian would have folded long ago and sold every secret they had if any. She's held out far too long for you to keep making the same tired arguments on air," a male voice barked only to be talked over by a woman's shrill reply.
"But a secret agent for whom? The Central Intelligence Agency isn't claiming Sydney Bristow as an agent. For all we know, we're hoping for the rescue of a Russian spy sent to steal U.S. secrets and murder loyal patriots. You have no idea who she really is, yet you idolize her."
A deep and grumbling scoff along with the tinkering of ice in a glass tumbler pulled Jack's eyes to the dark-skinned figure seated on the sofa watching the program with glaring eyes.
Back on the television, the so-far silent man on the bottom right of the screen interjected, "as a former CIA operative, if she's black ops or special projects, they can't claim her as an agent. There's a good chance that it'll put dozens if not hundreds of other lives in danger to say she works for us - and she knows this. She isn't begging for rescue or trying to give hints to her location in any of these streams. I agree with Mister Sampson that Sydney Bristow is obviously highly trained, and very likely one of ours. I've been through the torture training and, while they obviously can't prepare you for something of this magnitude, she's been doing the exact things I was trained to do in the event of a lengthy interrogation."
The woman clapped back again, "don't the Russians have the same type of training programs for their secret agents? I mean, a student of literature that works as a loan officer for a bank sounds like a classic Bond villain cover story."
"They're right, you know, to a point," Jack said quietly, announcing to Dixon that he was present. "If we claim her it would put...a lot of lives at risk."
Marcus turned a wary gaze on the man in the doorway. "I've tried for two days to go upstairs, but I can't. This," he pointed at the screen, the news station rolling footage from several days earlier of Sydney's bruised and bloodied face before the stabbing session, "is bad enough. How can you watch the live stream and not have it crush what's left of your soul, Jack?"
The father winced at the tone but responded only with a sigh. Moving in and flopping beside the emotionally wounded agent on the couch, he uttered, "I'm sorry." Dixon lifted the remote and muted the television.
"For what?"
"For recruiting you. For...for lying about everything."
They lapsed into silence, Marcus sipping at the whiskey as Jack wished he had his own glass to give his suddenly nervous hands something to do other than sit in his lap.
"If anyone deserves someone to risk it all to save them, it's Sydney. Why are we still sitting here?" The frustration, anger, and sadness shared equal time in the man's harsh query, Jack once again wincing at the emotional pike jamming deeper into his heart.
"SD-6 has enough C4 sub-level countermeasures in place to incinerate a city block, not just the people inside the office or - or Credit Dauphine. If we claim her-"
Marcus scoffed, "the one versus many argument? You're gonna throw that at me? Sydney doesn't equal one, Jack."
"I know, and...being honest, that's just an excuse. We have no idea where she is. I can't find her," unable to meet the other's eye the father hung his head low. "I'm sorry about everything I set you up for, Marcus."
"It is what it is," the man slurred into the glass as he finished the amber liquid in one gulp. "I can't thank her enough. That...that could be me in that chair, and my family could be slaughtered in our home the same way they killed her fiance. She - she didn't have to arrange to get us out, but she did. That's who she is, Jack." Leaning forward he spun the lid back onto the bottle and rose on wobbly legs.
"I'd like to think you'd have done the same, but," moving across the room Marcus stopped in the doorway, "that's a bet no one would win. When she dies in that chair tomorrow, the best part of all of us goes with her. What I lost during ten years committed to a lie, and what you lost from longer," he paused before leaving, "doesn't mean shit compared to that."
…
"Okay, wait...wait. I - I'll tell you something about the - the map," Sydney pleaded through sobs as he gripped her thumb, the last unbroken finger on her left hand. They were still lashed together behind the back of the chair, her wrists raw and bleeding from the thick rough cable.
"The thumb is a precious one to lose, isn't it, darling?" Flynn stepped back from her aching digits and moved to the chair. Flopping down with expectant eyes while cradling his sore, broken hand against his chest, he waited for her to continue.
"I...met another a-agent…in-country for the mission." She swallowed, trying but realizing that her compartmentalization was beginning to fail. Her mind was very near giving up and cracking with the number of injuries she'd taken the last few days coupled with no water to rehydrate everything she'd lost.
"So?"
"So I...I didn't go in alone." She paused, a few panting breaths drying out her already parched throat. "When...when I got hit by the guard...I - I couldn't get up the stairs."
Flynn looked impatient. Tomorrow was their last day together, and three hours of today had been wasted after he'd knocked her out. He'd shed the relaxed facade in favor of acting like an abused dog that was going to bite without warning. Gone was the three-piece suit as well as the act, the pants and button-up shirt all that was left and coupled with barely contained rage.
"You know...you may find this...funny," she gave a small grin as he flashed a warning in his eyes for her to get to the point. "I, uh...never made it up the stairs."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," she swallowed, "I never - I never set foot in that office and I - I've never seen the map you...you need."
You could hear a pin drop in both the JTF conference room and the interrogation room, the only sound her harsh breathing trying to mitigate the pain. His eyes went wide as they could, the right side swollen from her barrage a few days ago, and he leaned forward with a menacing glare.
"Are you serious?"
She just nodded with a wry chuckle.
"Let's take count, shall we? Twenty-two stabs, four broken fingers, 42 hours of no sleep, and seven fingernails across six days, and you finally tell me that you never...even...saw it?"
"I gave you one beat down. Don't...don't forget about that," she reminded, and his response was to ball his fists back up and close his eyes in an attempt to bring the rage down to a manageable level. She grinned, "you really don't...find it funny?"
"Well...you're a glutton for punishment, darling." Flynn shook it off in his mind, his fists loosening. "So. Why don't you give me the name of the other agent, and they can take your place? They can answer my questions."
She met his eyes with a scoff.
He frowned. "What's this other agent worth to you, Sydney? The rest of your fingers? Arms; legs?"
"Everything," she answered quickly, only slightly surprised that she'd said it out loud. Flynn didn't miss a beat though and knew she hadn't meant to make it sound so personal. "I...I'll never give up another agent."
He stalked back behind her, his broken hand wrapping around her wrist as the other grabbed hold of her unbroken thumb. "Thumb's last chance, darling," he warned peering over the stapled stab wound just behind her shoulder at the tense line of her bruised jaw.
She shook her head staying quiet: SNAP.
She sobbed at the new pain of her broken thumb, but also as his grip and yank had jarred the other swollen and broken fingers causing them to fire sharp stabs of pain up her arms to the rest of her body.
"Give me a name, Sydney."
"I can't," she cried, warm tears slipping down her cheeks.
"Why?"
"I - I don't know his...his name."
Flynn flicked the sore digits making her flinch and groan. "Yes, you do. You're telling me you'd give up everything for a random, nameless agent you met on some meaningless operation?"
Silence.
Poke. "What's the name?"
Pinch. "Give me the name."
"Fuck you," she growled behind clenched teeth.
The angry man nodded and his hands moved up, one cupping below her stiff and sore elbow as the other wrapped around her wrist just above the binding. "Do you know how hard it is to snap both the radius and ulna in one action? We may have to do this twice, love."
Looking down to make sure his hands were in place he set his chin on her shoulder and whispered softly into her ear, her reaction to flinch against his proximity. "Who is it, Sydney? I just need a name. Is it someone that works here in your field office? Someone you sit next to in meetings? You know this person very well. Tell me the name."
She froze. Flynn assumed she was readying herself for pain, but he was wrong. The Brit had given up a detail that would have been easy for anyone else to miss, but Sydney's sensitive ears picked up on it. It wasn't just his proximity but because of his word choice.
He said 'here'. The bastards had brought her back. Who knew how close she was - how close they were?
She made full eye-contact with the lens and blinked a few times in a seemingly erratic pattern. Flynn began to pull upward and Sydney felt the tension grow in her lower left arm.
"Wait...stop...I - I'll tell," she gasped, "I'll tell you what I know," panting, "but...it won't help you."
"Tell me anyway," he asked in a suddenly sweet voice before pressing a kiss to the side of her neck, grinned as she flinched before he put more pressure on her forearm.
"Michael. His...his name is Michael. B-but that's all I know."
…
