Disclaimer: None of the Benedicts/the Savant World belong to me. All rights to Joss Stirling.
WARNING: There are descriptions of violence in this chapter (i.e. torture) so if that's not your thing you can skip the middle ;) )
Chapter Three – Leah POV
Until I was eight years old, my parents and I lived in north Germany, in a neat little cottage at the Baltic Coast. It was there that I first heard the idiom "Die Ruhe vor dem Sturm" – the lull before the storm. Back then, before the incident at school that forced us to move, I felt safe even though there were incredibly terrifying storms every month - because I was inside, in my mother's arms that didn't refuse to hold me yet, and she kept murmuring in my ear that it was outside and that it couldn't harm me.
Now, I don't feel safe. I know the next storm is about to come but my mother's arms aren't around me, nobody's whispering comforting words in my ear and I know that the next storm is going to harm me just as much as the first five did – if not more.
It is more. Much more. Fire ignites my veins but not in a mushy love kind of way. It burns them, it paralyzes them, it kills them slowly. That's what it feels like. Like my body is being torn apart (which it kinda is by this monstrous torture machine that's pulling my arms away from my torso), like …
My scream echoes through the concrete cell and I don't even try to bite it back this time. Tears run down my cheeks, mixing with the blood from a slash on my cheekbone and further down with the remains of my breakfast that came out of my mouth during the second session.
I hear a cackle from the human killing machine next to me, who bends down close to my ear and whispers, "Why don't you just tell us what we want to know, sweetie, and we'll let you go" His breath is hot against my ear and drops of saliva touch my neck. I force myself not to let any more tears fall at the contact and put on my best poker face.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"That's what all those idiot criminals in crap TV series say, don't they?"
"I wouldn't know now, would I?" I say before I can stop myself and I have to bite back a scream as his knife swipes across my stomach again, leaving a large gash.
"Just tell us, or we'll make sure that none of those Americans get hurt at the base."
Tell them what? I wish I could convince them that I truly do not know what they want from me. I do not know about –
"Aamir!"
The machine straightens up immediately and his smug grin is wiped off his scarred face completely. I force my aching head to look toward the door and almost laugh at what I see. I would really laugh if my stomach didn't hurt so much. A tiny, oompa-loompa like man waddles towards Aamir, takes the knife from him and wordlessly gestures to the door. I guess that's the Pashto way of saying "P*** off".
Aamir leaves but not without throwing me one last malicious look at me behind his boss' back.
"Please accept my apologies, Miss Andersson, my son-in-law can be a little … intense sometimes."
I feel sorry for his daughter then. The man's English is flawless and neither from his accent nor from his looks can I really tell where he's from. His hair is dark like everyone's around here but his skin is too pale for him to be a local. His accent lies somewhere between Indian and Russian. As he moves forward, I instinctively lean back against the wooden restraints digging into my back though I refuse to look away from his almost black eyes.
"Miss Andersson, this…" He gestures to my face, my shoulders and my stomach, the most damaged areas of my body, "this would be so much easier if you were just willing to cooperate with us. I believe us to be on the same side."
"Is it the good or the bad side?" I ask and can see a twinkle in his eyes at my seemingly witty reply.
"My dear Miss Andersson, the world cannot be divided into good and bad. There are shades of grey between the black and white."
"Let me guess, there are fifty of them?"
The man doesn't get the reference and crouches down in front of me.
"Let me start with a proper introduction. My name is Abdul and I just want you to tell us what we want to know. We know that you have acquired some information on the subject and we would just like you to convey that information to us."
"I'm sorry but I have no idea what you're talking about." I refuse to let myself be one of these sobbing blonde chicks in movies who scream and beg for their captor's mercy.
"Miss Andersson, we asked you a very simple Yes-No question. We already knew the answer to it but you still lied to us. And lying must be punished." As if summoned, Aamir strides into the room this time with two ropes and a head band, grinning like it's Christmas day.
As he fastens the ropes on the wall and tightens the headband around my forehead, Abdul asks once again, this time leaning so close to me that his sweaty nose bumps against the metal of the headband.
"What do you know about Victor Benedict?"
The pain starts all over again.
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