A/N: Hello again, I bring you the next update in this little tale ;) Both this chapter and chapter thirteen are fairly intense, so prepare yourselves.
Thank you to Uroboros75 for the beta work :)
Chapter Twelve: Fury
He stood outside the room, watching his reflection flicker on the pale glass as he drummed his fingers on edge of the window. His reflection was very faint, lacking any concrete amount of colour or shape. A ghost. He focused on the glass and the slight curve it held against the light. Minute black lines ran through its heart like barbed wire through a prison. The amount of tension in his shoulders was indescribable, and the magnitude of his rage was beyond the range of any scale.
He felt like an idiot. An absolute fucking idiot.
Peter Bishop didn't like being deceived; in fact, he hated it.
That was the main inspiration for the furious shade of red he could feel creeping over his cheeks at that moment. It was also the most probable cause for the particular clench of his jaw and the tight curl of his fingers against his palm. If he pressed any harder he was sure that his fingernails would draw blood.
He'd been watching the interview for several minutes, and his frustration grew greater with every one that passed. The agent in the interrogation room with Bolivia asked the questions in quick, even strokes, like the keys of a typewriter. But Bolivia clearly had an ounce of cunning that he wasn't aware of; she deftly snaked her way out of each question like a sparrow dodging bullets.
They might as well have handed a revolver to a rookie.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Broyles approach. His lips were tight in an expression of slight anxiety.
"Any progress?" he asked as he placed his tense hands on the edge of the window.
"If you call obvious manipulation progress, then you've got a winner," Peter said dryly.
"Not good then," Broyles answered.
Peter turned away from the window. "Broyles, she's spinning circles around this guy and he can't even tell. Let someone go in there who actually has a shot at getting to her."
His expression fell into the stoic stupor that Peter disliked. "And who would you suggest?"
"Me," he answered.
Broyles shook his head. "No. Out of the question."
Peter was infuriated; he made an exaggerated motion towards the glass that housed the red-haired vixen.
"How else do you expect to get answers? She's not going to give them without a little... encouragement."
"And maybe that's exactly what she wants us to do," Broyles quipped.
Peter lowered his arms, his shoulders falling heavily.
"Perhaps this alternate wants to get us emotional - get you emotional, Peter - to get some answers of her own."
Peter scoffed, Broyles just didn't get it. He hadn't spent months with this woman, believing her to be someone who she in fact wasn't. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing no reflection.
"She's been here for months, Broyles. If she wanted answers she's probably already got them by now. I think it's time we get our share."
Broyles sighed, his head leaning in on his chest slightly before he answered.
"Alright," he said begrudgingly. "I'll give you five minutes, no more."
It didn't take him long to summon the other agent out of the room. Peter watched as he left; he was dazed, his face ripe with confusion. When he saw Peter walk towards the door, he became silent and in somewhat stoic. Peter saw a brief flash of surprise on his face before he shut the door.
He turned to Bolivia, the deceptive lion with the crimson mane. Now he saw a cowardly lion that'd bitten off a morsel larger than it could chew.
"Well, well, well," she said with a thick shot of bravado. "Hello again Peter."
He pulled out the chair, purposely making it squeal loudly against the floor before sitting down. It was only when he sat at the table, hands folded in front of him that he answered.
"Don't be too happy to see me. You won't be in a little while."
She scoffed. "What are ya gonna do?" she asked, arrogance dripping from her voice like gin. "Hit me?"
He looked at her, his pulse thick in his neck.
"No," he said. "I'm going to get some answers and you're going to give them to me."
She raised an eyebrow. "And if I don't?'
"Then I'll break your neck here and now."
She scoffed heavily, almost laughing at his threat.
"And what will that accomplish? I'll be dead, and you'll have nothing to barter your little Olive back."
Now he leaned forward on the table, his face on breaths from her. "Just because your neck's broken doesn't mean that you're dead, Buttercup," he hissed. "It just makes things a little more... interesting." He saw a flinch of something in her eye, fleeting but distinct. "And depending on which spot I hit, it'll also make things very, very painful."
She twisted her lower lip slightly, curling it into a sneer.
"You really think that you can get under my skin don't you? That you can somehow flick a switch inside me and I'll tell you everything you want to know." She smirked again and it made his blood fizz. "It's not gonna be that easy."
Peter slumped back in his chair and looked at her. She was too relaxed, too calm.
She was overconfident.
Time to up the ante, he thought as his fingers grazed over the stubble on his chin.
"That's what the Secretary told you to say isn't it?"
Her head snapped up then, eyes blazing with something that he couldn't place. Her confidence was faltering, and she was caught behind the red borderline of ambition.
"The Secretary didn't tell me to say anything."
"Then what did he tell you?" Peter asked, probing for answers.
She sighed. Then her jaw hardened, her eyes darkening like raw steel.
"You were taken from the Secretary, Peter; you were something that he clearly cherished. He searched forever, trying to get his son back. He had no other choice but to accept a feeling of helplessness." She sat forward, her elbows resting on the table as she folded her arms. "Now look at you, your precious Olive is gone and you really have no way to get her back. How does that feel Peter?"
He didn't think in that next instant. He leapt up from his seat and charged around the table. He grabbed her small wrist between his fingers and began twisting it, his jaw clamped with his rage.
"It feels like this," he said as he twisted her wrist sharply. She grimaced but didn't make a sound. "Or maybe it feel something like this," he continued as he yanked her wrist around and heard a slight pop from her arm. She cringed and tried to muffle a cry of pain.
She looked at him, her face flushed and eyes wide. Her teeth were clenched together, white like chalk.
"It's gonna take a bit more than that Peter," she hissed. "You're forgetting who I was trained by."
His fingers tightened on her arm. "That may be, but you were never trained against me." And flung her out of the chair. She landed in a muddled pile of disorientation on the floor, her bangs frizzing over her face as her breaths came thickly.
"Tell me where she is," he said.
She spat at him in response.
He gripped her collar and pushed her against the wall. He could feel the rage boiling through his body, bubbling thickly through his veins. She tried to struggle against him, but he pinned her arms to the wall with his elbows.
"Where is she?" he raged, his voice almost screaming at her.
"You want her back that badly?" she scoffed. "Damn, you must really have something goin' with her!"
He snapped her head against the wall and her eyes closed momentarily. When she opened them again there was something hideously sinister in them, crushing and ferocious like an obsidian chimera.
"You'll never get her back," she said, her voice heavy with venom. "She's probably locked away somewhere, where the Secretary's waiting for her to snap, waiting for her to spill everything she knows."
That was it. Any ounce of restraint in Peter crumbled beneath his torrential rage as the palm of his hand met the side of her face in an explosive slap.
His patience was dead and gone.
"You listen to me, Buttercup," he hissed. "You tell me right this fucking second where she is or I will throw you out the goddamned window!"
"You wouldn't," she said, half-disbelieving.
"Yes," he said as he tightened his grip on her collar. "I would."
He saw the difference then, screaming in bright orange flames in the plane of his existence. She was the farthest thing from his Olivia. She was impetuous, stubborn and arrogant. She was the polar opposite of Olivia.
"Tell me, now," he hissed.
She grimaced. "I don't know where she's being held, and I hardly knew anything about the damn switch aside from me coming over here."
"Give me your best guess and I'll consider not crushing your throat," he answered.
"No," she answered, like he expected.
Then he released her and she fell to the floor, gasping slightly as she snaked a hand up to her throat. After a moment she looked at him, and he made no motion towards her.
"I knew you'd say that," he said. "Because your best guess is as good as mine," he paused, watching the anger replace the fear in her eyes. "If anything, the Secretary would keep her where he can personally monitor her and I can think of no other place better suited for that than Liberty Island."
She made no response.
He turned to leave and said with a heavy dose of sarcasm, "Enjoy your long reign in the Kingdom of Incarceration, princess."
Then, just as he was about to press the button to be let out he heard her speak in a voice raw from suffocation.
"You do realize that this doesn't end here with me."
He turned from the door, watching her still take in deep breaths as she looked at him. He could see faint bruises blotching up her throat, marring the ivory pillar.
"Oh no, Buttercup," started Peter. "The game hasn't even started yet."
He exited the door, leaving a nonplussed Bolivia behind.
Broyles said nothing to Peter as he emerged from the interrogation room. He nodded calmly to him, whose eyes were unwavering in their morose conviction. A moment passed, then Peter broke away from him and longed the hallway out.
He didn't see the slight curl of Bolivia's mouth against her bruised skin.
It was sly and undeniably serpentine.
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