warnings: torture, blood, violence, suicidal thoughts, implied mention of rape, knives.
chapter 7-ichor
"If there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes." -Halsey
It's a wonder how they didn't catch her sooner. Irene chalks it up to her practice lying, but it could have been anything—careless guards, ignorant families. All she knows is that they realize she isn't genuine when one of the men in the house—someone's brother or brother in law or friend's brother—decides he will take Irene back to his room.
She bites her tongue until it bleeds, following him up the stairs. Her eyes are glassy and emotionless. Void. She feels ready to throw herself in front of a train.
Time seems to move quickly, until he's touching her with rough, angry fingers, and she can't breathe, she's suffocating, and he stares at her curiously and then laughs, mumbles, shouts for a guard, and Irene can't seem to force any air into her lungs while they drag her away, and she's pushed down the stairs. "She's a spy. I knew she was right when she said she saw her at the party."
Irene squeezes her eyes shut, and loses control of her body. It goes limp, and someone kicks the back of her knee so hard that blue blobs start spreading out into her vision.
You've survived much more than this, she reminds herself, and straightens, remembering her CIA training and whipping a hand up to hit the man on the left in the nose. He stumbles back, and Irene twists herself in circles until the other man breaks away. She picks up her heel and slams it down on the first man's ankle. He howls in pain. Turning around, she kicks the other man in the stomach, then punches him across the nose. She slings a leg over his shoulder as he bowls over, and then she forces herself forward until she can drag him down with her. There are reinforcements coming soon, so Irene kicks off her shoes and flees the house. As her bare feet pound the cement outside the door, she can hear gunshots in the distance.
Once she reaches the gates, Irene breathes a sigh of relief, prepared to keep sprinting. Before she can continue running, someone jumps up from behind her and wraps an arm around her neck. Now she really can't breathe. Gasps spill from her mouth, sharp and pointy against her tongue and her tonsils. Irene waves her arms around, trying to hit something, anything so she can get away. Her lungs burn with desire for oxygen, and Irene tries desperately to sate them, but to no avail.
Her vision goes black a few seconds later.
When Irene wakes up, there's a syringe in her arm and she can't see through her left eye. Also, she's just had a bucket of ice poured onto her head, so she gasps against the cold. "You're from U.N.C.L.E., huh? Never heard of that."
The man before her is older than she is, by at least twenty years. His hair is grey, he's missing one of his teeth, and he's got a tattoo that runs across the left side of his jaw. He's very short.
Irene is still wearing the golden dress she showed up in. Her curls have fallen out, and she can feel her lipstick smeared across her cheek. She must look insane.
Isn't she, though? Does it matter?
She clenches her jaw, determined not to confirm or deny his claim.
"You did some pretty impressive damage to the guards, you know. Do they teach that at U.N.C.L.E.?"
Silence.
"You know, when Maya told me your name was Irene Acosta, I did some reading up on you." The way he says her name is wrong. Irene a-cohs-tuh. Wrong, she screams in her head. Wrong wrong wrong. At least he doesn't know her. She is just a name with a history. And blood stuck between the cracks of her palms. "You've got quite an impressive resume. There's not much about where you learned to kill like you did with that guard, but I have to say, you've led an exciting life." Irene flinches when he leans forward to brush her hair out of her face. Kill, she can remember him saying. She killed a guard.
Good.
"Born in Cuba, your mother died when you were six. Your father went insane when you turned ten. He confessed to six unsolved murders, and was killed by mobs when you were seventeen." He nods at her, an unsettling smile making its way across his already disturbing visage. "You dropped off the grid after that, but you've clearly resurfaced. Tell me, Irene—where did you go?"
As he asks the question, he leans forward in his chair, running a hand up her ankle, and then higher, higher, high—
"Where did you go, Irene?" he murmurs, staring at her chest before blinking and smiling at her eyes.
She pinches in her cheeks for a moment, before spitting on his face. "Fuck you," she snaps, and he tightens his grip on her knee. "I'm going to kill you," she swears.
"Where did you go?" he asks, this time sharp and staccato. "You disappeared for ten years, and now, here you are. Where were you?"
Her blood boils. She hates this man so much. His words are like spears, and they hit her in the stomach by surprise every damn time. "I hate you," she whispers.
"Hmm? Say it louder, sweetheart."
The pet name is enough for her to grit her teeth so hard that something in her jaw cracks. I'm going to kill you, she promises him silently. I'm going to end your life.
Irene clenches her stomach and tugs on her bindings. There's rope around her wrists and her neck and her ankles, and she feels like a dog. He's treating her like a dog—the pet names, the neck restraint, the stroking her legs. Her flesh burns with hatred wherever he touches, and if only she could lean forward just the slightest bit, and wrap her fingers around his neck, and squeeze until the light left his eyes.
"What did you say, Irene?"
Her response is limited to a sharp glare.
"Then I guess we'll just have to try to more tests on you," he tells her, shrugging. He sounds cartoonish and campy, but Irene's heart pounds with fear. She's scared of him, of his power. Why doesn't U.N.C.L.E. give their agents cyanide?
When the man disappears for a moment, Irene tries to shimmy around in her restraints. She gropes around with her fingers. The ones around her wrists are secured like belts. If she tried for long enough they can be undone. Desperately, Irene moves her head back and forth, trying to see if she can feel a metal buckle like on her hands. Nothing. She can't see her ankles.
The man whisks back in, a mess of wires in his hand. "Beautiful," he marvels at Irene, and she continues to scowl at him. "Oh, sweetie, that face won't get you anywhere." He pulls a wire out of the box and wraps it around her wrist. "Let's play a game. I'll ask you a question. You answer. If you get it wrong, I'll push this button—" he pauses to demonstrate, stroking the button before pressing it gently, causing pain to radiate through Irene, from her wrist to her ribs to her head to her gut, "—but if you get it right, I'll leave you alone."
They play for hours. Irene gets every single question wrong, because she glues her lips together and leaves them like that for the duration of the game. By the time things are over, she feels the overwhelming need to vomit. But if she does, she'll get the acids all over herself, and god knows her torturer isn't going to help with anything. Irene itches to escape, and move her legs, and get back to anyone because, Jesus, even spending the rest of her life next to Illya sounds better than this.
"You're not very smart, are you?" the man chastises, before clicking his teeth together. "No, you aren't." He abandons her again for a few moments. Then, he returns with another syringe. "We have to keep you alive, don't we?"
No. Kill me, Irene prays. To whoever is listening. Take my life.
She is still alive three days later, after three days of syringes in her stomach and cruel true or false games, and watching her own blood spill from open wounds.
"My name is Emin. I want to help you," he says. "My partner is gone for the rest of the night. I think we can make progress without the bindings, right?"
Irene nods, still suspicious.
"You have to promise you'll behave. You will, right Irene? You're a good girl."
Irene is most certainly not a good girl. She's killed people and lied to people and done monstrous things in her short life, but she will continue lying and being horrible if it means she can get out.
"Good."
He reaches over, untying her wrist straps, followed by the one around her neck, followed by her ankles. As soon as both her legs are free, Irene kicks him in the crotch and jumps up. Her legs are shaky and the muscles burn from disuse, but she ignores the stinging and flees as fast as possible. Emin screams for guards, following behind her. Irene can hear him dig a knife out of his utility belt and flick the blade out. She stops, turns, and raises her fists, ready to fight him. Or kill him.
She grabs his fist as he raises the knife to stab her in the neck, and she pulls it backwards, twists it. She punches him in the throat with all the strength she can muster and yanks the weapon out of his grip. Emin grunts, and she stabs him in the side for good measure.
Continuing down the hall, Irene does her best to avoid the steps of the guards around certain corners. She's lost in a maze of hallways and staircases, and Irene figures the best way out is up. It smells like she's underground, but if she ends up on the roof, at least she can throw herself off.
"Stop!" someone yells, boots thundering down the hall, and Irene screams as loud as she can, the sound echoing out, bouncing through the hallways like ink in water. She takes off again, just as the same person yells, "bitch!" at her.
With all the puddles she steps in on her way out, Irene probably inherited some kind of skin disease. She finds a stairwell, and begins trudging up the levels, looking up every once and a while to see how many floors she has to go. The trip up is surprisingly uneventful. No guards. No old men with tattoos and wires. No traitorous girls. Irene holds the handrail with all her might, pulling herself up to the top and finding the door. She kicks it open and runs out.
Emin is there, waiting for her. Irene slows to a stop. He's pulled the knife out of his side, and he looks murderous. "You haven't been good, Irene," he chastises.
"Damn right," she mumbles, before lunging at him. The blade grazes her ribs, and she clenches her jaw to stifle a scream. Irene hooks a leg around his slender waist, following his arm along for the knife. He tosses her onto the ground, but she maintains a sturdy grip on the weapon. They wrestle it away from one another, and in a flurry of pain, she ends up pressed against a wall. She scratches his face with her nails, and he reacts by forcing the knife into her stomach, twisting it upward. Irene's hand drops from his face. He steps back, allowing her to fall pitifully to the ground.
"I'm disappointed in you, Irene," he chastises, before turning and walking away. Irene narrows her eyes, pulling the knife from her torso. He's about to turn a corner when she raises the handle. Mustering up her strength, Irene hurls it at his back as hard as she can. The handle almost hits him, but the blade wins out in the end. He makes a choking noise. Irene doesn't stick around.
Instead, she pulls herself up, and stumbles towards the door. She pushes it open with a grunt. The sunshine embraces her.
a/n: Thank you all so so much for your support and reviews last chapter. I appreciate them all so much. I hope you can keep it up for this chapter! I have a lot of stuff planned for the next arc/mission, so I'm really looking forward to moving on and writing more.