Author's note: Short and gruesome. This chapter carries a very heavy warning for torture and graphic violence.
The game changed after that. It wasn't about extracting information anymore; it was about revenge, about teaching us a lesson. We'd fought back; he'd won, and he wasn't about to let us to forget it.
He started with the cigarette lighter this time. No prelude, no questions, just the click of the flame igniting. It glowed yellow at the tip of the lighter, and he smiled, that sadistic grin I'd come to know and dread. The new Melinda didn't do fear, normally, but today was different. In these stone catacombs, the new Melinda wasn't in charge; John Bodho was.
The flame kissed my arm, the pain instantaneous. It built to a crescendo, then leveled out as I grew used to it, and finally died along with the nerve endings in my skin. He moved the lighter an inch to the left, and the cycle began again. I gritted my teeth, but did not scream. The pain wasn't the worst part, anyway. It was the scent of burning flesh filling the room, the sound of my skin sizzling like a summer barbecue, that turned my stomach.
"You can stop this, Agent May. Just start talking, and I'll turn the lighter off." As if I believed him. I could talk all I wanted, but he wouldn't stop hurting us until we were dead.
The pain died down, and he moved the lighter to the left again. Rinse and repeat.
When they threw me back into the cell that day, there was a long stripe of charred flesh on my right arm. I fell to the ground cradling it. Then they took Victoria away, and once I was certain they were out of earshot, I cried. I cried for the dead nerves in my arm and dead Melinda I'd left back in the ashes of an old apartment building in Bahrain. And then, as Victoria Hand's screams reached my ears, I cried for her, and the mess I'd gotten her into.
Fun fact: no one, no matter how indifferent she is to pain or how much resistance training she's had, can keep from screaming when a blowtorch is being held to her skin. At first, I'd been determined to swallow the pain, no matter how great it was, but the moment the blue-hot flame touched my flesh, I knew it would be a hopeless battle. By the time he stopped give the torch a chance to cool off, my throat was raw.
He stood behind me and held the flame to my back, moving it back and forth in a slow zigzag. I was going to need skin grafts.
I coughed up a lungful of water, sucking in as much air as I could before my head was forced into the bucket again. I struggled against the beefy hands holding me down, but it was a pointless waste of energy. My hands and feet were bound, so I couldn't fight. My lungs burned with the desperate, insatiable desire to breathe. Panic took over, and I writhed and twisted and begged whatever deities existed to give me just a little more air. Finally, I surrendered myself to the blackness flickering at the edges of my vision and passed out.
I came to lying on my side, water running out of my open mouth and nose. A boot kicked me, and I curled up, clutching my stomach. A voice yelled at me, telling me to start talking.
"My name is Melinda May," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "I am an agent of SHIELD. And I will never tell you anything." The boot kicked me again, and my head was forced back underwater with a splash.
"Just tell us, Agent May." Zap.
"It's your choice whether this continues or not, Agent May." Zap.
"We can stop any time, Agent May." Zap.
"You will talk, Agent May." Zap.
When the clank of the deadbolt indicated it was time for more pain, I was almost glad. I'd been almost anticipating these sessions lately, wanting to get them over with as soon as possible. The waiting was the real torture, all alone in a stone room, listening to Bodho hurting Hand. By now I knew the sound of her screams as well as I knew chen 4 step. Someone once said that where there's life there's hope. That person had obviously never heard Victoria Hand scream. I almost found myself hoping she would die. No one deserved what Bodho was putting her through.
They had to pick me up and drag me; I was too weak to support my own weight. I coughed weakly, my lungs still waterlogged from the drowning. My heart began racing as we neared the interrogation room, but I didn't have the energy to be properly afraid. Their arms released me; leather straps replaced them. A dark blanket of hopelessness settled over me. Blinking back tears, I steeled myself and waited for pain.
I wanted my mom.
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