⧗ CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN ⧗


Dmitri woke up, tied to a chair.

Body cold. Head aching and dizzy. The room was dark and cold and damp. A light flickering dimly somewhere.

A douse of ice cold water hit him like avalanche.

Dmitri gasped, his body seizing in the cold. His body wasn't just cold — he was completely naked, the ice water hitting like a thousand tiny sharp knives across his skin. His sluggish mind evaporated and suddenly everything was visible in stark, bright contrast, everything all at once.

"Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty," a soft voice said as Dmitri gasped and shook in his chair. It took him a moment to discern language and accent.

English. American.

How?

"Atta boy," a hand patted his cheek, and Dmitri jerked away, disgusted. "'Bout time you came around. We spent a long time looking for you, Kasyanenko,"

Dmitri's breath froze in his chest. He was glad he hadn't said anything yet, because now his mind was raging, trying to figure out where he was, who was in here. It took a second for his eyes to adjust, bringing into focus the man before him. Mid-forties, clean shaven in the American fashion. Rolled up sleeves, belt with holster, wingtip shoes, compact frame, a little short. Definitely an agent of the West.

Who knew his name.

"Yeah, we know who you are," the American chuckled, pulling a pack of cigarettes and tapping it in his palm. He withdrew one cigarette and lit it. "Had us going for a moment there, really thought you up and died on us. Real slick disappearing act. But we had a feeling you were a little luckier than your old man there."

The American leaned in and blew smoke directly into Dmitri's face. He recoiled, eyes watering, trying not to cough.

"No, you were pretty damn lucky, weren't you, kid?" The American mused. He glanced down to Dmitri's shoulder, where the scar remained. "Something like that could've easily killed someone. But not you. Oh no, they got to you just in time, didn't they? Didn't want to lose out on their investment. Not their little agent."

With that, he pressed the end of his cigarette into the scar, and Dmitri bit his tongue to keep from making a sound. His mind racing, trying to remember his training. Getting caught, getting tortured — that was always something they were taught to avoid at any cost. Even with death. But Dmitri didn't have that option. He was alive and he was stuck here and this man knew exactly who he was.

Which was worst of all. Their first tactic was to lie, lie, lie. Lie through their goddamn teeth. Convince their captors they had the wrong person. Play victim hard, make them regret ever going into espionage and accidentally torturing an innocent person.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Dmitri finally spoke, though he feared he sounded as unconvincing as he felt. But it didn't matter. Whatever they wanted from him, they couldn't get it. Under no circumstances was he to give in. "You've got the wrong person, I don't know who Kasyanenko is,"

Dmitri went with an American accent, because why not. Make this man question everything he thought he knew. Make him think he was hurting one his own citizens, those he swore to protect.

The man cocked an eyebrow, perhaps evaluating the accent. "Gotta admit, that's pretty good, kid. But I'm not stupid, I know you spent time in New York. You could probably talk like any natural born cityslicker. Got any other fun accents hidden up your sleeve?"

But Dmitri didn't bite. He tried to fall into the mindset of the innocent. He was just a boy, just a normal, innocent, stupid little boy way in over his head. "Please, man, I don't know what the fuck is going on here, but I'm not who you think I am. I've never been to New York. My dad's still alive, he's an accountant, and if it's money you —"

A hand struck him across the face.

"I don't want your fucking money," the American growled. He spat on Dmitri's chest. "Your father is a damn traitor, he was KGB since the 80's. And don't go telling me the KGB is defunct, we sure as shit know it ain't. It's still operational, and you've been grandfathered in. I wanna know where. Who trained you, who took you in."

Dmitri's head rang from the blow, stars in his eyes. That slap might as well have been a punch for how hard the American hit him. He tasted blood in his mouth where the inside of his cheek cut against his teeth. He worked his jaw for a moment, before squeezing his eyes shut, working up some tears for good measure. "Please, man, I swear, I'm not KGB. I'm just some— some idiot! I'm sorry for getting all caught up in this mess —"

Another slap. "Will you shut the fuck up? Unless you're going to tell me what I want to hear, I don't want to hear another pathetic little whine out of you."

Now there was a weird ringing in Dmitri's left ear. The fake tears streamed down his cheeks, and he closed his eyes, and kept his mouth shut.

The man retreated slightly. At least he didn't hit him again. "I'm gonna ask you again. Where were you trained? Who do you work for? Where is your home of operations?"

Dmitri said nothing. Kept his eyes up to the ceiling. Watched as the bare bulb swung back and forth from its thin wire.

"If you don't want to answer, that's fine," the American continued. "We have ways of making you talk. And you will talk."

Dmitri looked back down at him again. "And what if I'm not who you think I am? What if I just say whatever made-up nonsense you want to hear, just to make it stop? What if you're torturing an innocent person who's only telling you lies you can't even use?"

The American stared at him for a long moment, dragging from his cigarette. "I don't care."

Whatever Dmitri thought he was going to say, it wasn't that. He didn't know why. But his stomach dropped in dismay nevertheless. Were the Americans really so callous that they'd go through with this, believing whatever they'll get were false confessions? But then — they're Americans. Of course they would.

What bothered Dmitri far more was that he suspected they already knew more than they were letting on. They already knew he was KGB. They knew who his father was. They had no reason to believe Dmitri wasn't who they thought he was.

And he knew, deep down, they wouldn't let him leave alive.

His only choice was to escape. Or else, hope that the Red Room would rescue him. It was then that Dmitri remembered his sisters — where were they? Had they been captured too? The American didn't mention them and Dmitri didn't want to give himself away by bringing them up first. He already knew the torture would be worse if they started hurting one to get the other to talk.

Dmitri didn't know how long he'd last against that. He was already steeling himself for whatever the American was going to do to him.

It did not take long.

"Alright then, let's start off easy," the American said, throwing away his cigarette and clapping his hands. He stood and grabbed the back of Dmitri's chair, hauling it back until the front legs lifted off the ground and the back struck something behind him. Dmitri's head still spun, and it was only when he looked to the side did he see the gallon jugs lined up, six of them.

He barely had time to register it before a cloth was put over his face.

Waterboarding. Typical.

As cliche as it was, it was cold comfort to the actual experience. The water was bitingly cold and there was no escape from it pouring down his nose or mouth. Dmitri couldn't hold his breath long enough. The American pinched his nose shut over the cloth.

It seemed to be hours, and yet as Dmitri drowned on dry ground, he tried to center himself, tried to count. It couldn't be forever. He only had so much water. He couldn't kill Dmitri right away. It had only just begun.

Still, after each round, Dmitri came up coughing and choking and unable to breathe. He couldn't answer the American's questions even if he wanted to.

"Where were you trained? Who do you work for? Where is your home of operations?"

When Dmitri didn't answer, back under the water he went.

There were no clocks, no windows, no way to tell time. So Dmitri did his best on his own. Tapping his finger against the arm rest he was tied to, counting the seconds, the minutes. Forty seven minutes and thirty four seconds, to be exact, between start and finish.

The American threw the chair forward when he ran out of water. It rocked hard back onto all four legs, Dmitri's neck snapping back painfully. Muscles pulsed with whiplash as the man huffed, almost sounding impressed. "Not bad, kid. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trained to withstand basic torture methods. An actual civilian would've broken a long time ago."

He was probably right, but Dmitri didn't care. Silence or lies, that's all that could come from him. He was too busy panting, water pouring down from his head onto his chest and legs. He was so goddamn cold. His nose and throat burned from the water his lungs rejected.

"I'll give you a second to collect your thoughts," the American said, retreating towards a door to the right that Dmitri hadn't noticed before. Thick metal, with only a tiny window to see through. Blocked by something on the other side. "When I come back, I better be hearing some answers."

He would not get them.

Dmitri kept the time. It was all he could do. Four long hours before the American returned, and in that time Dmitri did his best to evaluate the situation. The room was small, maybe ten feet by ten feet. No windows. No sounds he could detect beyond the walls. Probably underground. Probably still in Europe, though he couldn't be sure. Nothing within his reach. Dmitri was unhappy to find the back legs were nailed to the floor, screwed to a set of hinges that allowed the chair to fall back against the basin behind him. Dmitri couldn't move it otherwise, and he couldn't push it back without being helpless to right himself up again. Nothing was in reach. Both ankles tied to either leg, one wrist to each arm rest. The zip ties were too tight, no space to move and use friction to break them. If Dmitri could find the right angle and torque, he would have broken them with tension alone, but he couldn't rise up enough to get that angle. He failed to account for the leather strap that also bound his chest to the chair.

And he was naked. Can't forget that.

It was just the cherry on top. Dmitri knew its purpose was to heighten vulnerability. He was both physically and metaphorically exposed. A psychological tactic that Dmitri refused to fall victim to. This was hardly the first time he'd been naked in a nest of vipers.

But there was no getting around one fact: Dmitri was well and truly fucked.

He hadn't yet come up with a solution to his predicament when the American returned. This time with more water, but in a large metal tub. Dmitri was even more baffled when the man freed his feet to place into the tub — ice cold water, yes, but torture? Maybe in a few hours, when hypothermia set in.

But no, that was not the coup de grace.

Not until the American pulled out the car battery. The man laughed at Dmitri's reaction. "Oh, got your attention now, didn't I?"

Dmitri grit his teeth, already trying to steady his heart rate. Realizing this might actually kill him, if this moron wasn't careful with his voltage.

"Any second thoughts?" The American asked, holding up two large clamps, one red and one black. Dmitri could already hear the near silent hum of electricity. The man grinned at his silence. "Alright, suit yourself."

And with that, he dropped the clamps into the water.

The pain was unlike anything Dmitri had ever felt. The only thing that came close was accidentally striking himself with his own Widow's Bite, on a thankfully low voltage. That had been like touching an electric fence.

This was so much worse. This time, Dmitri couldn't stop himself.

His screams echoed where no one could hear them.

"Where were you trained? Who do you work for? Where is your home of operations?"

On and on it went. And Dmitri realized, at a certain point, that torture wasn't just to derive information out of a victim. No, he didn't think it was about information at all. It was about sheer torment. About what you could inflict on a person. By narrowing their entire world to a small pinprick, to four walls filled only with pain. So much pain that he was too exhausted to think of anything else. Not of his home, not of his family, not of escape. He had no energy. He had no thoughts left.

He was aching and hurting and hungry and tired. That might've been the worst of all. Not having any water to drink, despite the irony of waterboarding. And not being able to sleep.

That, Dmitri knew, was the worst torture of all. Theoretically, a man could die if he didn't get enough sleep. More realistically, he'd just lose his mind, go crazy. The brain could only absorb so much without rest before it started to rebel upon itself.

Dmitri was pretty sure it was two days before he started to hallucinate.

It had to be at least that much. Forty eight hours was the minimum to really feel that exhaustion, the first serious symptoms of sleeplessness. But every time Dmitri's eyes slipped closed, the American doused him with a bucket of freezing water.

And it started all over again.

"Where were you trained? Who do you work for? Where is your home of operations?"

He went back to waterboarding. Then the electric shocks, this time directly against Dmitri's skin.

Then he started experimenting. Some light bartering, just to loosen him up. Break a finger or two. Nothing serious, not yet. The physical pain Dmitri could take. He could take any of it, all of it, it meant nothing, he still hadn't said a word.

But he hated it when the American ate in front of him. Hated that it was some fast food burger and fries, gotten from who knows where, smelling so delicious. A full bottle of water. The American would pretend to offer him some, laugh if Dmitri actually believed him, and then ate it all without ever sharing a morsel.

His stomach clawed from the inside out, a growing ache that soon became an active pain. It occasionally eclipsed his broken fingers or cracked ribs, which was sometimes welcome, sometimes not.

His throat was constantly parched. Occasionally the American would show mercy. Maybe once a day, Dmitri thought. His attempt to keep count had failed, thanks to the sleeplessness, but he was fairly sure every twenty four hours or so, the American would pinch his nose, jerk his head back, and pour water down Dmitri's throat. He did his best to swallow what he could and not choke on the rest.

"Can't have you dying on us yet," the American would chuckle as Dmitri spit up water on the floor.

And oh, how Dmitri began to wish for it. Wanted to beg for death sometimes, when the voltage got too high, when they exchanged cold for hot, and poured scalding buckets of water across his back.

Not enough to kill him. Never enough to kill him.

"Where were you trained? Who do you work for? Where is your home of operations?"

It was like a mantra now. Dmitri could repeat those words in his dreams now. If he could dream. Which he wasn't, because he wasn't getting any sleep at all.

His back ached. His ass ached. Dmitri had been sitting in this same chair without moving for… days? He can't remember. Not even a little relief for a bathroom. The smell of the room had started to get to him — before he stopped smelling anything at all. Dmitri imagined he would've gotten sick several times over by now, if he had anything in his stomach.

"Where were you trained? Who do you work for? Where is your home of operations?"

Dmitri closed his eyes and imagined he was anywhere else but here.

"Where were you trained? Who do you work for? Where is your home of operations?"

His tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. His skin sticky with sweat and blood. His hands stiff and swollen with unset bones. The sting of burned skin and open lesions.

"Where were you trained? Who do you work for? Where is your home of operations?"

It was getting a little hard to breathe sometimes. He couldn't hear out of one ear anymore. Out of the corner of his eyes, when he could keep them open, he saw strange figures moving in the shadows.

It's Mia. He knew it was. She found him knows she had. She's the only one who could, in this nameless hellhole.

She was here to save him, like in DC.

She was here to kill him, just as in St. Petersburg.

He could see her pale eyes flickering in the darkness. Watching him. Waiting. He just wished she'd stop waiting and do something.

"Just kill me already," Dmitri could hear himself, though he didn't know if he was actually speaking aloud or just in his head. "I know you want to."

She lurked there, ever closer. A ghost, wonderful and terrible at once. She appeared the angel of Death. Just carry him away. Take him away from this place.

"Just do it." Dmitri mumbled, but even closing his eyes she didn't disappear. There, a flickering image in his retinas. A hand, caressing his cheek. Definitely just the throes of his sleepless insanity, but Dmitri swore he could feel every callous in her hand, every scarred ridge left behind from broken glass. She never did tell him how that happened exactly.

He missed her. He wanted her. He wanted to die.

And that soft hand turned to metal, the muzzle of a gun pressed against his head.

"Where were you trained? Who do you work for? Where is your home of operations?"

This time, he heard it in her voice. Mia's voice. Strange and otherworldly and so far away. Dmitri smiled despite himself.

"You know that already," he whispered. "You've been there. You've seen it all. There's nothing left to hide."

She knew. She'd known this whole time. How had she never said anything? Never mentioned it?

Did she not remember?

It didn't matter anymore. He was dead either way. "Just kill me."

Dmitri closed his eyes. "I'm glad it's you."

The gun pressed harder, pushing his head back. But Dmitri had nothing left to say, waiting for the end.

"Dmitri," Mia's voice whispered in his ear, soft as a feather. Coaxing him ever closer to the edge.

He felt the finger tighten around the trigger, the slow mechanism of the gears turning, the hammer falling down into the chamber. The bullet, waiting, quick and painless. Oblivion stood at the other side.

Click.

Mia's breath, sweet as honey, next to his cheek. "You passed."

Dmitri's eyes fluttered, and he came to realize he was still breathing. Still thinking. Still sitting in this god awful chair in this god awful room, in a place that must surely be Hell on Earth.

Still alive. The gun pulling away from his head, as the image of Mia vanished, replaced by the American, who smirked down at him.

"Damn," He whistled, and with each new syllable his accent seemed to change. "And I really thought you'd be the one to break. Jokes on me, eh, товарищ?"

Tovarisch. Comrade.

"W-what?" Dmitri rasped, suddenly hearing his own voice again for the first time. He didn't sound like himself. He stared, in mute shock, as the American bent down, a knife in hand. Thought for sure he was going to cut through his veins, let him bleed out — but no. Instead, his ankles came free. Then his wrists, his chest. Before Dmitri realized it, before he could search for Mia, shrouded in her black wings, he was swaddled in a blanket, more people than he's seen in ages entering the room and tending to his injuries. Antiseptic swabs, bandages, a bottle of water in his hand.

"Drink it slow now," A woman's voice advised gently. "You've been through enough."

No, no, it made no sense. Dmitri tried to pull away as hands hauled him up out of his chair. He was so weak, so hungry and dehydrated that he couldn't walk on his own. A body provided support, Dmitri didn't know who.

He kept looking for Mia. Where was she? Where did she go?"

"There was no one else here, kid," The American told him, and Dmitri didn't realize he had even said anything. Confused, disoriented, as the American didn't sound so American anymore. "It was just me the whole time. All that sleeplessness got you seeing ghosts."

Ghosts. That's all Mia was.

A ghost.

"The others?" Dmitri finally managed to say, when he finally understood what was going on. "Where are the others?"

A test. Another goddamn test.

"They're close by," Someone answered, though Dmitri didn't care who, as they carried him out of the room. Entering a grim hallway that didn't look any better than the room he just left — but revealing identical doorways, now open.

From two, Sabina and Oksana emerged separately — looking just as terrible as Dmitri felt. Skin burned and bruised and broken in many places, looking half-starved and eyes wild with exhaustion and delirium. Large wool blankets covering their own nudity, pale fingers with ripped nails clutching it to their shoulders. They barely recognized each other, shells of what they were only a week ago.

"Rada?" Oksana asked, desperate, rasping. "Where's Rada?"

From a third door, an agent emerged, before quickly shutting the door behind her. Not fast enough to prevent Dmitri from seeing the limp body slumped in the chair, blood dripping from a hole in her temple. Then gone again, vanishing as the door clicked shut.

"She couldn't withstand the pressure," The agent said."Rada will not be joining you home."

They said nothing. All Dmitri, Sabina, and Oksana could do was stare at each other in silence. Grief and pain and shock, wondering at the meaning of it all.

Wondering if they were always meant to fail.