Once Two Sisters

by Sarah Warburton

  I scramble to my feet, my stomach flipping over and over. “No. No. You don’t need to lock us in.”

  Phil pauses, but Cristina ignores me. “Get the other side,” she tells him.

  I run forward, but not fast enough. The two halves of the fence meet just as my hands slam against the harsh metal. Cristina snaps three padlocks into place.

  Ignoring me, she stands up and looks at Phil. “Did you get all the paperwork set up?”

  “I did.” But the expression on his face implies he’s not so sure he did it right. I know that look and I assign him a role—henchman, the weak link, the one I have the best shot at defeating.

  Cristina gives a short sigh. “I’ll look it over now. Everything has to be in order for tomorrow.”

  She crosses the room in two steps, flips open one of the laptops, and motions to Phil. “Show me.”

  I want to see, have to see what he has. If I knew what they wanted, why they captured us—but I can’t see enough, not with the implacable cage holding me back.

  Phil pulls a sheaf of papers out of one of the file cabinets. Even from across the room I can tell they’re crumpled and not precisely lined up. Cristina stares at him a moment, then reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a clipboard. She takes the papers, squares them up, and clips them into place.

  My face presses up against the cold metal of the fence as I try to fathom exactly what kind of scenario is playing out. This doesn’t look like the setup for cannibalistic serial murders or satanic blood rituals; instead it looks almost … scientific.

  Phil seems stung at Cristina’s implied criticism. “Everything’s online anyway. The paper records aren’t necessary for publication.”

  If they plan to publish the results of an experiment, Beckett and I must be the lab rats. I slip my fingers between the bars of the metal grate fencing us in, clenching it with ice-cold, trembling hands, willing myself to be the strong hero I need. God knows Beckett won’t be. Our first, more important weapon will be information.

  “Screw publication. We’re going to sell it.” Cristina still sounds impatient.

  “How can we sell something we have to keep secret?”

  “Classified crap gets sold all the time. To governments, mega-businesses, the military. Where do you think the tech for smart bombs or computer viruses comes from? They just need a better plan for the human problem.”

  I can’t breathe. This is the answer to why we’re here, Beckett and I—somehow we are the answer to the “human problem,” and Cristina doesn’t care that we know.

  She sets the clipboard down carefully, then leans over the computer to check something on the screen. “Reverse-engineering SERE was stupid. And then the APA got involved and it was all human rights this and ethics violations that. This is the right way to go. Nancy knew that. She was on the edge of a breakthrough, but the idea of publishing, of getting peer reviews and public approval, held her back.” She sounds like she’s making an argument she’s made in her own head a dozen times.

  “Nancy and Walter,” Phil adds.

  Hearing Phil name my mother and father is like being given a jolt of anesthesia that blows my consciousness up and out of my body. I know the word SERE—the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape techniques used by CIA operatives. This isn’t the first time my parents’ names have been associated with this kind of research, but I can’t even feel the inevitable fear and grief though the dizzying storm of disbelief.

  Reverse-engineering SERE, the phrase Cristina mentioned so dismissively, was the kind of program that yielded the enhanced-interrogation atrocities of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. My parents aren’t warm or loving, but they couldn’t have anything to do with torture.

  I glance back at Beckett for confirmation, but he’s sitting against the wall with his head in his hands, not even listening, and the flash of anger I feel snaps me back to reality. I want to shake him awake. This isn’t the time for his feckless beautiful-dreamer routine. We both need to pay attention.

  Cristina scowls at Phil. “Screw Walter. It was her idea, her vision. And then she just … lost her nerve.”

  Cristina’s words wake all the worst fears I had about my parents—that they don’t care about people, that they don’t care about me, that they only care about research. If you substitute writing for research, they’re the same charges Zoe has leveled against me.

  I fight the bile back down. No, there’s absolutely no way my parents have anything to do with this, and I’m nothing like them.

  Phil doesn’t let it go. “Like you said, it was illegal. And the funding dried up.”

  When I was doing research about torture techniques for a novel, a familiar name came up—James Spiegler, someone I knew my parents had worked with in the past. But they worked with so many people over the years, it wasn’t as though these old “enhanced interrogation” studies were based on their current research.

  Nancy and Walter. Mom and Dad.

  My body goes heavy, sagging against the metal fence. The metal protests with a creak and Cristina’s gaze flicks in my direction, then away again dismissively. The separate pieces of the puzzle—the kidnapping, this strange location, my parents, psychological testing—are all swirling in my mind.

  Cristina slaps the clipboard on the desk. “We won’t worry about the funding. We’ll crack the problem and collect on the back end.”

  “Fine.” The two of them bend over the laptop as Cristina’s fingers race over the keyboard.

  Beckett raises his head and catches my eye. He has been listening. Thank God. I wish we could talk it out right now, but I don’t want Cristina and Phil to hear us.

  Back when I was researching my next book, the one that will come after Bloody Heart, Wild Woods, I pulled on that thread, searching for more information on Spiegler, and instead of leading me to my parents, it sent me down a rabbit hole. Tracing James Spiegler took me from one website to another, from government labs to prison studies to university faculty.

  Chilled, I realize another place those digital bread crumbs led—this location. This abandoned missile silo that had been converted into a house by James Spiegler. Clearly it’s been updated since then. Now the connections—my parents, war crimes, enhanced interrogation—narrow down to a single question.

  My body goes as rigid as the metal slats I’m gripping. What’s going to happen to me and Beckett?

  It doesn’t matter if we talk to each other or scream or cry. Cristina and Phil don’t care if we overhear them, and they haven’t bothered to cover their faces. I’ve known what that means since I first saw Cristina—they won’t be letting us go.

  Desperate, I look back at Beckett. For a moment I feel for him the way I used to, back when we could communicate with a glance. Silently I tell him I need you.

  He reaches up for my hand, but it feels like he’s pulling me down, sucking my strength.

  My mind is spinning with images of prisoners hooded, electrocuted, abandoned. I slide to the floor, sitting beside Beckett with my back against the wall. His hand is the only warmth, the only comfort. It’s not enough, but it’s all I have.

  We’re no longer lost in the woods; we’re in the maw of the beast.

  CHAPTER

  15

  AVA

  CRISTINA AND PHIL leave, and when the door seals shut behind them, Beckett and I are alone in the darkness of their scientific lair with the faintest hum of electronics and just enough ambient light to discern the metal gate. The cold seeps into my bones, and my mind won’t stop turning over everything I’ve heard, trying to follow these crumbs of information to a real conclusion.

  I let go of Beckett’s hand and stand up. Now we’re finally able to talk together, and this time we won’t fire off questions or flail around struggling to figure out the basics.

  There’s a pale-blue light from the security panel and another from a power strip by the computers. As the minutes crawl by, our eyes adjust and it’s easier to see.

  Scanning the room, I notice a
small red light in one corner near the ceiling, and I think it must be a camera. I turn my back on it.

  Beckett hoists himself to his feet, just a shadow beside me. “Did you hear them talking about Nancy and Walter? Is this about a ransom?”

  “I don’t know. I think it’s more than that.” I’ve been unfair to Beckett. He was paying attention, not just zoning out. But he processes everything verbally, and I wish he’d be quiet so I could think.

  No such luck. “Because you’re a big-deal writer? Just pay them. You must have plenty of money. I’m not worth a ransom, not on my salary. Nobody pays to read literature.”

  Familiar irritation flares inside me. He means I’ve got money only because I’m a sellout, pandering to the masses—that’s his favorite excuse for failure, believing he’s unappreciated and artistically better than me. It still stings a little, as though my pursuit of my dreams cost us our marriage. That’s exactly why I wrote my first novel in secret, when I was supposed to be marking student compositions or working on the collection of interlocking short stories that would have been my thesis. A garland of unhappy relationships, generation after generation of ennui.

  “They don’t want my money.” You idiot. Even if they do, paying it won’t set us free. They’ve already shown us too much to let us go. I can’t believe he hasn’t picked up on that, but then, he’s historically terrible at noticing anything outside his own head. Beckett is solipsism on two legs.

  Whatever their end game, it’s not as simple as bind, torture, kill—no, this is something less personal, more scientific. Or at least, Cristina thinks it is.

  But as a writer, I know something she doesn’t—it’s always personal. We all tell ourselves stories to justify our actions, but believing your own story is a foolish mistake. The more personal Cristina’s motivation, the less she might even realize it, and that could give me an edge.

  Beckett’s still talking. “I bet you’ve got money to pay them. Or Walter. Your folks must have a ton saved up.”

  He’s putting the information together, but it’s taking too long. Hearing him make every mental step out loud might kill me. And I know I’m being unfair, but my teeth are gritted as I say, “They were talking about research, about SERE—”

  “Your parents won’t pay for me, of course.” Beckett runs both hands roughly through his hair, like he can wipe the slate clean. “What am I even doing here?”

  I try again. “They were talking about military torture techniques—”

  “So they might make torture videos and send them to get your folks to pay up? I think your publisher would pay more.”

  “Just listen for a minute. They were talking—”

  “I have been listening.” His gaze darts past me in constant motion. “They’re coming back tomorrow to get started, they’re not covering their faces, so they’re not going to let us go even if your parents pay them—or your husband, your new one.”

  The pieces are falling into place, but I’m irritated instead of relieved that he’s caught up. Not only is he ignoring everything I’ve been saying; now he’s taking a swipe at Glenn? “Not that new. I’ve been married to Glenn twice as long as I was married to you.” Oh, it feels good to say this. After all, it’s his fault our marriage failed.

  “So where is he now? Why didn’t they take him?” Beckett asks, like he’s trying to imply something.

  “Because you were easier. Glenn’s a fighter.” That feels even better. In a horrible way, quarreling with Beckett feels so right, not least because I’m so good at it.

  He flushes, and I know I’ve hit him where it hurts. “Then the two of you are a great match. That’s probably what happened. You were a total bitch and he set this up to get to your money. Let me guess, you have a prenup, right? He gets nothing if you dump him.”

  I will not flinch, but my nails are cutting into the palms of my hands. “He’s got nothing to worry about.”

  “You think he’s not cheating on you?”

  “Because he’s not jealous of me. How long did it take after my book deal for you to start sleeping with students? A couple weeks?” I pitch my voice high. “Congratulations, honey, on your success; now I’m going to start screwing around.”

  His eyes narrow, and one corner of his lip twists into a sneer. “Maybe if you hadn’t been such a stone-cold bitch—”

  “I didn’t brag about it, I didn’t get to celebrate or enjoy it, I was so careful of your feelings—” Even though my new success was blooming, the possibilities expanding, I’d get home and tamp it all down. I felt like I was playacting—this is how an ordinary woman loads the dishwasher, reads the mail, pretends to listen to her husband talking about his day—like Snow White singing while she kept house. Except I couldn’t seem too happy, or Beckett might feel too bad.

  “You looked at me like I was nothing.”

  “So you found some random adoring eighteen-year-old and killed our marriage. Forget writing; you couldn’t even cheat creatively.”

  Beckett fires back, “Our marriage was already dead. Your contempt killed it.”

  “You mean, my success.”

  “Whatever.” He turns his back on me.

  If we don’t get out of here, if Cristina and Phil don’t kill us, I am totally going to kill him.

  I clench my hands. Hitting Beckett would be like hitting my pillow, soft and unyielding. If he were gone, I could just focus on saving myself, and when I got out there’d be no nagging sense of his petty jealousy brooding out there in the world, no ex who found me undesirable, no one to remind Glenn I might be doomed at marriage. Right after the divorce, well-meaning people were always asking about Beckett, how he was doing, and I wished fiercely he was dead.

  I steal a glance at him, and his hunched shoulders look so vulnerable. I could kill him, anyone could, but the way he looks with his head bent reminds me of our first days together. He wasn’t just my lover, he was my writing companion. We wrote in the same room, together but in our own heads, Percy Bysshe and Mary Shelley. When I needed a break from the long solitary work, I would look up, and if his head and shoulders were curved over his pages, I didn’t speak but turned back to my own writing and left him to his. But sometimes his head was raised and I could offer to make us tea or ask for a synonym or invite him to take a walk.

  Since Beckett, I’ve never had anyone to write with.

  In silence, I examine the barrier trapping us together. The padlocks closing the two halves look solid, but the fence itself has some movement. I shake it hard, violently. I’m thinking about Beckett, and I rattle the fence longer than necessary.

  Yes, it’s an accordion style, designed to be dragged and moved, but it is set into a grooved track in the floor and ceiling and there’s no gap. We could push on it until it bowed, but I don’t think Beckett and I could create enough space for either of us to fit through. We need someone with paramilitary training, or at least someone stronger.

  We need Glenn. And I can’t help an unfair flash of fury that it’s Beckett, Beckett who is so much like me, so cerebral and uncoordinated, that I’m stuck with, Beckett who’s rubbish at listening and following directions—even when we haven’t been fighting—almost as dreadful as he was at being a husband.

  I should tell him about all my speculations, about Spiegler and my research and where we are, but that will lead to more talking, more arguing, and first we need to focus on escape. Plus I don’t feel like wasting time spelling it out for him.

  “Do you see anything we can use to get out of here?” I ask, trying to make my words sound neutral.

  “We could do something to the gate.” At least he’s making suggestions, even if he sounds sulky.

  Beckett shakes the fence ineffectually. Noise fills the empty space around us, and I hold my breath, but no one comes. And it doesn’t create a gap.

  “Maybe we can break it?” he suggests. “I’ll get a chair.”

  At first he hits the gate with the folding chair, and the noise reverberates again. I can’t imagi
ne this insubstantial weight shattering the massive barrier. If Glenn were here, he would have one of those magic tools that looks like a pocketknife, but he wouldn’t be running at the gate. He’d try to break it at one of the joints. Fiercely, I swallow against the lump in my throat. Some part of me longs for Glenn to save me and hates Beckett for needing me to save him.

  “Wait.” I put my hand on Beckett’s arm, thin, more like mine than Glenn’s. “Maybe we could put it through a gap? Like a lever.”

  He angles the chair, slipping one of its feet through a diamond-shaped opening in the gate. “Yeah,” he tells me. “This could work. Help me push.”

  There’s just enough room at the top of the metal folding chair for both of us to grip, our arms interlaced and our faces very close together. He stinks, but I probably do too. Beckett is not as brawny as Glenn, and that makes me feel more valuable, more useful.

  We put all our weight on the chair as it slips and skids around, and finally it catches just right on the place where a bolt holds two pieces of the fence together. I push so hard my feet almost leave the floor, until I am supporting myself by my arms on the chair. And then it moves, something gives way, and I lose my balance. I fall heavily on the hard floor, and the chair comes after me.

  Becket doesn’t run to my aid. He kneels in front of the gate, running his hands over it to see what damage we’ve done.

  I take a few more moments to let the pain settle, but it is just a banged knee, after all. I reach out for the chair, and as I grasp it by the leg, I realize what has happened. My fingers find a fold in the metal where our pressure has crimped it.

  “We bent the chair, not the fence,” I say.

  “Fuck.”

  He sits heavily, resting his arms on his knees. I know how he feels—frustrated and helpless. I do too. Beckett may be a delicate flower of a human being, but he’s the only one on my side right now.

  I try again. “About Cristina and Phil …”

  “And your parents.”

  Exactly. That’s the part that matters, why Cristina and Phil were talking about my parents and their research. Maybe Beckett and I can figure it out together. “Yeah. Can I just tell you what I know? Then you can tell me what you make of it.”