The First City (The Dominion Trilogy Book 3)

by Joe Hart

  The other man tries to snag her wrists but she rolls free of the bed, slinging an elbow at his crotch. The blow only partially lands but he lets out a muffled woof of air, bending over.

  Then she’s on her feet, lunging for the door.

  Get out, get a weapon, get Lee.

  She’s through the entry and slamming the door shut to lock the men in when she sees him. A compact Asian man who looks as if his parentage was mixed. That’s all she discerns before he grasps her by the neck.

  He is strong, fingers biting deep into the side of her throat. Her pulse slams in her ears, louder with each second as his grip tightens. She tries to break free but he holds fast and gray mist forms at the corners of her vision.

  Her legs weaken and she starts to fall.

  He catches her, holds her upright, and begins marching her down the narrow corridor as if she weighs nothing. Consciousness returns almost at once, but the weakness won’t leave her legs and arms. She coughs, blinking, looking for anything she can use as a weapon as they move.

  “Don’t,” the man says. “It will only be harder for you. Just walk.”

  Though she continues to search for something that can help her, she does what he says. They move to a set of steel-grated steps that lead down to a lower level. Pipes, wiring, and bulky panels marked with large dark text surround them. They pass through a claustrophobic tunnel in which she has to duck her head before she’s stopped by the man’s hand on her shoulder. The wall beside them is smooth with only half a dozen pipes threading through it overhead. Two doors are set five paces apart, and it is toward the right one she’s guided. The man opens the door, keeping a firm hold on her shoulder.

  The room is perhaps four feet deep by eight feet long, the ceiling a mass of cables and conduits, several with red handles attached to their sides. The left wall is made of a clear plastic, thick enough that it warps her vision at its corners from this angle. In the middle of the little room is a tall steel chair.

  The man pushes her inside even as she tries to recoil.

  Zoey stumbles over the doorway lip and catches herself on the chair. It is unnaturally warm in the space, the air cloying and hard to breathe. Spinning, she tries to bring the chair up in a whirling blow, but it is bolted to the floor and only utters a stilted squawk.

  The man laughs and enters the room as she steps around the chair, keeping it between them. “You are a warrior, like me. I admire that, an unwillingness to be broken.”

  Zoey watches him, glancing to the handgun on his hip. “What do you want?”

  The man smiles, and it is cold. “To break you.”

  He moves faster than anyone she’s ever seen. Faster than Eli, faster than Meeka. In a single stride he is around the chair and has an arm encircling her neck.

  He pivots in a tight circle, taking her with him, and his strength is uncanny again; there is no way she could overpower him.

  Steel digs into her spine before she’s lifted up onto the chair’s seat. Zoey flings a fist back in a weak attempt at a strike and it is caught, bent around the back of the chair and secured there. A moment later her other wrist is tied as well. She struggles and manages to slide to her feet, but the pressure on her shoulder joints is too much, and she climbs back to the seat, panting.

  The man steps in front of her, tipping his head to one side. “Thank you for complying.” When she doesn’t say anything he continues. “My name is Shirou, and I am here for one purpose: to listen to what you’re going to tell me. I’m not going to repeat what we want from you; you already know. Remember, the faster you speak, the faster this will all be over.”

  He leaves the room, locking the heavy door behind him. Zoey takes several deep breaths, heart still booming like gunfire in her chest. She looks around the room, reassessing it again. The ceiling is low, only two feet over her head. The pipes above her sweat and drip and the heat she felt earlier is stronger, radiating from above. Steam or hot water must be running through them. She twists her wrists against the restraints but they hold fast, some kind of plastic straps. Her feet reach to the transparent barrier and she pushes as hard as she can. The bolts in the floor groan and the chair shifts back an inch. She rocks forward and back, throwing all her strength and weight behind the movement each time.

  After what seems like an hour, she lets her feet fall and rest on the chair’s lower rung. Sweat runs down the sides of her face and drips from her chin. She is wrung out, adrenaline fading, leaving her muscles weak and spent. As her breathing comes back to normal, she takes a second to look through the partition at the room beyond.

  It is twice the size of her own with a steel track attached to the ceiling running through the middle. On the floor is a large bin full of water, a cable attached to one side that snakes to a control panel in one wall. Otherwise the space is empty.

  As she’s readying herself for another assault on the chair the door in the other room opens.

  Lee is shoved through, hands bound before him with iron manacles.

  He nearly stumbles on the bin of water but rights himself, his eyes finally finding her through the barrier as Shirou enters the room.

  “Zoey!” His voice echoes loud and clear through a vent between the two rooms and he tries to move toward her but is struck by Shirou on the jaw. The blow sends him off balance but he remains on his feet. Another man appears, and as she watches, helpless to stop them, he assists Shirou in hauling Lee to the bin and hoisting him above it. They quickly latch the manacles around Lee’s wrist to the track in the ceiling. He begins to struggle again, kicking at the men and swearing, but they move out of his reach. Lee quiets, his body growing slack. Shirou’s assistant walks to the control panel in the wall and puts his hand on a dial there, watching with disinterest as Lee twists again, trying to keep his eyes on both of them. As his body slowly relaxes his bare feet dip into the water in the bin.

  Zoey’s eyes widen as she sees Shirou glance at her before nodding to the other man. The assistant twists the dial.

  Lee screams, his body going rigid before he yanks his feet up from the water. The muscles in his arms bulge, straining to hold him up as he draws his knees to his chest.

  “What are you doing to him!” Zoey yells.

  “There is a small charge of electricity being fed into the water. If either of you tell me what I need to hear it will be turned off,” Shirou says over Lee’s strangled curses.

  “Stop it!” Zoey says, yanking at her restraints until she feels her wrists begin to bleed.

  Shirou approaches the clear divider. “Save him. Tell me.”

  An acidic burning fills her. The words are there at the back of her throat, yearning to come forward. She can save him from more pain and all she has to do is speak.

  “No, Zoey! Don’t tell them! Don’t!” Lee yells, knees still pulled to his chest.

  “You are strong,” Shirou says. “Both of you are. But eventually your muscles will give out and your feet will touch the water.”

  “Please,” she says, shifting her gaze from Lee to Shirou. “Please stop.” But he doesn’t look at her, merely contemplates the blank wall near the door.

  A minute passes.

  Two.

  Lee begins to shake, arms quivering, face wrenched with pain.

  Gradually his legs begin to drop.

  An agonized moan comes from him as his feet extend toward the waiting water.

  Zoey feels hot tears streaking down her face, mixing with the sweat. Her teeth hurt from clenching her jaw and she thinks she might be sick. The room tilts around her.

  Lee lets out another grunt of pain and tries to hoist his legs up but his toes slip into the water.

  He convulses, body flexing back and forth, before he manages to swing his feet free and pull his knees up only to drop them back again, exhausted. His head tilts back and he makes a guttural sound unlike anything she’s ever heard before. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and all at once she hears herself speaking.

  “The women are all go
ne, okay? They’re gone, he was telling the truth. Now stop!”

  Shirou makes a quick jerking movement with one hand and the man turns the dial.

  Lee falls quiet, body going completely slack. Drool hangs from his mouth and drips into the pool at his feet.

  Shirou approaches the thick plastic. “This is the truth?”

  “Yes, yes, they’re all gone. There’s no reason for you to go there, just please, don’t hurt him anymore.”

  “Who did this?”

  Zoey pauses, swallowing the acrid taste of fear. “I did. Me and a few others.”

  Shirou’s face draws down. “Impossible. It would take thousands.”

  “I grew up there, I knew their weaknesses.”

  He stares at her for several long seconds. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. Please believe me.”

  “Where is this place you speak of?”

  “Don’t tell him, Zoey,” Lee says, his words slurred as he looks at her through slitted eyes. “Don’t.”

  “Where?” Shirou asks again.

  Zoey wavers, impaled on the choice. Give him the location of her daughter, or watch Lee suffer. She meets Lee’s gaze and there is a solid resolution there that rends her heart in two. He is willing to die for the child that isn’t his.

  Something must have changed in her expression, for in the next instant Shirou flicks his hand at the man across the room and he turns the dial once again.

  Lee shudders, lips peeling back from his teeth, as he yanks his feet free, crying out again.

  She looks away, unable to watch anymore. If she does, she’s sure she will break. She’ll tell Shirou whatever he wants to know.

  So she hides, hides within herself, goes back to Edmond Dantès’s cell in Château d’If and curls into a corner where the screams she hears are someone else’s, another prisoner she doesn’t know, even if it’s her name that’s being called over and over.

  33

  A drop of water hits the back of her neck and slides down her spine.

  Zoey sits up, body aching, vision fuzzy as she blinks at her surroundings.

  She is still bound to the chair. She must have fallen asleep or passed out some time ago. What’s the last thing she can recall?

  Lee, yelling her name.

  She sits up straighter, violently awake now, terrified at what she might see through the plastic and unable to stop herself from looking.

  Lee hangs limply from the ceiling in the next room, feet submerged in water, chin resting on his chest.

  No.

  “Lee? Lee!” He doesn’t move and there is a plummeting sensation in her chest. He’s gone. They pushed him too far and now—

  Lee stirs, his feet treading the water as if he’s trying to walk away from the torture.

  “Lee, can you hear me?”

  His head raises enough for her to see his eyes through the sweat-dampened hair hanging over his forehead. “Hey.”

  She sags with relief. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, doing great.”

  A choked laugh comes from her and she clamps the insane sound off. “When did they leave?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe an hour ago? Hard to keep track of time.” He licks his lips, which she can see are bloody from him biting them. “I didn’t tell. I didn’t say anything.”

  “It’s okay, we’re going to be okay.”

  He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t think so. Can’t take much more of this. But I won’t break. I promise, I won’t.”

  “We’re getting out of here.” She places her feet against the plastic barrier and begins pushing again.

  The bolts in the floor squeal. Something pops in her knee but there is no pain.

  She releases the pressure and kicks out again.

  The chair rocks.

  A ping comes from below her and she stops pushing, leaning to one side.

  One of the bolts in the chair’s feet sticks up a half inch. The other a quarter.

  It’s working.

  She begins to set her feet against the plastic again when the revelation of what she’s doing hits her. If she manages to break or strip the bolts she’ll tip backward . . . onto her hands that are still attached to the chair. She’ll be on her back without any way to break free.

  Zoey lowers her feet. Another droplet of water hits her forehead and she looks up. One of the pipes above her has a threaded nozzle sprouting from it with a long handle set into its side. A ringlet of water hangs from the nozzle’s edge, another drop ready to break free.

  “It’s okay,” Lee says, bringing her focus back down. “They won’t hurt you. You can wait until their guard is down, then get away.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “W-what should we name her?” Lee brings his head all the way up, his jaw working soundlessly. And now she can see the tears spilling from the corners of his eyes. “What should her name be?”

  “Lee—”

  “Something pretty. She deserves something pretty. You’ll tell her about me, won’t you?”

  “Stop, stop it. We’re going to get out.” She looks away, unable to weather his hopeless gaze any longer. She shifts in the chair, trying to get a clear view of the straps holding her to the chair. They are plastic like she suspected by their feel. The part of the chair they’re attached to is angled iron, not a rounded bar like the rungs her feet sit on.

  Zoey sits up as straight as she can and shrugs her shoulders, pulling hard at her wrists.

  They both slide a fraction of an inch.

  She shoves down. Up again, gathering a rhythm even as she feels the lacerations on her wrists open once more. The sound of plastic rasping on steel fills the little room, almost like a promising whisper. Lee seems to have passed out again, the crown of his head facing her. The guilt from her lie stings like the wounds on her wrists. She should have been honest with him.

  But it gave him hope.

  It doesn’t matter, it was wrong.

  Kept him from telling Shirou where the ARC is.

  He wouldn’t have told anyway.

  Even if he knew he wasn’t the father?

  Yes, she tells the nagging internal voice, but it is without conviction. She doesn’t know how he would have reacted to the truth. No one ever does until they’re confronted with it.

  Her wrists burn from the friction and the biting straps that hold her, but she continues to saw through them. How long will it take? Minutes? Hours? Do they have either? Another drip of water strikes the top of her head maddeningly. She rubs faster, simply wanting to escape the leaky pipe.

  As soon as I’m free I’m going to smash that nozzle, break the pipe in half. But of course that wouldn’t solve the problem. It would only release all the water and flood the room. Then what—

  Her eyes widen as she registers a sound outside the door.

  Footsteps, heavy and sure.

  She works at the straps furiously until there’s a click of the lock disengaging and the door’s handle turns.

  Zoey falls still, controlling her breathing.

  Shirou enters the room, cold gray eyes finding hers. “Hello, Zoey. Glad to see you’re awake.” He holds a small canvas bag in one hand. “I was afraid this was all too much for you.”

  She watches him for a moment before glancing into Lee’s chamber. “Where’s your helper?”

  “Asleep. I told him to rest. It is what I should be doing now, but I’m afraid I couldn’t drift off. Not with you alone down here.” Shirou steps in closer and pats the bag against his thigh. A tingling of fear threads through her as he leans in. “I was forbidden to hurt you in any way, but my leader underestimated the both of you. I had guessed Lee would crack first, and if he didn’t, watching him go through such pain would persuade you to see reason.” He moves around to her other side, still bumping the bag against his leg. “But I was mistaken about that as well. While I was lying in my bed I realized my error. Since you can see through the divide either way, I knew I had started with the wrong person
.”

  Shirou unzips the bag and pulls a short length of black hose out, a copper fitting on one end. He reaches above her, threading the hose to the leaking nozzle. When it’s secure he retrieves something else from the bag she can’t make out. It looks like some kind of dark fabric.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, putting tension on the straps, praying for one of them to snap.

  “What I should have done in the first place,” Shirou says, and leaps forward.

  The fabric opens into some kind of mask or bag. He tries to shove it over her head but she jerks away and his fist catches her in the temple.

  The bag slides halfway over her skull and she yells, straining to the side.

  Shirou grunts and the fabric continues down to her neck and cinches tight.

  Zoey shakes her head but the bag stays put. She’s blind, only the vaguest hint of light filtering through the dark material.

  “What are you doing?” she says again. But the only response is the squeak of metal and the patter of water on the floor.

  “Zoey?” Lee says weakly.

  A hand grabs the hood and yanks, pulling her head back.

  She has a split second of terrified anticipation before the water sprays onto the hood.

  The fabric soaks through instantly, hugging tight against her face.

  Water runs into her eyes, nose, mouth.

  Suffocating.

  Choking.

  “Zoey!” Lee screams.

  “Tell me,” Shirou says from somewhere above her, and it sounds like he’s miles away.

  She convulses as water courses into her nasal passages, burning and blocking the air she so desperately needs.

  She coughs, but the water keeps coming. She’s drowning.

  Her legs kick, striking the wall.

  “Stop! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”

  But the water doesn’t stop.

  She inhales.

  Liquid fills her windpipe and she gags, feeling her stomach heave in rebellion.

  Her feet walk up the barrier and the water eases for a moment as Shirou knocks them back down.

  “Please! I’ll tell you!” Lee yells.