by Emily Colin
As the questions wear on, Efraím begins using the electrodes to administer a jolt of electricity after each unsatisfactory reply. The shocks prickle through my body, stinging my skin and arching my spine so my wrists dig into the cuffs. He waits for my heartbeat to return to normal, then interrogates me again and shocks me when he doesn’t care for the answer. Each one is more painful than the next as he cranks the current higher, and it is all I can do not to scream. I grit my teeth and glare at him through the hair that has fallen into my eyes and say I’ve told him everything I know.
After what feels like several hours, Efraím rips off the electrodes, grabs me by the scruff of my neck, and marches me out of the room again. Jakob, who is waiting outside the door, falls into formation and follows us. I am sweating and shaking, but I do my best not to let it show. I know how Efraím works. If I show him where my vulnerability lies, he’ll be all over it, exploiting it in every way he can think of. So I straighten my spine and limp along next to him, trying to ignore the vestiges of electricity that ripple through my limbs.
I’ve made up my mind not to fight, not yet. But when he drags me into a room down the hall from the interrogation chamber and I see what lies inside, it’s all I can do not to pry my arm loose from his grasp and go shrieking down the hallway.
The room itself is large, the walls carved from the same gray stone as the rest of the underground complex, including the prison. At one end stands a tank that stretches from floor to ceiling—twelve feet tall and four feet wide, crafted from reinforced glass. A hose runs from an opening in the tank to a faucet jutting from the wall. And next to the tank stands a team of five bellators and the Executor himself.
“Uncuff her,” the Executor says, flicking his hand in my direction.
Next to me, I feel Efraím stiffen. “Are you sure, sir? Because she—”
“That’s an order, Bellator Stinar.” The Executor’s voice is steel.
“Yes, sir.” Doubtless Efraím would like to protest further, but refusing an order from the Executor isn’t a mistake anyone lives long enough to make twice. He jerks his head at Jakob, who unlocks the cuffs.
I let my hands fall to my sides, fighting the urge to rub the spots where the metal has chafed my wrists. “What is this? What are you going to do?”
Efraím smiles. “Afraid, girl? You’re right to be. Tell us the truth, and you’ll never need to know.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
Efraím cocks his head. “Your heartbeat’s sped up now, all right, but I can’t tell if it’s because you’re lying or you’re spooked. Well, I guess we’ll find out.”
He drags me forward, past the team of bellators and the watchful gaze of the Executor, toward the tank. They mean to shut me in there as it fills, to ask their questions again and drive the level of the water higher and higher until I give the answers they want to hear. And otherwise—what? Do they mean to kill me?
Terror floods my body, and with it, adrenaline. I twist free of Efraím’s grip and run for the door. He grabs my shoulder, but I kick his blade from his hand and send it spinning across the stones. Driven by desperation, I head-butt Jakob when he tries to grab me, spearhand-strike one of the five bellators who comes after me with a knife, kick a second one in the stomach, throw a third into the wall, and elbow a fourth in the solar plexus hard enough to make him double over, at which point I manage to liberate one of his knives. I’m sprinting for the door again when someone tackles me from behind, knocking me face-first onto the stones and planting their knee in my back. I thrash and fight, but to no avail; a second warrior has joined the first, and then a third.
“Enough,” Efraím says, and I realize he’s the one who is kneeling on top of me. I turn my head and see Jakob pinning one of my shoulders, blood trickling from his nose. The bellator I didn’t manage to damage must have my other shoulder. I can’t move an inch.
Grimly, Efraím hauls me to my feet. The room is in chaos; the bellator I threw into the wall is slumped on the ground, unconscious, the one I elbowed in the solar plexus is red-faced and panting, and the man I kicked in the stomach is dry-heaving with one of his hands braced on the wall. The other bellator has reclaimed his knife and is standing in front of the Executor, arms outstretched to protect him.
“Very good,” the Executor says from behind his bodyguard. And then he laughs.
It occurs to me that maybe he is insane.
Efraím, Jakob, and the other bellator—Benedikt, his name is—drag me closer to the tank, one step at a time. I buck and kick but it makes no difference, not with the three of them holding onto me. Efraím grabs me by the hair, immobilizing my head, as the bellator next to the Executor presses a button on a panel set into the stone. Part of the glass front of the tank slides upward, and the three of them shove me through. The door closes again, sealing me inside, and icy water begins to pool around my ankles.
I stare at Efraím, wide-eyed and furious. On his face there is a look of triumph. “Ask your questions, Executor,” he says. Even through the glass that separates us I can hear him clearly. There must be a speaker system inside the tank, projecting his voice—which means this isn’t a special torture they’ve invented for me. This is something they’ve done before, in the name of preserving the Commonwealth’s status quo and their personal positions of power.
Rage mounts in me, icy as the water licking at my ankles. I don’t know how I’ll get out of here, but get out of here I will. I’ll get out of here, escape, find Ari, and bring this whole place down.
The Executor comes to stand in front of the tank in his pristine white robes, his beetle eyes taking me in. “Hello, Eva,” he says. “You’ve looked better.”
“Hello, Executor,” I reply, allowing the slightest hint of derision to color my voice. “Always a pleasure.”
Efraím clears his throat, low and menacing. “Watch your mouth, girl.”
“Why, Bellator Stinar? Are you going to hurt me? Because it looks like things have already turned out poorly, if you don’t mind me saying so. I put my life on the line for the Commonwealth, compromise myself by spending time with a natural-born, nearly get blown up, and what do I get for my pains? Dumped in a cell, interrogated and electroshocked, and now you plan to drown me for telling you the truth. At this point, I feel at liberty to speak my mind. What are you going to do? Drown me faster?”
Efraím takes a step closer, his face reddening. “How dare you speak to the Executor this way?” he hisses. “How dare you speak to me this way? You have no idea what you—”
The Executor raises a hand, cutting him off. “It’s all right, Efraím. Don’t worry about it. The poor girl’s had a difficult time of it. Haven’t you, Eva dear?”
The water has reached my shins, creeping ever higher. The cold is seeping into my bones, so it is all I can do not to shake. Ignoring the Executor, I throw myself against the tank again and again to no avail. I brace my legs on opposite sides and climb up to the top, seeking a weakness in the glass, but there’s nothing. So I take the best option open to me, wedging myself near the ceiling, out of the freezing water, and turn my gaze back to my interrogators.
The Executor begins, asking many of the same questions Efraím did earlier. I answer them the same way. Betraying myself is one thing; I’ll be damned if I betray Ari or, by extension, Kilían and the Brotherhood. The resistance is Ari’s best hope of survival. I won’t take that away from him, no matter what happens to me.
By the time the Executor is finished, the water’s up to my waist, even in my tenuous position at the top of the tank, and I’m shivering uncontrollably. The Executor regards me with pity. “Come now, Eva,” he says. “Tell us what we need to know, and we can have you out of there in a minute. You’ll be wrapped up in a warm blanket, sitting in front of a fire and drinking tea, and all this will feel like a bad dream.”
My teeth are chattering so hard it’s a challenge to force words through them. “I’ve. Told. You. Everything.”
“Ah, Eva,” he say
s sadly, and gestures to the bellator standing by the faucet.
The water flows faster. Up to my chest. My collarbones. My neck.
“Have you noticed anything different about yourself in the past few months, Eva?” the Executor asks. “Wouldn’t you like to know why that is? Tell us what we need to know, and we’ll repay you in kind. An exchange of information between allies, if you will.”
Even through the awful, paralyzing cold, his words penetrate. For a moment, I consider confessing everything—but he can’t be trusted. “No,” I say, glaring at him defiantly. “You saved me for a reason, Executor. You value me too much to kill me now.”
The water is up to my chin. I suck in a deep breath, and it closes over my head.
I hold my breath forever, longer than ought to be possible. I count the seconds, higher and higher: 121-122-123-124-125. My lungs burn with the need to breathe, but if I do, I’ll die. I clench my jaw, picture Ari’s face, fight the choking sensation that threatens to consume me. By the Architect, I have never been so cold. The freezing water of the rapids was nothing compared to this.
379-380-381-382-383
Outside the tank I hear a commotion, Efraím’s voice raised in protest, the deeper voice of the Executor. Underwater, their voices blur, reaching me in a slow-motion, indecipherable surge of sound.
535-536-537-538-539
The voices grow louder, tension audible even through the thick glass walls of the tank and the confining press of water. I force my eyes open and see Efraím inches from the front of the tank, peering in at me. The moment my eyes meet his, he leaps backward in startlement, the most telling gesture of surprise I’ve ever seen from him. He turns to the Executor, gesticulating wildly.
777-778-779-780-781
Summoning what strength remains to me, I beckon at Efraím, splashing the surface of the water to get his attention until he leaves the Executor’s side and approaches me again. As soon as he stands in front of the glass, I lift both hands and fold all my fingers down but one, making an unmistakably rude gesture.
892-893-894-895-896
Efraím slaps the tank with an open hand and swivels to face the Executor again. I’m having a hard time hanging onto consciousness, but even in my sorry state I can decipher most of what he is screaming. “...awake in there...impossible...owe me an explanation…it’s unnatural...should be dead...how can I control what I don’t understand…!”
909-910-911-912-913
The water is crushing me from all sides. Efraím and the Executor are barely visible, obscured by a dense carpet of stars that cloud my vision. I bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood, praying the pain will keep me awake. Unconscious, I will inhale, and all this will be over.
1080-1081-1082-1083-1084
Maybe I was wrong about the Executor. Maybe I was wrong about everything.
1110-1111-1112-1113-1114
“What kind of game is this?” Efraím is yelling, totally undone. “What are you playing at?”
1222-1223-1224-1225-1226 I can’t do this anymore I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe
“I am not playing, Efraím.” The Executor sounds as implacable as always. “I have never been more serious in my life.”
I’ve stopped counting. My eyes widen and my chest heaves. In desperation, I bang feebly on the glass with my fists. Opening my mouth to breathe won’t help, but I don’t care anymore. I am suffocating. The world in front of me is narrowing, growing dark. Ari, I think with what volition is left to me. Be free. Be safe. I’m sorry.
It’s probably a side effect of drowning, but the water no longer seems so cold. Inside my starved lungs there’s a terrible scorching, a fire that threatens to devour me from the inside out. My body quakes, slamming against the glass. The fire is a live thing, consuming me, trying to break free. I claw at my throat, desperate, but my hands feel strange, rubbery. I am freezing and I am burning and I can’t breathe—
“All right,” the Executor says. “I think she’s had enough. Drain the tank.”
The glacial water begins to retreat, but not fast enough. The reptilian part of my brain has kept counting, and now the voice starts up again: 1333-1334-1335-1336—by the Architect my lungs my lungs my lungs—
Suddenly the water drains from beneath me with a gush. The force of it sends me hurtling to the bottom of the tank, then through the door and out onto the stones, where I lie, gasping. Efraím and the Executor are still talking, but I pay no heed to their words. All I care about is breathing.
Then Efraím is standing over me. My eyes are closed, but I can smell him—soap and sweat and an acrid scent I could swear is fear. “How did you do that?” he growls. “Answer me.”
I have no answer for him. But what I do have is an immeasurable well of fury. I play possum, lying still until he bends over me, jabbing me with the handle of his dagur. And then I launch myself at him, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him down into the puddle on the stones alongside me. We slip and slide in the icy water, him doing his best to subdue me, me calling him every bad name I can think of, raking my nails down his cheekbones in an attempt to gouge out his eyes.
I am exhausted and starving and weakened by my time in the tank, not to mention unarmed. But I am also filled with rage. I fight him with every bit of strength I have, knocking him off-balance again and again, straining to reach his weapons belt, until he rears up, eyes blazing, and cold-cocks me in the head with his fist. I hiss with pain, still grabbing for him, but my fingers close uselessly on the fabric of his shirt and slip free.
The world goes a deep, dull red and then passes into darkness.
29
Ari
It takes me most of the night and into the morning to find what remains of the resistance. I can’t track them well in the dark, especially because all I’m going on is the hope some of them—especially my mother—survived. Eventually I have to abandon the effort and wait for dawn to come. Once it does, I’m able to pick up their trail—which is not good, because if I can find it, so could any of the bellators who might still be looking for them...including Eva.
I trained her, though, taught her everything she knows about hunting a quarry and bringing it to ground. If she’s on my trail, I have to believe I will sense it. And if my presence endangers the Brotherhood, I will strike out elsewhere, on my own.
All my life I’ve been punished for caring too much, and here is the proof that I shouldn’t.
Except I can’t understand why she tossed that grenade. It surprised the hell out of Efraím, I’d guarantee that; his reaction was genuine. Facilitating my escape might have cost her his goodwill. So—why do it?
I entertain the notion that she’d acted because she feels for me as I do for her—but that’s absurd, no matter how much I want it to be true. Of the two of us, I’m the one who spent my childhood being punished for inappropriate attachments. I’m the one who took her hand, who kissed her that first time in the woods, who couldn’t keep my virtueless mouth shut.
So, what’s the alternative? Did she feel guilty about betraying me, and figure the least she could do is give me a shot at freedom? Or are her motives more complex, even sinister? Does she think she can use me to track the movements of the Brotherhood—in which case she can justify her actions to Efraím by telling him the ruse occurred to her on the spur of the moment, and she had to make it as believable as possible so I would take the bait?
Cursing myself for trusting her, I concentrate on the task at hand—finding the resistance and trying to undo some of the damage I’ve caused by bringing Eva into their midst. I come upon their new makeshift camp after daybreak and find Ronan sitting on a stump at the edge of the woods outside the small clearing where they’ve pitched their remaining tents. His face is grim, his eyes reddened. He’s got a gun in one hand and something else I can’t make out in the other.
“Westergaard,” he says, rising, the word smoke-rough. “I hoped we might see you again.”
I drop my hands to my sides, sh
owing I mean no harm. “You have no reason to believe me,” I say, my voice as raw as his, “but I didn’t have anything to do with the bombing. I swear it on the Architect and my honor as a bellator.” I swallow hard. “Well, as a former bellator, anyhow. I may have foresworn my vow, but the intention behind it remains.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself. Kilían told us what happened.”
Kilían—who wasn’t present in the scholar’s room. Which begs the question...where was he? Was he the one who engineered the attack on the camp?
“What exactly did he tell you?” The words fall into the air sharp as razors, cutting my throat as they go, and Ronan’s eyes flick warily to my face before he replies.
“He told us about Eva. What she did—and where her loyalties truly lay. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” A harsh chuckle escapes me. “I think I should be saying that to you, yeah? How many did you lose yesterday?”
Ronan’s eyes drop to the ground. “Too many,” he says, his voice thick.
It takes all my remaining courage to ask the only question that still matters. “My mother?”
He steps forward and presses the contents of the hand that isn’t holding his gun into mine. “Here,” he says.
Puzzled, I open my hand. I am holding a series of photogs of myself, profile pictures the record-keepers take each year for our files. Here I am at three, all dark hair and big green eyes. At five, wearing my white Under-School uniform, my hair beaten into submission by the Mother’s comb. At ten, long-limbed and gawky. At fourteen, the first hint of dark stubble tracing my cheekbones and an indecipherable expression on my face. At seventeen, looking much like I do now, wearing the black uniform of the Bellatorum and staring directly into the camera. The last photog is the one Kilían showed me—my parents together, their arms wrapped around each other, smiling into the lens.