“It’s what we were taught to do.” Taught. Conditioned. Abused. It all meant the same thing. “To be in control of every situation we find ourselves in, otherwise the probability of success is greatly reduced. Attacking mid-flight meant I had control of the situation. Neither of them would have planned to attack then. Ten’s survival instinct was too strong and Four would never have expected me to make such a move.”
The Doctor nodded slowly. “And you understood that such a move would most likely have ended in your own death?”
Ethan flinched, making his back sting. It had settled into a dull throb over the course of the session. “Yes.”
“A sacrifice.”
Ethan paused his drink halfway to his mouth. The word caught him by surprise. Ten wasn’t the only one with a strong sense of self-preservation. They had all been drilled in the concept of survival. If they perished, who would finish the job for the Cabal? Ethan had been consciously working for years against most of the things they’d instilled in him, to greater or lesser success, and those things had stopped being a conscious choice with Jack. Ethan didn’t need to plan when he was with Jack anymore. It was all natural now. New instincts, new reactions, new thoughts—new feelings. There had been no hesitation when he’d put himself between Two and Jack, but he had been certain Two wouldn’t kill him. Hurt him, disable him, break him down, yes. Kill him? Never. And yet the Doctor was right.
“To save Jack and his family,” Ethan said.
“But weren’t they your brothers?”
Lips twisting into a grimace, Ethan shook his head. “You might have tried to make us think we were family, but we weren’t.”
The Doctor frowned. “Nine wasn’t your sister?”
Ethan locked his body down before his reaction gave him away. “No.”
“Truly? I was led to believe that you spent a significant amount of time with her in Johannesburg.”
“I liked her,” Ethan admitted tightly. “That doesn’t mean I believed we had any sort of familial connection. Two certainly didn’t display any when he killed her.”
“I believe Two didn’t fail his final test, unlike you. However, we’re not discussing him, Ethan. Unless you want to tell me how you felt when you killed Two.”
Like the knife had plunged into his own chest, instead of Two’s. And relief. More relief than pain, he’d realised afterwards. Relief at his own freedom from a lifelong tormentor; relief that Two was no longer a threat to anyone.
Ethan shook his head.
“As you wish.” The Doctor poured more tea into his cup and held up the pot, silently asking if Ethan wanted a refill.
The few mouthfuls left in his cup were stone cold but Ethan said, “No, thank you.” He’d already given in too much.
The Doctor gave him a far too knowing look. “Still so stubborn, mon doux garçon.”
“Why do you call me that? You didn’t do that with any of the others.”
“No, I didn’t. You were different, though. You are different. It was a mistake, treating you as if you were the same as them, for which I apologise.”
Was this what Jack felt when Ethan tried to say sorry for doing something wrong? Too much confusion to truly take the apology at face value.
“Why was I different?” Ethan knew why he thought it, but the Doctor had always offered an alternate view of subjects. “Was it because I joined the group when I was older? Because I remembered my mother and what kindness was like?”
“That’s part of it. Since you bring it up, let’s talk about your memories of kindness. What’s something you remember from before you joined the group?”
Ethan pretended to drink to give him something to hide his hesitation behind. Of all the things the Doctor had talked to him about in the past, Ethan’s time before the group was not one of them. They’d talked about life with the other children, what the instructors taught them and how Ethan felt about the things he was learning. Ethan had come to understand very quickly that any mention of his mother wasn’t allowed, or anything about the world before the group. So he’d kept his memories to himself. They’d faded as time flew by and his head was filled with his new situation. He struggled now to recall something specific to give the Doctor, some proof that they hadn’t completely eradicated Paul St. Clair.
“My mother,” he whispered, then louder. “My mother. She was kind to me. She would sing to me. A lullaby.” It felt like a lie as he said it. Jack had given him back a tiny part of his innocent childhood with the lullaby, but even when Ethan had been telling him about it, he hadn’t been able to say if it had been his mother who sang it or not. He wanted it to have been her, but he didn’t know for certain.
“Interesting. So how do you think that set you apart from the other members of the group?”
“Because it meant I had known something other than cruelty.”
“And did that you make you better than the others?”
“No,” Ethan bit out.
“So why did you refuse to partake in the final test?”
Ethan’s teacup clattered against its saucer, a chaotic counterpoint to the Doctor’s delicate clink.
Which was all the Doctor needed. “Was it cruel when you killed your brothers, Ethan?”
“It was self-defence.”
“Or was it something else?”
Forcing himself not to visibly react, Ethan said, “They were going to kill me.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“It’s what they do. They kill.”
“And what do you do?”
Very carefully, Ethan set his cup and saucer on the floor. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“You killed your brothers.”
“Not by choice.”
“There is always a choice. Isn’t that what you said when you refused to take part in the final test?”
Ethan closed his eyes. It was too much. Every word out of the Doctor’s mouth sparked new questions, new doubts. Everything had felt so right when he’d been in the moment, but now he was confused.
“Did you give Four a choice, One-three? Or did you make it for him?”
Don’t give them a choice. The repeated instruction echoed in his memories. Make it for them. That way, you control them. You control the situation. When you control it, you win.
Ethan hadn’t given Jack a choice in the desert. He’d set the situation and laid the path for him to follow. Just as Ethan had done dozens of times in the past, from the very first job in Athens to the moment he’d walked out of the penthouse on Bathurst Street. Except that Jack hadn’t kept entirely to the path. The contrary man had insisted on weaving all over the place, but it had been those detours that had caught Ethan’s attention.
“Four made his choice.” Ethan struggled to gain some control in this situation. “He chose to follow the bosses’ orders. He chose to get me into the helicopter so he and Ten could finish the job and kill me.”
“Yet you didn’t give him a chance to change his decision,” the Doctor said patiently. “You killed him before he could.”
“I had to.”
“So he wouldn’t kill you? So you could survive?”
Ethan nodded numbly. He could feel the twist coming but it was like he was a dumb child again, blindly walking into walls the Doctor put up no matter which way he turned. It was one place Ethan hadn’t been able to learn his way around because it kept changing.
“But weren’t you willing to sacrifice yourself? For Jack and his family, you said. If you truly believed Four and Ten were sent to kill you, why not let them? It would have been the same outcome. Your sacrifice would have saved the Reardons either way, yes?”
“No.” Ethan sought the confidence he’d had in the helicopter. It had felt so clear and straightforward then.
“Why not?”
“Because Four and Ten would still have been alive.” Ethan jerked back at his own words. He hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t known he thought it.
The Doctor sipped his tea, set his cu
p back down with a clink, and waited patiently.
“They were dangerous,” Ethan blurted out. “Too much of a threat to be left within the Cabal’s control, or even left alive.”
“But aren’t you the same? Dangerous? Too much of a threat to be left alive, especially within the Office’s control?”
“The Office doesn’t control me.”
“Don’t they?”
“No. My relationship with the Office is different to what I had with the Cabal. Everything is different.”
The Doctor studied him for a long while, until Ethan looked away, realising he hadn’t convinced him of anything.
“How is it any different? Is it because the Office is good and the Cabal is bad?”
Ethan wanted to agree but his head shook before he could stop it. Neither entity could be so easily defined. The Office did use illegal and morally questionable means to perform their duty of protecting the Meta-State signatories. And the Cabal did work to promote stability and beneficial relations in some situations—they had, after all, sent Ethan in to discover a traitor to the Meta-State to prevent any upheavals he may have caused.
“Is it different because you are different?” the Doctor murmured. “Is it because you understand something other than cruelty?”
Hearing his own words turned back on him made Ethan cringe. It sounded so naively arrogant when the Doctor said it.
“You liked Four, didn’t you,” the Doctor continued relentlessly. “You used to share the sweets you stole from the kitchens with him. Why did you do that, One-three?”
Still. Ethan needed to be still and calm. That way he could order his thoughts and sort out this sudden tangle of conflict and confusion. He had to settle this uncertainty before he lost all control of the situation.
“Was it kindness?”
Ethan had been trained to resist interrogation, but this man wasn’t the enemy. Or he shouldn’t be. He never used to be.
“That’s what you believe, isn’t it? That you shared your pilfered goods with Four out of kindness. Or that you helped Nine with her lock picking skills because you liked her and didn’t want to see her hurt by the instructors. None of the others ever did that, did they? Because they didn’t know any better. They shared, but it always had an ulterior motive. Do you think your acts of kindness had ulterior motives, One-three?”
Except that the Doctor was an enemy. He always had been. Ethan had to remember that. He couldn’t let the Doctor trick him into thinking he cared about him. Ethan wasn’t a child anymore and he knew what the Doctor was trying to do. It was the same thing Two had done to him over and over when they were younger.
“Hmm.”
That disappointed hum stung but Ethan absorbed the pain, dispersed it amongst the rest of it. All of it had the same cause, after all, so it belonged together.
“So stubborn. All right, One-three, don’t talk to me. But you will listen.” Clink went the porcelain. “Every act of kindness you performed back then was as mercenary and ruthless as anything any of the others ever did. You bought protection with your little gifts. When you helped Nine, or shared your sweets with Four, or stole pens and paper for Six, you effectively put them between yourself the others.”
“I didn’t do those things so they would protect me.” Ethan sealed his lips against the next words. Admitting to a vulnerability was dangerous with the Doctor. With anyone in the Cabal. Saying he’d been trying to make friends because he was lonely and scared wouldn’t prove anything to the Doctor.
The Doctor hummed. “Perhaps not at first, yes. But when you realised they would defend you if you gave them gifts, there was an ulterior motive to your actions. Is this kindness, One-three? Manoeuvring your brothers and sisters into taking punishments meant for you, or sending them into conflicts that were yours to fight?”
Ethan shook his head before he could stop himself. “That wasn’t—” He clamped his mouth shut. He was walking straight into the Doctor’s trap.
The clink of porcelain had a distinctly disapproving tone this time. “I think that’s enough for now, Ethan. You’re tired and clearly not willing to listen. I’m only trying to help you, but I can’t do it all by myself. You have to acknowledge your own issues before you can hope to deal with them.” He stood and fastidiously fixed his clothes before walking to the door. One hand up to knock, he cast a last, pitying look at Ethan. “Remember that Sugar Babies aren’t like normal people. You can’t be trusted to make your own decisions because you don’t understand true kindness or compassion. That is why you killed your brothers. Not out of some skewed sense of kindness or sacrifice, but because it is what you are. A cold-blooded killer.”
After the Doctor left, two men came into the cell and cleared away the table and chair, while a third covered Ethan from the doorway. When he was alone again, Ethan fought the urge to lie down and wallow. He wanted to forget the Doctor’s parting words, but they swam through his mind unrelentingly. It had been hubris to think he’d cast aside the conditioning of his childhood. How easy it had been for the Doctor to reduce him back the scared creature he’d once been—still was, apparently.
He didn’t want to be here again. Not in a cell, not with these people. He’d barely survived it the first time.
And perhaps he hadn’t survived it. Paul St. Clair certainly hadn’t. That blind boy was long dead, the first victim of the assassin One-three. For a brief time, he’d thought One-three had been buried under Ethan, the man Jack thought he was, but that was plainly wrong. Jack’s Ethan wouldn’t have been so easily reduced to this, surely.
He couldn’t do this again. It was too hard, too painful. He needed to escape—any way he could.
Except that there was no way out of this cell. There was no one on the outside to help him and the enemy weren’t the sort to underestimate him. They knew what he was capable of, what he could and would do to finish a job.
The plan hadn’t worked like it was supposed to. Which only left him one way out.
Slowly, he stood and went to the middle of the room. The chain hung from the ceiling, solidly planted there so it could hold his weight. He reached up and touched the links. Thick, hard, cold metal.
He jumped and caught the chain, hauled himself up a bit higher, his back burning with each stretch and pull of his muscles. He lifted the shackles and locked them around the links, creating a loop big enough to fit his head through.
Creating a noose.
Soon, he’d be free.
The lack of air was starting to be an issue by the time the guards opened the cell door. As was the pressure of the chain against his windpipe. He hadn’t let himself drop when he’d put the noose around his neck—that would have been contrary to his needs—but without any other tools or materials, Ethan hadn’t been able to suspend his weight any other way than by his neck. The chain was positioned so his jaw took some of the strain but not nearly enough to spare his throat some damage.
But the guards weren’t too tardy and they rushed in, swearing at each other, at him, at their superiors. Frantic to make sure the prisoner didn’t die, two of them came right to him, guns slung over the shoulders as they reached for him with both hands. The third held back, gaping.
Ethan grabbed the chain, lifting himself so he could breathe. In the same instant, he kicked one guard in the face, a solid connection that broke the man’s nose and hopefully his cheekbones as well. As he staggered, Ethan got both legs around the other man’s neck. The guard had been going for his rifle, but the moment the strong calves closed over his throat, he dropped it and tried to pry Ethan’s legs apart.
Slipping his head out of the noose, Ethan hooked an arm through the loop and hauled the guard closer with his legs. Grabbing a handful of the man’s shaggy dark hair, Ethan swiftly shifted his feet so one was against the back of his neck and the other was on his throat. It was a matter of seconds to crush his windpipe. The guard’s legs collapsed as he struggled for air. Ethan let him drop and, swinging back for some momentum, launched himself off
the chain at the peak of its forward motion.
The guard still in the doorway had his rifle up and fired, but it went wide thanks to the wild swing of the chain. Ethan hit his chest feet first. The man wore armour under his dark khaki coat, but it didn’t stop him from crashing over backwards. His head hit the solid brick on the far side of the hallway. The crack was loud and the smear of blood on the wall as he crumpled to the floor was very telling.
Ethan landed in an ungraceful heap on top of him. Stars danced before his eyes, his body still in need of more air. Gulping it down made his abused windpipe burn. It had been an incredibly risky plan but the only one he’d been able to think of so quickly. He’d needed to get out of the cell sooner rather than later, because much more time here, with the Doctor working hard to break him down—again—was intolerable.
Behind him, there was frantic scrabbling at the stone floor. The man with the crushed neck was taking his time to die. Under that was another sound, softer, steadier. Someone moving stealthily, trying to creep up on him.
Ethan moaned loudly and rolled over, making sure he made enough noise to cover the guard’s approach. The man took the bait and rushed forward.
It was absurdly simple to catch him with a kick, sending him pinwheeling back into the cell. Flipping to his feet, Ethan followed. Barely upright, he dived into a roll under the trajectory of the man’s raised rifle. He came up well inside the guard’s range but even hurting for air, Ethan was faster and got the rifle pointed at the ceiling as the man’s finger pulled spasmodically on the trigger in panic. A kick, a punch and a sweep of his leg had the guard tumbling over, his rifle now in Ethan’s hold. One handed, Ethan spun the weapon, pointed, and shot the man in the head.
A moment later, he put the choking man out of his suffering.
Ethan stood in the middle of his cell, rifle at the ready, dead bodies around him, and closed his eyes. He stopped breathing so the sounds of any approaching backup wouldn’t have to compete with that of his ragged gulps for air. So far, he couldn’t hear anything, but he didn’t doubt more of the enemy would be on the way. The gunfire would have alerted someone to what was going on.
When Death Frees the Devil Page 6
