by Aral Bereux
‘Comms codes, Caden Madison, Isis, and location of the safe house. Need it all, princess,’ Doug said.
‘I’ll give you Caden.’ Her throat felt dry and she gagged before coughing up enough saliva to clear it. She was tempted to spit, but thought better of it when Taris’s eyes narrowed. ‘Get off me and you can have him.’
‘Give Madison to us and then I’ll get off you,’ Taris said. His grip tightened and Doug edged the syringe into her wrist, piercing the thin skin covering her veins. The acid crawled inside her arm, up into her shoulder, and neck.
The room spun. Fireworks spread across her vision. The gold chain swaying around Taris’s neck drew her into a trance, drawing her gaze until her eyes grew heavy. His face blurred. Doug’s face shimmered away and everything turned a hazy shade of grey. The talk between the men echoed.
‘Officers Deveaux and Shaw can take her to the cells,’ Taris said. His heaviness left her waist. ‘And stay with her. She’ll talk. When she does, come and get me.’
The blonde girl and her counterpart seized Julianna’s weak arms to drag her between them. The large double doors opened again. They became a distant object with Taris and Doug, sending her off to a fate she didn’t know. She looked at them through her heavy eyes, letting each of them read her contempt before they led her away to the cells.
She’d use this to her advantage.
She had one thing confirmed, and it was important. Her mother was a resident of Central Command. They had served her ends, perhaps, and the thought made her smile before oblivion took over and forced the blinds to close.
Now all she had to do was find her.
Chapter 4
30TH APRIL, 2018. 0025 HOURS.
CENTRAL COMMAND, SECTOR #1
Julianna swam for her life. The waves crashed heavily, obscuring the shoreline from view. The tide pushed farther and farther out, relentless in its task until all she saw were a few glints of light, flickering in the distance. The salt tasted thick and the air seemed too thin to breathe, so she heaved to the side until her stomach felt empty. The waves stopped their swaying and she opened her eyes. She wasn’t in the ocean after all – she was on a thin mattress in a corner and everything was wet.
Another spray of water hit her, and this time it pushed her hard against the wall, pinning her inside its pressure as the fire hose washed her down again. The officer holding it grinned manically. She choked back the water into her lungs until it pointed at her vomit heaped on the ground. Julianna watched through bleared eyes as it flowed along a corner drain. Water ran along her long locks of hair hanging over her face and she envisaged she looked animalistic. The smell of her own vomit made her heave again, until thick tendrils of saliva was all that was left. The hose turned back until he drenched her clean once more.
She pushed against the corner on her thin bed and she curled into a ball. He couldn’t keep going, could he? Eventually he’d stop or the city’s water would run out. Eventually he needed to stop, right? Julianna peered over her arms and another spray found her face before he ordered the water to cease.
The large, dark cell was flooded, and a damp smell replaced the stench of vomit as the last stomach contents flowed into the drain. The two officers, who had taken her from the smart interior of the meeting room, stood under a fluorescent light studying her movement.
Officer Sergeant B. Shaw, HSD, with his name embroidered into his uniform, reeled the fire hose tightly. His partner, Sergeant Deveaux, HSD, stood beside him. Shaw didn’t move, instead a crazed expression reached his eyes with his laughing smile. He laughed quietly to himself.
Sergeant Deveaux did not. The blonde beauty stood in silence with her eyes betraying her. The look expressed concern, not menace, and when the fire hose aimed again, she feigned distraction. The stench had left the cell; Julianna shivered as she hunched farther into the corner on the sodden mattress that squelched when she moved, waiting for the hose again.
Footsteps echoed from the end of the tunnel, in beat with the drips of residual water dropping on the stone ground. Julianna glanced at the bars holding her prisoner. The old network of tunnels under Central were now holding cells. There had been rumor of the new ones designed and purpose-built to aid in a prisoner’s free speech. She’d heard only one rumor from one person who’d supposedly escaped. Everyone else had a habit of expiring.
The footsteps stopped abruptly before her cell. She looked from her corner and bolted onto the balls of her toes in utter surprise.
The long auburn hair curled itself over the shoulders. The piercing green eyes peered through the bars with the pale hands clutching them. Taris held a set of heavy keys that unlocked the cage door. Its strained metal hinges groaned under the weight as it swung open, permitting the woman and Taris to step into its threshold.
Julianna stifled her cry. She reached for the hands to touch and caress them as though they were a dream about to vanish, but the woman stepped coldly away from her reach.
‘Can we be alone?’ her mother asked.
Taris held his hands firmly in his pockets, watching the reunion with an unsympathetic indifference. ‘If it helps, Elizbeth.’
Julianna waited. The cell door pressed firmly into its lock again and he took his leave, ordering the company to do the same. The tunnel became quiet and Julianna stole a glance past to ensure their privacy. She shivered. Her head swam in the standing-up position. She wondered if this was his idea of trickery, or if this was her lost mother finally found.
The pale hands slowly cupped Julianna’s face as a mother would to study their lost child closely, and she leaned in with her eyes wide and unapologetic.
‘Do as he asks,’ she whispered. Her breath felt soft. ‘You must give Taris the codes.’
Julianna’s eyes ached and her stomach danced in circles again. The familiar taste of salt rose through the thick saliva coating her tongue. She found it hard to form words, and gagged when she tried.
‘You left me.’
Shaking her head and keeping her eyes down in disappointment, her mother hesitated to speak. ‘Jillie Bean, they took you from me. You remember that day, don’t you? That awful day when they snatched you from my arms and carried you away. When Caden insisted you needed to remain with them.’
No, Julianna thought, and stepped back to study her mother. Where was the: I missed you and I love you and I’m sorry? She shook her head.
It’s not exactly how I remember it at all, Mom.
That eventful day had been a standard weekend dinner at the family estate. Snatching or force never played a part. Caden had never played a part. She would have remembered that one, surely. Babysitting duty was relegated to Uncle Doug and they had never returned. Her father had tucked her in bed, tickled her nose and they left.
That’s how I remember it.
There hadn’t been any yelling or grabbing or crying, just a calm, peaceful dinner and early bedtime – which turned into a very long sleepover at Uncle’s. She had been four years old.
‘Sweetheart, you need to help Taris. I fear for you.’
Julianna felt the sting of her tears. ‘We can get out together,’ she said quietly. ‘The both of us, when they come back—’
Her mother shook her head again. ‘He wants to hurt you.’ She shook her arms. The grasp was unforgiving. ‘He wants you to suffer.’
She could feel the bile rise in her stomach, she wasn’t sure how long she could hold it. Not now, not in front of her. She pushed it down, swallowing hard. ‘I’ve nothing to say to him.’
‘This has brought us both so much grief. He’s holding me here; I’ve been here since the day we parted. Maybe if you give him something, he might let us go together.’
Her eyes narrowed. Something stunk about this picture. Her instincts were in overdrive and she turned her body to break the clasp on her arms. Her head spun at the effort.
‘He’s not the type for letting prisoners go, Mom. Jesus fucking Christ! Don’t you get what he’s doing? He’s playing us, and yo
u’re, you’re...’ In frustration she clenched her fists and watched her mother move out of her way.
The room swayed. Julianna collapsed against the wall in spite of herself. She let it take her weight and stopped only when she slid down into the pooling water, half on the mattress and half on the stone floor.
‘You’re sweating.’
No. I’ve just been fucking hosed down!
She sensed the something wrong again, like a perfectly still boat on an ocean’s large swell, or a busy street with no noise. It was subtle, but it was there – something didn’t connect right with the person in front of her.
Julianna crouched herself against the wall. It was all too much; her head talked in gibberish between every clear thought with her mother’s voice echoing over the top. She wanted to scream. In the few seconds of clarity she did have, she went from nothing to a deafening insanity. She glanced back at the mattress. Wet or not, she needed to lie down.
‘If there’s anything you can give, you must give it. Anything at all. Tell me and I’ll tell him. He might reverse this. These drugs he uses are so terribly cruel.’
Julianna rolled onto her side, the nauseating sweat moved with her, tracing its water down her back and across her face, attempting to seep under her closed eyes. The mattress offered no respite, but to move again would see her vomit and the pain behind her eyes was unbearable. She nodded. Was she nodding? Her actions didn’t match her command – but she felt herself calling for Taris. The door opened and her mother disappeared.
‘Mom?’ she whispered. Her eyes opened; she spun up from the mattress quickly. Stars blossomed into strings of light before her eyes, and patterns lit up in her mind. A firm hand across her breasts encouraged her to return to the vertical position she had been resting in.
‘Okay darlin’, a few numbers and I’ll make this go away. I’ll take the pain so you can rest easy.’ He crouched quietly beside the mattress, squatting over the puddles of water lying around them.
‘Where is she?’ Julianna whispered. ‘Why is she gone?’ Her voice triggered more stars and the sudden urge to ram her skull into the wall overwhelmed her. She needed more silence, not the bright stars.
They were alone in the cell. Taris and Julianna, with no one to witness, and he perched patiently, with his hand on her chest, waiting.
‘Seven, seven, two. I need the rest. What comes next?’
‘No,’ she whispered, and pushed his hand away to get to her feet. ‘Leave me alone!’ She backed into the cell door. The brief clarity that appeared with his touch disappeared again and she called for her mother as she paced, looking back and forth down the corridor through a hazy view. She called again and again, and her heart sank when a dull resonance returned her call. Her head throbbed and she threw up in the corner where she stood.
‘Seven, seven, two. I know you know.’
Julianna clutched the bars and stared at the mess in front of her. She finished spitting between her arms. Her stomach cleared; her head, not so forgiving. His voice imposed in her mind, repeating the numbers, over and over and over until—
‘Seven, seven, two...triple eight, one.’
She wiped her sweating brow. The cell door opened and closed. Tears stung her eyes as she stared at Taris watching her from the other side of the bars. He had the passwords, he had the comms. He had access to the Rebellion, he had intel on Caden – all because she gave into the prick.
He has my mother.
The stench of vomit returned, and she vomited again; it landed between her feet. Thick strands of green and yellow bile followed as her stomach convulsed and twisted on itself. Taris stepped back.
‘And Caden Madison’s location?’
She shook her head and spat again. ‘You said you’d make this stop.’
‘His location?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
She cried weakly for her mother again and collapsed, near the piled vomit. The rush of water hit her body in a full, thick stream of ice-cold liquid. She sobbed, there was nothing more to do.
‘Isis, who is he?’
She cried.
‘The safe house location? Which Sector? How many? I know you know Julianna.’ He was pissed. She could hear it in his voice when he called her full name.
‘I don’t know.’
Taris shut down the hose and the smell disappeared. He unlocked the cell door again, the hose dropping from his grasp to land behind him like a coiled snake as he took his deliberate steps.
She watched. Crap what’s he doing? She panicked. Holy fucking crap.
He smashed down onto her hair; tugging it until her neck bent so far, she expected it would snap. He crouched against her back. She couldn’t move, but her eyes rolled until they met his, leering down at her. She grunted and blinked heavily. The stars spread like clouds over her eyes.
‘I’m not playing your games anymore, Julianna,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Clear? I’m tired of your bullshit and your arrogance and your betrayal. Your only saving grace is the Senate, and who you are.’
She was painfully aware they were alone.
He leaned in closer and nipped her ear. ‘But I still have their permission to hurt you.’
His touch made her skin crawl. His free hand ran over her breasts and down into the band of her pants. There he rested and she closed her eyes to block his gaze peering over her shoulder.
‘You have the answers I want.’ He pulled at her hair again and her breathing thickened with his force stretching her throat. His hand pushed lower.
‘I apologize, Julianna. I really do. This may haunt you for a very long time.’ He ran his tongue along the side of her neck.
‘Sector Seven. The safe house is in Sector Seven,’ she said quickly.
‘I think you’re lying to me, princess.’
Julianna felt the strong urge to stay crouched as footsteps approached outside the cell. They both snapped their heads around to face Sergeant Deveaux. She shuffled back and forth on her feet, toeing the floor awkwardly.
‘This needs to be good, Deveaux.’
‘CCTV footage, sir. We may have a lead to the safe house.’
Taris stepped to his feet. ‘This isn’t over, J Rae.’
Julianna crawled over to the mattress and collapsed into its dampness. No, no, no, keep it together. She covered her eyes with her hand and the tears stung as she listened to the cell door lock. ‘He’s done this before, just keep it together,’ she whispered.
The footsteps disappeared and only the sound of a single drip hitting the drain echoed in the dark chamber. If she could escape somehow. She laughed manically at the thought. Jay, no one ever escapes Central Command, absolutely no one. But she couldn’t stay. She needed to work on a plan or Taris would have his wicked way with her one way or another, and she couldn’t let that happen.
Not tonight. Tonight she needed to sleep it off. Tonight she needed to rest. If they really had CCTV footage, she was safe for a little while, at least.
Her mind danced frantically in its circle of confusion and sickness. Am I safe? Her mother, though, what about her mother? Maybe she could come back, maybe...
‘Not good, J Rae,’ she said, as the ceiling floated above her stare. The words resonated around the stone walls and a sleepy voice that sounded a lot like Caden Madison’s spoke:
No fuckin’ good at all.
* * * *
When she woke, her recollection fuzzed over the wet material she sat in. A smell slowly lingered into her nose, and her lip curled in spite of herself as its scent hung, refusing to leave. The stench of vomit mixed with urine roused her to bolt upright with her hand slapping at the insides of her thighs.
‘Tell me I haven’t pissed myself,’ she groaned.
She glanced over her pants, running her hands for a feel of telltale dampness between her thighs.
The repugnant smell reached from the drains, not from her pants. Thankful, she crawled over to the dripping tap hanging over the dreadful smell and cupped water into
her hands, when the door caught her attention. She spat out the metallic water and took another glimpse over her shoulder. Is it possible? She frowned and ignored it, cupping more water into her hands to splash over her face. ‘I’m losing the fucking plot. That’s what it is…’ she trailed off and took another mouthful before spitting again. Another glance, another moment to think, some more festering water.
The dim, illuminated walkway cast shadows that conned her judgement. The last look, a long look as she turned her body, nailed it home.
The cell door was ajar.
She struggled to her feet, her damp clothes clinging to her in their relentless grab, and gently tipped the bars of the gate. The door swung open with a disturbing ease. She peered timidly down the long corridor to see that it was empty. Julianna tempted the shadows and faced the end with the heavy double doors, blinking deliberately, expecting the cruel joke to end. Taris was nowhere in sight. It was a clear run if she hurried.
Her feet carried her forward despite her senses screaming out to stop; all the while scanning every shadow’s outline for a monster that didn’t appear. Each step edged closer to the solid doors blocking her exit. Her rapid breathing paused long enough to reach her hand out and touch them, the smoothness of metal beneath her fingertips…her hand’s caress enough to move them open. They swung silently, offering an abandoned stretch of tunnel more quickly than she wanted.
Julianna shuffled forward, pressing against the paint flaking from the walls, peering cautiously ahead. Rows of empty cells lined the corridor, their gates partly open, ready for the next onset of prisoners. She walked the narrow way around its corner, running one moment, tiptoeing in panic with the next. Her next interrogation flashed through her mind if she was caught…if she was caught by Taris…she stopped.
Is that breathing?
She turned her head in the direction of the sound and listened again.
A whispered voice called, ‘In here.’
The voice belonged to Sergeant Deveaux, coming from the end cell. She stepped out from the shadows in front of the beefcake, who had hosed Julianna earlier. Julianna reeled for a second at the surprise laying slumped in a heap beside Deveaux’s boots, grey and lifeless.
