by Debra Driza
As he talked, I tore my eyes away from him and searched the soldiers’ faces behind him—I recognized Haynes and Jennings—but there was no help there. Their eyes slid from mine, to stare at their feet. Holland’s men were scared of him.
And Three, well—watching my own face look on without a hint of concern as I was prepared to be tortured sent a flurry of goose bumps across my skin. I told myself to take comfort in her unfazed expression, to use it as a guide.
But when Holland pushed a button and the drill buzzed to life, all logic vanished.
Oh, god. This was it. And even though I knew I shouldn’t be scared, because my pain sensation was so limited, I couldn’t help it. That grating whir of the drill, it made the horrible memory crash over me with galelike force. Of another Mila, screaming. One who had felt every single thing they’d done to her. Just like a human.
A girl they’d tortured into sealing her own fate.
The drill spun, a silver whirlwind under the fluorescent lights. Almost pretty, in a deadly way. I couldn’t bear to look at it, to anticipate the bit digging into me. I was too afraid my fear would show on my face.
Instead, I craned my head and focused on the last person in the room. Lucas. He stood several feet away from the others, his hazel eyes troubled but steady on mine. Intense. As if he were trying to will the strength into me. I found myself grasping for something, anything, to distract me from the drill that Holland was lowering toward me, and I concentrated on the dots of blue and gray in his eyes. I counted them over and over again as the drill drew closer, until I could feel the breeze it generated whispering against my neck.
No emotions. No emotions. No emotions.
“Look at me,” Holland commanded, and with a shaky breath, I complied. But I looked right through his craggy face and pictured my mom, in a cell, depending on me to pass. I pictured Hunter’s face. I even pictured Bliss. Anything not to focus on the drill.
I braced myself for whatever question Holland was going to ask. No matter what, I wouldn’t answer. The drill was so close now, the tip grazed my skin, and it took everything I had not to flinch. My pain reception might be low, but the thought of that blade piercing my flesh, tunneling inside, tearing a gaping hole and exposing my insides for everyone to see, flooded me with an overwhelming sense of violation. We stood in that stalemate position for what felt like an eternity but probably only amounted to a few seconds. Every second, though, was a small triumph in willpower.
I would not move. I would not scream. I would not give Holland even a hint of satisfaction.
With a quick jerk of his hand, he moved the drill toward my ear, but I was prepared for whatever he could dole out. I didn’t move, not even when the tip vibrated inside my ear canal, coming perilously close to plunging toward my brain.
One second the drill was whirring; the next, it wasn’t. I watched in confusion as Holland stepped back, taking the drill with him.
“Good,” he said, but his eyes didn’t match the word. When he walked behind me, I waited for the drill to restart, but instead something tugged at the metal encircling my wrists, then clicked. With a jolt, I realized my hands were free.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand . . . what—?”
Two soldiers slipped behind Lucas and grabbed his shoulders. From the widening of his eyes and startled protest, he was just as clueless as me. Then Holland strode over to him, and an instant later, Lucas’s wrists were bound by the handcuffs I’d just vacated.
“What’s going on?” Lucas asked, his voice impressively calm.
“Change of plans,” Holland said.
“Uh . . . sir?” Lucas asked, not alarmed yet, but a confused line formed between his brows. My trepidation, however, rose with every passing second as they led him over to the steel chain and attached it to his cuffs.
While I watched Lucas, I felt Holland’s steely gray eyes watch me. “Sometimes in the field, you have to resort to extreme methods when obtaining information. We need to know that your emotional responses won’t get in the way.”
He turned back to Lucas, and the relief from having his attention directed elsewhere eased the tightness in my chest, just a little. But it returned with a vengeance a moment later. “Lucas, I edited the files you gave to Mila and took out the name of the mole. In order to pass this test, Mila’s job is to forcibly extract that information.”
Extract. Extract.
The only sound that broke the bleak silence that followed was the uneasy shifting of the soldiers’ feet. My stomach roiled with a toxic combination of disbelief and horror. I wanted to shake my head—no, to shake Holland—to scream that no way would I be a part of this, but I felt his eyes on me again, watching, searching, waiting to pounce on even the slightest hint of a reaction.
This couldn’t be real, I told myself. He couldn’t possibly expect me to torture Lucas for information. That was too insane, even for Holland.
But the color that slowly drained from Lucas’s already pale face told another story.
“Now, I realize this might sound cruel, but I’m being realistic,” Holland said, gesturing with his age-creased hands for emphasis. “When you’re on an assignment, you’ll meet people who seem halfway decent. Hell, you might even like some of them. But none of that matters.”
His eyes flashed. He stepped toward me, as if physical proximity alone could somehow persuade me to accept his logic, might make me agree that torturing people, torturing Lucas, was simply a necessary part of life. “The only thing that matters is the end goal—getting the intel. Intel saves lives, and that’s the bottom line.”
He inched even closer, and his voice dropped to a whisper, one that I was sure only I could hear. “You understand, don’t you, Two?” he said, the silky-soft words slipping under my skin and turning everything inside me into a chunk of ice. A chunk of ice that was trying not to choke on his peculiar peppermint-and-alcohol scent, with only one thought piercing my shocked ice brain.
Holland was serious. This was real.
He straightened, smoothed his hands over his unwrinkled shirt, and increased his volume. “To pass this test, you need to obtain the identity of the mole. Lucas,” he barked, eyes still trained on me. “Your job is to keep that information confidential as long as you can. Are we clear?”
Over Holland’s stiff shoulder, my eyes pleaded with Lucas. Say no. Say no and end this thing right now.
“But, sir—”
Holland held up his hand. “We had a deal, remember? You follow orders and I help your chickenshit brother. Now, let’s try again. Are we clear?”
Help his brother what? What could possibly be bad enough to make Lucas agree to this? Because one thing was sure: Holland wasn’t the type of man who tolerated a refusal from an inferior, not publicly.
Even knowing his answer, Lucas’s “Clear” was a sharp twist in my chest.
Whatever Holland had on Lucas’s brother, he was going to use it to make Lucas a pawn in this latest bout of insanity.
“Now, we like the boy around here, so don’t kill him or do any serious damage—just make him talk. Oh, and how’s this for a little additional incentive?” He glanced at his oversized watch. “If you get the info on the suspected mole within ten minutes, I’ll let you see Nicole.”
Up until then, I’d been tempted to open my mouth and tell him exactly where he could go. Tempted to refuse to budge, fail the test, and pray that I passed the next one with flying colors. But his words whipped my head up.
A triumphant smile tugged at his thin lips, but I didn’t care. Mom. He’d let me see Mom. Before I knew it, I’d taken one, two, three steps toward Lucas, on legs practically buzzing with hope.
“See? I knew you had it in you. You just needed the right motivation.”
The satisfaction oozing from Holland’s words should have stopped me in my tracks. It should have made me feel ashamed of my instant eagerness to comply.
But all I could think of was Mom. Where were they keeping her, how was she holding up? Was
she even really still alive?
I crossed the rest of the short distance that separated me from Lucas, noticing that the closer I got, the more my pace dragged. Desperately I reminded myself that he worked here. No matter how kind he’d pretended to be, he was a part of this covert, sadistic operation. Willing or not, he was a part of the group keeping me away from Mom. The group that would terminate my existence without batting an eye.
When I finally stood right in front of him, though, and looked into Lucas’s eyes, my breath hitched in my throat.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t his oh-so-subtle nod. As if he were giving me permission to get on with it.
Just like that, my resolve faltered. The fierce need to see Mom warred with stark loathing of hurting a bound man, and it felt like the conflicting emotions would rip me apart. I looked away, fighting off the burn behind my eyes.
I couldn’t do it.
I had to try.
“Tell me who the mole is,” I said, without even looking at him.
“Pathetic.”
Lucas spit the word out like it tasted bad, startling me. Gone was the soft expression I thought I’d seen earlier, replaced by narrowed eyes and a scowl.
“What? If you can’t even hit the guy who helped design these tests, you’ll be hopeless in the field. You deserve to be terminated.”
I gasped before the truth registered. Lucas was trying to goad me into hitting him.
Terminated. Design these tests.
And it was kind of working.
“Lucas—stay in character,” Holland warned, his drawl clipped short.
“Sorry.” But he didn’t sound sorry at all.
“Tell me who the mole is!” I shouted this time, mere inches away from his face.
Overhead, the fluorescent bulbs glared without mercy, highlighting all of us like we were in some kind of macabre play.
He shook his head and exhaled in a loud, overblown sigh. “No matter what you do to me, the mole will track you down. He’ll tear you apart for scrap pieces, and who knows what he’ll do to your mom? Kill her, I suppose, but she’s pretty, so I imagine he’ll—”
My fist flew forward before he could finish the sentence, headed straight for his left cheek.
When my knuckles first touched his skin, realization crashed over me. I pulled back. Too late. There was still a sickening smack, and his head whipped to the side. Without his hands to steady him, his body followed. He crashed to the ground, and his stifled cry filled the room.
Horror spread like an oil spill through my body, heavy and thick and dirty. Both of the soldiers standing near Lucas shifted their feet uncomfortably in his direction, like they wanted to help him up but weren’t sure they were allowed to. One of them even swore under his breath. No one was happy with this situation. No one except Holland.
On his back, Lucas groaned before shaking his head and rolling awkwardly to his side, his bound wrists hindering him. I moved forward to help him when a big hand landed on my shoulder. “You’re going to have to do better than that. Lucas is tough, aren’t you, boy?”
My skin crawled where his hand rested, but I didn’t shrug it off. Channeling every ounce of self-control I possessed, I kept my voice calm, my body steady. “I can handle it,” I said. Even as something inside me shattered as I watched Lucas clumsily regain his feet.
“Can you? Or do you need a little help?” He turned and nodded to someone behind me. A moment later, Three glided forward.
“I prefer to use less violent and more painful methods. The drill. Or the pliers, for fingernails. They tend to be effective more quickly,” my mirror image said, nodding serenely at the instruments on the steel table like we were discussing the best brand of nail files.
My stomach turned at her blasé response.
Lucas’s cheek bloomed red, and swelling was already setting in, shrinking his right eye into a forced squint. He didn’t say anything, but his gaze cut to the table and back to Three, and as I watched, a tiny dot of sweat beaded on his forehead and slowly, slowly, trickled down his nose.
Lucas might not be afraid of me, but he was definitely leery of Three.
Three reached for the pliers, and I knew I had to do something to keep her away from Lucas. I moved in front of her.
“Are you going to tell me about the mole, or do I have to hurt you again?”
Please, just tell me, I begged him silently. Please. Please.
Lucas hesitated, and for one glorious instant, relief swelled in my chest. Then Holland cleared his throat, and Lucas’s jaw tightened. “Give it your best shot.”
Damn it.
Trying to apologize with my eyes, I pulled back my fist and delivered a swift blow to his kidney.
I’d muted the punch as much as I could without making Holland suspicious, but it wasn’t enough. Lucas doubled over and stumbled back, tripping over the chain. Once again, he fell to the floor, this time landing on his knees with a thud that echoed throughout the barren room and made me cringe.
With every punch, I became less of the girl Mom had risked everything to save and more of the monster Holland desperately hoped for.
“Well done . . . though I still would have gone with the pliers,” Three mused, tilting her head and watching Lucas with a childlike curiosity as he moaned and slowly tried to straighten.
This time, the two soldiers darted forward and helped him to his feet, even steadying him when he swayed.
“Hands off the prisoner,” Holland barked. The soldiers hastily released him and backed away.
This had to end, now. Surely Lucas would talk, and no one would fault him for it. But as I chanced a peek at Holland, my phantom heart dropped like a stone. He crossed his arms while his eyes wandered over the barely upright Lucas, and even though it vanished almost the moment it appeared, I saw the quick smile that briefly curled his lips.
In that instant, I realized this whole sadistic test wasn’t just about me.
A fire kindled in my gut, the flames picking up pace and coursing through my body like it was a forest of brittle trees.
“Three, hand Two the pliers.”
The fire roared louder.
Three passed the pliers to me, and my fingers curled around them. Mom, I thought. Mom.
I grabbed the front of Lucas’s shirt, yanked him toward me, barely believing what I was doing. I hated myself, I even hated Lucas. But most of all, I hated Holland.
Lucas landed hard on his weak foot, regained his balance.
“You see these?” Obviously he did, because I was waving them about an inch away from his face. I dropped his shirt and grabbed his left hand instead, squeezing it harder than I’d intended. “Tell me about the mole, and I’ll leave your fingernails alone. Otherwise, I’ll have to pull them off, one by one.”
Who was saying these terrible things? It couldn’t be me.
I relaxed my grip. “Please. Just tell me, and this will all be over.”
Lucas stared right through me, even as another drop of sweat trickled down his nose. The same as before, only different. This time, Three wasn’t the one causing it.
I looked at his hand, at his strong, callused hand with the short, clean nails and wondered how this was possibly happening.
“Two, I need to know you’re one hundred percent committed. The pliers,” Holland urged.
My fist tightened around cold metal while Lucas blanched. But he didn’t so much as tremble. His chest expanded as he inhaled a deep, shaky breath and blew it out through pursed lips.
And then his shoulders sagged. His hazel eyes met mine, and it was like someone reached inside my chest, grabbed my phony heart, and squeezed it until it exploded. He expected me to do it.
“Go ahead, Two,” Holland insisted, with a breathless anticipation that sickened me.
All at once, the fire from before blazed to life, consumed me, whipped down my arm and into my hand. My pulse pounded out a frantic beat.
Pliers.
Lucas.
Mom.
With the pliers still clutched tight, I whirled on Holland. The shock was still forming on his wrinkled face when I slammed the tool across his ribs.
Twenty-Nine
His shout rang out, and for a split second everyone was still, even Three—right before chaos erupted. I backed away as reality crashed over me, a little too late. I’d screwed up. Big-time.
Three darted to Holland, while the soldiers rushed toward me and paused warily a few steps away, like I was a wild animal.
Actually, that felt exactly right.
The pliers slithered from my fingers and clattered to the floor. I raised my hands, palm first, while Holland hacked.
“Sir?” The mustached soldier glanced over his shoulder. “Do you want us to apprehend her?”
Holland wheezed once more, dashed a hand across his watering eyes. I waited for whatever punishment he might dole out, but instead he started laughing, a gasping, pained laugh that sent shivers down my back.
“Now, then—there’s the Two I remember.”
“Sir?”
“What? Oh, no, no,” he said, waving them away with a dismissive flick of his hand, one that made him wince. “Leave her. It’s my own damn fault. I knew she’d snap—I should have stood farther back.”
“You will punish her, won’t you, sir?” This was Three, sounding more curious than angry.
Holland’s eyes narrowed on me. Even though he didn’t say anything, I knew exactly what he was thinking. There was no punishment he could give me that would hurt worse than what I’d inflicted on myself.
Test number two had been an abject failure. Which left me only one more chance to save Mom. And right now, my odds were looking pretty slim.
I watched, in a blur, as Holland said something to the soldiers about the infirmary, and then Lucas was released, and staggered away with Three and Holland. Then the two soldiers led me to a tiny cell, no bigger than a closet. A set of camos was on the bed.
“Put those on,” the shorter, buffer one said, not unkindly. Haynes. “Someone will be back to get you within the hour.”
