Chapter 15
Madam’s office is once again crowded with far too many people to be comfortable. Bella and I sit opposite each other while the Commander, Overseer, Madam, and Major all stare down at us. Their eyes pierce through me, and make my blood run cold.
Something about this mission report feels dangerous. The eyes on us make a dread build in my stomach. Something is wrong, I know it is, but I can’t figure out what. Do they know Marcus? Do they know Cayden has told me things I haven’t reported? Do they know we’re breaking? No, they can’t.
“The mission, ma’am. I engaged with the target, trying to find out more information.”
“We were not permitted to read, ma’am.”
“Oh, so you did hear me. Was it blatant rebellion, then?” My heart drops in my chest. He knows.
Wolvrin had warned me to be careful of my surroundings, but I wasn’t. I had been foolish enough to believe that we could get away with the disobedience. This was a test, and I failed on all accounts.
“Take them both to the chair.”
“No wait!” I scream, letting my emotions get the best of me for the first time ever since entering The Academy. “It was me, it was just me. Bella didn’t read. She told me not to, it was only me.”
Silence. No one dares to say a word while the Overseer processes my outburst. Bella’s eyes widen as she begins to shake her head, silently telling me not to take the blame for this. But I have to, I won’t lose her, too. I won’t lose another assigned partner.
“PX-57, you are to return to the assigned bunk room. And PX-3…”
I feel a prick in my arm, and before the Overseer is able to finish, the world starts to spin and my mind goes blank.
“B-Belllaaa…” The words slur as they leave my lips, then suddenly I feel a hand on me, no, two hands.
I’m being carried. I try to kick, but my legs don’t move. And then suddenly, the world goes dark.
?
My head aches and a groan escapes as I start to come back to reality.
I hear a dripping sound, like a tap hasn’t been turned off.
It takes me a moment to realise whatever it is, is dripping on me.
I look around, realising I’m at surface level.
The moon shines through the broken roof looking down at me.
Water falls from the roof, down onto me.
I’m in the chair. Metal manacles bind my wrists and ankles. I’m vulnerable, I’m weak.
I cannot break, I will not break.
“PX-3, you’re awake.” Madam’s voice fills the broken room. I can’t see her, not with my head still pounding and my vision still blurred from the sedative or whatever drug they gave me. I try to move my arms away, but they’re weak. There’s no way for me to get out of this.
“Who is Cayden, PX-3?” It’s the Overseer this time. I see the blurred outline of a person walking towards me, but I can’t feel the fear I know I should. It’s freezing, I’m freezing.
I’m going to die here.
“I don’t—I don’t know,” I mumble, trying to lift my head up.
But it’s heavy, so heavy and it lolls back down to my shoulder.
After several attempts, I manage to rest against the back of the mental chair.
The room is still a blur, faces are still blurred, but I don’t miss the way my body is reacting, telling me this isn’t good.
My heart is racing. I hear the beat in my ears with every pump in my chest. My head spins, trying to warn off whatever drug they gave me while my hands won’t stop trembling from the cold. It’s so cold.
My jaw is trembling, body shivering as I try to adjust to the water slowly dripping down from the ceiling on me. It’s low-level torture, freezing someone. At first, it’s not a big deal, but the longer you wait, the closer death becomes.
“There is no reason to lie, PX-3. It won’t make this any easier.”
I’m not lying, I’m not. Cayden hasn’t told me anything. He never tells me what I want to know, he doesn’t even answer my questions properly, he just evades them. He only tells me pieces, the fact about the storage unit was the most I had gotten from him.
Do not cry, do not show emotion, do not be weak.
“I don’t know anything,” I mumble, still feeling the effects of whatever they gave me. I can’t feel my fingers, and my legs feel numb. I’m completely defenceless right now. And that thought alone sends a shiver down my spine.
The world slowly starts to come back as my mind catches up with my body, my vision becoming clearer, my heart beat finally catching up and racing, the fear slowly seeping into my veins. I feel it all rushing back, all at once.
Then there’s a sharp sting on my cheek as I feel a blade pass through. Blood drips down onto my lap, disappearing into the black fabric before my hair is pulled back and my head forced up. A pained whimper escapes before I can stop it.
“Let’s try this again. Who. Is. Cayden?”
“I don’t know!” I hiss this time, feeling a knife being pressed to my ribs.
“Last chance,” Overseer warns. I struggle in the chair, trying to fight him off, but he only presses in harder, breaking the fabric of the shirt.
“Who is Cayden, PX-3?”
“Target 106! No one! I don’t know anything!” I’m screaming this time, pleading for him to hear the truth in my words. I don’t know anything, I don’t. Cayden hasn’t told me a single thing about himself, and I only found out his last name through the auction.
I watch as two metal clamps are placed onto both arm rests of the chair, attached to a switch on the wall. Fuck.
They’re going to electrocute me.
Madam walks over to the switch with a wide grin on her face as her heels click against the concrete.
“Please! No! I don’t know anyth—”
I don’t get to finish my sentence before the electricity starts flowing through my body.
My head falls back, my jaw locking and my body spasming, trying to survive the current.
As soon as the power is switched off, a pained gasp leaves my lips.
Every muscle aches, my heart is pounding like crazy, my eyes are barely able to focus as the room spins again, and my head is pounding.
“Who is Cayden, PX-3?” Overseer asks again, and I almost cry.
I don’t know, I really don’t know. Out of every conversation we have had I never thought to ask why The Academy wants him. I had asked the first night, but he deflected. Was this why? Did Cayden think I would talk if he told me?
“I don’t know.” The words are more of a struggle this time, and my mind goes hazy. I’m so tired of fighting. Maybe if I just close my eyes, I’ll wake up and this will all be a dream. But that thought is quickly cut off when the Overseer pierces a blade through my hand.
“Ahhh!” I cry out, unable to stop myself, watching the blood drip down my fingertips to the concrete floor, mixing with the water pooled beneath me.
“Who is Cayden working with?”
“I don’t know!”
“You’re lying to us, PX-3.” This time it’s a guard who steps forward, placing a towel over my face before water is dumped on top of it with continuous streams of water. I can’t breathe, can’t escape. The one breath I do manage to get fills my throat with water as I begin to choke.
I’m going to die today.
“What is his name?”
“Cayden!” I choke out, gasping for breath. But the water starts again, and suddenly I’m drowning all over again. The water fills my mouth and nose, and I feel my body shutting down. What little vision I do have becomes spotty, and my lungs burn.
Then, it stops. The towel is pulled away, and the Overseer is standing in front of me. “Who is Cayden working with?” He crosses his arms over his chest expectantly, but I can’t breathe. I’m curled over as much as possible, trying to expel the water from my lungs.
I’m coughing and gagging as my body fights to survive, for air.
“I…” I start before another coughing fit ensues. “Don’t know.”
“LIAR!” Madam screams, forcing all the men to look at her as I try to regain some of the breath that’s currently burning my lungs. Everything hurts. Every muscle, every bone. I can’t handle this. But I will, because I have no other choice.
A masked guard pulls out his pistol, pressing it to my forehead. Coward. At least my targets see my face before I kill them. We never see the guards’ faces. Probably out of fear of what we would do if we did, but what can we do being locked up almost every day?
“Last chance, PX-3. Who is Cayden, who is he working with?”
My chest heaves with the pressure, but again I force out, “I don’t know.”
“Get her to the bunk room. No food for a day.” I feel hands on me, but this time I don’t try to fight as my wrists and ankles are released.
Why would I when they are taking me back to warmth, safety?
I feel arms move under my back and my legs as I’m carried away.
The scent is almost familiar in a way I don’t understand.
I stare at the masked guard, the black shirt, the bulletproof vest. The tanned skin and the bulked arms, trying to understand why he seems so familiar. It’s not Cayden, I know it’s not Cayden, so who else could it be? I haven’t met anyone else without killing them.
The elevator ride is short. My body trembles as the guard pulls me in closer, as if he’s trying to give me his warmth.
He doesn’t walk me to my bunkroom like the Overseer orders, instead the guard walks me to the bathing sector, laying me down on a bench and turning on a shower.
I watch as he turns the temperature down, almost until it’s cold before placing me inside, still clothed.
The water burns my skin despite how cold I know it is, my body protesting the subtle warmth that glides over my skin.
The cut on my cheek throbs in pain, and after a minute, he turns the heat up.
The guard repeats the process until I’m warm, the water no longer burning my skin, before pulling me out and sitting me back down on the bench, stripping me down to my underclothes and throwing a towel around my hair and body.
I’m picked up again, and I don’t fight as I’m taken back to the assigned bunk room. Bella is sleeping in Lauren’s bed as I’m laid on mine.
The guard is surprisingly gentle with me, massaging my scalp with the towel before scrunching the ends of my hair, drying them slowly, patiently. Like he has remorse for what he’s just put me through, if it was him.
Then once the guard is satisfied, he uses the same towel on my arms and legs, being careful to avoid anything in between before grabbing a fresh set of pyjamas and placing them on the bed beside me. He doesn’t once try to hurt me, all he does is try to help me.
The guard tilts my chin to see the cut, and must decide it’s not bad because he shakes his head before stepping out and walking away.
He doesn’t once say a single word to me, doesn’t show me his face, doesn’t give me any clue to who he is.
He just leaves me alone, expecting me to finish the job he started, so I do.
I stand stripping off the cotton bra and underwear, throwing the wet clothes along with the mission uniform in the clothing bin, then quickly drying off the rest of my body before putting on the pyjamas and grabbing the towel.
Walking myself to the healing sector, I wait for the doctor to stitch up my hand and the cut on my head before falling asleep in one of the beds, unable to manage the walk back to the bunk room. My body collapses in exhaustion and pain.