Chapter Thirty-One
A cold breeze flitted across Gemma’s spine, snapping her awake. She hung upside down in the same room where Moriah had died, her knees slung over a metal bar, her wrists bound behind her back and attached to her ankles.
Gemma’s heart slammed harder in her chest as the memories came back to her: The wrong person dying of her poison; her escape attempt from Zion; the shocking pain of stun electrodes against her back.
She’d seen the electrodes used on people in Perileos before. Their bodies always filled with a bright, blue light before they collapsed, unconscious, to the ground.
Now she knew what they felt like too.
Another cold breeze wafted across Gemma’s bare stomach and chest, and her eyes filled with tears. Am I . . . ? She hazarded a glance up at her body. The nightmare was real.
She was naked, except for her underwear.
Gemma squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself not to cry. They weren’t just going to take away her life; they were going to strip her of her dignity before doing so. And, for some reason, that hurt more.
The throbbing in her shoulders and knees—and the pounding in her head—finally registered. How long had she been suspended like this?
Gemma tried to adjust her position, but she couldn’t move. She had no leverage. She couldn’t even bend at her waist, given the connection between her ankles and knees.
She was stuck, helpless.
Naked.
Her throat ached as she stifled another sob.
The door to the torture chamber opened with a bang, startling Gemma. Upside down, she could only see a small portion of the room, but she didn’t have to strain to understand what was happening.
The red trousers of two lieutenants filed in, followed by the dark-blue trousers of the Kaizen herself. Gemma struggled against her bindings as her heartbeat thrashed in her ears.
“By all means, continue to fight. I love when blood starts running down arms from rope burn.” The Kaizen chuckled darkly.
Gemma’s entire body trembled as her three torturers drew nearer, her eyes burning like she’d looked too long at Reva’s blue sun.
This is what Reymond had meant about wanting to use the poison for herself. She would do anything to free herself of this moment of terror and humiliation.
“You’re a sneaky little snake, I’ll give you that,” the Kaizen said. “You actually let an innocent girl die. I mean, I’m almost impressed.”
A tear rolled down Gemma’s temple at the mention of Moriah. She squeezed her eyes closed, demanding her body stay in control of its emotions.
“What are the Dissent’s plans for Zion?” the Kaizen asked as a buzzing sound started.
Gemma clenched her jaw. She wouldn’t answer, even if she could. But she honestly didn’t know. Reymond had never shared what would happen after she’d kickstarted the Dissent’s uprising.
Smoldering pain combusted in her side. Her eyes snapped open as she screamed. The Kaizen stepped back, and an electroprod dropped into Gemma’s vision.
They were instruments deemed too painful to be used during combat, forbidden by the Systems’ military.
Yet, the Kaizen was using one on her.
Gemma couldn’t stifle her tears anymore but kept her jaw clamped. She would never give that bitch the satisfaction of breaking her.
“Answer me! What are the Dissent’s plans?”
Gemma closed her eyes and held her breath. The onslaught of flaming pain lasted longer this time, the electroprod sizzling deep into Gemma’s side. The howl that tore through her was unnatural, a noise that sounded as if it radiated from the bowels of the hells themselves.
When the Kaizen pulled her weapon away, Gemma pleaded. “Please, I don’t know.” Tears rained down her forehead, dripping into her hair.
“Bring the bucket,” the Kaizen spoke to her lieutenants.
A moment later, the two men in red dragged a tub filled with water across the floor.
Again, Gemma struggled against her bindings. “Captain, I swear, I have no idea what Reymond’s plans are.”
“For some reason, I don’t believe you.” Each word dripped with a menacing hatred.
Gemma dug her fingernails into her palms, begging the stars to let the Kaizen see into her mind, to believe that she couldn’t give the captain the answers she wanted.
They positioned the tub below Gemma’s head. Bile rose in her throat as she realized what it would be used for. The horrors of waterboarding had been passed down from their ancestors, the criminals who’d been victims of torture before they’d been stranded on Reva.
Gemma viciously shook her head, her blood throbbing in her skull. “I’m not lying. I’m not lying. Please.”
“Dip her,” the Kaizen instructed.
Gemma’s screams started when the lieutenants lifted the metal bar—from which she hung—into the air. She writhed against the ropes on her wrists and ankles. “Please, no. Please. I don’t know!”
They dropped her headfirst into the water, so fast she barely had time to suck in a breath.
The chill of the water nipped at her cheeks; Gemma almost sucked in the fluid as she shrieked. She twisted from side to side, trying to bend at the waist and lift her head from the bucket—searing pain screamed from her wrists and ankles, the fire matching the burn in her lungs.
Images of Christian, her friends, Nadine—dying naked and alone—flashed through her mind, and her resolve to fight waned.
In one swift motion, she was back in the air.
Loud, piercing wheezes echoed off the room’s metal walls as Gemma gasped for oxygen. The fluid was up her nose, in the back of her throat—
“Why did you try to kill Rami?” the Kaizen roared, every word spoken as if it were its own sentence.
Between her gasps, Gemma managed to shout. “Because he killed my sister!”
The door to the torture chamber opened once again. The clicks of expensive shoes tapped on the floor as someone approached. “Take her down.”
Rami.
The Kaizen spun toward him. “Sir, she—”
“Take. Her. Down.”
The Kaizen snapped her fingers, and the metal bar returned to its original position. The tub of water was shoved away. Knives slit the ropes that bound Gemma.
She tumbled to the ground—into the blanket held in Rami’s arms.
“Get out. Now,” he snapped at the Kaizen and her lieutenants. The three exited the room without another word.
Gemma shook uncontrollably as Rami tightened the blanket around her. Her arms and legs hung as if they’d detached from her body, and her lungs still burned from inhaling water. Where the fabric brushed against the burns on her side and back felt like alcohol against an open wound.
But right now, the pain reminded Gemma that she was alive, and that some semblance of decency had been returned to her. She could suffer with the scorching ache.
“I’m sorry about that.” Rami made sure Gemma was steady before stepping away from her. “The only instruction I gave Phoebe was to bring you here for questioning. And not that kind.”
Gemma couldn’t respond. Why was he showing her kindness? Where had the caricature of a man disappeared to?
The flamboyancy he seemed to carry had evaporated. Even his perfectly maintained appearance had diminished. The jacket of his suit was gone, his shirt untucked and his tie missing.
“I will make sure your gown is returned to you before you leave this room,” he continued. “I do think we need to talk, though, before I can let you go. Are you able to get to a chair?”
Rami motioned to one of the metal chairs at the table in the center of the room, the same ones in which she and Moriah had sat.
Nodding, Gemma moved her legs and winced. The agony in her joints was awful but not unbearable, and feeling had started returning to her arms and feet. Gemma tucked the blanket tighter around her and sat in a seat opposite Rami.
The game master’s brown eyes were kind, to Gemma’s surprise. There was no anger or hatred there, only concern. How could he have murdered her sister? Was this a ruse to get her to speak since the Kaizen’s methods were more likely to kill her?
Gemma stiffened. He was pretending to be her savior, but she knew better. A flash of the image of his hands around Nadine’s throat crossed through her mind.
He’d end her life just as easily.
“Why do you think I murdered your sister?” Rami asked, tilting his head.
Gemma blanched. Had he heard what she said before he’d entered the room?
When she didn’t answer, Rami sighed. He pulled an electropad out from under the table and placed his palm on the front. It lit up in seconds.
His fingers tapped against several spots on the screen, then he held his thumb on his personal comm device before speaking. “Find Nadine Proctor.”
The electropad’s screen swam through a series of colors, obeying his order as if it too was connected to his DNA. The device centered on what appeared to be an exact replica of the training room in which Gemma and her team had sparred during their Trials.
“Zoom in on Nadine Proctor, and note the date and time of this visualization,” Rami spoke to the machine. He spun the electropad to face Gemma.
A lump the size of her fist formed in her throat when the device zeroed in on a young woman with dark brown hair the same shade as hers. There on the screen was Nadine, standing with her arms crossed as she surveyed two fighters in a boxing ring. She looked exactly the same as Gemma remembered.
The date and time popped up on the screen.
This visualization was taking place now.