Chapter Six
I barely slept. The woman never stopped crying and I understood why everyone hated her. By morning, I hated her too. At least I thought it was morning. There was no sense of time in this prison. The light was always the same. It was always cold and wet. There was the ever-present sound of water dripping, making the filthy puddles bigger.
I was starving. No food or water had been brought to me and I wasn’t yet desperate enough to sip from the sullied puddles that surrounded me. Instead, I sat on my dry pile of hay with my grimy blanket wrapped around me as I went over every mistake I had ever made.
Footsteps echoed around me. The guards were coming.
I followed them with my ears, ready for them when they presented themselves at the door to my cell. My stomach dropped. Strath wasn’t with them. What did that mean? Had he given up on me? Was he going to let his guards interrogate me? I had utterly ruined everything with him. He must hate me and I couldn’t blame him. He had been nothing but kind to me and at the first opportunity, I had betrayed him. He would never trust me again.
The guards entered my cell and roughly pulled me to my feet. They cuffed me and pushed me out of the cell and down the hallway. The tall Dolcivs guards loomed over me. The other prisoners craned their heads from inside their cells and watched my progress with interest. As we walked, I focused on turning all my emotions off. I couldn’t let myself experience fear or terror. Or tears. I had to be strong.
I didn’t know if I could be strong. I had been trained for this, of course. But I had never been captured before. I tried to recall my training and take some comfort in it. I had to hope that it would be enough. I had to hope that I lived to see the end of this or died before giving any secrets away.
They didn’t put me into the elevator. Instead, we walked past it to a set of heavy iron doors. The Dolcivs guard grinned at me as the door swung open and I was pushed inside, just barely managing to stay on my feet. The room was dark and I couldn't see anything. Then a harsh overhead light was turned on. I winced against the brightness, blinking rapidly as my eyes adjusted.
My stomach dropped. It was an interrogation room, a bad one. There were shackles hanging from the walls with red stains on the ground below them. On another wall, there were chains that ended in handcuffs. There were beds with straps to hold people down, chairs embedded with sharp spikes. Everywhere I looked there was some new instrument of torture. I struggled against the guards, trying to push my way to freedom, but my exertion was nothing to them.
They pushed me back. Their hands were all over me as they spun me around and cuffed my wrists to heavy chains bolted to the wall. There was about three feet of chain, I could take two steps, but that was it. The cuffs chafed against my wrists and the chains were heavy.
The guards took a step back and smirked at me before leaving. There were sharp knives in a case, what looked like dental equipment strung up along one wall, pincers, pliers, spikes, branding irons. Every horrible thing that could be used to cause pain was kept in this one small room.
I stared at each instrument imagining what it would do to my body. I could hear my own screams. I could hear myself telling my every secret as I begged for the pain to stop. Eventually, I would beg for death.
I pulled desperately at the chains, putting both of my feet against the wall for leverage. I pulled with all my strength, but nothing happened. The chains were welded to the wall. There was no way a human woman could pull them out. I stretched the length of my chains, struggling to reach the many tools on the walls around me. But they were tantalizingly just out of reach. There was nothing I could do, nothing. There was no escape. The chains were thick, sturdy and short and there was no way out of them.
I don’t know how long I waited. I tried to avoid looking at the instruments of torture around me. I wrestled with the heavy chains praying for some way to get out of this. I was hoping for some miracle that I knew would never come. Where was Strath? Maybe if I could see him I could explain everything. But no, if I did that he would know why I was here, he would know I was working with the rebellion. There was no telling what he might do with that information. He could use it as leverage against the Regime, offer me up in exchange for whatever he wanted.
When the doors opened again, Strath was on the other side. I had been hoping to see him, but when I finally did and opened my mouth to say something, nothing came out. Tears sprung to my eyes. I couldn’t lie to him. He would know immediately and he would take it as an insult. I couldn’t tell him the truth, there was too much at stake.
He took a pair of pliers off the wall and held them in his hand as he walked towards me. I shrunk back away from him, pressing against the wall. I stared at a puddle on the floor wondering how long I would last.
“Did I not treat you well?” He asked me laying the pliers down on a table just out of my reach. “Was I not kind to you? I offered you protection and a comfortable life on my ship and you repay me with theft?”
His voice was low and dangerous. I wished that he was yelling or screaming, I could deal with that. Instead, his voice was vibrating with a barely-controlled anger. Every time he looked at me it was with a furious glare. His playful flirting was gone. His interest in my humanity was gone. There was only anger left in him. I was forced to be aware of his strength, of the power he held over me.
He went back to the wall of weapons and pulled the branding iron off the wall and put it down next to the pliers.
“Do you think I want these used on you?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Didn’t I tell you how to refer to me?” he demanded.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” I replied, but it came out a sob. He stopped in his tracks and looked at me. Was it possible I could see a glimmer of pity there?
“What were you doing?” he asked me.
“Going to my ship,” I answered, my voice a hoarse whisper.
He walked over to me, his footsteps loud and angry. He clamped his hand around my throat and pushed me back against the wall. He wasn’t choking me, but he could if he wanted to. His giant hand could have crushed my windpipe with a simple flex.
“Why?” he demanded, his bright blue eyes were searching mine, scanning my face for any hint of a lie.
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell him. I owed it to my people to last as long as I could. I wasn’t ready to betray the rebellion. I shook my head and looked down to avoid the harsh glare coming from his beautiful eyes. His hand tightened around my throat.
“Tell me,” he answered.
I shook my head again. A sob escaped my lips. Tears were falling down my cheek. One fell and landed on his wrist. He looked down at it and then pulled his hand away.
“How long do you imagine you’ll last?” he asked me. “Nothing has happened and already you’re in tears. A pretty thing like you should never have involved herself in a business like smuggling.”
He walked over to me, but instead of wrapping his hand around my throat he brought his hand up and softly caressed my cheek. “You are soft, Andromeda Nus.”
“Do you know the life I could have given you?” he asked. “The pleasures you could have experienced with me? Now look where you are. Look what you have forced me to do.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my head hanging low, my tears falling and adding their liquid to the puddle below me.
He tilted my chin until I was looking at him. “Say it again,” he said his eyes locked on mine.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated looking deep into his eyes. I was sorry. I hadn’t meant to hurt him. He was caught up in this war the same way that I was. He hadn’t known my real purpose for taking the job or being in this system. He wanted to protect his people from smugglers, from people like me.
He had made a genuine offer to me, but I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t leave the rebellion. The Regime was crushing humanity. They were destroying Earth, killing and enslaving my people. Strath had left the Regime, he wanted no part in the war against humanity. But I did. I couldn’t just walk away. I couldn’t live on his ship and ignore the suffering of my people. I was a fighter and I was going to die fighting.
He nodded once at me. It was the truth and he could recognize that. He said nothing else. He looked at me and shook his head.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” he said over his shoulder.
Then he was gone. He walked out and the door closed behind him.
Straining against my chains I tried to reach for the tray of tools, but it was useless. They had been put just past my reach to taunt me. Finally, I gave up and let the chains go slack. I fell back against the wall, falling down to the wet floor. I didn’t care anymore. I was going to die in this room. Wet or dry, none of it mattered.
Somewhere below me, in the spinning mass of gasses of the red planet, were the plans the rebellion so desperately needed. Would someone else come to get them? Would the plans make it into the right hands? I had no way to know. But I wouldn’t tell Strath about them. I would manage to keep this secret. No matter what they did to me, I would never tell.
I repeated this to myself. It was a mantra I said over and over again until it was true. I would die before I talked.