Chapter 7

The TV had been turned on to a live stream of Damien’s speech. Even if she could look away, his voice would be booming throughout the cell. It was a powerful voice, one incredibly hard to ignore.

“Things like this often start with ‘my fellow Americans,’ do they not?” came the sound of Damien. “But none of us seem to be fellow Americans to each other, not while half the country is forced into hiding. There have always been the haves and the have nots, and the have nots have always managed to be louder, even with all the money and power that the haves try to throw at us.

“Our country is divided. This is true, and it sickens me and hurts me. I don’t want to see anyone hurt, not Christians or Jews, or shifters or nons. All creeds, all lives, all races, all religions are important to me and important to our cause. We understand the struggle of everyone; it’s what’s made us such capable leaders of ourselves and each other. But there is a storm on the horizon and we have a choice—run from it or head straight for the eye.”

Andrea felt her blood run just a little bit colder at that. Whatever storm was brewing, he would be making it, of that she was sure. Damien would reap what he would sow and it seemed like nothing would please him more than taking inventory of the amount of blood he managed to spill along the way.

“Collateral damage is regrettable and not something I ever want to accept,” he said and Andrea thought him the biggest liar in front of a podium. “But sometimes, there are sacrifices meant to be made in the world and we’re the ones to see it through. It takes a considerable amount of courage to be willing to face these challenges.”

How noble it was of him, to be willing and brave enough to sacrifice other people for his cause.

The speech went on like this. It was all inflammatory, all propaganda and buzzwords and rhetoric. She ignored most of it; it was white noise like on any news station. But his voice, the sound of it, the coldness to it, the way it seemed to be everywhere at once like a magician capable of throwing his voice every which direction, that was what stuck with Andrea. She couldn’t shake the sound or the shiver that he managed to send through her, even through a live streamed video on a slightly outdated TV. It didn’t really shock her. She’d been in his presence, she knew what he was capable of with just a look.

Eventually, the TV went silent and she’d never been more grateful in her life. But that didn’t keep the sound away. She could still feel him, as if he were talking right into her chest, reverberating there. His was a voice that would haunt her dreams. If she got out of this, she would have nightmares of him each night, and think of the darkness of this cell. He was so much smarter than she realized. And she realized quite a bit about him.

So there she was left, waiting in the dark and alone. She had no idea if he came back, how she would know when he did. She heard no sounds around her except for the constant drip from some leaky pipe somewhere down the dug-out tube. She imagined that must also be a part of some psychological warfare to try to break her. Especially since this place had a keen way of making it impossible for her to figure out how much time had passed. With the live stream turned off, she had no access to any way to measure the time via a clock. So, she was left to sit there with the sounds of her own breathing and the dripping in the distance, which she refused to start counting to try to keep track of time.

She wondered, after a while, if Diego was still alive. His face had been grim the last time they saw each other and Damien didn’t seem the type to shed too many tears over the need to kill off some comrades. But was Diego getting caught really worth all that punishment? Or was it that he brought her there with him? He’d done that to try to keep her safe, and now he very well could be paying a very, very harsh price for it. Would they torture him? Would they give him a quick death since he was one of their own? Her biggest hope was that he would go free, they’d somehow find it in their ranks to let their once brother in arms go.

But she knew that was a fallacy. This wasn’t a US military branch where there was due process and court marshalling and the most you got was a dishonorable discharge. This was a place run by people who dug out underground bunkers and robbed local stores for fire arms and explosives. These weren’t the type of people to be convinced into a democracy, no matter what anyone tried to say to them or what stories you tried to spin.

And what did that mean for her? If they were willing to completely abandon and even kill one of their own, was there anything truly stopping them from tossing her mangled and unrecognizable body into a ditch somewhere at the slightest cough or sneeze? Maybe they’d forget about her down there and she’d starve. Maybe she could tunnel her own way out, if she tried hard enough. Or maybe she was just full of hopeful wishes that would never come true because into her cell strode Damien, like smoke.