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*BANG*
*BANG*
A moment of total quietness follows.
I feel like I'm floating.
In the distance I can hear someone screaming. I think it's James. I think he's in pain. I can also hear Maksim screaming, saying this is our fault. “If neither of you broke protocol, none of this would be happening!”
Pressing one hand to my own stomach, I touch a small wound, soaking my fingers in warm, thick liquid—blood.
He did it. He shot me.
My body plummets to the ground.
32
It's like watching something in slow motion, life actually flashing before my eyes, just like they say it does. I remember the first time someone whipped me to the point where my flesh ripped open.
I am on all fours against a damp, concrete floor. My body is buzzing with a doped-up-confused sensation. I can't remember my own name or how old I am, but I'm young. A man is telling me that if I call for Maksim, he'll stop the beating.
Wa-tch!
He strikes, forcing me to arch to evade the next blow.
This is the first time I truly need my master.
“Maksim!”I beg for him and he comes; pushes open the heavy door to my cell and lets in a tunnel of light.
After this day, I start to recognize his presence as protection. When he begins beating me himself, I recognize it as punishment, nothing more, so I try to be good.
“Your name is 'Blaire' when you are in trouble and 'my little pet' when you are not.”Maksim is crouched down in front of me, looking into my eyes as he brainwashes me.“Anything before now doesn't exist.”
The memory of being strapped down on a chair pulls me in. My eyes are taped open. my arms are hooked up to wires and machines that read my pulse. There's a television hanging on the wall in front of me but it's blank white. I cast a troubled glance around. My cell is dark and cold, causing my breath to mist the air. It smells like piss and something stale.
Image after image flickers across the television screen, attaining my attention. It's a story about a girl who will do anything to defend her master. She's holding a sword in one hand and a gun in her other, symbolism that she's a warrior. She's me: long red hair, wearing a black combat outfit. Her master stands there at her side with pride, one hand on her shoulder. He's smiling just like Maksim does, as if he has a hidden agenda.
The images turn into a video. She slices open throats with one clean swipe of her sword, punishment for those who have done her master wrong. She cuts out hearts to prove that she does not have one.
“She's no longer responsive to fear,”Maksim says. He un-cuffs me from the chair, peels the tape off my eyes and stares at my deadpan face.“Perfect.”
Charlie... I suddenly think of him. I visualize I'm smiling at him, reaching out to touch him but he's just too far away. He is the muse of my affections. I don't think I've ever cared so much about someone in all my life.
“Please stop,”I beg for Maksim's voice playing on repeat to stop, curled up in the corner of my cell. My hair is just past my shoulders and I'm nothing but flesh and bones.
How did I get here?
A small window up on the back wall brings in a channel of daylight. Dust is trickling through the air, small particles of dirt that are visible in the light. I gaze around, my tear varnished eyes recognizing everything. This cell was my captivity until I was fourteen.
There are numbers written in white chalk all over the dark brick walls, some smeared because the ceiling is leaking, water dripping down in places.
The dripping drives me insane.
I wrote those numbers. Maksim said they were secret agent codes and that it was my job to remember them all. To prove I could, I covered my cell, the order of sequence just like it was written down in the file. My hands rubbed against the chalk for so long that I had sores on my palms. The sores bled but I kept going.
“You're becoming a good fighter, girl,”Demetrius says, dragging me to another memory. He's my trainer, a famous Asian Wing Chun artist known throughout the underworld.
“I'm learning from the best,”I tell him, flexing my hands because my knuckles hurt.
