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"Please, Inessa, join us." The man says, and an instant shiver of fear goes up my spine. They know.
"I'm exhausted, can this wait for the morning?" I ask, trying to sound innocent.
"Get in here now!" The man with the dark glasses roars at me, and I jump at the sound.
When I get inside, he walks behind me and closes the door.
"I'm not going to play with you. I have no time for cat and mouse games. I'm going to ask you one time and if you don't tell me what I want to know I'm going to hurt you. There is nothing anyone in here can do to stop me. If I want to kill you right now, I can." The man says close enough to my ear that when I turn to look at him, I have to bend away slightly.
"Now, there was a box downstairs with quite a bit of confidential information inside of it. It was there a week ago yet today when I've come to retrieve it, the paperwork is missing. I want you to tell me where it is." The man says to me, his sentence ending with a yell.
"Mr. Imbue, you're scaring her. I promise she'll be cooperative. There's no need to scream." Father Joseph says, and the man turns his face towards the man who's supposed to be my leader.
"I don't know what you're talking about." I say steeling myself for whatever was to come, if what Zeus was saying is right they're not going to do anything but sell those women and children off into slavery. If I could stop that, I would.
"No? That's remarkable. Okay, let's see what you remember after a little pain, then. Take your clothes off." I balk at the idea.
"I will not. How dare you." I back away.
"Take them off, or I'll set fire to your clothing while you're still in them. You're choice." When I don't move right away, he takes a step in the direction of the fire place, and I take the hint. He's telling the truth when he says that he'd burn me alive. I'd rather be naked than burned.
I already feel bad to have anyone but Zeus looking at me, but I do what I'm told.
Mr. Imbue walks to the corner behind me where I can't see. "That paperwork doesn't belong to you or anyone else. It's mine, and it's supposed to be here when I need it. I was promised by Father Joseph here that it would remain safe, but now it's come up missing. They tell me that you're the only one who was here, so unless there's truly spirits roaming these halls, you must have it."
"I don't have anything." I say between my teeth as I stare at Mother Superior.
It's only from the utter horror that blooms on her face that I know something is coming behind me. I brace myself at the last second just as a long golden chain whips against my bare back. Falling to the ground, I look up and see Mr. Imbue holding the thurible in his hand. He's using the incense carrier to beat me over and over. My screams doing nothing to motivate neither Mother Superior nor Father Joseph to help me.
He beats me until I pass out, and then he beats me until I wake up.
When he's winded, and I'm bruised and bloody, he drops the weapon in the corner. My blood smeared across the gilded surface of it.
"Now, do you remember?"
Sobs rack my body, and it's hard to get in a breath through the pain.
"I don't know what you're talking about." I reply.
"Inessa. Please! Be reasonable. Don't do this." Mother Superior says out loud, which only lets me know that she knows what those papers are being used for.
"Still nothing huh. Okay. No problem." Mr. Imbue picks up my habit and slides it over my broken body. I cry harder as the fabric rubs against my raw skin.
"Get on your feet." The man orders me. He grabs the beaded tie that should go around my waist and basically has to drag me out of the room. When I walk out the study, I see all the sisters out of their rooms. Tears in some of their eyes, while fear is in the others.
"Everyone back in the rooms. We'll discuss what's happening tomorrow morning. Pray ladies." Mother superior orders, as both she and Father Joseph follow Mr. Imbue and me outside.
Into the freezing cold dark night.
"You'll remember, or you'll freeze to death." the man says as he ties my hands together and then secures it to one of the statues that is in the yard.
"Sister, I beg you. I beg you, please." Father Joseph clasps his hands together and stares at me.
I can't believe his audacity, "You need to save your begging for the Lord." I sneer at him as the three of them turn and walk in the convent, leaving me out here to battle the whipping wind in nothing by my dress.
It's not more than a few seconds before my legs and arms start to get numb.
I pray hard not to get out, but for the sisters to be safe and for someone to move my body before Zeus gets here tomorrow. I wouldn't want him to see me out here, and he think it is his fault that I'm dead. I pray for Father Joseph and Mother Superior's souls.
