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“I will take care of Mal. You focus on mending. The rest will happen as it happens, no more, no less.”

“You know, for a strategist, you’re pretty lackadaisical about the planning portion of this type of thing,”I tease with a soft huff of laughter.

“Who said I was a strategist?”Is the silky reply.

Whoops, that’s something I was told, but I have no basis for the assumption. My acting skills have deserted me ever since I went to crazy land, so I cringe and turn to weakly smile at him.“Educated guess?”

He gives me a raised eyebrow look in return without answering.

I return to the front windshield and watch the mansion get closer. The dread in my stomach begins to churn the closer we get.

“Repelling ward?” Ben asks and glances at Mitri.

“No,” Mitri looks at Ben with his expression wiped clean.

“Then why do I feel sick just seeing this place?”

He doesn’t answer, just tilts his head to confer with the guns. Something that I can hear this time.

Peacemaker:“I never noticed anything.”

“I feel it, too,”I interject.

“Have you felt this the entire time you were housed here?”Mitri asks.

I think about that before I formulate a reply.“I don’t think so? It’s hard to tell. My problems could have overshadowed this.”

Peacemaker asks in a tense tone:“What does that mean?”

“I have anxiety. Panic attacks sometimes.” I try to brush off the touchy subject, but Mitri has questions because healways does.

“What triggers them?”

“Let's not discuss this before we go into another stressful situation.”I can already feel my chest tightening as we get closer.

“Nyet. We need to know how to keep you from having them,”Mitri insists.

I look into his eyes with a frown.“I can’t avoid this. All sorts of shit triggers it. Sometimes, I don’t know what it will be until it happens. The only one I can think of right now is the stairs going into the den. Kinda hard to avoid that. I just need to get through it and keep moving.”

He stares at me without speaking or thinking anything. He’s just a blank slate waiting for something, and I have no idea what it could be.

Peacemaker sounds horrified:“You’ve been tortured the entire time you’ve been here?”

I snort a laugh out loud. I can’t help it. Out of all the things I’ve had to endure in my life, this seems like a barely there drop in the bucket.“That’s not real torture. It’s building up a tolerance so you can function… “

“...under pressure,”the Old Man stands at the top of the stairs to the basement as memory overtakes the present.

I’m crouched on one of the steps, waiting for him to move to the side so I can slip past him. The fear hasn’t paralyzed me yet, but it’s getting closer the longer he stands there. I focus on the light behind him, wishing I could take it with me.

“You need to learn how to handle yourself in any given situation. An enemy will take any advantage they have over you. You endure this now, and you can endure it after. You can’t let anything stop you. Rule two. Your only goal tonight is survival. If you find a way to escape, I’ll consider it a pass in this test.”

As he finishes speaking, he shuts the door, and I watch as the light becomes darkness again. I start screaming.

“Ktoetobyl? Ya nadeyus', chto on mertv.”

“Uh, hello? No hablo español? I don’t even knowwhat language that is.”

Peacemaker:“They call it Russian now. That’s Vendetta. He refuses to speak English even though weall know he can.”