Page 5

Sean

This girl is a species entirely of her own. My unfortunate victims are usually begging for mercy and oxygen long before now, but Jace and I have been waterboarding her for more than two hours and she has yet to say one word since she name-dropped me, my damn nickname swathed in that charming English lilt.

I don’t know how she learned that piece of information, which only makes more work for me. I’ll have to question all the men in my unit to find out who opened their big, fat fucking mouth when they all know how I feel about passing out my name.

Not every inmate breaks through torture alone, which is why this place is designed for the prisoners’ extreme discomfort, prodding them to the edge of sanity. From the lack of beds in the cells to the stale, shitty food and absence of sunlight.

It goes beyond that, though. If they have long hair and seem attached to it, I produce the razor. If they’re concerned about their hygiene, they’re forced to go months between bathing opportunities. If someone hates spiders, I’ll lock them in a box with only a colony of Tarantulas for company. I pride myself on exploiting their weaknesses, digging into their souls and carving out their deepest fears and turning it against them for maximum discomfort .

That’s why I don’t share my name. If the other guards want to do that, that’s their prerogative, but Jace and I prefer to keep the inmates at arm’s length. Names are powerful, private even, and when you share that, you share an intimacy, whether intentional or not.

Besides, a win, however small, could keep a prisoner going for a month, negating weeks, months, or years of hard work I spent wearing them down.

“Who is your second-in-command?” I ask, as Jace opens another deluge over her face. I shifted the line of questioning, but that hasn’t made any difference.

Again, my question is met with only sputters and silence.

I’ve been waterboarded once—just to see what it was really like—and to say that it was horrific would be putting it mildly. The feeling of suffocation is probably worse than the feeling of drowning this experience provides. I’m sure her lungs are burning and rioting. I really don’t know how this woman is surviving this. I would’ve stopped half an hour ago with most of the other prisoners here, but she keeps holding out, and the compulsion to see how far I can take things is too strong for me to fight.

Absently, I wonder if I’ve finally met my match.

The way my dick is throbbing tells me that this girl is going to be a problem, for a host of reasons. Starting with the fact that she’s incredibly beautiful, despite her dirty, disheveled appearance.

Pulling the gag out from between her pouty lips, I stare at the exotic features of her face, and rumble, “This is going to last as long as you keep your mouth shut.”

Her dark brown irises glimmer with more than just glassy tears. She blinks rapidly for a moment, likely to clear the lingering pools of water from her eyes. Where I expect to find distress and maybe some anger in her gaze, I only see indifference and steadfastness .

Damn, I wish that wasn’t hot.

“How did a pretty girl like you end up in a place like this?” I ask, so softly that I didn’t realize I voiced that thought until a coy smile crosses her lips, her eyes dancing with amusement.

“Aw, you think I’m pretty?” she taunts, spewing excess water into the air like a fountain. “And to think that if I had known I’d have such handsome company today, I’d have tried a little harder with my appearance, though I seem to have misplaced my curling iron and I think I ran out of mascara.”

Jace snorts from the other side of the table, and I shoot him a glare. He rolls his eyes, wordlessly telling me that I’m the one who started this.

“I’ll see what I can do to remedy that,” I deadpan. Her wet, short, matted onyx hair sticks to her wet face, but I find that I have the bizarre urge to brush it from her pale olive face. A notion I actively ignore.

Rising from my seat, I begin to unstrap her. It’s clear I’m not getting anything out of this woman today. Jace helps me, and we get her up and off the table. When she doesn’t fight us, I realize that I haven’t seen her put up a fight whatsoever since she’s been in here, which only baffles me further.

I open the door to the playpen and shove her into the grasp of two of my guys—Stuco and Martinez—and when they get halfway down the hallway, headed back to her cell, I murmur to Borman, “Blare the music as soon as she gets settled and come find me.”

With a nod, he follows the guys down the hallway. When they’re out of sight, I tug off my mask and turn to Jace, who’s doing the same, and sigh. “I need a cigarette.”

He chuckles as we head up to the ground level. When we finally get through the security measures and make contact with the bright tropical sunshine, we round the corner and lean against the exterior side wall of the building. I pull the pack of cigarettes from my back pocket and grab two, handing one to Jace. Jace offers me his lighter, and we both ignite the ends of our cigarettes. I wish it were a joint, but this will have to do.

We stand there in silence for a long moment before I finally ask, “Did you know she was a woman?”

“Yeah, her feminine face and voice kind of gave her away when I dropped her meal off. Did you really think a name like Louhi belonged to a guy?”

“I didn’t think about her name one way or another. I made a bad assumption.” I should’ve asked Jace for his assessment of our newest resident before barging into the playpen since he had already seen the tenant of Cell Eight.

He’s the only one I feel comfortable admitting this to, and I catch his nod out of my periphery as he replies, “I thought it could go either way, like Ashley or Sam.”

Chuckling, I exhale the smoke, the gray tendrils disappearing in the tree canopy shading us. “How many male Ashleys do you know?”

“Haven’t you ever seen Gone With The Wind ?” he adopts a falsetto voice, adding, “Oh, Ashley, take me to Terra.”

A boisterous laugh thunders from my chest as I shove him. “You’re a fucking loser.”

Stumbling to the side, he laughs even louder. “Yeah, well, at least Louhi thinks I’m handsome .”

“She thinks we’re both handsome, you jackass.”

He shrugs as he brings his cigarette to his lips. “Pretty sure she was only talking about me, but you tell yourself whatever you need to sleep tonight.”

I roll my eyes at his ridiculousness, and eventually silence falls once again, both of us likely thinking about the same dark-haired girl who challenged the hell out of us a few minutes ago.

She’s not only attractive because we haven’t seen someone of the female variety in an absurd amount of time either. She’s easily the most breathtaking creature I’ve ever laid eyes on, and that’s an impressive feat, considering just how dirty and neglected she was. It stunned me when I first opened that door. After I got over my initial shock at her being a woman, I had to overcome the surprise of her being beautiful .

Fuck me.

“I’ve never tortured a woman before. Are we really going to do this?” I hate hearing the vulnerability in that admission, and I wouldn’t have voiced it if I were speaking to anyone else. The army isn’t the place for feelings. But Jace and I have been through a lot together over the last twelve years, and he won’t give me shit for this.

He sighs heavily before replying, “Fuck, I don’t know, man. What other choice do we have?” His question is rhetorical, but he has a point. It’s not like we have an alternative option. He briefly pollutes the atmosphere with smoke before adding, “I’ve been trying to tell myself that I didn’t bring her water after she asked for it simply because she’s a beautiful woman. If I try harder, maybe I can convince myself that I did it because she amuses me and not because I’m a sexist bastard. She must’ve done some vagina voodoo on me.”

I snort in affirmation, shaking my head to clear the hex. “Thompson told me that she was the most dangerous criminal here. You think that’s true?” I ask, even though the answer already sits firmly in my gut.

“After what we just saw, I do. The smile she gave us when we sat at that table sent a damn chill down my spine. You think she’ll break?”

“Everyone breaks eventually,” I assert. “The question is, will she break before she dies?”

“How long does she have?”

It’s not unusual for certain prisoners to have a finite amount of time locked in this shithole. Some are here indefinitely, to be abused and punished, for as long as we see fit. Others, like Louhi, are here only long enough to get answers and are subsequently terminated.

“Six months.”

He scrubs a hand down his face. “Fuck.”

It’s not just about getting her to break. It’s about getting the answers we need. Fine, it’s a little bit about getting her to break. I want to see her shatter.