Page 40 of Gamma

Just…don’t think.

Don’t think. Just do it. Whatever it takes to survive, and get Apollo.

I peel off my shirt, untie my boots, praying they don’t search my clothes. Jeans, socks. I leave it all in a pile. I hesitate in my bra and underwear, hoping he’ll tell me that’s enough. He doesn’t, just arches an eyebrow.

So, the rest of it. My bra, with the lockpicks. Underwear.

Stand naked in a room full of leering men.

The photographer indicates the backdrop. “To there.” He moves behind the camera on the tripod, contorts himself to frame me in the viewfinder. “Face camera. Arms down, look forward.”

The camera clicks a few times.

I can’t swallow past the bile in my throat.

“Turn side.”

Clickclickclickclick.

“Turn to other side.”

Clickclickclickclick.

“Turn to back.”

Clickclickclickclick.

Silence, and I turn once more to face the camera—I force myself to ignore the desperate urge to cover myself. Head high. Eyes proud. Angry. Defiant.

“Dress.” He doesn’t look at me as he says this, but at the camera’s display screen.

There is no interest in his eyes, no lecherous leer—he does this too much to be fazed anymore, I suppose. The guards, however, greedily stare at me, following every movement; one is Latino, the other is Black—my fear and anger and disgust preclude me from noticing any other details about them.

I dress quickly, and once I’m clothed, I feel more in control of myself, of my emotions. I still feel dirty from the experience, but my vengeful rage at this whole operation, beyond the obvious sin of having taken from me the man I love and an innocent child, is now burning with all the furious heat of the sun itself.

My wrath is fearful—it scares me. I have to control it, funnel it. Focus it.

Rage settles in my gut like acid, boiling and eating at me, setting my very veins to trembling with the need to decimate every culpable male in this compound.

I can feel the evil in the air. It paints the walls, stains the floor. Bad, bad things have happened here.

The photographer gestures without looking away from his camera at a narrow doorway beside the backdrop. “Though there.”

On the other side of the door is another chamber, this one larger, and filled with the women. Their eyes tell me they’re all feeling the way I feel—dirty, violated, afraid, and angry. There’s no guard, here.

Two doors—the one we came through, and one closed, on the opposite wall. It’s thick iron, and bolted.

A long wait. We mill around. Some sit, crossed-legged or squatting. Others, like me, remain standing, pacing, shaking our hands loose, keeping our muscles warm.

After what feels like an eternity, the bolt scrapes against metal, and metal scrapes against stone, and the door is dragged open. Four guards stand beyond the opening, two on each side facing each other, armed with M-16s and AK-47s; there’s no point in waiting for the order, so I march through. The doorway opens to a long hallway paved with large, irregularly shaped flagstones imperfectly matched and unevenly mortared together. Doors are fitted into the walls, which are built from massive blocks of stone.

Down the empty hallway and around a corner to a short corridor, where four doors stand open two on each side of the corridor with a guard at each; the corridor turns right at the far end. We’re divided into the four rooms, five or six to a room. Once we’re in, the door is shut, and I hear the scrape-thunk of a solid bolt being driven home.

Shit.

I can feel the clock ticking.

I have to get free of this room and find Apollo and Yelena.