| 4 | Hope in Desperation

It hurts…

A groan erupts from the back of my throat as I force my eyes open. The bright light sears my retinas, making me squint against the glare.

White.

For a moment, all I see is white—pure, warm, almost embracing. I can hear my own breathing in my ears, loud in the unnaturally quiet atmosphere. Then, reality crashes in as my vision clears, and I feel the intense ache shooting through my body. It’s not the bruises on my sides and belly that make me cry out, but the searing burn on my chest.

Unlike before, my body obeys when I strain to sit up. The cracking of my joints echoes in the sterile room as I bow my head. Dry blood, blisters, and raw pink flesh greet my eyes. A well-imprinted ”X" burns over my heart.

This isn’t real…

My trembling hand hovers over my chest, and the instant the tip of my middle finger graces the edge of my wound, a searing sting shoots to its roots. I wail out in pain, my voice quavering as tears scald my cheeks.

Throbbing.

A hard and numbing pulse follows. I’m careful, shifting my bra ever so slightly, afraid that it’ll touch my wound. My stomach turns, a sickening feeling settling in the pit of my stomach.

When I lift my head up, my eyes snap straight up to the glass wall in front of me. When I lift my head up, the room around comes into focus—three mirrored walls and one of solid white. I catch sight of a man in black attire standing beyond the glass wall, his ocean eyes studying me like I’m an exotic animal in a zoo.

Fear drills holes into my heart, but it never overpowers the anger coursing in my veins. I watch him stand there for a long while longer, his eyes never leaving me. From the blond hair on his head to the combat boots on his feet, I know that whoever he is… he’s an important figure in the Talos Ring.

If information is the reason why they didn’t shoot me on the spot, they’re in for a hell of a disappointment.

I flinch when a portion of the glass wall suddenly slides to a side and the man emerges into the room. His arrogance radiates off of him like the heat from the sun on a summer afternoon. With his hands behind his back, the heels of his boots click beneath him as he approaches me with his chest puffed and his chin perched.

The door slides shut behind him as he comes to stand in front of me, towering over me, looking down at me. Then, slowly, almost sinisterly, he crouched down before me.

“That must be painful,” he says, reaching his toward my wound.

I recoil, turning away, my brows furrowing at him, my eyes narrowing on him.

He chuckles, undeterred and tsks. “I apologize. It’s not every day that we come across… beings like yourself.”

Beings like myself?

It’s as if he can hear my thoughts. “Half-bloods,” he adds, his tone almost gleeful. “It’s quite fascinating.”

His eyes roam over me, dissecting every feature. “You almost have the features of a Diallo, your skin almost matches the shade of a Santos, your color of your eyes reflect my own, yet only part of my blood runs in you.” He takes a strand of my hair between his fingers, ignoring my obvious discomfort.

“And finally,” he holds one of my curls between his thumb and index finger, rubbing them together, examining the texture of it, “the uniqueness of your hair. I’ve never seen anything like you. It’s so fascinating that you’re almost beautiful.”

Fuck. You.

“Pity,” he spits under his breath.

“What do you want from me?” I seethe through my teeth, trying to pull away from his touch.

“Obedience,” he snaps. “You speak only when I ask you a question, and you are to respond truthfully.”

Fuck off.

“Your friend was not captured,” he begins. “By the time our soldiers realized that he was with you and probably like you, he disappeared. Now, my question is: where to, exactly?”

My heart skips a beat and a knot forms at the edge of my throat. I’m not afraid of what he will do to me—what’s the worst? Death? I am prepared for that. In fact, I would’ve killed myself if I had gotten the opportunity to.

Maybe I should’ve jumped head first off of that roof.

“I don’t know,” I lie.

Without warning, the back of his hand strikes the side of my face, my head whipping to the side. It sends me sprawling, a yelp tearing from my lungs, the palms of my hands slapping the tile of the floor.

“Are you going to make me beat it out of you?” he asks, his tone eerily calm. As I turn my head to him, my eyes snapping up to meet his own, he straightens on his feet. “Where did he go?”

The thing about not having anything to lose? I have nothing to lose.

You. Will. Not. Break. Me.

I glare up at him, defiant. “I wasn’t with him when he got away, obviously. I don’t know where he went.”

He arches a brow and I can see the amusement dancing in his eyes—the kind that makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. “It’s got a smart mouth, eh?” he seers.

In the next moment, he takes a handful of my hair and yanks me up to my feet. I hiss through my teeth, stinging and sharp pains shooting through my scalp. He slams me against the wall, shoving the side of my face harshly against it. My chest rises and falls, my breathing erratic as I notice the clipboard in his other hand, ’Subject X Report’ emblazoned at the top.

I can’t read the details below, my vision suddenly blurring as he presses me harder into the wall. “Where did you come from?” he growls.

My lips are sealed and I have no intention of answering—that is until he brings the edge of the clipboard and digs it into my burned flesh.

“What was that?” he taunts me.

A scream erupts from the back of my throat, tears welling my eyes. I snap, snarling, “Go fuck yourself!”

My body writhes against him, desperately trying to slip out of his hold. But it’s useless.

Blood drips down my chest, seeping into the fabric of my bra as he finally draws the clipboard away from me. It stings and I can’t stop the tears that break from my eyes and drip from my chin.

“Where did you come from?” he reiterates.

Though the pain in my chest feels almost unbearable, I bite my tongue anyway. Because the truth is even if I wanted to answer, I can’t give one without risking the lives of every innocent man, woman, and child living in those tunnels. They’ll be exposed, killed because of me.

My friends will be executed because of me.

Again, my screams fill the air, but they’re not coming from my mouth.

“You hear that?” He says. “That is music to my ears.”

I recognize them as the ones that were ripped from me when I was branded and kicked, flashbacks haunting me.

They recorded me…

A hard sob breaks from my lips, and I thrash back against his hold as I scream at the top of my lungs, “Let me go!”

“Wrong answer,” he grunts through his teeth as he tightens his hold and pulls me further into him–if at all possible.

My nails dig into his skin, but I hardly realize it until he hisses and threatens, “Those fingers of yours are coming off next if you don’t answer.”

Don’t. Say. A. Word.

Fear is a powerful thing, and my will is no match for it as I subconsciously whisper, “The forest…”

“Atta girl,” he chuckles darkly.

As if it weren’t enough that he has little to no regard for me, I’m disgusted when I feel the hard bulge in his pants twitch against my belly.

“Now, what’s your name?” he whispers in my ear, waving the clipboard in my face.

This time, I don’t resist, breathing out, “Alaki.”

“Alaki, what?”

My gaze shifts to the top of the page, and I clench my jaw as I read the first question that has been answered ‘yes’: Was X subject offered medical attention for any possible injuries made during arrest?

“Alaki Bea Miller,” I mutter, my voice barely audible.

He sighs in exasperation, shaking his head as he taunts me, “Wrong.”

My vision hazes, a painful scream erupting from the back of my throat as he digs the edge of the clipboard into my wound once more. He holds it there, pressing harder as he asks again, “What is your name?”

I am at a loss for words, petrified by the searing pain and the threat of more to come.

“A-Ala-ki B-Bea…” I stutter breathlessly, my voice but a mere whisper.

“Alaki Bea, what?” He nudges me, his voice dripping with mock encouragement.

“Miller…” I manage to choke out.

Pain. Blinding, all-consuming pain.

He presses harder into my chest, and my legs nearly give out beneath me. My left arm goes numb, pulsating ever-so-slightly as he slowly draws the clipboard away from me. Blood soaks the corner of the page, and he rubs it against my shoulder with a disgusted look on his face.

“You know,” he explains, pointing at my chest, “this here serves a purpose and perhaps you haven’t yet understood.”

What..?

“Shall we brand a bigger one on your back?” he suggests. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not, but I finally understand when he adds, “Maybe then you will be able to answer correctly.”

Accept it. Just accept it.

“What is your name?” he persists, his patience clearing wearing thin.

“X…” I whisper, the letter tasting bitter on my tongue.

“Mhmm…” he nudges me again, urging me to continue.

Here goes my dignity…

Defeated, I tell him what he wants to hear, my voice hollow, “Alaki Bea X.”

My eyes slip shut, flinching at his sinister laugh as he disgustingly praises me with a satisfaction that sickens me to my stomach, “There you go!”

And just when I think it’s over and done with, When I think it is over and done with, he proves me wrong. He abruptly grips my hair tighter before harshly thrashing me onto the tile floor. The side of my face hits the hard ground, breaking the skin.

“That is for not answering the first time I asked,” he nonchalantly states. “Around here, you listen the first time. Your superiors shouldn’t have to repeat themselves.”

There is a moment’s pause. Tears burn the bridge of my nose as they silently drop down the side of my face, mixing with the blood from my freshly split skin. He draws a pen from his pocket and jots down my name on the board, turning it to me as he says, “Now, let’s see. What’s next?”

He turns it back to himself, squints his eyes, pretending as if he can’t see the obvious question that follows before he finally exclaims, “Ah, yes! Age! What is your age?”

My voice hardly sounds like my own now, weak and raspy as I respond, “Twenty-three…”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he taunts, his voice laced with cruel amusement.

No more than a couple of seconds later, he clears his throat and sets his hands behind his back, just as he held them when he first walked in.

“Sometime within the next seventy-two hours, I will be back and you will be taken to court where you will appear before the Talos’ Arbiter,” he tells me, his tone suddenly businesslike.

I hold my silence, satisfied that he is done with me. But the loathing I feel…

“Try not to die, alright?”

I watch him wink at me from the corner of my eyes, relieved when he finally starts to walk toward the glass door. It opens for him, and he takes a step forward, my heart stilling in my chest as he suddenly stops and turns to look at me.

Please… no more.

He points at a silver toilet positioned at the far end of the room and says, his voice dripping with disdain, “If you get thirsty, the toilet is right there.”

The insult hardly fazes me, and I’m suddenly relieved when he finally takes his leave, the door sliding shut behind him.

I cradle myself into a ball, my arms hugging my knees. I sob softly, allowing myself to sink into the hopeless spiral, knowing that if he, who is probably no one compared to the true superiors, what hope is there for me?

Here, it seems that compassion only exists within those who suffer. If his inborn privileges have made him the monster that he is, what can I expect from the Ringleaders?

The thought chills me to my core, leaving me trembling on the cold, unforgiving floor of my cell.