Chapter 4 Hope In Desperation

• It hurts...
• A very audible groan emits from the back of my throat, and I breathe in sharply as my eyes flicker open. The bright light that burns my eyes nearly forces them shut, my eyebrows furrowing.
• White.
• All I see is white, and for a moment, it’s beautiful—like purity, it’s warm and embracing. But it’s only for a moment, because in the next, my vision clears and I feel the intense ache shooting through my body. However, it is not the ache of the bruises well-made on my sides and belly that make me cry out, it is the burn on my chest that inflicts agony like nothing else.
• Unlike before I fell into my unconscious state, my body listens to me when I demand to sit up. I have to strain my back and muscles, the cracking of my joints meeting my ears as I bow my head. Dry blood, blisters, and the bright pink color of my flesh make me hiss, my sight falling on the well imprinted “X” burned over my heart.
• This isn’t real...
• I bring my trembling hand up to my chest and the instant the tip of my middle finger graces the edge of my wound, a searing sting shoots to its roots and I wail out in pain. My voice quavers, and tears break from my eyes, scalding my cheeks as they roll down my face and gather at my chin.
• Throbbing.
• A hard and numbing pulse follows the painful sting and I try my hardest not to allow so much as the strap of my bra to touch my chest. My stomach turns, a sickening feeling settling in the pit of my stomach as a knot forms at the edge of my throat.
• When I lift my head up, my eyes snap straight up to the glass wall in front of me. Slowly, I turn to my sides, seeing my reflection on the mirrored walls beside me. Beneath me, I sit on the hard white tiles, and when I turn my head to look behind me, I see the only wall that matches the solid color of the floor.
• Fear drills holes into my heart, but it never overpowers the anger coursing in my veins when I catch sight of a man dressed in black attire standing on the other side of the glass wall. He holds a hard look on his features while his ocean blue irises eye me.
• He stands there for a long while, studying me like I’m an the exotic animal at the zoo. From the blond hair on his head to the combat boots concealing his feet, I can tell he is more than likely a high ranking member of the Talos’ military system.
• 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 chin held high.
• His movements cease when he’s a foot short from me, the door slides shut behind me as he looks down at me with hooded eyes and stoic features. Unlike myself, he doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest and I am taken aback when he suddenly lowers on one knee and his gaze falls on the “X” burnt on my chest.
• “That must be painful,” he says as he reaches his hand out toward my wound.
• I don’t hesitate, turning my body to the side to block him from so much as laying a finger on me. My eyebrows furrow at him, my eyes narrowing on him as a chuckle emits from the back of his throat.
• He tsks and admits, “It’s not everyday that we come across beings like yourself.”
• "Beings like myself?” I muse.
• “Half-bloods,” he adds. “It’s quite fascinating.”
• His long and hard stare hovers over me like he’s superior to me, his eyes searching me carefully before he says, “You almost have the features of a Diallo, your skin almost matches the shade of a Santos, your color of your eyes match my own, yet only part of my blood runs in your.”
• Though I make an effort to avoid his touch, he disregards my obvious discomfort and takes a few strands of my hair in his hand. “And finally,” he holds one of my curls between his thumb, index and middle finger, rubbing them together before they glide down and slip away from my hair, “the uniqueness of your hair.”
• He hums lightly, unapologetically searching me as he tells me, “I’ve never seen anything like you. It’s so fascinating that you’re almost beautiful.”
• Almost?
• A heavy sigh parts his lips, spitting under his breath, “Pity.”
• “What do you want from me?” I seethe through my teeth as I clench my jaw.
• “Obedience,” he’s blunt. “You speak only when I ask you a question, and you are to respond with honesty.”
• And somehow I’m not surprised.
• “Your friend was not captured. By the time our soldiers realized that he was with you and more than likely like you, he disappeared,” he says. “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.
• I am not prepared, and when the back of his hand strikes the side of my face, my head effortlessly whips to the side. A yelp escapes my mouth, the palms of my hands slapping the tile of the floor to stop my face from meeting it.
• My cheek throbs, and as I lift myself up, shifting my weight to one hand, the other comes up to touch my aching temple.
• “Are you going to make me beat it out of you?” He hums nonchalantly, and as I turn my head to him, my eyes snapping to meet his dark ones as he straightens on his feet. He presses, “Where did he go?”
• He didn’t have to say it, I can anticipate what’s going to happen by the mere shift of his demeanor: he will beat me until I say something that he wants to hear.
• The thing about not having anything to lose is that I have nothing to lose.
• I lower my hand from my face, challenging him, “I wasn’t with him when he got away, obviously. I don’t know where he went.”
• He arches an eyebrow and I can see the hint of amusement in his eyes–not the good kind. “It’s got a smart mouth, eh?” he retorts.
• In the next moment, he takes a handful of my hair into his fist and pulls me up to my feet. I hiss through my teeth, stinging and sharp pains shooting through my scalp.
• “Let’s try that again, shall we?” He chuckles into my ear as he slams me into the white wall behind me and presses the side of my face harshly against it. There is a clipboard in his other hand, and I were it not for him shoving it in my face, it would’ve gone unnoticed.
• At the very top, the page attached reads, ′Subject X Report‘. A row of questions fill the page, and at the very bottom, in bold reads, ’FOR COURT USE ONLY’.
• I’m not given the opportunity to read in detail, Mr. Asshole pulling my hair even harder as he spits, “Where did you come from?”
• 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?”
• A scream erupts from the back of my throat, tears well my eyes, and I snap, “Go fuck yourself!”
• My body writhes against him in my desperate attempt to slip out of his hold. I reach for his hands, gripping the back of his as I dig my fingernails into his skin, but my strength is no match for his.
• Blood drips down my chest, sweeping 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.
• Although I know that hoping he’ll have a change of heart and suddenly stop is wishful thinking, and the pain in my chest feels almost unbearable, I bite my tongue anyway.
• Even if I wanted to, I can’t answer his questions without risking the lives of every innocent man, woman, and child living in those tunnels. They will be exposed and killed because of me.
• My friends will be executed because of me.
• In the next moment, 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 from.
• They recorded me...
• I hard sob breaks from my lips, and I thrash back against his hold as I scream, “You’re sick!”
• “Wrong answer,” he grunts through his teeth as he tightens his hold and pulls me further into him–if even possible.
• My nails dig harder into his skin, and I hardly realize it until he hisses and threatens, “Those fingers of yours are coming off 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 woods...”
• “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 as he brings the clipboard closer to 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 through my teeth.
• 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 and holds it there as he asks again, “What is your name?”
• I am at a loss for words, petrified.
• “A-Ala-ki B-Bea...” I stutter breathlessly.
• “Alaki Bea, what?” He nudges at me.
• “Miller...”
• 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 as he points 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, and I don’t know if he’s being sarcastic or not, but I finally understand when he adds, “Maybe then you will be able to answer correctly.”
• “What is your name?” he persists.
• I know what to say.
• “X...”
• “Mhmm...” he nudges at me.
• Here goes my dignity...
• Defeated, I tell him what he wants to hear, “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!”
• When I think it is over and done with, he proves me wrong, abruptly gripping onto my hair tighter before harshly thrashing me onto the tile floor. The side of my face hits the hard ground, breaking the skin on the side of my face.
• “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 burning the bridge of my nose as they silently drop down the side of my face, mixing with my blood. 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, weak as I respond, “Twenty-three...”
• “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He taunts.
• 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.
• I hold my silence, satisfied that he is done with me. The loathe that I feel toward this man couldn’t be expressed in any way, shape, or form.
• “Try not to die, alright?”
• I watch him wink at me from the corner of my eyes, relieved when he finally walks toward the glass door and it opens. He takes a step forward, and my heart stills in my chest when he suddenly stops and turns to look at me.
• He points at a silver toilet positioned at the far end of the room and says, “If you get thirsty, the toilet is right there.” With this, he exits and the door slides shut behind him.
• I cradle myself into a ball, my arms hugging my knees as I lay on my side. 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?
• If compassion only exists within those who suffer and his inborn privileges have made him the monster that he is, what can I expect from the Ringleaders?