Cease and Desist (The IMA Book 4) (28 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Horror

Christina

They came for me as I slept.

It was the beeping sound of the code panel that woke me, actually.  I opened my burning eyes, which were crusted over with the hardened remnants of my tears. I could make out two men through the blur, both guards in full uniform. They seemed miles high from the floor. Funny how everyone seems like a giant when you've fallen.

For a blissful moment between sleep and consciousness, I had forgotten my agony. But then, as wounds opened up anew with the shifting of tendons and muscle, I remembered
everything
and a heady, toxic fear permeated my flesh and blood alongside the pain as I began to wonder if
he
had sent these men in to finish the horrible game he had started.

It was a paralyzing thought, and all too possible: these men were going to rape me, and then kill me. Possibly as
he
watched through some hidden camera. Why not? He had forced me to watch Michael kill another man on film before. I could just easily become another man or woman's cautionary tale.

I struggled. It was a knee-jerk response, vestigial, even. I could not prevent anything these men did to me.
He
had taught me that lesson all too well. But my resignation did not translate to the synaptic level — my body, a separate entity from me with its own will and agenda —wanted desperately to survive.

Just make it quick
, I thought.
That's all
.
Please God.

When they pulled off my clothes, I started to cry. Wordless, silent tears. These were a reflexive response as well. Despair rendered me incontinent, impotent, powerless. Once I started, I couldn't stop the silent, heaving sobs that left me gasping as a splintering pain lit up in my chest like a flare.

One of the guards noticed me doubling over, and said, “Oh, for fuck's sake — ” with disgust.

Why disgust? Did they feel guilt about what they were going to do? Clearly it wasn't enough to make them do the decent thing. That made their behavior more despicable; if they knew they were behaving cruelly and did it anyway, in spite of their misgivings, that made them miserable cowards.

That was when I looked up, and noticed that neither one of them had unzipped their flys. Despite the roughness of their respective grips, neither one had made a move to hurt me. One of them was holding a second set of clothes.

For me?

I was filled with a faint, wavering hope, checked by the grim certainty that whatever reprieve I'd been granted wouldn't last.

I let them dress me. They did so gingerly, as though fearful that any contact would cause them to contract a terrible disease — my humiliation, perhaps. Failure was seared into me like a scarlet letter.

I was filthy but they didn't take me to a shower, and I didn't ask. That request would have to be put through to Adrian, who would take great pleasure in denying me. It had been years since I'd felt this awful. Not since Michael had imprisoned me in that dark and awful basement. I swallowed hard — that iron fist of panic had returned to clench at my heart.

My hair hung in lank, greasy clumps around my face. Any traces of deodorant I had been wearing when captured had long since sweated away, and the guards maintained as much distance between us as possible while still asserting their presence. I wished  this didn't bother me, but it did. It was a humiliation, one in a long line of many.

We went down a sterile gray hallway. The echo of the guards' footsteps was a steady as a metronome setting the tempo of my seemingly inevitable demise.

Death. Death. Death. Death.

Richardson's base had been a dizzying labyrinth of twists and turns and endless doors. This hall was much more straightforward, broken up by several security checkpoints and locked doors that required access codes in order to proceed. The walk was just as arduous, and when my flagging strength gave out they elected to drag me.

“I can walk by myself,” I said pathetically, but not one of them paid me any notice.

The hallway was almost entirely empty. But if Adrian's reign was as corrupt as we believed, it made sense that those in his employ would want to stay off his radar. He was like a grenade without a ring, liable to go off in the face of anyone who got too close. The few people we did see abruptly walked the opposite direction when they saw us coming.

When we finally reached the outside, the sun was blinding, filling my eyes with yellow ribbons of light that snapped at me like snakes. I squinted against the brightness, wondering what they planned to do with me. In high school, I had read a book about an insane huntsman who owned a remote island. When a group of people were shipwrecked there, he gave them a choice: die where they stood, or be hunted like animals in the wilderness. Looking at the dense curtain of trees surrounding the courtyard, I couldn't help wondering if Adrian was planning something similar. He was certainly twisted enough.

Stop it, Christina. Stop it right now
.
Don't do his work for him.

The guards stopped walking. I lifted my head and saw Michael standing there, sandwiched between two guards with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Until that moment, some small part of me had hoped that Adrian had spared him, after all. That he had only been rubbing salt into the wound, taking advantage of my fear and my doubts. But Michael looked awful — bruised and bloodied, and dark-eyed with exhaustion — and I knew, I
knew
…

How easy it was to hurt people when they cared about each other. Adrian had said something like that once. I hadn't realized until now how right he was.

Michael

I was as familiar with death as I was with the back of my own hand and suffering was no stranger to me, either. Countless men and women had fallen to their knees before me, many of them dead before they hit the ground. I knew damn well how to break the human spirit. Hell, I'd been
good
at it.

But I had never taken any pleasure from torturing my victims. Torture was a last resort, used only when all other means of interrogation had failed.

Rape was often used alongside other forms of physical assault. It was effective, within reason, although threats worked better. People feared the pain and loss of control that accompanied those acts; they would generally confess something, anything, before you were able to get far. The IMA had a history of looking the other way when people fucked their hostages, but it was supposed to be business, never recreational. Never for fun.

I was given gray sweatpants, which were put on me by one of Callaghan's guards. Another stood in the room, at a safe distance, training a gun on me — in case I tried anything funny. I was not given a shirt. My handcuffs would have to have been removed for that, and it was obvious they didn't want to take the risk, regardless of what their orders might have been.

Laughable, really. I was covered in blood, bruised in hundreds of places, and wounded badly enough to provide critical handicaps in several more. Any fight I initiated would not be won by me.

And yet, these men acted fearful.
Terrified
.

Callaghan must have been telling the truth. There had to have been something to these rumors about me, to make them more powerful than reality itself.

I was escorted, still in handcuffs, from my cell. No blindfold this time. A bad sign. It meant what I saw didn't matter, because I wouldn't be living long enough for it to make any difference.

I was led to a courtyard in the heart of the facility, which encased it like a concrete shell around a flat, grassy pearl. The courtyard was unpaved — possibly so it wouldn't be seen from the sky.

Interesting. Were we were near civilization? I didn't see how it would matter, otherwise.

Callaghan had mocked Richardson for being weak, but I noticed that hadn't kept him from stealing from our old boss's bag of tricks. I would have bet money that Callaghan had incorporated Richardson's idea of a living roof for camouflage.

A commotion from nearby had me looking up. Another procession of guards was approaching. Not Callaghan, but Christina as she was marched along by the guards. She was also cuffed and wearing different clothes from before. A white, ill-fitting shirt bared her arms, bruised enough that I could see the marks even at this distance. She also wore a skirt. Clean, but worn. I wondered what had spurred on the change. Maybe Callaghan was afraid that parading her around in the rags he'd raped her in would elicit a misplaced sense of sympathy from his men.

The void in my chest grew larger as she walked closer, and I saw just how badly she'd been treated. Her mouth was bruised, with traces of blood flecking the corners. Interlocking red lines crosshatched her skin, some still weeping fluid, and I recognized those marks because I had the same ones. The son of a bitch had used a knife on her. He hadn't told me that.

She looked at me with eyes that seemed larger because of the shadows surrounding them, and I saw them fill with tears even as I watched.

I would kill him for each one that fell.

I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her that it didn't matter. That no matter what that bastard had done to her, she was still strong and brave. That this — none of this — made her any weaker. That I still loved her more than anything.

I wanted to do all this,
say
all this, as much as I wanted to carry out all of the threats I'd made to him earlier, while he had stood there and laughed.

But anything I said to her would only be thrown back in our faces. She was vulnerable enough already. I didn't want to do anything that would put her on the spot. I had tried to save her, and I had failed. I had failed at the one thing that mattered — keeping her safe. Revenge had blinded me to that, and we had made mistakes, and now we would both die for it.

I realized, with a suddenness that chilled me, that beneath that torn expression, Christina felt the same way. Beneath all the sorriness she had for herself was sorriness for me. She blamed herself just as much as I blamed myself. The expression I had glimpsed when she looked at me was pity. She felt sorry for
me
.

Nobody had ever felt sorry for me.

From the outer courtyard, we were led into a larger chamber that was separate from the rest of the facility. There was a strange, yet familiar smell here. Metallic and brackish, it reminded me of something I couldn't quite place, and that concerned me.

A handful of men were present now, including the bastard himself. Callaghan had stationed himself here, with a small retinue, to await our grim little procession. I looked at every one of them. None of their faces revealed what was in store.

Parading his victims around was a new low, even for him. Was this another attempt to make his men fear him, or was he merely showing off the fact that he had done what so many believed impossible, and caught me? Either was possible. Both.

Under Richardson's regime, Callaghan couldn't afford to have anyone find out just how fucked up he was. While there were plenty of rumors, nobody had ever actually caught him
in flagrante delicto.
Curiously, he no longer seemed to care what anyone thought.

I studied a reddish patch of discoloration on the nearest wall. Would that extend to executing his own men with little pretense? He had never shied away from bloodshed, but there was a time when he would have been willing to delay gratification in favor of other, more strategic advancements.

It appeared that time had now passed.

Callaghan rocked back on his heels, folding his arms behind his back as though mocking my current state. Except for the white noise hum of electricity, and a distant sound that might have been the wind caught in the tunnels, there was silence.

He's going to shoot us. Death by firing squad.

But no, that would be too quick. Too merciful.

“Michael Boutilier,” he said, “you've been a thorn in this organization's side since you were first discharged. And despite welcoming you back once, twice, with open arms, you continued to turn traitor.”

I stared him down and said nothing, even as my body throbbed and the word “traitor” echoed back at me, over and over, like a broken record stuck on loop.

You're
the traitor
.

You
killed Richardson
.

Were the markings on the wall rust — or blood?

“Do you know why people become serial killers?”

“Violence in the media,” I said. “Drugs. Lack of christian values.” If you believed the rumors about Callaghan, he'd been raised as a staunch Catholic.

“No. They enjoy being feared. Their calling cards, the little tells they leave behind at the scenes of every crime, are designed to instill in the populace a sense of dread. Why? Because it makes them fear that they'll be next — and they might well be.”

He lit up a cigarette, causing a stir to ripple among those who were assembled. His men shuffled around and exchanged looks. They'd have plenty to gossip about around the water cooler today. Men have been incited to mutiny for far less.