The Fey (43 page)

Using a cane, he moved with obvious pain.
Alex rushed to his side.

“
What did you expect? They
gave me situations I could have solved when I was a child,” she
said.

Tucking an arm under his shoulder, she
helped him to the table. He dropped into the chair she vacated.

“
That may be true, but you
have now tested out of Special Forces Intelligence training.
Alexandra, they test you at the beginning of training so that they
have something to compare to at the end of training.”

“
Oh, I was supposed to
blow the test? Why didn’t you tell me that? I’ll take it again. Can
I take it again?”

Ben laughed.

“
Are you here to take me
home?” Alex asked.

“
Not a chance. The CIA has
dibs on anyone that does well on those exams. The Director himself
is salivating over your scores.”

“
I want to be a Green
Beret not a CIA agent.”

“
You sure you want to do
this? You are moving into a world of elite intelligence. They will
call you from your hospital bed and make you work.”

“
I’m sorry, Ben. You know
I’d never…”

“
Sit down,” Ben said. He
tapped a cigarette against the table. “I can’t smoke in the
hospital.”

While Alex made faces at him and his habit,
he bowed forward to light the cigarette.

“
Tonight, you and I are
going to run scenarios to make certain that you didn’t cheat on
that exam. We are monitored–video and sound. If it is determined
that you did cheat, you go home. If you didn’t cheat, you will join
three seasoned Special Forces Intelligence officers in a class
taught by me.”

“
I get to take a class
from you? Well… That’s great!”

“
There’s a
condition.”

“
What?” Alex crossed her
arms over her racing heart. She hadn’t been this excited since she
received her acceptance letter to Special Forces
training.

“
You will be attached to
the CIA. If we need you, and you’re available, you will work for
us.”

“
Work?”

“
I will arrange for you to
work under me. The work will be anything from strategy to actual
field work.”

“
But I still get to be a
Green Beret?”

“
Yes, Alexandra. You will
still be a Green Beret. That is, if you can prove that you didn’t
cheat on the test.”

“
I didn’t so that’s
easy…”

“
You have to prove it.
We’ll run scenarios tonight. Depending on how well you
do…”

“
We get to run scenarios
all night?” Alex cut him off. She was positively bursting with
excitement. “Then I get to take a class with you! That’s wonderful!
Ok, go ahead.”

“
You are a sick, sick
girl. You will join your group tomorrow morning on no
sleep.”

“
That’s all right. I can
go at least ninety hours without sleep, easy. Can you make the
situations really hard?”

Ben laughed.

FF

October 13 – 7:30 PM

Olde Town Arvada, Colorado

“
Ben?” Alex whispered
opening her eyes in the dark.

She could have sworn she heard him laugh.
She listened as feet walked across the wood flooring above her.
There was a scraping sound, a chair across the wood, and people
laughing. The smell of Gitanes cigarettes, the brand Ben smoked,
came through the floorboards. She heard serving ware clink against
china as what sounded like a dinner party began. The room above
filled with people until every chair was filled. Her mouth watered
and her stomach rumbled as the smell of garlic and warm bread
lifted from the table above to torture her senses.

Someone upstairs was tapping their feet.
Crap Ben, you know my Morse code sucks. She looked up at the
ceiling as Ben tapped ‘I know your Morse code sucks’.

All right.

All right.

Ben says that it’s been two days. Alex
flushed with relief. Simply knowing how long she had been in this
room grounded her in the present.

John was in Scotland. John. Alex smiled at
the thought of John.

Max was with Dad at MI. Dad is… she cocked
her head. What? There was a scraping sound and the tapping stopped.
That was probably as much as he would risk.

With a sigh, she pushed herself to standing.
Taking another drink of water, she ate a tiny bite of the Snickers
bar, saving the last piece for tomorrow. She rubbed a finger across
her teeth as a modified toothbrush.

Distracting herself from the laughter,
garlic and cigarette smoke of the party she started her workout.
She walked the edges of the room, then worked her way through
running, yoga, and deep stretches. She tried a few burpees, but
crunches were more than she could bear. She was certain she had
never been in as much pain.

Bending over her left leg, she felt the
sharp edges of a piece of shrapnel move toward the surface of her
hip. Unzipping her jeans, she could feel the hard lump under her
skin. Another thing she couldn’t do a damn thing about. She sighed
and pulled her pants up.

There was a clap of thunder, the dinner
party overhead cheered, and the rain dropped to the streets below.
The spark that was Jesse moved over to the vent. Alex held her
bucket above her head while Jesse helped move the water into the
bucket.

One more day. They would come for her
tomorrow.

Then what?

She succumbed to terror. Tomorrow the real
torture and raping began. Hyperventilating, she dropped to her
knees. The bucket fell from her hands. Panic consumed her. Her
life-giving water spilled onto the cement floor.

Laughing people, less than twenty feet above
her head, ate their gourmet meal oblivious to Alex’s struggle for
her breath and sanity. Looking up, she saw the sparkle of
Jesse.

“
You are ahead of
yourself,” he said.

She nodded. She slammed the panic and fear
into a tight box in her head. Feeling in the dark, she found the
bucket and held it above her head. Jesse helped the water fall into
the bucket. They filled the bucket with five inches of water before
the rain stopped. Taking a drink of precious water, she moved to
sit down.

Drowning in the cold pitch black, she
allowed her mind to return to her memories.

FFF

October 14 – 2:33 A.M.
Olde Town Arvada, Colorado

Alex opened her eyes.

She was shivering. Pulling her knees up to
her chest and wrapping her hands around her bare feet. She pressed
her face into her knees in attempt to stop shaking. Nothing seemed
to help. Standing near the basement vents, she realized that she
was sweating. She opened her jacket to allowed the cold wind from
the basement vents to cool her body. Looking up, she saw snow and
rain drop onto the street above. The wind whipped through the
streets and blew flakes of snow onto her hot body.

“
I have a fever Jesse,”
she said out loud.

“
Shh, Alexandra,” he
replied. “Your wound is infected. You need to scrape
it.”

“
With what?” she
mumbled.

“
Use the drugged water and
your knife.”

“
Did you lose your
lighter?”

“
You have my lighter.
Alexandra, do not speak.”

“
Hmm, where’s my
lighter?”

“
That’s an interesting
question. I’m going to leave if you speak again. Sign to
me.”

Alex stumbled around the room until her hand
felt the door. She tapped the floor with her foot until she felt
the bottle of drugged water. She slipped off her leather jacket.
Setting her jacket next to the wall, her body continued to shake
with cold and fever. She pulled off her sweater and placed it on
top of her jacket. Letting out a breath for courage, she took off
her T-shirt. She cut strips from the bottom of the T-shirt with
Troy’s Leatherman Mini-tool. Feeling for her sweater, she placed
the strips onto her sweater. The room was so dark that she would
lose them if she wasn’t careful.

Taking two steps forward and one step toward
the center of the room, she pulled the filthy piece of fabric from
the knife wound on her left forearm.

“
Ugh.”

Jesse was right. She needed to scrape the
wound to remove bacteria and dead skin. Singing the first verse of
“Home” by Breaking Benjamin, she pulled the lid off the bottle and
poured the water onto the wound. The ice-cold water on her inflamed
burning skin sent a chill down her back. Shivering, she splashed
water onto her bare feet before finally wetting the Mini-tool
knife. With a gust of breath, she inserted the blade into the
wound. Another deep breath.

That wasn’t too bad.

She scraped the blade across the wound.
Every motion brought waves of pain and nausea. She yanked the knife
from the wound. Falling to her knees, she panted against the
blinding pain.

“
Get up,” Jessie said.
“NOW, Sergeant Hargreaves GET TO YOUR FEET!”

Alex jumped to her feet at Jesse’s imitation
of their Special Forces training instructor’s voice. Weaving and
shivering, she splashed more water onto the wound.

“
Once more,” Jesse said in
his normal voice. “You have to do it again.”

Alex’s head turned toward his voice. She
weaved.

“
NOW. SCRAPE IT NOW!”
Jesse imitated their training instructor again.

Alex fell forward to the ground in a faint.
A pool of blood formed under her left arm.

“
Wake up, Alex,” Jesse
said.

Alex blinked her eyes.

“
You have to scrape the
wound again. You’ll die if you don’t. Twice. You have to do it
twice. Alex.” Jesse’s voice rose in anxiety. Not sure what else to
do, he said the one thing he knew would make her respond. Imitating
their bastard training instructor’s voice, he sneered, “I knew you
didn’t have it in you to be a Green Beret.”

Alex jerked alert. Pushing herself to her
knees, she scraped the edges of the wound with the knife. The knife
stuck on something in her arm. She tugged and pulled. Letting out a
breath, she jerked the knife from the wound. Holding the bleeding
wound away from her body, she mumbled, “Green Beret my ass.”

Jesse laughed.

Wiping the knife on her jeans, her numb
fingers fumbled with the Mini-tool. The wet steel bounced in her
hand. She caught the Mini-tool just before she lost it forever in
the dark. With greater care, she tucked the Mini-tool into her
pants pocket.

“
I’m a Green Beret,
asshole, and you were court martialed for conduct unbecoming of an
officer.” Her voice slurred and was inaudible. “I’m a Green Beret
and you’re not. Ha, ha, ha, ha.”

In a whoosh, she threw up on the floor. Her
empty stomach heaved.

“
You have to pee on the
wound to disinfect it. You will die if you don’t,” Jesse said.
“Alexandra, do not pass out.”

Alex swayed then fell forward to the
ground.

“
Women are WEAK,
insignificant CREATURES.” Jesse repeated what the training
instructor said over and over again. “Good that you are laying
down, Sergeant Hargreaves. Now spread your legs and show us what
you are made for.”

Alex jumped to her feet at attention.

“
Pee. NOW.”

Vibrating and swaying, her frozen fingers
pulled at her jeans. Her fingers fumbled to pull her panties down.
Sticking her forearm between her legs, she let go of a stream of
urine onto the bleeding wound.

Her head jerked up. She heard an animal
suffering, screaming and howling. Where was the kitty? Who’s
torturing the kitty? Why would someone do that to a poor
creature?

“
Honey, that’s you.”
Jesse’s voice was kind and soothing.

Alex clamped her hand over her mouth. But
the howl refused to end. The sound crept past her closed mouth in
the form of a moan.

“
Get dressed.”

She pulled up her pants.

“
Good girl,” Jesse said.
“Let it bleed for a while.”

She held the wound away from her. Her blood
dropped to the cement. Over her own moan, she heard the drops of
blood hit the ground.

“
Ok that’s probably
enough,” Jesse said. “I wish you paid more attention in medical
training.”

“
Jax…” she started.
Between her pain and desperate longing for her dead friend, she
couldn’t finish the statement.

Her frozen rebellious fingers managed to
create a tight bandage from the T-shirt straps. Shaking with cold
and fever, she pulled what was left of her T-shirt on. Her sweater,
still warm from her body, dropped warmth onto her shoulders.
Slipping into her jacket, she realized that she vomited on the
jacket.

In that moment, her loneliness, anger, and
pain spilled forward and Alex began to wail. Moving back to her
sleeping spot, she slid down the brick wall to the ground. She hit
the floor with a thud bruising the one place on her body that
wasn’t bruised. Shaking with cold and sobs, she pressed her knees
against her filthy chest. Her fever began to rise.

Everything was gone. Her home was destroyed.
Her husband was not who she thought he was. Her father wasn’t her
father. Her teammates were dead. She tried to reach for Max but he
was asleep or distracted somewhere.

Alone, yet somehow alive in this pitch-black
purgatory, she howled like a wounded animal.

As her fever continued to rise, the LSD from
the drugged water entered Alex’s system. She fell into a delirium.
A hundred times more extreme than her recent Ketamine
hallucinations, her pain and loss surrounded her like cruel,
taunting ghosts.