Forever Fighting | ✔️ | [previously Espionage: double-cross]

Chapter 18

The last thing Alex could remember was looking into a bruised face and then nothing. Just darkness. When she finally came around, she could feel a large bruise forming on her head. Her eyes were covered and hands bound along with her legs. She wiggled a little and found that she was sitting rather uncomfortably on a wooden chair, the backrest digging into her sides painfully. 

Silently, the blindfold was whipped from her eyes. She squinted at the man standing in front of her, silently pleading for her eyes to adjust to the light more quickly. He was standing in a room with dark floors and walls and blue lights. It would have felt quite at home at Auxilium. "What is your name?" That low gravely voice echoed around the small space.

"Alice Samuel." She replied defiantly, holding his gaze.

"So, that's how you want to play it, hmm?." He paced up and down. "We have your friends, by the way." Alex's heart fluttered. "We won't hurt them if you tell us what you know about Auxilium." He pulled up a chair and sat opposite her.

She knew he wouldn't leave unless she told him something. "I really don't know much." She rolled her eyes upwards and looked like she was thinking very hard, acting skills coming out again. "I was recruited 2 days ago. I agreed to join and then, when your men found me I was on my way to induction. You see I was only picked up yesterday. I haven't taken any classes yet and I don't know the names of anyone really. I only know one teacher, Mr Black I think his name is." 

She had opened her eyes wide again, chewing on her bottom lip in what she hoped made her look like a worried, innocent child, a persona that made her shiver in disgust internally.

"Interesting." He made a note of what she said then looked back at her. "You said you haven't taken any classes but how were you able to take out one of my men without too much effort?"

Alex thought on her feet. "I had taken some self-defence classes at school, they were mandatory you see." The man wrote this down too then stood up.

"As nice as it has been talking to you, I think I have to go and, you know, interrogate some of your friends maybe, see if they are more cooperative." He put special emphasis on interrogate, a dark tone that would have made 'torture' fit more easily into the sentence. "If not, well, I guess I will have to come back here and find another means of getting the information that I need."

 Without waiting for a reply nor a reaction, he upped and left, typed on a toned keypad to leave. As soon as he disappeared through the doorway, Alex began the struggle to free herself. 

Her hands were bound by a think rope and were fastened behind the chair. Her legs were bound by a black zip tie, apparently the latest tying up technology. She tensed, twisted, released; tensed, twisted and released her wrists just as she was taught in hostage survival. No matter how hard she tried, the ropes just wouldn't budge. She had rubbed her wrists raw and they stung whenever the ropes touched them. "Dammnit!" 

She didn't doubt that there would be blood dripping down her arms at this point.

Her scream of frustration echoed through the high ceilinged room. Her mind wondered as she desperately though of ways to escape, ruling out the impossible and forgetting the insane. 

But those were the only kinds of ideas she had left. 

As her brain whirled through the plethora of possibilities, she began fiddling with the only thing in her pocket, the only thing she could actually reach. 

All of a sudden, a sharp pain erupted in palm. The steady drip of blood splatted onto to floor and added to the already read mess that painted her hands. 

"What the hell man! Wha-how?" Alex stammered, unable to understand how it had happened. She dropped the keyring that was in her hand holding onto the chain only, leaving it dangling to reveal a small blade now visibly protruding out of the end.