They moved with military precision, one to each side, both gripping the arms of the chair. The right-side guard was built like a fence post, hands thick and hard. He seized my biceps, wrenching my arms out flat. The other held my shoulders, pinning them down. I set my jaw and waited for the first punch.
It didn’t come. Instead, Captain Hale (he hadn’t said his name, but he didn’t have to) produced a glass of water from somewhere—ice-cold, cloudy with whatever poison grew in these walls. He held it above my head, let me see it, then poured it slowly over my hair and down my face.
The shock was instant. I gasped, chest locking up, water drilling into every open cut and swelling. I snapped my head up, saw stars, and tasted the sour fear at the back of my throat. The guards let go just long enough for me to jerk, then slammed me back down.
Hale took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands, slow as a surgeon. “Ready?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. I tried to focus on something, anything that wasn’t the pain, or the shame, or the cold. My brain defaulted to Catherine. I saw her smile, the one she’d saved just for me. I saw her hands, scarred but soft, tucking a blue ribbon behind her ear. I saw her standing on the porch, arms crossed, telling me to get my ass in gear. That made it better. It made everything worse, too, but I’d take the pain if it meant I kept her face in the front of my head.
The first punch came, right to the ribs. Not a haymaker, not a show. Surgical, mean, and right where the bone was soft from the old wound. Something popped. I groaned and let my head loll, tried to keep my eyes open.
“Where are you from?” Hale said.
“Fuck you.” I spat blood, again. “Not from here.”
He let the guard punch again, same place, same sound. My world went white, then red, then Catherine’s green eyes again.
Hale stepped in close. “What is this patch? What does it mean?” He jabbed the badge at my shoulder.
I shook my head. “Means you can go fuck yourself.”
He said nothing. The next punch was higher, under the ribs, like he was aiming for my heart. He might have got it, because I felt a cold snap run up my spine and into my skull. I wanted to scream, but I bit down and let the pain boil up through my nose.
The left arm slipped, just a little, and I realized the swelling had made the skin on the inside of my wrist start to split. Blood was running down to my palm, thick and dark. I watched it, fascinated, as it dripped to the floor and pooled there, black in the torchlight.
Hale saw it too. He leaned down and stared at the tattoo, at the blood. “You have the look of a man who should be dead,” he said, voice low. “You died before, did you not?”
I shivered. “Maybe.”
He looked at the guards, then back at me. “No mortal man withstands pain like this. I’ve seen a hundred men break in half the time. You don’t scream. You don’t beg. Are you a witch? Or just too stupid to know when you’re beaten?”
I started to laugh, which was a mistake. The ribs let me know I’d crossed a line. “You want to know the truth?” I managed, voice barely above a hiss.
Hale waited, eyes glittering.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said. “You’re just another asshole with a badge.”
He studied me. Then, for the first time, he looked rattled. “Bring the irons,” he said, turning to the guards.
They hesitated, just a moment. Hale’s voice dropped a register: “Now.”
One guard left, boots pounding. The other kept a hand on my shoulder, the grip so tight I felt the bones grind together.
Hale circled, arms folded behind his back. “You will tell me everything. Before the sun sets, you will scream. Or you will die here, nameless and alone, and I will salt the ground so not even your bones remember you.”
I smiled, even though my face was numb. “Deal.”
He shook his head, disappointed, and left the room.
For a minute, I hung there, head spinning, feeling the blood drip from my arm in a steady rhythm. I closed my eyes and tried to remember Catherine’s voice. I remembered her saying, “You always come back for me.” I promised her I would.
So I waited for the next round. Because the only thing I had left was stubbornness, and I was going to make them work for every inch of my soul.
The door banged open, and the guard returned with a set of tongs and a thick iron poker, already heating to orange at thetip. The guard held it at arm’s length, sweat rolling down his forehead.
He made a show of it, slow and theatrical, like some ancient priest working a sacrifice. The orange tip of the poker hissed in the chill air, spitting sparks as it neared my skin. My whole body locked down; even the blood froze in my veins, waiting for the inevitable. The stink of burning iron mixed with the piss and sweat until my stomach twisted up into a fist. All I could do was stare at the glow.
Captain Hale hovered behind the guard, eyes flat, face a perfect mirror for the agony he was about to inflict. “This is the part where you beg, O’Toole,” he said.