“Good morning, Interrogator.” “Shut it,” she snaps. She’s not in the mood for his empty niceties, the farce of conversation that he always tries to lay over the interrogation. “If you don’t have anything new to tell me, be silent. I don’t want to hear your lies.” “If you’ll do the same,” he answers, deadpan, “You have a deal.”
She lashes out, for a second not caring what she breaks. Throwing her weight behind the punch. His head snaps backwards and she feels his nose crunch beneath her fist, but he lets slip only the faintest startled grunt. “Don’t talk back to me,” she snarls. “You’re going to torture me anyway,” he points out calmly, blood pouring over his lips, “So why shouldn’t I?” “I will teach you,” she promises. “I doubt it,” he sighs. There’s a bone-deep weariness in his tone, but his eyes sneer contempt.
“Whip,” Ariadne demands, holding out her hand for it. “And get him up against the wall.” Her orders are obeyed without question. But as he’s hauled out of the chair, Tacitus is wearing a faint smile. His eyes are already distant. She hates the way he goes still and quiet and unresponsive, calm and collected no matter what she does to him.
She lays into his already-marked back until her arms burn with exertion. Until the wounds are all but hidden under the slickness of his blood. She pauses, panting, to wipe the sweat from her brow. She can see the slow twitches creep across his back, damaged muscles spasming. He should be all ragged breaths and tremors by now. But his shoulders rise and fall more steadily than hers.
“Baton,” she orders. The weight in her hand is similar to the whip, but less unwieldy. She swings at one arm, just below the shackle that pins him to the wall. He jerks reflexively with the impact. Again in the same place, and she feels the bone break. It makes her lip curl with satisfaction. But all she gets is the briefest hitch in his breath before the steady rhythm resumes.
Ribs, next. Let’s see him do his fucking breathing exercises with broken ribs.
But he does. Of course he does, the mutant bastard. Shallower, quicker breaths, true, but there’s no panic, no gasping irregularity, and no noise.
If she goes any harder, she might have to get him treated immediately or risk losing him. She doesn’t want to do that, not yet. She could break some more limbs, of course. But he barely seems to feel it. It’s like he’s not even here. Her anger has congealed into bitter frustration. This isn’t making her feel any better.
She tips his head back with one hand. There’s no resistance. His face is faintly tensioned with pain. His eyes are open, but they don’t move to focus on her. She’s not sure if she’s looking at some strange serenity in that empty gaze, or at an absence.
She drops the baton into the sink, peels off her gloves, and splashes water briefly over her face. Maybe she’ll go have a hot shower instead. “Put him back,” she sighs tiredly. “Let him sit with that a while.”
