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“Do you know what the problem is?”
There are so, so many ways that she could answer that question. But Kamaria doesn’t say anything, just hangs there in her chains as she has been for…probably nearing a day, now. In this position, at least. The whole ordeal with Bruno and her being kept in the guardhouse has lasted much longer than that.
“The problem is that you don’t learn.” She can see Roderick’s boots pacing in front of her, but it takes far too much effort to lift her head, and she has no desire to look at him, anyway. “No matter how many times we end up here, no matter how many times or in what ways we punish you, still you fail at your tasks, time and time again. We’ve even put in more training, wasted so much time and so many resources to try and make you a more useful tool, but you just…keep…failing.”
The boots stop directly in front of her, and she braces herself for pain or touch. He buries his hand in her frizzy mass of curls and yanks her head up. Biting back a groan, Kamaria tries to hold everything very, very still, knowing from experience that her shoulders are on the verge of dislocation. It’s happened so many times before that it doesn’t take much now.
Instead of looking into Roderick’s ugly face, she focuses her eyes past him, where she can just barely see Bruno across the cell. He’s hanging from chains, too, though currently his arms are straight above his head rather than behind his back like hers. He’s soaked with sweat and stained with blood, also like her, but she can tell that his eyes are sharply watching everything that’s happening.
Since the very first moment they met, weeks ago now, he’s always been so strangely…protective. She doesn’t know how to feel about it. Somehow it makes her want to stay with him and run far, far away from him at the same time.
“So it seems I’m going to have to get a bit more creative,” Roderick is saying. A smirk slowly spreads across his face. “You’ve gotten rather attached to him, haven’t you?”
Her gaze immediately shoots to his much-too-close face, eyes narrowing into a glare and lips pulling back in a snarl. “I don’t get attached. You should know that.”
He laughs, breath hot and foul, and the action moves her head and pulls at her spine. “I thought I did. I never imagined I’d see the day when the Shadow of Death brought home a friend! Or…” He looks over his shoulder at Bruno, then back at her with one raised eyebrow. “...something more than a friend, perhaps?”
“Shut up,” she hisses. Bruno certainly isn’t ‘more than a friend’, she’s not sure that they could even be counted as friends at all. Allies, perhaps, though she assumes that’s temporary. As soon as this is over, if he’s somehow released or able to escape, he’ll be long gone and they’ll never see each other again.
The longer this ordeal has gone on, though, the more concerned she’s found herself at his pain, and that in itself is…troubling. She can’t afford to be concerned with anyone’s problems but her own.
“You’re making a fool of yourself. I don’t have friends, I have enemies and I have superiors and I have targets. I don’t care anything about him. I’ve told you a hundred times, the only reason I didn’t leave him and come back right away was because I was injured and ill.”
Roderick huffs another laugh through his nose, and cranes her neck to one side a little. Despite her best efforts, she knows he can see the way her muscles tense and her jaw clenches at the pain that ripples through her shoulders.
“You’re such a terrible liar, do you know that? See, I’ve been watching the two of you. It’s no secret that he is attached to you, he’s made that perfectly clear from the start with his shouting and whining every time you get hurt. You, on the other hand…” The hand not holding her hair comes up to her face, thumb stroking across her cheekbone. She’d try to jerk her head away if she wasn’t afraid to move.
“You like to try and fool people into believing you don’t have feelings. But you know that doesn’t work with me, I know you too well.” The stroking turns into a pinch, gentle at first, but growing harder by the second. “I’ve seen the way you watch him when it’s his turn, how you tense up, how your eyes spark. You’ve even tried to pull my attention away from him before.” Finally he releases her quickly bruising face, though he twists her head more to the side. “You think you’re subtle, but you’re really not, my dear.”
Kamaria doesn’t bother responding. He’s decided what he wants about her, as usual, and if she stops arguing he might stop trying to injure her shoulder.
Chuckling, as if her silence means she’s conceding, he at last straightens and lets go of her hair. It’s an effort not to let it drop heavily all the way back down.
“Now, let’s see. I’ve punished you for being gone far longer than you were supposed to be. I’ve punished you for colluding with an enemy - though, don’t worry, that’s not done yet, especially since the longer this goes on the more collusion I’m witnessing. I’ve punished you for failing so miserably at your job that you managed to get injured.”
Footsteps sound again, and she raises her head just enough to see Roderick saunter over to Bruno’s side of the cell.
“And I’ve punished him for being a filthy defector - which, again, will be ongoing - as well as for interfering with a mission, at his insistence, and for kidnapping an asset of Ethorcon.” He’s circling Bruno now, eyeing the man critically.
“What I haven’t punished you for is going off-mission and killing…what did the reports say again? Oh yes, killing nine extra men besides the one Commander you were sent to kill.”
Kamaria chokes out what should have been a caustic laugh, had it not gotten caught somewhere in her battered chest. “You’re going to punish me for killing enemy soldiers? For going above and beyond what was required of me?”
“I happen to know that I killed at least half of those men,” Bruno insists, speaking up for the first time since Roderick’s entrance. “And like I told you before, if it weren’t for me interfering, none of that would have happened at all.”
Completely ignoring him, Roderick stops his pacing to stare her down. “No. Going ‘above and beyond’ has never been asked of you. All you’re supposed to do is what you’re told. Nothing more, nothing less. And for this mission you were never supposed to be seen except by the one person who was supposed to die.” He takes one step back, but keeps his eyes on her. “But I’m not punishing you for that. I’m punishing him.”
She furrows her brow, not comprehending to start with. “What?”
“You heard me. You don’t learn from being punished yourself, so I’m trying something new. I’m going to punish him for your failure.”
Bruno is predictably quiet about this development, because of course he would be perfectly fine with the arrangement. He’s tried to get Roderick to hurt him instead of her over and over again the entire time, stupidly, like he actually enjoys getting hurt or something. She has no idea why he’d volunteer otherwise. He always gives her some ridiculous excuse like, ‘I don’t like to see you get hurt,’ but he has to be lying. Why should he care? If he has any sense, he’d try to keep the attention off himself as much as possible, and be grateful for any moment he’s not the one being punished.
But apparently the man has no sense. And apparently he’s starting to influence her, because she’s immediately uncomfortable with what Roderick is saying.
She shouldn’t be. It’s as she told him, she doesn’t care about this man. He’s oddly…tolerable, for a human and a male. He has consistently surprised her with the way he treats her, like she’s an equal instead of an asset or an object. He’s been prickly, at times, has even gotten angry with her, but he’s never come close to taking out his anger on her. And most of the time he’s…gentle. Friendly. Considerate.
The truth is, she doesn’t hate him. For the first time since leaving Arran and Madhis - the last two Vaya that she’s ever seen - she’s met someone whom she doesn’t hate, whom she can actually bear to be around. She’s actually even…enjoyed talking to him, on occasion.
But that doesn’t mean she should prefer herself getting hurt over him. For fourteen years, her survival has depended on her looking out for herself, and that can’t change just because of a man who claims he cares about her. If Roderick wants to punish him this time, fine. She’s been ignoring the guilt needling at her conscience this whole time, trying to tell her that him being captured here is her fault, and she can continue to ignore it now. She has enough of her own problems to worry about.
She allows her head to drop back down so that she can’t see either of the men anymore. “If you want to continue to make a fool of yourself, fine. Go right ahead.”
There’s a snort from Roderick. “Yes, we’ll see how long that flippant attitude lasts.”
Crossing to the table where he’s laid out his tools, he takes a moment to look them over. She’s seen him do it a million times before, there’s no need to watch him now to know exactly how his fingers will dance across each one, drawing out the wait. Finally something scrapes across the wooden surface. If she weren’t so tired, she might be able to determine what it is from just the sound.
“Nine unsanctioned kills. So he gets nine strikes. Seems fair, right?”
It won’t be the whip, nine is far too few for that. Something harder, something he can do a lot of damage with. It’s the iron rod, she’s sure of it. One of his favorites.
More footsteps, and the smell of rusted metal hits her nose right before the familiar rod is digging into her chin, lifting her head. “I asked you a question.”
“I wasn’t listening.”
Anger flashes through his eyes, and she feels a modicum of triumph. He wants to hit her, almost does, in fact. But he takes a breath and tips his head to one side, instead.
“Doesn’t do much good to punish him on your behalf if you can’t even watch. Allow me to fix that for you.” He moves away again, returning shortly with a length of rope that he wraps around her throat, tying it snugly at the nape of her neck.
“Hey, I thought you were going to punish me!” Bruno calls. “Or punish her, whatever you want to call it. Why don’t you come over here and get on with it, already?”
Roderick continues to ignore his interjections, tugging at the end of the rope until her head is wrenched back and tying it off. Between the strained position and the pressure on her throat, she can barely swallow, and her breathing is even more shallow than it was before. There’s no way her shoulders are going to make it intact for much longer like this, either.
“There. Much better. Now we can move on with the punishment.”
Despite the fact that he’s the one about to be beaten, Bruno is giving her a sad, sympathetic look. Kamaria clenches her jaw and resolutely refuses to meet his eyes.
She doesn’t understand him at all.
Roderick is back to circling him again, a predator sizing up his prey. This time, though, with the iron rod dangling from his hand, she knows he’s deciding where to strike first.
It ends up being the shoulder. He swings from the back, where Bruno can’t see him, and the crack as the rod meets bone is deafening. She’s never paid attention to the sound before. Without having the experience of the pain, though, she’s caught up in all of the details - the tension that comes across Bruno’s face, even though he tries not to show how much it hurt. The way he’s knocked off balance and swings forward on his chains a bit. The infuriating smirk on Roderick’s face that shows just how much he enjoys this.
“Keep count, half-breed.”
“Don’t call her that.”
He’s circled around to the front again, and jabs the end of the rod into Bruno’s throat. “Shut up or I’ll gag you again.”
Finally he strikes out again, landing a hit across his lower back. Bruno moans, shaking his head.
“One.” Her voice is rough, but strong, interrupting their spat. He’s called her half-breed for years, she doesn’t care. It’s what she is. They only disagree on which half makes her a lesser person.
Keep count, or he starts over. She knows how this works. Shouldn’t be nearly as difficult when she’s not the one being hit.
The second hit cuts all the way across his stomach. She can see the air leaving him, and knows well the desperate feeling that comes after of yearning for oxygen that can’t be drawn in. He tries to double over, but the chains keep him upright. He retches, and coughs, and Kamaria doesn’t recognize the slight wince of sympathy that crosses her face until it’s too late.
She glances over at Roderick. He’s watching her with a calculating gaze.
“Two.” Her eyes slide back over to Bruno.
He hasn’t quite gotten his breath back when the rod slams into his knee. This time he lets out a grunt as his leg buckles and he drops in his chains, probably yanking at his shoulders and cutting into his wrists all at once.
“Three.”
“This could be you right now, remember that. Aren’t you glad he’s taking all of this for you?”
Not really, and that’s a terrifying thought that she doesn’t have time or energy to explore right now. He doesn’t deserve it. She doesn’t want to take it herself, but she doesn’t want him to be getting hurt right now, either. But that means that she actually does care, at least a little, and she can’t afford to care.
“Answer the question, half-breed.”
She stares straight at him, mustering up her defiance. “Yes.”
He may pride himself on being able to read her, but she sees his thoughts just as well. He’s clearly dissatisfied with her answer, which is exactly why she gave it.
If he thinks this isn’t working, he won’t bother to punish Bruno on her behalf anymore.
The next swing is an angry one. It goes over his head as he spins around, smashing into Bruno’s arm. She can tell he’s not expecting it. She’s fairly sure by the look of his arm afterward and by the way he chokes on a scream that the bone is broken.
Something lodges in her throat, and she has to force her voice around it. “Four.”
The cell is so silent in between each strike. Bruno’s breathing is the only thing that breaks it, and it grows more labored by the minute. They’re both waiting for the next one, waiting to see where it will fall.
Roderick has no problem prolonging their wait.
“That’s four soldiers. Four of the men you killed when you decided to go off-mission and do whatever you felt like at the moment.” He’s staring her down, trying to push the guilt. He barely even looks over as he lashes out again, hitting him square in the chest.
The change in Bruno is instantaneous. It wasn’t even quite as hard of a hit as the others, but he’s not breathing again, chin resting on his chest instead of up strong and proud like before.
“Five.” It’s quieter this time. She’s distracted, watching him. Something…something is wrong.
He’s shaking. It’s barely noticeable from this distance, but he’s trembling, chest heaving as it tries to draw in air. And in between gasps, she hears his voice, mumbling words that she can’t make out.
“What’s that, traitor?” Roderick bends down, poking at his side with the rod. “Breaking already? Can’t deal with the pain?”
The mumbling continues, and something heavy settles in Kamaria’s gut.
“Hm?” Grabbing a handful of his overgrown hair, Roderick jerks his head up so he can look him in the face. “You’re pathetic.”
His eyes don’t look right. There’s something in them that makes it obvious he’s not in this room right now, not mentally. They flicker around the room, not landing on anything, unfocused, looking for someone or something that’s not there.
“M-...Miranda, Mir-...I can’t, I can’t, Miranda…h-help…”
She’s never seen him like this before. In the time that she’s known him, he’s only ever been stoic and steadfast, unless he was poking fun to try and get a rise out of her. He never…he’s never shown weakness like this, never let on that there was anything dark hiding under the surface.
Seeing it makes her chest hurt, but she can’t tear her eyes away.
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m punishing you, not him, since he can’t seem to take it.” Letting go of his hair, Roderick slams the rod into the ribs on his back. Bruno jolts and whimpers, still lost in what have to be memories.
She almost forgets to say it, and when she remembers her voice comes out in a croak. “Six.”
This isn’t fair, this isn’t right. He didn’t ask for any of this, he doesn’t deserve this, these are her superiors and he’s gotten caught up in her mess just because she got injured and he - for a reason that still escapes her - wanted to help.
He shouldn’t be getting hurt because of her. But she knows nothing she can say will stop it, it’ll only give more fuel for the fire.
“No…no, no please…” His eyes squeeze shut, head rocking from side to side.
“Absolutely pathetic. Begging won’t help you, you know.”
He’s not talking to you. She wishes she could know who he is talking to, so she could help him make his way to the present. But she’s stuck in a useless limbo, forced to watch him relive a nightmare on her behalf.
“Please, it hurts…”
The rod cracks into his ribs on the other side, and he cries out.
Kamaria is so preoccupied with her concern for his mental state that she jolts, as if she could jump forward and stop the violence. Her strained right shoulder decides it’s had enough. It jerks out of its socket with a pop and a spike of pain. She slumps further down, sending the chains jingling, sucking in a sharp breath and pushing it out harshly through her nose as the burning spreads.
When she finds the strength to look around again, Roderick is watching her with an amused smirk.
Counting. She’s supposed to be counting.
“S-...” Has she said six already? She can’t afford to mess this up. Bruno can’t afford for her to mess this up. “Seven.”
“Try to keep up, half-breed, I’ve got other things to do today.”
She releases a held breath in relief at getting the number right. She has to focus. There’s only two strikes left, he can make it through this if she focuses.
Roderick swings low again, hitting his shin. He jumps backwards with a grunt as if he can get away from it, the sound turning into a quiet whine as the movement pulls at everything else.
“Eight.” Watching this hurts worse than her shoulder.
“H-help me…please…”
“You don’t deserve help, traitor.”
“He’s not talking to you!” The words snap out of her mouth before she can stop them. She refuses to look at Roderick after, despite being able to feel his gaze boring into her. “He’s not begging you, you’re not the one hurting him right now.” She’s in this deep, might as well keep going. Bruno can’t stand up for himself right now, so she’ll just have to do it for him.
“Oh I’m not?” Roderick huffs a laugh, walking closer. “Would you like to share who is, then, since you seem to know so well?”
Kamaria keeps her eyes trained on Bruno. He’s dropped his head low again, but she can still see how he’s struggling to breathe. “He’s remembering something,” she murmurs. “I don’t know what. His mind isn’t here right now, though.”
She finally cuts narrowed eyes over to Roderick. “He doesn’t deserve for you to be putting him through all this pain.”
Roderick grins. “I believe you mean for you to be putting him through all this pain. This is all your fault, my dear. You’re the one who -”
“Then just hit me instead!”
His grin widens, laughter tipping his head back. “And you said you didn’t care!”
She doesn’t. She doesn’t care, she can’t care. He’s just some man who happens to be in her life temporarily and happens to be nice to her.
And she cares.
“Just get it over with!” she hisses.
He’s practically giddy now. He got what he wanted, his plan worked, she played right into his hand. Strolling back over to Bruno, he makes a great show out of taking his time to choose the next spot, leaving the man to keep panting and muttering in the meantime.
Finally he strikes out again, landing a hit across his lower back. Bruno moans, shaking his head.
“Nine.” She makes sure it’s loud and clear, stated with finality. That was it, that was the last one. Nine strikes for nine kills.
Roderick hits his stomach again.
“What? No! That was already nine, you said nine!” She shouts it furiously over the sound of Bruno once more choking on a lack of air, struggling not to lunge forward and rip her other arm out of socket.
“I did.” He shrugs nonchalantly, swinging the rod around. “But then you decided to speak out of turn. I told you, you never seem to learn. Respect. It’s crucial for every soldier.”
She’d spit at him that she’s no soldier, no one here will ever see her as a soldier, if she didn’t want him to just leave. So she just glares at him, teeth gritted, hoping that he’ll stop at ten and move on to those other things he said he had to do.
Sighing, he walks over and drops the iron rod back onto the table, then begins gathering up all the tools to toss back in his bag. Kamaria holds back a sigh of relief.
“I suppose I should let you down from there before I go. Can’t have any permanent damage or anything.”
He moves behind her, which always makes her nervous, and releases the pulley for the chains. Her arms drop abruptly and she bites back a cry as pain explodes in her shoulder. Unable to stay upright, she falls to her knees.
“Feel free to fix that shoulder if you want.” Leaving her arms restrained behind her back and the rope tying her to the wall by her throat, he walks over to Bruno and loosens his chains, too. The man hits the ground as hard as she had, crumpling immediately onto his side and curling up into a ball.
Then, mercifully, Roderick is gone. Kamaria feels like she can breathe a bit easier just from the lack of his presence.
Bruno doesn’t notice a difference, though. He’s still in the same position, still lost in his own head. He flinches at nothing, voice hitching up higher for a moment like he wants to scream again before it drops back down to a desperate murmur.
She doesn’t know how to help him. But she has to try.
“Bruno?” Her voice comes out wavering, and she clears her throat before trying again. “Bruno, can you…can you hear me?” She hasn’t said his name out loud more than a time or two. It feels strange on her tongue.
“No…no…please don’t…”
“Bruno, I need you to look at me. Listen to my voice, and look at me.”
She’s a bit surprised when he actually unfolds a bit, peering over his hands, though she can tell before he speaks that he’s still not really seeing her.
“Miranda?” he asks softly.
Kamaria frowns. Whoever this ‘Miranda’ is, he’s repeated her name several times. A family member or old friend, perhaps. “No. Not Miranda. It’s me…” She hesitates before using the nickname he’s been calling her. “It’s Shadow.”
He starts to bury his face in his hands again. “Miranda, help me…”
This isn’t working. She flounders for a moment, trying to remember what’s helped her in the past when her memories overtook her. Maybe he needs familiarity, something that will remind him of the present. She’s trying to be gentle, but normalcy might be better.
“Hey!” she snaps. “Istulta! You’re not listening to me.”
That gets his attention. He looks over at her again, blinking.
“Yes. See, it’s me.” She’s so out of her element here, it’s embarrassing. “I’m Shadow, you’re the istulta.” What else helps her? “You need to try to breathe, okay? Take deeper breaths, like this.”
Her ribs are broken and her shoulder is hanging limply and there’s still a rope wrapped around her neck, but she does her best to draw in deep, exaggerated breaths for him to see. The pain that shoots through her body is hardly compensation for what he just went through, anyway.
To her relief, Bruno attempts a few deep breaths of his own. “Right. That’s…that’s good. I know it hurts, but…it’ll help.” He has to have at least a few broken ribs of his own by now, not to mention the new bruises that’ll be forming to join all the others. At least he’s not hanging from a broken arm anymore.
“Do you…remember where you are?” Not that their current situation is much better than whatever he’s remembering right now, but it has to be at least somewhat less frightening.
He continues sucking in shaky breaths, eyes back to roving around the room but with more purpose than before. They lock onto her once more, and she’s prepared for him to call her by the wrong name again.
“Sh-…Shadow?”
Kamaria sighs quietly. “Yeah. That’s right. Shadow. You’re, uh…you’re at my camp, in Ethorcon. Roderick has been ‘punishing’ us.”
“Shadow.” He repeats the name as if to solidify it in his mind, then suddenly cringes in pain, curling in on himself, his breath rattling in his throat.
“I’m sorry.” The words leave her lips in an airy rush. Her own chest aches on his behalf. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have had to take that. It wasn’t…none of this has anything to do with you. You shouldn’t have ever been involved.”
She really isn’t sure whether he can comprehend anything she’s saying right now - and kind of hopes he can’t - so she’s surprised when he responds.
“Told you…I killed…at least half.”
Snorting, she ignores the relief that floods her at hearing him returning to normal. “You definitely did not.” She sobers, eyes dropping. “But no matter what you did, he…it wasn’t your mission. So it doesn’t matter if you killed anyone. You weren’t the one going off-mission, I was, and there was no reason for him to give you my punishment.”
For a moment he’s distracted, brushing fingertips across his chest, frowning down at it before letting his eyes flutter shut.
Then he looks back to her, a sideways half-smile twisting his lips. “I’d rather that he did.”
Kamaria rolls her eyes. “Yes, but you’re an istulta.”
Rolling over onto his back, he stares up at the ceiling, still fighting to get his breathing under control and occasionally wincing at some errant pain. “Maybe. But I’m still glad…you didn’t have to get hurt as much…this time.”
She doesn’t think she’ll ever understand that, and has nothing to say to it. “Shut up and rest, istulta. He won’t give us a break for long.”
Bruno breathes a quiet laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”