“I strongly caution,” the voice said over the comm, “that removing the brace is not a good idea.”

  Freya had them all catalogued by now, even though her database of faces now included only two more. Two government goons, identifiable by haircuts and clothes but especially by the shitty attitude. Then there were the faceless voices she’d heard through the comm, addressing her and now talking to the two spooks. If only they knew how much she could deduce just by hearing them through the slight distortion of the speakers, they’d be a lot less cocky.

  There was the nervous guy whom she heard in the background, usually when the woman or the other man spoke. She dismissed him as of little threat. He mostly droned on about her vitals and their fluctuations. Or lack thereof. He sounded shocked. Good. At least she still had that part under control. Just like she’d been trained. If this were an exercise, she’d be scoring a perfect hundred, or so she told herself.

  Then there was the other man—she’d heard the woman refer to him as Quinn. Quinn sounded like he drank his insect protein smoothies on a schedule. Good for Quinn. All that flashy muscle wouldn’t be of much use against someone with superior combat skills, and against someone like her it might as well be tissue paper. Quinn was of no concern.

  It was the woman who unnerved her. She figured out soon enough this was the infamous Lyssa Burkhardt. Wife of VogelCorp cofounder Aaron Burkhardt, deceased four years ago, cause of death suicide. Owner now of close to fifty percent of VogelCorp shares, which would make her the most powerful woman this side of the Split, barring the government itself. Freya didn’t worry too much about the goons with the guns. She worried about Lyssa Burkhardt. She seemed to have influence over Warner Vogel. Freya heard the raw emotion in her voice when she burst out over the comm: fury, hatred, dismay. Lyssa Burkhardt, who referred to Freya as it and wanted to have her vivisected.

  Lyssa Burkhardt would be a problem.

  “The brace is a precaution,” said the one called Ramirez. “The chains will hold. They’re used to safe-test EVs.”

  Interesting, Freya thought. She, for one, wasn’t going to take his word for it. These two pricks better hope he was right.

  “I’d like to remind you that we don’t currently have data on just how strong these things are.”

  Freya had a feeling Lyssa meant her and not the chains.

  “Well, we wanna have a chat with her.”

  A silence. Then the comm again:

  “I strongly advise against it.”

  “With all due respect, Lyssa, you don’t get to decide.”

  To Freya’s mild surprise, Lyssa didn’t respond. A few moments later, with a barely discernible click and whir, the brace began to slide aside.

  At least her training didn’t fail her. Freya moved with the all the speed and efficiency her body allowed. She didn’t get very far. The metal cuffs pulled against her wrists and ankles, and with that kind of momentum, had she not been what she was, her bones would have snapped like matchsticks. She merely sank to one knee, her arms pulled taut behind her. The chains held.

  She felt that wave of grief again, cresting, threatening to submerge her.

  Pathetic! Pull yourself together!

  She’d never noticed it before, but now she couldn’t help it: even her inner monologue sounded alarmingly like her handler.

  She forced herself to focus on reality, despite her mind threatening to fade out. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. Her thoughts raced out of control. A rushing sound filled her ears before disappearing without a trace. The more she tried to focus on what they were saying, the more it seemed like their voices were muffled as if by a wall of water.

  Anyway, it didn’t fucking matter what they were saying. She’d already made up her mind. And she knew what she needed to do. That was all she’d ever needed, a mission, a goal. She’d get there.

  The certainty lasted past the moment one of them shoved an electrical shocker under her ribs. Teeth clenched—been there, done that a million times—and she did it now, too, with no difficulty. Didn’t even make a sound. Her unit commander would be proud.

  My unit commander will be the one to sign my execution order, surfaced a thought.

  The cuffs bit into her wrists and ankles, and she realized she was hanging limply, her full weight on the chains that pulled taut with a heavy clink.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Not that I thought this would be easy,” she heard one of the men mutter through the rushing sound in her ears. She looked up, her gaze darting from the one who’d just spoken to the one who held the shocker, the kind of contraption that would have been used on cattle.

  He was afraid to come too close.

  Well, he was right to be afraid. She still had that. She still had herself. Or at the very least, the part of herself that mattered, the part she needed to get through this.

  “Should I—”

  “I said do it again. We’ll get through to this bitch eventually.”

  The end of the phrase scrambled and blurred. Freya’s ears rang. Do it again. She braced herself like she’d done a million times before, to the point where it had become a reflex. The shocker jabbed her in the solar plexus this time. No matter. She was trained for this.

  Except nothing was working the way it should have. She pictured the same thing she always did, or at least she tried. She didn’t get much farther than imagining the smooth glass wall in front of her, and then she felt her mind plunging somewhere, like dropping off a cliff into the dark.

  Do it again.

  Darkness surrounded her, deep, cold, blue-tinged darkness. Something crushed her rib cage like a vise. Metal cuffs tore at the skin of her ankles then the muscle then the sinew until the metal hit bone with a sound no one could possibly forget.

  Then the vision vanished. The bright light of this room flooded in again. She couldn’t help it—she drew an audible shuddering breath. At least she could breathe. Tentatively, she rolled her ankles, the smallest movement that she hoped would escape her captors’ notice. There was a little bit of slippery, warm blood, but no major damage.

  What the everloving fuck was that?

  “There. I think she’s finally listening,” the first man’s voice intruded into her consciousness.

  “Again?” The other man sounded hesitant. When she opened her eyes, the stricken look on his face would have been enough to make her laugh. He should damn well be impressed—just the first one of these little jolts would have been enough to kill an ordinary human three times over.

  “Wait. Is Freya ready to talk to us? Huh, Freya?”

  Do they really think that’s all it’s going to take?

  Freya smiled.

  “I’ll only talk to Warner Vogel,” she said.

  Finally, the first man took the cattle prod from his less decisive colleague, and the next thing Freya knew, it connected with the hollow under her ribs. She had time to clench her teeth in a secure way.

  Do it again.

  This time, she knows what the darkness is—it’s water, of course it is, she knows where she is and what’s happening. That explains the vise that seems to crush the breath out of her. She’s underwater. Her palms hit the smooth glass wall. There’s something beyond it—there are faces, and air, there’s air. She throws herself at the glass, the metal cuffs on her wrists hitting its surface with a dull clink muffled by the water. She has enough strength in her to crack it. To get out of here.

  When she opened her eyes again, the light fractioned, splintering into a thousand blinding needles. The motherfucker had raised the voltage on that thing.

  “Talk to me, Freya,” he said in a pleasant voice. “Or next time I’m going to try a more sensitive area. Is that what you want?”

  Freya laughed. Or tried to, anyway—her voice seemed to be stuck somewhere halfway down her sternum.

  “Captain Ramirez—” the other man spoke up.

  Ramirez gave his subordinate a look that made Freya almost feel sorry for the guy.

  “Look, we have an objective here, Freya. So if you want me to stick this cattle prod so far up—”

  “You can stick it wherever you want,” Freya said—more like choked out. But Ramirez’s subordinate looked surprised she could speak at all, so she had to savor this small victory. “I think I’ve shown you I can take it. Won’t change a thing. I’ll only talk to Warner Vogel.”

  Next thing she knew, they dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over her head. Oh, this isn’t good. She didn’t have time to think much when the shocker stabbed her in the middle of the stomach.

  She was underwater. Screaming. She knew this place, this was the water tank, the very same one she always went to, her very own method for enduring whatever she had to. Only this time, it was all wrong. She searched for her usual steely resolve only the water tank could bring, but couldn’t find it. Instead, she found fear. Sheer animal terror that seemed to shriek in her every cell. She threw herself at the glass with all her strength, but the glass simply absorbed the shock. She pounded on it with the metal cuffs to no avail. She felt her flesh peeling from her ankle bones until finally something snapped, and she realized she’d torn the chain loose from the floor somehow. She had no air left to float her to the surface, so she rushed towards it with all the energy she had until finally, the water parted, and she emerged on the surface, gasping, coughing, panting, her lungs on fire.

  I did it. I fucking did it.

  And then they were hauling her out of the tank. Her mind reeled. No no no no no no no.

  Indifferent hands pulled her out, the icy air wrapping itself around her skin. They threw her on the tile floor where she flopped like a fish, gasping for air with the despair of the dying. The ceiling reeled in front of her vision, blotches of water stains on the gray concrete, and then the face floated into her line of sight, an indifferent face, lips twisted with the grimace of disgust.

  “Do it again.”

  Do it again.

  Again.

  Fuck.

  She opened her eyes. Water ran into them immediately, dripping from her hair in rivulets.

  “Okay, I get it. You’re resilient. But come on, Freya, nobody is that resilient. Work with us. You’ll have to, in the end. Might as well make it easier for yourself.”

  Before she could open her mouth to tell him to get fucked, the other man hosed her down with more cold water. It took a certain amount of willpower to keep breathing normally and not gasp pathetically for breath.

  Weakling. And you call yourself a Unit Six soldier?

  “I don’t think she can do another round, Victoria.” The voice was blurred. She forgot who it belonged to. It didn’t matter. “She won’t have the strength to get out even if she tries.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Take her back to her cell, and we’ll start again tomorrow.”

  Again.

  She felt the crackle of electricity with her skin as the tip of the cattle prod rushed towards her.

  “I’ll only talk to Warner—”

  It connected with the side of her neck.

  She fucked up. Didn’t clench her jaw, and now her teeth clamped down on the side of her tongue. The taste of metal filled her mouth. She choked on her own blood and blacked out.