"How much longer?"
"Just a moment, sir. We need to wait a little."
Sigh.
"I can't believe it takes the best doctors that long to bring someone to their senses".
My consciousness is slowly returning, but I'm in no hurry to open my eyes, trying to probe the situation first. It's his voice. My father's voice. And I feel that my left arm and my legs are restrained. An alarming combination.
"What a shame… Look at you. Tied down like an animal. A pitiful sight."
He knows that I have awoken, probably sensors are connected to me, allowing to monitor the functioning of my body. There is no longer any strategic point in delaying the inevitable, and I begin to slowly open my eyes. The light immediately blinds me and I wince, unable to control the tears that fill my sensitive eyes. My mouth is terribly dry, apparently the effects of anesthesia or a long unconsciousness state. How the hell long have I been out? What has happened during this time. I'm starting to make out the ceiling, finally. My wounded hand rests on my chest, still bound. I don't feel any pain, presumably I was drugged. Gradually, my head begins to clear up.
"What the mess have you made here? And I don’t even learn about this from you. Are you really so cowardly to honestly look me in the eye and say that you screwed?"
My mouth opens slightly, but I can't utter a word. I'm not sure I know what I want to tell him, though.
"You certainly didn't waste time in vain. Delalieu walks around terrified, trying to convince me that everything is under control. Do you really think that forcing him to lie to me and stop him from doing his job will do anyone any good, hm?"
I want to answer him in a sarcastic manner that everything is really under control, but I have the strength to do it only in my head.
"You, get out of here".
I understand that he says this to the doctors. Then, all of a sudden, I see him in my field of vision, but not near my face, he remove my condition monitoring system then leaned towards my feet. A slight twitch lets me know that he is removing the restraints. This is the case when you are not sure what price you are willing to pay for freedom. Physical contact with him makes me feel nauseous, a feeling that haunted me before I blacked out. Still, I decide that having free is a much better option, and I resist my urge to pull my leg away, allowing him to do what he started.
When he's finished, he moves to my face, looking down at me. There is such complacency, triumph, gloating on his own face. He waited for my failure and is happy that he can remind me of my worthlessness.
"Sit down. You should have already recovered in three days".
Three days… I've been gone for three days… Damn it…
"If you weren't an idiot, you wouldn't be running around the sector with holes in your body. But, as usual, you overestimated your strength, and now we have what we have. I arrived twenty-seven hours ago. I had to quit everything I was doing. So get up. Stop pretending to be a dying princess".
Three days. Twenty-seven hours. What has he managed to do during this time? What have happened to her in those three days?
He notices that I don't react to his words, still continuing to look at the ceiling, and sits on the edge of my bed, knowing for sure what discomfort this will bring me.
"You know, I've heard a lot interesting stories about your dealings. Would you like to know what I mean?"
It's not hard to guess what he's going to tell me about, and I feel my uninjured hand begin to tremble involuntarily, I have to press it to the sheet to try to hide it.
It is much easier for me to control myself and my communication with him when I'm aware of events and understand what's going on. But now… I'm vulnerable around him. He has all the advantages, all the power over me. I'm walking through a minefield, any wrong step can lead to a catastrophe that will affect not only me, but also many other people. Ignoring is far from the best tactic, but the truth is that I don't have any tactics. I'm not ready for this battle with him, either mentally or physically. And I cowardly run to the shelter of the white stone room of my subconscious.
"Private 45B-76423. Fletcher, Seamus". He pauses. "Does that name sound familiar?"
It's unexpected. Fletcher? Really? This is the most important thing right now? I immediately tell myself not to be a fool. Surely, all this is another manipulation. He does this intentionally, knowing what kind of conversation I'm expecting to catch me off guard, start talking about something less significant, and then make shot in my head. However, considering that this is about Juliette, it may be more reasonable to talk about a shot in the heart.
"It seemed to me that we discussed his case and everything was very clear. I was satisfied with your work and even thought about telling you this". He pauses, as if he can't cope with his indignation and disappointment. "But what do I learn? Turns out Fletcher's family is still alive? What does it mean? You, of all people, should know the rules. Traitors come from a family of traitors. There can be no excuses or exceptions. The transgression of one means death to them all".
Although it's not about Juliette, his words devastate me no less. These people have already suffered enough dealing with the head of a family like Fletcher. But this, of course, is not enough for my father. He is not ready to show pity or mercy to anyone, even if we are talking about children who had been subjected to parental cruelty. However, this is the norm for him, isn't it?
As if to prove my thoughts, he suddenly puts his hand on my chest. His palm is so heavy and disgustingly hot. I'm starting to feel nauseous again, there's not enough air right away, I want to get rid of this burden and I start building a wall in my mind one more time to cope with it. White walls, blocks of concrete. An empty room and an open space. That's what I need now.
"You disappoint me so much once again. I'm not even sure if I could count on you at all, trust you. You don't live up to my expectations. It all seems like a waste of time, you know? But I tried, I tried to give you chance after chance. You don't seem to appreciate it too much. The saddest thing is that I can't even say I'm surprised. You just keep letting me down over and over again. I wanted to wait and discuss this with you later, but somehow now seems like the right moment when you are the personification of my… disillusionment".
His hand shifts, moves up, lingers on my collarbone.
The heat envelopes me, suffocates me, my head starts to spin even more, I'm afraid that I'll choke on my own vomit, which rises up, following his hand.
"The worst part is that you don't even seem to realize how pathetic you are. I could stand it when you humiliate me by disrupting the order I’d finally managed to establish. I could put up with the fact that you're like this right now, instead of leading the sector that I entrusted to you. But that you would show sympathy to… To whom? To the traitor's family? To those who went against everything we worked so hard for, spent so much energy, blood and sweat. This is unforgivable".
His words don't touch me anymore, not really. I've grown a thick skin, I'm so used to his humiliations that they no longer affect me. I feel as numb as my painkiller-filled body.
He knows it and this pisses him off. I feel fingers tightening around my throat. The movement is rough, violent. But I can't call what I feel pain. This is discomfort that develops into agony. The body's awareness that it's being deprived of a vital function necessary for the continuation of life. This causes an instinctive desire inside to fight, to struggle for every breath, to push out and take in air with great effort, with more active movements of the chest. But my mind perceives the situation differently than my body. Some part of me hopes that maybe this time he will step over the line and go through with it. Maybe he will finally forget himself and lose control. Although I'm sure he will be sorry to lose his living toy afterwards.
He lets go too quickly, preventing my body to shut down from lack of oxygen, and it reacts all the same instinctively: sits up, coughs, wheezes, shivers, covers in cold sweat. All the things for which he could call me pathetic again. This is exactly the reaction he wanted. My acknowledgment of his presence in this room, my reaction to him.
"You're lucky I was here." He stands up, creating so much-needed distance between us. "You have someone who can clean up the mess you always leave behind".
I manage to regain control of my body, to even out my breathing.
"Fletcher had three children. A wife and three children. Just imagine. Four potential enemies of The Reestablishment. But it turns out you didn't just keep them alive. You visited them, didn't you? Maybe that's why you actually killed Fletcher? To have an excuse to visit his wife? To comfort the poor widow? However, it doesn't matter anymore. I ordered to complete the work that you so negligently left unfinished".
No explanation is needed to understand what he is talking about. He ordered them all to be killed. I can no longer see him, feel his presence, hear his voice. But I need to know what else he knows. What he knows about Juliette, and so I'm waiting, I need him to say more.
When he realizes I won't react, he snorts.
"Get yourself cleaned up. It's impossible to look at you, you look just disgusting. And you had three whole days to rest, it's time to get down to work. I'll be waiting for you in your office".
He waits exactly three seconds, and then finally leaves me alone. My body also waits three seconds, and then I vomit. I barely have time to bend over so that all this mess doesn't end up on my blanket. The sudden movement only makes me feel worse, the dizziness intensifies and with it the emetic urge. However, all that comes out of me is bile. I'd been drip-feeding for the last three days, there's nothing else in my stomach. But it doesn't get any easier. I shift with difficulty, dangling my legs from the other side of the bed.
I've never felt so terrible in my life. In three days my body has lost all its energy. I don't have the strength to get up, let alone walk to the bathroom or clean myself up. I shouldn't have stopped, because once you lose control for a moment, you immediately fall apart.
I could call the medics or Delalieu for help, but after my father's visit that's not an option. Everyone is already in terrible tension, under strict control. I don't want to create unnecessary topics for conversation. The only thing that calms me a little is that my father prefers to keep his visits secret, at least for as long as possible. He likes to appear unexpectedly, initially testing the waters. Perhaps if he followed the same tactics this time, my lie might still work.
But now I face a much more difficult task. Get up from the bed. I have little choice, so I just crawl down, get on all fours and move to the bathroom door, hoping that in a few moments I will feel better. There is no way I can lose consciousness now. I know that there are several medications in the medicine cabinet that could alleviate my condition, temporarily give me strength.
To rise up and reach them is a new quest. But when I finally do it, I hardly think about how this mixing of medications might affect my health. It just can't get any worse, I decide, sit on the edge of the bathtub and give myself a couple of injections.
It takes several long minutes for me to finally feel the heat, and with it a surge of strength. Someday this striving to be invulnerable will kill me. But that's the last thing on my mind as I head to the shower.
You know, I didn't like that Fletcher's wife sent greetings and managed to tell me something about his visits. I think the soldiers would have just killed them on the spot without further ado. At most, she could start saying that the sector regent didn't demand their punishment. Anderson would have been able to find out everything about his son's movements without Fletcher's wife, obviously.
In the original book, Aaron literally tries to kick Anderson out of the room. But it seems to me that over the years of communication with his father, he would have been more restrained, he is able to endure a lot for the sake of the cause, and at this moment he still knows nothing about the fate of Juliette. So he still needs his father.
One more thing. Warner suddenly became stronger after three days without consciousness. I'm sure he would have felt even worse than before. Considering that I made his injuries more severe, this is even more logical. It made me think about how Warner was coping with all this pressure in general and gave rise to a new storyline. Because I don't believe that he could just not sleep for days and still remains in a normal state without additional help.