I immediately know what the stranger is saying. Some wanted me dead.

  “Everyone seems to find this arrangement more…appropriate, more suitable for her crimes against the empire.”

  I can tell by the stranger’s tone that he believes my captor is cruel to me behind closed doors, as if being locked in this man’s house as his sexual plaything is a better punishment than death. I’m not going to correct him about how my captor only seems to focus on making me come and making me come hard.

  “No one is eager to hand her back over to the Americans. We had a few other captured spies we were able to barter with.”

  My captor looks relieved. I’m not surprised by the news. I wasn’t expecting to go anywhere. Oddly enough, I guess I sealed my own fate with the Echelon stunt.

  “Could she read something for me?”

  “Of course. Let me get a book.”

  I’m not sure what’s going on. The stranger releases my hand. My captor retrieves a book and hands it to me. “Read a few paragraphs aloud, American. My friend only wants to hear your German.” Leveling a finger at me, he smiles and adds, “And don’t color it with any other accents. Try to sound like a native German.”

  “Other accents?” his guest asks.

  “Yes, she can color her German with another accent. It’s how she tried to fool me at the checkpoint. It was actually quite good. If I hadn’t been tipped off about her, I might not have caught it.”

  “Really? That’s not easy to do. They don’t train spies to do that.”

  My captor nods. “I know. It was one reason I brought her here. I wanted more time to analyze her.”

  His guest turns to me. “Why did you do that?”

  I’m hesitant to answer the question, but I know full well they can force me to respond. “Because I knew my pronunciation would never slide by an SS officer, so I tried to muddy the waters as best I could.”

  Looking surprised by my answer, he turns to my captor. “That’s a very independent thought.”

  “I know,” my captor mutters, taking another sip of coffee.

  “And she remembers the hospital?”

  My captor only nods. “Fairly vividly actually. She mentioned a nurse giving her candy and the smell of alcohol.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. If she was put through the same training, she shouldn’t have improvised. She should’ve tried to seduce you, not fake another accent in the interview.”

  My captor only shrugs. “I have no idea why she’s so different. I asked every question I could think to ask.”

  I’m not sure what to make of all this. I don’t say or do anything, but for some reason, I keep hearing that TA’s words, “Just keep your mouth shut and pretend to be the military drone you’re supposed to be.”

  There’s a long stretch of silence. “So what other accent did she use at the checkpoint?” his guest asks.

  “Irish.”

  “Irish? She can speak German with an Irish accent?”

  “Yes, and quite well too.”

  “English is still spoken in parts of that country. It was smart to choose Irish.”

  “I thought the same.”

  The stranger turns to me. He looks eager. “Please, read a paragraph in German with an Irish accent. I want to hear this.”

  It’s strange that I’m being asked to perform this task, but I’m willing to try. Swallowing hard, I open the book and read several sentences. I memorize a paragraph and mentally ready myself. I repeat the paragraph and color my German with a subtle Irish accent. To me, it sounds perfect. But hell, I guess if it was perfect, I wouldn’t be here.

  No one says anything right away.

  “Can you say it again?” his guest asks.

  I only nod before repeating the paragraph.

  “It’s very close,” he says to my captor.

  “I know. At first, I thought I’d been misinformed.”

  “Can you say the same paragraph but just in German, like a native?” his guest asks me.

  Again nothing about the request strikes me as vicious or unreasonable, so I nod and then comply. Once more I don’t detect anything wrong with my words.

  “Her German is excellent, and her pronunciation is perfect. But I can tell she’s forcing some of it.”

  “Yes, I agree,” my captor states.

  “I think the Irish may have thrown me had I been questioning her since spies aren’t trained to do that.”

  “It did throw me off. It was more about persistent questioning that made her pulse betray her.”

  “Interesting,” his guest declares. “And a bit concerning. Perhaps greater rewards should be offered for turning in spies.”

  A twinge of guilt hits me. Great, now I’m making things harder for others. I’m hoping we’re almost finished.

  “I don’t know,” my captor mutters. “I’ve never seen an agent quite like her before.”

  “I know what it is,” the stranger states abruptly.

  “What?” my captor inquires.

  “She still has her humanity. That’s what it is.” He sounds genuinely shocked by that, but I have no idea what he means.

  My captor doesn’t say anything, but I can tell he silently agrees with that observation.

  Much to my relief, they stop talking about me and instead start discussing budgets and reports as well as other mundane business, though they continue to carry on the conversation in English, which I find odd.

  I only sit on my heels, grateful they’ve lost interest in talking to me.

  After several hours, the stranger finally stands, thanking my captor for a lovely evening. My captor hands him a stack of papers in the foyer and wishes him a pleasant night. The stranger only looks at me before he goes but doesn’t say anything. I have a feeling I may see him again.

  “Come on. It’s late,” my captor declares, pulling me off the floor. He turns off the lights in the living room before leading me upstairs.

  Once we’re in his bedroom, he locks the leash to my anklet.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” he states.

  He leaves the room. I hear his heavy footfalls going down the stairs. He’s doing something in the kitchen, but I’m not sure what. I hear him on the stairs. When he returns, he’s holding a saucer with a coffee cup on it.

  “I want you to drink this. It’s some hot cocoa mixed with a mild sedative.”

  “A sedative? You want to drug me?”

  “I want you to sleep, and I don’t want you to dream or remember anything.”

  I hesitate.

  “I can easily inject you with something,” he declares. “But this particular drug is better and it’s meant to be ingested.”

  A bit reluctantly, I take the cocoa and drink it. It’s actually quite good. If he hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t know it was laced with something.

  After setting the empty cup down on the nightstand, I only sit and watch him get undressed. With a low groan, he slips under the covers. He takes me in his arms, and I press my face against his chest.

  “What did you two mean about how I was trained?”

  He sighs at the question. “It’s difficult to explain to you, American, because you don’t remember it.”

  “Yes, I do. I remember the films and lectures and videos.”

  “That was only a part of it, the part they wanted you to remember.”

  “What else was there?” I whisper.

  He holds me tighter. “Don’t think about it.”

  “But…what did your friend mean about it being barbaric? And what about that comment about how I still have my humanity? What did your friend mean by that?”

  “Shh, don’t talk.”

  “Please don’t do this to me. Just tell me.”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “Yes, I do,” I insist. I try to pull away, but he won’t release me. His nimble fingers brush through my hair. His gentle petting, combined with the sedative, is slowly pushing away consciousness.

  “What did they do to me?” I whisper.

  “They trained you to be a spy. Now stop thinking about it. I don’t want you to remember anything. I do wish my friend hadn’t commented on how the practice is barbaric, but he’s more of a military man, straight and to the point.”

  Despite my best efforts to stay awake, I feel the world slipping away.

  “Just go to sleep,” my captor whispers.

  When I wake up, my heart is racing and I’m covered with sweat. It’s still dark. My captor is holding me against his chest. The dream lingers as I gingerly untangle myself from his arms. I can tell by his breathing that he’s deep asleep. My leash quietly drags against the hardwood floor as I hurry to the bathroom. Tears spill from my eyes as I quickly close the door. I don’t turn on the light, not wanting to rouse my captor.

  I kneel on the floor and cry quietly in the dark. I just need a few moments to recover. I feel I’m finally coming to terms with something I’ve tried hard to either ignore or deny. I press my forehead against the tub’s edge, welcoming the cool feel of the porcelain. I jump when the door opens. The light comes on a half-second later.

  He’s wearing his tan robe. He looks sleepy and confused. “I thought I heard you crying. What’s wrong?” he demands.

  “It’s nothing,” I mutter, mopping away my tears. I look away from him and instead study the bathtub.

  He walks across the bathroom and settles on the tub’s edge. “You don’t honestly think I’m going to accept that response as a valid answer, do you?” He sounds more alert and awake.

  I say nothing and instead study the tub.

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Silence. My gaze shifts to the floor.

  “Do we have to do this with the needle?” he demands.

  “No,” I mutter. I’m not afraid. I just know there’s no point in withholding information.

  His fingers slide under my chin and turn my face up to him. I reluctantly meet his hard gaze. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I…I just had a nightmare…and something I kinda forgot came up in the dream.”

  He looks anxious and concerned. He curses softly in German. “What do you remember?”

  “I don’t really know where to start.”

  “Take your time. Start at the beginning.”

  Shivering, I wrap my arms tightly around myself. “A few days after my eighteenth birthday, I went to the recruitment office and signed the papers stating I wanted to serve in the military.”

  My captor only nods as if he already knew that.

  “The next day, they called me and told me to report to a base in Virginia. They said I’d been selected for intelligence.”

  Again, my captor only nods.

  “Almost from day one, I quickly found out that my superiors and instructors didn’t like something about me.”

  My voice wavers ever so slightly, and I study the floor. He doesn’t say anything.

  “A couple of days after I arrived at the base, I walked into one of my classrooms for a scheduled lesson. I was early. Two of my instructors were talking, but they immediately stopped when I walked in the room. One of them even shushed the other, and I knew at the time that they were talking about me.”

  My fingers lightly pluck at the hem of my shirt. “Before they stopped talking, I overheard one of them say, ‘Well, they obviously botched her surgery.’ And you asked me if I remembered having a surgical procedure or a place that looked like a hospital and…there were the bloody tears and the migraines, and your friend said that the practice was barbaric…”

  I look at his face. I can tell he understands what I’m saying. “What did they do to me?”

  My fingers drift to the side of my head and press against my scalp. I shudder when I touch the scar hidden in my thick hair. My mother told me I fell one day when I was a kid, which is how I supposedly got the scar, but I never quite believed that explanation.

  He lets out a heavy sigh. “If I tell you the details, it’s just going to create more nightmares. And I don’t like finding you crying alone in the dark.”

  “Please… I need to know.”

  “No, you don’t,” he insists.

  I start to protest, but he only shakes his head at me. “No.”

  I wilt.

  “But I will tell you this. The purpose was to make you more obedient and more pliable in the hands of your superiors. It was also supposed to make your rigorous training easier for you to accept. And…I think something did go wrong with your procedure because your personality is very different from what I’ve seen.”

  “Then why didn’t they dismiss me or send me home?”

  “Dismiss you? American, you were able to break into a highly secure military building, locate top-secret documents, and then you memorized several pages of material. I actually went to the Echelon and located the files you found. It was over eighty pages of documents you memorized word for word.

  “Training can only go so far, American. They chose you specifically for your intelligence and memorization skills. They’re not going to just dismiss you.”

  “But…but the surgery, didn’t they do something to heighten my memory or improve my intelligence?”

  “No,” he says simply. “The surgery was done to alter your personality so you wouldn’t question orders…at least, that’s what it was supposed to do.”

  “But there are laws in my country. They had no right to do that or…” My body shakes as I start sobbing. I cover my face with my hands, not wanting my captor to see me like this.

  When I was in school, one of the documents I had to memorize was the Declaration of Independence, and I distinctly remember the line about Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. But it wasn’t just a line in the Declaration of Independence. To me, it was more of a philosophy that seemed to shape most of the laws in my country. Somehow, being drafted as a child and surgically altered to fit a preconceived personality seems a bit antithetical to that principle.

  His hand settles gently on my shoulder. “Yes, there are laws in your country, but rules for draftees are different. You were chosen to defend and protect the rights of your country for your fellow citizens. You were selected to serve the greater good. Your test scores placed you under military jurisdiction, exempt from criminal and civil laws, which is one of the many reasons why your parents were paid so generously.”

  “But why?” I whisper, looking up at him.

  “Because it’s still a war.” He pauses for a moment and mutters something in German. I think he’s quoting some poet or philosopher. I’m not sure. Loosely translated, my captor says something about using darkness to fight darkness, evil to fight evil. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Poetry and philosophy have never been my thing. My job has always been to memorize and regurgitate.

  Pointless tears continue to fall. My captor sighs.

  “American, it’s not in my nature to bargain, but I’m willing to make a deal with you.”

  Confused, I look up at him. I’m still sobbing.

  “If you try to stop crying and come back to bed with me, I’ll take my time kissing and licking the back of your neck.”

  I can’t help but smile a little at his offer, even though I’m still crying. He knows I like that.

  “Hmm. That’s almost a smile.” He grabs a washcloth and then wets it under the tub’s faucet. After wringing it out, he hands me the damp cloth. “Here, rinse off your face first. You’ll feel better.”

  Still sniffling, I wipe my face with the cool, wet cloth. Once I’m finished, he takes the washcloth before setting it on the tub’s edge. He takes a hold of my arm and helps me to my feet. As he pulls me back to his bed, I continue to sniffle. Logically, I know there’s little point in dwelling on the subject. I can’t do anything to change the past.

  He lifts up the plush bedding. “Come on,” he orders, obviously wanting me to get back in bed.

  I slip under the covers and scoot across the mattress. Feeling dazed, I lie on my back and study the ceiling.

  He slips in bed next to me. “Roll over on your belly.”

  Still sniffling, I roll over and bury my face in the pillow.

  He brushes aside my hair. “Shh, it’s all right,” he whispers. For some reason, my breath keeps hitching, despite my best efforts to make it stop. I think the sound is upsetting him.

  “Shh, calm down.”

  His firm lips press against the back of my neck, and I shudder from the sensation.

  I sniffle as he plants soft kisses up and down the nape of my neck. True to his word, he does indeed take his time. After several minutes, my breath finally stops catching.

  “How do you feel now?” he whispers. His words flutter across my flesh.

  “Safe,” I admit. A brief wave of panic courses through me. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

  “Good.” His tongue draws a line from the top of my spine to the edge of my hair. “You are safe.”

  His gentle kissing and licking causes wetness to pool between my thighs. His hand slides under me and cups my mound. Nimble fingers gently caress my nub, coaxing me to orgasm. I cry out softly as his skilled fingers massage my clit. He doesn’t drag out my release the way he usually does. After several minutes, he gently propels me onto my back.

  “Better?”

  Actually, I do feel better. “Yes.”

  His firm lips press against mine as his arousal prods at my slit. He enters me slowly. He simply holds me against him, keeping himself sheathed inside me. There’s only the sound of our breathing.

  “Perhaps this was my fault,” he whispers. “Maybe I should have talked to you about your training instead of telling you to not think about it, but for the future, I want you to promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “If something is bothering you, really bothering you, tell me, wake me. Don’t hide in the dark and cry alone like that. I don’t ever want to find you like that again.”

  “Okay,” I whisper.

  “No, promise me.”

  “I promise I won’t hide like that again if I’m upset.”

  As if to reward me, he kisses my forehead. “Good girl.”

 

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