Page 10 of Broken Embers

I take a seat on the plastic chair that is as white as everything else in the room and notice a notepad and pen beside the tray.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” I hold it up to the camera. “Write a fucking memoire or journal my feelings?” I raise a brow. “How about this for a feeling. I feel like an American hostage and you’re all going to get your fucking asses kicked for this.”

Of course there’s no answer the camera is just there to observe me in my unnatural habitat like some sort of fucking primate.

Sighing, I force the food down, methodical and detached. Every bite tastes like cardboard, but I finish it anyway. I’ve barely swallowed the food when the door swings open with a thud echoing through the silence.

Two women in black tactical uniforms step inside. Their faces are hard, eyes expressionless. They are soldiers, not caretakers.

“You must shower!” the thinner one of the two commands in English.

I stand and wander over to them. As I near them the tubbier one shoves a pile of neatly folded clothes into my hands. They are wrapped in sterile see through wrappings. I flip through them and find an outfit that looks much like the scrubs I’m wearing, only pure white. The smaller bags contain thin white pants and a matching tunic — along with a basic sports bra and the kind of high-waisted cotton underwear that would make a Victoria’s Secret model cry. I hold them up with a dry look.

“Wow,” I mutter under my breath. “The pinnacle of Russian haute couture. Sexy as a brick.”

Neither woman reacts. Figures. Humor is wasted on the humorless. I’m all but shoved out of the room and dragged down a long corridor that sharply turns into another corridor reaching a room at the end of it.

The thinner guard pushes the door open and I step inside to find it’s a bathroom.

“So this is where the toilet is,” I say. “That’s quite a sprint if I get the runs from that horrible breakfast.”

The bathroom is as bare and unfriendly as the room I slept in. It is all steel fixtures, no mirror, no curtain for the shower head attached to the wall.

“Soap, shampoo, and clean teeth stuff are over there,” Tubby tells me while Skinny starts the shower as if I’m not capable of doing it. “Clean towels are on the hook by the shower.”

“Thanks?” I say, turning toward them where we stand staring at each other for a few seconds and they don’t look as if they’re about to leave. “You can go now. I know how to shower.”

“We stay,” Skinny tells me. “It’s orders.”

“So you’re just going to watch me shower?” I gape at them. “What are you afraid I’m going to steal the fucking soap?” I snort. “Or make a shank out of the toothbrush then hide it up my ass?”

The women don’t flinch. They just stare coldly at me.

“You have fifteen minutes.” Skinny looks at her wristwatch. “You must scrub, wash hair, and teeth.”

We have another staring contest for a few more seconds and I realize they really aren’t going to budge. I’m expected to strip and clean myself under their watchful eyes. The humiliation burns hotter than the water could ever hope to.

I turn my back to them, as I strip and toss the pink scrubs on the floor over my shoulder before stepping into the warm spray of the surprisingly strong shower. I wash, taking my time and giving them a good show.

When I’m done I towel myself dry and twirl a towel around my wet hair before padding over the sink, opening the new toothbrush, smearing some toothpaste brand I’ve never seen before onto the brush. As I put it to my mouth I hope it’s not laced with something. But my mouth tastes terrible from sleep and that dreadful gray breakfast I ate.

Seventeen minutes later I’m dressed with the white scrubs hanging loosely on my frame, swallowing my figure and making me feel even more like a prisoner. I tug the waistband higher, adjusting the pants to sit more comfortably above my hips, and suppress the urge to mutter another biting comment. No sense in poking the bear today. I need information more than I need to feel like I got the last word.

“I noticed there was no brush or comb,” I grumble, running my finger through the tangle of curls now bouncing damply around my face. “If you could get me one especially for curly hair please.”

They say nothing although I do see some akin to humor flash in Tubby’s eyes. Now that I’m walking beside her I can see that Tubby is younger than Skinny and around my age. Whereas Skinny looks to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Or just doesn’t know how to look after her skin.

The corridors are long, sterile, illuminated by cold fluorescent lights. Everything about this place is designed to strip away identity, humanity. It’s a place for subjects, not people and I feel like I’ve stepped into some bad futuristic or sci-fi movie.

After what feels like a maze of left turns and silent escorts, we reach a heavy metal door. One of the women raps twice, sharp and mechanical. The door clicks open, and I’m ushered inside.

And of course my supposed aunt, Yelena Zorin is waiting for me.

She sits at a plain table, dressed in an immaculate charcoal-gray suit that screams power and restraint. Her hair is pulled back in the same severe twist, and her cool gaze settles on me with the dispassion of a scientist studying a specimen under glass.

On the table before her rests three manila folders.

I don’t wait to be asked to sit, I just go ahead and take the seat across from her.

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