Page 45 of A Resistance of Witches

“Your friend? Goodness, no. I want what I came for. I want the names and locations of every member of your organization. And you’re going to give them to me.”

“I don’t know—”

“The next lie you tell, you will bite off your own tongue.”The woman smiled sweetly.

Rebecca fell silent, terror spiking in her, knowing with her whole body that she would do exactly as she’d been commanded.

The woman’s smile widened. “Names.Names of your fellow Resistance members, and your SOE counterparts. Locations of any safe houses and supply caches. And…” She slowly ran her thumb across the knife on her hip. “I want you to tell me about the Englishwoman you transported to Dordogne.”

Rebecca’s eyes flicked to Lydia, then back to the chestnut-haired woman.

“Don’t look so shocked.” The woman laughed. “Did she tell you what she really is? She’s not yourfriend, either, you know, even if you believe you’re on the same side. She put you in danger the moment she met you. It was wrong of her to put you in such a position.” The woman leaned forward. “Tell me now. What did she say to you on that long drive to Dordogne?”

The lie was so small.Nothing. She told me nothing.But even as Rebecca’s mind formed the words, she felt her jaw tighten and her teeth clench around her tongue, ready to bite down. She whimpered. After a moment the tension released.

“She’s a Force,” Lydia whispered. “I’ve never met one before.” If the chestnut-haired woman sensed Lydia in the room with them, she gave no indication of it.

“Here’s what we are going to do,” the woman said. “I’m going to cut your bonds. And you are going tosit right there, and not give me any trouble. Isn’t that right?” She waited for a response.

“Yes.” Rebecca’s voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

The woman took the knife from her belt and cut the ropes from Rebecca’s wrists. “Here.” She turned the dagger so the handle faced Rebecca. “Go on.Take it.But no funny business.”

Rebecca didn’t want to take it, not for anything in the world, but found herself reaching for the dagger, nonetheless. A single tear fell onto her bloodied blouse. She wanted her mother. She wanted to go back in time, back to when she was a child.Did you have a nightmare, little dove?Yes, a nightmare. Her mother always wore the same perfume, Vol de Nuit, and whenever Rebecca had a bad dream, her mother would spray a little bit onto her pillow, to keep the monsters away. She looked down at the knife in her hand, breathing fast, but smelled only sweat, and bleach, and fear.Wake up, wake up, wake up.

“Now, here’smysecret,” the woman said in her singsong voice. “I can make you do aaaaanything I want. Anything at all. But your mind isanother matter. I can’t do anything about the thoughts in your head, which means I can’t force you to say anything you don’t want to say. Understand?”

Rebecca nodded. She could feel her pulse in her throat.

“So, we’re going to play a game. I want you to tell me everything you know. All about the Englishwoman. The names of all your coconspirators. The locations of your safe houses. Details of any planned attacks against the Reich. Everything.”

The dagger shook in Rebecca’s hand, the tendons pressing through the skin.You will not break, she told herself.No matter what she does to you.

“You can of course choose to remain silent. But for every second you’re not telling me what I want to know, you’re going tocut yourself with that dagger.”

Rebecca looked up at Lydia, eyes wide.

“Ready?” the woman said.

“Wait, wait, wait—” Rebecca screamed.

“Begin.”

Without hesitation, Rebecca took the dagger and dragged it across the skin of her forearm. She shrieked in pain but continued to carve in slow, deft strokes.

“Not too deep. We don’t want the game to end too soon.”

The pain was not the point, she realized with growing panic as she sliced away at her own flesh. It was the terror, the knowledge that she would cut herself to ribbons if she did not speak. She would chop off her own fingers, peel off her own face, and nothing would be able to stop her, nothing except a word from the chestnut-haired woman.

“Rebecca!”Lydia came closer, kneeling at her side. “Rebecca, listen to me, listen very carefully.”

Rebecca carried on slicing her own skin. The chestnut-haired woman watched on, smiling.

Lydia spoke slowly and clearly to be heard over the screams. “I want you to draw an X with the knife.”

Rebecca continued to cut into her own flesh, weeping, but did as Lydia instructed. Tears sluiced their way down her face, leaving streaks in the blood and the dust.

“Now draw another X, right above the first, so the top of the first X touches the bottom of the second.”

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