Page 6 of Harmless
“Here’s some advice I hope you take to heart.” He crossed his arms, resembling a stern, younger version of his dad, my uncle Larkan. “Drop that mindset. Let go of it, right now.”
I returned his stare and the arm-crossed position, not ready to back down. “Excuse me?”
“If you go in rushed and half-cocked, you’ll be sloppy. And when shit goes sideways, you won’t know what to do, and you’ll panic. You’ll make mistakes that will probably cost people their lives. A successful mission counts on being prepared, having backup plans for your backup plans. And that takes time to get that all lined up.” Carter rapped his knuckles on the table and stood, continuing to look me square in the eye. “Go ahead and call Kyrie, see what kind of supplies you can get. But I also want you to write down a description of this place. Draw a diagram if you can, and do not skimp on a single detail. We need to know what we’re getting into.”
“And what if Torr doesn’t have that kind of time?” I demanded.Or Santos, or Paige, or, fuck, anyone. “What if planning everything down to the letter is what costs people their lives?”
Carter gave me a sorrowful look over his shoulder as he headed for the same door his brother went through. “No matter what you do, you can’t save everyone.”
3
SANTOS
Adjusting to life in complete darkness wasn’t the hard part, especially when there was someone to talk to. The shitty part was when one of the ceiling panels opened, and light flooded our dark little dungeon home. Torrance and I were too busy shielding our blinded, pain-filled eyes and retreating to the shadowy corners of the cell like cockroaches.
The pitmasters opened the ceiling quickly enough to drop food or water, blind the shit out of us with the spotlight they always used, then close things back up again while our optical nerves dealt with the whiplash.
Every day, Torr and I tried to be ready. But they never opened up at regular intervals. We could faintly hear the hustle and bustle of the colosseum outside of our prison, so even though we didn’t have any light to go by, we could make educated guesses on what time of day it was.
It had been quiet during this last drop, and Torrance and I had been catching some sleep, so we could only surmise that it was the middle of the night. The spotlight had jolted both of us out of a dead sleep, on top of killing our eyes. It was disorienting as fuck, to the point where I didn’t know where I was for maybe thirty seconds.
That was good ol’ psychological torture for you.
“Hey, you good?” I heard Torr’s voice from somewhere across the room when everything had darkened again.
“Relatively speaking,” I groaned, rubbing my eyes in an effort to get the flashing storm clouds out of my vision.
“We got a brick painted to look like bread again.” I heard atap-tap-tap,like he was pounding the rock-hard loaf against the ground. “And like two inches of water that smells like fucking backwash.”
“My favorite,” I deadpanned.
I heard the shuffle of footsteps coming closer and waved my hand out in front of me until my fingers brushed against Torr’s pant leg. He clasped my hand and stuck a handful of hard bread into it. “Bon appetit.”
“Thanks.”
We ate without conversation, our chewing the only sounds as we choked down the stale bread with nasty water.
It wasn’t long before Torr got up and started walking the perimeter of our pitch-black cell, his hand running along the brick wall keeping us in. When his feet nudged my hip, I scooted forward from where I leaned against the wall, and he kept walking.
Another day of pacing in the hamster wheel. What else could we do?
“How long do you think it’s been?” he asked on his second lap around.
“Going off the sounds of activity outside? Three days, give or take a day.”
“How can you even keep track? Can’t see shit to make markings on the wall or anything.”
“Well, counting to three is pretty easy for most people. The longer we stay here, though, the funkier time’s gonna get.”
“That’s what I’m saying. There’s no sense of time in here. No context, no stimuli. I can’t even tell how big this room is. Feels like I’m losing sense of up and down too.”
I noted the hint of panic in his voice and had to remember he wasn’t like me. Even if he wasn’t as rich and privileged as the actual guests who came through here, he’d probably never been imprisoned. Never been thrown into an isolation room like this one. Never been sleep deprived or starved as a punishment.
Psychological torture was a bitch though, often even worse than physical. And we were in Mystic Canyon’s favorite torture chamber.
“You need to calm down,” I told him. “You’re falling for what this room is made to do—screw you up mentally. They know it fucks with your senses, that’s the whole point. Remember that, and keep your wits about you.”
“Fuck, man. Every time I want to take a deep breath to chill out, it feels like there’s a weight on my chest.”
