Page 36 of The Captive Missing

Instead of making a left towards her room, Tracy veered right. Without a word, the other woman pushed out of the building and into a wide open courtyard. Reaching up reflexively, Val shaded her eyes. The sun was blinding after so many days inside and the air felt hot as it wrapped around her legs. There were other captives all around, so Val quickly ducked her head. She wasn’t ready to see them. Not yet.

Pacing demurely behind Tracy, Val listened to the gasps and whispers as they passed. She didn’t lift her head even though the murmuring seemed to follow them all the way to the cafeteria. Val’s feet were bare, her hair left unkempt in an effort to make her feel vulnerable.

This tactic was often used in discipline and isolation captives. It was effective. If you were barefoot and damp, then other captives knew not to approach you. They knew you were under discipline and it wasn’t allowed. For the first time in her life Val was grateful for this rule. She couldn’t imagine wanting to speak to anyone.

At Cambric, meals were given in shifts due to the volume of captives that needed to be fed. For the most part the process was extremely casual. Captives came and went at their designated times, laughed, talked, and interacted without much interference from The Agency. As long as they all followed the rules, everything was okay.

Today, Tracy directed Val to a lone table in the middle of the room. It had a red plastic placard that was marked Discipline. An empty plate was positioned along the center of the picnic-style table and Val sat in front of it. She knew from experience that the plate would not be filled.

The idea behind this spectacle was just that, to be a spectacle. Others around you are eating, the smell of food is swirling through the air, but you, bad you, will not be allowed to partake.

It was a good deterrent actually. And in the past Val had only found herself there once. For most captives, this step was enough to guarantee their total compliance.

As Tracy stood watch, the rumbling of voices died away. The clatter of plates and utensils, the peals of laughter and shuffle of steps were all gone. It was an unusual silence.

For a beat, Val thought perhaps she had gone deaf. Maybe a side effect of the drugs they had given her. Tentatively, she reached up to cover both of her ears. But she could still hear the sound of her own breathing and so she lowered them again. Out of the corner of her eye, a person approached.

“This captive is in isolation, do not speak to her,” Tracy commanded.

Despite the order, the set of footsteps continued, drawing steadily closer to the table. Val was weak and hungry, her stomach churned and her body trembled, but her mind still managed to be curious. Instinct had her looking up, trying to steal a glance at the person who dared to defy Tracy.

And in that moment, Val’s eyes widened. Because it wasn’t one person. It wasn’t one captive. It was all of them. The whole room was standing, the whole room had gathered, and one by one they walked past Val’s table.

Tracy pointed her finger, she shouted and threatened. Cambric security rushed in, but what were they against three hundred bodies?

Over and over Val’s fellow captives placed pieces of food on her plate. They placed biscuits and bacon, strawberries and toast. They piled on sausage, pancakes, blueberry muffins, bowls of cereal, cups of juice until it overflowed her plate. Until it overflowed the table and the benches.

And all of it was done in utter silence. In this way, none of them could be accused of breaking Tracy’s command. They did not speak to her. But they did give up their food, the only commodity worth having on the inside.

She recognized many faces, absorbed the reverent looks from people she had known throughout her childhood. They were giving her their respect with each offering. And they gave it up again, and again, and again. Tears rolled down Val’s cheeks until Tracy stepped in and had two guards haul her away.

Chapter 13

The others may or may not have suffered because of the display in the cafeteria, but Val most certainly did. Waking in the morning, or whatever time it was, she would stare at her empty ceiling. Its harsh whiteness seemed as unfeeling as the guard that occasionally passed by her door. Inset into one wall of her narrow room was a wide plexiglass window. Unlike before, the other room remained empty.

Memories of Gabe on the other side flooded her. The way he sat with his back to the wall, refusing to eat. The sound of his shoulder impacting the glass as he tried again and again to break it. But it was thick, maybe two inches even, and he hadn’t managed the slightest crack. Then there was the way he buried his face in his hands, crying. Crying over Bee and Val, crying over himself. How defeated he looked in the fluorescent lights.

She had teased him then, about the crying. It was an attempt to lift his spirits and at the time he had cracked a sad sort of smile. It dawned on her now that he knew things back then. Things that she didn’t. About loving someone and losing them. But Gabe wasn’t here to see her through now, and she was the one left crying.

Tracy made an appearance exactly three times a day. She arrived with a few select items for breakfast, then again for lunch and once more for dinner. It was not a lot of food, but Val was allowed all the water she could drink.

At first, Tracy carried the food in on a red tray, setting it down just inside the door before leaving. Val wanted to eat it. Her stomach grumbled and saliva flowed, urging her forward to crouch on the floor by the door.

But after a few bites of bagel, or eggs, or toast, something inside of her turned. The rumbling of her stomach morphed into a sour warning. The saliva that had flooded her mouth before, now tasted of sickness and bile. Reluctantly almost, she would replace the half-eaten item and sip at the water instead.

When it became clear she wasn’t going to finish the meager portions provided, Cambric resorted to more drastic measures. They wanted to break her down, yes, but they wanted to build her back, too. She was of no use to them half-starved and sick. That meant Tracy could no longer simply leave the tray by the door.

Each and every day for each and every meal, the other woman drug the black folding chair inside the chamber and sat. Keeping the tray poised on her lap, Tracy would patiently, deliberately, hand-feed her charge.

“Take another bite.”

Tracy would blink down, fork in hand. And Val, for all of her training, was not able to refuse. Opening her mouth, she would take that bite, then chew and chew and chew. She fought like hell to keep it down. Tracy would exhale in disgust before turning her face away.

Deep down, Val lost the ability to care. She lost all manner of feeling, in fact. She felt it slip away from her along with that human portion of herself. After denying her own son, what did any of it matter anymore?

And thoughts of Jace were… all consuming. Isolation itself could make a person crazy. But add in the loss of a child and well, with no one else to talk to, you begin seeing things. Things that aren’t really there.

Lying on the mattress, curled up in a tight ball, Val would stare off at the faces. She saw Jason sitting at their dining room table in France, his brow furrowed over some bit of news that played over his tablet. Sometimes he would glance up at her, a smile playing across his lips, sometimes he wouldn’t look up at all.

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