Because I Wanted To
When Sophia spoke to her, the female soldier gave no answer. She set the porridge on the table, gathered up the clothes Sophia had taken off, and laid a fresh set on the mattress—an army-issue cotton T-shirt and a pair of work trousers. They had even included white underwear, as meticulously as ever, so that Sophia nearly found herself marveling at the kindness. The woman gave the bedsheet one last careful look, then left it as it was.
"Might as well be a hotel. Planning to change the sheets while you're at it?"
The sarcasm died in the empty air. There was no one there to take it up. After the major's visit, a bed had appeared in the room. It was a hard, cheap thing, but being able to lie down and sleep was blessing enough.
They hadn't even bound her. If she set her mind to it, she could kill these women easily enough—a plate of corn porridge, or a discarded T-shirt, would have been weapon enough.
But the major knew it, and Sophia knew it just as clearly. She could not escape. She could not kill herself. She could not kill anyone. Not now that her sister's existence had come to light.
Twice a day, at one in the afternoon and six in the evening, she ate the porridge they brought her and spent the rest of her hours exercising. If she stayed still for fear of an empty stomach, her muscle would only waste, and when a chance to run finally came she would not be able to take it. After the workouts she washed and set her thoughts in order.
The bathroom attached to the cell ran nothing but cold water, but that was hardly worth resenting. The room had never been meant for washing. It had been built for water torture.
None of it made any sense.
Six in the evening. Turning over the time she had read off the soldier's watch, Sophia worked through set after set until sweat was dripping from her, and only then did she wash. She changed into the clothes they had left and threw the sweat-soaked ones into a corner.
Tomorrow they would come in again at one, hand her fresh clothes, and take the laundry away. For a spy, it was an absurdly luxurious life. She drank down the corn porridge that had gone cold while she exercised, brushed her teeth, and lay on the bed.
So many ones and sixes had passed. She was still alive, just as the major had said she would be. What came next? Ella? Frustration burned through her like a fire. She was enduring, stubbornly, but she did not know how long that endurance would hold. What in the world was the major waiting for? What was happening outside?
She squeezed her eyes shut and muttered a curse, and in the same instant she heard boots. Sophia sat bolt upright. At last the face she had been waiting for opened the cell's iron door and stepped inside. It had been exactly five days since he had left her alone.
She did not move. She only stared at that clean, handsome face. Major Louis Kane still wore that bright, winning look. She remembered when he had first been assigned down to the battalion—everyone who met him had gossiped about that face. A face that ought to have belonged to an actor, not a soldier. Beneath the fine, strong features, of course, there would be muscle no one could easily dismiss, and a body honed to a cutting edge.
"What's your game?"
She spoke first again, because the man said nothing. Louis shrugged out of his uniform jacket and draped it carelessly over the chair, watching her. The white shirt beneath stretched taut along the shape of hard muscle. Sophia was strung wire-tight. Louis was at ease.
"What game?"
"I'm curious what you mean to do with me, feeding me well and letting me sleep."
"If that's all you're curious about, Lieutenant Yu, you've lost your edge."
He said it with a short laugh, and Sophia frowned. Looking closer, Major Louis seemed somehow tired. Those elegantly set blue eyes were faintly bloodshot, and his already angular jaw had gone sharper still. She studied him and chose her words.
"Major General William's death must have left a great deal of cleanup."
"Don't provoke me, Sophia. Your operation failed."
"Or is that just what you want to believe?"
"You don't have to nag. There's plenty that needs tying off today."
"So the higher-ups have finally decided to try pulling my nails."
At her bold reply Louis frowned, then laughed again. It was a strange expression. This was the major who wore nothing but that bone-dry face, the one they had nicknamed Stone. The frown made him look almost human.
"Of the cuckoos who got into the unit, Wilson was caught first. He kept his mouth shut to the end, but once Tony Brown was found out and spilled your whole operation, Wilson couldn't hold either. He talked."
Without warning, Louis began laying out the situation. This was indoctrination in earnest—the digging of a trap. And still Sophia had no choice but to listen.
"Wilson's mouth told us plenty about how brilliant those earlier operations were, the ones you pulled off for the rebels. Unfortunately, this one failed miserably. Team Leader Aiden Miller has been caught, and the rebel headquarters is marked on our map."
Sophia forced her trembling hands still. How much of it was a lie, and how much was the truth?
The major searched inside his jacket, drew out a cigarette case, set one of the neatly arranged cigars between his lips, and lit it. She had never seen him smoke. Today he carried a thoroughly unfamiliar air.
"Wilson seems to have tried to hide your sister right to the end. Aiden, though—what a pathetic bastard. Three fingernails, and he poured out your weakness without a fight. Can you picture it? I'm sorry, Sophia. He handed over everything we needed in such detail that there's nothing left for you to do."
He offered the apology with a calm, cold face that was not sorry in the least.
Aiden Miller. She saw that glossy face telling her that if the operation succeeded, she must not die—she must come back to base. The confident face that had promised to protect her and her sister, somehow. She had never really trusted him. She had not expected him to get in the way like this.
"There's a contradiction. If you already have every piece of information you need, then why am I still alive?"
She wanted to scream it—was Ella safe, where was she—but she swallowed the urge and asked the question flatly.
"Didn't I tell you, Lieutenant? Keeping you alive is the point."
"Why, exactly."
Silence settled over the room. Smoke veiled the major's face, then let it show again. Those deep blue eyes and that sculpted face held no hint of anything; she could guess nothing from them. He drew hard on the cigar, exhaled, and ground it out on the table.
He rose slowly and rolled up his sleeves, his expression set, as if he had decided something. Forearms emerged, cleanly defined and hard. Sophia noticed that the bandage was gone from his large hand. The wound he had carved into the back of it had faded. She was certain she had broken those fingers cleanly, and yet his recovery was monstrous.
"Command is very generous with me. In an age this insane, a dog that bites well is precious. You feed it properly, keep it in a good mood, toss it a toy now and then. That's how you manage one."
She did not understand why Louis had suddenly started talking about dogs.
"The reason I kept you alive is simple. Because I wanted to."
Major Louis stepped in close and caught her by the chin. Sophia flinched, startled a beat too late. She was not naive. It was easy enough to infer what a man's private touch meant. She had simply never predicted it—never even imagined it—because the man was Major Louis Kane. He was a soldier's soldier, the kind who did not so much as set a hand on someone's shoulder without reason.