The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2) (10 page)

They
managed to clean out Finn’s shoulder with water from a tap that jutted out from
the wall. Thankfully, the bullet appeared to have passed right thought. Sarah
just hoped that there weren’t bits of cloth stuck in the wound that were at
risk of festering. Boulder had somehow managed to keep his spare bandage, and
they tied the fresh one around Finn’s shoulder. He had, thankfully, mostly
stopped bleeding. Shortly after that Sarah fell asleep. She didn’t think that
she would have been able to, but the second she closed her eyes she was out for
the count. She slept so deeply that she didn’t even hear the door to their cell
squeak open later that night. A hand roughly shook her awake. She jumped,
letting out an embarrassing squeak.

“Get
up.” It was the same officer who had stopped her from getting stomped on
before.

She
blinked, quickly waking up. She stood up and the man spun her around so that
she was facing away from him. He snapped a set of handcuffs over her wrists,
and then grabbed her by the arm, guiding her out of the cell. She glanced at
the others over her shoulder. They were both still asleep, although she thought
she saw Finn stir a little.

“Where
are you taking her?” yelled Finn groggily as the cell door closed behind them.

The
officer didn’t reply. He marched her out of the room and up two flights of
stairs. She could still hear Finn yelling, although his words were now
incoherent. The soldier’s fingers dug deeply into her arm. It was going to
leave a bruise. Her breath came fast and heavy as her heart raced at a million
miles an hour.
Don’t freak out
, she told herself,
don’t freak out
.
The corridor they stepped into was carpeted. The walls were lined with pictures
of distinguished military men and women. They halted outside a heavy door. The
man rapped on it sharply three times and then pushed it open, dragging Sarah
inside with him. The room they entered was large. On Sarah’s left were an open
fireplace and a few lounge chairs. On her right, facing the fireplace, was a
large desk. There were a number of bookshelves behind the desk. A middle-aged
man sat there, engrossed in his work. He had a livid scar near his left eye,
short dark hair, and dark eyes. He glanced up quickly, nodded to the middle of
the room returned to his task.

“You
may leave us, Lieutenant,” said the man behind the desk. The insignia on his
uniform identified his rank as Captain.

“Sir,”
said the Lieutenant. He walked forward, deposited the keys to her handcuffs on
the Captain’s table, executed a salute and left, leaving Sarah standing alone,
handcuffed and feeling exposed in the middle of the large room. The fireplace
crackled and she jumped. She looked back at the Captain but he hadn’t shifted,
his eyes still focused on whatever it was that he was reading. Sarah studied
the rug she was standing on. It was a nice rug, classic Persian design. She had
a sudden image of her blood splattered all over it, staining it for life. She
shook herself out of it. It wasn’t helping. After ten minutes of this Sarah
couldn’t take it anymore.

“Sir?”
she offered, her voice sounding weak in the large room. She strengthened it.
“Why am I here? I don’t know anything.  I didn’t even finish basic training,
I-” but she cut herself off as the Captain finally put down what he was reading
and looked at her.

“You
are here,” said the Captain after a long, uncomfortable moment, “because I
ordered you to be.”

Sarah
didn’t say anything. What could she say to that?

“And
because,” continued the Captain, “the Lieutenant saw something.” He stood up
suddenly and Sarah took an involuntary step backwards.

“I
don’t know what you mean,” she said, eyeing him closely as he circled the heavy
desk. He had a large knife in his hand. He took his time walking over to her,
and only stopped when he was so close that she had to crane her neck to still
see his face. It took all of her willpower not to step away from him. He hadn’t
raised the knife yet, but Sarah was acutely aware of its presence.

“Turn
around,” he ordered.

Sarah
did so slowly, hating to turn her back on the man. She felt his hand on the
collar of her shirt and she had to correct her balance quickly as he tugged
down on the collar, exposing her upper back and partially strangling her at the
same time. The Captain made a noise, like a half-strangled cry, and then he
grabbed Sarah’s arm violently, still holding on to the back of her shirt. He
flung her around and steered her towards the desk, slamming her into it so that
she was flush against the side of the desk, her torso bent slightly over the
edge. Sarah cried out but he shook her roughly.

“Don’t
move,” he barked.

Sarah
was terrified. Her breaths were coming sharp and short now. The Captain grabbed
a desk lamp and brought it over to her. He pulled down on the back of her shirt
again, using the light to examine her right shoulder. She knew what he was
looking at. It was the same thing that had stirred the interest of the guard on
the prison ship, ultimately ending in his death. She had the insignia of the
Hourglass Group burnt onto her right shoulder.

“When
did you get this?” the Captain demanded.

“I
don’t know,” said Sarah truthfully.

“Who
did this to you? You obviously didn’t do it yourself.”

“I
don’t know,” repeated Sarah.

“DO
NOT LIE TO ME!” roared the Captain.

She
found herself getting flung back, hitting the floor in front of the desk hard.
She scrambled backwards a few paces.

“I
swear I don’t know!” said Sarah, trying to show her honesty in her face for him
to read.

The
Captain snarled. “How can you not know? It was burnt into your skin! What are
your ties with the group?”

“I
don’t have any!”

The
Captain picked up a nearby vase and threw it against the wall, making Sarah
jump. A soldier rushed into the room on hearing the noise.

“Captain?”
he asked, obviously confused.

“Take
her away. Kill her.”

Sarah’s
stomach dropped and she struggled to her feet, edging away from the guard who
was now coming towards her.

“No,
please,” she begged, “I’m telling you the truth, I swear, I wouldn’t lie to
you. Just…” she thought frantically, trying to find something, anything to make
him change his mind. “Just give me some time to remember. I’m sure I can
remember something. I probably thought it didn’t matter at the time, but it
might be what you want, not that I know what you want, but..” she knew she was
babbling, that she wasn’t making much sense, but apparently she had said
something useful because the Captain raised his arm, stopping the guard.

“Wait.”
He paused, thinking for a second. “Go.”

The
guard saluted and left. Sarah felt a moment of relief and then reined it in.
She was far from out of the woods yet. The Captain pointed towards the middle
of the room and Sarah moved to do as he wanted.

“You
have an hour to remember something of use to me,” he said. He circled back
around the desk and went back to his reading. The complete change in attitude,
from stark raving crazy to quiet was unnerving.

“Are
you… are you going to kill me anyway?” asked Sarah, not quite able to hide the
tremor in her voice.

“That
depends on what you remember.”

Sarah’s
heart sank. After a moment of awkwardly standing there she slowly lowered
herself down so that she was sitting cross-legged on the rug. An hour was a
long time to be standing with nothing to do but think. The Captain didn’t seem
to object, so she focused on what she had to do. She had to remember, or make
up something good. The latter would have been a lot easier, she ruminated, if
she knew what the Captain actually wanted. She tried to focus. What could she
actually remember? Not much, was the honest truth. She knew that she had woken
up one morning with a painful, bandaged shoulder, and that her mother had told
her she had fallen and injured it. Her mum had said that she had also knocked
her head, which was why she couldn’t remember, and Sarah remembered that she
thought it was strange that she didn’t seem to have a headache or mark there.
She hadn’t thought much of it after that, knowing that it had scarred. It was
probably a full month after it appeared, when her mother finally consented to
letting her take off the bandage, that she realised that her scar was actually
an image. The outline of an hourglass in a circle, to be precise. She had
gotten angry then, demanding to know what had happened, and why her mother had
lied to her, but her mum hadn’t told her anything, just saying that she would
know one day, and for now it was best that she didn’t. Sarah had been so angry.
She had hardly talked to her mum for weeks. Now that she might never see her
mum again she regretted that, but at the same time now would have been the
moment for that secret story to come in handy. She tried to clear her mind again
and focus more on the day, rather than the subsequent events. Nothing. She had
nothing. This would have been so much easier, she thought viciously, if she
hadn’t been nine when it had happened. Sarah opened her eyes and glanced at an
antique clock on the desk. It had been twenty minutes already. How in the world
had that happened? She tried to push aside the sudden jolt of fear she felt and
focused again. She could do this. She had to do this. She forced herself to
relax, taking big, calming breaths of air. Her mind started to wander. Then she
got an image, just a flash, but she was sure that she could make out a man. He
was standing with his back turned to her, so that she couldn’t see his face,
and was bending over, looking at something on the bench. He was talking to her,
and she was talking back, evidently quite comfortable. Then it was over. The
whole image probably lasted half a second. Sarah opened her eyes again. Who in
the world was that? There hadn’t been many men in child Sarah’s life. There was
her uncle, but it definitely wasn’t him. Her dad had been out of the picture
long before. She tried to bring up the image again. Had the man been wearing a
lab coat? But she couldn’t be sure.  She spent the next twenty minutes trying
to recapture the image, to coax more out of it than her half a second had
allowed. When that didn’t work, she used the last ten minutes to desperately
try and think of something else to tell the Captain, something good enough to
save her life. She wished she knew what it was he wanted. Her thoughts strayed
to Mr Wall, the guard on the prison ship who had died helping her escape
because he believed that her scar meant that she would end the war. If only he
had told her more. Even that might have been useful. She could barely keep her
eyes off the clock now, her anxiety growing with every second that ticked away
without a solution.

At
thirty seconds to the hour the Captain looked up. “Well?”

Sarah
stood up slowly, using the precious seconds that action took to think
desperately.
“I wasn’t lying before, I really don’t have clear memories of the event,” she
said. The Captain frowned and she quickly moved on. “But I know it’s associated
with the Hourglass Group. I know that they are responsible for creating most of
the weapons we use now. I know… I know they experiment on prisoners.”

The
Captain’s frown deepened. “And do you know what these experiments entail?”

“Um,
no,” mumbled Sarah, somewhat weakly.

The
Captain stood up. He rounded the table again and came so close to Sarah that
she had to fight her impulse to take a step back.

“You
are telling me the truth now. This is good. But you aren’t telling me
everything.”

 He
brought up his knife. Sarah swallowed. Suddenly, quicker than lightening, the Captain
grabbed a handful of her hair, steadying her head as he brought the knife up to
her right eye.

“Don’t,”
whispered Sarah. “I’ve told you what I know. Everything else is just flashes,
images. They don’t make any sense.” She was talking fast now, her terror
finally swimming to the surface as he pressed in the knife so that it dug into
the soft flesh under her eye. “Please, I’m not lying. I’m not even a volunteer.
I was forced into the army. I don’t care who wins. I’d tell you if I knew, I
swear. I just don’t know.”

The
pressure of the knife disappeared and the Captain let go of her hair. He took a
few steps backwards and leant casually on the side of the desk.

 “Tell
me about these flashes.”

“There’s
a man,” began Sarah. The adrenaline had managed to bring back the image,
focusing it in more detail than she been able to recall before.  “I can’t see
his face, he’s turned away from me, but…” she focused, recalling the detail.
She almost caught her breath as she remembered something she hadn’t before. “He
has his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He has the same Hourglass logo on
his forearm, only it’s not burnt in, it’s tattooed. And…” she hesitated, “I
think… I think he’s worried.”

The
Captain looked interested now, and what’s more, he looked like he believed her.
Whatever he was about to say, however, was lost as the door opened and the same
guard as before appeared.

“Sir,
apologies for interrupting, but the General is on the line.”