My body hurts everywhere, in a dull, constant way, as if every muscle has been held too long in a position it was never meant to endure. My hands are numb, my legs heavy, and the chair I'm tied to has become a cold extension of my pain. Every small movement is a brutal reminder that I decide nothing.
Hugo is standing.
At first a few steps away, then closer and closer, he circles me in slow, calculated loops, like a predator that doesn't hurry because it knows the prey has nowhere to run. Even though I'm sitting and he's standing, there's no power in it. It's pure humiliation. It's the way he looks down at me—not like someone who needs to be defeated, but like someone who needs to be taken apart piece by piece.
"Who are you working with?" he asks, his thick, sharp accent making the words feel heavier than they are.
I lift my eyes to him, and the tears start sliding down before I can stop them.
"No one," I say, my voice shaking. "I swear. I don't work for anyone."
He smiles crookedly and keeps walking around me.
"Who sent you?"
"No one… there was no one…"
"Who's paying you?" he says, stopping abruptly behind me.
I flinch, and the chair creaks.
"No one. I'm not getting any money. I don't know what you're talking about."
Hugo laughs softly.
"Are you a cop?"
"No."
"Who were you trying to sell the information to?"
"I don't have any information," I sob. "I don't have anything to sell."
He leans in slightly, just enough for me to feel his breath near my ear.
"How many shipments do you know about?"
"I don't know about any shipments," I say through hiccups. "Please…"
He steps away again. The circle resumes.
"Do you know how many of our people have died?" he says calmly, almost conversationally.
His words fall into my chest like stones.
"No," I say desperately. "I don't know anything. I didn't do anything. I'm innocent."
I cry without trying to hide it anymore, tears running down my cheeks and soaking into the dirty fabric of my shirt, and every "no" I give seems to amuse him more. He stops in front of me and looks at me for a long moment, evaluating not my answers, but my endurance.
"Everyone says that," he finally says, in an almost bored tone.
He lifts my chin with a finger, forcing me to look at him.
"The difference is how long you can keep saying it."
The interrogation continues until the notion of time falls apart, and Hugo's questions settle over me like a thick layer of fog I no longer know how to escape. I repeat them, I say them mechanically, I say them with a broken voice, then only with my lips, then only in my head, because my answers are the same and I have nothing left to add.
I don't know. I didn't do anything. I don't work for anyone. Ivar killed Gaston.
His circling doesn't stop. His steps trace the same path around me, tighter and tighter. My back hurts, my shoulders ache, my neck is stiff, and my legs burn as if they no longer belong to me.
"Who are you working with, Alla?"
"No one…"
"Who sent you?"
"No one…"
"Who's paying you?"
"No one…"
"Are you a cop?"
"No…"
"Who were you planning to sell the information to?"
"I don't have any information…"
"What shipments do you know about?"
"None…"
"Do you know how many of our people have died?"
"No…"
With every "no," his laugh comes short, almost bored, as if he's already heard it all before. When we reach Gaston's name again, something inside me snaps, and I say it with more force, with more air than I thought I had left.
"Ivar killed Gaston," I say through tears. "He fired. It was him."
He doesn't stop. He doesn't react. He keeps circling, keeps asking, keeps coming back, until my words begin to blur together and my mouth is dry and my throat burns from so many denials.
Then, at some point, Hugo stops.
He stops completely.
The silence drops suddenly, heavy, and the absence of his footsteps disorients me more than their presence ever did. I feel him in front of me before I see him, and when I lift my eyes, his expression is calm, almost relaxed, as if nothing that's been said so far has truly mattered.
"I'm hungry," he says, simply.
He tilts his head to the side and looks at me, curious.
"Aren't you?"
The question drops between us like a trap, and in the way he says it I understand that the interrogation hasn't ended.
It's only changed shape.
Hugo leaves the room without any hurry, letting the door close slowly behind him, and the silence that remains is so dense I almost feel like I could bite into it. I stay tied to the chair, my body numb and my mind exhausted, listening to my own breathing and to the small, humiliating sounds my stomach is starting to make.
When he comes back, he's holding a tray.
The smell reaches me before the sight of it and hits me straight in the chest. Warm food. Simple. Real. Hugo sets the tray down on a low table, right in front of me, then sits comfortably and starts eating—slowly, unhurriedly, as if there's nothing more important in the world to do.
My stomach tightens painfully and lets out a pathetic sound that makes me bite my lip. I hadn't realized until now how hungry I am. Now I can't think about anything else.
Hugo savors every bite. He chews slowly, approvingly, lets out the occasional satisfied sigh, pauses now and then, as if he wants to stretch the moment out. From time to time he looks up at me—not to offer me anything, but to make sure I'm watching.
I can't look away.
The tears come back, unstoppable, warm and helpless, sliding down my cheeks and gathering at the corners of my mouth. I cry silently, my body drawn in on itself, my stomach knotted with hunger and humiliation, while he eats calmly, like he's on a well-earned break.
Hugo licks his fingers, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and smiles.
"See?" he says calmly. "If you stopped lying, you'd get food."
Then he keeps eating.
And I keep crying.
The interrogation starts again.
I don't know when. I don't know how many times. Time has lost its edges. The questions roll over me again and again and again—the same ones, repeated, rephrased, spoken in different tones—until I no longer know whether I'm answering out loud or only in my head.
When I'm close to passing out, when everything starts to drift and blur, Hugo stops.
He leaves the room.
I breathe in short, broken gasps, because he comes back quickly. Too quickly.
He laughs.
"Your little pussy must be magic," he says with a crooked smile, "because otherwise I can't understand why I'm not allowed to kill you."
His words slide over me, filthy, and I no longer have the energy to react.
"Don't enjoy your freedom," he continues. "I'll be back. I always come back."
He tosses a blanket onto the floor carelessly, then sets a cup of water beside it and an empty bucket. He looks at me for a second, as if checking whether I understood the message.
Then he unties me and leaves the room without looking back.
After so many hours of not moving, it takes me long minutes to peel myself away from the chair. My legs don't obey me, my hands shake, and when I stand I almost collapse on the spot. I drag myself to the bucket and relieve myself with my cheeks burning, then grab the cup of water and drink greedily, as if afraid it might vanish.
I wrap myself in the blanket, then sink down onto the cold floor, feeling my body slowly begin to give in.
The darkness catches up with me faster than I expect.
The last coherent thought, before sleep takes me, is simple and stripped of all hope:
I hope I die in my sleep.
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