Knives and Lies | Bucky Barnes

Chapter 4

"It's been three weeks," Lavon said solemnly at the final debrief from the Singapore mission. "Protocol states we have to presume anyone missing in action for three weeks or longer dead." He looked around at the rest of the men in the room. Tom sat with his eyes low and unmoving, and the action couldn't help but make Lavon smile ever-so-slightly. "I'm sorry."

Tom looked up and narrowed his eyes at the agent before him, then smirked. "I'm sure you did everything you could. Don't let the guilt eat away at you for too long." Then he got up and left the room first.

Slowly, the other men left as well, but Lizbeth had Lavon pinned against a wall before he could leave. "You sentenced Ruby to death because of your childish grudge against Tom? Seriously? You killed one of the best agents Hydra has ever had because you were hoping he would crack?" She shook her head in disbelief. "You're crazier than I thought."

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If she was dead, why was she still in water? Was she stuck in her lifeless body? Was this punishment for all of the unforgivable things she had done?

Suddenly, her body rushed out of its confinement as the side of the box was pulled away and the water flooded the white-tiled room. Ruby coughed and heaved as water came out of her lungs. She had been tortured by Hydra, she was broken and bruised countless times in the past three weeks, but she had never felt pain as excruciating as the water coming out of her lungs. Her eyes teared up, and her voice was hoarse as she croaked out to the men standing in the room with her, "What the hell did you do to me?"

The man in the three-piece suit grabbed her hair and pulled her neck back until she looked him in the eye. "Tell us who sent you."

"No."

"Do you want to drown again? Do you want to come back? How long do you want to keep doing this?"

Ruby weighed her options. The box terrified her. It was tiny and pitch black, and the water came so quickly. But she knew she would live again. And that made her smile. "I'm not doing anything else today."

The man slammed her head against the wall.

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She was shoved in the box the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. But she didn't curl into a ball and try to force her way out. She counted the steps from the stairwell to the room. She memorized the weapons the guards kept on them at all times. She took the voices speaking to her behind the mirror and put them to faces. She counted how long they waited before pulling her out of the box and how long they waited before pulling her back to her room. She waited and counted and memorized and planned. And the next day,

She was ready.

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"Mengapa kamu tidak bercakap? Ia akan lebih mudah daripada mati setiap hari." Why don't you just speak? It would be easier than dying every day. The two guards took her biceps in their hands and walked through the hallway and into the white room once more.

Thirty-seven.

Ruby said nothing as they shoved her into the box and closed it.

Three minutes.

The water pooled out of the box and her lungs burned for the fifth time. Her throat was raw from coughing and her chest ached from the pressure, but she continued counting.