Chapter Eleven: The Test

23.2K 1K 17
                                    

Jo was being drowned. The terrified ten-year-old had been tied to a table with a cloth covering her face. Water was poured over her, a cascade of which went up her nose. It was a shock to her entire system, and her head was burning from ingesting water. When she tried to inhale, her breath brought the damp cloth against her nostrils, suffocating her. She was drowning.

"I'll ask you again. Who do your parents work for?"

The drowning stopped for a moment, and the cloth was pulled back from Jo's face. She gasped for breath and coughed up water, tears in her eyes. The burning sensation was still there. Everything hurt.

Jo looked at her torturer, a large man with an ugly scar marring his face. With his head shaved, he looked like a cracked egg. She mentally nicknamed him Humpty Dumpty.

"I already told you - they work for themselves," she told Humpty Dumpty. "They're private tutors."

"You're lying!" he screamed at her.

"I'm not lying," Jo protested softly. He was going to waterboard her again, like he had done four times before. She wondered when it would end.

Humpty Dumpty walked away, and for a moment there was a glimmer of hope. Did he finally believe her? Was the questioning over? Jo heard him knock on a door and say, "Bring him in."

Jo was scared. She stared at the lone lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and tried to blink back her tears. Was someone else going to torture her? Humpty Dumpty walked briskly to Jo and untied her.

"Sit up," he barked at her. Jo rubbed her sore wrists, and sat up on the table. Then she gasped at the sight before her.

Her older brother, Thomas, was kneeling on the ground, gagged, with his hands tied behind his back. He was staring at her with pleading eyes. Jo started to cry.

"Now let's try this again. Who do your parents work for? What do they do? Don't tell me they're tutors," Humpty Dumpty said.

"But they are," Jo sobbed, barely able to get out the words.

Humpty Dumpty grimaced. "You leave me no choice," he said. He walked over to Thomas and pointed a black pistol at the young boy's head.

"Wait!" Jo screamed. Humpty Dumpty cocked his gun, then turned to Jo.

"Do you have something you want to tell me?" he asked. Jo nodded, and looked at her brother tearfully. He was blinking back tears as well.

Wait a minute. He wasn't blinking back tears, he was just blinking.

Slow blink.

Blink.

A quick series of three blinks.

Slow blink.

He was blinking "test" in Morse Code. This was just a test.

Jo looked at Humpty Dumpty. "My parents are tutors."

Humpty Dumpty smiled at her. "Good answer," he said.


******************
Hey guys! I hope you're enjoying Runaway Spy. Please let me know by voting or commenting!

Anyways, I can't wait to post the next chapter. It gets good...
(Hint: Jax and Jo go head-to-head.)

Femme FataleWhere stories live. Discover now