Author's note: Sorry for the delay. Also, temperatures are in degrees celsius because I'm Canadian. Don't get confused.
Lilith supposed it was early dawn when she woke next with someone hissing frantically in her ear.
"Lilith. Lilly," said Christopher, once again slipping in a nickname he had never used before.
"What?" snarled Lilith, trying to comprehend something other than the pain that was searing through her, as, moving just a little, she broke the scabs and ripped open the tender healing flesh that had begun to try to smooth over her back.
She was dimly aware of the fact that she would never be able to wear a low-backed dress again - the scars on her back would be too numerous and too ugly - but that was hardly her main concern. Now, she tried to let pain focus her senses, clear her murky thoughts, and sharpen her attention on whatever Christopher was saying.
"There's someone coming," he said.
Lilith was furious that he had heard it before her, but that was no matter. She simply grabbed him by the neck and forced him into a lying position once more.
"Pretend to be asleep," she said. "Close your eyes."
Christopher obeyed and Lilith noted the strange satisfaction she got from it. Christopher was ordinarily such a willful creature that to have him obey her without question was oddly pleasurable.
She took her own instruction, too, closing her eyes and curling close to Christopher. She wondered what was next and could only hypothesize. One option occurred to her as the most likely: torture. But the question was, who?
Would they try to break her? Or, having shown Christopher what they were capable of, take him away? Or would they take them both?
Lilith gave a hiss, furious and frustrated and, though she dared not admit it, frightened.
The door clanged open and Christopher flinched. His behaviour was odd, Lilith noted, for he did not whimper or whine as he had done before. Rather, he clung tight to Lilith and gave a soft, wordless growl of anger.
"Get up," snarled a guard. Based on the tread of boots, there were at least two. As Lilith was hauled to her feet, she counted them - four guards. Three went for Christopher, who was struggling and shouting.
Only one held Lilith, and Lilith did not struggle. She allowed herself to be led tamely out of the room while the struggling and howling Christopher was whacked twice with the butt of a gun until he sagged against his captors.
Now she struggled, surging forward, her voice at its most pleading.
"Please, please!" she said. "Please, don't hurt him!"
No one hit her, but the guard held her back and she, feigning weakness, allowed herself to be dragged after Christopher until they reached a door. One guard threw open the door and forced the two of them into the room.
It was a tiny room, dark, windowless, and far below zero degrees; minus fifteen, at least, based on the feel of it. When Lilith was thrown in after Christopher, the door slammed shut behind them, casting the room into shadow with only a tiny light overhead flickering.
"What is this room?" he said, shivering convulsively. He could not be very warm, dressed as he was, and neither was Lilith, though she supposed that was rather the point of the whole ordeal.
Lilith recognized it as another piece that dated the place as an antique.
"It's a freezer," she said.
"Are they trying to freeze us to death?" asked Christopher, his voice quiet.
"Not right away. Slowly, perhaps," she said. "Another torture, I'd imagine."
There was a short pause, the sound of chattering teeth and the humming of the light the only audible sounds. The heavy door shut out all other sounds and light and sealed them off in a world of cold and dark.
"What did they do to you, Lilith?" asked Christopher.
"Deduce, Christopher." Her reply was sharp. She would not allow any sort of fear into her voice to make Christopher any more nervous than he was. She could see fear in his blue eyes, glinting and flashing as he regarded her.
"You won't let me see," he replied, and he, reaching out his hand, let it fall.
"Cat-o'-nine-tails," she explained, her voice harsh. "In layman's terms, I was whipped."
Christopher was speechless for a moment, which was odd for him. "How are you so calm, Lilith?" he asked at last, the question he had posed before. "How did you-"
"Because no good will come of panicking! Listen, I don't know what the fuck they want from me, but it's something to do with you, and I know nothing! But I can't change that. All I can do is stay calm and-" she said.
Christopher interrupted her. "What did they ask you, Lilith?"
"I don't know - some secret you have. But it wasn't about your sexual activities," she replied.
Christopher paused. When he spoke, his voice was soft. "I don't have any other secrets. You know all my secrets."
"Pah!" cried Lilith.
There was another pause during which Christopher, shuddering madly in the cold, accepted Lilith's proferred embrace to keep the two of them warm. It would do some good, she knew, to try to conserve the heat of their bodies, and she suspected that Visage did not intend to kill them now.
"What do they want from us?" murmured Christopher.
"From me? Only what I can give them on you. But you..." said Lilith, not sure if she should share the truth of her suspicions with Christopher.
"Tell me, goddamn it," snarled Christopher.
Lilith would never have obliged him with an answer in any other circumstance, but these were not ordinary circumstances.
"I suspect - I can't be sure - but I think they're trying to break you, Christopher. They saw how you were without me before - shitting yourself and crying, really - and now they're going to take me away again," explained Lilith. "And then you'll give them whatever it is the hell you know."
Christopher, who had his arms tight around Lilith, shivering and shuddering into her body, growled softly into her ear:
"I was not shitting myself and-"
Lilith gave a soft laugh. "Not yet."
There was another pause, this one stretching nearly an hour. In the time, Christopher had drawn her as close as he could, the heat from their bodies doing little to keep them warm. Lilith had never, not in so long she had been married to him, ever been so close to him. Not in any publicly feigned embrace had he ever held her quite so tightly. Now she was close enough to feel his heart beating wildly against her chest, and to feel tears dampen her shoulder as he cried in fear or anger or perhaps both.
"You're fearless, Lilith," said Christopher. Lilith, numb with the cold, had noted how her shivers began to fade and be replaced with a sleepiness that meant hypothermia would not be far behind.
"Am I?" she said.
"You are," he marvelled. "Are you ever afraid or anything?"
Lilith did not want to be truthful. She did not owe Christopher an answer, but gave one anyway.
"Yes," she said.
"Liar," barked Christopher, the cold making him cough his words. "I have never seen you afraid. Are you capable of fear, or are you unable to feel it? Are you capable of any emotion, Lilith?"
Lilith did not justify his query with an answer.
"Do you just not feel as the rest of us mortals do?" he sniped.
"Leave me alone, Christopher," snapped Lilith.
"But you're different, Lilith. I have known you for so long, have been married to you and shared a bed with you and a house and told you everything about me but I have never seen you genuinely happy, or sad, or in love. I've only ever seen you angry - is that all you're-"
Lilith didn't let him go any further.
"Don't speak to me that way. I don't deserve it. I do my job, and I do it very well. I owe you nothing else."
Christopher gave a soft laugh. "I'm not interested in what you owe me. I want-"
He did not go on as the door opened and in came the guards. The tugged him away from her and then yanked her out, too. The air of the hallway, warm in comparison, made Lilith sigh with genuine pleasure.
Of course, that pleasure was short-lived as Christopher, sluggish and quiescent, was dragged down the hall and out of sight.
"Come along, Mrs. Farrar," said a voice from behind one of the guards, and when he stepped out, revealed himself to be Visage.
He took her by the hand - she resisted the urge to break his fingers - and led her down the hall.
"Do you know, Mrs. Farrar, the treatment for hypothermia?" said Visage, waving to the guard. He took off Lilith's gown and left her naked once more. She had neither the strength nor did she think it was a good idea to fight him. Instead, she stood there in the air, it feeling warm in comparison to the freezing temperature before, and folded her hands in front of her groin.
She did not reply, focusing instead on the tub before her, steam rising vigorously from it. The water must have been very hot.
"Answer me," he said.
"Yes," she replied. The gears in her mind were turning once again, and she knew now to obey him would perhaps convince him that she would acquiesce to his questions, therefore proving that she did not, indeed, know what he wanted from her.
"Then you will know that I will treat you for it now with hot water," said Visage. He smirked, his eerie eyes glowing as he leaned forward and, dropping his hand into the tub. He flicked at her.
Each droplet felt like scalding wax, sending searing pain through the few places it touched. She hissed through her teeth in pain.
"Oh, dear," drawled Visage. "I suppose I forgot to mention - even warm water will feel as though you are being burned alive. And this water is at fifty degrees."
Lilith tried not to flinch back or show her fear. She was not, as Christopher had claimed, fearless. She was afraid now, terrified, in fact.
"Not to worry, though, my dear Mrs. Farrar," said Visage, as he motioned for her to be brought forward. The guard obliged, dragging her nearer and nearer until steam from the tub engulfed her and all she could see were Visage's glowing eyes. "This will do you no permanent damage. I would hate to ruin that beautiful complexion any more than I already have."
She was bent over the tub now, even the steam burning her skin and making her eyes water.
"Of course, it will feel like you're being burned alive. Unless you tell me what you know."
"I'm telling you the truth. I don't know what you want!" said Lilith. Had she known what he wanted she knew she would have given it to him. She was too much of a pragmatist to have not to. But she did not know what he wanted.
"I'm prepared to believe you at any second now. Well, in you go."
The guard picked Lilith up and in one motion, dropped her into the tub.
Lilith had barely uttered a sound at the cat, had been called fearless by Christopher; unemotionless, controlled, stoic Lilith, that was her. But the moment she landed in the water, she could not hold back. She screamed, deafening even herself with the sound, and continued to scream at the indescribable agony of the water as it scorched her skin and opened all the wounds on her back as if with a white-hot knife.
She thrashed and like a wounded animal tried wildly to escape, but the guard held her under until at a word from Visage, released her. She clambered out of the tub and flopped limply on the floor, sopping wet and panting.
"Tell me about Mr. Farrar," said Visage. He was squatting next to her. Almost tenderly, he reached down and lifted her face so that her eyes met his.
"What?" she spat at him.
"Dear God, are you really that innocent?" said Visage. "Has he not told you? You're his wife."
"He's secretive," said Lilith. "Ask him and then let us go."
"Are you giving me orders?" said Visage. He slapped her and she barely felt it. "I like you, Mrs. Farrar, but not that much."
"I would tell you what you wanted if I knew it," she said. She looked up into his face as she spoke, holding herself up on shaky arms.
"You'd betray him?" said Visage, and cocked his head. "Don't you love him?"
Lilith could not answer that truthfully, for she did not love Christopher. She didn't even like him. So it was a lie she told Visage, a lie that she tried to make herself believe though she did not in all honesty think she and Christopher would survive this kidnap.
"I'd save both of us with whatever it is you want to know," said Lilith.
"Oh, I thought you were intelligent," said Visage, standing. He looked down at her, looking mildly disappointed. "What he is won't save either of you. Now, back into the water you go before you get a chill again!"
The next time it happened, it was too much for Lilith. As she had before, she blacked out, left with only her own screams ringing in her ears as darkness engulfed her, the sound of her shrieks becoming those of a wheeling hawk as she banked and screamed down over the earth.