Chapter 4

Pov 7

As I’m left alone in the interrogation room I can’t help but to chuckle. Brian didn’t know how to act when I called him by his name. I guess names hold power, I’d really like to have one. Well I have one, but like Linda said, it really isn’t a name. It’s a number, and an English one at that. Why it has to be English, It’s my least favorite language, though it’s the most useful it seems.

I was thought to speak all major language in the world. English, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, French and many more, but those are the ones I’m fluent. I really had little free time in past, if any. If I wasn’t training, they were teaching me the languages or general information about the world so that I could blend in. When I had free time I read dictionary. There weren’t other books than those, because we used them when learning languages. I had many of them in different tongues.

Someone entered the room behind the mirror. I cannot see through the mirror but I can hear there pretty well. I guess that shouldn’t be possible as they don’t watch what they say there, but I don’t hear anything of importance to me. They are wondering who I am and why I am here, so I guess they didn’t share information about me to just anyone in the facilities. But one thing of note I do hear, food. They are bringing it to me now. I hoped that Brian and Linda would go to discuss over there but they didn’t.

The door opens when a young looking black haired woman walks in to the room with a tray. She looks like she’s not even twenty but she’s still wearing a military uniform. If I remember correctly, the stripes tell me that she should be a corporal.

She places the tray in front of me. She takes a final look at me with wondering eyes and leaves the room. The food looks good, better than I’m used to at least. There is a plastic mug of milk, potatoes, some vegetables and meat. There is also a slice of bread. It definitely looks better than the rations I’m used to. But, how do they think I can eat while being chained up.

Well it doesn’t matter now that I’m hungry as a wolf. I already picked the lock of my handcuffs when they brought me to this room and there were no one in the room behind the mirror. That was before Linda came to interrogate me. They didn’t pat me down as well as they should have when they took me in custody. I had a hair pin hidden in my hair which I used to pick the lock.

The handcuffs fall to the table with a clang as I start eating. They didn’t give me any utensils but I’m too hungry to care, and eat with my hands as fast as I could. I hear some muffled gasps behind the mirror when I removed the handcuffs and some talking after that but once again, I’m too hungry to care.

After the tray is clean I stop to think about what has happened to me. I got caught, as simple as that. But not really my fault as my handlers and trainers were killed and I was left alone behind the enemy lines so to speak. I got transported to France to the J.A.T.F. headquarters and I was told that I’d be interrogated.

I was kind of scared and freaked out when the interrogation started, so much so, that my hands were shaking. I thought the interrogation would be a little different. No, a lot different. I was trained to resist torture and was always told that, that would happen if I got caught and my captors didn’t kill me right away.

In the training, my trainers really went all out and used different, very imaginative methods to torture me. All I had to do was not scream and to not give them the number they handed me before the training. If I were to give it up, they would stop. But that would also mean that I had to go a week without food. A week without food in my training was more torture than the actual torture they put me through.

They avoided scarring me, but still I’m riddled with scars. At least they didn’t scar my face and hands, as that would hinder any possible infiltration mission. The whip marks on my back are ugly though, but I am not sure what does it matter if I’m ugly or not.

Linda enters the room, and looks at my handcuffs that are placed at the edge of the table.

“Thank you for the food. I never had anything as good as that.” I thank her.

She raises an eyebrow as she looks at the tray which is licked clean.

“You still hungry?” She asks. She is nice, she is the first one to ever be nice to me. There were some trainers I liked more than others but none of them were nice.

“A little.” I answer.

“We’ll get you some more later today so don’t worry. How did you open the cuffs?”

I don’t say anything but show her the hair pin with a coy smile, which she snatches from my hand.

“Sorry, but I was hungry and couldn’t eat with them on” I say apologetically.

“It’s all right, Annie must have forgotten to take the cuffs of.”

“Annie?” I ask.

“The corporal who brought you your food” Linda answers me.

“Come on, I don’t think you are that much of a threat that you should be locked up in a small room all day. Just don’t take these off.” She says as she hands me the shackles I was wearing previously. I really don’t like them as they restrict my movement so much but that’s the point and since it’s Linda who asks me that, I won’t try to pick them.

…

We are outside now. I’m gathering a lot of stares in my orange clothes and the clanging shackles but I couldn’t care less. This is place is wonderful. The grass is well kept, there are men and women walking in uniforms and suits all over the place. There isn’t a single trash on the ground, and all of the buildings are intact. This place is not ravaged by war or bombs so it’s all new to me.

Linda is walking behind me as my attention is all over the place. There are pretty flowers and tall trees behind the center most building. There is even a fountain in there.

“Don’t drink from that!” Linda yells me when I’m just about to clench my thirst from the fountain.

A lot of heads turns to our direction, some of them even laugh a little. What did I do wrong?

“But I’m thirsty, and there is water?” I ask Linda questionably. I don’t get it. It’s just water right?

“Come on, I take you to the cafeteria.” She says. Her face reddened a bit. Is she angry with me?

We start walking towards the cafeteria that is between the barracks and the center most building.

Pov Linda

I take the girl towards the cafeteria between the administrative building and the barracks. Gods, that was embarrassing. Everybody looked at us as she was about to drink from the fountain. She had her face already in the water for crying out loud!

I’m lost in my thoughts and at some point, I notice she isn’t in front of me and I do not hear the sounds of her shackles. I turn around to look and see her, way off the road next to a flowerbed. She is looking and smelling the flowers, while trying not to trip with her shackles. Her attention span really is short. It’s like taking a dog to a walk. First she stops next to every flower, tree and sign just to look at them and then I have to stop her from drinking from a frigging fountain. And now she is again sniffing the flowers, her thirst and hunger forgotten.

“Come now. I thought you were thirsty.” I say as I walk next to her.

She looks at the flowers with a look that says she has never seen something so beautiful. I guess there were not much flowers in the forest she grew up. Well, it was close to Chernobyl and the area has been a target for missiles so it makes since that delicate flowers don’t grow up in there.

“That one is called Iris. It is the national flower of France.” I say to her with a soft voice.

“So even flowers has names…” She says quietly. I can see that it’s really bothering her now, that she doesn’t have a proper name. Her voice was filled with sadness and regret. My heart aches at the sound of her voice. Deep down she seems to be just a girl who wanted to be of use. She wanted to be wanted, to finish her instructions so she could be of help. But what she really wanted was for somebody to care about her, enough to name her.

I know I shouldn’t do this, it’s unprofessional. She is still held in custody until we can determine if she is a threat and until we figure out what to do with her.

She is still silently looking at the flowers as I contemplated should I do this. What the hell, she is a sweet girl who deserves a name at least. It isn’t her fault that her world view and morals were twisted by her surroundings.

But what name would suit her. I look at the girl who is gazing the flowers, testing the limits of her shackles chains as she tries to pick one up from the center of the flowerbed but cannot quite reach it. I look at the flower she was reaching for. It is a kind of lily.

“Calla.” I say, while picking the flower she was reaching for.

“Huh?” she looks at me confused, but that confusion turns in to a smile as I hand the flower to her.

“The name of this flower, and yours if you so wish it? It symbolizes resurrection and rebirth, faith and purity, overcoming challenges, and the liveliness and innocence of youth.”

And magnificent and overwhelming beauty, but I leave that part out. Thought it suits her well. She is really beautiful, her blond hair that flows freely just beneath her shoulder blades. Her crystal blue eyes that are now tearing up and looking at me fits the innocence part of the lore. The scars she bears both mental and physical fits the part of overcoming of challenges. And I hope that now she can be rebirthed with a new name and put her old life behind her.

“Calla…” She quietly tastes the name, how it sounds. She looks at the flower and then me and then the flower again. Now she is for the first time I’ve known her, crying for real. Tears falls down from both of her eyes, as she sniffs and tries to say something but cannot get the words out.

I startle as she suddenly jumps at me, burying her face in my breasts and trying to hug me, but the chains don’t let her do that. She settles for gripping my uniforms jacket as she is crying and nodding her head vehemently.

“Yes *sniff* Thank you” She manages to get out between her sobs. I wrap my hands around her and hug her, not caring who is looking. A major hugging an inmate is bound to turn gazes but that is not important.

We stand there silently, as I wait for her to settle down. Some minutes passes as she lets go of my jacket and looks up to me with a smile that makes life worth living. She is sure to break hearts in the future. I only hope that it will happen in the romantic sense, and not the literal.

“Really, thank you. Nobody has ever been nice to me but you” She quietly says.

“You are welcome. And that part of your life is over, now people get to see you as yourself, not as the weapon for rent they made you to be.”

…

We arrived at the cafeteria and all eyes turn on her, the beautiful young girl in orange jump suit, who is practically drooling at the different pastries in display.

“Order anything you want, it’s on me” I say to her smiling, ignoring the others.

“But I’d rather use the plate.” She answers, looking at me while tilting her head. I look at her confused, and then I get it. I burst out laughing and now it’s her turn to be confused.

After I got myself under control, and was about 40 euros poorer as Calla really ordered anything she wanted we sit down at the table. Before she can say anything, I reach over the table and take of the shackles on her arms so that she can eat normally. And so that she wouldn’t pick the lock again. She is still holding the flower, and carefully places it on the table.

I think from the way she eats the pastries that she has never eaten anything so sweet before. She nibbles on one muffing, before putting it down and tasting another and then going back to the first one again. I chuckle at her eating habits, and start drinking my coffee.

Like that we spend the next forty minutes in the cafeteria before I escort her back to her cell. I thought she would be sad to be back there, but she seems like she is content. I smile at her and close the door. It has been crazy few days. Time for some well-deserved rest, I think to myself as I start heading to the barracks towards my quarters. I’m too tired to go home for the night.