“You need a hug,” I said. “Or maybe therapy. Or maybe—I know—you need to be kicked in the throat. How about you unchain me, and I’ll hug you before I kick you in the throat?”

“You’re a violent little thing, aren’t you?” she asked. “Peter told me how shamefully you treated him. I honestly expected more ladylike behavior from you.” As she spoke, I realized that even when she was slapping me, she’d been careful to keep most of her body at an angle that would be virtually impossible for me to kick. She was smart. She learned from the mistakes of others. That just meant that I couldn’t give her time to take notes when the time came for her to make her own mistakes.

“What can I say?” I asked. “Some of us grow up in the care of global terrorist organizations. Others aren’t so lucky.”

For a moment, Margaret actually looked sorry for me. I itched to slap that expression right off her smug little face. “We’re not terrorists. We’re the good guys. And now it’s time for you to start earning that redemption.” She stepped away from me. “Gentlemen, she’s ready. We can begin the interrogation.”

The Covenant’s definition of “interrogation” wasn’t nice. It wasn’t gentle. It also wasn’t going to leave any scars, so I suppose I ought to thank them for that—although it’s hard to thank anyone who thinks that, say, beating the bottoms of my feet with a wooden baton is a sociable thing to do. They weren’t interested in my long-term dance career. They weren’t even interested in my being able to walk normally the next day. What they wanted was information, and they were more than happy to hurt me if it would help them get it.

As I had suspected, Robert was the most efficient of the three. Margaret was happy to help Peter hold me down, and Peter grinned disturbingly the whole time, but it was Robert who kept producing common household tools from his little box. He looked disappointed every time he had to get a new one, like I was letting them down by refusing to break.

“You could end this now, you know,” he said, pulling what looked like a blood pressure cuff out of the box. “All you need to do is tell us your name. That’s all I’m looking for today, is your name. We know your surname is ‘Price.’ Why not buy yourself a bit of a rest, and tell us what your first name is?”

“Go to hell,” I said.

“I’m afraid you’re going to beat me there,” he said. Margaret took the blood pressure cuff, fastening it tight around my upper arm. I tried to squirm away. Robert raised a finger. “This will hurt less if you hold still.”

“Why the hell would I start believing that now?” I demanded.

“Because I might be telling the truth, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if I were?”

I didn’t say anything. I just glared mutely, willing him to fall down dead. Maybe that would have worked, if I’d been Sarah and he hadn’t been wearing an anti-telepathy charm and oh, right. If we lived in a comic book universe where the rules said that the bad people would be punished, and the good people would always come out on top. Too bad we didn’t live in that kind of world. Too bad we never had.

And then the cuff around my arm began to expand, and the needles I hadn’t previously been able to feel began piercing my skin. After that, I forgot about everything but screaming for a little while.

“What’s your name, love?” asked Peter.

I screamed.

“Just tell us your name and this can all be over for now. What’s your name, love?”

I screamed. The more they inflated the cuff, the more the needles dug into my arm. The fact that it was designed to let air slowly out again meant that I never achieved equilibrium; the cuff would inflate, the needles would dig in, the cuff would deflate, the needles would shift positions, and then it would all start again. It was a new, exciting way of hurting someone, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

“What’s your name, love?” asked Peter.

I screamed, and kept screaming, until the sound ran out and I slumped, practically boneless, in the chair. Robert stopped inflating the cuff, letting it collapse with a soft hissing sound. Then he leaned in, wrapped his hand around the now-deflated cuff, and squeezed.

Somehow I found it in myself to scream one last time, wailing like someone’s family beán sidhe. Robert kept squeezing, grinding his hand against the cuff so that the needles danced inside my flesh. His expression was sad, almost disappointed, like he hadn’t wanted any of this to happen.

“What’s your name?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

“V-Verity,” I replied. “Verity Price.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Verity Price,” he said, and took his hand away. The needles were still there, but the sudden reduction in pressure was such a blessing that I started to sob. “Take it off. We have what we need for right now.”

“How is that what we need?” Margaret asked.

Robert smiled. “Verity’s seen the light. She’ll be willing to help us, now, won’t you?”

I couldn’t say anything. I could only sob, and keep sobbing as they gathered their things and left my tiny artificial prison. This time, they remembered to turn off the lights on their way out, and I was left alone again. Well, almost alone; the pain was still there, and was more than happy to be my companion in the dark.

Professional dancers learn to work through pain. It’s a part of the job. We dance on sprained ankles, we dance with broken ribs, we dance on blisters and bunions and broken toes. We are expected to be beautiful machines, capable of holding our form no matter what injuries we’re hiding. All my training told me that I should be able to compartmentalize the pain, and so as soon as I was alone—and as soon as I stopped crying—I began to do exactly that.

First up was an assessment of my injuries. The puncture marks in my right arm were probably the worst; they were still bleeding, and I couldn’t move my arm enough to tell whether there were tears in the muscle. For the moment, I had to assume that they were all superficial, and that I’d be able to climb if I needed to. Anything else was unthinkable.

My feet were in worse shape. I didn’t think any bones were broken, but both soles were badly swollen and probably just as badly bruised. I wasn’t going to be running anywhere any time soon. I’d just need to find another way.