Saskia claims what we feel is no more than lust. Considering she's never been an eighteen-year-old guy, she can't understand how well I know about pure, stupid lust. What I feel for this redheaded enigma is nothing like the sexual need I suffered for any hot girl when I was a horny teenager. This desire for her is all encompassing until I can't think of anything without a hint of Saskia included. I hear her voice even when she isn't speaking. I see her even when she isn't in the room. I've lost my damn mind over this woman, but she still believes we're suffering from ordinary lust.
Saskia rests sprawled on her back. Arms spread and legs wide open, she's thoroughly fucked. I smile at her expression. Blissed out, she stares at the ceiling while my fingers tease a growing hickey on her right breast.
"You look happy," I whisper.
"I am."
Her smile invigorates me. "Why were you so angry earlier tonight? Is that what you're like when pumped up with adrenaline?"
Saskia curls her arms around one of mine and rolls over to look at me. "You didn't stay in the elevator."
"I was worried about you and wanted to help. That was no reason to be so pissed."
"You distract me," she says with a hint of irritation in her otherwise relaxed expression. "I lose my focus when you're around."
"You kicked ass tonight."
"Did I? He got off a shot that might have killed you or me or an innocent bystander. I also wanted him alive."
"What for? I'm fucking thrilled he's dead."
"Intel."
Caressing her soft hair spread across my chest, I think of Dennis Stein dead at my hands.
"When I escaped years ago, there were only two people in the small house. One was Dennis. The other was a woman named Liz Loucks. She tried to stop me when I ran out of the house, but I shoved her aside. I guess she banged her head or something because the police found her wandering around on the road looking for the sacrifice."
Saskia's gaze remains soft as I speak. In here with her, I don't mind recalling the past.
"The police interrogated her for hours about her accomplices and why she took me. Liz told them nothing. In the cabin, I heard her and Stein say I was a sacrifice to Bagadon. With the police though, she only hummed. She never asked for a lawyer or got upset. She only hummed. Then when she saw her chance, she killed herself. There's no reason to believe the idiot from tonight would have talked."
"I could have made him talk."
"Oh, really?" I ask, grinning.
Saskia holds my gaze and nods. "It's what I do."
My smile fades. "Torture?"
"I refer to my skills as extraction techniques."
"Torture doesn't work. Studies have shown that people will say whatever they have to when tortured. The information isn't reliable."
"Did you read that on the internet?" she says, sitting up against the headboard. "Then it must be true."
Joining Saskia against the headboard, I take her hand. "When those fuckers were slicing into me, I would have told them whatever they wanted. I begged them for something I could do to make it stop."
Her expression tenses and Saskia tightens her grip on my hand. "Too many madmen or simple freaks think the way to gain intel is through butchery. If they cut off a few fingers or bash someone's face in, the target will tell you anything you want. However, the human mind responds to pain in a variety of ways. A man screaming in pain will likely not know what the truth is even if he desperately wants to tell it."
Before my eyes, Saskia pulls back a dark curtain and shows me her ugly past.
"I've walked into situations where drug lords or dictators wanted information, but they've tortured their targets for days, even weeks. The human mind is resilient yet complicated. Memories and fantasies intertwine. What is a dream? What is reality? They all twist into the unknowable when under stress. Think of it as trying to remember a name when you see someone at a party. If you have time to think, you can usually recall the name. If you're under too much pressure, your mind locks up, and the name remains lost."
Saskia fingers caress mine absently. Her mind so focused on the past that she doesn't see me. I shiver at the thought of her mother teaching a child such horrible skills.
"The key is to tear a person's body apart without destroying their mind. Most people want to give up early on, but they don't want to give up too soon. Most of us aren't martyrs or cowards, so it’s necessary to peel slowly away their need to refuse. It takes time and patience. Even more so when I walked into a situation where the target was already pulverized. Bringing them back to sanity enough to dig into their minds can be impossible. Compared to such lost causes, the man tonight would have been a cakewalk."
The indifference in her expression doesn't bother me as much as the pride in her voice. Imagining her entering a room with a man strapped to a chair, I see her coldly tearing him apart until he has nothing left to offer. Human life meant nothing to her mother, and I wonder if it means anything to Saskia either.
"You only left that life out of boredom?" I ask, my voice shaking.
Saskia hears the judgment in my words. When she looks at me, her face reveals emotions I don't understand. Is it possible I really don't know this mysterious woman and our feelings are no more than lust born out of shared loneliness?
The confusing emotions on her face shift into a cold mask. Saskia releases my hand and slides out of bed. "Everyone has darkness in them, but not everyone embraces it."