Jessie had mentioned the term “enemy combatant”, but he hadn’t had time to ask her exactly what that meant. Now he knew. It meant they could do anything they wanted to him. Anything at all.
His shivering abated, but his energy didn’t return. He coughed, his whole body shuddering and he groaned at the ache in his ribs. He felt like he had been beaten with a bat. Wrung out emotionally and physically, he slept.
The clink of the slot woke him. They were back. He scuttled under the bed, banging his head against the metal in his haste. If they tried to take him, he’d fight. It would be better to die fighting right now. Backing into the farthest corner, he strained to hear over the sound of his own breathing. A soft scrape reached him and then the creak of the slot closing. Mark remained under the bed for a long time, ears attuned for any other sounds. Slowly…carefully, he inched his way out and spotted his meal tray.
Eyes glued to the door, he retrieved it and set it on his bed. The sandwich looked safe enough. He sniffed it. Turkey. It was dry, and after a bite, he reached for the purple juice that didn’t taste at all like grape juice. The liquid hit his mouth and it was all he could do to keep the small bite of sandwich from coming back up.
After two more attempts to eat it, he gave up. His stomach couldn’t handle the food and what little he had managed to swallow came back up moments later. When the slot opened for him to push the tray out, he shoved it as hard as he could, and the curse of the guard on the other side almost made him smile.
Days passed and they didn’t come to take him to be interrogated. Every time a meal arrived, he jumped at the sound at the door, terrified they were coming for him. The constant stress made eating impossible and his hunger diminished. At first, he tried to eat everything, but when he puked more often than not, he quit trying. What difference did it make anyway? Starving or drowning, the end result was still dead. At least he controlled one.
He abandoned his exercise routine. There was no point. Time didn’t matter and he sat in the cell staring at the wall. They took away his blanket after he shoved out a meal a second time, and he was sure they cranked the air conditioning on to its lowest setting. He shivered and lay on the bed. Mostly, he slept.
His dreams no longer held future events, instead, he dreamed of the past. Christmas, summer vacations, sitting in school. The settings didn’t always look like he remembered, but somehow he always knew where he was in them. And he was always safe.
Delivery of meals became an annoyance that took him from his dreams and forced him to get up to push the tray back out. At last there came a time when he couldn’t get up. He tried, but his head spun and he sat back down. Three times, he tried to stand. They would be mad at him. He knew it, so he lurched to his feet. His head swam and the floor raced up to meet him, slowed only by the thud of his head as it hit the toilet.
He lay stunned, watching with mild interest as blood flowed across the floor. His blood. At least he had added some color to the room. The puddle spread and felt sticky and warm beneath his ear. He raised his head a fraction and tried to swipe at it, but his arm was too heavy to move. With a wet squelch, his head sank back to the floor. It felt like ice against his cheek. Mark shuddered and closed his eyes. He was so tired.
Voices, urgent and angry, penetrated his consciousness. They were angry at him-he could tell. They were probably mad that he had made a mess in his room. If they just gave him a minute, he’d get up and clean it. If he could just get his body to cooperate. He had to get up.
The command from his brain died on its way to his limbs. Shiny black boots halted a few feet away and a blur of pink became a face. It was speaking to him, but Mark couldn’t process what it was saying and gave up when the effort sent a bolt of pain through his head.
He couldn’t remember closing his eyes, but he felt something prying them open one at a time, and groaned when a bright light flashed in them. He tried to close his eyes and turn his head but hands held him still and tore at his shirt. Something tight went around his neck. Fear that they were going to strangle him entered his mind, but he couldn’t summon enough energy to open his eyes. It wasn’t until he felt a hard board at his back, and his body rolled onto it, that the panic set in. He tried to scramble off the board, but his arms and legs had been strapped down. It was no use. He was trapped. The voices dimmed and became distant. Then they were gone and everything went black.
“Open your eyes!”
A hand shook his shoulder and Mark blinked awake with a start. He squinted at a greenish curtain dangling from the ceiling. Where the hell was he? The room wasn’t the same as the interrogation room and he was in a bed. A real bed. With a real pillow and he smoothed his hand against the mattress. Sheets. Scratchy ones, but they felt heavenly to him. Blankets covered him up to his chest. He wanted to close his eyes and burrow into them, but the hand shook him again.
The voice came again, “Oh no you don’t. No going back to sleep.” While still commanding, it wasn’t threatening.
“What?” Mark tried again when his first attempt came out as a croak, and he sought out the speaker. Jim.
Mark jerked and tried to scoot to the far side of the bed. A clip on his finger fell to the floor and he nearly tore his hand off when the handcuff attached to the bed pulled him up short. What did Jim want? He blinked, and rubbed his eyes against the top of his shoulder, feeling dizzy. A loud beeping began, adding to the confusion.
“Christ! Lie down before you pass out again.” Jim put a hand on Mark’s arm, urging him back against the bed. “Stick your finger out. You knocked this thing off.”
Mark complied, but never took his eyes off the other man as Jim put the clip back on Mark’s finger. At least the annoying beeping stopped. He licked his lips; they felt dry and cracked.
Jim looked over to a guard by the door. “Free one of his hands, would you?” When the guard had done so and moved back to his post, Jim picked up a pitcher on the rolling table and poured some water into a cup.
Eyes wide, Mark watched, an alarm from some monitor barely audible over the sound of his heart beating in his ears.
“Here.” Jim thrust the cup at him.
Mark recoiled, batting it away. It sailed into the curtain, splashing water across the bed and onto the floor.
Jim looked from the cup, still rolling on the floor, to Mark. “What the hell did you do that for?”
Mark didn’t cower, but he couldn’t look Jim in the eye. He took a deep breath and forced an answer. Remaining silent would only make it worse. “I’m not thirsty, sir.” It was a lie, but the truth, that shoving a container of water in his face sent his pulse racing, was too embarrassing to admit.
“Bullshit.” Jim glared at him and then said, “And I suppose you aren’t hungry either.”
“No, sir.” That was true. He couldn’t recall the last time he had eaten, but he was beyond hunger.
“Well, you’re going to buy yourself a feeding tube. We aren’t in the practice of starving inmates to death.”
“No, sir. Drowning is quicker.” Mark flinched at the dark look on Jim’s face. What made him say that out loud? Fear pounded through his veins, only one beat ahead of the hate and shame.
The man stepped closer, face stiff with anger. “They’ll be in shortly to insert the tube. I heard it’s not pleasant.” Jim turned to leave, motioning to a guard on the other side of the curtain to come sit in the room with Mark.
The thought of a feeding tube scared the hell out of him. He couldn’t handle that someone would be shoving food into his stomach. It was just one more thing beyond his control. “Wait…sir.”
Jim held the curtain with one hand and turned back. “Did you decide you were hungry after all?”