When It Rains

The sound of footsteps on the floorboards above her head had Sasha’s nerves on the brink of a breakdown. She lay on her side on the dirt floor, curled into as tight a ball as she could manage, her eyes squeezed shut and flinching with each clomp of thick soled shoes.

It still wasn’t clear to her where she was or why she was there, the questions she’d been asked were confusing, and the pain her captors inflicted each time she said I don’t know in response had left her a bruised and bleeding wreck. How did she get from sipping a latte in her favorite corner coffee shop to a dark pit carved into the earth? The saying was, when it rains it pours, but this was a torrential downpour in her book.

Her captors were insisting she knew where the RFHC was, and they wouldn’t believe her when she denied knowing anything about it. From what she was able to glean based on their questions, it was some sort of prototype weapon and oh how she wished she did know where it was, not so she could give it to them, but so she could use it on them. Sasha had never had any violent tendencies in her life… until now.

Pale moonlight filtered down through the cracks between the boards, highlighting the dust that fell across Sasha’s battered body along with the silvery light. Tears leaked from her eyes and she wished there was a way to drown out the conversations above, the constant sound as brutal to her ears as the beatings were to the rest of her body.

Through the low din of the voices above Sasha’s ears picked up a patterned knocking: tap, taptap, tap. She sat up slowly, her muscles wincing in protest. Tap, taptap, tap. She looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise, rising to her feet and walking stiffly from one side of her prison to the other, her head tilted toward the wooden planks overhead.

She followed the sound to its apparent origination point, peering up through the knothole and meeting the gaze of the man occupying the chair directly over her head. His hazel eyes were filled with an intense knowing look, and she watched as he again knocked his knuckles against the table: tap, taptap, tap.

With the fifth repetition of the pattern in her ears, a haze she hadn’t know was clouding her mind dissipated like coastal fog assaulted by sunlight, and a flood of memories poured forth, staggering her. Bracing herself against the dirt wall Sasha closed her eyes while her mind and body were filled. Knowledge, training and purpose poured into her every cell like a tidal pool fills with water; not gentle and easy, but with rushing swells, dangerous currents and swirling waves.

It was a full 20 minutes before Sasha felt like she could stand up again, her legs shaky and after a few deep breaths she again looked up through the knothole into now familiar hazel eyes: Kyle, her partner, mentor and lover. They had gone undercover together three years prior, him as a member of the terrorist splinter cell they were working to destroy, and her as a sleeper agent meant to confuse and frustrate them once captured. They were allowed to find small clues that led the them directly to her, but unbeknownst to them Sasha, when activated, was deadly and efficient.

With a fast and subtle movement Kyle bent over and dropped something through the floor, a rusted steel awl landing point down in the dirt. A slow smile spread across Sasha’s face as her muscle memory kicked in, her long fingers wrapping around the wooden handle just as Kyle suggested to Marco, the leader, that they interrogate the prisoner again.

Sasha sat down on the floor to wait, her back to the wall opposite where the trap door would open and the wooden stairs would be lowered, the awl hidden within her folded arms. The trap door opened and the watery light of dawn cascaded down the rickety steps that were lowered into the pit just before a pair of booted feet descended.

Dark eyes found her and without hesitation he made his way across the pit, grabbing her roughly by the arms and hauling her to her feet. In one swift motion Sasha drove the dull point of the awl into the corner of his eye and into his brain, dropping him wordlessly. Drawing the pistol from his holster she sat his body up and crouched behind it, waiting for someone to check on him.

His friends called to him and when no reply came, two of them ventured down the wooden stairs. Sasha didn’t understand what they were shouting in their foreign tongue when they took in the scene, she didn’t need to. Almost as if on auto pilot she used the dead body as a shield when the two men opened fire on her, shooting back until her borrowed gun clicked empty. Diving to the side she somersaulted and rolled to her feet, running at her captors and slitting one throat with the awl while redirecting the dying man’s gun and shooting his partner in the chest with it.

Both bodies dropped, wet gurgling sounds emanating from them as they tumbled down the stairs to bleed into the dirt. Creeping up the stairs Sasha’s blue eyes scanned the room, finding only bodies at Kyle’s feet, the long blade in his hand thick with blood.

Sasha reached up and took Kyle’s hand as he helped her from her prison, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him hard on the mouth; she felt their three years of waiting melt away, replaced by their immediate wanting of each other.