Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75570 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75570 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
After, we moved on to my imprisonment. While I’m sure this was the part Dr. Ellery was interested in hearing about, she just listened casually without taking a single note. Kynan drilled me hard for all the nasty details.
“Where were you taken?”
“Not sure. I was hooded the entire time, but I estimate it was roughly two hours of driving distance.”
“Did they take you to a city or suburban structure?”
“Small village, I believe, based on the sounds of animals and the lack of traffic noises. I never got to see outside the windowless room they had me in.”
“Describe the decor in the room.”
“Wood floor, plaster walls with cracks, a table with two chairs in the middle. Table against one wall with a pitcher of water. They drank from it, but they never offered me any.”
And so it went before Kynan eased into the nitty-gritty.
“What methods of torture did they employ on you and how often?” Kynan had asked without any noticeable inflection in his voice. This was research, which it was obvious he hoped to learn from.
“Several times a day for roughly nine days as best I could tell,” I said. “Sleep deprivation the entire time, starvation, loud music, electrical shock, and physical beatings.”
Succinctly and without emotion, I rattled off the details. I had been trained to withstand torture—to a degree. Everyone cracked eventually. There was no shame in it. The key was to make them work for it, to give them the least harmful intel or die trying, and to learn all about the enemy while doing so. I know I succeeded on those fronts, mainly because I didn’t have a lot of good intel to give. Luckily, they believed me and stopped the torture, moving me across the desert to toss me into a hole until I could be useful in some other way.
Kynan then asked about communications, the times of day they rotated guards, and whether I was able to pick up any other intel. I told him everything I knew, not even getting annoyed when he sometimes asked the same question twice. It was a genuinely legit tactic to help check for veracity or to poke for additional memories.
At the end, he’d thanked me for my time and reiterated I was on desk duty until I completed my counseling with Dr. Ellery. She would be the one who would release me back to full duty.
And so, I’m now walking toward her office.
She’s sitting behind her desk, peering at something on her computer. She has a set of bookcases behind her, which are loaded with books—all psychiatry based, I’m sure. Two plush-looking chairs flank one wall with a table and a lamp between them. I’m grateful she doesn’t have the cliché couch.
Dr. Ellery eschews the overhead fluorescent lighting of an industrial building. Instead, she utilizes scattered lamps to provide a calming glow. Her office is the only one that has shades along the glass walls, presumably so she can close them for privacy reasons. Not that I care. I expect it won’t be a long-held secret I have to go to counseling with the good doctor before returning to active duty. I’m not embarrassed about it in the slightest.
I just don’t want to fucking talk about it.
Two separate things.
When I tap on the glass door to her office, she swings her head my way. Smiling, she waves me in. It’s one of those glass doors on hinges, so it swings shut behind me as I enter.
“Hey, Malik,” she says warmly, motioning to one of the guest chairs. She rises out of her desk chair, grabs a notepad and pen from her desk, and moves over to join me. I quickly find the chairs swivel as she angles hers in toward me. “Glad you could make it.”
“We both know I don’t have a choice,” I say lightly, attempting at a bit of humor. It falls flat to my ears, but she smiles.
“Well, that’s not true. You could have chosen not to come. Came up with some excuse. Said you were sick. Hell, you could have opted to get a new job.”
I incline my head in capitulation. “Point taken, Dr. Ellery.”
“Corinne,” she insists. “We’re all on a first-name basis here.”
I blink in surprise. “I was going to have you call me Mr. Fournier.”
Tipping her head back, she laughs, nodding. “Sense of humor. I like it. And it bodes well for you. Those who can laugh even after experiencing traumas tend to do very well with therapy.”
“So that’s what we’re going to actually call it, huh?” I ask, because it’s a word that hasn’t been used yet.
Corinne shrugs. “Call it what you want, but you and I will be doing a lot of talking. My goal is to determine if you are coping with your trauma—”
“I am,” I assure her.
She ignores me, continuing. “—in a healthy and productive way. More importantly, in a way I deem to be sufficient to put you back on duty with your teammates. It’s not only about your mental health, but it’s also for safety reasons, too.”