INACTIVE

I cannot live like this. While roleplaying has given me amazing opportunities and the chance to meet amazing people that have changed my experience on this website, it has also brought me people and experiences that have changed me negatively.

As they drove on, leaving the base behind, Julia knit her eyebrows together. “After dinner. He and I had talked about having a movie night if we could. He wanted to show me… something about Marvel movies that are not cannons? I do not know, the boy was talking about his pleasures again.” Staring through the windshield, as if any moment now the bug would be illuminated by the truck’s headlights as he walked the long road to town, she hoped the boy was warm.

He scanned the road carefully, searching for a figure wandering along the side, but as he expected, there was nothing. Roach left a long time ago, and Ghost knew how fast that kid could move when he wanted to. He did wonder if he was right about where Roach could be, though. He didn't get a call from Val of Light yet, so they didn't find him. Not yet. With every second that passed Roach was out there, probably freezing his ass off, and Ghost wished he was there for the bug earlier, when it counted.

Ghost let out a long breath. "Playground. At that park on the edge of town. Roach likes the fucking roundabout thing. Kid spins on it for hours and somehow manages to not throw up." He didn't mention that that was where he found Roach before, nearly asleep as it spun lazily in circles. His hands were numb and his face was dark red from the cold, and Ghost still didn't fully know why Roach picked that place, of all things.

No sooner had the Manc brought up Roach than Julia was tossing the covers back to get up. As Ghost finished speaking, she had already recovered her jeans from the floor and pulled them on, starting across the room for her drawers to grab a sweater. “I’ll be there soon.” she said, ending the call and putting her phone in her pocket to pull on the warmest thing she had.

He regarded her carefully. She was bundled up, and it reminded Ghost, once again, how cold it was. Especially for someone without a jacket. "Light was worried about Roach, so we went to check in on him and he wasn't there. We searched the whole base. There are two places he could go, and Light and Val are already ahead searching one. We're going to the other place." Ghost motioned to the truck, leading the way and climbing into the driver's seat. He started the truck, and was immediately met by a blast of cold air and the low static of the radio. He switched the heater on and turned off the radio.

At first, nothing registered, other than there was suddenly a noise. Some old orchestral music started in a slow build, drawing Julia from her dreams. Still not fully coherent, Julia rolled over, staring at the area now illuminated by her phone. After a moment, a pillow collided with her back courtesy of Owl, who whined for Julia to pick up the ‘damn thing.’

Still sleep drunk, Julia answered the phone, licking at her dry lips. “Алло?” she croaked into the phone. There was something strange about all of this, more than the late hour. After a moment, it hit her, and she sat up straight.

She said something in Russian that Ghost figured was a greeting, and he took a second to figure out the best way to say what he needed to. When he opened his mouth, however, there was a sudden creak as Julia probably sat upright in bed. He felt a ghost of a smile on his lips when she realized who was calling but it vanished when he remembered the reason for his call.

The prisoner would talk, she was sure of that now. He would speak to her, and she would empathize. “I think that will be quite enough, Ghost.” she said quietly. It surprised Julia just how even her voice could be after seeing what Ghost was capable of. She could admire his work in some ways, but in others, she was filled with a certain revulsion.

A part of her wondered what came after scissors, though she hoped neither she nor the prisoner would find out. He was babbling away now, just as she knew he would, answering her in a shrill voice. He met the Ultranationalist leader through a business partner, and Julia raised her hand to silence the man. It took him a moment to obey, and when he went silent, he really was. He wouldn’t even whimper in pain, eyes nervously flitting to his masked torturer.

"You are telling me you met Makarov through Grigori Karenin?" That troubled her, though she never let it rise to the surface. If what Dezhnyov said was true, Makarov had friends in some truly high places. Karenin was politics-bound, old money from a business family out of Minsk. The man had connections worldwide, and would no doubt be a good ally for Makarov… and a major pain in the 141’s side. With Dezhnyov’s confession ,they could well shut down several of Makarov’s more powerful connections in Russia.

The prisoner confirmed what she had asked, before murmuring in Russian. Mercy. He was asking for mercy. One moment, he spoke of her as a western whore and a sellout, the next he was looking to her as an empathetic countryman. She wanted to carry on as if she had not heard his plea, but she had a reputation to maintain. Offering him a pained look, as if to convey there was nothing she could do, she moved on to her next question.

"Do you know what Makarov does with the money you give him? A man like you must be curious, after all. Perhaps he told you what your donations would fund."

He felt Julia's eyes on him, asking him to get the prisoner talking once again. He waited another beat, staring down at the prisoner with cool indifference. Blood began to spread from the wounds on his thighs, turning his dirt-stained pants a dark crimson. Without some kind of medical attention, Dezhnyov would bleed out in about fifteen minutes, give or take.

When the prisoner didn't speak, Ghost took his time walking casually to the tray behind the prisoner. He selected the car battery, the weight of the device in his hands bringing back a flood of memories best left forgotten, but Ghost could never shake off. He attached the cables to the battery, and after attaching the other end of the cables to the leg of the prisoner's chair, he sent Julia a warning look to prepare herself before switching the device on, starting at five jolts.

Dezhnyov's body jerked violently, a strangled cry tearing from his throat as electricity raced through his body. Ghost only keep the battery on for thirty seconds, but from experience he knew that such little time could feel like eternity. He gave the prisoner a second to enjoy his time not being pumped full of electricity, and then switched the battery back on, this time at 6 jolts, and for fifteen seconds.

Would he bleed out? Julia kept her face dispassionate, but her head was reeling. She hadn’t prepared for this, not for anyone to bring out the big guns so soon. It had absolutely staggered her. She was absolutely right to have been terrified of this man. The metallic taste of fear crept into her mouth, onto her tongue. She gave the prisoner a moment to calm, thankful that it gave her time to collect herself as well.

It was effective. Swallowing down her fear, she had to concede that. This was a man who would get shit done. There was something to admire in that. In the end, such brutality ma be helpful. All traces of fear gone, she began again, willing the bleeding man to focus on her once more.

"Makarov. How did you get in contact with Makarov?" Her voice was low and even, as if conspiratorial. A sort of tone that might make him want to talk. She was the lesser of two evils. He could talk willingly, or Ghost could force it from him.

He wasn't surprised that the prisoner didn't say a word. They usually didn't after being stabbed like that. Of course, Ghost was in a certain mood, so this man got 'special' treatment.

Ghost chose his next instrument carefully; a pair of metal scissors. They felt heavy in his hand, and he flashed them open and closed three times, the sound sharp to his ears. He walked to the prisoner's right side, and smoothly jabbed the closed pair of scissors into the man's fresh wound, summoning a groan and a string of Russian curses from him.

"Answer her," he told the prisoner, his voice dangerously low, almost like a growl. A hint of his Manchester accent was weaved into his words, and Ghost internally chastened himself for not being more careful. It was best not to reveal anything, even if the listener was too busy grounding his teeth in pain to listen closely.

Instead of following directions, the prisoner began to spit at Ghost, but stopped to yell in pain as Ghost opened the scissors, tearing the man's wound open further by about four inches, careful to not completely sever his arteries.

"Leonid Dezhnyov." she began, looking down on the man as if he were little more than a maggot crawling across a carcass. She told herself to focus on him, because Ghost’s little survey of the tools available to him made her most uncomfortable. He would never use them on her, she knew, but her fear for the masked man got to her all the same. She did not envy the man across from her.

"We are told you might have some information on Vladimir Makarov." Actually, they knew he did. Observing the man for several weeks had paid off, and it had been confirmed he provided substantial funding for some of Makarov’s more violent antics. Man was damn near a fanatic for The Cause, all behind his front as a good businessman. "Would you like to share?"

Ghost casually walked around to the prisoner's right side, and without hesitating he plunged the knife into the man's thigh, all the way down to the hilt, before neatly pulling it out again. The prisoner's groans and curses were satisfying to hear.

The blade was crimson now, and Ghost wiped it clean on the bound man's pant leg. Then, he drove the knife into the prisoner's left thigh, repeating the process of removing and cleaning the blade. Once again, the man's sounds of pain satisfied Ghost in a strange, twisted way.

Just behind her Ultranationalist prisoner, she noticed a car battery. Keeping a firm face for the enemy, she found herself puzzled all the same. What was a car battery doing here? What did Price plan on doing with it?

The door opened, and Julia struggled keep a smile from her face. She turned to greet her usual partner in crime… and paused.

Of course, everything improved as soon as Ghost saw Julia waiting for him. He wasn't told who his partner was, but he was glad that out of all the people, it was the Russian girl from intel. It made interrogation a lot more interesting.

The prisoner wasn't looking at him purposely, and Ghost gripped the man's short dark hair and jerked his head back sharply, greeting him with a frosty smile.