Freegans part 9

Lucy
I'm not afraid to admit it: I was scared stiff. The men had to drag me up the stairs, because my legs had gone limper than wet spaghetti noodles. What were they going to do? I wondered. Would they use some kind of brain probe, or force the truth from me? I feared the worst.

I ended up being taken into a big room, and sat in a wooden chair at one end of a table. My wrists were chained to the table, and then the men left for a while. When they came back, it was in the company of a new man. As soon as I recognized him, I gasped. I knew him very well.
"Michael Gwilliam?!" I gasped. I couldn't believe it. I was about to be interrogated by the vice president of the United States!

He gave a thin-lipped smile that didn't look really happy. "I'm glad you recognize me," he said in an oily voice. Its tones sent my skin crawling. Gwilliam was a tall, well-built man in a pinstripe suit and a black shirt. He sat down across from me, and drummed his perfectly-manicured fingers on the table top. I couldn't help noticing that his fingers probably had more muscles than I had in my entire body.

Gwilliam suddenly spoke. "So, this is a Freegan. From the poster descriptions, I had half been expecting a little rat-child, or something all ragged. Frankly, I'm surprised. But no matter. Tell me, girl, where is McTavish keeping you? The president and I would really like to get rid of you once and for all, and to do that we need to find you. So tell me, and I'll let you and your friends go."
I cleared my throat, and then said, "I don't know what you're talking about." I was rewarded by Gwilliam backhanding me across the face. The back of my head snapped back, hitting the chair.

The rest of the questioning went downhill from there. The vice president, and occasionally his bodyguards, took turns hitting me, and trying to wrestle the location of the Freegan hideout from my lips. However, I'm pleased to say that I didn't tell them anything. Of course, I couldn't hide the fact that they were hurting me, but even if I had, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. They were mad, and rabid in their interrogation.

Finally, after about the sixtieth time of hitting me in the stomach, they stopped. One of the hired henchmen muttered, "This one is tougher than we thought."
"Should we terminate her, sir?" asked the other hood. Gwilliam was breathing hard through his mouth, and his teeth were bared in a horrible grimace. For a second I thought he was going to say yes, but instead he said, "No. Let's leave her here for a while, so she can think about it."

They left, probably to think up something worse to do to me. I made a weak attempt to free my wrists, and when that failed, I sat and wiped my face on my shoulder. It came away crimson. The pain hurt, but inside I felt good in knowing that I hadn't given in. It was partly the image of my family that had helped me. Right now I even missed Monica, and would never have lived with myself if she were hurt because of me. Partly it was because I remembered Matt and Cara, and how tough they were. But also, believe it or not, I was remembering my first glimpse of Ben. He was without a doubt the cutest boy I had ever seen, with those beautiful blue eyes. If Cara were reading this, she would be rolling her eyes in disgust. But it's true just the same. I had never seen eyes like those, or such a handsome face.