The World We Live In | 𝚃. 𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙾 ♤

Chapter 18

TW - torture and (emotional) manipulation

An hour later, the sun began to set. Troy informed the group they would stay the night. It was impossible to comprehend so many things happening in just a single day. They were betrayed by someone they thought they could trust, trapped within a horde, and forced to hole up and wait. It wasn't until Nick and Blake risked their lives to go out and walk with the dead. Then, the group lost a militia member in the process. Cristine and Hailey were kidnapped, and their lives were bargained for supplies. Now they were torturing the assholes for all the answers they could get.

The group was set in a simple system, and pairs of two were required to keep watch. Finally, Cristine received news that Aaron woke from the violent comatose Troy knocked him in. Waltzing through the halls in a quick stride, she found Troy and paused at the entrance of the half-open door, and peered through the crack. Cristine didn't go in right away but looked inside to see him sitting hunched over the worktable and writing vigorously in what she guessed was his journal. The last time Cristine remembered Troy writing in his notebook was when he'd force her on the militia's experimental runs. At least, that was when she was frequently around them. Maybe he still did, but he kept it to himself. An uncomfortable heat spread to the tip of her fingers, and Cristine clenched her fist near her stomach. She forced herself to be pragmatic and rapped her fist on the door before walking in.

"Aaron's awake." Troy's head shot up, and he seemed a bit caught off-guard by the statement until he saw who it was and saw him relax. He quickly finished writing down his final thoughts, and Cristine drew close in the meantime and stopped at the edge of the table. Cristine attempted to glide her eyes over what Troy jotted down. She only caught a glimpse when Troy wrapped the cord around his black-bound journal and closed it. Rubbing the side of her neck nonchalantly, Cristine pretended as if she wasn't trying to take a peek at what he was documenting when Troy gave her an odd look. His jaw relaxed, and his parted lips pulled up into a sheepish and embarrassed smile. He smoothed his palm over the evened-out leather and shoved his journal back in his pants.

"Just documenting my observations about today with what we did walking with the dead," Troy explained the question she hadn't asked but saw passing in her eyes. The attentive expression on Cristine's face remained the same. Wetting his lower lip, Troy found that Cristine's silence and leery eyes were unpitying.

"Are you going to document Aaron and the others too? After we're done with them?" Cristine finally asked and tapped her index finger on the worktable. She saw how Troy thought her question over with those piercing eyes—treading these waters where his obsession with the infected and the killing that came with quenching it was always a gamble. Troy was callous and detached when it came to fulfilling his thirst for knowledge and violence. Cristine wanted to know Troy's answer because she wanted to be prepared for the interrogation.

"Do you want me to?" Cristine's confusion showed on her face, taken aback by his question, and Troy breathed out a cynical laugh. "I won't get much data out of them, and I rather not waste paper on half-dead pricks. It immortalizes them and takes in more headspace than necessary. But if you want me to, I can make an exception and-"

"No." Cristine's response was quick and crisp. She shook her head and chewed the inside of her cheek. "Let's just think of a way on how we'll go about this."

Troy got up from the chair and nodded. "Well, Aaron doesn't know what happened. My guess is they found the bodies." His lips briefly stretched when Cristine's eyes narrowed, and it jolted something dark. Troy's voice was low and clipped, "he doesn't know how long it took for his brother to turn after you stabbed him in the throat and watched him die... he doesn't know how you gutted those other two. Ripped that waste his throat out and let him turn out of petty revenge." Troy peered into Cristine's eyes and saw the muscles in her face tense. The top of her lip twitches, indicating the start of her habit of cutting him off.