The Emmanuel Sisters

Chapter 4 Introducing Hope Emmanuel

The sunlight was shining through the hole in the interior stone wall. It was the only way Hope could keep track of how many months she had been imprisoned. She had counted the sun shining, and then ceasing to shine every time. But Hope was beginning to question whether she was only there for a few months or much longer. It seemed much longer. A few times she had blacked out, and she wasn't sure how long she had been out. She was starting to question everything. At times she swore she heard someone calling her name. She even felt as if there was a presence in the cell with her, but she knew no one had come in or out of her cell since she had been captured. During Special Ops training they were drilled several times on how to survive in enemy captivity. Hope had been privy to go to a special survivor training course that most military officers were not given the opportunity to go to. All perks of being an Intelligence Officer with a top secret clearance. After passing that with unusually high standards, and being highly successful on every mission, Hope became entitled to even more top secret information and organizations within the military. She graduated at the top of every military school she ever attended. In fact, Hope was so successful at being a soldier and at being an Intelligence Officer, that eventually she was recruited into an elite sector of the military. Half military, half CIA agents, the sector was a secret special-forces group. Once you became a member your name was officially and legally changed, and you were given a totally new identity. You became like a ghost, so that your true identity would be impossible to be tracked, compromised, and used against you or your Country. Hope had to agree to become a ghost, to leave behind her past life and never look back. Once she did that she was officially listed as a missing person, lost in action. This was another reason this special sector of the military, and CIA, was considered elite, and incredibly small. The other agents became your family. The terms of one's admittance into the group was just too much for most officers to swallow. If they turned down the position, they were strongly counseled on the severe consequences to their career, and their personal lives if they were ever to divulge the existence of this special-forces group to anyone they knew.
Even if they suspected that a person, such as a co-worker, who may have already heard about this elite force themselves, already knew about it, they were still counseled not to talk or write about this special sector of the military. However, for someone like Hope, she felt as if everyone she loved was already dead to her. In her mind, there was no reason to turn down this position. A position that guaranteed better retirement benefits than most Presidents receive upon leaving the White House.
Therefore, the officers and enlisted persons in this sector were highly qualified, highly trusted, and highly trained. They were also trained to use all means possible to not disclose their missions, and their true identities. Those means included "self- termination", if necessary. She was trained well, and she thought she was prepared for anything, even the possibility of having to use self-termination as a last resort. However, after several months of confinement, and with all of Hope's training she still found it hard to hold on to her sanity and, to hold fast to her directives. If it came down to self-termination, she didn't think she could do it. At her core she was a fighter and a survivor, she knew in her heart that she would have to die fighting. She didn't think she could ever take her own life, even though she had swore she would be able to do it if she needed to during her training.
But this wasn't a training scenario; this was her first real life captivity behind enemy lines. She was now in a cell, with no windows, one slot in the door, and one crack in the wall where light shined through. They utilized the slot in the door in serving her something that resembled food, and one cup of dirty water once a day. The only thing that kept her focused was that tiny hole in the stone wall. Seeing the sun shine through it every day, gave her hope that she would one day be in the sun again. At night Hope was too afraid to sleep. The floor was nothing but dirt, and every creepy, crawling thing in this God Forsaken place found its' way into her cell at night. The third night she dosed off on her straw pilot on the floor and found herself covered from head to toe with what she thought may have been some type of biting ants. Since then she couldn't sleep for more than a few moments without waking back up. She thought she had been there possibly seven months but it felt more like seventy years now. She wondered if she would ever get out of this place. She wondered why no one had tried to interrogate her yet. She wondered if anyone else involved in the mission with her had survived, and if they were being held also. She thought to herself how lucky she was to still be alive, and how fortunate she was to not have been physically tortured or raped by the enemy yet. But because those things had not happened to her, she feared what was to come.
Hope heard footsteps coming towards her. Her heart stopped with fear. Then the slot in the door was opened and a tray of food was set out for her. She felt a wave of relief fall over her, it was just her food, but she was sure they had fed her already earlier that day. She was always starving, and she always felt an aching emptiness in her stomach. She grabbed the tray frantically. She started eating the soupy substance. It smelled horrible, and she had no idea what it contained, and she didn't care. The first day she had arrived there she gagged and vomited from the food. The second day she just tried to drink it down as fast as possible, and then she sucked down the cup of dirty water to kill the taste of it. But after several months the awful taste and smell of the food no longer phased her. She ate it like it was a T-bone steak and shrimp dinner. As the days passed into weeks and then months, Hope would come to look forward to her grub.
She imagined she heard just barely a whisper of a voice. The voice was so soft she could not discern whether it was male or female. It came from the slot in the door. No one had attempted to talk to her since they had placed her in this darkest of holes in this godforsaken place. The voice said, "Tonight they come for you, prepare yourself with prayer and supplication". Then the slot was shut back up that quickly, it was less than a second that had went by but to Hope that moment of fear felt like an eternity.
For the next, what seemed like a full hour, Hope just stared at the door with the bowl still fixed in her hands. She was in shock, paralyzed with fear, and doubted whether she heard what she did, or just imagined it. It all happened so fast she couldn't even recall whether it was said in English or another language. She thought to herself, if she did hear what she thought she heard, was it a mind game, the enemy was now playing with her. For months she heard, and saw nothing. Why would they bother to warn her they were coming for her now? She thought, that maybe they were trying to fill her with so much fear that she would immediately tell them everything she knew. Well if that was their plan she felt like it might possibly work. So far Hope had been able to keep her composure, her sanity, and her optimism. But now she sat trembling with fear. Hope had been on many missions in the past. Only this time the mission went wrong. A bad mission was bound to happen to her sooner or later. She was the officer in charge and she felt responsible for anyone who got captured. She hated herself for possibly jeopardizing the lives of those she considered to be her friends, her Major, and their loyal, young troops. Hope never considered herself a hero, but she promised herself then, that she would prepare for death, rather than betray those she considered to be her friends, and her family; those young Marines that had put their lives into her hands. She thought to herself that she would not get out of this alive, so she wouldn't tell secrets to live just a few moments more. For the first time since being taken hostage, Hope cried. She buried her face in her hands and in the dirt, to silence her sobs. She didn't want to give any satisfaction to the enemy outside by letting them hear her cry like a scared little child. She didn't want them to realize they had accomplished what they obviously had set out to do; break her down by filling her with fear.
After she was finished sobbing into the dirt, she got a hold of herself and she told herself, "Hope, you have to freaking snap out of it." Then she spontaneously screamed out loud in anger. "The first person who steps foot in here I will send you straight to hell, where you belong!" She no longer thought she possessed any compassion, any forgiveness, or any mercy for these people who had killed so many innocent civilian, without just cause. She hated them, and she felt no conflict about the hate she had for them in her heart. Her renewed anger and hatred made her feel alert. She realized that finally breaking her silence, with a threat, was thrilling, it filled her with adrenaline. She felt pumped with instant energy. Her body was still cold, and she was shivering and itching all over. Her skin was bleeding from scratching all the bug bites on her, and she felt like her body had become weak. But as her anger and hatred increased, the fear that had moments ago almost paralyzed her was decreasing. She felt angry and disgusted in herself for being so weak and for crying. Then she let her anger and hatred envelope her and she let it take over until it pushed the fear way down into a place where she could pretend it no longer existed. She started chanting to herself first softly and slowly until her chanting escalated and became louder. She decided she would be as loud for as long as possible, hoping her Major and her troops would hear her if they were still alive.
"I am trained to kill, and prepared to die. I shall have no fear as long as I'm alive." She repeated that to herself, out loud, over and over again. She reminded herself she had conquered all kinds of obstacles, come against all types of hurdles, and survived them on her own. She told herself she would survive this also. She started screaming and yelling and cursing at whoever may have been outside her cell door. "You want me, come on in, and get me, come on in. I'm prepared to die, are you? I promise you this, I will not go down, without taking some of you with me." She stood up and got into a fighting stance and she began to shadow fight. She let her anger and her hatred fill her up as she cursed her enemies out loud. And for the next few days her focus was on killing and preparing herself for a fight. She pictured herself strangling the rebels with her bare hands. She pictured grabbing their guns and shooting them in the head. She played these horrendous acts out in her mind and with her body over and over again. She felt as if she was losing a part of herself, the more human part and becoming part animal inside. When she wasn't fighting the air, she did pushups and crunches to strengthen her body. She decided to keep her strength up by providing herself with extra nourishment. So instead of flicking the biting bugs off of her she started eating them. She didn't know why she didn't think of it before bugs were an excellent source of protein. The bugs became her between meal snacks, to supplement the one bowl of grub she consistently received once a day from the rebels. The sound of the rodents that had plagued her sleep was also resolved. She hunted them in her spare time just to have something to kill. She thought to herself when the time came she would kill her enemies as if they were the rats, with no hesitation, and no regret.
As the days passed by whenever Hope felt her energy dwindling or her anger residing and the fear trying to take over again, she would think of her past, her painful past, and all the people in her life that had harmed her and used her. She recalled those predators from her past and filled herself with her hatred of them to keep her anger, and the fighting spirit fueled inside of her. She told herself that her current captors would pay for every sin that was ever committed against her in the past. She would make them feel her full wrath before she died. Hope swore to herself she would kill as many of them as she could. She thought to herself she had no one but herself to count on all her life, and it only made sense that now at the end she would also die alone. She felt that her anger and hatred was the only thing keeping her alive and she could not let go of it, lest she would surely die. Although she was keeping her body strong by embracing her hatred and anger; she didn't realize it, but her mind and her spirit were becoming weak.
One night she sat in her cell and thought to herself that for the first time since she had been taken hostage that finally she felt she was at a point where she felt totally indestructible and fearless. And it was then that it happened.
Hope heard another person's voice coming from the corner of her cell. She knew no one was in the cell with her and there was no one at the slot in her door, trying to leave her food, but she was positive she heard a voice. She began to check every nook and cranny of her cell and she found nothing. Then she considered that maybe her mind was just playing tricks on her and there was no voice and no one was coming for her. But that wasn't true, because her greatest enemy had come for her after all, and it wasn't the rebel soldiers she was expecting. Hope looked up and it was him, the one man from her past who instilled fear in Hope like nothing else could, her foster father, Mr. Smith. He was the one man that still haunted her in her nightmares. The one man that caused her to practically become addicted to Tylenol PM, and two glasses of wine, before bed every night, just to get a good night's sleep. He was the reason Hope had never had a healthy, romantic relationship with anyone her entire adulthood.
After Nana died and Hope was taken away from her sisters, she was put into, what New York City Department of Social Services considered one of the most reputable foster homes in the town, Mr. and Mrs. Smith's home, and that was when and where Hope lost her innocence. Since the day Hope left that foster home she had intentionally did her very best to keep herself from thinking about that time of her life. She would block out those dark thoughts whenever they entered her mind, except for the occasional exception of when they entered her dreams. For keeping the nightmares away she had become accustomed to using sleep aids, and wine to help her not dream, or at least to help her to not remember her dreams when she awoke. This was the first time Hope had allowed herself to think about Mr. Smith while she was awake, but this was more than mere thoughts of him, because although Hope did not want to believe her own eyes, he was standing there, right in front of her, and her first thought was, "I've gone crazy!"
Hope stared at the man that appeared before her frozen with fear. "You are dead. You can't be real, I'm ...I'm hallucinating".
"In here I'm as real as you are. You think you're invincible don't you? But to me you will always be that weak, little, thirteen year old girl, that will always belong to me."
Hope closed her eyes, and started whispering to herself, "he isn't real, he isn't real." Then she heard Mr. Smith's voice again.
He had no intentions of leaving her alone. He was laughing at her and then he started talking and taunting her. "Get on your knees, just like old times and cry and beg, just like you use to. Beg me to leave you alone, but you know I won't, not until you tell me what I want to hear, tell me you belong to me body, mind and soul. You know how I use to love to hear you play hard to get, how you use to pretend that you really didn't want me at first, and how much it turned me on to hear you eventually say how much you loved me. Oh how I have missed you Hope, but now we can be together forever, just you and me in this cell, there's no one to come and break us up this time. No this time, no one can take you away from me ever again.
Then quietness fell upon the cell once more, for how long Hope didn't know, but his voice, his horrible voice, had gone away. Hope thought that maybe she had just experienced a rare moment of temporary insanity. After she took in a deep breath and exhaled she found the courage to open her eyes. But when her eyes were wide open, Hope looked around and realized she was no longer in her dark, dirt and stone wall cell. It didn't take her but a moment to realize where she was at. She was somewhere much worse than any jail cell could ever be, she was back in that basement, standing there naked and cold and scared, just like it was twenty years ago, all over again. She was back in Mr. Smith's basement, back in Queens, New York, and she was thirteen again. She thought, "this can't be, it can't be, I'm thirty three years old and I'm a Colonel in the United States Marine Corps", so she closed her eyes once more and kept repeating that to herself over and over again. She was trying her best to regain her sanity, and make her mind remember who she was now, and not who she use to be. For the first time since she had been taken hostage Hope wished with all her might that she was back in the one place she had been wanting to escape from for the last few months; back in her jail cell. But every time she closed her eyes and reopened them she was still there in that basement, and standing in front of her was Mr. Smith. She hated him with every fiber of her being; he was the only father figure she'd ever really had, the only man she'd ever had sex with, and the only person she feared more than anything or anyone else she could think of in her entire life. But she had long ago pushed her fear for him deep down and put it away, because her rationale mind knew he was dead. He had died twenty years ago. But if he was dead, and she knew for a fact that he was dead, why was he now standing there in front of her? Then he started to speak again and his voice made her skin crawl.
"Hope like I said I'm not going anywhere and neither are you. So why don't we take this time to catch up and get reacquainted with one another."
Hope was over being shocked now. She was over being paralyzed with fear. All she knew was no matter how irrational it seemed he was there and no matter how many times she closed her eyes he was not going away.
Hope thought to herself, "now, after all of my preparation it's come to this... I was prepared for a battle, and I actually had filled myself with so much hate for the enemy that I desired nothing more than to fight, and to kill, one of them. Yes, I was waiting and longing and wishing for an ultimate battle with my enemies to the death, better that, than being a pitiful victim, dying as a weak, pathetic prisoner that didn't fight back. But I never expected this battle that I've been preparing for would be with him, I thought, I assumed it would be with strangers who are enemies to my country." A part of her wanted to give in to her insanity, because she wanted a fight, and her psyche had brought one to her, so in a strange way she welcomed it. Why not fight, with the one person she hated more than anyone else. She told herself she was ready, ready to finally finish off whatever hold Mr. Smith still had over her mind. She no longer needed someone to come and save her from him, she could save herself.
Even in that moment of accepting her insanity and embracing the need to confront her fears, Hope still did not realize that this was not just a fight against the demons in her mind, but this would also be a spiritual battle for the ownership of her soul.
Hope looked at Mr. Smith, with hatred in her eyes and she stood up and said to him, "in twenty years no man has seen me cry, no man has heard me beg for mercy, and no man has touched me in any place I did not want to feel his touch. I'm not thirteen anymore and I don't fear you anymore. In fact, for the past twenty years I have not feared any man. I've been trained so well that men now fear me." At that moment there was truly no trace of fear left in Hope's eyes or in her voice, she was so ready to finally end whatever hold Mr. Smith still had on her mind.
He stood in front of her not seeming deterred or moved by her little speech, but that didn't scare Hope. Her body was once again the body of a soldier ready for a fight, tall and strong. She was no longer that weak thirteen year old girl, she would never be her again. She waited for him to respond; for him to make the first move. Then he calmly responded.
"My little Hope, confused child of this world, with so much knowledge but such little understanding. I am no mere man. I am so much more. I could never fear you, not you alone. And that is exactly why, you should fear me."