Smokescreen

11

"Erica!" Zoe called. "I found something!" The two girls plopped down on Zoe's bed and opened the computer with shaking hands. This could be the key to his location. They only had 3 weeks until final exams, and Erica's case remained unsolved. They'd been looking for him for nearly two weeks at that point, to no avail.

They'd finally found his room, tucked in the corner of the third year dorms. Erica had examined the things in there, discovering old photos with a sad smile. There was a pair of old, chipped and cheap sunglasses that she'd bought Ben at the beach, all those years ago. He kept them.

"A broadcast?" Zoe whispered, looking at the pop-up window. It was of a shadowy room, with a singular chair in the middle and a person tied to it, their chest heaving and their neck exposed. A light illuminated the person in the chair from behind the camera. It was Ben, his hair strangely blond and red with blood.

"Let the show begin." A voice whispered. "So nice of you to join us, Agent Hale."

Erica took in the sight of Ben, his nose bleeding and scars covering his arms. The brand on his neck was flaunted, and the torturer bizarrely seemed to caress it. Her eyes widened as she recognised the shoes the masked person was wearing, beginning to shake.

"T-That's them." Erica gasped, the world swimming in front of her.

"Well, now they have Ben." Zoe swore, picking up the laptop. "Quick- Let's get this to Chip."

They had to turn down the volume as they ran through the hallways, the screaming coming from the computer too loud to not attract attention. She couldn't even look. They made it to the gym, Zoe silently handing the laptop to Chip, who took in the scene with wide eyes.

"Cain." He said.

"Had enough, little boy?" The voice taunted, strangely inhuman with inflections and the voice modifier. Ben spat out the blood from his mouth, giving an eerie grin that told them that he was not going to give up.

"What, you're not having enough fun?" Ben heckled his torturer, straightening up in the chair. He looked directly into the camera. "I'm good at fighting back."

"Trace it!" Erica cried, and Zoe got to work, opening a program on the side to track down the location. The abuse continued, but Zoe didn't dare take her eyes off the code. One wrong key stroke and it wouldn't work.

She entered it, growling in frustration when all it came up with was a warehouse in turkey. She tried again, but the same location came up. They had to be on U.S. soil. Nothing else made sense. The masked creature placed their weapon on Ben's chest, continuing to slice away until it seemed that they had reached his heart. They forced him to look at the camera, his eyes shining with pain and tears.

"Tell me, Agent Ripley. What is it that you regret most of all? Give me your final confession."

"You're a priest?" The knife tightened around Ben's neck.

"Chip!" Zoe screamed, quickly took a screenshot of the image, taking a last resort that she could find something that would give away their location. She searched the image, running the code one last time.

"I can't track it." She whispered. "They scrambled the signal."

"My regrets?" Ben stated again, pretending to look calm even though Erica could see his hand shaking in pain. "My best friend died instead of me."

Zoe let out a cry at the mention of Mike. Instead of him? What did he mean? Mike gave up his life for Ben, taking a bullet to the heart at the last moment. Everything had been over, save for Joshua Hallal's last ditch revenge from the grave. Of course Ben blamed himself; he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"They know who you are." Ben warned the shadow, who froze, their back to him as they sharpened weapons. He grinned at the reaction, his teeth coated with blood.

"No one's coming for you." Cain hissed in his ear, but Zoe and Erica didn't hear it. Ben looked up at him with the eyes of a man who had seen war and been broken several times.

"I know- It's my own fault. Who cares if no one is coming to get me? You kill me, and that means that I get something I've wanted for years- to join Mike and be free of this game called life- and you get on the CIA's radar for killing an agent. You may have had superiority over me two years ago, but you didn't kill me then, and you won't get to now. I'm not that person anymore."

"Two years ago?" Chip muttered. "What is he talking about?"

"Ben was kidnapped and tortured by Cain when we were 16, and the CIA did damn all about it." Zoe hit the mat in anger. Why hadn't she noticed? Had he been missing for two weeks and no one cared?

"Erica?" Zoe turned to her friend, whose eyes were glued to the screen in horror. She enveloped the older girl in a hug as her body was wracked with dry sobs. "It's ok. We're in the practice room. Ben's going to be fine."

Her breathing began to slow down until a ping lit up the screen of the computer. The mask filled up the screen, and Zoe caught a glimpse of brown eyes that she had only seen years before. The sinister voice spoke once more, accompanied by the breathing of Ben behind them.

"We'll see you soon, Erica." The screen went black, and the window closed.

"Soon?" Erica whispered in a vulnerable sort of tone.

"Chip. Did you manage to find anything?" Chip grimaced, typing quickly. He shook his head slightly, continuing to keep his concentration on the screen.

"Zoe, I-I-" Erica stuttered, looking at the laptop with wide and bloodshot eyes. Had she even slept since Ben had gone missing? In truth, Erica hadn't slept well in years. Dreams of her friends betraying her had haunted her since she was 13.

"I know, honey, but we need to keep a calm head." She tried to soothe her friend, who was fighting to get back up.

"No, no, no... I left him once..." Erica said, breathing heavily. "I'm not going to do it again."