The Traitor ✓ (Book Six)

Chapter Forty Four

Ten Years Ago

I've been here for one month. Initially, I didn't think I could get used to the way they treat us( though they truly don't use physical torture anymore, the mental is enough to drive anyone insane) but I've adapted. Some aren't as lucky. Some have been driven crazy because of the guards, and with only one psychiatrist and one therapist on the island- many issues go untreated.

  And then they get put in solitary because of what the guards have done to them. Fucked up, right?

  Every single soldier, medical professional, military officer, and restaurant worker signs an NDA before they get here. So if they sang(any of them, even the base commander) they'd be thrown in jail for god knows how long.

  My last roommate was a lower level guy involved in 9/11- who was truly in the wrong place at the wrong time. He'd been walking home from work when they captured him. Apparently they'd been watching him for a while and knew that, because of his engineering job- he'd be useful. And he was. 9/11 wouldn't have happened without him, just as 2023 wouldn't have happened without me.

  I related to him because they threatened to slaughter the family of sixteen he was the sole supporter of, and then in the same sentence they apparently offered to feed them for ten years if he complied. So he did obviously- and he says while he was working for them they kept the promise, but he had no idea what was happening with them now.

  They could be dead or starving to death. He told me his favorite daughter would be nineteen now- that she would most likely have gotten married because of their culture and he didn't get to see it.

  "Well.... If she has gotten married at least she's eating... maybe." I said. That was the one bit of comfort he'd ever had here. I asked him about his other children and he said he had mostly boys but that they'd disowned the only other daughter.

  I didn't press. It seemed like a sensitive subject.

  One night, I woke up and he wasn't there.

  I haven't seen him in a week.

  My current one isn't nearly as interesting. He seems so boring I haven't bothered to ask what he's in for. Now, I hear him shuffling around, putting on the one set of clothes we're allowed each so we can't hang ourselves. Roommates share toothpaste tubes and hairbrushes. I guess their logic is not getting your own things=cheaper, which isn't exactly true.

  But they know we can't afford to be picky, so oh well.

  He sets the toothbrush down on our sink. I push myself off the bed, covers not being an issue since they only trust us with them when the heaters break.

  It's happened only once before, but I swear it was colder in here than it was outside. They didn't really have a choice unless they wanted to be sued by a thousand families for negligence on the off chance they somehow found out.

I stand in his place at the sink and begin scrubbing my teeth with the roughly bristled brush- they shouldn't even be able to call it that. My gums have bled countless times the past month. When I'm done, I spit out pink toothpaste. I turn to him and sigh.

  "What are you in for?" I ask, and immediately regret my words. Some of the people here can be extremely violent. "I mean, not that it's any of my business but you're so quiet I'm just.... I've gotten curious."

  He sits up, a completely calm expression on his face and replies: "I tried to assassinate the President of Costa Rica."

  I blink several times, taken aback by his confession. I don't know what I expected, but that wasn't it.