Lovers (A Newtina Fanfic)

Part 16

"She's the least cold-blooded out of all of us" played in Tina's mind over and over again like a broken radio as she waited for Vinda to come back. There was a sick feeling in her stomach; her innards felt twisted into tight braids, and the food she had eaten threatened to come back up. Grindelwald had conjured up some bonds for her wrists, ams, legs, and ankles, and they chafed. Each second felt like hours. Horrors flitted through her mind, each situation worse than the last. Please, if anyone's listening, don't let anything bad happen to Renata. Please, she prayed. Although she had only known Renata for a very, very short time, it felt like she had known her since childhood. It may have been that, in part, her time at Grindelwald's castle had already felt like forever.

Suddenly, the door swung open. In came Vinda, dragging Renata behind her in a white-knuckled fist. Tina wondered why Renata wasn't fighting Vinda, but then she noticed that in Vinda's other hand was her wand, pointed at Renata's head.

"Do you know what's happening?" mouthed Renata, so quickly Tina almost missed it. Tina just shook her head. Then, Vinda shoved Renata into a chair, facing opposite Tina.

"What are you going to do to her?" Tina asked, panic rising.

Grindelwald looked at her, and a sly slip of a smile appeared on his face. "I was considering hurting her to get you to talk...but I settled on a better option." Renata's face mirrored Tina's, panicked.

Vinda turned to Renata. "Miss Steele?"

"Yes, M-madam?" Renata's voice quavered slightly.

"Would you like coffee for your nerves? It's always...difficult on the mind the first time," Vinda asked, her perfectly varnished nails tapping on her own glass. Tap, tap, tap.

"Madam, I d-don't even know what I'm g-going to do," Renata replied, stuttering again.

"You'll find out soon enough. Anyway, coffee?"

"N-no thank you."

"Alright, then." A coffeepot full of piping hot coffee appeared on the table by the snap of a house-elf's fingers. The house-elf was quietly standing in the corner, almost completely out of sight.

Vinda poured some coffee into her cup by hand, and said, "I find having a stimulant for these things is invigorating. Grindelwald?" Grindelwald nodded, and a stream of dark brown coffee entered his cup.

Grindelwald cleared his throat. "Now, time for business. I need your secrets, Miss Goldstein, I need them now. But I've found you're too resilient, and your mental walls are too strong. I'd use veritaserum, but there was an unfortunate accident-" the way he said unfortunate made it seem it was less unfortunate and more on purpose, "and that left the messier options. And, since you're here, I thought, why not have some fun?"

"Torture," Tina spat. Stopping herself from saying every nasty word she knew to Grindelwald was extremely difficult.

"Yes. Essentially. I like to call it persuading, it's less aggressive term. But, here's the fun part, why not train my acolytes to do so too? Because not all of them have done it. Torture is different from killing, you see, you can't walk away after casting one spell. So, Miss Steele, consider this a lesson. A lesson in...how to be my acolyte. And Miss Goldstein? I'm truly sorry that this had to happen-" no you're not, Tina thought, "but this is for the sake of my little organization- sorry," he gestured to Vinda and Renata, "our little organization." And then he just let the statement hang, a smug smirk on his face.

A minute later, they were still sitting in silence. The smirk was still on Grindelwald's face, Vinda carried a look of indifference, and Tina and Renata had steeled their nerves, slightly. But waiting grew more infuriating by the second.