I see you, Tsu'tey

Chapter 36

Blood dripped down the side of a wooden chair. A small puddle of crimson had formed and stretched in all directions with glaringly red arms. Harsh, loud pants echoed around in the cold, metallic room. Whimpers were breathed out and ear-piercing cries of excruciating and lingering pain came regularly escaped the tied-up woman. A set of footsteps reverberated around the pair, heavy and steady against the ground.

"Where have you been?" A voice that haunted her asked.

Awa grimaced and shook her head, making blood fall from her beaten face. "I won't tell you." She bared her teeth, blood-stained as they were and dripping with it from the last punch.

"You will." Quaritch told her with a self-satisfied smirk and a tug of his pants. "They all break in the end. Whether with carrot at the end or just stick. I'm fine with either, but that's just me." His smile was full of teeth- like a shark that had just came upon a bleeding fish.

She lowered her head, her defiance dropping by the minute. At the beginning she had been strong enough to fight back, return his comments and anger him. Now Awa was tired of fighting, but she still would not betray them. Even if they hated her they were her people and her loyalty was not that easily shifted.

The colonel walked up to her from behind, slamming his bloody hands down on her fragile shoulders. "You were in their home, I assume. Right above the biggest source of unobtanium, the thing we all came here for." His hands massaged her and she tensed up. Dread filled her aching body but most of her fighting had left her. "I've never had much patience with traitors. Especially those that betray their own kind but for you I've made an exception. You see I've always had a thing for you."

He swaggered around her, his green army pants all she could see. "Of course everyone told me it was a fool's errand but I had this idea set in my mind. I began to court you." Quaritch voice got louder and more firm. "You were very unwilling. Rejected my every touch, every smile, every sweet word. You were too in love with the natives to realise the mistake you were doing. I refused to believe we had lost another bright mind to the savages but as the days went by you left us piece by piece."

Awa sobbed tiredly, her chest heaving with each laboured breath she forced herself to take. Her eyes remained teary but without any of them falling. Awa had no more tears to cry. Already she was beginning everyone to take her away from him- Eywa, Grace, Tsu'tey, Atxa, Ngeha. Her hope and faith in ever getting out of there dwindled by the hour that she remained bound in the empty room, her only company the very man that was torturing her.

"Still I held on hope that I would be able to convince you to come back."

The words tumbled out of her before she realised that she had even opened her mouth. "By harassing me? By touching me when I didn't want you to? If anything you helped drive me away." She spat at him, her head still hanging low and body shivering with pain. "Sorry." Awa whispered, preparing for the blow he would without a doubt give her.

Her head snapped to the side as pain bloomed on the left side of her face. A low whimper tore its way through her throat. Awa almost fell over if it wasn't for him grabbing the end of her chair and pulling her back up. A lone tear fell down her bruised face and down the bleeding wounds, making them sting. She wheezed.

"I don't like hurting you." Quaritch told her with a sympathetic smile. "But you just can't listen, can you? You're trying to betray your own kind and I'm trying to stop you from making that mistake. They can't love you like we can. They don't want you."

"All you've ever done is hurt me." She bitterly stated and let her words hang in the air for awhile until she forced herself to speak again. "What did I ever do to you to deserve this? This pain, this torture?!" Awa exclaimed loudly, making her whole body seize up in pain. "I have done nothing to deserve this!"