[All characters in this work of fiction are 18 or older.]
*
She felt like a schoolgirl next to the tall, willowy Tomlin. He was blond, thin, pale and beautiful. A confidence man, con artist, seducer and all-around sexy bastard, and completely out of her league, he wore a red leather jacket, French cuffs and Italian boots. Edwina on the other hand was a short, bespectacled, bookish girl, nervously clutching her notebook bag to her chest, trying to hide how much she was blushing. Completely beneath his notice. He sweet, though, still smiling and showing her a good time up until then. They'd met the contact at the bar, and she'd done her job (look adorable, do the computer thing and show the money was real, say nothing) while he crooned and schmoozed the two men in suits. When the deal was made, he'd insisted she stay for a drink, and, her heart fluttering in her chest, she'd stayed for that and two more. Now they were walking down a street in Madrid after midnight, on their way back to the hotel. She knew better than to hope he'd take her to his room, but she could pretend.
"So," he said, startling her, "why do they call you Dongle?"
Oh, no, did he think her codename was stupid? "Well," she began, "a 'dongle' is a slang term for a hardware key...a small but critical piece that the program won't work without. I earned it when I stole one from a Franchise weapons lab and ruined their operation."
"I see."
"So why do they call you Heartbreak?"
"Oh, I dunno," he crooned, tossing his hair comically. "Hey. Thanks for comin' out tonight."
"I was so nervous," she said, "I mean, hey, free trip to Spain, but I'm not cut out for field work. I don't know how you guys do it."
He laughed. "Oh, come on. You did great, didn't I say?"
She reddened further. "God, I must have looked like a child."
"Yeah, well...damn, I think it's going to rain."
"Oh, no!"
He took her hand (wow!) and they ran as fast as her business heels would allow. They arrived at the hotel before they were drenched too badly. She was both disappointed and relieved when he dropped her off at her room with a sheepish smile before retiring to the one next to it, and after she closed the door, she allowed herself to do that thing they do in the movies, where she slumped her back to the door, sighed and slid to the floor, and then melted into a puddle.
Two hours later she was awakened by a knock at the door. She froze, and for just a moment, allowed herself to hope. Maybe he was back. She fished for her glasses, then slipped into a nightgown (just in case it wasn't) and, as she was trained to do, waved a hand in front of the peephole carefully before actually looking.
It *was* him. She nervously fiddled with her hair, tugged her nightgown into a better position, then tried not to sound desperate as she fumbled to unlock the door. Tomlin almost knocked her over as he darted inside and slammed the door shut. In his hand he was holding a gun. And not the kind she'd been hoping for, either. It was chrome, and it had a silencer.
"T-Tommy?" she managed.
"Get dressed," he interrupted. "Someone tried to kill me in the lobby."
She squeaked and rushed into the bathroom, catching the hangar with yesterday's suit on it as she disappeared.
She came out again, composed as she could be, to see him with his back to the wall beside the door, waiting. "We have to get you out of here."
"But--!"
"Sweetheart--" he said, taking her arm, "it's me they want. I'll get you to the stairwell. Leave your phone on."
He rushed her down the wall, half-hiding the gun, and shouldered open the door to the stairs, depositing her inside. She looked back at him, forlorn.
"I'll be fine," he said. "You have to go. Now."
The door closed. Carrying her shoes, she ran down the stairs, and out the door into the alley...
They were everywhere. Yet she never saw more than two at a time. Men in long jackets. Sunglasses. Hats. She watched them permeate the hotel and the street from behind an alley gate. She tried to hide her frightened breathing. She didn't sign up for this. She wasn't a mercenary. She wasn't an assassin or a femme fatale. She was a hacker. She just hoped Tommy was okay.
And just like that, they started disappearing. She heard a car speed off.
Her phone vibrated.
---
--DAY 1--
She was at the verge one finds themselves on just before consciousness, the part where the attempt is made to stay unconscious. This requires effort, and gives way to more and more unwelcome cognition. She felt like she weighed a ton and her head was packed with tissue paper. She couldn't bring herself to move. She was too comfortable anyway. It was warm, the mattress soft on her back where she was lavishly sprawled. Her skin was smooth and soft, freshly bathed and moisturized. She glowed. She was just having trouble yawning, and the blankets had fallen off or something. Her eyes drifted unwillingly open.
She was naked. Her blinking eyes adjusted to an array of amber heat lamps above her, giving her skin a healthy glow, which by the feel of it had indeed been washed, perhaps even treated with moisturizers or oils. Her smooth, brown hair was splayed out around around her arms and shoulders on the padded surface upon which she found herself. The heavy feeling was genuine, but it was compounded by restraints holding her wrists together above her head. Her knees were held bent open, her ankles also securely held apart, all by a stretchy material that gave a little, but did not release her. Another strap secured her neck. It seemed designed not to interrupt her nudity, which would look and feel almost luxurious if not for the obscene positioning. The wisp of thin material being held over her mouth made an enticing whimper of it, but she did at least try to ask out loud; "how did I get here?"
She remembered. They'd left. They were gone. Her phone. It made that "wzzzzz" noise when it vibrated. She'd reached for it. They weren't gone. Lifted roughly off her feet, she smelled chloroform on the square of fabric pressed over her mouth. Oh, god. She remembered. Being carried to the van. Her clothes being pulled off. Cut through. Taken. Sprayed all over her body with warm water like a cadaver on an examining table at a forensics office. Her hair being washed. Soap. Lotion. They'd shaved her. Completely. At some point, for whatever reason, they'd returned her glasses. Her toes twitched, and she noticed that for some reason she still had her shoes.
The struggling was a formality. The elastic bands stretched but stayed secure. She'd never hurt herself, but she'd never escape. It was when she heard the door open that she froze and tears started to well up. The anomalous gentleness with which she was handled had thus far left her eventual fate rather uncertain, but who she saw entering the room erased all doubt. She was going to be tortured, interrogated, probably sexually, and in all likelihood liquidated after she talked.
And talk, she surely would.
Scratch. That was what they called him. That and his real name, Scott Broley, were synonymous with all the terrible things that could happen to anyone caught on the wrong end of espionage for so much as a minute. He was tall and slender like Tommy, but with more muscle. Shoulder holsters on either side of his torso, black gloves, black pants and dress shoes, he was the utilitarian kind in appearance. It was his personality that did the talking.
"Wow," he said, as if observing on a mildly remarkable find on E-bay. "They really got her. Tommy thought it was him we were after, isn't that fucking hilarious?" He approached the table, gloved thumbs hooked in his belt. She started struggling again. "Aww. Geez, you poor thing. Dongle, right?" He tisked. "Shame. Step out of the lab for one second and you end up in this one. Oh well. That's the game, I guess. But," he said, his mockery of reassurance very chilling, "not to worry. It won't be me who does it to ya. See I find the guys get too zealous and don't focus on the job. Honestly I couldn't either. But the staff has it well in hand. I called them in specially from Hong Kong."