Infiltration

Camden

Camden crouched down in the ruins of an old building that burned a while ago, watching the rotation of the guards around the ugly stone building. There was heavy fog, good for him. It rolled in a half hour after he had gotten here. It gave him cover to run in. Night would fall sooner rather than later, and that was the time for him to go in.

He looked at the gray all around him. He couldn't manage to bring up a smile. But this was for Gisa. He could do this for her. Since he couldn't do anything else for her it seemed.

After waiting so long his feet were almost numb, he took a deep breath, running into the fog, right into the blind spot of the rotation that he had observed. He took a moment to breathe from where he lodged himself in the corner of the house. He'd never been this close before. Gisa had always warned against him going to the house. Audenzitios had something against him. Good. Because he had something against her too. A score to settle.

The rotation changed at the exact time it had every day, giving him the chance to slip right through the front doors into a silent and stone cold foyer. It couldn't be this easy… he looked to the left. The study. The one Gisa had so many stories from. So many hideously awful stories containing the atrocities committed against one's own daughter. The light was off under the door. The stairs ascended from the foot of the door ending in a long hallway he couldn't see into. To the right there was a wall, and directly ahead… a dimly lit hallway.

Bedroom. Where had Gisa said it was? Even Audenzitios had to sleep sometime. Upstairs was the girl's room and a few other rooms that Gisa had refused to mention. It must be downstairs then. Because Gisa had mentioned that. He looked at the crude map he'd rawn of her house. It was mostly completed, slight guesswork as to a few of the room. He took a deep breath, running across the illuminated part of the foyer to the other side, creeping through the long hallway into a dark kitchen, clean, but poorly furnished. Like every other kitchen on the island. To the left of the kitchen…

Camden wandered across the linoleum past a slightly ajar pantry, past a dining room table with a hodgepodge of chairs, past a bookshelf full of almost anything except books until he stood before what must have been his goal.

Dark, rusted iron doors stood between him and Audenzitios. There was no light from beneath those either. No light almost anywhere in the house oddly enough. She didn't seem the type to be concerned with electricity, keeping the lights off to save electricity. She probably never had to scrap for electricity waivers.

He walked up to the doors on cat silent feet, placing his hand on a handle and ever so slowly, turning the knob down. That part was without a hitch… he tried to calm his racing heart. A creak resounded up above him on the ceiling, causing him to freeze, but there was no noise afterwards. He resisted the urge to heave a sigh.

Most houses had windows and were easier to break into. The only window here was the one in the girl's bedroom that Gisa had begged her mother for. The rest of the house completely without them, the windows on the outside completely fake. Seeing as no light was on in this room... He was going in blind this time. He tried placing his ear against the door, but the thick iron yielded nothing of what was within the room. He tried to push the door open, but it didn't budge. He knew throwing his weight on it was a bad idea should it swing open into something far more terrifying.

He weighed his options. If he pushed too hard, it would fly open, if he tried to push it at increasing pressure rates, it might creak, or hit something. Both of which were very bad. He clenched his fists around the door handles in frustration before sighing. Option two would have to do...

Steadily, he increased the pressure on the door, swinging it open slowly into a completely dark room. It made no sound. But then again, there seemed to be no sound at all in this place. He could see nothing. He had a flashlight, but something in the back of his mind told him that would be a mistake he wouldn't want to make. So he let the door shut behind him. And the lock clicked mechanically.

He whirled back towards the door to find it locked. Locking him in. Shit. Holy— Camden didn't have to go exploring the dark room to know this wasn't a bedroom. And to know there was no way out of this room.

Gisa had come crying to him shortly after they began to see each other one day, a little less than a year ago. She didn't cry. He knew that without having to observe it for long. He had learned about this room. He'd always thought it was upstairs. But this had to be it. He could feel it deep inside his bones. "She does things that will give you nightmares, terrors that I wouldn't dare speak of. Dream of." Gisa told him. He wanted to curse himself for shutting a door behind him. So positive he had been in the right place. Pompous. Was that the flaw that would get him killed? Was his escapade this short?

The thing that hurt most, was that he knew this wasn't going to end in his favor. This wasn't going to end well at all. "Gisa I did try," he whispered.

Lights flickered on, blinding him momentarily. He felt something grab both of his arms… Hard. He struggled against it, but heard a distinct clang, and felt a cold metal clasp his wrists. His vision came back. And the very being he had come to take out, stood above him.

"Camden, you know breaking in is… illegal, correct?" Audenzitios asked, hands behind her back, ceremonial robes gone. She was wearing jeans. And an old jacket. It was not quite the triumphant scene he had imagined. Instead, he'd let one of her guards handcuff him to the wall in a dark room from which there was no escape.

"I asked you a question." She told him, her mouth in a straight line.

"I didn't think you wanted an answer."

"You're dumber than I thought." She said with a smile. "This will be fun."

He shook his head, "You're sick."

"You already knew that." she looked down at one of her nails almost absent mindedly. "Take him downstairs. We'll start tomorrow."She took a key from her pocket and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Camden was almost too bewildered to struggle against his much larger opponent as they neared another doorway with a staircase. He tried to whip around and catch the man off guard, but it was like trying to move a rock.

"I will not hesitate to shove you down the stairs." The gruff unearthly voice behind him snorted. Camden eyed the spiraling staircase descending into the gloom and decided against that. With his hands securely behind his back, he did not currently have the advantage.

All the way down the stairs his footsteps echoed, the man's footsteps behind him like that of a wraith's. Nonexistent. Camden tried to ask a few questions, but the guard didn't answer.

Camden took to pulling at his grip. Testing to see if his threats were idle. He tugged hard against his captor, throwing his weight into it, and tumbled down the last seven stairs, hitting his nose squarely as he fell face first on the floor. The guard lifted him by the cuffs sending a shooting pain through his arms. Blood began to trickle from his nose.

Camden was left in the middle of an old stone room reeking of the most hideous things. Things he didn't think would ease his mind to discover their identities. He leaned against the pillar behind him, hissing out a breath. What a waste. What a colossal waste.

The stone was cold and greenish, a tiny shaft of light from above illuminating the stone slab in front of him. Was he going to end up there? Gisa had mentioned her mother torturing people from the Island before. Was this where she did it? Was he to become one of her many victims?

He closed his eyes. She would have told him it was a fool's errand. He made it into the most heavily guarded place— It was normally guarded with many many more people than that which meant… She knew. She knew he was coming. His nose ached. It was definitely broken. Not that he could lift his hands to check it.

He swore out loud, kicking the stone floor in frustration. He wasn't just dead. He was absolutely so dead. Harry wouldn't go in to get him. Harry knew better than that. The security would be back to its normal strength…

"Camden, if you go anywhere near that house I will not hesitate to beat you senseless and drag you back to where you belong. If you ever came up to this house you wouldn't be able to leave. Mother hates you." Gisa told him again and again.

She was right. Gisa was so right. He'd been doing this for her. Trying to avenge her by killing her mother who so mindlessly let Gisa be killed. He didn't let the tears fall. He'd been warned. He knew what was on its way. Gisa had to be dead, right? If the doctors said she would…

"Gisa I'll be there with you soon. We can have eternity together, wherever we end up. I know we will be together." Tears fell from his face and even if he could have, he wouldn't have wiped them away. She was gone.

He woke up with a jolt. Audenzitios was there as well as two other men. He was no longer sitting against the pillar where he recalled falling asleep, but instead… he tried to lift his head in vain. He swallowed hard from where he found himself on his back, facing the ceiling, restrained on a hard metal table.

"Welcome back Camden." Audenzitios said with a smile, "I trust you slept well?"

He knew better than to ask her how long he was out. Not that it mattered. "Fine." he ground out. This was very bad.

"Camden, you're not being very cooperative. So boring. We both know that isn't true." She said, tying back her black locks of hair into a ponytail.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, his heart pounding as he watched her face completely devoid of emotions.

"You should ask more clever questions." she stepped back, seating herself in a chair, "You can begin Jace."

His stomach tightened. Camden had never felt true fear. Not like this. Not even being newly orphaned, almost dying time and time again, never in any fight, in anything he had taken on. Never so scared… and though his head pounded, and he could feel the sweat beading on his forehead… Gisa. He was the most scared knowing that she might be dead. Right now. That she could be dying.

Both of them. They were both dying. And both because of her. Because of this merciless and cruel person who—

"Don't you care that she's going to die?" he shouted over at her. "Don't you care?" he could feel his voice starting to break. She already knew how he felt. What did it matter if she saw his emotions like this? Saw him so truly wrecked by his loss "You sent your monster to kill your daughter? How could you possibly gain anything from that? What is it that you want?" His words echoed across the stones, down the hallway that led to this room. They pounded just like his heart.

Audenzitios sat there considering his words. He was almost afraid she wouldn't answer. "Now that is a better question. Interesting enough for me to answer." She stood up. "Camden, I didn't try to kill Gisa. I do love my daughter. I'm pushing her to be all she can be." Camden wanted to call out her bull, "I sent Hifuvé to remind her that the clock is ticking and that time cannot be reversed. However the monster got mad because she could fight back and he tried to kill her." Audenzitios's tone turned from boredom to absolute steel. A voice that had power. "But I in turn took his life."

"But she's dead, so why do you care?"

"Camden…" she smiled, relishing something. Something she was going to say. "Gisa's not dead. Nor is she going to die. Not anytime soon."

It hit him like an absolute stone. In his head, his chest, his heart. She couldn't breathe. Living. Gisa. Alive. Survived. No, no, no he had done this because she was supposed to be dying.

She began to laugh, "An act for a dying lover." she walked back across the floor as his breathing began to become shallow. "I couldn't think of a better way… What if I tell her how you are suffering?" She grinned wickedly. Telling Gisa about his suffering... Her smile was absolutely feral as she grinned, her canine teeth longer than they should have been. "How do you think that would make her feel?" Her lips pursed into a smile. Audenzitios wasn't beautiful, but she was absolutely stunningly devastating in appearance… and so much like his Gisa just without the kindness in her eyes. "How would her agony make you feel?"

Gisa was alive. She was living. She'd— she'd made it. He wished he could jump for joy. Hold her dear little hands in his and kiss her on the forehead. Run his hands over her little frame and tell her how much he loved her… he could feel the tears in his eyes as Jace began to arrange his tools on a small table by his waist. This was a mistake. It was a mistake Gisa was living— Wait.

Insane. She was absolutely insane. "Stop." she walked over to the chair, "Audenzitios stop." She sat down, waving her hand at Jace. His heart pounded, his gut twisted, "Don't." his words fell on empty ears. There wasn't anything he could do. Nothing. "Don't do this. She is helping you! Why are you hurting her?" Jace walked over to his side, something he couldn't see in his hands. "Stop it." Jace lifted a small mallet over his head, he didn't seem to hear Camden at all. "I didn't mean it! Gisa!"

The hammer hovered in the air a moment, before it came down on his knee cap, crushing through the bone into the flesh beneath.