Her scent blazed in my throat and I was glad. It was a pain that meant she was alive. As long as I burned, she was safe.

I wondered how long it could last. Maybe someday, years from now.If the pain would decrease to the point where I could bear it.I would be able to look back on those few short months that would always be the best of my life.

Just because she isn't human, do you think that means she doesn't feel pain?

The statistic varied depending on who she was giving the speech to; roughly half the time with most military men, the first divulgence would happen before any pain was administered. Only 5 to 10 percent of the actual spies would say anything without some physical distress. Same numbers for religious zealots. For the low-level toadies, the speech worked 100 percent of the time. The man in charge had never once confessed as single detail without pain.

A veces, el dolor es el único recuerdo de que lo que tuvimos fue real.

I was not allowed to think of him. That was something I tried to be very strict about. Of course I slipped; I was only human. But I was getting better, and so the pain was something I could avoid for days at a time now. The trade-off was the never-ending numbness. Between pain and nothing, I'd chosen nothing.

It will be as if I'd never existed, he'd promised me. I felt the smooth wooden floor beneath my knees, and then the palms of my hands, and then it was pressed against the skin of my cheek. I hoped that I was fainting, but, to my disappointment, I didn't lose consciousness. The waves of pain that had only lapped at me before now reared high up and washed over my head, pulling me under. I did not resurface.