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Cold water splashed in Graves' face and he gasped, jerking awake.
For the past day or so he'd been locked in this... basement or interrogation room or whatever the hell this place was, being tortured by the 141 for information on Shepherd's location.
Problem was, Graves wouldn't give that up. He knew Shepherd didn't give a shit about him, but Graves was loyal, deathly so, and still he refused to betray his command.
He spat out icy water, shook his hair out of his eyes, and looked up at Ghost, expression unreadable behind that skull plate.
"Morning," Graves said, and Ghost said nothing in response. Graves glanced around the room to see if anything had changed in the time he'd been asleep- as asleep as he could have been, tied to a chair in a freezing room- and there was nothing but another chair placed opposite him.
He frowned. Not a good sign.
At this point, Graves had been smacked around, carved up, waterboarded, and three of his fingernails were missing courtesy of Soap's pliers, but he'd said nothing. There was nothing they could do to him to make him back down.
Nothing to him, at least.
Ghost crouched by Graves' chair, hand on Graves' shoulder.
"Bring him in," Ghost growled, voice a low rasp that set Graves' teeth on edge, and Graves' heart was suddenly in his throat.
Him? Did they have one of his Shadows?
The door opened and in came Soap, holding another man with a bag over his head and arms tied behind his back.
No.
Even before Soap sat him down, Graves knew it was Sam from the tattoos on his bare arms and chest. Not Sam. Please.
Soap tied Sam to the other chair and pulled the bag off his head, and Sam gasped, his hair tangled around his face and his nose and lip bleeding down his chin.
"Allaway--"
"Commander, it's--"
They both started to speak and stopped at the same time, and Graves hadn't realized it but his shoulders were strained as he leaned forward to try and get to his Shadow.
"Commander," Sam tried again, eyes flicking to Ghost. "They hurt you."
"I'm fine," Graves insisted. His heart was beating so loud he could feel it in his throat, almost drowning out anything else. Hurt him, beat him, kill him, just don't touch his Shadow.
Ghost leaned in close, his hand moving to the back of Graves' neck, holding him tightly in such a way that Graves would be forced to watch whatever they did to Sam.
"Tell us where Shepherd is," Ghost whispered, and Graves hesitated. He didn't want Sam hurt, but he'd lasted this long.
"No," he said, and Ghost looked up at Soap. Soap picked up a small blowtorch, and Graves' breathing turned shallow as Soap began to heat up what looked like a railway spike.
"Tell us," Ghost said, even softer, and Graves couldn't do anything, couldn't shake his head, couldn't speak.
"Commander--" Sam said again, his voice a little desperate, arching back from the blowtorch.
Soap turned off the blowtorch, the spike glowing with how hot it was, and fully stabbed it into Sam's shoulder. Sam screamed , high and wild, back arching as the room filled with the sounds of sizzling and the smell of burning flesh. Blood poured down Sam's skin, obscuring his tattoos, and Graves cried out, jerking against his ties.
"Stop!" he shouted, and his shoulder ached like he'd actually dislocated something when pulling to get to Sam. "Fuck you, you fucking bastard, leave him alone!"
"Give us what we want," Ghost said, almost caressing the side of Graves' neck with his thumb. Soap left the spike in Sam's shoulder so he wouldn't bleed out from the wound, but it didn't stop burning him, either.
His sobs were harsh, and Graves' chest ached. How could he do this to him?
"No," he choked out, and Ghost made a soft tch sound.
"You're doing this to him," he said matter of factly, as Soap picked up the blowtorch again, crouching behind Sam. "You know that, don't you. You're hurting him."
The blowtorch flicked on as Soap began burning the tips of Sam's fingers, and Sam howled, bare feet scrambling for purchase on the rough stone floor to try and pull away. Graves made an anguished sound, shaking his head.
"Just fucking hurt me!" he screamed, and a tear dripped off his nose. "Not him, please!"
"We tried that," Ghost snarled, letting go of Graves momentarily to smack him hard upside the head before grabbing him again. "So this? This is your fault, understand? His blood is on your hands."
Graves made a quiet sound that was almost a sob, and Soap stopped the blowtorch momentarily to let Sam breathe. Sam was shaking, his body likely going into shock from the intensity of the burns, tears running down his face and cutting through the blood.
"Allaway-- Sam," Graves croaked, his breathing shaky. Sam groaned, but that was good, he was still responding. He moved, head dropping down to look at Graves, his breathing coming in heavy pants.
"Don't break," Sam said, but his voice shook, and Graves shook his head. "I'll be fine."
"I'll get you out," Graves replied, voice low and insistent. He heard Ghost laugh next to his ear, and his blood ran cold. Ghost never laughed. That was more frightening than any pain they could inflict.
"You'll get him out if you give us what we want," Ghost stressed, and Graves watched Soap pick up what looked uncomfortably like a cattle prod.
"You'll let him go?" Graves breathed, eyes wide.
"No, Commander, don't," Sam begged, his bronze skin pale from bloodloss, shivering all over from the shock. "It's a trick, don't-" Soap shoved the cattle prod into the wound in Sam's shoulder and the sound Sam made wasn't human, it was wild, so full of pain it made Graves' teeth hurt, Sam's body tensing sharp and rigid all over as the electricity burned already charred flesh and pulled the wound apart.
"STOP!" Graves screamed, lurching against his ties, pulling and struggling to try and get to Sam to make it stop give it to me hurt me hurt me hurt me just not him please please please--
"Okay! I'll give it to you!" Graves roared, and Soap turned off the prod. Sam slumped, weeping, muscles twitching from the aftershocks of the electricity, the wound in his shoulder charred and smoking. He'd be lucky if he didn't lose the entire arm due to the severity of the injury. As it was, if they ever got out of here, he'd likely be discharged anyway.
Tears ran down Graves' face as he looked at him. Sam, his loyal Shadow, put through horrific trauma because of him. Because Graves was too loyal to a man who didn't give a shit if he lived or died.
His Shadows didn't deserve this, none of them did. They were his, he loved them. If Graves hadn't broken then who would they have brought in next? Joseph? Tony? Jake? Graves regretted that it had even taken one Shadow to make him break, because that was one Shadow too many. Even one Shadow staining his hands was too much. None of them should have gotten hurt.
"Well?" Ghost prompted, and Graves took a shaky breath, not taking his eyes off of Sam.
"There's an encrypted file in the laptop you seized," Graves whispered. "In files, there's a folder called 'roadhouse.' Click every third from the bottom file until you reach the end, and the passcode is 136527975527. Every email he sent me, it's in there. I don't know where he is, all I have are those."
Ghost was silent, considering that. He stood up and jerked his head at Soap, who had jotted down the password, and then looked back down at Graves.
"Was that so hard?" Soap finally spoke, the look in his eyes ice cold as he looked at Graves. And honestly, that stung a little more than whatever Ghost did. Graves and Soap had been close, Graves had considered him a friend.
...Yes, there'd been the thing with the betrayal and the tank, but Soap was fucking ruthless with that blowtorch and Sam hadn't deserved that, but Graves had. Why hadn't Soap done it to Graves instead?
"Enough," Ghost whispered to Soap, his eyes dark and bloody behind the mask. Graves felt ice cold under that look, his tongue going numb. Ghost wasn't done yet, and Graves had done what he'd asked.
"I've given you what you want, now let Sam go," Graves said, trying to make his voice a snarl but it came out weak, pitiful. "I don't have anything else, I swear."
"I know," Ghost said.
"But you still have Las Almas to pay for," Soap said, and Graves shook his head.
"Yeah. Me. Not him."
Ghost smiled idly. "You were all there."
The gun he had strapped to his thigh was out before Graves could blink and though Graves howled "NO! STOP!" the barrel was shoved to Sam's temple and the blast made Graves' ears ring and Sam's brain matter splattered against the opposite wall.
Graves screamed. And screamed. And screamed.
"NO! NOOO!! NONONONONO SAM SAM YOU CAN'T DO THIS PLEASE FUCK NO NO NO--!!"
He didn't know what to do- recoil in horror or wrench forward as if he could still prevent that from happening but his body chose the second option for him, and he felt his shoulder crack and pull out of the socket for real this time as he yanked so hard against the bolted down chair that he could taste blood and feel the skin peel off his tied down wrists.
"YOU SAID YOU'D LET HIM GO! YOU SAID YOU'D LET HIM GO! SAM! SAM!"
Ghost backhanded him to make him stop tugging and Graves choked as his lip split, his screams turning into gutwrenching, pathetic sobs.
"You lying fucking cunts," Graves said savagely through the tears as his lip bled all over his chin and chest. "I'm going to tear you all apart. You won't fucking get away with this, I'm going to bash your fucking brains in--"
Ghost grabbed his chin and wrenched his chin up. His eyes held no mercy, and Graves wanted to look defiant but he could hardly even breathe around the black hole that was caving his chest in.
Sam was dead. One of his shadows was dead. His fault. All his fault. Sam. His Sam. His loyal, beloved Sam. His fault. His fault. His fault.
"Won't we?" Ghost breathed, and Graves knew he was right. Nobody cared if a single Shadow died in a foreign basement during interrogation.
"I'll fucking kill you," Graves croaked. "I swear to fucking God I'm going to fucking kill you."
Ghost let him go, and Graves dropped his head, brief moment of defiance dissolving back into sobs, his weeping quiet but forceful enough to make his bones hurt.
He heard the door open, and listened to the thick dragging sound of Soap pulling Sam's body out of the room. Would they even bother giving him a proper burial? Would they burn him? Would they dump him in a mass grave with the other Shadows that Graves lost in Las Almas?
He still had a family. Would they send his body back? Graves doubted it. The Shadows meant nothing to the 141. Graves' mouth tasted like ash and blood.
"My turn?" he rasped, because he knew Ghost was still in the room. "Better kill me quick, or it'll be you next."
Ghost scoffed. "No. The rest of your rats are still out there. They're still loyal to you, and when they come for you, we'll exterminate them. Then, and only then, I'll let you die."
Graves didn't bother trying to breathe again after hearing that, and Ghost left, slamming the door and leaving Graves in the pitch black room.
His Shadows.
All dead.
All his fault.
All his fault.