"Hack! Ugh... Ngh! Argh! Urp!"

"You know... All this could have been avoided if you had just decided to tell us who your leader is." The cold voice rang throughout the room, filling her up with a certain chill. A chill she didn't find particularly thrilling, unlike before.

"I told you..." The woman started slowly through her already burst lips, "I don't know what's going on. I was tricked, framed. I'm innocent." The woman cried as she kicked in the metal seat she had been tied up in. It didn't help that she probably had more than a couple of broken bones and injuries that were a lot more that minor bruises or cuts.

The oxygen in her lungs burned with every breath and every sob that she could muster but she did care. Her mind wasn't particularly stable. Not after what she had experienced a couple of months past.

A thought creeped in and her tears became almost never ending. To the point where she could hardly see the interrogation officer across the room. Everything became blurred, her senses dulled and her mind wandered off. Soon she was pulled back by a harsh tug of her hair.

"Arrrgh!" She cried as she was forced to face the man. His cold and vengeful eyes pierced into hers but the pain she experiencing, especially in her heart, didn't make her any less oblivious to her surroundings.

He tugged even harder and she sucked in a sharp breath before letting it out, hoping that the pain might dulled a bit with the action bit it was a vain hope. The bastard had the grip of a steel vice.

How did things come to this? Tanya asked inwardly, to no one in particular, a question that she, all too well, knew the answer to.

"Tanya Sylvester..." The man called her name in full as flinched noticeably outside, all the while wailing inwardly. Fully aware of how undeserving she was of her last name. All her family members, with her being the only exception, had all achieved outstanding feats. All while bringing the Sylvester name to peak fame and glory. None any less than the other.

The interrogator saw that she was less focused on his torture and then chuckled coldly. Soon, he released his grip on her hair. Of course, not without shoving her head downwards. The action caused her to wheeze and with the internal injuries and infected cuts, the action immediately pain to break all over her body.

Tanya looked up to the interrogator with rage in her eyes but soon the rage dissolved to self-loathe and self-pity. More than she hated the man in front of her, she hated herself who led her family to their demise, not before causing them shame in her thrill-seeking adventures. Adventures that led her to her current predicament.

Tanya shed tears of guilt and remorse as she remembered her dead family. The man in front of her, on seeing it, spread his lips in a face-splitting, sardonic smile.

"Do you feel bad, Tanya? Do you miss mummy and daddy? Do you feel bad for what you did?" Tanya grimaced at the sounds that came out of his mouth. She wanted to sew it shut. Soon his eyes turned cold and so did his smile. "You should have thought twice before selling important and confidential documents and intel from that your family had safeguarded on behalf of government." Tanya's expression contorted even more but he was right.

Although she wasn't directly involved nor was she really in contact with enemy in question, it was true that she had sold out her family's secret to a friend when they had asked her about it.

Again, Tanya groaned as she cried and sobbed in shame and guilt. The cry was mixed in with the searing pain that evaded her heart and filled her with pain. She couldn't think, neither could she feel. All she felt was sorrow, pain and rage. Rage to herself who ignored good advise in search for pleasure and enjoyment that was but fickle and worthless, timely and momentary. All left her hollow and empty and she resorted to even dangerous and unappealing means to get more off those unsavory and momentary childish whims that did nothing but harm everyone around her.

Tanya lifted her head and stared straight into the eyes of the investigator. Adam Conner. A police investigator whose reputation preceded him. A top student of the sociology and criminology department but later went ahead to get a degree in psychology and soon joined a police academy where he got an award of excellence after graduating early. A brilliant gentleman, they called him and she couldn't agree more.

One could ask how Tanya knew such information that was meant to be classified or at least a bit less specific. That answer could also give reason as to why he was glaring daggers at her and treating her in an unbecoming fashion.

That was because he, Adam Conner, was the best friend to her elder brothers who were now dead because of her.