I can't help it anymore. I start to scream. Wordless noise, begging him to stop, pleading with him, crying. He ignores me. A palm forces my head to one side, exposing my ear. Pain flowers at the side of my head, hot and razoring and unbearable. I feel blood spatter onto my shoulder, soaking still-warm into my clothes. Laura's screaming too, and I hear her dimly through the pain. The pain plunges like a spear down through my body, and all I can think of is that. I swear I can feel the flesh being cut. There is nothing else in the world.
Ingleman pushes my head the other way. I kick and pull feebly at my restraints, but it's useless. "No . . . Please . . ." I see the knife, now dripping blood, darting through the air towards me, and I squeeze my eyes shut. But the expected pain doesn't come; instead there's a deep, shuddering rumble that seems to come up through the floor. Ingleman releases me and I sag forward in the chair. I'm shaking and the side of my head is a mess of agonising pain. I can't hear anything at all through that ear, as if it's underwater. I can feel the blood flowing freely down my cheek though.
The rumble comes again. I risk a glance up and see Ingleman standing there looking plainly confused. His shirt, I see with a sickening jolt, is spotted with blood, and he still hold the knife. As I watch he turns to the two guards and barks an order that I don't hear. He tucks the knife into his belt and sweeps from the room, one of the guards in his wake. The other remains, rifle held steady, keeping watch over me and Laura.
A wave of dizziness hits me and I sag forward again. I realise I can still hear through my un-mutilated ear, and that Laura is shouting at the guard, screaming at him, calling him a string of filthy names, telling him to let her go. He ignores her. A moment later I feel a gloved hand seize my hair and slam my head back against the chair. The guard is holding me there, staring at the bleeding wound where my ear used to be with something that looks like fascination.
I turn my gaze away from him. In the very corner of my eye I can still see Laura. I see her sit up. I see her duck her cuffed hands underneath her legs, one by one, so that she ends up sitting with her hands bound in front of her rather than behind. And I see her stand up in one fluid movement and leap towards the guard.
