"You always were disapproving of my artistic tastes," he spoke in clipped tones, looking down his nose just for a moment. But even that was just a little game, a playful facade: the joke of hurt feelings under the joke of everything being all right under the joke of normalcy. None of this was normal, none of this was fine, and then that moment of facade had passed and he was left again with that unquenchable fear. He curled one fist into the other, calming the slight quakes. Secondhand, he thought, as he held his own. Secondhand.

She said he didn't owe her anything. Edward swallowed, the clash of ideas in his mind suddenly painful. This was only going to hurt, he thought. He didn't know who.

"I was captured, as you knew. For a long time, as you've figured out." He didn't doubt Max's abilities of deduction. Edward met her eyes and held them, maintaining something less of his usual, pristine composure. "I -- they. It was months. A year. I had learned to -- to feign obedience. I had learned the mechanisms of the system, learned to adapt to w-what they wanted. Some of my -- "

Eddie dropped his eyes, and moved over to the edge of the room, the far wall. He pulled up a digital map, one depicting blueprints of a known holding cell. It wasn't new information for Betsy, but it was a handy visual aide.

"My torturers didn't realize how much they said. They never realized that I was interrogating, too. I found out about their indoctrinate programs. Brainwashing programs."

His fingers danced over the green LED light, pulling up the basement schematics of that holding cell.

"I learned how to feign obedience."