Destroyer

Chapter 6

The junior deputy's eyes fluttered partly open as she tried to awaken from whatever induced sleep she had found herself in. Her lids felt like they weighed twenty-pounds as they begged to remain shut for just a few more minutes before she finally opened them fuly. Her entire body ached, the past few weeks finally catching up with her. She was seated, but as she went to stand, she was shocked to see that her wrists had been restrained to the armrests, and her feet bound to the legs of the chair.

Not this again.

Nayeli struggled to knock the chair over, but it seemed almost bound to the floor. She continued to struggle, and scream in frustration until the restraints began to cut into her skin.

"How the hell-"

How the hell did I get here?

Her last coherent memory had been stopping by a river to set up camp, just across from the Veteran's center. After that, she fell asleep.

With my luck I walked here myself in my sleep...

Nayeli took a few moments to glance around her surroundings. The room was near pitch-black though she could make out the faint outline of a table and something else besides her.

She tried to recall the last couple of days. The meeting with Eli, staking out different outposts, her journey to the Veterans Center...

"Not as sly as you thought you were, huh?" a voice erupted from the darkness.

Nayeli froze in horror as she took a nervous gulp. Under different circumstances, the voice would have been welcomed. But the tone of the voice was a different one entirely. Mocking. Cruel.

"Jacob, why the hell am I bound to a chair?"

He was moving throughout the room, the silhouette of him circling her, "I've told you. You are going to become one of my Chosen. Today, your trials begin."

He approached the object sitting next to her, bringing it to life. The beam of light from the machine blinded her for a moment as it shined on the wall facing her, projecting the disturbing image of a wolf devouring a deer. Jacob approached the image, his back turned towards her facing the grisly image.

"The world is weak Nayeli. We have forgotten what it is to be strong. It is my job, my duty, to cull the herd."

At this point, he had turned around, his body blocking the projected image as he waltzed towards her. He hunched over slightly, yanking her chair towards him without any effort, bringing her face to face, "The weak have their purpose. But you...I knew you were the one the moment I set eyes on you, and now here you are."

Nayeli's blood was boiling, the words he spoke, insinuating he had been manipulating her this whole time.

"Is that what this is? You were scoping out...recruits for your brother's sick little cult? All those times you came into the shop, the shooting range..."

Unintentionally, her mind drifted back to the night that she had done so well putting into an imaginary backburner. The night she lost her mother. The neighbors had been there as well as half of the Sheriff's department at the time...not to mention one Jacob Seed. Her mind began to run every possible scenario in her head, the cause of many arguments between herself and her former would-be fiance before she stammered

"T-the night- the night my mother died. You were there. Why?"

The question seemed to catch the soldier off-guard, too into his own monologue and purpose. Whatever hint of superiority he had on his face before quickly faded, reduced to nothing.

He cleared his throat, "I'll make you a deal, little lamb..."

He stood up straight now, reaching for something in his pocket. Nayeli's eyes, trying to adjust to the sharp contrast of light and darkness followed his movements as he withdrew what appeared to be a small wooden box with a turn-dial on the side. He began to wind it up, as he gave her a once-over.