The Killers Freedom

Chapter Nine: Concrete Hell

I woke up feeling cold. A burning sensation surrounded my lungs making it hard to take in a full breath. I was blindfolded and my legs were bound to each other and my hands in chains attached to something next to me. I was on a metal floor laying on my back and the aroma around me smelled of blood and bile. I don't know how long I had been out for but my senses were on overdrive trying to gain my bearings back. During my first year of training Stryker used to have his guys come kidnap me and put me in scenarios to help me learn what to do if I was ever compromised on an assignment. But whatever these people made me breathe in had me feeling like I couldn't move a muscle. I made a few failed attempts to sit up and I tried to push my face against my arms to get the blindfold off but it was attached too tightly.

I could hear something, or someone for that matter, breathing but I couldn't make out what direction it was coming from. Beginning to gain some feeling back I was able to kick my legs underneath me and raise myself to a seating position. I could feel the eyes on me and every hair on my body rose causing chills up and down my spine. I'm defenseless against whatever is in this room with me and for the first time in a very long time I don't have control of my surroundings and every memory of Stryker trying to kill me and torture me flooded back into my head.

"Please stop!" I screamed at the man punching my limp body over and over again, "please I'm begging you, you will kill me!" He didn't care, he continued to hit, breaking ribs and bruising every inch of skin he came into contact with until I passed out.

It had been days since I was stabbed and chained to this wall, the wound was still fresh, now bleeding all over again from the continuous blows I was taking to my abdomen from yet another round of punches.

"Please! I swear I will never try to run again, Stryker please make him stop you have to make him stop," I could see his smile at my words, I was begging him to end this torture, this punishment for me slipping out while on an assignment hoping nobody would ever find me. But I was wrong. It took them two days to find me in the forest and once they did Stryker stabbed me in my stomach and chained me up in a room he used to torture people. I hadn't eaten anything in the past two days and they were only giving me enough water to keep me barely alive.

"That is enough for today," he finally spoke to the man who was now caked in my blood, knuckles bruised from destroying my skin and bones, "everyone leave now, I need to have a word with our dearest Bugs."

At those words everyone watching these torturous events left, leaving me and this demon alone. He walked close to me, close enough I felt the heat of his breath on my face.

"You will never run again, you will never fight me, you will never try to trick me or deceive me. You will obey me and everything I say to you. I made you what you are. I can end you just as easy. I want this to serve as a constant reminder of the time you tried to get away and failed," he dug his finger in my open wound and I screamed at the pain. "I want you to remember who calls the shots around here. This is my game, my rules! I will never hesitate to make you understand every time you think of leaving again. You will stay here until I think my point has come across clearly. I do hope you understand this is for your own good, Betty."

Thirty two days I was trapped, tortured and starved. Only given enough food and water to make it through to the next round of beatings. I never tried running again, I only screamed at Stryker after that, telling him how much I hate him but never could leave because I was terrified of experiencing that pain all over again.

I noticed that I no longer felt the stares of something on me anymore and my lungs didn't sting like they did when I woke up. Instead I could hear footsteps in the distance getting quieter. So there was someone in here.

"Miss," my body jolted upward, startled at the sound of a familiar female voice. I thought I was alone. "Miss I need to dress the wound on your head or you will continue to bleed." Where do I recognize this voice from? It's so quiet and timid, I know I have heard it before but the pounding in my head is causing me to have trouble thinking straight.

"Where am I?" I asked the woman in front of me. It was a stupid question but the only one my brain could process through the pain right now.

"You're in Moscow," she lifted the blindfold off of me, blinding me with the light that was in my face. "Elaine? Wait, Elaine is that really you? What the hell are you doing here? What is going on?" I couldn't contain my questions, seeing this fragile woman in front of me gave me hope that she was here to save me from wherever I had been taken too. Then it hit me like a bus driving straight into a brick wall. She said Moscow, the place I had returned from three weeks ago. If this is Elaine standing in front of me that means somewhere lurking behind the shadows must be Joseph. But he wouldn't do this to me. Would he?

"Listen," she whispered to me, I could barely hear anything she was saying as she was speaking so quietly now beginning to patch the wound on my head she leaned into my ear, "you made him mad that day and ever since you left he has been throwing things around the house, breaking everything in his path. He has killed some men for not finding your location quick enough. He has spent the last three weeks trying to get to you. They were watching you for days before they threw that bomb into your house. Miss you're in a lot of trouble here, I don't know what you did or said that was so bad but I have never seen him this angry at anyone before."

She leaned back examining her work nodding that she was satisfied she gave me a half smile and turned to walk away. I couldn't see anything behind the light that's shining in my face, keeping me from opening my eyes too long from the pain it caused. I heard a door open and click shut signaling she had left the room I was in leaving me alone in this concrete hell.

My head kept pounding and the longer I fought sleep the worse it was beginning to feel. Eventually I lost the battle and I drifted into a painful cold sleep against the floor beneath me.

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Intense chapter today.

Two sides of Bugs being tortured, past and present.

I appreciate all of the reads so far!

-H