Shrouded

.XIII.

I groaned as I came to, and the first thing I noticed was the pounding in my head and the pain at the back of my skull. I tried to put my hand over the spot, but I soon found that I couldn't move my arms. I opened my eyes to blackness, and realized that I was blindfolded, lying on the ground with my arms tied behind my back. Shifting my feet allowed me to recognize that my ankles were also tied together.

I opened my mouth and yelled loudly, wordlessly. The echoes of my shout rebounded around me, and I guessed that whatever room I was in was a small one. I heard nothing else as the sounds of my voice faded away; no one was coming to check on me.

I tried again to shift my legs and arms, but as I wiggled, the rope only tightened, and I gave up on trying to get out of the bindings. My head was throbbing even more with every passing minute. There was nothing I could do but wait. Surely, I thought, if someone went through the trouble of tying me up, they must have had a purpose. Someone would come for me.

I tried to remember what had happened before I was knocked out. Memories came back to me in flashes; the blow to my head must have made me forget the exact order of events. In my mind's eye, I saw Jaqueline running away. I saw the trio of men who had followed us, and who had attacked us. I remembered the shortest man's speech, about how he and his group could help us atone.

I must be in the group's base.

A shuffling noise came from outside the door, like someone walking while dragging their feet. I hated when people walked like that, it was one of my pet peeves. A sudden memory took over my mind: me, following a lanky, blonde haired man into a dilapidated building. He had something I wanted, desperately, and I was trying to be nice to him, so I didn't mention that the way he scuffed his shoes across the floor as he led me down a dark hallway grated on my nerves like nothing else.

In the memory, the man turned his head, like he was going to say something to me, but before I could see his face, the vision vanished. I nearly screamed in frustration. My memory was coming back in bits and pieces, but it was desperately slow. It was like I was dying of dehydration and every snippet of recollection was a few drops of water. Enough to keep me going, enough to keep wanting more, never enough to slake my thirst.

The door to whatever room I was in opened, and I heard the footsteps shuffle up to me. I moved my head around, trying to get a glimpse of anything at all. The blindfold was on tight, though, and not even a hint of light was getting past.

The footsteps paused right by my head, and though I couldn't see, I felt the pressure of someone watching me.

"Ah, good. You're awake." I recognized the voice. The short man who had harassed Jaqueline and I.

I whipped my head up toward the speaker. "Where am I?"

The man laughed. "All in due time, little lamb."

I heard the rustling of fabric, and his voice was suddenly closer, as though he'd crouched down in front of me.

"I was unable to introduce myself at our last meeting," he said slowly. I frowned at his wording; 'meeting' made it sound like we'd had a friendly chat over coffee, not that he and his cronies had tracked Jaqueline and I and then attacked us when we'd said no to joining his weird little group. "You may call me Father Rikard."

If I could have rolled my eyes, I would have. "Okay, Rikard-"

I was cut off by a sharp slap to the back of my head. My body curled up in pain as my headache returned, worse than ever.

"Father Rikard," he said, his voice low and calm. "Respect is the first Tenant of Atonement."

I heard the shuffling of his feet again, he'd stood up and was now walking in circles around me. It was disorienting, not being able to see, and the small room made the sounds of his footsteps echo until I couldn't be sure where he was in relation to my prone body. All of my senses were confused, my head was pounding, the circulation in my hands and feet was being cut off by the binds upon them, and, in all honesty, I desperately wanted to cry. I supposed that's what he wanted, though, to see me break, and I resolved not to give him the satisfaction.

He eventually stopped circling me, stopping in front of me and crouching down once more. His voice was the same soft, slow timbre when he spoke again, though now there was an impatient edge to it. "You are here," he began, "because of my generosity. I will still help you atone, and when my men catch your friend, I will help her, too."

I tried to lash out at this, wriggling my body and fighting my bindings. "Don't you touch her!"

Rikard laughed, and gently cupped my cheek. "Oh, little lamb. You don't understand. I am here to guide, not to harm."

With a quick motion, he removed my blindfold. Even the weak, beige light of purgatory was too much after so long with only darkness, and I squeezed my eyes shut. After a couple moments, I peeked through cracked eyelids and let my eyes adjust.

We were in a room with a single window, through which filtered the weak light that illuminated Rikard's face, as well as the walls around me. The space was probably only about ten feet square, but that small space held horrors I hadn't expected.

On the walls, in neat, orderly lines, hung implements that could only be used to cause pain. Thick ropes with knots at the ends, spools of rusty barbed wire, razor sharp pieces of metal, all kinds of refuse that had been renovated into torture devices. Every object was flecked with reddish-brown stains, some more red than others, like the staining was newer. It could only be blood.

I cringed away from the sight, shuffling my body backwards, stopping only when I felt the opposite wall against my back. I heard a clatter, and realized I'd kicked over a stack of long metal pipes that were resting in the corner nearest me.

The Father laughed.

My lip trembled. "What are you going to do to me?"

Rikard smiled, but it was cold and brittle. "It's not what I will do to you," he said, "but what you will do to yourself."