There's No Good

Thirty Five

Arden.
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I wake up, but not in my room. I don't know where I am. It's dark, and it's cold.

I can't think clearly. My head is pounding. My vision is blurry. I move to touch my head, hoping that the warmth of my palm will ease the pain. But I can't. When I go to move my hand, a loud metal thud ripples throughout the room.

My hands are chained down.

"Oh, so she's awake." I look up, squinting my eyes trying to focus them. The voice wasn't kind or friendly, it was bitter and cruel.

"Where am I?" I croak out, my throat dry and hoarse.

"Doesn't matter where you are, it matters where you're going to go if you don't answer our questions." I look around the room, more eyes filled with hate surrounded me.

"And where is that?" I say, disgust in my voice. Registering his face. He was older, not too old. But the same age as my father. He was a bald man, with a scar under his left eye.

"Hell, right where you came from." This earns a couple chuckles around the room.

"Funny." I say.

This seems to make him mad. He grabs my chin in yanks it up. I try to ignore the throbbing it causes my head. "Do you know what makes me mad?" He snarls.

"Being bald?" I answer. A loud slap goes through the air. He had slapped my face, causing me to fall to the floor.

Fuck, why did I say that?

"This isn't going to fun for you if you keep being smart, girl."

"Who are you?" I ask, trying to distract myself from the pain.

"Doesn't matter." He grunts. Another man walks into the room. This one young, maybe even my age. He whispers something in the bald man's ear. Something that made the bald man even madder. The young boy spares me a hateful glance, then walks back out of the room.

"Where is your father's hideout?" He demands, picking me up from my throat.

"I don't.. I don't..." I can't talk. The air is vanish from my body, and black dots start to fill the space where the man's face was before.

He drops me. "Where is it?" He asks again. Tears are falling from my eyes, I'm gasping for air.

"Vince." Another man says. So that's the bald man's name. "She's been here for three days already, this is pointless."

Three days, his words ring through my head. I've been here for three days. Was my dad looking for me? Probably didn't even know I was gone. What about the school? Did they think I left? Did Will think I did?

"Tell me you little brat." Vince's attention turns to me.

"I don't know." I spit out. The truth. "I haven't seen my father in a long time." The lie leaves my tongue  smoothly. Lies are something I've mastered recently.

"Vince," the man says again. "We wasted materials getting her, spent the past three days waiting for her to wake up, and she doesn't know."

Vince is fuming. "She's lying." He spits out. I don't have time to react. His hand comes flying to my face.

"I don't know." I cry. "Please, just let me go."

He laughs cruelly. "Even if you knew and told us, I still wouldn't let you go. Maybe would of let you rot in this cell, but since you won't tell us. You'll be killed, and your death will be celebrated." He spits, and gives me one last look. A look that told me I was worthless, disgusting. He waves his hand around the room, and all the men follow him out.

I was going to die, it wasn't a threat. It was a promise.
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