THE BRAVO BOYS - SNAKE EATER [book three]

Chapter TWENTY NINE

Shelby Quinn

... three years ago ...
~Strysakstan~

The bloodstained concrete is a welcome relief to the sweltering heat as it cools my withered figure where I lay lifeless on the floor of the prison camp cell.. Every fibre of my frame aches with a malnourished pain, my body craving for hydration with cramps that seize my muscle and my lean limbs feel heavier than dead lead weights. Even if the opportunity to escape this godforsaken hellhole arose, I'd never have the strength to take it..

Death would be a sweet and welcome release form the confines of my perpetual misery and it cannot come fast enough.. I have been here in this dingy cell kept against my will and tortured for so many long months that I have begun to loose track of any semblance of time.. Each day blurs into the next, every captor combines to become the one cruel devil and all corridors lead to the same punishing chambers..

I want to die.. I want the nightmare to end.. And the only thing I fear is that it never will..

Beneath the crack in the door I see the shuffle of muddy boots and the shadows of my captors sweeping closer before the grating sound of the rusted old deadbolt sliding open fills me with an empty dread..

Not again..

"Get up!" Barks the masked marauder, his face covered by a black bandana, though I still recognise his callous eyes, static blue and charged with hatred.. This man must have fetched me from my cell at least a hundred times by now, yet never once has he shown a shred of compassion or hint of remorse..

My sweat-stained MARPAT uniform hangs loosely to my brittle bony body as I try to move, the clothes I was captured in now several sizes too big for all the weight I have lost..

"Nngghh.." The hauntingly inhuman sound of my own groan resonates off the stone walls as I use the last of my strength to push myself into a sit, blinking up at the rebel with an unshakable defiance.. They can beat me, they can cut me and watch me bleed, but I will never break.. I will never let them see me cry..

"You wear thiz!" He throws a dirty black hood down at me, expectant and impatient..

"Why?" I rasp in reply, but the only answer I am given is a swift backhand to the face..

-SMACK-

"Ow-fuck.." I hiss, the taste of blood, rusty like iron pooling in my mouth before I spit it out and wipe my busted lip on the back of my hand..

"Past' zabej, padla jebanaja! You wear now!" He orders harshly in a heavy Slavic slant, his hand moving to the holstered pistol at his side.. "Or I make you wear, Cyka pizdet!"

"Okay, Rasputin, Jesus Christ- fucking relax man.." I mutter, rubbing at my jaw before lifting the sour smelling slip and sliding it over my head, obscuring my vision entirely.. As soon as my sight is stolen by an impenetrable darkness, I feel a ruthless grip on my slender arm yanking me upward to stand on my feeble feet. The shove of something stiff is thrust into my spine before I am marched forward and once again horror takes hold of me..

I count the paces as Rasputin leads me through the winding corridors, two paces forward, left, eight paces forward, right, fourteen paces forward, right again..
I already know where I am being taken because they bring me here once a week to ask me questions and bleed me out when I don't give them the answers they're after..

I honestly have no idea what it is they actually want me to tell them because if I did I would say it just to make the cruelty end.. But nothing I've ever given them seems to satisfy..