This might be one of my favorite chapters so far. Can't wait to hear what you guys think. Slow burn finally beginning to burn in celebration of the fact that I just passed my big test! Please enjoy the angst :(
Content warning: torture, non-explicit implication of SA
She felt his rage in every touch. Every press of the taser nodes, every pass of the torch, every stroke of the knife. Through clenched eyelids or tear-blurred vision, Ronnie could see the fury in the hard lines of his face, the grief in the low tug of his lips.
The pain he inflicted on her represented the pain he felt within.
Someone had killed his son, and he was a grieving father.
His attempts to crush her oscillated in motive between revenge for his child's death and punishment for her betrayal. It wasn't until he started torturing her with a knife that Ronnie realized he wasn't attempting something so simple as breaking her spirit.
Her tears brought him no joy, her cries yielded no pleasure, her screams meant nothing to him. Arlov didn't care if she cried.
He wanted to break her psyche. He wanted her mind to shatter into a million pieces until she no longer existed as the Ronnie Masters that her friends knew.
She knew better how to keep herself together. Granted, she'd never been formally tortured, but she was no stranger to pain. Being caught in explosions and crossfire had never warranted anesthetic or painkillers in Carla's eyes, and until she'd joined the CBI, any misery she'd endured, she'd endured alone.
Ronnie let herself scream.
As Arlov leaned over her, cutting thin lines into the skin of her back, she didn't fight the screams of pain that came reflexively. They helped. The outbursts were cathartic and distracting, making it easier to endure the pain. She'd learned long ago that screaming released stress.
Pain of the body was easily endurable.
Stress of the mind was destructive.
Ronnie's only goal as she lay trapped under Arlov's knife was to protect her mind above all else. So she screamed.
And while she screamed, she sank into her thoughts and fell away from the world, deep into hiding. Retreating into a paracosm was a skill she'd taught herself after she'd been shot for the first time. And then, after she'd been abused by one of her mother's boyfriends for the first time, she'd forced herself to practice it until it was perfect.
Arlov never knew the difference. He bathed in her screams as he sliced into her skin, and when he grew bored of watching little trickles of blood dribble down her back, he moved on to her legs.
If she was so proud of being built like a man, then she could suffer the loss of her strength as he cleaved through muscle fiber.
It was almost time to collect Cho. What a sight she would be to behold before he let her recover and moved on to the torture of her dearest friend.
Ronnie Masters would break at his hand, and she would never turn from him again.
The CBI owed him.
Her life for his son's.
He would own her soul before the week was done.
the MENTALIST
Cho sank down at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and rubbed a hand over his eyes. Carla Masters had been a waste of time.
She didn't care that Arlov had her daughter hostage, and she didn't care to share any locations that he might be holding her at.
He was running out of leads.
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Ronnie Masters | the MENTALIST (COMPLETE)
Mystery / Thriller#1 in MENTALIST [Cho x OC] [COMPLETED] It's The Mentalist but slightly to the left; shifting the spotlight to Kimball Cho and original character Ronnie Masters. Starts from S1E1, includes all casted characters with the addition of one OC. SLOWWW BU...
