HOWL: UNCHAINED (rewritten)

**Ch. 17 - Ptolemaea**

A/N Hibernation was sweet. Happy to be back. Coming at you with a very traumatic chapter disclosing Billie's encounter with Ivan... and just how much of a brutal fuck he is. This chapter features triggers. Those triggers are: TORTURE AND A SCENE OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. I will mark the flashbacks with ** as this will be a choppy chapter jumping from flashback to present. I tried to keep it as brief as possible. On another note, if you are a survivor, I praise your strength and wish you all the best and hope your life is full of happiness and never ending love <3

-- No One's Pov --

Telling Emilia about what happened to her, Christ, it brought pure disgust and shame. A part of Billie wanted to say never mind, to tell her to just leave. She couldn't tell her to leave. She wants her here. She clears her throat, feeling the coarse, scratchy feeling from the dryness.

"I just remember waking up. I was in some kind of basement..." Billie shivers, remembering the atmosphere, how cold and unsettling it was. She shakes her head, "He walked in and said 'Shall we begin?' and the way he said it, I knew he had plans to kill me. I wish he did and just got it over with."

**Billie watched as Ivan picked up what looked like a hammer. All she could hear was her own heart beating wildly in her chest, the blood pounding in her ears. She fought against the restraints, trying to break free but was still too weak from the wolfsbane.

He sets it down, contemplating hard about how he wanted to start this off. Kill the wolf or make her suffer for some time? Oh my, he didn't know. Revenge is what he wanted, at least right now. He wanted to make Billie suffer, wanted to hear her screams until she stopped, to break her down to nothing but a shell of herself. He thinks of his wife, her face slowly fading from memory, replaced by a thick frothy darkness that consumed his senses...

He presses a button, sending electric waves through the restraints around Billie's wrists, which she takes like a champ despite the burning sensation. And as soon as it started, it stopped, leaving her clenching her jaw as she breathed heavily.

"Oh, I'm going to have fun with you..."**

Emilia shakes her head, scooting closer to Billie, careful not to startle her with the sudden closeness. She whispers, "Tell me everything, I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere."

Billie lets out a shuddering exhale, looking at the marks on her wrists. She could still feel the cold chill of the basement, could still smell the mold and rot on the bottom edges of the brick walls, could tell Emilia what the room looked like, even how the large crack on the far right wall looked like the room was trying to separate in two...

**The smell was sickening but Billie couldn't tell if it was the basement air or her electrocuted flesh after he pressed the button again and again. Her body trembled slightly, hunched over as she tried to catch her breath. She groaned softly, slowly looking up at Ivan. She growls softly, "I'm going to kill-"

Her words are cut short as he pressed the button once more, leaving it on longer this time as he grabbed that damn hammer and walked over. He sneered, looking down as he hit the killswitch, watching as Billie remained hunched over, taking in the way she gasped for air as the final shocks swept through her body. He says nothing for a moment, leaning down to look at her better. He chuckles lightly, grabbing a fistful of her hair, and lifts her head to make her look at him.

"Your kind is resilient. However, a few of you crumbled quickly. Jonas, Elijah, Nick..." He looks her in the eyes. "You know how easy it was to break them? Pitiful. You on the other hand might prove to be difficult."

He swings the hammer down on her kneecap, the contact making her grip the metal arms of the chair, her heart pounding in her chest. If it weren't for the strength and improved body dynamics, that would have taken her clear out.