Resurgent

Chapter 20

Sheryll's POV:

The rustic looks of the building are quite intimidating. The entrance is through a long, steep and narrow staircase. We step up on it and try to go in as quietly as possible.

I hear a rumbling sound and my heart skips a beat. In this dead silence, the slight noise sounds so amplified that it makes me jump a little. I look over at Zeke and Shauna who have the same expression like mine.

"Heard that?" I ask them.
"Yeah," Zeke says, as we continue upwards,"Doesn't sound so pleasant."

I shudder at the thought that the sound could be coming from...

As quietly as possible, we walk up the stairs. At the end of the staircase, I feel something crumpling beneath my feet. I bend down to see it more clearly in dim light. It looks like charred wood or something but when I touch it, I know it's ash. We go on forward until we reach what looks like an abandoned godown. There are boxes everywhere which have 'fragile' and 'this side up⬆️" stickers pasted all over them. The boxes are caked with a thick layer of dust implying that these things have been here for quite a long time. I glance over at the two. All of a sudden, I hear a sound. Someone walking. I look at Shauna and duck behind a stack of boxes. I press myself against the boxes, sure that the dust would have already made my t-shirt dirty. I want to peep and see who it is, but I refrain myself because this is no small matter. We might be dealing with some international criminals!

"We need to do something," I hear a voice. It's a deep voice and kind of husky.
"But we can't let him go," another person's voice comes. This person sounds a little afraid,"If we do that, he's going to report us to the police."

Him, I think, This can be Tobias.

"He's using up too much of resources and he's not agreeing to tell us even one thing. How much shall we torture this guy? It's not doing us any good."

They are torturing Tobias?!
"But we can't just leave him!" The second person exclaims,"We caught him for a reason."
The first guy sighs and then finally says,"I don't think we should leave him,  but we cannot afford to keep him here. Maybe he can go a day or two without food and drink."
"He's not going starve to death if he doesn't way for a week."

I look over on the other side and I see Shauna's frightened face. I can tell that even she is thinking the same thing. She looks back at me questioningly and I mouth to her,"That can be Tobias they're talking about."

She looks astonished but then Shauna realises. She understands that these people are up to no good.

"Maybe we can hurt him more to vomit out a few things we need to know." The first person says.
"No," the second person says,"He's too strong for that. He will bear as much of pain as possible, but he won't tell us. I know him, he's got too strong an ego. But what if we kidnap the person he loves and then torture her? He's going to melt down, I'm sure. Then he'll tell us what we need to know."

I don't hear the first guy reply. After a few seconds, he says,"But how do we know who he loves? There can be so many people."
"Of course," comes the voice of the second guy, who seems to be the mastermind, and yet not the boss. The first ones speaks with authority and seems to be bossy. He must be the head, but the second one seems to have the brains,"But when I had just kidnapped Four, I heard a voice of a woman calling out to some guy named Tobias. Maybe she'll know."

Now I'm sure they're talking about Four.

"Who's Tobias?"

"I don't know-"
He stops short and then hurriedly adds,"What if Four's real name is Tobias? Maybe that woman is..."
"The person he loves," they say in unison.

Even though they are out if my vision range, I can literally see them smirk. And I can pretty well imagine what their smiles are like - evil and ghastly.

I don't know what passes through me, I don't know why I do that; but I jump straight out from behind the boxes right in front of them. I can't hear them talk such things about Tobias, how dare they say they'll torture Tobias?

Coming right out of the blue, I manage to startle them a great deal. And I know that this is my chance. I pounce upon both of those guys without anticipating anything. I hear the sound of feet behind me and I know it's Zeke and Shauna. They hold the guys' arms as I hold the two of them by their necks and practically strangle them to death.
"Who are you?" I ask, rage bubbling in my voice,"Where is Tobias?"

"Uuh...." One of them tries to say, but does not succeed because of me holding his neck. I guess that this must be the deep-voiced guy, who seems to be the boss. He has a huge scar running from the back of his left ear to the centre of his cheek. It seems to be ages old. His face is rugged. It looks like he has travelled a lot, and has faced a lot in his life. Living in bureau, I have learnt to read people's identities just by one look at their face.

"You touch Tobias, and I kill you," Zeke says in a threatening voice. Somehow, he has a knife oh his hand that is placed on the smaller man's throat, barely hurting him. But just a centimetre more and we're going to have a dead body to bury. A drop of blood is around the knife and so I know that it's just not kept there, but it's actually threatening him.

"Where is he?" Shauna asks.
The smaller man spits out; maybe I was holding him too hard, and added with the pressure of Zeke's knife, he must not be having the best time of his life.

The first guy points to a room inside slowly. I look over at Shauna and she understands what I want. We need to gag them and tie them up, otherwise they are going to be a threat.

I need a rope. Apparently, Shauna and Zeke had had enough foresight to see what was coming and they had some knives and a rope. Carefully, Zeke ties the two to a wall tightly. Gagging them with some paper we find on the floor, we creep into the room. The room doesn't have any light, the only scarce source of illumination is the light from the godown. I strain my eyes to see something- anything. I can't make out any difference between the floor or the walls or the stuff kept around.

My ears perk up on hearing a slight sound. Adrenaline rushes through me as I alert myself for another sound but none comes. I run my eyes around, unable to see anything but this time, I'm sure I hear a sound. Even without being able to see anything, I know it's Tobias.

"Tobias," I whisper.
"Tris!" Comes the reply instantly.
"I can't see you," I say groping around.
"Tris, stay away-"

The I feel the floor collapse under me. The wood just falls and the impact makes my arms shoot up as I fall down. Into an abyss that seems to have no end.

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