After Hours

Chapter 19.

Grayson's POV.

   I wake with a start and look around me. All I see is darkness and chains bonding me at my wrists. I pull hard on them, again and again. But they won't budge. I continue to pull, keeping my friends on my mind. Keeping Ember on my mind.

  "Don't bother," a voice says.

   I peer into the darkness, letting my eyes adjust. A gate with polls blocks me from entering where the voice is coming from. Even though it's dark, I can make out the cuts and bruises on the girls face. Her face is covered on blood and it looks like she has been struck across the face many times. It's takes a few seconds before I realize who it is.

  "Jess?" I ask, walking closer to the gate. Well, as far as my chains would let me.

  "Hey, Grayson. How are you?" she asks, looking up at me.

  "Scared," I say. "You?"

   She laughs a cold, bitter laugh. "I could be better."

   I squat down next to the gate and look at her face. She has been being abused for a while now, it seems. I notice her body is very thin and I can easily count her ribs.

  "Do you know what's going on?" I ask.

   She shakes her head. "All I know is some shadowy figure comes in, every hour, trying to make me confess where the others are, and when I don't," she shudders at the thought. "I'm beaten. I haven't had food or water in a day and a half. I'm afraid I don't have much time left."

   I frown down at her. "I'm gonna get us out."

   "How?" she yelling now. "Grayson, don't be stupid! There is no way out!" tears pour down her cheeks, making clean streaks across her dirty cheeks.

   I flinch at the sudden volume of her voice. I don't know how to answer as she sobs loudly, her crying screams filling the small stalls.

  "I'm sorry." is all I can say.

   She dries her eyes with her chained hands and crawls over to her side of the gate. She grabs my collar and looks into my eyes.

  "We can't get out. Stop giving me false hope, Grayson. There is no way out," she lets go of my collar and sits back down.

  "I can't afford to think like that," I say after a while. "I have my friends. And family."

   She nods her head but in a mocking way. "Right. I forgot."

   She goes back to the far side of her stall and rubs her wrists with her hands. As good as she can, anyway with her hands chained. "I hope you-"

   She gets cut off by a door slam. She looks at me, tears filling her eyes.

  "He's here," she whispers.

   The shadowy figure comes into the room. Two white eyes are the only thing I can make out of the creature. He goes straight through the bars to Jess who cowers in the corner, tears streaming down her face.

  "Hey!" I scream. "Leave her alone."

   The figure looks over to me quickly, as if it forgot it brought me here too. He floats, I guess you can say, over to me and grabs my throat. He squeezes hard and I feel my breath cut short. I feel his hand squeeze tighter and tighter until my  eyes close and I feel that I'm going to blackout. Finally, he releases and drops me hard on the floor.

  "Where are the other," he says, in a harsh, deep voice.

  "I'm not telling," I say. His hand raises in the air, but I speak before he can strike. "Cause I don't know where they are."

   That is not an entire lie. I don't know where they are. That doesn't stop his hand from hitting me across the face. I wince, it's not like a regular hit. It stings and I can't stop twitching all the sudden. He lays his hand against my face and I scream out in pain.

  "Stop!" Jess screams, but a sharp look from the figure shuts her up.

   I feel the pain begin to creep up my neck to my head. I can't even describe the pain. It feels like poison. I actually wouldn't be surprised if he was poisoning me. He finally lets go of my face and I touch my face. It stings at my soft touch and I wince at the pain.

   The figure takes me from the stall, despite Jess's calls. He takes me to a large stall with two ropes hanging from the ceiling.  In front of the ropes is a tall mirror. He cuts my chains off, cutting my wrists in the process. He hoists me up and ties my wrists to the hanging ropes. I stand on a bucket to reach the ropes and he ties them tightly.

  "No," I say, when I realize what he's about to do.

   He removes the bucket from my feet, leaving me suspended in the air. I feel it becoming hard to breath and I gasp for breath.

  "Where are your friends," it says again.

  "I don't know!" I say.

   The figure walks around the room and brings back a bucket of boiling water. He throws it on my face and I cry out in pain.

  "Where are they!" he scream at me.

  "Why do you care?" I say, my face on so much pain it's almost hard to talk.

   It doesn't answer. I gasp for breath and he puts the bucket back under my feet. I gasp in breath but wonder why he put the bucket back.

  "Why did you put it back?" I ask.

  "We don't want you dead," it says, going to the door. "Yet." he leaves and the door closes with a slam.

   I look around the room, completely captured. This is how I am going to die. How I wish I would have went with Ember. I wonder if she's ok. I hope she is.

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