A Beast with a Smile {Book 1}

Chapter 26 (Elly): Old Friends in Old Places

"Elly? Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey," Tyler rocked me back and forth.

My eyesight seemed dim like everything was set in the glow of a child's nightlight and the world rested on the ceiling. My face felt numb and stung whenever I tried to move it.

Tyler stood in front of me, his head reversed and his eyes matching the position of my lips. He rocked me back and forth in the rubber net that suspended me from the roof of the dimly lit room.

"We're home," he taunted as if talking to a child who fell asleep in the car.

He spun me around the small hospital room, giving me a deranged tour of my cell.

"Here's your luxury bathroom," he pointed to a bucket in the corner of the room.

"We ran out of funds for the premium toilet paper you like, but don't worry, I got you the roughest sandpaper I could find. It can rip the bark off of trees with one swipe. Really an amazing tool," he laughed, sending me around for another twirl.

"Here we have your king sized pillowtop mattress with silk sheets," he jumped onto a plastic cot with half of a sleeping bag sewn to it.

"Ah like laying on a bed of nails," he teased, making a painful squint of his eyes and stretching out his back.

He got back up and spun me to the middle of the room where a peculiar monstrosity that I had never seen before sat and hummed.

It was the color of black where it's almost too dark to see, a black where no light can enter to the point where it is nothing more than a black hole. It was a ball of eternal darkness that floated gently above the cold steel ground. Being too close to it was making me nauseous and I really needed a nap.

"You're curious about this, huh? Well, this is my favorite part of your little timeshare. You see this gadget here keeps you from zapping yourself to freedom," he laughed maniacally while slapping my back through my rubber net.

I didn't want to believe him; I didn't want to believe that this was real and not just a bad dream. I wanted to believe that he killed me in Colorado and didn't drag me back to this hell hole to rot until I withered away to dust. Death would've been a better reward for sacrificing myself to save the family that never loved me.

Is this how Scavenger felt? I thought to myself.

Tyler noticed my loss of words and my abandonment of hope and responded with a sickly smile. His robotic hand flipped end over end, revealing the hidden saw blade which he used to lacerate the rubber. I plummeted to the ground unwillingly and was unable to catch myself.

Metal chains bonded my hands crisscross to my chest like a clear straight jacket. The ground was ice and the black hole took my strength. I tried to summon the lightning and got the equivalent of an explosion from a dud piece of TNT.

The screeching of metal scraping on metal pounded on the innards of my skull, making my head a thousand times heavier. The chains snapped together, locked on a hook adhered to a track on the ceiling. I could go ten steps forward or ten steps back. Using what little strength remained, I scrambled to a cross-legged position.

A heavy, super reinforced bunker door was between me and my potential freedom. Lucky for me, Tyler was dumb enough to leave it wide open. The thought reinvigorated my legs slightly, empowering me to leap for the opportunity.

A firmly planted boot in my stomach made sure that energy was never refound. I was sent reeling back to the floor, crashing into my cot.

"And where do you think you're going? Trying to leave me so soon? You just got here and we haven't spent any quality family time together in months, sweet sister," he snapped.