Temporary Alliance

Chapter 2 : Choices

I felt a bucket full of water being dumped over my head, completely matting my hair to my face and soaking through my shirt. My head lolled to the side as I tried to regain full consciousness.

"Wake up." I heard a tough male voice then felt the sharp pain of a slap straight across my face, whipping my head to the side.

With my eyes still hazily half hooded over, I turned my face back and looked straight at the man that slapped me.

He was still wearing the exact same thing I had seen him in before I passed out, mask included. I was seated on a flimsy wooden chair, my arms pulled behind the backing of the chair and tied with what felt like was a single zip tie. My legs, however, were not constricted to the chair. Quickly glancing around me, it seemed like an empty warehouse that had long been forgotten. Scraps of wood, pipes and useless little pieces of bent metal were littered around the corners of this place. The lights were dim but decently still working and once in awhile, they flickered. From what I could see, there was only one man in here with me.

I felt my shoulder length hair being grabbed and pulled back, forcing my face to look up and my neck straining.

"Where is it?" He growled at my face, eyebrows drawn towards the center and hazel eyes narrowed.

Not knowing what he was talking about, I remained silent and coldly held his gaze. As if my silence pissed him off even more, he hit my other cheek then began to circle around me.

"They didn't have it. Do you have it, little girl?" He asked once more as he stopped right in front of me and crossed his arms across his chest.

I answered the exact same way I did the first time by simply staring at him silently and I could see the fury building in his eyes. He lifted his hand slightly and two of his teammates walked out of the shadows. When they got to where I was standing, one tilted my chair back until it was on its hind two legs and another covered my face with a piece of cloth. Suddenly, I felt water being poured on my face and being unable to get air into my lungs, it burned in my chest. Then, it stopped and I felt someone peel the wet cloth off of my face.

"Do you have it?" One man asked and when I didn't answer, they restarted the process all over again.

I've lost count how many times they did it but they soon set the chair down and I struggled to breathe in air as I coughed out water. The hazel eyed man clenched my jaw tightly in his hands, fingers digging into one cheek and his thumb in the other, as he forced me to meet his gaze.

Staring into my empty eyes he concluded, "No, I don't think you have it. But you must at least know where he hid it."

Yanking my face out of his grasp, I leaned back into my chair casually, as if none of this bothered me. "Why would you think that?"

He began laughing but then immediately became serious. "Why? Why would I think that? Because you're his only daughter, little girl. So, tell me before I lose my temper. Where. Is. It."

The more I remained quiet, the redder I saw the tips of his ears get. He breathed out a controlled breath containing fury as he walked off with one of his teammates and the other remained standing next to me.

As the one that was guarding me had turned his back on me for a moment, I widened my arms and quickly stepped out of the chair as quietly as I could. Sticking my rear out slightly and lifting my arms as high as I could, I swung down, successfully breaking the locking mechanism on the zip tie. The man quickly tried to turn around as he heard the noise of the zip tie breaking but it was too late. Holding him in a choke hold, he passed out in the matter of seconds.

I dragged him into the shadows so no one would notice him and searched him for any weapons but oddly, I came up empty handed. Hearing footsteps, I quickly sat back down and made it look as if I hadn't moved at all.