A Partisan's Fight - COMPLETED!

Chapter Fifty-One

Content Warning: Violence; Torture.

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"Mina." Aldrik shoved her shoulder until she woke up. Biting back a smile, he watched her dazed expression as she wiped her lower lip and sat up. She looked innocent, not ready for a bloody massacre.

"How long was I out?" He watched her eyes grow wide as she took in where they were at.

He'd made a split second decision, knowing this was the place where they needed to be with this man. Shrugging at her question, he began getting out of the truck. "Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes."

"What are we doing back here?" She asked, the uncertainty in her voice.

Glancing back at her, Aldrik followed her gaze straight to the lightened up beam Markus had been hanging from. The bloodstains could be seen even from their distance. "I thought it would be the perfect final resting place for this one."

A smile tugged at Mina's lip.

He could see the small pleasure at the thought in her eyes. This would be a perfect place to allow Lehmann to remember and relive the tortuous trauma that had been induced upon their friend. It was poetic if he had to think of the right word to describe the moment.

Not waiting for her to get out, Aldrik went around to the trunk of the truck. He pulled the tailgate down and eyed up their prisoner. The man was all ready bleeding decently. There was no question that there was room for more blood though. He glanced down at his watch before beginning anything.

"How much time do we have?" He looked up at Mina's expectant gaze.

"It is almost four thirty. We have maybe a thirty minute window right now. I do not have to be at the camp until close to nine." He thought about the newer recruits that wanted the extra hours to work. He hadn't thought it was a good thing to take shorter shifts throughout the week, but it was working out for the better right now. Things happened for a reason, he was continually reminded.

"Are you going to have enough time? It is almost over three hours to get there from your place."

He was about to answer when he caught a clear glimpse of Mina's neck for the first time. He reached out to lift her chin up, eyeing up the nasty bruises that outlined the shape of Lehmann's meaty fingers. His head already pounded from hitting the hard ground so many times, but a new pounding burned through him. He released his grip and reached for the barbed wire with a hard-set jaw. "We will have time."

Dragging Lehmann out of the truck, he let him fall to the ground hard. "You should go and check on Markus. I will take care of this."

"I should be here." Mina stared at the man wincing in pain on the ground.

"Believe me when I say that you should not." Aldrik grabbed a wrench from the back of his truck.

"What if you need help?" She handed him the rope he was reaching for.

Gently grabbing the rope from her, he tucked the roll enough in his pocket to keep it from falling out. The weight of the rope felt awkward, ignoring it he gave her a brief reassuring look. "Then I know where to find you."

Her brows knitted together, her voice took on a darker tone. "I want to see him in pain for what he did, Aldrik."

"Come back in twenty minutes and you will see him writhing." He could see her uncertainty. It didn't surprise him. She always wanted to be in the middle of everything. Setting the wrench back down, he gripped her shoulders. "I know you have feelings for him, Mina. Go and see him just in case you cannot say goodbye. I can do this."

He watched her open up her mouth and close it. A slow nod bobbed up and down, before she turned and walked away. He was surprised that she had been so accommodating and less inclined to argue. It was unusual, but he only had her best interests in mind.

Grabbing the wrench in one hand, he grabbed a hold of the wire with his other hand, dragging Lehmann across the broken ground. He could feel him twitching to avoid more harm than he already would receive. Mina had her fun with Jonas; he would have his with this bulk of a man.

"You know, in a way, I am kind of glad this happened." Aldrik thought out loud to the man that was forced to listen to his ramblings. "I have had to suppress everything that I have felt for a very long time. I have not had any way of letting it out on anyone."

Pausing, Aldrik glanced back at Lehmann's angry gaze. "Until you and your friends made a mistake." He knelt down close to his face. "By messing with a friend of ours."

He stood back up, stretched, then grabbed the wire once again to pull. "Markus definitely did not start out a friend. There has been a few times that I have wanted to kill that man. He made the mistake to make Mina cry once. I do not let anyone do that. If she had not had a plan, I would have made him pay dearly. Fortunately for him, she had a plan and he needed to stay in decent shape. You, on the other hand, hurt both of them. That is simply not something that I can just walk away from."

Aldrik had blocked out Lehmann's groans as he'd pulled him over the rubble, broken glass, and torn up buildings. He had no desire to give into pity over as evil of a soul as his. His arm burned from pulling the man, but it really did not matter to him either. It had time to heal after this ordeal was over. A little pain wouldn't kill him.

Standing in front of the beam Markus had been strung up to brought a strange wave of emotion to Aldrik. His jaw gritted together as he pulled Lehmann to his bent knees. He grabbed him by the hair and cranked his head up to face the beam. "Who put him up there?"

Lehmann's muzzled voice was still far from being back to how he remembered it being in the camp. Aldrik reached down and tugged the gag down his chin, not bothering to release his grip from his hair. "I am still waiting for an answer."

"Who do you think put him up there?" Lehmann's voice was gravelly and weakened.

Aldrik pulled the barbed wire tighter behind the man's back as he picked up the wrench he'd dropped. It took one single, powerful swing of the makeshift weapon to the man's ribcage to bring him writhing deeper in pain. "Answer me."

Glaring up at Aldrik, Lehmann spit out the answer. "I did."

"I figured as much." Aldrik grabbed the rope, looping it in between Lehmann's back and arms.

"What are you doing?" He spat out.

Aldrik ignored him. He dragged him closer to the beam. It looked more like a cross than just a pole. He swung part of the rope up, leaving it to hang on one of the horizontal beams. He walked away from Lehmann and found his way up the ladder behind the beam. Wrapping the rope carefully around the vertical beam, he tossed it back down to the ground. Eyeing up the ground and finding a safe landing, he jumped. He could feel his own sore ribs from the jarring of the jump. Rubbing them briefly, he made his way back to his prisoner, tugging him tighter to the beam. Glancing up, he grabbed the other part of the rope and began to tug at it.

Lehmann was far from being a light man, but the anger that Aldrik was feeling was enough for him to tug him up the beam. Pausing half way up, he tied the rope off on an immovable chunk of cement. He needed to be able to reach his victim. Listening to Lehmann's deep-throated cries reminded him of everything he'd all ready been through.

Flashes of Lotte skimmed through his mind. Images of before she'd been taken. Images of when he'd gotten her back. He thought of how thin she'd been and how she'd been starved to the point of when they gave her food she could only eat very tiny amounts without getting sick. Thoughts of how much he jumped every time he heard the door being knocked on, terrified that they were there to take her away from him again. She'd been pretty tight lipped about what she'd all endured, but scars didn't lie and she had plenty of them. Those thoughts alone were enough to fuel a rage that nobody had any business trying to take from him.

He picked the wrench back up and walked to the hanging body. His only intent was to make him pay and to put him through as much pain as was possible. He'd been waiting for a moment like this. He wouldn't waste his short amount of time on lingering around.