23. Chapter 23
Three Days Prior
“ Tommy! Tommy! ” Annie yells. My name echoes and rattles in my brain, like she’s calling me from a long, dark tunnel—dark because I can’t see a thing. Was I dreaming? Sometimes I knew I was dreaming, but this felt different.
She kept calling for me, over and over. I would’ve been annoyed if her voice wasn’t laced with fear.
When I tried to move, my mind cleared. As it did, my head was hit with a stabbing pain, and my body was cold. Freezing. I suddenly broke out into goosebumps, and I shivered, which only made my head throb even more. It hurt so much my stomach revolted, but I swallowed back the bile .
“ Wake up, Tommy! ”
The more I woke up, the clearer the hazy memories became. I remember checking on my sister when someone stuck me in the neck with something sharp before I blacked out. It had to have been drugs.
My eyes blinked open, and everything was fuzzy. There was only one overhead bulb, casting the area in a gray dimness.
That was when I noticed I had no clothes on. Or, I was naked other than my underwear. My shivering grew more aggressive, so I held myself as I sat up. Whoever put me in here must have cranked the air conditioning.
I was sitting in a cage, or a cell. It wasn’t very big, only tall enough to stand in, but I couldn’t stretch out my entire body on the floor.
Next to me was a plastic bucket and a bowl of water, as if I were some animal.
The fear started to grip me as I grew more alert. My brain still hurt, and my mind was still fighting whatever they gave me.
I blinked around the area with chattering teeth to find several other cells like mine. There were five across from me. In those cells were women and… my sister.
“Annie?”
“Thank god you’re awake!” she sobbed. “Where are we?”
“Shhh,” someone said. A man was next to me, but the other cells were empty. “Quiet or they’ll come and beat us.”
“Who’s they?” I asked.
“Shhh!”
But I knew who they were. Maybe not by name, but I knew they were tied to my father and his gambling addiction.
He had reached a new low. Low enough to get his children stolen from him.
My eyes leaked more from anger than from fear.
I was fucking over this. If I ever got out of here, Dad was done gambling.
I didn’t care what the therapists said online.
“Easton will come for us,” I told Annie. “I know it. Don’t worry.”
“I-I’ll try. But how? He’s just a kid like you.”
“He’s smart and resourceful. I know he can do it. He promised.”
Suddenly, the metal door banged open against the wall, and two huge men walked in, heading straight to my cell.
“No talking,” said a man with a pockmarked face in a thick Russian accent.
Jesus… Were Annie and I sent to Russia? Was that even possible? How long was I out for? Shit, Easton would never find us then. Was I still in the States? They could be part of some gang, right?
God, Dad. What did you get us into?
“Who are you?” I asked.
The man rushed to my cell, pulled out a long stick that I hadn’t noticed he’d been holding, and shoved it between the bars.
Once he touched me with it, my body turned to electric fire, like I was being burned from the inside out.
I stiffened and jolted, feeling like my body went into one massive charley horse.
As soon as he removed it, I instantly dropped to the ground in a heap and gasped, but the pain instantly subsided.
Holy fuck, that hurt.
As I panted, now more afraid than I was before, I scooted back as far as I could go into my cell when the two men opened it. One man reached for me and pulled me out, kicking and screaming, as the other zapped me again to make me more compliant.
I could hear Annie yelling and crying in the background, but I couldn’t do anything.
Once I was out, the man who pulled me out held me with my back against him, his meaty arm choking me. I fought him and tried to escape, but he was too big and strong. Meanwhile, the other man stripped me of my underwear and tossed them into the cage before they dragged me out.
My body was shaking so much now, my bones and teeth rattled, and I broke out into a cold sweat. I knew they were going to hurt me for disobeying them by talking. Tears started to spill, never feeling more helpless in my life.
Easton will come. Easton will come.
I kept repeating that in my head over and over. It had become my mantra to help me find the courage.
The man, who wasn’t dragging me down the long hall, stopped and opened a door. I was thrown in and fell on my hands and knees on the hard, cold tile. It looked like a shower room.
“Get up.”
I stood on wobbly legs, trying so hard not to cry, but the fear was too strong. They wouldn’t care. There would be no empathy from these men. But I couldn’t control myself. If I were Easton, I would’ve been brave and strong. I would’ve fought back.
“Back against the wall.”
When I didn’t move fast enough, I was hit with the cattle prod again, dropping me back onto my knees. He yanked me to my feet and shoved me against the wall .
The other man pulled out a long hose attached to the wall. It looked like one of those hoses firefighters use.
God, no. Please.
“Fuck you,” I said out of nowhere.
I didn’t see the sucker punch coming out of left field, slamming into my face.
Once again, I fell and was yanked back up again, nearly blacking out from the hit.
Ugh, the pain… Just as I tasted the blood on my tongue, I was slammed against the wall by a blast of freezing water, burning my skin at the same time.
There was so much water, it made it hard to breathe, and I had to hold it when it slammed into my face.
I gasped when the water was suddenly shut off, and even colder than I was before, making me hiccup between the crying and terror.
And I knew they were just getting started.
These men were hardened. They had no empathy or care.
They were types who enjoyed inflicting pain and fear.
Or they were completely desensitized to it.
The man who had hit me stood there with soap in his hand, which came out of nowhere.
He lathered it in his hands and started scrubbing my body with his soapy, calloused hands.
He soaped my face, so I had to keep my eyes closed, making me blind as he cleaned me, touching me in places he shouldn’t, his hand lingering on my cock before he moved on to scrub my ass.
The next thing I knew, I was blasted with the hard and freezing water again.
As soon as the water shut off, a sob escaped me. The fear was too much. The unknown was too much. I didn’t want to doubt Easton, but it could take him a while to find me. What if I were dead by then, or worse …
“Please…” I whimpered. “Don’t do—”
This time, his fist hit my gut, and I nearly vomited the little food I had in there, and I couldn’t breathe before his fist met my face again. I fell backward against the tiles and slid to the floor, nearly passing out.
Laughter filtered through the room, echoing and insulting my ears.
My hazy thoughts drifted to my sister. Would they do that to her? Hurt her? Punch her? Or worse? She was too young. She couldn’t handle it.
I needed to get it together and find a way to escape and take her with me. There had to be a way.
Please don’t let me die.
The two men each grabbed an arm and dragged me out, my legs trailing behind me. I tried to find purchase, but my wet feet were slick on the painted concrete.
We entered another room that resembled an operating room at a hospital. My stomach lurched so painfully that some vomit came up, which I swallowed back.
With no strength or power of my own, they tossed me onto the patient chair and strapped my legs and arms. Next, they strapped my throat to the back. I was completely unable to move.
Nope, this was where I died.
I should’ve listened to that man and stayed quiet and compliant.
Another man, who had his back to me, turned around with a smile on his face. He would’ve looked handsome and kind were it not for the scalpel in his hand and the evil gleam in his eye. I could’ve been projecting that. Extreme fear distorts your world .
“Good afternoon, Thomas,” he said—another Russian. “We have great plans for you. You are going to bring us a lot of money, money that your father owes us, and in the process, do some good in the world.”
“W-what do you plan to do?” I didn’t want to know, but I had to know.
He jutted his chin at the men who brought me in. “Gag him, would you? The talking, screaming, and begging get on my nerves.”
“What? No, no, no, no… please. I’ll do anything.”
“Oh, but you are doing whatever we want, anyway. There’s nothing else you can give us to change our minds.”
A leather mask was brought to my face, and in the center of it was a… dildo? I would’ve laughed had I not been blinded by fear. The thick phallus was shoved into my mouth, and the mask was bound tightly to my face, covering my nose and mouth.
“That is better,” the man said, whom I assumed was a doctor of some sort.
“Your youthful organs will fetch a wonderful price. Once we have your sister’s organs, your father will be debt-free unless he continues to gamble, of course. We are more than happy to oblige his addiction until he dies.”
The doctor gently dragged the scalpel across my cheek, down my throat, shoulder, and chest. Tears fell freely now, and it made it hard to breathe as my nose filled with snot and was covered by the mask.
“Your father and men like him are so easy to manipulate and feed into their addiction. Eventually, he will buy drugs from us, and he will do anything to keep his addictions from going dry. Anything . He will soon forget he even had two children.”
He ran his scalpel farther down my body, but he hadn’t cut yet. If this was what they meant by torture, they excelled at it. It didn’t get more terrifying. And they hadn’t even inflicted true pain yet.
My stomach burned from the growing acid, and I tried so hard not to pee on myself.
The door burst open, and a massive man, well over six and a half feet and broad like a linebacker, stepped in. He had light brown hair and a short beard.
He stepped up to me, scanned me up and down, before his brown eyes landed on mine.
“I was just about to start, sir,” said the doctor.
The large man grasped my chin, turned my face back and forth, looking deeply into my eyes. Then he pulled the mask off my face. I gulped down air, filling my lungs with life. I’d been close to passing out, not getting enough oxygen.
“Hmm, I had thought about harvesting your organs, but I think I have got a better use for you. I am certain I could make a pretty little copper penny for you. Sell you off to the highest bidder. You are young and youthful, with soft, supple skin. Men would love to have a taste of you, and for you to be their slave to do with as they wish. Yes, you are quite pretty.”
Another sob escaped me. I didn’t know which was worse, dying from being cut open without anesthesia, or being raped by several men for the rest of my life. And if they took me away, Easton would never be able to find me .
He pulled his eyes from mine and looked at the two men guarding me.
“Take him back to his cell. We need to break him down and ensure he is fully compliant. Keep hosing him down, throw him into the freezer if you need to, but no longer than five minutes.” He looked down at me and smiled, which was more terrifying than anything.
I knew this man was capable of horrific things.
“Five minutes sopping wet will feel like hours.”
“Anything else, boss?”
“He only gets water once a day. I want him dehydrated and starving. After three days, clean him up, feed him, and start his training. I have the perfect client in mind in Moscow.” The man looked down at me and smiled, sending a wave of chills up my spine. “He will have so much fun with you.”
“No!” I couldn’t help myself.
The man’s hand grasped my throat underneath my chin like a viper snagging its prey. He squeezed, and I choked for breath, unable to fight him off, still strapped to the chair.
“Talk again, and you will wear that mask the entire time you are here, and I will have you bound, so you cannot take it off. Are we clear?”
I nodded quickly. “Yes, sir.”
He suddenly boomed a laugh and patted my face none too gently. “Very compliant. That is a good start!”
This was going to be my living hell.
Easton, please get here soon. Please…