Chapter Seven
My shoulders burned. Every tiny movement. Every shiver pulling on muscles that screamed in pain. Tiny fibres tore with every tiny movement. It had grown cold. So fucking cold. I could feel it peeling off the leather, hitting my neck and face like the icy mist coming out of a freezer.
I didn’t know what time it was. Whether it was morning or whether it was still night-time passing slowly.
And still I was hanging. Moving my weight from my toes back onto my shoulders.
Each transfer growing harder and harder.
When I let my body weight fall against the hook, the excruciating pain would start in my shoulder blades, radiating down my back and along my arms until they were numb, blood running to my feet.
And then, when I pressed up onto my toes, the burning sensation in my feet would immediately reappear, like an explosion under me.
The cold was filtering into my bones. Into my knuckles and my finger ends, nipping at my nose and frothing out in front of me with every breath I took.
I couldn’t see it. But I could feel it. The change in the air with every breath, a tiny puff of warmth stolen in an instant.
And now I needed the toilet. A deep thrumming in my stomach.
My bladder filling. Aching from where I tried to ignore it.
But the tingling, irritating fullness crept further into me.
And now I didn’t know whether I was going to succumb to hypothermia or piss all over myself.
I hung, and I hung. I wobbled and tensed and did everything I could to distract myself.
To pass the time. I might have even fallen in and out of sleep.
I listened and waited. Straining for the slightest of indications that there was someone else there.
Yet eventually, it wasn’t a noise that alerted me.
It was a smell. Aftershave. Strong this time, recently applied.
Not the faint embers of something that had almost evaporated off a person’s skin.
This was thick, spicy, new. Tangled with soap. Someone clean. Someone just showered.
He’d crept in. No hint of footfalls on the floor.
Not a single sound, only his smell. The same scent as last night.
The same man who had circled me as I hung.
Keeping out of my way. Avoiding my kicks.
And now the fucker was back. Watching me.
I could try to fight him again. To kick another one of these fuckers who had taken me and hear him cry out like the other had done.
But I also desperately needed a wee. And as far as I could smell, or hear, he was the only one who could help me with that.
Better to not kick the fuck out of him just yet.
“Hey.” I called out, my voice hoarse and crackling, and even I could hear pain ringing in the sound. “Hey. I know you’re there.”
No answer. Around me, there was the same silence, not a change, or a whisper or the hint of a breath.
“I can smell you. I know you’re here. Right here.”
Still nothing. Had he gone already? I sniffed the air, inhaling a blaze of spices.
“I need the toilet. Can you get me to a toilet?”
He still didn’t speak, but the scent shifted in the air, something earthy now, and a tiny hint of fresh tobacco. He’d moved, circling me. Like I was prey, and he just hadn’t attacked yet. Or he was waiting for his master to give him the nod.
“Fine. I’ll just piss all over the floor then.”
“You’ll not fucking piss on my floor,” his voice growled beside me.
He was standing on my left. I fought the urge to kick out in that direction. His floor? That was what he had said. His floor. This was his place. Wherever this place was. And that was the first piece of a puzzle he’d just gifted me.
“Then you’d better get me to a toilet.”
Something clattered. The sound rang loudly and suddenly, rebounding. Metal. I screwed my blindfolded eyes trying to focus. Metal scratching concrete.
“Bucket.” He growled.
Now the earthy, spicy scent was right in front of me. Something brushed my arm. And I fought that urge, biting my lip to control the overwhelming need to drive my head into him, or my feet. I needed to wait until I had a better hand to play, and this wasn’t it.
“I’m not pissing in a bucket.”
A hand felt over where mine hung, and an arm scooped around my waist. He lifted me off the ground; the weight taken off my feet, off my shoulder blades.
“I’ll not watch,” he grunted, the noise vibrating against me, low and gravelly.
“Rather piss on your floor.”
He loosened his grip, my full weight falling onto my legs.
Legs that were filled with blood like jellied limbs.
My body crumbled, collapsing, and I thumped onto the floor, bound hands unable to break the fall.
Air rushed from my lungs. Fatigue and shock.
But the pain lifted, just a little, my calf muscles released of the pressure, my shoulders relieved from holding my weight.
And, fuck, I was so tired. I could have just stayed here on the floor.
Until those rough hands dragged me upwards.
Metal clattered again, closer. He’d pushed the bucket towards me.
“I’m not using that. Your floor will do.”
“Fuck’s sake,” he grumbled again, his hand tightening around a bicep.
Then he moved, pulling me with him. I wobbled, jelly legs not responding. My brain reluctant to allow me to move without being able to see.
“Can you take this off?” I tried to point at the blindfold.
“No.”
“I can’t see where I’m going.”
“That’s the point.”
“How am I supposed to see where to piss?”
“I’m taking you to the toilet. Pretty sure you can work out where to piss.”
His feet clumped beside me as I shuffled with my ankles bound.
Now I could hear him move. Firm steps. Measured.
Light. I’d bet he wasn’t fat. The footfalls were softer, weight distributed well as he walked.
Fit possibly? Thin? Even better. But the grip on my arm was strong.
A workman’s hands. That might be tricky.
A lock clunked in front of me. A door squeaking. The sound of our feet changed. Something covered the concrete in here, hollow, giving as we walked. He turned me around, facing the way we had come in.
“Toilet,” he grunted. “Behind you. Squat and piss. Tell me when you’re done.”
“Can I have my hands?” I asked, raising my bound wrists.
“No fucking way.”
“Then how am I supposed to get this suit off?”
“That’s a two-piece. Ya don’t need your hands untied for that.”
“Ankles then. Would make it easier to get my pants down.”
“Nah.”
“Fine. Then you’re gonna have to come and help.”
He paused. I could sense it, and I heard the intake of breath, the resignation. And suddenly fingers gripped my ankles, a snap. A flick knife. And then the tension on my ankles spang free, jolting my legs.
“Hurry up and piss,” he instructed.
“Don’t be fucking watching.”
“You’ll just have to trust I’m not.”
“There’s no fucking trusting a Rat,” I scoffed, but the burning sensation in my bladder was becoming too much to bear, and I didn’t really care now whether he was watching or not.
Popping the button, I felt for the zip, shuffling the leather down my legs one side at a time with my bound wrists.
At least the fuckers had tied my hands in front of me and not behind.
If I were at all concerned that he was still here watching, my bladder wasn’t.
Untold hours dangling from the ceiling in the cold.
It should have been frozen, but instead I felt like I’d stored two days’ worth of piss.
It was nice to sit, even on the ridge of the toilet that was missing a seat, thick porcelain digging into the back of my thighs. I was so tired. I could just close my eyes and go to sleep; the seatless toilet felt like a bed compared to hanging from the fucking ceiling.
Taking a chance he wasn’t watching, that he had turned his back like he’d promised, I moved my hands over my eyes again.
The material was still wedged tight, digging into my skin.
I tried again to move it, wriggling at it, trying to slide it up, or down.
But it wasn’t going anywhere; the fucking thing was one with my face.
The knot at the back of my head was pulled tight, and even without the numbness in my fingers and my hands tied, I doubted I could undo it.
This blindfold would need to be cut off, and the only person who had a knife was him, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to swipe that off him.
“How fucking long does it take you to piss?” the muffled voice growled from a couple of metres away.
He had stayed outside, his voice dull, the consonants of his words softer, less angled.
He’d turned his back. Giving me the privacy I’d asked for, and an escape route.
I could jump him from behind. Then what?
That voice was deep, his hands strong. Even without seeing him, I could tell he was big.
He’d lifted me off my feet when he detached me from the hook, and I hadn’t felt a waiver through his body, or the tiniest of weakness.
In the distance I could hear feet. Heavy, booted feet approaching quickly, urgently. Almost at a run, but not quite.
“Fuck, Chase. Where’s the girl?” The Scottish accent was unmistakable, and I knew my bike club presidents to know who that was.
“On the toilet.”
“You took her down?”
“She needed to piss. She wasn’t pissing on my floor.”
There it was again, that tone of possession. This was his place. Not the Rat’s.
There was a pause before the President answered, but the fact that he didn’t go all in at the man was interesting. Which could only mean this man wasn’t just Teesside Rats foot soldier. He was an officer. He held some power.
“Fine. Just get her back up there. The Hand are here. They want to see what we caught.”
My heart jolted, missing a beat and then jackhammering in my chest, the sudden pounding sending stretched muscles tensing. The rhythm masked the footsteps, and suddenly I could smell him in front of me, clean and spicy.
“Better get those pants up, Tiger. Piss break is over.”
His words were muffled again. He’d turned once more but hadn’t moved away.
“Toilet roll?”
“Drip-dry, babe.”
“Arse.”
A noise came from him. Not something angry. The start of a laugh nipped off before he allowed it to fully form.
I eased my leather trousers up, fingers less numb now the flow of blood had properly returned but filled with pins and needles.
“Done,” I called, my voice fainter, any chance I had to escape had just disappeared.
And now the Bloody Hand were out there waiting for me. And fuck knew what they would do.