46. Out of the Darkness
46
Out of the Darkness
Darius
I am relatively certain I'm not dead.
I've lost count of the number of times I've blinked, yet I remain in the darkness. I open my mouth to speak, then grit my teeth, forcing myself to swallow a few times as I do my best to peel my tongue from the roof of my mouth.
It takes a few attempts, but I manage to clear my throat and then croak out, “What the fuck?”
And then I chuckle to myself, that odd feeling of déjà vu wrestling with my bones.
“What could possibly be funny?” a voice comes out through the darkness.
“Who the fuck are you?” My words are rough, but they travel well in the silence.
The voice retorts, “Who the fuck are you?”
I groan, shaking my head and then laughing again at the ridiculousness that this could be happening a second time.
Trapped in the fucking dark.
I don't say anything for a few moments, mostly because I'm stubborn and I don't want to. And then the voice comes back, “Beast, is that you?”
“Oh, for the love of fuck, don't call me that.”
“It's me, Ivan,” he replies. “And you should be embracing that name at this point. Who knows how many times it's gotten you out of hot water.”
“Well, apparently, this wasn't one of them,” I reply dryly.
“I don’t know. You had one big moment of threatening to rip out a spine before you passed out. I think it helped.”
“Would you two yahoos shut the fuck up,” an old Irish voice says from the other side of me.
“Seamus. So good of you to join us.”
“Yeah, that's what I fucking get for bothering to save your dumb ass.”
“Just let me get my bearings, and I'll try to poke around and see where we're at,” I say tiredly.
I move to sit up, cracking my forehead on something hard, just as Seamus says, “I wouldn't do that if I were you.”
I raise my hand to my face and end up driving it into the same hard surface I bashed my head off of. Slowly, this time, I manage to rub my fingers on my forehead as I mutter, “Well, this is getting better and better.”
“Just be glad you were knocked out-cold when you got put in here. I got shoved in this thing wide awake,” Ivan answers.
I shrug and then chuckle again at the ridiculousness of my nonverbal cues. “Lucky for you, this isn't my first time trapped in the dark, nor is it my first time stuck in a box.”
“Do you have any brilliant ideas on how to get us out of here?” Ivan asks sarcastically.
“Not hardly. Seamus, what are the odds of someone leaking our location?”
“Well, it depends,” he replies. “Going by Ivan's descriptions, I think it's safe to assume they've moved us east.”
“East? Why east?”
“He said they had us in the back of a van for around four-ish hours. From our previous location, I think around four hours’ distance from there, in any direction, the most reasonable explanation would be the Boston area. That's also the only place I would consider being enemy territory.”
“That makes sense. Dare I ask what fun awaits us in Boston?”
“Nothing super fun, that's for sure. I assume they'll try to ransom me. They may try to do the same with you, but that's less likely, given you're worth more being sold off to the less savory.”
I snort. “You know they've tried that a few times and failed. At some point, you'd think they'd smarten up.”
“Well, if the only thing keeping us alive is stupid people, then God bless them.”
“I would cheers to that if I had a drink,” Ivan interjects.
“I could go for a drink.”
“Yup. Me, too.”
“And at least you can rest assured that since they've moved us a couple of times within sight of other people, that at least one of them would spill the beans. There's always somebody out there looking for a cash payout. And they would know that this would be a big one.”
“Good,” I answer. “Then that means my people will be coming.”
“They won't think just you're dead?” Ivan asks.
“I'm sure for a fair amount of time there they did. But my people aren't the type to just assume someone is dead.”
“The giant explosion wouldn't be enough for them?”
I laugh, and, for a moment, I feel bad because, for at least a small amount of time, they would've grieved. “First rule. Never assume anyone's dead without real proof.”
Ivan snorts and mutters, “You’d think a kaboom would suffice.”
“And see, that's where you'd be wrong because look at us now. Not dead.”
“You have a fair point,” Seamus replies. “There was certainly a time in my life I would've believed the explosion. Now, I'm way too old to assume anything.”
“The only good thing about dehydration and my previous stay in a cage is I'm less likely to have a need for the facilities anytime soon.”
Ivan snorts and retorts, “And speak for yourself.”
“If nothing else, piss away from me. Okay?”
“Hopefully, we'll get rescued before I have to worry about that.”
“Do you think that'll be soon? Do we know how long we've been here?”
Seamus answers, “Last time we tried to assess, we figured it'd been a day or two. I figure it would take them a couple of days to get word that you're possibly not dead and then maybe another one to determine where you're being held, so we're probably still looking at another day or three.”
“For fuck’s sake, man,” Ivan exclaims. “When you word it like that, it may as well be years.”
“Not really. They're going to have to come tend to us at some point. If they let us die of dehydration, heads are going to roll.”
“And shockingly,” I respond blandly. “This is not the first time that I had to consider the possibility that I get snuffed out in the dark. Nothing more than rat food.”
Both men are silent, and as time drags on, I finally ask, “What? Is it something I said?”
“I don't know,” Seamus retorts. “You're just a regular ball of sunshine.”
“That's quite funny given our current circumstances.”
“I think I liked it better when he was knocked out,” Ivan mutters.
"Me, too," I say with a laugh.
“Do you hear that?” Ivan asks.
I hold my breath, straining to hear anything in the distance but coming up with nothing but that echo of silence. “No. Hear what?”
“Ssh,” he shushes me, so I go back to holding my breath and listening.
Then I hear a thud—a running cadence—and swiftly, it gets louder and louder until there's a crash from what feels like behind us.
And a new voice cuts urgently through the darkness. “I'm fucking telling you. I saw it clear as day with my own eyes.”
“You're fucking crazy,” another voice pipes in. “I put that fucker in the box myself.”
“Did you even know what the guy looks like? Or did you just put a guy in the box, and they said that’s who he is?”
There's a long stretch of silence as the steps get closer, and then, suddenly, a few pinpricks of light shine through minuscule cracks in what is definitely a concrete box. My heart rate picks up, and my curiosity is piqued to find out what the hell they're talking about.
Metal clanks, and then there's a soft whir of a motor, followed by the scrape of concrete against concrete. The top of the box shifts and groans, and then I'm squeezing my eyes shut tightly against the glare of light in the room.
Before I have even a moment to collect myself, hands are grabbing onto my shirt front, and I'm being yanked from the box, the two men heaving me up. They drag me a few feet and toss me on the ground, where I land in a heap.
I groan, attempting to open my eyes and, once again, immediately squeezing them shut against the pain of the light.
I catch a boot to the gut, and I choke, rolling over onto my front and wheezing to catch my breath as one of the men says, “Is that the guy you saw?”
“Yes, it fucking is,” he exclaims. “How can there be two of them?”
This time, the boot hits me in the thigh, and when I open my eyes, I manage to squint enough to see my surroundings clearly. I sneak a glance over my shoulder, getting a glimpse of the two men who should be old enough to know better. The older, dark-haired one asks, “What's your fucking name?”
I don't reply for a moment. I just look between him and his friend with what I'm sure must be a predatory grin.
Then the lighter-haired one stutters, “I do-don't know, man. We should just put him back in the box and let someone else worry about it.”
The dark-haired one scowls at his friend, then turns to me, bringing his foot back like he's going to kick me again, but just as he moves to slam his foot forward, I twist around and grab it. I don't wait for the man to get his bearings. I twist that fucker around with enough force that he comes right off his foot, the crack of the bone punctuated by his scream of pain.
As soon as he’s down, I leap on him, grabbing his head between both my hands and slamming it against the concrete floor without mercy. Once he stops screaming, I jump up, and I'm on the light-haired man before he can reach the doorway, snagging him by the back of the hair and yanking him off his feet.
He flies through the air a few feet, landing on his back, and I turn, shutting the door before strolling back to stand over him.
He stares up at me wide-eyed, fear etched into his features, and I tilt my head at him as I squat down, staring him dead in the eyes as I say, “It's the easy way or the hard way. You choose.”