Chapter 29
Aaron
They have the three of us kneeling in a row in the fun room. Myself, Juniper, then Georgia.
Zasha has center stage in the middle of the room and seems to fancy himself a warrior, for he holds a spear angled out the side, with its base propped on the floor. Karsten and Shawn stand near Georgia. With his jacket discarded, I can see the gun Zasha carries in a shoulder holster.
Their usual bag of weird sex gear lies near the wall, opened, with dildos, masks and other paraphernalia spilling from the zip.
With Karsten also present and smugly observing, the situation has become shameful. He knows what I’ve been brought down to, how I’ve been forced to obey them.
Shame? Really?
I’m a damn shallow man. They’re letting me go soon, not Juniper and not Georgia.
Beside me, Juniper is trembling and pale, her hands cuffed behind her, same as me, with the metal handcuffs they seem to favor. Handcuffs are illegal in Australia. Somehow, I doubt they care.
Get angry. Get scared. Anything but shame. Fuck shame, fuck Karsten. If I do get released…
I lower my head. I’ll be travelling back with him, and how will I stop myself killing him on the way?
Zasha is pacing before us with that spiked metal rod in hand. The butt scrapes along the floor, making a tangy metal ringing sound. I thought it was a mere prop, but this is a heavy implement I’ve not seen before. It’s nearly as tall as him. The point gleams and looks wickedly sharp.
“Boys and girls! We have a new man who wants to sample you. Only the girls, sadly. Not you, boy.” He smiles at me.
I glower back, imagining his teeth exploding when I shoot him there.
“And so! We have a small game.”
“I only want her.” Karsten points at Georgia. “I told you this.”
“But this is more fun. You choose whichever one you want. This one, that one, and while you fuck her the other one watches from where she stands… And how does she stand, Shawn, my friend?”
Shawn walks to him and takes the spiked rod. “Why she’s parked on this beauty.” He holds it up and shakes it in the air. “Point first in her wee cunt, a couple of feet inside her, if it fits. She gets to wriggle and squirm and we get to watch them both.”
Zasha is nodding. “Da, this is so. Play the game, Karsten.” He comes over and touches Juniper’s head then Georgia’s. “Which you fuck? Which will we impale? Hmmm?”
“You’re going to stick that in the one I don’t choose?” Though he’s grimacing, there’s a coarseness in his tone, an eagerness even. As if he is both shocked and excited.
Fuck this man. They all need to burn, after someone puts them through a mincer.
My hands flex and strain against the cuffs, though I know getting free will not be possible.
“Yes,” Zasha purrs. “Nice, hey?”
“Not what I would have thought up but, since you ask me, I have to choose this one still.” He walks to Georgia and lifts her to her feet, slips his hand between her legs, shifts aside the crotch of her white panties. From the way she winces, he’s fingering her.
He moves away, looks at his fingers. “So, with the other one, will I wait for what you’re doing to happen first?”
“Sure.” Without warning, Shawn yanks Juniper to her feet and pulls her to the central spot.
I lunge up onto my feet and get all of a foot or two before Zasha grabs my hair and rams me back onto my knees. “Stay, boy.” He positions himself behind me with his gun drawn and held to my head. “Be good. Watch.”
Watch her die.
Actually… I shouldn’t stop watching. This will be her death, but watching her die is the last thing I can do for her, and she may get something from knowing I am here?
Maybe? I don’t fucking know. How useless I have been.
Useless.
When she struggles, Shawn drops her to the ground, forces her to lie on her stomach, and stands on her with one foot while he undoes the cuff from one of her hands.
He cuts off the bra and panties they gave her yesterday, leaves them on the floor.
Her legs are scuffling, zigzagging over the floor. She’s still resisting, my brave girl.
I wish we were anywhere else but here.
Does it end here? It can’t.
The cruelty of these men.
Zasha laughs. “We string her up on the chain first, with her hands above, and then we slooowly lower her down onto spike. Maybe we gag her first since the pain might make her yell a bit. What do you think, mister Aaron?”
He cranes back my head, the gun still hovering beside me.
Juniper is sobbing, and Georgia whimpers as Karsten does god knows what to her. Or maybe she’s just horrified at what Juniper is suffering.
I look at him, meet his eyes, and I spit up at him. The gob of spit slides down his cheek below his left eye.
Then he punches me to the floor.
I’m sprawled there, pain ringing in my ears, when I hear a distant boom-boom.
Was that the head blow or my imagination?
“Breaching charge!” Zasha yells. He leaves me where I lie and runs for the door, yanks it open, then spins and waits. The door bounces off the wall and begins to swing shut again. “Secure her! Get your weapon and follow.”
Shawn had also taken a step toward the door. Instead, he hurries back to the open bag, pulls a Glock from somewhere among the dildos then a shotgun. He tosses the shotgun to Zasha, who snatches it from the air and swaps weapons.
Juniper has sat up and is trying to stand, though she looks wobbly, and is pushing up off the floor with her hands.
She’s not cuffed. That sears itself into my brain.
Somewhere in the house there is an intruder. Hopefully a friend.
Delay Zasha. Do something!
I roll and get onto my knees. With both hands at my back, it’s difficult to stand but possible. I’m halfway up, on one leg, ready to sprint over and help her when Zasha returns to kick me, flattening me onto my side.
“Stay! Or you get a fucking bullet.”
Incongruously I’m thinking, it’s a shotgun. It doesn’t have bullets.
Juniper cries out and I look over and find she’s again cuffed with hands at her front, and Shawn is stalking in my direction.
“We go. Come on, fella. Let’s go fuck someone up.”
Zasha burns the room with a glare. “All of you, stay. We will be back to finish this.”
The door he’s partly opened is booted open again and a man is there in dark tactical gear, helmet, mask, and clothes, silhouetted and tossing in a small cylindrical object that spins. He ducks out of view.
A flash bang.
Casually, Zasha catches it and tosses it back through the door. A second later there is a bang. The shock and sound sledgehammers into my body. Dust and smoke billow in.
The man staggers partway into the doorway, framed there, raising a long weapon like SWAT employs. Is this Tomás?
He gets off a few rounds that spin Shawn before Zasha hammers him with a shotgun blast. As he falls away to the side, a second blast peppers the hallway wall behind, pocking it with dust and holes. There is blood on the wall.
Tomás? For a microsecond, I hesitate.
I’ve trusted him with my life, before. Fuck this. How can I help him?
Zasha wavers and seems slower. The blast must have rocked him.
Desperation lends me strength as I rock onto my back and try the hands-to-the-front trick that’s never ever worked. Shock spools in when my cuffed hands squeeze past my feet to my front.
I roll-jump to my feet. Roaring, I sprint at Zasha, arms outstretched. He’s lifting his shotgun as I launch through the air into him then grab the barrel, twisting it.
His knee connects with my thigh with an immense thud.
The pain reverberates as he heaves me sideways, but I hold on until the force of the throw wrenches my hands off the gun.
He’s off balance, drops to one knee while I’m skidding and flipping onto my back.
Zasha still holds the gun but it’s askew.
He sways, eyes bleeding from what must have been the metal of the shotgun banging at his face.
Dazed and torn between firing at me and shooting Tomás, who is on all fours and bloodied, Zasha hesitates.
Shakily, Tomás rises. Recovering his footing, he props his back against the hallway wall and lifts his rifle.