Disclaimer: I do not claim to own these characters or the worlds in which they live.
Merinthophobia - Tied Up
"How would you like to die?"
There was nothing.
He knew she heard him perfectly. Beyond the irritating trickle of water that permeated throughout the small, barren room, his voice was the only sound to cut through the thick silence. She had just chosen not to answer.
The dark clothed man weighed by years of violence and secrecy takes a step towards the woman's bowed and battered form and raises a boot to her shoulder. She flinches under his heavy sole, but with her elbows zip-tied behind her and her ankles bound to a chain wrapped about her neck, she could do little to prevent the man from putting her on her back. One swift kick had her sputtering like an upturned, angry beetle. "While running you over with a truck!" she hisses, her legs curling up to spare the strain on her her neck and to keep him at bay.
He easily swats them aside. "That is a little strange," he comments, calmly placing his heel upon her hip now. "I personally always imagined doing your head in. Or crushing your neck. I'm not sure why. I think it might be that "Pop!" when bone and and muscle snap under great pressure."
The heel slowly digs into the soft of her belly to drive the point. She bides through it, the corner of her lip twitching, but a few moments more and she lets out a small, growling cry as her vulnerable organs compress under his weight. Wild eyes glare up into his, demanding "why" and shouting "how dare" when she, herself, could not. He answers her quietly by pressing down further until her suffering satiates him.
"How do you want to die?" he repeats letting the pressure die. Slowly he circles around to her other side.
Coughing, she curls in on her aching self. "Do you always toy with your victims like this?!", she snaps, her angry eyes and weary body following his movements least he try to hurt her again.
A brow perks and the man swats the legs she raised down and away yet again. "Victim? You are no victim, Anna." The splotchy bruises and her ragged clothes begged to differ, but the Illuminatus knew her spirit was greater than the body that encased it. "It's why I want to give you a choice."
"So generous."
He tilts his head.
Silence blooms between the two adversaries, interrupted only by their soft breaths, the gentle chiming of chains upon stone, and the persistant tapping of nearby water. The stillness lasts two heavy, itchy minutes until the deadly snap of a handgun's hammer shatters the tense moment. "So be it." His voice is low and final.
Anna closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She could feel the heat of the barrel burning against her cheek or chest even though Simons stood a pace away and the firearm was still cold. "I… I always thought the tropics were beautiful," she starts, frowning and twisting so she could lay her cheek her to the cool floor. "Maybe I would like to croak on the beach with a cool drink in one hand or, ha, maybe a freak boating accident out in the Gulf. Whatever."
"You mentioned enjoying Panama before. I hope you were not insincere."
The woman curses and tightly closes her eyes. When she reopens them she sees swaying palms, the warm, blue waters of the Atlantic lapping at white sand beaches, and the bothersome gulls that would try and grab at her and her lover's food. She snorts softly and turns her head, so she could look past the hollow darkness of the gun's metal barrel and into her captor's equally haunting eyes. "I did, at least, the parts that were not marred by your little club's influences."
"Would you like to describe it to me?" the voice above her asks softly, the tip of a single digit moving to rest against the trigger.
"No." She sighs deeply, retreating back into her thoughts. "You've seen and heard enough from me."
Walton nods, the normal edge to his steel grey eyes softening. "That's fine." A breath and the tendons in his wrist and palm begin to constrict. "Keep it in your thoughts."