The List
CONTENT:
Rating: Mature
Flavor: Drama, Angst
Language: some
Violence: torture
Nudity: yes (m)
Sex: none
Other: yes, more torture
Author's Note:
This next part takes place after events in the 'Nanda Parbat' episode, when Oliver and Diggle try to rescue Malcolm.
The List
===#===
Malcolm awoke in a haze of pain. At least now he was lying on the cool floor, not hanging on a rack over hot coals. His throat hurt, his legs and right hand throbbed. He moved slightly. Yes, the bolt, the nails, they had not been removed. He still wore his pants and his shirt, bloodstained and stinking.
He rolled painfully to his hands and knees. Taking stock of his situation didn't take long. He was in a cell in Nanda Parbat. It was bare smooth stone all around, broken only by an iron door in one wall, a ring nearly as thick as his wrist in the center of the floor, to which he was chained, and a hole just slightly smaller than his head in one corner. The Torturer hadn't even left him with a belt. She was thorough.
The bolt on the other side of the door shot back, and it swung ponderously open. He waited on his knees, too hurt and too tired to fight.
A'haDeb entered with a bucket of water and a dipper. Malcolm scooted forward eagerly, not caring if it was a trick, a new torment, or hell, poison - he was that parched. She held the dipper for him as he gulped the water rapidly.
She drew for him another, and a third, before he slowed down.
He wanted to ask what had happened to Oliver, to Diggle. They were probably dead. Captured and executed. It didn't matter. The Torturer wouldn't answer him anyway.
"Take off your shirt."
He didn't see any point resisting, so he did as bade, moving stiffly, painfully. Little scabs on his arms and chest broke and welled up blood. The guards had torn the right sleeve a bit, getting it over the double shackle. At least that made it easier to get off without pulling at his sore hand. The shirt slithered down the chain to bunch over the ring.
"The list," A'haDeb said flatly. The dipper was gone now, resting in the bucket. She pulled a quirt from the back of her belt.
"The List?" He was confused a moment. What did the List have to do with anything now? It was useless since the Undertaking... Not that list.
"Number one," the Torturer prompted.
Malcolm thought back. "Abernath... Emile... Emelia Abernathy."
"Number two."
"Adams..."
The Torturer lashed out and struck him across the back of his neck. "Brian Acacio."
"Brian Acacio," he amended quickly.
"Number three."
"Brenda Adams."
He struggled through the list, badly. It was hundred of names, and he'd only heard it once. The Torturer was merciless. It didn't take long to see that Malcolm didn't know the names, that he'd spend this session flat out on the floor, being beaten over four hundred times.
He was sobbing, his back raw, by the time it was over.
===#===
The Torturer brought him water three more times. Whether hours apart, or days, he could not tell. Blessedly, she didn't speak to him.
Then four guards came to fetch him. They took him to the torture chamber and laid him on the table. It was cold and unyielding on the tender welts. The Torturer locked his right hand down, then used normal restraints on his other limbs. Malcolm tensed, trying to prepare for the ordeal, but his energy was depleted.
A'haDeb unbuttoned and unzipped his fly, then tugged his trousers down. He tensed even more, but she only looked over his legs and the nails still embedded within. The skin around them was tight and reddened. They had been itching badly when they didn't burn with pain, and were probably becoming infected.
For a moment, he hoped she was going to pull them out, but no. He was slated to die. What did it mater?
The Torturer left him exposed and moved off to fetch her tools. He found himself wishing she'd taken his pants off before manacling his ankles. With the chains on, there was no way to get them all the way off, and the way they bunched around his ankles made him feel more vulnerable and naked than if they'd been gone altogether.
He lay back and closed his eyes and tried to ignore it. With Oliver's failed rescue, his best hope was to manage to die quickly. He hoped Thea had at least escaped the League's notice. His and Oliver's deaths should sate their need for blood.
The Torturer returned and began setting objects on the edge of the table. It sounded like small plastic boxes that rattled slightly. Malcolm opened his eyes. They were filled with straight pins.
"You will remember these names," the Torturer said.
Malcolm closed his eyes again as she took a pinch of skin at his ribs and stuck the first pin through it. One for each name. Down his flank, down the outside of his thigh, then up the left side. Like the small cuts across his chest, they were tiny, insignificant, but collectively, they hurt.
Back in his cell, he started pulling them out. He tried to recall the names; there were so many. He pictured his notebook in his mind, creating a new List, scratched out with tiny needles. Written in blood.
===X===