Chapter two: Sore.
When Brooke woke up, she could tell it that was raining outside. Or maybe she was just hearing stuff. Maybe the smack in her head had driven her crazy. Maybe she wasn't thinking straight anymore.
Or maybe she had died.
Damn, actually, part of her nearly wished she was.
As she looked around, she could see she was in the same car Angel of Death had thrown her on. Her head hurt, and so did her leg. She probably had bruised it while she tried to hide.
She was so young. Too young. How could that have happened to her?
She hadn't even lived enough yet. She wanted to scream, she wanted to run, but most of all, she wanted to kiss all of her family and tell them how much she loved them. She wanted to tell Chase how much of a great boyfriend he was, and tell Peyton that she was her best friend, and Brooke would always be there for her.
If she managed to get out of that place alive… ever… she would make sure to live her life as she had never lived before.
Slowly, she felt the car stopping, and rain's sound was clearer. It was definitely raining. The tears still remained in her eyes, but she couldn't find the will to let them out. She was going to die. She was sure of it. There was absolutely no way she would get out of that place alive.
Angel of Death would mutilate her.
She had heard of him last year, when getting ready to go to school. According to the news, he'd murdered a whole village, and ever since, he'd been searched for the police. She immediately had feared him, especially for the fact that the village was close to San Francisco. She prayed every night for the families he'd killed. But she never thought, or ever considered, that she would be one of his victims.
She watched as the door ahead of her was abruptly opened, and his blue eyes found her scared ones again. She pushed her body as far from him as she possibly could, but he pulled her by her feet until they were face to face.
"Be silent," He said, slowly, and all she could do was nod. There was no point in talking, anyway. He would never let her be free.
He practically arrested her to the place where they were coming in. He opened the door, and in the minute they got in, he pulled her by the arm. As they walked (or as he forced her to walk), she took a look around the place they were. It was like a huge basement. It was a really large place, she thought, even two or three elephants could fit in there.
However, the basement had her attention stolen in the minute she saw Angel of Death pulling her against a small bank, sitting her on it, and then tying her hands up against the pillar besides her.
Angel of Death sighed. He knew he was going to regret this. But then he took the piece of cloth out of her mouth, and threw it aside.
And she started talking again.
"Please, don't kill me. Let me go, please…" She sobbed, as tears fell from her eyes. "I have family, and friends, I'm in my freshman year of college…" She waited a little. "Have mercy…"
"Mercy takes you nowhere, girl," He said, getting up, and starting to walk around the place. "You'll learn that eventually in life,"
"If you're not gonna kill me, why won't you just let me go?" She asked, her whole body shaking because of her cries. "Please, let me go…"
"No," He said, turning to her, his voice firm and tough. "If I let you go, you'll tell people where I am,"
"No, I won't," She immediately said. "I won't ever say a word to anyone about this. I'll keep my mouth shut forever,"
"I don't believe you,"
"I'm speaking the truth, just trust me," Rachel knew that was something stupid to ask. He was a goddamned thief, how could she ask something like that to him?
He slowly raised his blue eyes to her. Rachel felt that weird shiver running through her spine again. Those eyes seemed to always find its way inside her mind, and somehow, trick her into feeling scared. Like she knew all the things he could do only through his eyes.
"I don't trust in anyone," He said, his voice full of anger, and she just didn't know why. "Now keep your mouth shut, little girl," He got closer and whispered. "Like I said before… you're not going anywhere,"
Why was this happening to her?
Had she done something or said something bad, and now somehow life was punishing her? And why in that way? Why, of all the ways to punish someone, that had been the one chosen for her? Stuck with a thief who she didn't even know who was, only that he was a psychopath who could kill her in the least expected moment.
She tried to stop, but she couldn't, so she just kept sobbing, louder and louder. She just couldn't help it. She couldn't even remember the last time she felt this scared. Maybe when she was a child, but that had been such a long time ago. She never thought she would, one day, go through this.
Oh my God, what about her family right now? Had they already found out? And Peyton? Would she hear about it on the news, or maybe the still alive cops would warn her, since she was Brooke's emergency number? Brooke hoped to God that Peyton wouldn't have felt guilty when she found out. She was indeed somehow grateful that Peyton hadn't been the one in the bank tonight, but she definitely wasn't enjoying this.
Better me than her, though, Brooke thought, as she kept sobbing.
However, her sobs were cut off by the loud sound of a shooting. Brooke immediately gasped/screamed, and jumped in her place, looking scared to the bullet that had found a wall just three centimeters away from her.
Brooke felt the fear begin to win her over again as Angel of Death came closer to her, leaning over his knee, with a gun in his hand, and looking dead serious in her eyes.
"Keep crying," He said, slowly, and she could see that he was losing his patience. "And the next one…" He shot another time close to her, making her jump again. "… will be in your head," And he looked deeper. "Was I clear?"
Brooke shakily nodded, and let just another more tears fall. She wanted to die. Man, she wanted to, but she was so scared of happening so. She gasped a little in surprise when his fingers found its way to her face, and wiped away her fallen tears, but he never lost his psychopath expression.
"Good girl," He said, as Brooke kept her mouth shut, and did nothing but to stare at him. "Now I'm gonna make a few calls, and don't even think about running away, 'cause wherever you'll go," He leaned his head closer to hers. "I will find you,"
Once again, she just nodded. It's not like she could do something else. If she opened her mouth to speak, it might be the last time ever. No words could describe how horrified she was.
Wherever you'll go, I will find you.
Damn, those words brought shivers through her spine. She didn't know if it was because he was holding a gun, or because he'd killed people in front of her, or because he was a thief, or for the simple fact that his eyes could travel deep into her soul, and trick her feelings. But she did feel scared of him.
Slowly, as she reorganized her thoughts, she felt her eyes wanting to roll to the back of her head, and thought maybe sleep was finding its way inside her. But she wasn't sure she wanted to sleep. What if he raped her as she was standing in there, all vulnerable, just sleeping? Just like he couldn't trust her, she couldn't trust him.
But as much as she fought, sleep had already snuck upon her skin, and she was slowly closing her eyes, traveling to a world in which there was no so such thing as hypocrisy, or crime, or death, or grief. Just peace.
What wouldn't she give for that world to ever be real.
-x-
She could tell it was already morning when she opened her eyes. She looked around, her head hurting more than it normally did. She probably had a headache.
She was still in the same basement she'd been in the previous day. She felt her stomach beginning to make small travels inside her, and soon felt the nausea start to win her over.
In less than one minute, she'd turned her head to the side, and puked. Hard. Probably everything she'd ever eaten in her whole life. The images of the dead people close to her of yesterday had been hunting her even in her dreams, and she just couldn't get rid of those scared looks in their faces. They'd been brave until their last minutes of life.
Why couldn't she do the same?
As she finished vomiting, she realized she didn't have how to clean her mouth. She felt the tears wanting to come back to her eyes, but Angel of Death's threats came back to her head. She couldn't cry anymore. The only thing she could do for the moment had been pretty much banned from her life.
It was no longer an option.
"Slept well?"
She heard his voice again, and felt her skin hardening. She gulped, and didn't say anything. She wanted to smack her head harder against the pillar, so she could lose her conscience again, but knew that would be of no use. She would die, anyway.
"Huh. I see a cat has eaten your tongue," He said, sharply, as he walked around her with a cup of what seemed to be coffee in his hands. How could he have done all he'd done and act like nothing happened? Like he was some king? "Good girl. You're finally listening to what I tell you to do,"
Again, Brooke kept her mouth shut. She didn't dare to say anything. Even though, if she could, she still wouldn't. It was like she had been voiceless. Like she no longer knew how to speak.
"Hm," He said, pulling a small bank, and siting in it, in front of her. "However, I'm gonna need you to answer some of my questions. And you better not lie to me. If you lie, I will know, and I will kill you for doing so, got it?"
Brooke just nodded.
"Okay. What's your name? I want your full name." He asked, leaning forward.
She sighed a bit, and finally felt her voice finding its way back to her throat.
"It's…" She murmured something.
"Speak louder. I didn't hear you,"
"It's Brooke," She said as firmly as she could. "Brooke Penelope Davis,"
"Okay, Brooke. How old are you?"
"I'm eighteen," She was surprised how she was being able to talk. Part of her wanted to stay quiet, but something inside of her just wouldn't stop her from saying the truth. "I'm in my first year of college. I'll be nineteen next month,"
"Oh. That's why your password is 050594, isn't it?" She nodded once again. "Fine. That's all I need to know for now. Keep this good behavior, and I might consider not killing you," He then raised an eyebrow. "But just 'might'. I'm the kind of guy who hardly changes his mind,"
Brooke couldn't help but let the one tear she'd been holding fall.
"Why are you doing this to me?" She had to ask. She couldn't hold it inside her anymore.
"It's not something I'm actually willing to do. You see, if you hadn't seen who I was, you wouldn't be here," He shrugged. "Easy like that,"
"My family is gonna look for me," Brooke said, taking a deep breath, not looking into his eyes. "Lots of people know me where I'm from,"
"Yeah, but they can't magically know where you are. By the time they find out where you are, you'll be dead. Or we'll probably move out," He said, leaning his head to the side.
Brooke frowned at him, finally looking into his deep blue eyes.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You'll find out eventually. If you don't piss me off, obviously," He said, getting up. "Here," He leaned over her, getting in his knees, and cleaning her mouth with a small blanket. Brooke's eyes didn't leave his for a second. "You don't wanna stay with your mouth all full of puke, do you?"
What the hell was this guy doing?
Brooke seriously couldn't get it. Sometimes, he was evil, threatening to kill her. Other times, he was being kind. She felt so confused that it only made her head hurt more.
Part of her wanted to thank him, but she knew it was stupid and pointless. Why would she thank him? For kidnapping her? For taking her away from everyone she loved? Or simply because he'd cleaned her mouth?
That's when he looked down to her, and frowned.
"What was this?"
Brooke raised an eyebrow, not saying anything. Then he rolled his eyes, and raised her leg up, showing her dirty-bloodied thigh. Brooke sighed.
"I think it's glass," She said, shyly.
"Huh. Spread this leg. I'll come back soon," He said, getting up. She watched as he got inside a random room, and came back three minutes later with a scissor, and a line. Brooke frowned harder as he got closer. She also widened her eyes as he practically ripped her pants, and then he looked over at her bruised thigh.
When he started to mess on the bruise, she had to hold a back a scream. Damn, that hurt. However, he seemed to realize it, because he looked at her with his eyebrows raised.
"Does this hurt if I touch it?"
"Yeah," She said, weakly.
"Hm. Then I'm right, it needs points,"
"It needs wha… AUTCH!" She yelled as he messed on her leg. She kept holding back screams as he removed the glass that was inside her thigh. She felt her body weakening even more as the blood was coming out. It seemed to take hours to he could be finished with it, but Brooke knew it took at least a few minutes until he was done with the small surgery.
And now her thigh was with ten points in it, the bruise now could no longer be seen.
"Don't move this leg too much," He said, as soon as he was done. "If you do, it's gonna hurt even harder. I managed to stop the bleeding, and remove the glass, but I'm not a professional, so you gotta stay quiet,"
It's not like she had another choice, did she?
So once again, she just nodded with her head.
"Hey, hm…" She couldn't believe she'd just started a conversation. She thought about shutting her mouth out in the same second, but he'd already looked at her, suspicious. "Thanks for… stop the bleeding. Mr…. hm…"
"What?" He said, annoyed.
"I don't know your name. What… hm… what's your name?"
Angel of Death stood there, in shock. And Brooke was in shock too. Had she really just asked that? How dared she? She'd probably gone mad. Just because he'd cured her leg didn't mean he was suddenly a trustable person. He killed people.
And he was going to kill her.
"I'll just pretend I didn't hear you speaking. At all. Do not thank me ever again. I never do anything good for anyone, everything I do is on purpose because it'll do good to me," He said, between his teeth, and Brooke shivered with the thought that she made him angry. "I hope I was clear enough for you,"
"You… you were," She said, nodding repeatedly. What the hell was she thinking?
They stayed in silence for quite a long while, until he sat in a table a few meters away from her, and then he sighed, as if he was in a mental battle.
"It's Lucas," He said, all of a sudden.
Brooke blinked, surprised. Had he really just revealed his true identity to her? Well, Brooke thought to herself, he's gonna kill me, anyway, so what exactly does he have to lose? It must be good to finally have someone who cares to know who he is.
She mentally slapped herself for thinking this.
I'm not gonna feel sorry for him. He's ruined my life. I want him to pay for this. I… I want him to die. Slowly.
Those were her last thoughts, before she finally surrendered herself to his small tiny kindness, and dared to ask:
"Can I eat something?"
-x-
The process from day to night went slowly in Brooke's eyes. All she'd done in the whole day was to sit in that stupid place, doing nothing but breathing. She'd done nothing but to think. She found herself singing, for a while. Which felt pathetic. She wanted to laugh of herself. She also wanted to cry. But she couldn't do neither. She felt paralyzed.
Lucas.
It felt like… such a normal name for a psychopath like him.
It was like that name, somehow, normalized him to her, and that freaked her out. She didn't want to see him as a person. She wanted to see him as a monster, who stole her from her family and friends, and who had no mercy at all.
She hated him.
Deeply and intensely.
She never thought she could hate someone like this. Actually, she'd never hated anyone at all, so he'd been her first, in a way. If only she'd thought back and realized how stupid that sounded.
Well, Lucas had left for the afternoon, and didn't come back for hours. Brooke even thought for a moment that he'd abandoned her there, so she could die from hunger, or some popular disease. She couldn't make more than five days.
But no, he hadn't abandoned her. She just didn't know if that was good or bad.
He'd come back to the basement around 7:00 PM. She was nearly falling asleep when he arrived, wearing dark clothes, and dark glasses.
She had to admit. The man was incredibly attractive. If that had been a movie, he would be, like, the perfect villain. Not that she felt attracted to him, obviously. She'd just noticed the fact that he wasn't unattractive.
She watched quietly as he messed on some papers, and she tried to identify some of them. Stupidly. She could barely even see his silhouette.
"Are you having a headache?" He asked, suddenly.
"Maybe," She said, after a while.
He then took something in hands, and walked towards her. She gasped loudly when he took two pills, and slid it inside her mouth. He then closed her mouth, as she widened her eyes and gulped the pills.
"Don't fight it," He said, calmly. "Just swallow it,"
And Brooke did so.
"Now take this," He said, getting a glass of water, and slowly putting ahead of her mouth. "Drink," She had her eyes frowned as she sucked the water closer to her mouth, and drank it.
Surprisingly, none of it was poisoned. Exactly 23 hours since she'd been kidnapped, and she was still alive. She found herself thinking about the people out there, especially her family. Were they looking for her? Had it already been informed to them that she had been kidnapped? What about Peyton? Did she know?
She watched as he turned something that seemed like a radio, and after a while listening to Scorpions 'Wind of Change', which wasn't bad at all, and she was actually enjoying, she heard a man's voice saying:
"… and yesterday, we all watched as Angel of Death made more victims. He actually made a massacre, and in the end, still kidnapped a girl. Her name is Brooke Davis, 18 years old. Now, here we have her mother, Victoria Davis, who wants to say something,"
Brooke's eyes were widened in shock, especially when her mother's crying voice started to talk in the radio:
"Yesterday, when the police called to my house, and told me my little girl had been kidnapped, I just couldn't believe it. I thought they were kidding. And now, I have no idea where she is, or even if she's alive. All I want is for her to come back home. But that probably won't happen. I just want my daughter back. Sweetie, if you're still alive, and by any chance is hearing, I want you to know that I love you and that we will f…"
Brooke never heard the last part. Lucas turned the radio off with his free hand. Brooke gulped back her tears, which she could no longer control. Not after hearing her mother.
"No, no, no, no, no," She said, shaking her head, as tears fell from her head. "Turn it back on, please,"
"No," He said, turning his back to her. "I told you I can't stand people who cry all the time. And what would happen to you if you cried again,"
Brooke let more tears fall. She wasn't sobbing, she was just crying silently. She didn't have other choice.
"I just wanna hear her voice," Brooke said, her voice weak and affected. She hoped for a moment that he'd just see how desperate and broken she was. "Just one last time. Please, let me hear her voice. Please,"
She actually thought that for a moment he'd actually been considering it. But then she was surprised when he grabbed his gun, and shot the radio on the table.
Brooke stood, in shock. She felt the anger rising in her chest, and the tears burning in her eyes. For a moment, she felt like becoming blind, and could tell her whole body was burning with rage.
"I HATE YOU!" She screamed, tearfully, shaking her whole body. "I FUCKING HATE YOU! YOU'RE A MONSTER, AND I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"
She knew her words had affected him, somehow. At least in a way. They had to. They were meant to hurt. She wanted him to hurt.
However, he didn't even turn to look at her. He just sighed, and whispered more to himself than to her:
"Don't tell me something I don't know already,"
As he left, all Brooke could feel was sore. Physically and mentally.
But little did she know, he'd felt that same way for his whole life.