Mark took a knife from his pocket and clicked it open — Lara gasped in horror as he brought it to her chest, but he only cut the fabric of the bra between her breasts and under her armpits, quickly exposing her fine breasts and throwing the piece of underwear into the corner of the room. He then quickly moved to the girl's hips — she closed her eyes for a second and tried to stop her tears, feeling her bare intimate parts being exposed the same way to everyone in the room. "You'll burn in hell, motherfucker," — she hissed at Mark, as his fingers gently touched the skin of her groin. "No, no, I'm not a monster, don't think of me like that," — the man smiled maliciously. — "I would never rape anyone. Try to believe me, even though I know that it's hard. Other stuff, however..." Lara felt the soft touch of the man's fingers against her lower belly being replaced by the cold sensation of the knife's sharp steel and gasped loudly from fear, trying to pull her belly in in a useless attempt of defense — if Mark had wanted to gut her, it surely wouldn't stop him. However, he put the knife away with a smirk and walked to Sarah, opening the briefcase in her hands and taking a large whip from it. "You have proven to be quite resistant to the pain deep inside you... Let's see how long you will last against something more... you know... superficial." He swung his hand in the air — and Lara arched her body upwards in the bonds with a deafening scream, as the wide hard wire of the whip slashed her abs diagonally, leaving a bright red trail on her skin. One more sharp movement of the arm — and the same red stripe appeared across her tender breasts, making the girl howl wildly through her clenched teeth and wiggle on the table, unable to ease the pain. Mark was good at his work — the whip hit across both nipples precisely, making them swell with blood and pulsate with pain on every heartbeat. "We might actually need to put something into her mouth," — Mark said, observing her crying face. — "If she breaks her teeth, she will have nothing to talk to us with." — "I'm on it," — George took the rope that they used to tie her hands to the chair with from his pocket and made it into a simple gag, shoving it rudely into the girl's mouth.

"Now... If you change your mind, just try to say it loud and clear through this thing in your mouth," — Mark laughed, rising his arm for another whip. — "I'm afraid you haven't had enough here," — he touched her lower belly again softly, and Lara screamed through the gag in horror, shaking her head with a pleading look. "Too late, girl, you should've been more cooperative before!" The whip made a short clapping sound, hitting her tender skin, and Lara's body arched upwards again, with high-pitched shrieks coming out of her mouth through the gag, and legs twitching in the ropes. Diagonally across her lower belly, a wide red stripe of swollen with blood skin could be seen, even with small irregularities of the whip's wire imprinted into it. "Here we go again!" Lara's teeth bit hard into the fabric of the gag as the whip left one more mark in her groin, hitting dangerously close to her crotch and making her cry out through the gag again, with a new portion of tears emerging from her eyes. "Do you want to know where it's even more painful? Here." — Mark touched her wide open inner thighs with his fingers — the touch itself, smooth and not even a harassing one, served a very particular purpose — so that Lara could anticipate the sensation of the whip landing into exactly the same spot. A vivid imagination was something one would wish not to have in this situation — the girl shuddered, watching Mark walk back to Sarah and replace his current whip with a more thin one. "Hits harder, hurts like hell," — he laughed, showing it to Lara, and then raised his hand in the air again — the new whip ripped the air with a whizzing sound and smashed right into the girl's left inner thigh, a few centimeters below her crotch. Even the gag couldn't silence Lara's absolutely wild howl — it felt like her thigh was set on fire; the burning sensation was so unbearable that her both legs were wiggling in the ropes, with the feet hitting the surface of the metal table repeatedly with a clanging sound. Mark aimed for another blow, and the girl's scream of horror in advance changed into a scream of pain, as the whip's wire landed almost precisely into the same spot, making the first scar hurt even worse where the marks were intersecting. During the girl's agonizing twitches, every exhale brought a loud howl with it, her leg felt like it was being cut with a saw — the long red scar on her thigh was visibly pulsating with blood, sending jolts of intense pain into her mind.

Mark raised his arm again, and Lara shrieked loudly through the gag, much to his joy. Instead of delivering another blow, he came closer to her head and pulled the gag out of her mouth — Lara was sobbing and whining quietly from pain as she was breathing, still twitching a bit in her ropes and almost blind from all the tears in her eyes. Sarah came closer, too, putting the briefcase in her hands onto the empty place on the table near the girl's head. "Wasn't that painful enough, Lara? I can promise, all of this will stop as soon as you start to speak. It's very simple — just telling us the information will relieve you of this torture." Lara swallowed the saliva in her mouth, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before speaking, in an attempt to calm herself at least a bit. It didn't help, though — almost every word was interrupted by an instinctive sob from all the previous crying, and her throat was hoarse from all the screams. "You're wasting time... I will never, ever tell you anything. You can torture me for hours, I will endure. Once I tell you what I know, I'm useless for you, so I'll be dead in no time. Once you realize that I won't say a word, I'll be dead, too. So if there's no difference... I'll be fucking glad to die knowing that the information you want dies with me." Sarah's eyes were glowing with anger. She literally tore the whip from Mark's hands and flogged Lara hard across the body several times, hitting blindly wherever the whip lands — Lara's lungs were producing a neverending desperate scream, so loud that Mark winced for the first time since the beginning of the whole torture. When Sarah stopped, Lara's torso was covered in chaotic red stripes from the thin whip; all the muscles in her body were so tense from the pain that it almost seemed like she could literally tear herself from the ropes. Her loud groans echoed in the complete silence in the room, as she was clenching her teeth, struggling with the burning sensation all over her completely strained body. "I said..." A few more deep breaths. "I said you can torture me for the rest of my fucking life, and the knowledge will die with me!" Sarah aimed the whip again, but Mark quickly grabbed her hand mid-air. "Like I said, everyone has a torture they can't handle... Let me continue doing my work." Sarah looked at him with a mistrust for a moment, but then lowered her arm and handed the whip back to him.

"Lara, do you remember how I said that a low blow works on women quite well, even though there's a more painful alternative, which I then proceeded to perform on you?" — Mark started using his lecturing voice again, reaching inside the briefcase near the girl's head and taking the infamous "cat o' nine tails" whip from it. — "Why don't we go back to where we started..." He slowly walked to the other end of the table, standing in the middle of that side, right between Lara's feet tied to the corners of it. "By the way, I want to say that I'm sorry and that you I hope you don't see me as your ultimate villain in all this. It's just my job... Nothing personal, Lara." A short moment of the tails of the "cat" whizzing through the air — and they smashed right between her open legs, hitting a large area of her pubis, clitoris hood, labia and inner thighs. Lara's helpless, agonizing scream, not covered by the gag anymore, pierced the silence of the room again, as her torso arched upwards and her thighs tried to come together in a useless attempt to protect her crotch. Without letting the girl recover, Mark proceeded to brutally flog her pussy with fast, hard whips — Lara's throat went completely hoarse in no time, as her absolutely wild screams weren't stopping for even a second and her body was strained in the ropes incredibly hard, trying to defend the most intimate and tender parts from being mercilessly mauled. Sarah winced a bit, seeing how the girl's beautiful hips were quickly getting covered in blood from many deep cuts the "cat"'s tails were leaving; when Mark finally stopped to take a break, there wasn't a square inch of skin between Lara's legs that wasn't bearing traces of the weapon's hits. The girl was still letting out absolutely hoarse groans on every exhale, the ones as long as her lungs could handle; even the muscles of her arms, of her neck, of her upper abs were incredibly tense — her whole body was desperately trying to handle the insane pain.

With an uncovered sadistic smile appearing on his face, Mark landed one more whip between Lara's legs, sending her tied body upwards again with the sound of hysterical crying. Yet another whip, with one of the tails hitting the clitoris hood with a sadistic precision and leaving a bloody mark, and Lara jolted in the ties so hard that her left arm and leg suddenly tore off the ropes from the corners of the table, with the legs immediately clutching together and the free hand going between them — the next moment, the girl cried out even louder, as even lightly touching the tortured intimate parts was a torture itself. "Ah, you cunt!" — Mark yelled, dropping the weapon onto the floor and coming closer to the girl cuddled on one side of the table. Quickly cutting the two remaining ropes, he grabbed her by hair and threw her off the table — Lara's body was a pure concentration of pain; physically unable to stand on her legs, she just fell limply to the floor. "Get the fuck up!" — Mark grabbed her by hair again, lifted her off the floor and smacked her in the face brutally with his fist, and then again and again, with the final blow sending the back of her head into direct contact with the metal table-leg as he released her hair. Almost blacking out from everything that had happened, Lara fell back to the floor, still trying to curl up and cover her crotch — it didn't stop Mark. He slammed his boot into her belly, making her just squeak and cuddle even more. The second kick was directly into her face — her head jerked back as if her body was ragdoll, but Lara was still alive, at least judging by her breath and quiet sobs. Mark aimed his boot again — and was stopped by Sarah. "It's my turn to intervene. You're killing her, and as much as I hate to admit it, she's right in one thing — we don't want her killed. Hey, Lara," — she spoke quietly to the destroyed girl on the floor. — "Tell us what we need. We won't stop. We will never, ever stop. This will continue for days, if needed. For weeks. For months. There are other conferences, you know, all year round." Lara weakly spitted out three teeth together with a puddle of blood from her mouth. She wasn't even looking at Sarah. "I said I'm taking this information to the grave, bitch."

If looks could kill, then Sarah would have definitely killed her at that moment, even though it was absolutely not a part of the plan. "You're one fucking stubborn cunt," — she finally slowly hissed through her teeth. "Mark, is there anything else you can suggest?" — "Oh yes... I've just barely started. We're gonna get busy with her fingernails now," — Lara's fingers instinctively twitched. — "I've got the electricity stuff; hell, I can even blind her, if you want," — Mark was clearly enjoying talking about it in the presence of his victim. — "Then..." The same second, a mobile phone rang quietly in Sarah's pocket. "Moment... Hello, Mr. Jones. No, not yet, but we're working on it... What, now? Are you sure? Yes, of course. In a couple minutes." She hung up and looked at the two men in the room. "Jones called, he wants to see all of us on the upper deck, right now. We'll need to tie her back to the table, I guess?" — "Why? Look at her, the chick can't even move, not even speaking of standing or walking," — George said, nodding at Lara. "He's right," — Mark agreed, walking to the door and opening it. — "Besides, Francis here guards the room outside anyway." — "Fine," — Sarah said, exiting the room after the two men and stopping in the doorway to look back at cuddled Lara once again. — "Try to be a good girl, mama will be back soon," — she laughed, slamming the door behind herself.

... Lara wasn't sure how much time had passed. She wasn't even sure whether or not she had blacked out for a few minutes a couple times already, lying on the floor and weeping silently. Even the slightest movement of her thighs caused so much pain that she had to grit her remaining teeth to handle it; her whole body was aching and burning from all that these people had put her through — and there undoubtedly would be even more when they come back. Speaking of which, they weren't coming back for a long enough time that the pain in her body finally started to slowly recede; every movement was still a torture, with every scar and bruise sending jolts of pain to her mind, but after a couple minutes of struggling and muffled moans she managed to roll on her back and then sit up, holding the cold table-leg as a support and having her thighs slightly apart in order to ease the burning between them. Now that the slowly receding pain made some room for more organized thoughts in her mind, Lara observed the room around her, but found nothing at all that would be handy — handy for an escape. Despite the clear realization that her chances in one are perfectly zero, to die trying still seemed a much better prospect for her than the endless hours of torture lying ahead. Lara touched her face to wipe blood and drool and noticed the remains of the rope that was used to tie her to the table on the wrist. A crazy, impossible to pull plan flashed in her mind... Impossible, but still worth trying...