A/N: Okay, so I'm going to try something different in this chapter. Once you read it, you'll see what it is. If nothing else, this just goes to show you that I actually do consider your feedback.
Disclaimer: Even after all this time, I still own nothing.
Doppelganger
Logan had just finished going to the bathroom in the corner of the basement. Trevor had him locked downstairs where there was no toilet. Logan really had to go though, so he had no choice but to go to the bathroom on the floor. After going both number one and number two, Logan felt better, but now he had the awful stench to contend with.
Logan's fist was a deep shade of pink, and it had a certain luster to it. Pus started to leak out of the popping blisters. He couldn't unclench his fist without first causing himself unbearably agony, so he left it clenched.
His eyes roamed the room for anything he could possibly use as a weapon; as a means of defending himself. Even though Logan wasn't particularly adept at using weapons, his current predicament had thrown him into survival mode.
There was a glaring flaw in his plan. Well, more than one. First of all, Logan was giving up a lot of size on Trevor. Even if he had been proficient in weapon use, it would still be an uphill battle. Second of all, Logan wasn't anywhere near full strength. He was tired. He was famished. He was experiencing a nagging, dull pain. But by far, the biggest flaw was that there was nothing Logan could use as a weapon with the exception of the wooden chair he had been tied to.
But it was better than nothing, so even though it took a great deal more effort with only one hand, Logan brandished the wooden chair, and pressed his back firmly against the wall, waiting for Trevor to come back downstairs.
Logan's heart felt like it was pounding in his ears. His breath hitched in his throat as he could hear who was presumably Trevor fiddling with the lock on the door. His hold on the wooden chair leg slipped a bit due to the sweat on the palm of his unburnt hand.
He could hear the stairs creaking as Trevor descended them. Logan's pulse accelerated. He was starting to have second thoughts about his plan. He wasn't terribly fond of the idea of physically harming another human being. He quickly pushed that reservation to the back of his mind. After all, Trevor would only be getting what he had coming.
"Lucas? Where are you little bro? Come out, come out wherever you are!" Trevor said in a singsong voice that caused the hairs on the back of Logan's neck to stand straight on end.
Trevor rounded the corner as his eyes scanned the room in search of his "little bro." Was he hiding from him? Had he tried to escape again? Or maybe he actually had escaped this time. Why would he go and do that though? Didn't he want to be around his big brother anymore?
Logan soon saw Trevor a few paces in front of him with his back to him. Logan tightened his grip on the wooden chair, rose it high above his head and slammed it right in between Trevor's shoulder blades, effectively breaking the shoddy piece of furniture.
When Logan had concocted this strategy in his head, he had envisioned the blow rendering Trevor unconscious. Then Logan would have nothing standing between him and his escape. Only things didn't quite go as he had planned.
Maybe it was because he wasn't at full strength, or maybe even if he had been at full strength, it wouldn't have been enough, but the fact remained that the surprise attack only managed to do one thing, anger his captor. Trevor spun around on his heels, and glowered at Logan as all the color drained from the boy's face.
"Why did you have to go and do that?" Trevor asked rhetorically, shaking his head.
Logan made a run for it, but was stopped in his tracks when a wooden chair leg was hurled at his temple with uncanny precision, causing him to drop where he stood like a ton of bricks. From the floor, he groaned, using his good hand to assess his injury. There was a welt already starting to form.
His vision was blurred around the edges, and bright spots danced in front of his eyes. In hindsight, Logan realized that this might not have been one of his more ingenious plans, but it wasn't like he could have a do over, now could he?
"Someone has been a very bad boy," Trevor said, before he trampled back up the stairs.
Logan had no idea where Trevor was going, what he was doing, and quite frankly, he didn't want to know. He briefly entertained the idea of picking himself up off the floor, but oddly enough, the frigid surface of the cement floor had somewhat of a soothing effect on Logan's welt.
He was starting to lose hope. He was starting to lose faith. He couldn't escape. He couldn't incapacitate Trevor. That begged the question, what could he do? Maybe he couldn't do anything. Maybe he was just resigned to whatever horrible fate awaited him.
Then, he heard it. It sounded like his best friends were right there with him. He could practically hear their voices. But that was impossible, right? As much as Logan wanted to see them, as much as he wanted to see them, he also wanted them to be as far away from here as possible. At least that way, he would know they were safe. At least that way, they wouldn't have to go through what he was going through.
"Come on, Logie!" Kendall's voice urged.
"You gotta get up!" Carlos said encouragingly.
"Don't you dare give up!" James exclaimed.
Logan shook his head and let out a deep sigh. But giving up was so much easier. He didn't know how much more of this he could take, and he wasn't privy to the idea of testing his limits.
Logan tried to drown out the sound of his friends' voices by humming Big Time Rush songs to himself. Occasionally, the lyrics were interrupted by the words, "I'm sorry."
XXXXX
Logan was startled awake from his precarious sleep by the sound of metal clanking on the floor. His eyes widened in terror when he saw thousands of gold thumb tacks scattered on the floor beside him. At that moment, every muscle in Logan's body was paralyzed by a crippling fear.
"W-what are y-you g-going t-to d-do w-with th-those?" Logan stuttered nervously.
He didn't know what he was expecting when he chanced a glance at Trevor's eyes, but there was not an ounce of compassion in them. Unfortunately for Logan, they were ablaze with fury.
"You did a bad thing. A very bad thing. Now you're gonna pay for it," Trevor said in a childlike voice that didn't sound like it could come from his massive frame.
Logan quaked with fear. He did absolutely nothing, and he got beaten. He fights back, and he gets beaten. He couldn't win, could he? What was he supposed to do? How could he possibly avoid the seemingly inevitable beatings? At this point in time, Logan was practically willing to do anything if it meant that the beatings would stop.
"N-no! N-not th-that! P-please!" Logan begged.
But before he knew it, he was scooped up in Trevor's arms. Logan feebly pounded his fists against Trevor's back, the effort only exacerbating the agony of his burned fist. Then, Logan felt himself in freefall. He knew what was coming too. He squeezed his eyes shut, and braced himself for impact.
Logan's anguished cries filled the room as he was turned into a human pin cushion. Thin ribbons of blood trickled out of numerous locales on Logan's back, arms, and legs. It felt like someone had taken a rake and was dragging it across the exposed flesh of Logan's back, which took the brunt of the fall.
Every time Logan thought it wasn't possible for him to experience any worse pain, Trevor found a way to prove him wrong. This was by far the worst he has had to endure since being at the mercy of Trevor and his sadistic tendencies. His breaths came in short gasps. He desperately wanted to remove every last thumb tack from his punctured body, but he was worried that the effort would involve him pricking himself even more. Just let me die!
Trevor blinked his eyes dazedly, his docile demeanor winning out.
"Oh God! Lucas, what happened?" he asked, his voice ridden with genuine worry, as he picked Logan up off the floor, and frantically began removing tack after tack from Logan's body.
Even though Trevor's removing the tacks helped to alleviate some of the pain, Logan's body was still tensed up. He didn't entirely trust Trevor because he almost never knew which Trevor he was dealing with.
Logan pursed his lips together. He ultimately decided that no answer was better than any answer he could come up with.
Even after all of the tacks were picked out of Logan's flesh, to Logan, it still felt like they were embedded in there.
"Lucas, you know you can tell me anything, right?" Trevor asked.
Logan inwardly scoffed. He would much sooner have Gustavo as a confidante than Trevor. Every natural instinct was telling him to make some biting, sarcastic remark, but Logan thought discretion would be the best course of action.
Of course, Trevor took Logan's silence as something completely different. Every last trace of the kinder, gentler Trevor disappeared from his facial features.
"I appreciate your concern, but really, I'm fine," Logan said through clenched teeth. It was killing him to be civil to his tormentor.
Trevor might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but even he could tell that Logan was lying through his teeth. This new morsel of information didn't do anything to improve Trevor's already foul mood.
"Don't lie to me, Lucas!" Trevor warned.
Logan threw his hands up in frustration, wincing when a gesture so simple caused him immense pain. He was tired of being scared of saying the wrong thing. He was tired of lying to appease Trevor. He was tired of everything. At this point, he didn't care if it only made things worse. Besides, what could possibly be worse than anything Trevor's already done to him?
"Fine! You want the truth? I'll tell you the truth! I'm not fine! I'm starving! I'm thirsty! I'm tired! My skin is crawling because I can't get rid of the sensation of having tacks sticking out of me! Every square inch of my body hurts! The slightest movement only makes things worse! So, thanks to you, I'm far from fine!" Logan snapped.
For a fraction of a second, Trevor looked almost impressed by Logan's outburst. However, then he tromped his way up the stairs. Logan hoped against hope that Trevor wouldn't come back down the stairs, but he couldn't possibly be that lucky. If anything, Logan would soon experience a new level of pain.
XXXXX
He was surprised when Trevor returned with a camcorder in hand. Logan didn't understand what Trevor was going to do with the camcorder unless he planned on bashing his skull in with it. The predator stalked his prey, grabbing a fistful of his hair, and jerking his head forward until they were face-to-face.
"Here's what's going to happen; from now on we're going to record our time together," Trevor said, caressing the side of Logan's face. "I'll keep these videos as a sort of keepsake."
Soon the red light was on, letting Logan know that Trevor was currently recording them. In the back of Logan's mind, he wondered if Trevor was telling the truth about what he intended on doing with the footage.
"Now then, where do you live?" Trevor asked.
Logan was a bit caught off guard by the question. Why did Trevor want to know? He felt sick to his stomach at the idea of Trevor finding and hurting his friends. Logan made a vow to himself then and there that no matter what Trevor did to him, he would not divulge that information. Logan might not be able to do much in his current state, but he could at least protect Kendall, James, Carlos, and the rest of his friends at The Palm Woods.
Before Logan knew what was happening, a sarcastic reply had already escaped his lips. Afterwards, he gasped, and clamped a hand over his mouth. It had been a knee-jerk response, really.
"Uh, you're my brother! Where do you think I live?" Logan retorted.
It wasn't the first time Logan's sharp tongue got him in trouble, and it probably wouldn't be the last either. Trevor made a beeline for Logan, ensnared one of Logan's fingers with his meaty hands, and viciously bent it backwards further than Logan could of his own volition. The motion was so swift and so forceful that there was a horrifying snapping sound. Logan's screams of torture filled the basement as he cradled his newly broken finger against his chest.
"That's right! Cry for me, Lucas!" Trevor commanded while smirking sinisterly.
Even though Logan didn't want to give Trevor the satisfaction of seeing him reduced to tears, he couldn't do anything but cry. Despite his hand trembling, Logan could see the detached bone; it was as clear as day the way his one finger sagged with nothing to hold it firmly in place.
"I'll ask you one more time; where do you live?" Trevor questioned.
This time Logan remained silent. He didn't care what happened to him so long as it didn't happen to his friends. The last thing he was willing to do was just tell Trevor where to find them. There was a popping sound, and just like that, another of Logan's fingers was broken. The frightened teenager bit his lip in a last ditch effort to keep himself from crying. He bit down so hard that he drew blood.
"I know you live in The Palm Woods! Nothing's going to stop me from going there and asking around!" Trevor exclaimed.
"No! Don't! Please don't! Leave them alone! I'll do whatever you want! Just don't hurt my friends!" Logan pleaded, his eyes full of desperate tears.
Horrific images of Trevor doing to Kendall, James, and Carlos what he's done to Logan flitted through Logan's mind.
"Hurt them? Why would I want to hurt them?" Trevor asked. "They haven't wronged me like you have! They're not the ones who ratted me out to the police! They're not the ones who made me into a fugitive! That was you! This and all future videos are for your friends! That's why I want to know where you live! So I can have this delivered to them!"
It finally made sense what Trevor was doing with the camcorder; he was going to record Logan's torture, and then send the video to his friends only to have them watch it. But Logan was petrified. Who's to say that Trevor would stop there? He says he wishes his friends no harm, but what's to stop him from hurting the others once he finds out where they live? Maybe that was one way Trevor planned on punishing Logan; making him watch helplessly as his friends are tortured. Usually, Logan liked being right, but this time, he actually hoped he was wrong.
He was jarred into reality when a cloth with a sickly sweet scent was clamped over his mouth. Logan tried to pry the hand off, but any attempt at that would be fruitless with his one fist that is essentially useless and his other hand with its two broken fingers. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and his eyelids drooped shut, and Logan was swimming in darkness.
To Be Continued…