Here I am with another update! I just wanted to give a triggerwarning here. This chapter and the next one include imprisonment and torture.
Enjoy! (I'm aware of how ironic that sounds with the torture, but whatever)
As Alex came to, he became aware of several things. First, his hands were tied behind his back. Second, he was sitting on a chair. Third, someone just splashed water in his face.
Alex sputtered and coughed a bit.
"Welcome, Mr Rider. That is your name, right? Mr Alex Rider, employed by the British Intelligence Services. Not really the image of James Bond, are you?"
The man speaking to him spoke with a strong Mexican accent. He looked the part as well. His face was square. He had jet black hair and dark brown eyes. He had a gap between his front teeth which gave him a slight lisp. But his English was good, suggesting he had spent some time abroad, most likely in the US.
Alex didn't respond to him. He didn't want to give the man anything satisfactory.
But the Mexican just smiled.
"No problem, Mr Rider. Or may I call you Alex?" he smiled.
Alex tried to kill him with his eyes. Alas, no luck. He vowed to practice that skill more.
"I don't think we've quite reached the first name basis," he said. The Mexican smiled.
"Alex, you're right. My name is Alfonso Rodriguez. But they call me El Carcinero." He pointed at himself and smiled his crooked smile again.
El Carcinero. The butcher.
Alex's eyes finally saw where he was. It seemed like a butcher's meat locker. Though it was pretty empty. Now that he was more aware, he felt something else as well. He winced. His right leg was hurting pretty bad. He could feel that his leg was bandaged. They probably didn't want him to bleed out. At least not yet.
The butcher looked like he was ready to serve Alex as a filet, but he refrained from touching him.
Alex took the short time to look around, trying to situate himself. By the noises outside and the state of the walls and interior in general, Alex assumed he was in one of the poorer districts of Mexico City, possibly in the favelas.
The door opened. Two men in suits walked in, flanked by some heavy hitters with machine guns in their hands.
"Ah, Mr Rider. You're awake. Good!" one of the suits said.
"I imagine this is all very strange to you. Don't worry, we have a very good explanation for all of this. First of all, my apologies for the rudeness of our friend here. I believe he's a bit over eager to get started.
I'm sure you've heard of Alastair Henstridge. He works for your government. It just so happens that he doesn't like your government very much."
Henstridge. Alex knew that name.
"Mr Henstridge decided that the government had made a mistake to keep you alive. He's adamant that you mustn't survive your trip to Mexico. You see, a couple of years ago, you foiled the plans of one Desmond McCain. Mr Henstridge and Mr McCain had been friends and business partners for some years. Mr Henstridge lost quite a lot of money in the process. And it looks like he blames you. So he hired us to let you know exactly how he feels.
He wanted us to kill you very fast, but that seems like a treat. We're looking to expand to your country. There is a lot of potential in Europe, and we believe that the best country to start in is yours. But we could use some… how do you say it? Intelligence, I believe. Yes, some intelligence on how exactly we can evade being noticed by your secret services. I'm sure you can help with that."
Alex shook his head.
"I don't know anything," he said. It wasn't a plea. It was just a statement. He really didn't know anything. Even if he did, no way was he going to tell this man.
"Hmm… we'll see about that, Mr Rider."
He appeared to be done talking, but something had been whirling around in Alex' head.
"Henstridge," he whispered. Why did that name sound so familiar?
"Mrs Henstridge!" Alex suddenly exclaimed. The men in the room looked confused. "My goddamn teacher, Mrs Henstridge."
"Ah, ofcourse. You are quite familiar with Mr Henstridge's daughter. She was invaluable in the plan to bring you to us."
It really had been an inside job. He knew that that mission had been botched from the start.
"Forget about her, Alex. You will never see her again. You will never see your country again. Don't worry, you won't see what we will do to it once we get there. You will be dead long before that."
He made it sound like a promise. Alex wasn't scared, but he knew that getting out of here wouldn't be easy.
"Put him out. We're transferring him to the new location. Look happy, Alex. We are giving you a new home."
El Carcinero took out a syringe, presumably filled with a sedative. Alex struggled against his bonds, but there was no getting away. He flinched when the needle pierced his skin. He felt his eyes getting sluggish and fought to keep them open.
"Close your eyes, Alex."
It was hard not to follow that command, and two seconds later, Alex Rider was fast asleep.
When he woke up, it was obvious that he had been moved. His shirt was clinging to the sweat on his chest. The heat was almost unbearable. There was no AC in this room. There were no windows. The door was fortified. He wasn't in the favelas anymore, that was sure. He was no longer tied to a chair. Alex presumed that the reason for it was that there was no way out of this place anyway. He looked around the room. He was lying on a matrass on the floor. It had stains in it and looked dirty, but it was all he had. There was a pot in a corner. Some water in a glass next to the door. Alex crept towards it. He was still feeling sluggish from the sedation. He took the water and slowly sipped it. He only took a bit, as he wanted to preserve as much as possible.
He shot backwards when the door was pushed open. With his back against the wall, he jumped into a defensive crouch. Two armed men walked in first, followed by El Carcinero.
"Alex! ¡Qué bueno verte aquí! We are going to have so much fun together!" he smiled. The two armed men left the room, only to return quickly without their weapons. Alex glanced between them in confusion.
"Ah, couldn't risk you making a grab for those guns, could we?" the butcher said.
The two buffoons closed in on either side of Alex. Alex jumped to his feet, but the quickness made his head dizzy and suddenly, the two big men were each holding one of his arms. He tried to fight them, but they were too strong for him. His mind was still catching up on what was happening around him.
And then the butcher punched him in the stomach. Alex doubled over, but he was being held upright by the men at his side. Again, and again, and again, Alex was punched in the stomach. And the next punch landed on his face. His head jerked back and he felt blood oozing out of his nose. The two men dropped Alex to the ground and then kicked him in the stomach. Alex curled up in foetus position. The two men laughed and left the room. The butcher leaned over Alex.
"This isn't the end, Alex. We're only getting started," he whispered, before leaving the room.
Alex coughed up blood. After a while, he crawled over to the matrass and collapsed there. It took him half an hour to sit up. He tried to wipe the blood of his face, but it was no use. He wheezed a little when taking a deep breath. He tried to feel his ribs, making sure none were broken. He didn't think they were, but then again, it's not like he had a medical degree.
He lay back down on the matrass and closed his eyes, trying to forget where he was.
Over the next couple of days, the same thing happened. The three men came in, beat him black and blue and then left him alone for the rest of the day. They came in at different times, never sticking to a routine. Alex knew they were playing with his head, keeping him in a constant state of vigilance, even though there was nothing he could do about it.
The only way he could tell the time was because of a nearby church. Its clocktower sounded every hour. And every night at midnight, Alex put a stripe in the wall with a loose rock he'd found in the room. 8 stripes. He'd been here for over a week. He knew that by now he had at least one broken rib. If they kept beating him up like this, he wouldn't survive much longer. One of his eyes was swollen shut, his body was bruised and broken. The bullet wound in his leg was hurting the most. Alex knew that infection was setting in. He needed to do something about it, but he didn't have anything to fix his leg.
It was almost midnight again and they hadn't been by yet. Alex just sat around, waiting for the clock to strike 12. If it did, then something had changed. No one had been in the room the entire day. There had been water and some bread for him in the morning, but he hadn't seen anyone. He sat up against the wall, his knees drawn up and arms resting on top of them.
When the clock struck 12, Alex exhaled and lay down on the matrass. He had no idea what was happening, whether they gave him a day to rest, or if this was in preparation for the next part of his ordeal. The uncertainty made him restless, and he realized that he'd become almost dependent on the beatings. Now that he hadn't had one, he didn't know what to expect. He stared at the ceiling for the rest of the night.
When the clock struck 6 o'clock in the morning, the door opened again. Alex sat up right away, trying to find the strength to defend himself. But they hadn't come in to beat him up. Instead the butcher, who hadn't in fact butchered him yet, had a syringe in his hand. He walked towards Alex, who was now ready to fight him off. The butcher saw the defiance in his eyes, and summoned the big buffoons to hold Alex. Fighting them was futile, but Alex tried anyway. It didn't matter, they easily gained control. The butcher slid the needle in Alex's neck and Alex felt the drowsiness hit him. They were sedating him again. Alex struggled against the blackness, but there was no way to fight it. It pulled him under almost instantly.
A screeching sound woke him up. Somewhere, a speaker had been turned on and it made it impossible for Alex to think straight. He pressed his hands against his ears, curling up into a ball, waiting for it to stop. It lasted several minutes, before finally shutting down. Alex's hands stayed on his ears for a few moments longer, before realizing that the sound was now gone. His breath evened out again.
'What was that?' he wondered.
He would find out soon enough. He'd realized quickly that there was a camera in the corner of the room. He couldn't reach it, otherwise he'd have taken it down. He tried climbing the wall, but his injuries stopped him. The knowledge that he was being monitored scared him. He didn't know what their plan was.
At night, just as Alex laid down to sleep, the sound came on again. Once again, after a few minutes, it stopped.
It went like that the entire night. Alex couldn't fall asleep due to the incredibly loud screeching noise. He finally understood what they were doing.
Sleep deprivation.
He'd heard about this technique before. SAS training included RTI, and sleep deprivation was one of the techniques they sometimes used to torture their soldiers. Loud noises that stopped them from falling asleep, keeping them awake for so long that they got disoriented, losing track of time. Theoretically, he knew that severe sleep deprivation could even lead to death. The body needed time to recover itself. Alex had no idea how long he could last with this torture. His body was already bruised and broken.
He was terribly tired, but every time he closed his eyes, the sound pierced his ears.
After what seemed like an eternity, he was finally able to fall asleep.
He was sure it had been no more than an hour when the noise woke him up again. Alex groaned, trying to sleep through it, but that was impossible.
He curled up and put his hands on his ears again, too exhausted to do much else.
When the noises stopped, he was fed up with it.
"What do you want?" he cried. He just wanted it to stop. The noise started up again. Alex could do nothing else but lie there and hope it would go away.
The same pattern as the day before repeated. Every time he was close to falling asleep, the noise would pierce through the walls.
Alex had no idea how long it had been going on or how long he had been here. He could no longer hear the church bells, and there was no way to tell time. He didn't care anymore. He just wanted to sleep.
His muscles had weakened drastically. The lack of sleep combined with a lack of movement and food made him the weakest he had ever been.
He closed his eyes and felt himself drifting away. He tensed, waiting for the sound to come and take him away from the promise of a peaceful sleep. It didn't and Alex slowly drifted away.
He didn't notice when the door opened, and a syringe was pushed into his neck, fully sedating him.
