AN: This chapter is very short, but the next one will probably be longer. There is some foreshadowing in this chapter as well, so a warm, gooey virtual brownie to everyone who can correctly predict what will happen in the next update.
In the warehouse where the newly-reformed Rat Fang Gang resided, the Man was slowly making his way to one of the backrooms, carrying a take-out container of soup and a plastic spoon in one hand. Upon reaching the door to the backroom he was headed for, he momentarily stopped, torment suddenly filling his face. For a second or two, he seemed to be steeling himself for something unpleasant, but then he pushed the door open. He was immediately greeted by the rapid and unyielding sound of the springs in the old mattress creaking in protest, as well as the sight of his associate, Keane, pumping his body against the woman sprawled out beneath him at an almost brutal pace. Focusing his eyes on a point away from this display, the Man cleared his throat to announce his presence.
"Do you mind?" Keane hissed through his teeth, continuing his violent thrusts as he spoke without even a pause.
"Kingpin's orders," the Man commented off-handedly. "He said that we needed to give her time to rest occasionally. Otherwise, this might end up killing her. Kingpin does not want her to die so easily, as we both know." Keane gave a grunt of acknowledgement before driving into Emily even faster than before, accenting each plunge with a primitive grunt. After a few seconds of this, he gave one final lurch, reaching his peak with a vulgarly satisfied cry. Without a single word to the Man, Keane withdrew himself from Emily's unmoving form and walked out, a sickeningly pleased smirk on his face.
After Keane left, the Man stiffly stepped over to Emily's side.
"I've brought you something to eat," he announced formally. "Even Kingpin wants you to keep your strength up." When he was met without a response, the Man forced himself to glance over at Emily. Immediately, his professional aloofness nearly slipped away entirely. Emily's hazel eyes were trained on him, but they were blank and lifeless. For a terrifying moment, the Man worried that she had already died from the almost endless assaults from his associates, but then he noticed the subtle rise and fall of her chest that indicated she was still breathing. The next second, however, his instant relief was replaced by revulsion.
While Emily was still alive physically, the time she'd spent in this room had effectively shattered her very spirit. She was like an empty shell now, and probably was no longer even aware of what was happening to her. Gritting his teeth, the Man instantly knew that this was probably what Kingpin wanted to happen; to break this woman beyond repair. Just one look at Emily was enough for anyone to see that he had succeeded.
Forcing his repulsion aside, the Man took a seat on the side of the mattress. With one hand, he reached out to pull Emily into a sitting position, flinching at how easy it was to manipulate her body. It was almost like handling a rag doll, except she didn't fall back down when he removed his hand from her back.
"Here," the Man instructed briskly, spooning up the soup and holding it out to her. Emily's eyes remained blank, but her mouth opened willingly enough, allowing him to place the soup-filled spoon inside. To the Man's discouragement, most of the soup ended up dribbling out of the corners of her mouth anyway. With a frustrated sigh, he pulled out an old handkerchief from his jacket pocket to wipe off her face.
While he didn't claim to know anything about how the doctors at hospitals determined such things, he would have bet everything he had that they would diagnose Emily as a vegetable. Try as he might, the Man could not think of anything else Kingpin could do to this woman. The only thing left to do was to just kill her and be done with it. On the other hand, the Man also realized that Kingpin would not end her life just yet. He was going to drag this on for much longer.
As he silently fumed about Kingpin's obvious intentions for Emily, the Man managed to get most of the soup down her throat. In almost the same instant the bottom of the soup bowl was reached, the door once again opened. Holding back a sigh, the Man looked up at the short balding man standing in the doorway, recognizing him instantly as a newcomer named Jim
"I think our guest has rested enough, don't you?" Jim snickered, licking his lips in anticipation as he strolled over to the mattress, undoing the front of his jeans as he did so. With a perverted gleam in his eyes, Jim crudely winked at the Man. "Well? What are you waiting for? Get lost, I'm not running a peep show here." Chuckling at his joke, Jim immediately turned his attention to the unresponsive Emily. In doing so, he missed the murderous glare the Man directed at him before stalking out of the room, clearly in a hurry to leave. However, he barely had a chance to step out before Jim began plowing into Emily's body with abandon. Once again, intense torment filled the Man's face, but it was gone as he strode off, trying to pay no attention to the sounds that emanated from the backroom.
Sergeant Kurtz gave a heavy sigh as he examined the broken remains of the tape Kingpin had sent Mark. Shaking his head, he turned to face Mark, who was standing by the window, staring aimlessly at the street below. For the moment, they were the only ones in the Condo. Once Rodolfo, Zack and Lucia had returned home from visiting Kris after school, Penny, Maureen and Joanne had taken them all out for ice cream almost immediately, in an attempt to keep the three of them from hearing about the tape. Before leaving, however, Penny had called up Sergeant Kurtz to tell him about what had happened.
"Mark," Sergeant Kurtz spoke carefully to the filmmaker, who showed no sign of hearing him. "Mark, I understand how you must feel after seeing….what you've just seen. Believe me; I'd be going through the same thing if it were my wife, Beverly, on that video.
"All the same, I really wish you hadn't thrown this tape into the wall. At least not before I had a chance to see what was on it." At these words, Mark finally reacted. Spinning around in and instant, he glared at Sergeant Kurtz in fury.
"I thought you just said you understood!" Mark yelled. "And now you're telling me that you want to see those…." For a moment, he stumbled over his words, unable to come up with a bad enough word that could properly describe the men on the tape. "You WANT to see Emily, my wife, your best friend's sister, going though that?"
"Of course not!" Sergeant Kurtz insisted, his face showing his disgust at the very thought. "But…you said that there was a short…introduction from Kingpin before….you were shown Emily. I was thinking that, maybe if I watched that introduction, I might have been able to spot some sort of clue about where this video had been made. If I could figure something like that out, it could help lead us to where they're keeping her." At this realization, Mark's face deflated in horror and despair.
"I…I didn't…" Mark mumbled to himself as he collapsed onto the couch, burring his face in his hands. "I didn't even think about that. F-ck! That might have been our one chance to find out where she is, and I…"
"Don't blame yourself, Mark," Sergeant Kurtz comforted, crossing the room to lay a consoling hand on Mark's shoulder. "Your actions were understandable, after all. I don't think there's a man alive who wouldn't follow your example if it were their wife in this situation. And I'm telling you once again, Mark. We will get her back. I give you my word on that."
"Sergeant Kurtz?" Both men reacted in surprise at the sound of a third voice. It took them a few seconds to realize it was coming from the police scanner attached to Sergeant Kurtz's belt. "Come in, Sergeant Kurtz." Immediately slipping into his role as a member of the NYPD, Sergeant Kurtz grabbed the police scanner to answer the call.
"This is Sergeant Kurtz," he announced.
"We need you to report back to headquarters," the caller instructed. "We…may have an…unexpected lead on the Kingpin case." A strange sound slipped from Mark's throat as he met Sergeant Kurtz's eyes, which mirrored his surprise, as well as a tiny amount of hope.
"I'll be there in five," Sergeant Kurtz stated before returning the police scanner to his belt.
"No," Mark shook his head as he got to his feet. "We'll be there in five." In spite of himself, Sergeant Kurtz found himself smiling at the hardened glint that had suddenly appeared in Mark's blue eyes.
"Somehow, Mr. Cohen," he chuckled, "I was expecting you to say that."
