Finally! Took me 2 weeks instead of 1 for this vhapter. I'm sorry, it was so busy at work I forgot it. :$
Warning: There is some light torture in this chapter. There is nothing too awful described, but it's still torture.
Enjoy (as much as you can enjoy a hard chapter like this...)
Chapter 7: Hostages
They'd been in Hell for what seemed like a few days. Of course, they couldn't tell what time it was, since the sky was always the same, dark and menacing. In those few days, Damon had been wandering around the hotel and trying to find information about Haily's mom, while letting everyone believe he was only the fallen angel's servant.
He finally found what he was searching for when he heard two demons talk about a small village where humans were sent when no one wanted them. It was only a few miles away, but protected by a huge security system.
Haily, as stubborn and impulsive as she was, wanted to go rescue her mother right away. It took both Damon and Jeremy to calm her down and make her realize she couldn't just run – or fly – in there, even as a fallen angel.
They took their time to evaluate the security system surrounding the village area. From what they found, there were more than a hundred thousand acres connected to the system and the controls, apparently close to those humans used, were far more dangerous. It would be harder than anything "Mission: Impossible" ever showed.
After some arguments, they decided that Haily would be the first to go in. It didn't make Damon really happy, but she was the only one of them respected enough in the demons' society to enter the place without being arrested in the minute, or so they thought.
The minute she walked in what looked like the main building, several demons surrounded her. They were all wearing armors and pointing knives and swords in her direction. She opened her wings wide, trying to intimidate them. An aura of dangerousness rose to settle around her body. Any human would have stepped back, feeling this new power coming from a fallen angel. But those guards weren't human. They were well trained mercenaries, as she found out a few seconds later. In less than a minute, they tied her up so tightly she could barely breathe. She tried to scream, to ask Damon for help, but the walls were so thick no one heard her.
It had been a long 30 minutes since Haily entered the building. Damon had been fighting his nervousness, telling himself he shouldn't worry and she was well trained. After half-an-hour, he couldn't take it anymore. He took Jeremy with him as he got out of the bushes they'd been hiding in and entered the main building.
They barely made it to the hallway before a dozen guards appeared in circle around them.
-Don't move.
Despite being a bit afraid of the huge mud-brown gummy demon, Damon laughed sarcastically.
-You should know better than to give orders to a vampire.
His contemptuous tone fired the guard's anger. The demons all attacked at the same time, leaving no possible exit. Damon fought his best, keeping Jeremy safe and watching his own back at the same time. Even with his battle's skills, he couldn't keep up long. The mercenary demons close on them, finally finding an opening to get to the human and the vampire. Once Damon was safely tied up, the mud demon walked to him and grinned, his green teeth showing the mud of what seemed to be his lips.
-You might be all evil and powerful on Earth, but here, you are nothing.
Haily woke up strapped on a metal table. She closed her eyes several times to make sure she wasn't dreaming, but the constant pain in her back, where her wings were tied up so tightly the silk was cracking, reminded her it was all real.
She started to move around to try to get the straps loose. A few seconds passed before she felt electricity pass through her body. But not the nice feeling of energy. It was pure electricity, about 500 volts.
She screamed so high she barely heard herself. The pain was worse than anything she'd ever felt before.
The shock finally stopped after several painful seconds. Haily's body relaxed as tears of pain slid down her face.
-Where is she?
The mud-like demon looked at him with what looked like a grin. A funny growl – a laugh, maybe? – escaped its throat.
-You are in no position to ask questions, little vampire.
If looks could kill, that gluey demon would have been dead for minutes, by now. But with his arms tied behind his back with ropes soaked in vervain and with walls made of a mix of vervain needles and wood carved in stakes pointing toward him, Damon was powerless. The thought of Haily being tortured by those guards he'd been fighting crossed his head and he growled like an animal in cage.
-If you touch just one of her hair…
The demon let out another growl-laugh and turned his back on Damon, leaving.
-I wonder how long you'll survive. You'd be a nice pet.
Jeremy was brought to a small room with a large black window on one end. Under the window was a panel full of buttons. The guard who'd been pushing him around showed him a chair.
-Sit.
Jeremy obeyed, not quite sure what to think about the room surrounding him. The demon walked to the panel and made a sound similar to a whistle.
The black of the window, the human realized, was in fact a curtain. It opened slowly to a mechanical sound.
Jeremy's eyes opened wide. On the other side of the window was Haily, strapped on a table with many wire under it going in all directions.
He jumped to his feet and ran to the window, where he punched the glass several times before the guard stopped him.
As the demon got him under control, a few buttons lit up on the board. In front of Jeremy's horrified stare, Haily started to twist and turn, screaming in pain.
-STOP IT! YOU'RE HURTING HER! STOP!
Haily finally fell back on the table. As the demon let go of him, Jeremy ran back to the window to see if she was still alive.
Under her half-closed lids, Haily was hallucinating. In her imagination, Damon was there, saving her from the bad guys. When they got out of the room together, they suddenly appeared to be in a church. On the other end, at the altar, was Jeremy. He looked dashing in his black suit. Haily looked down at herself to see she was wearing the cutest and most simple white dress. She couldn't understand how, but she remembered looking at herself in the mirror. With her hair pulled up under a thin veil and her silk-like, whit-as-snow dress, she looked like a goddess. Her white feathered wings were opened behind her back, showing to everyone who she truly was. She looked to her right to see Damon standing at her side with the happiest expression she'd ever seen him. They walked to the altar together, his arm crossed with hers. When they arrived in front of Jeremy and the priest – whom Haily hadn't seen before – Damon gave her hand to Jeremy, giving them both his benediction at the same time.
The pain woke her up from her dream. Her screams were less piercing now. She'd been screaming so many times and for so long that her voice was getting raspy. Tears had stopped falling down her face long ago. She was starving and she needed to drink but most of all, she was hurting everywhere.
Damon lifted up his head as he heard noises coming from the other end of the hallway. In the dim light of the dungeon, he saw two demons carrying something. A guard opened the door of the cage next to his and the demons dropped their package.
The sight of Haily's grey body was almost enough to make him sick. Her wings were broken in several places, the silk falling in ribbons. She had so many burns on her skin he couldn't even count them. Her clothes were tear apart in some place, leaving too much of her body exposed for a girl her age. But despite the few pieces of clothes she was still wearing, she was far from being obscene.
What she truly looked like was a servant who would have been punched and kicked around by her master.
Damon fell to his knees as close to her as he could get.
-Haily…
She lifted up her eyes to look at him. In her stare, he saw all the pain and exhaustion she felt. At that single moment, he promised himself no one would ever hurt her again. She was too much of an awesome and sweet girl to be hurt.
-I'll get you out of here.
-You… You promise?
He nodded as she closed her eyes and fell asleep on her back, wincing as her burns touched the rocky ground.
Damon took a breath in and closed his eyes to control his rage. If he wasn't scared for her life and Jeremy's, he would have fought his best and made his way out of this place. But they were both too important for him – although he would never admit Jeremy was important for him – to put them in more danger than they already were.
-I promise.
I don't know how you felt reading this chapter, but I hard a really hard time writing it. I wanted to save them in whatever crazy way, but it wouldn't have been believable...
Don't forget to comment, please!
