Author's Note: Please be advised that this chapter touches on some disturbing subjects, that include lurid and graphic descriptions of torture and mutilation which some readers may find disturbing.
Friday, April 22nd 2016
Early Morning
Rue Royale, Paris
"I need a beer..."
"Yeah, man – I am desperate for a cool Bud."
The two men had left the United States Embassy, just five minutes previously and for the past four minutes they each had a shadow. Well, technically, one had a Shadow and the other had a Jackal...
"Hey, what happened to the street lights...?"
"Night, night, boys!" Shadow growled.
"Yeah, what she said..." Jackal added as he followed Shadow's actions and coshed his man and dropped a hood over his head.
Later that morning
The Cell
My arms hurt.
I felt like I was asleep, but that fact was contradicted by the knowledge that I was vertical. My brain struggled to comprehend my current situation. Suddenly, before I was able to accurately figure things out, I yelled out involuntarily as I felt something ice-cold hit me and then, when my brain finally caught up, I also realised that I was very wet. Somebody had just thrown a large quantity of cold water over me. I opened my eyes and I struggled to blink through the water that ran down my face. As my eyes began to focus, I noticed that a man stood before me. In his hands, he held a black plastic bucket, a very empty black plastic bucket.
I quickly looked around me and took in as much as I could.
I was in a square room, which was almost a cell. The walls were ominously bare and made from concrete blocks, while the floor was much more ominous; it was covered, wall to wall, in thick plastic sheeting. I looked above me and saw that my wrists were bound together by copious amounts of silver coloured duct tape – I was also suspended from a hook in the ceiling which explained the pain in my arms! I looked downwards and I saw that I was naked, apart from my panties and my bra. I could see my jeans, t-shirt, jacket, combat-suit, socks and shoes; they were all in a pile over by the far wall, next to the single door that led into the bare room.
Of my weapons, there was no sign.
..._...
"Had a good look about?" The man sneered in English, but with a noticeable American accent.
I had absolutely no idea where I was, or even what day it was. I could remember very little about what had happened to me – I could remember London – Waterloo – the attack... Then nothing until waking up in France, but how much time had passed since then – the bastards must have drugged me.
"Who are you?" The man asked, as he dropped the bucket.
"I was going to ask the same thing," I replied, slightly taken aback – I had expected the man to know who I was as he would have had all my ID, which I had been carrying in my jacket.
"An American? Well, that means that your British passport is a fake, which also means that you cannot possibly be Hailee Richards," The man concluded as I suppressed a grin; he obviously wasn't the brightest tool in the box, so I decided to go along with his fiction.
"My name is Hailee Richards..."
"Bullshit, it is!" The man yelled and he slapped me hard around the face.
I screamed out with the pain.
"You are a member of Fusion and therefore you an enemy of the state!"
"Fuck you!" I yelled back, directly into his face.
Mid-morning
The Warehouse
"Who is he?"
"He is my Uncle..." La Coccinelle replied conversationally as the man entered the warehouse behind her.
"Whatcha!" The man said cheerfully as he offered his hand. "Any friend of, err, my niece is a friend of mine. My name is Roy..."
"Hello, err, Roy – what is your, err, speciality?"
"Well, Hit Girl, I interrogate people – the old fashioned way..."
I smiled beneath my mask; we were going to have some fun. The man was in his sixties, but his eyes were full of life and they seemed to smile, but there was also a darkness in those eyes – the man was a killer. He had a rich London accent, which at times was not so easy to understand, but I liked him.
"Mind if I watch...?" I asked.
"Of course not – your reputation proceeds you, good lady!"
The Cell
"Time for you to learn a fucking lesson; no more mister nice guy!"
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a knife; he flicked it open to reveal a wicked looking six-inch blade. My eyes were instantly drawn to the sharp tip of the shiny blade which glinted in the light as he ran it across the skin of my stomach and up my left side. Without warning, he brought the blade upwards and swiftly cut the straps of my bra before he pushed his fingers between my breasts and yanked the bra off; he dropped the destroyed garment to the plastic-covered floor. I felt uncomfortable as the man ran his eyes across my breasts; he smirked.
"Nice – they'll come in handy later on..."
I felt disgusted and my skin crawled as he then proceeded to run both of his hands across my bare breasts; I felt my body betray me as my nipples hardened beneath his fingers. He ran the blade of his knife gently across my breasts before he rested the sharp point on my left nipple.
"How'd you fancy being flat-chested for the rest of your life?"
My gaze fixated on the point of the blade, but then his left hand came up and without warning he punched me in the right breast. The pain was immense as I screamed out and I struggled to breathe. He followed up with a punch to my stomach, which caused my struggle to breathe to become worse and I coughed for a few minutes before the pain and the sensation went away.
..._...
"Thirsty? Hungry? You're gonna need to keep your strength up for your interrogation..."
"Torture, don't you mean?" I challenged.
"Tom-ah-to, tom-a-to!"
The man pulled a half-litre bottle of still water out of his pocket and opened the cap. I began to wolf the water down as he held the bottle to my lips – I choked a few times and some of the water spilled down my chest, but I drank it all. He then fed me a bar of plain chocolate; I needed it and I felt much better after the, albeit limited, food and drink.
"I'm gonna find out what I need from you – but for now, I'll let you digest that lot and I'll be back in an hour or so..."
The Warehouse
We entered what would pass as our interrogation room.
Roy nodded approvingly as he noted the thick plastic sheeting that covered the floor and extended about four feet up each wall. In the very centre of the room – Jason had gone a little OCD when he had secured the stout wooden chairs to the concrete floor of the small room... The two chairs were occupied by two men – unfortunately for them, they would never see the light of day again.
Roy smiled as he strode behind the two men; both flinched slightly as he coughed gently.
..._...
With a flourish, Roy jerked off the black hoods from each head and the two men blinked in the harsh lights that blazed down from the ceiling.
"Hello, lads," Roy began cheerfully in his deep resonant voice – his accent giving the greeting a distinctive 'ah' sound as a chuckle emanated from deep in his stomach. "Oh dear, you two are in a bit of a pickle, aren't you?"
"What the fuck is this?" One of the man yelled.
The man in question, just like his pal, was secured firmly, by wrists, ankles, waist and chest, to the stout wooden chair that was, in turn, attached securely to the concrete floor.
"You two are nasty little piglets, and I'd really like to hear you two squealing . . . myself and my vigilante friend here, well, we need some questions answered. You cooperate and we all go home – you don't cooperate; I get to have some fun. So please, don't cooperate..."
The men looked from Roy, to myself in my mask and combat suit. There was confusion and some minor worry, but otherwise he seemed to expect that nothing bad would happen to him.
"Fuck you both, we ain't talkin'!" The first man spat.
"This has to be fucking joke, right . . . what's with the fucking Reservoir Dogs look? That supposed to scare me?" The second added. "That's fucked up, understand!"
..._...
"Now, you can make this easy, or I can make it hard; what's it gonna be?"
The two men looked a little apprehensive, but that was all – he just shrugged at the comment.
"Fucking untie me now, and maybe I'll let you both live..." The first man said with as much bravado as he could muster.
"That's very considerate of you," Roy chuckled. "Now, where can we find our compatriot?"
"Fuck you!"
"Okay, that question was too hard – let's begin with an easy one: name?"
"Don't have one..."
"Maybe we should tell the two boys why we are here?" I growled.
"Yeah!" Roy agreed cheerfully. "Well, this is how it is, lads... a good friend of ours went missing the other day, back in blighty . . . and well, we want her back... Now, one of you..."
"Or both..." I cut in.
"Or both," Roy agreed, "of you were involved and you will have to pay for Hailee going missing."
"Listen," The second man growled. "You have no idea what's coming for you when we get outta here – we're C.I.A.; you know what that means?"
"It means you're fucking dead!"
"Oh . . . well, being 'fucking dead' doesn't worry me too much, son, 'cause I've been nearly 'fucking dead' many, many times and so has my friend and her friends..."
"I don't give a fucking shit about you, or your bitch friend..."
"Well, you should, you should give a shit about who we are..."
"What?" The first man cut in. "One old buzzard and a teenage vigilante wannabe?"
Roy sighed – but it was a happy sigh.
The Cell
The man returned a while later.
I decided to play a card and see if I could get a break; besides, I really needed it.
"I need the bathroom."
"Is that so?" The man replied without much interest.
"You enjoy torturing defenceless young girls?"
"To be honest... yeah, I do."
"Fucking scum!" I yelled.
"You wanna pee – then just pee..."
"What?" I exclaimed, appalled by what I was hearing.
"Oh, sorry – it wouldn't be right to let you piss your panties now, would it...?"
With that, the man reached over and he deftly pulled my panties down my legs and then off before he dropped them to the floor by my feet.
"Now, you can pee..."
I glared at the man; I felt the humiliation that arose from being completely naked before a strange man, not to mention the humiliation of needing to pee, but having to beg...
"Please..."
"I'll be nice," the man replied with a creepy smile and an equally creepy nod at my crotch. "I'll leave you for five minutes – you know, give you some privacy."
With that, the man left the room. I felt total despair – I did not want to do it, but I honestly had no choice; I really needed to go. I felt the tears as they poured down my face and I sobbed with the utter despair. I struggled, but finally, I gave in and I reluctantly released my bladder. I felt dirty and I felt ashamed as the warm liquid trickled down my thighs and legs before it audibly hit the plastic and pooled around my toes. I could feel the warm liquid between my bare toes and I felt disgusted with myself as the man returned.
"Wow – you really needed to go!" He commented as he examined the pool of urine. "Now – I need information . . . so let's talk..."
I screamed as the punches began to land on my body.
The Warehouse
Roy walked over to the workbench that sat against one wall, and he studied the tools laid out there.
He casually removed his jacket, folded it and then placed it neatly on the end of the bench. Next, he took a plastic butcher's apron and placed it over his head and then tied it around his waist. He hummed to himself as he ran his hands over the tools before he selected a claw hammer and two six-inch steel nails.
The men started to look uneasy and they exchanged a look or two as Roy came closer.
..._...
Then, a few seconds later, there came the almost simultaneous sound of hammer against nail, nail being driven into wood and the scream of immense pain from the first man as his right hand was pierced and nailed to the arm of the chair.
Wow – Roy was a bad-ass!
"This – will – continue – until . . . we – have – our – information!"
The scream intensified as his left hand received the next nail, each word was punctuated by a hammer strike – four strikes per nail.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," The man screamed out.
Roy casually strode back to the bench, gently replaced the hammer and retrieved another tool. I had to admit that it took me a moment to recognise the tool.
"You recognise one of these? Fucking antique, init – used to take an age an' all," Roy said before he paused to laugh. "You have no idea how hard human bone can be – this was how we used to do it, back in the old days..."
Was that terror in the men's eyes?
..._...
"But this..." He walked over to the workbench that sat against one wall and flipped open the lids of two large plastic cases. He pulled out what appeared to be a cordless hammer drill and a shiny new, ten-inch drill bit. "This is the new way!"
The men looked horrified as the motor spun up for a few seconds and then there was silence as Roy continued his lecture.
"This is totally unnecessary, but I see it as – well – let's just call it encouragement for you and a hobby for me..."
As I watched, Roy proceeded to nonchalantly load the drill bit into the chuck of the drill. He flipped the selector switches and then pulled the trigger. The drill spun up and the first man tried in vain to move backwards through his chair. Roy was smiling as he positioned himself over the man's right leg.
"First, we must remove the material, or it may get caught up in the drill," Roy said conversationally as he expertly cut a square opening in the man's trousers. "Got to play safe, or this is just goin' to end up bloody..."
The man began to shake with fear; still traumatised by his damaged hands. Roy lowered the drill and placed the tip of the bit just above the knee end of the femur.
"You have to take your time, or you miss the bone completely and you have to start again – I like precision..."
The drill spun up to speed and rapidly cut through the flesh of the man's thigh. He screamed, but I was impervious to it all as the blood streamed from the wound and there was a grating noise as the drill bit found the bone and easily cut through it; Roy continued until the chuck was about half an inch from the man's bruised skin.
"All done – time for my tea break; you don't want to make me work through my tea break... Don't go anywhere, you two; I'll be right back."
The Cell
The pain was beyond excruciating.
Every part of my body ached; the parts that I could feel of it – some parts were actually numb, which was kind of a blessing. Every fifth punch went into my face, but they were not full on punches; he knew how to keep me conscious, to maximise the pain. The rest of the blows went into my stomach, my chest and my breasts, my upper arms, my thighs, my back...
I could not understand how I was still conscious with all the pain that wracked my body. I was screaming as loud as I could; I hoped for somebody to come and rescue me, to pause the torture that the man was inflicting on me.
The man smiled through everything and he only paused to take a drink from a can of Coke every few minutes.
The Warehouse
The man was still screaming.
Probably something to do with the identical drill bit that had been driven into and through his left femur. The sound of the drill as it cut through the man grated on my nerves; even I was freaked out by it, but I tolerated it. Finally, the job was done; each drill bit had a hole pre-drilled through the shank and the hole was lined with copper.
A few minutes later, Roy slapped both men around the faces – the first man had passed out with the pain and the second was looking decidedly pale for some reason...
"Wakey, wakey – I'm sorry son, but you have to be awake, or this is all a complete waste of time! Now, what many people don't know is that it takes skill to electrocute somebody, where only pain is inflicted, but not death. Well, not immediately anyway..."
"Now, we are willing to forgive and forget, if either of you are willing to tell us where Hailee is – anybody?"
The men were well trained, I had to give them that.
Roy calmly connected a wire to each drill shank; one wire was black, and the other was red. The opposite ends of the wires, they were attached to a black box with a power switch, a rotary knob, and a dial. It was simple, but it would be very effective.
"Hit Girl, would you please flick the switch?"
"With pleasure, Roy... With pleasure..."
The Cell
The door opened and the sight was beyond disturbing.
The young girl hung from the ceiling in the centre of the room. Her once beautiful, naked body, all five-feet-seven-inches of it, was now covered in vivid purple bruises, cuts, and blood from head to toe. For the moment, she was unconscious, her long brown hair hung free, her skin covered in beads of sweat from her ordeal. The room stank, primarily from the pool of urine at the young girl's feet, but also from the sweat and the blood.
It was a shame, really, the girl was actually very beautiful – it was even more of a shame to make her endure what was to come next.
It was the cold water again.
I came awake almost immediately as the icy water struck my face and then splashed down my naked body. I shivered with the cold, but the icy water also soothed my bruised skin along with the countless cuts that I could feel, but not see.
"Hello... It is time to move on and I will admit that I am very sorry to have to do this, but you are not being very cooperative, so..."
"Fuck you!"
"I thought so..."
The man was smiling and I did not like the smile – not one damn bit! I steeled myself with the knowledge that I was not alone – they would come for me, my friends would come for me, Fusion would come for me...
"This is one of the more fun methods of persuasion available to me – well, fun for me at any rate!"
The man had already humiliated me to my core when he had discovered the tampon string in my pubic hair. I had gasped as he had yanked it out and then grimaced as the very personal, used item was dangled before my eyes and then allowed to plop into the pool of my now cold urine which still touched my toes.
The pain I had endured to that point was almost unbearable, but I was used to bruises and the associated pain. There was no way that I was going to rat out my friends – never!
..._...
The knife was back and he waved it before my eyes. Then he produced a blowtorch and triggered the bright blue flame.
"I'm not a sadist, so I'll sanitise the blade..."
He did just that and I felt my body begin to shake at the thought of what the blade was about to do. Would he use the flame too? As I watched, he ran the flame over the knife, just as he had said, until the blade began to glow – it was sterile... Then the blade was held against the soft skin just below my left breast – I screamed with the sharp burning pain.
"Not nice..." The man drawled.
I felt the tip of the blade pierce my skin and then I felt the warm blood trickling down my stomach. The knife went in at a shallow angle into the flesh, but no deeper. He then reheated the blade before repeating his actions on my left thigh, level with my crotch. I tried to move away from the blade but he casually placed the blowtorch on the floor and then punched me very hard in the right thigh, which caused the muscle to go numb; the pain I felt was excruciating.
"A good pain threshold – let's see..."
The Warehouse
The first man, he had gone into shock and died.
The second man, well, he had decided that he wanted to live – at least a little longer. It had only taken one nail before he had begun to have a bad case of verbal diarrhoea which just got worse and worse... As the man had spoken, I had a distinct feeling that Roy was annoyed at being cheated out of another round of torture.
I had to be honest, I was glad that Roy was on our side...
That evening
The Cell
I watched as the man held up a length of electrical cable before my eyes. The end of the cable was bare copper and my heart sank – I knew what was about to happen and it scared me to my core. He touched me again, but only after he licked his thumb and forefinger and then rubbed my left nipple until it became hard and erect – I was mortified. He wrapped the copper wire tightly around my nipple; the pain was indescribable, but I knew much worse was yet to come.
For a moment, I considered my other nipple to be the other terminal, but no – he had an alternative method for that. The man held up a piece of copper rod, about two-foot-long and two inches in diameter with a wooden handle. There was another length of electrical cable attached to the rod and it seemed, to me at least, very obvious where the rod was about to be inserted. I instinctively squeezed my thighs together and the man laughed as he caught my movement.
"Nothing so prosaic as that – although, it would be fun!"
I managed to force a scowl at that moment, but only for a moment as fear coursed through me and my body shook harder.
The two electrical cables fed back to a junction box beside a large black box. As the man reached for a switch on the box, I tensed up and I prayed for the fuse to blow...
Fusion Assault Team
I hoped that we were going to be in time.
We sped through the night before we stopped outside a rather decrepit looking building towards the southeast of Paris. It was the location given up by the men Roy had expertly interrogated. The men were both very dead, that was just an unfortunate side effect, but we had learnt much before he had died...
Neither of us had any regrets.
The Cell
"I think a brief demonstration is in order, don't you?"
The man reached down and he casually flicked the switch on the black box. He touched the tip of the copper rod to my stomach and I screamed. I felt a searing pain in both my left breast and where the copper rod had made contact with my sweat and blood-soaked skin. The pain seemed to spread through me until it felt as though my entire body was on fire. I screamed like I had never screamed before, my body writhed with the agony . . . and then mercifully, it stopped.
"Not nice, was it?"
I struggled to speak and I struggled to breathe; my muscles would not function correctly, but I was finally able to spit out one small phrase.
"I – will – not – talk..."
I panted like I had just run a marathon. The man just smirked and brought the rod back up again. That was when I heard the gunshots.
The scream was unearthly; it was like that of an animal being tortured.
I increased my pace as I ran down the corridor and took another left. I shot a man in the head as I went. I did not stop until I came to a door, behind it I heard shouting from a man and then that scream again. I kicked open the door and my eyes took in the most godawful sight as it was laid out before me.
Hailee hung from a hook, like a piece of meat. The girl was completely naked and she was covered from head to toe in bruises and blood; I was sickened by what I saw. I took in the electrical cables and then the man as he turned towards me and reached for a pistol. In his left hand was what was obviously the electrode. At that moment, he had the electrode pushed against Hailee's right thigh and the girl's body shook with the electric current as it coursed through her body.
I made an instant decision, drew a Katana from my back and brought the blade down onto the electrical cable on the floor. Hailee stopped shaking and screaming, but her body still twitched. The man then dropped the electrode as I rammed my fist into the bastard's face. He fell to the floor just as Kick-Ass and Shadow burst in through the door. Both stopped dead in stunned shock at the scene before them; just as I had.
"Kick-Ass, Shadow – get her down from there..."
I grabbed a convenient roll of duct tape and ran it around the man's mouth and head, with plenty more wrapped around his wrists and ankles. The cunt was coming with us – he was going to suffer, oh yes, he was going to suffer for what he had done to Hailee.
I would make damn sure of that...
I was astounded by what I was witnessing.
The girl had been beaten on every inch of her body: her face, chest, stomach, legs, back – it went on. Her face was swollen and I felt only hated for the man who had inflicted this on a defenceless eighteen-year-old girl. I gently wrapped my arms around her waist and I lifted her wrists off the hook above her. I laid her just as gently onto the plastic, well away from the pool of urine.
Shadow deftly and carefully cut away the duct tape from Hailee's wrists and the older girl began to regain consciousness. She screamed as she moved her arms down to her sides; they had obviously been raised above her head for many hours and the blood had sunk into her upper arms. I rubbed her arms to restore the blood flow as Shadow went over to the other side of the room and gathered up Hailee's clothing. I carefully eased the copper wire off of her left breast and winced at the unnatural redness of her nipple. Hailee's underwear was wrecked, so I gently helped Shadow to pull on her jeans and t-shirt, plus her socks and boots.
By the time we had finished dressing the delirious Hailee, Hit Girl had the torturing bastard bound and gagged as Jackal arrived in the room. He glanced at Hailee and I saw him stiffen at the sight of the bruises and cuts that were visible on her face.
"Jackal, we need to shift this into the transport..." Hit Girl growled and kicked the man on the ground.
I gently lifted Hailee off the ground and held her close to me. I was extra careful not to aggravate her injuries any more than they already were. Shadow walked over to the man on the floor and she kicked him twice in the ribs, hard enough that I heard something snap.
Hit Girl punched the man several times in the face until he lost consciousness.
..._...
"Merde!" Was La Coccinelle's only comment as we emerged from the building a few minutes later.
Psyche and Wildcat looked livid as we mounted up and moved off...
I felt myself being moved.
I was wearing clothes; I was dressed!
I was being carried and as I looked up, I opened my eyes and I suddenly became overcome with relief as I recognised Kick-Ass. That was the point where the dam broke and I sobbed, tears streamed down my face and my body was wracked with pain as I sobbed. They had come for me – Fusion had come for me. I pushed my face deeper into his armoured chest and I savoured the comfort that it gave me.
"Take it easy, Hailee – you're safe now."
I believed him.
