Unsightly
Once getting in eyeshot of the linked line of caravans belonging to the Cloaks, Crispin and Vivily were separated fast. He paid as close attention as possible when those carrying her knocked on the side of the sliding side-hatch of a door, third caravan up from the back. They passed her off to the man there like cargo, who nearly dropped her when she bit him and instead chucked her into the side of a cage before actually opening it and kicking her the rest of the way inside. Crispin wouldn't know exactly how that went, because he was shoved ahead before he could see how that whole tangle ended.
The one called Liat held up one hand, springing in his step for a second with the motion. "I'll handle the report, if you want to get that little one strung up." Crispin liked the sound of that about as much as he liked the sound of nails on a chalkboard.
"Oh, so considerate, aren't you? I'll take you up on that." Saika said, dismissing the more nondescript cloaks keeping Crispin in line to grab him by the hair herself. Her grip and pull were both stronger than her frame suggested, and soon he was being dragged on the most uncomfortable trip through enemy territory. He counted eleven wagons in total, the front two and last in the back with heavy motor capability preventing the need of domesticated help. They were in an incline so slight it was hardly noticeable, the back wheels of each individual vehicle fixed with crude external brakes to keep them from drifting back down the slope. Each varied in size, though not by a great deal, and Saika stopped just before the single-port door to one of the smallest. "So, what have you thought of?"
Being the only one she could be talking to, he chose not to look up at her but addressed her anyways; "Huh?"
"No begging? No pleading? No crying, or wondering, no dead weight of surrender? You've been watching everything, trying to come up with a way to escape. It's adorable, really –it's usually the older ones that keep calm, get ready to flee."
Crispin hadn't even really realized that that was what he was doing, but gave no indicator of that. "I'm just fucking confused, lady. Our numbers got swept in one night, and somehow I'm the late one getting hand-picked. Did you really have to double back for two people?"
She shrugged. "When some of ours go missing or turn up toasted, we tend to get curious." She popped the door open, kicked Crispin inside, and stepped in after him. The musty old rug over water-damaged hardwood was all he could see until he rolled over to look around, and the interior decor was basic, save for one facet of it that was outside what he could have imagined.
There was a double-poster bed taking up a lot of room with absurd draperies, cushions and covers on it, surrounded by dressers and shelves. Mainly, though, were the crossed beams just shy of the ceiling, wearing a number of steel rings, one of which that had a guy chained to it by his wrists. His feet were a foot or two from touching the floor, and he was stark naked.
"... Nick?"
The hanging man was none other than the resident woodworker of the caravans, Nicholas Chromaly. With a chiseled jaw, deep-set brown eyes, and blue-gray hair tied up in the back, he'd been one of few lookers the girls in the troupe had come to eye constantly. The cuts and bruises in tender areas said that Saika had been more than just eyeing him. "Ah... Hi, Crispin. I was hoping you made it out, but..."
Crispin would have replied if not for his head being tugged again, Saika lifting him to his feet and then higher, getting a brand new pair of thick cuffs and a chain going to the right of Nick for Crispin to fill. The ropes came off only once he was securely fastened to the beams, though those on his ankles stayed for now. All that was missing was a label from Santa Claus and a red bow.
She stepped past them by a small margin to toss the rest of Crispin's belongings onto the floor, and upon her return she took Crispin's knife out of the sheath. "Oh, you won't be needing these." With careful precision but dextrous skill she began slashing Crispin's clothes apart, the layers falling away, and with some careful work she removed the underlayers, too. He was scratched by her first few strikes, but her intent hadn't been to hurt him –at least, not yet. The knife was set back down atop the dresser. "Now that I have you here, too many toys can get troublesome. So much talking... How about I show you what you get to look forward to?"
Nick grimaced as Saika circled him, setting Crispin's knife down on the dresser behind them. She popped open the many drawers, and they all collapsed a bit downward to make more of a walled rack, which she rolled over to them on wheels under the legs of the furniture -quite an elaborate setup. Crispin began to sweat when he saw tools lined up on the object; long picks, scissors, plyers, a roll of barbed wire... she had all manner of devices, not a one of which looked friendly. Nick's breathing slowed as he forced himself to calm, even as she took a three-piece shackle of some kind and kneeled beside him. Turns out it was a brace, the shackles locking over his thigh, foreleg, and foot; the bars that were keeping each ring attached to one another snapped in place to prevent his leg from flexing. After making certain his left leg couldn't move, she lifted it and propped the limb to face out from Nick on another rolling dresser, and she withdrew one of her other devices; it looked like an absurdly long screw, with a sort of hand crank attached to the end. The crank mechanism kind of looked like an old-style egg-beater's.
Was that thing a humongous drill?
Nick's eyes widened to the size of saucers, and he started nervously joking as he broke into a much worse sweat than he'd already had. "W-whoa, lady, cuts and lashings were one thing –isn't that just a little overboard?"
She smiled, sickeningly sweet, as she circled him for the purpose of gagging him with a twisted cloth, tying it in the back as Nick mumbled further protests lost to the fabric. Crispin hadn't looked away from the extra-long crank-operated corkscrew. He'd gone white.
Back in front of Nick, she lifted the object and placed the tip against the heel of Nick's foot. He whimpered, and she started turning the crank, not piercing the skin yet –just rotating the tip against his foot. "Legs are funny things. Fragile for how much they support –just slashing the tendon above the ankle is enough to prevent someone from walking again. There are quite a few vital arteries in a leg, and the bones are a little thick. But what's so funny about all that? Well, I'll tell you; there's a little path you can take in between all that, aaaaaaaaaall the way up to the liver, digging through muscle tissue... minor blood vessels... cartilage. A liver puncture could kill in a matter of minutes, but stopping just shy of that will leave someone bleeding out for hours."
She rotated the crank faster. Nick hyperventilated through the cloth, and Crispin couldn't so much as blink. His teeth were chattering, and Nick looked to him with pleas in his eyes –they were both trapped, but he had no one else to beg.
Saika pushed. The point of the implement dug into the heel of his foot, and as she spun and shoved, red spattered her chest and chin. Like some kind of crazed hornet that just found purchase for a spot to sting, she grinned as the coiled metal encircled Nick's ankle, and began burrowing past the bones and veins on the climb up his body. Screaming through the rag at a high pitch, he bit the gag hard enough to tear his gums, pain-wracked sobs in between twists of the handle.
"Fucking stop! Take that out of him you sick bitch!" Crispin wriggled and swung loosely, but even coming within kicking range of Saika only caused her to let go with one hand for a second, moving him to swing on an entirely different angle and get tangled in his own cuffs. The flesh on Nick's leg engorged slightly in a spiral pattern, up to the thigh now, his voice already growing hoarse and beseeching. He couldn't get enough of a breath to roar his agony in long bouts –he'd degenerated to wheezing huffs of misery.
She lived for this. Her lips felt like they might split at the corners she drew such satisfaction from Nick's torture, wiping at the sweat on her brow smearing it crimson. Her chest rose and fell as fast as her victim's, exhilaration causing her to almost slip on her device. Crispin feebly swung his feet at her again, chanting for her to stop, stop, stop. She did, and peered up at him, the pure joy evident on her face. "Are you sure?"
Crispin shook his head, but only to emphasize the fact that that sounded like a stupid question. "Yes! Fuck yes, leave him the hell alone! Please, please just stop, just stop..." He trailed off, tears welling in his eyes. An off thought in his head wondered how much he'd cried lately, and how much he had left to.
She removed her hands from the drill, and Nick was still groaning in rhythm with his exhales. She held up her hands as if surrendering to the cruel and wicked tool itself. "Alright, you're the boss... You sure are a bit of a freak though, aren't you?"
"The hell're you- you're..." Again his voice fell short, as he looked down and realized. The thing was buried all the way up Nick's leg, if he had to guess ending somewhere like the hip –and just short of his liver. He would die to the wound regardless, but now it'd be a much slower death, like she'd explained. In his panic, outrage and terror, he'd condemned the man to hours more of this sensation.
Saika's mouth formed a vicious crescent as Crispin looked Nick in the eye, and both of them knew. They both resigned to that despair, and she cackled about it, grabbing Crispin's hair and shaking him with a jangle of the chain above his wrists. She crashed her lips into his, pressing up against the boy, still chuckling and biting down on his lower lip hard enough to split it before backing away, the adrenaline high still having her bounce around the room a little. He coughed, spat blood at her, and swung limply.
"Good god, I love it when they catch on fast! Oh, oh oh oh... can't forget Nick's final touch." She flounced back over to the man, and he instinctively recoiled as best he could from her, though it didn't help. She squatted next to his leg, and undid the clasps keeping the steel splint on his leg. With that gone...
The first muscle spasm, whether it be from the pain, the foreign object lodged into the limb, or just from being free at last, jolted Nick's leg into an attempt to flex. Breathlessly he gasped, the rapid-fire bellows through the gag coming back as more pain equaled more spasms, and he thrashed in throes of the chain reaction until finally he settled, eyes heavy-lidded and face soaked. His breath came in brief whispers, his body aiming for the bare minimum.
Crispin was staring at him, watching Nick lose most of his will to even perceive that there were others present. His apology held fast to the confines of his throat, refusing to brave the room to its recipient –he could only mouth the words on repeat. Saika walked over with her perpetual grin, untying Nick's head and letting the cloth fall from his face. He showed no change for it, just as dazed as he was before. "Well boys, it's been a wild ride. I hope you two can stay out of trouble while I clean myself up?" Crispin stared at her, cold and menacing. She swiped a thumb over the lip she bit and sucked the digit mockingly. "Oh, it's fine. You'll have your turn when you can't take the little things anymore, no need to look so jealous."
Saika blew them a kiss, and in a flash of blonde she blew out the door and slammed it shut behind her, the sound of a deadbolt sliding in place following after. Crispin grit his teeth, kicked the wall, and started struggling vainly until his dad-advice flickered through his mind as per usual, and much the same as before he felt the need to curse his parent but calm down anyways. Nick's presence grew small with no motion, no sound until another spasm. He yelped, trying to prevent himself from moving further over it with a low, guttural groan and lowering his head.
Crispin looked around the room. His sight was drawn back to the leg any time he tried to see past or sweep his vision elsewhere in the room, but he fought down the strange fixation while he searched for his things, as well as sought out any means with which he could get down. The other tools were in assorted drawers he couldn't reach even if he swung, his knife was atop one of these, and his crossbow had been confiscated, likely lent back to another Cloak. His fishing line, supplies and cloak of his own were strewn about on the floor where Saika had tossed the sack of his goods. He tried flipping upside-down, perhaps getting his feet up against the bottom of the support beam and kicking off to pull his wrists free. There would be dislocation of wrists, maybe shoulders, and it might not even work, but to his dismay the cuffs had been made so tight that even hurting himself along the way wouldn't slide his hands free.
He sighed, nothing left that he could cook up to get out of here. He'd have to wait for an opportunity, or some rearranging Saika might do upon her return... but who could say if she'd grow impatient? She seemed unstable enough when she'd been destroying Nick here, there was a distinct possibility that she'd feel like early seconds when she came back –and Nick was all wiped out by the look of him. It wouldn't be nearly as 'fun' for her as it had been the first time, probably.
Crispin and Nick had been on a smile-and-wave basis. No like or dislike, no grudges or friendships, just a mild notice of one another's existences and carrying on the day. They'd shared little in terms of conversation, and it wasn't as if he'd needed to collect the guy any trees even if he could drag one home. But he hadn't needed to suffer like this. No one did... could they have been friends at one point? If Crispin hadn't had his head so far up his ass, worrying about his daddy issues and blaming the Culversetts for his shoehorned role as a Woodsman, would they have maybe seen eye to eye? They should've talked before now. Their ages weren't even too far apart-
A twitch of the leg brought Crispin out of his reverie as Nick groaned, eyes squeezing shut. His gaze was drawn back to the leg. The screw-like implement had been metallic... and absurdly long.
'No, no. I can't... I won't... would that even –don't THINK like that!' Crispin internally debated, and flinched when it sounded like the door rattled. Saika was confident they couldn't get out, and that confidence was likely to wane the longer he had to himself with which to inspect the place. To make a getaway now was his best chance, most likely, since there was no way she'd think he could do something about this situation so fast. He looked down at Nick's leg. He swallowed hard in preparation.
"Nick." He mumbled. "Nick, listen. You in there buddy?" Crispin's voice rose slightly, as did Nick's head. Crispin continued, "Nick... you're gonna die."
The carpenter lifted his head with a defiant, crazed look behind his similarly worn but angered expression. "Don't you think I know?!... Look what she did to my leg, man! Look at what she fucking did! My... Oh god, Crispin, my... fucking leg..."
Crispin swayed lightly. "Nick, Nick, I know. I saw it. I didn't much help... Nick, I need you to listen... You're gonna die. But I need your help first."
"What are you saying?" Nick glared. He got that tired look again, color draining onto the floor. Crispin clinked as he wiggled, trying to get Nick's attention back. He opened his eyes again, and mumbled. "... I'm tired, Crispy."
"I know."
"It hurts." Tears welled up again, and Nick spasmed as if to give an example. He clenched his teeth. "It hurts so much."
"Nick, I need you to bend your leg." They stared at one another in dead silence.
"Are you shitting me?"
Crispin shook his head, face sour. "I need the screw thingy. I need it out of your leg, Nick."
"Do you know how much this hurts?!"
"I WILL! I'll know soon enough if you don't help me!" The argument fell short already. Crispin sighed, and began swinging intentionally, toward the leg. "I'm getting out of here, Nick."
His fellow man looked up from his near-comatose state, losing so much blood, and life returned to him with fear. "Crispin, no, please don't-"
Crispin wound up and planted his feet squarely into Nick's calf.
The wails of pain started up again, and Crispin kept swinging. "Bend your leg!"
"No!" Nick's fists clenched above him, same as Crispin's, as he took another kick and aimed his cries at the ceiling. Crispin's determination waned, but he forced it back up and swung harder. "Crispin, I can't!"
He kicked again, and Nick's calf tore a little. A glint of silver peeked out near the underside of his knee joint, the sinew and skin newly torn and giving the blood another way to flow. "Nick ,you won't be able to in a few hours anyway. I need that thing! Bend your goddamn leg!"
"Crispy, NO!" Nick cried. The next kick tore the breach under his knee wider. His weeping grew hysterical as his leg jittered uncontrollably, and with Crispin's next kick, Nick's leg contracted, driving the tip far enough to pierce his liver but separating the vast majority of the shaft from his leg in the process of his knee pulling upward. There was about an inch curled into his torso, and a fraction still through the meat of his heel, but the rest of the shaft was out of the ragged crevasse beneath his leg. He rocked wildly in a fit of this unimaginable feeling, and on Crispin's next swing he reached out and caught the rose-tinted polearm of sorts between his feet. His momentum going back the way it came helped him separate the object from Nick's foot, and the end required an extra tug.
Nick wouldn't shut up, and Crispin's head was spinning, his stomach churning. He held his lunch down, his head up, and his feet together as he curled upwards, trying to angle the end of the crank drill so that he could either get it into the cuff's actual links or between the links and the beam. He missed a dozen times, fumbled, dropped the drill and almost lost it down there. Nick quieted down, and he chose not to question why.
Holding himself aloft in a J-shape and attempting to use an oversized screw as a crowbar with just his feet was proving to be even more difficult than his brain had originally made the plan sound. It took him at least twenty minutes –which he thought rather accurately to be miraculous –to get the end into the middle link of the cuffs, taking a moment to spin the thing between the arches of his feet to skewer the hold further. Now, to wrap his legs around the thing, and use his lower body weight to drop-and-yank at the tool until these break. It took two lifts of his body and dropping his weight on the crank end of the thing to snap the link, falling to the floor and slipping for a solid ten seconds in a pool of Nick's life fluid. He fought back the urge to throw up yet again, managing only once he got to all fours.
Crispin stood, shakily, and turned around to see Nick. His eyes were wide open, face in a perpetual roar of silence, and just as soon Crispin turned away to gather up his belongings. There was no time to waste, none.
His clothes were the issue. Crispin tore through Saika's dressers, dropping 'toys' in search of something to wear and only finding such a thing in the smallest one. They were a plain white flannel shirt, a vest, and slacks. They were Nick's. He grimaced strongly enough to etch stress lines into his face, but grabbed the clothes anyway, cutting them with his knife to rid himself of excess sleeve and pantleg length. The ropes that had tied his feet before were a belt for now, and he retrieved his cloak with almost as much disdain as the dead acquaintance's duds. Among the other implements for bringing people pain, there were some dentist-like pointed and crooked picks that Crispin pocketed all three of, as well as a small butcher's cleaver. He took the larger pair of scissors, the plyers, and the barbed wire for good measure –keeping it in a separate pouch, to avoid pricking himself or tangling it with the retrieved fishing line. The torture screw was left on the floor, and the whips and other spiky bits weren't anything he could get great use out of, crude as these weapons he was taking already were.
He was a little confused, though. If Saika had just been rinsing off the blood, she should've been back well before now... not that he was complaining. The door, however, was locked from the outside –she did certainly have one hell of a failsafe. The rest of the caravan was windowless, the creases in the boards of the floor, walls and ceiling too tough to pry at with meagre means. He searched around to see if there were any hidden means of escape, not turning anything up, and draped a pillowcase over Nick's head while he was at it. With little other option, he jumped off the bed, grabbing the support beam above and lying prone between it and the ceiling, right next to the door leading into the caravan.
It was here that he once again played the waiting game.