Playlist continuing… Chapter twenty-five
Castanets, "You are the Blood"
"You are... the blood...
Flowing... through my fingers..."
"Look at me when I'm talking to you."
Xenia's voice felt like it came from far away. Now it was nothing but one of the many stimuli that had gradually been subdued by pain, fear and exhaustion. Time was another, incidentally. In the first two days, keeping its track came down to watching light and darkness chasing each other beyond the broken panes of the warehouse; ever since everything seemed as though it stood still.
"Look at me."
In fact, that last analogy wasn't so accurate; although the Ossetian spider was away most of the day, every moment wasn't frozen in time. Whenever a greater hurt was involved, the burst forward was violent enough to remind the half-Asian that the clock was still ticking – and that in her case, it was on the verge of running down.
"Fine, if you want to go that way..."
The sudden stab of pain through her hand was so awful that her swollen eyes opened as wide as they could. While the two-faced had the knack for breaking fingers, his right-hand woman's personal technique for regaining attention was hopelessly less refined – tearing fingernails off. Her victim shrieked, even more so when a second nail unexpectedly received the same treatment.
Ripping all her nails off at once would have got her screaming in agony more effectively, of course, but taking time and proceeding little by little was way more vicious. There was this weird effect she noticed; the more often the same thing was inflicted to her, the more intensity her suffering gained. Perhaps it was caused by mental barriers getting increasingly easy to bypass, or just by apprehension about enduring it over and over. Regardless, Xenia obviously knew about this – giving her next taunt a more cruel flavor than it should have had;
"Bye bye numbers three and four. At this rate, your toes won't make it to the end either."
The half-Asian's sore throat wheezed for air, as the reflex to toss herself back and forth on the chair had long been sapped by the sharp burn of the cuffs cutting into her skin. She slowly moved her head upwards despite the stiffness of her neck; the first piece of visual information she eventually processed was the wicked grin given right above her.
"Much better, little one. But too late."
A second later, a resounding backhanded slap almost took her head off. She coughed up some blood and felt dizzy, then shivered when thinking that beating the living daylights out of her wouldn't be nearly sufficient to satiate her captor's sadistic lust. Anything could still happen, that meant. Absolutely anything.
"I guess we're done for today, there are sadly other things to keep me busy tonight. Concerning tomorrow's session… well, it's about time I got my due.", the spider pensively said, coming to press her palms against Kaiko's aching thighs and lean over her. Her face was now so awkwardly close that the half-Asian pulled away, fearing a kiss. "I mean, did you think I'd let him have the sole right to get it on with you?"
The question sent a shockwave through the captive's whole being. She wanted to believe that those were empty words, that the mention of him was only meant to unleash her deepest-buried nightmare so it would take over the last remnants of sanity from her brain. But this would be forgetting who she was dealing with. She knew Xenia had been looking forward to this for too long not to be taken seriously – on top of the memory ripping her psyche apart, it was all going to happen again.
"N… no…", she barely managed to whimper, some tears starting to roll down her cheeks.
"Wait a minute, were you just about to beg me?" She felt the Ossetian beginning to slowly drag a nail across the side of her face, from her silvery eye down to her neck, then breasts. "Hell, that's much more progress than in my wildest expectations… I'd almost miss your usual wit."
As her torturer gave a sickening, triumphant cackle, Kaiko couldn't help but breaking down crying despite the latter's presence. At least now her failure could be considered as complete and irrevocable.
"Come on little one, don't be so sad; in the end I'm offering you a fun way to go. If it happens to be too short to our mutual liking, I can make it last a day longer... or two. And if you're a very good girl..." Xenia put on an innocent look after having closed her hands around the battered face in front of her, and jabbed a thumb on the particular spot between the jaw and the earlobe. "... I might even ask you to hurt me. Now, what do you think?"
Onatopp sadly knew about pressure points all too well; as if the pain wasn't intense enough, judging from the tears, shaking and tongue biting it led to, she made obvious she had a great time dragging it out. When she came to have her fill of this, she carelessly let go of the head like a broken toy.
"A pity your boyfriend GoldenEye isn't around, I'd have loved to have him too. But trust me, I shall savor every bit of what's to come." She stroked the half-Asian's hair, before moving away to roll her shoulders and give the end signal. "Райсоммæ уал." (Raysomma ual., See you tomorrow.)
"All through… the soil…
Up in those trees…"
It might have felt like yet another lifetime to Kaiko, but it had only been hours since the spider left Warehouse 8. At some point a lone guy she didn't know came to give her a bit of bread and water – just enough to prevent her from dying too quickly, but not to quench her gnawing hunger. Since then, nothing. She was left completely alone with her thoughts, and couldn't count on getting any sleep.
As she ended up finding out, being forced to sit in the same position for so long actually was part of the torture. The cramps in her arms and legs felt as if always more pins and needles were jabbing at each of the concerned muscles; and the pressure of her seat bones against her buttocks, besides being quite embarrassing, now bordered the unbearable. But there sadly was more, like the residual pain created by the repeated blows in her chest and stomach that worsened her shortness of breath… or other injuries she eventually quitted thinking about.
Flashbacks, as for them, kept roaming through her mind at random. Now that every effort she made over the years to drive back the worst of them had been nullified, she was forced to mentally relive the events without any more control on them than when they actually occurred. The two-faced using to have such an overwhelming power over her owed nothing to chance; neither did her yearning for payback while not wanting to hear about it.
It wasn't long until this led to the rekindling of her disgust with all the compromises she accepted just to stay alive. What did they get her, aside from having to crawl upon her hands and knees to the bastard and shut up? Not only would she die even less properly by having stooped to that and hopped from one mess of trouble to the next without so much as fulfilling her promise to get Jessi out of this; but Xenia intended to bring her back where it all started.
Sometimes, in the moments she climbed up a little from the abyss, she wondered whether her death would create some stir among the ranks of the Syndicate. Compared to during her early days in the organization, Janus hardly ever came to this place in person; as for the Ossetian, barely more often. For the people around who knew her, her current situation could be interpretable as one of them being considered as a serious threat – therefore, as a decline in the authority of the boss.
But then she wouldn't be the first member known to have been executed by the hierarchy. The much talked about Mesyats himself ended up squeezed between Xenia's thighs, and it precisely was the bleak fate she was about to meet. Perhaps that rumors about her involvement in Vegas' events would distinguish her from the previous corpses, but she couldn't imagine the two-faced didn't cover the whole thing up. In that case, his authority would remain untouched – or even worse, would be strengthened.
When getting that far she instantly fell back into the darkness, as it made her remember about the very last atrocity that awaited her; being literally chopped into pieces to be sold at retail. She knew what being treated like meat was, yet this was a whole new level… the sole visualizing of this turned her stomach. The гад and his favorite spider actually made a fine couple of bloodthirsty monsters; as long as the former could count the incoming money, the latter was free to do anything she could get a kick out of.
At some point, lastly, her wandering thought went to Golden. All the allusions about a potential relationship between the two of them left her cold now, still there was one idea she firmly held onto; 'If I die from this, never mind how, I hope he'll kick your teeth in.'
"You are ele... ctricity...
And you are light..."
"Сестричка... сестричка..." (Sestrichka... sestrichka..., Sister... sister...)
There she was, completely losing her marbles. There wasn't any other explanation to distinctly recognizing Jessi's voice – even if it seemed to her that noise and cold air came from the roller shutter right before she heard it.
"Это я." (Eto ya., It's me.)
Opening her eyes, she still refused to believe it. The silhouette standing in front of her had to be a bad joke of her brain, an illusion created by her persistent headache. What made her start to think otherwise, though, was the gentle pat on her shoulder. The exact same that always tried to console her in her lowest points… her crippled mind was very unlikely to produce an hallucination so comforting.
"良かった。" (Yokatta., Thank goodness.), she whispered.
Letting what she knew to be her friend's arms take some time to cradle her head verged on the miraculous. But her inner demons wouldn't be so compliant as to let go of her; it was her who was supposed to get the Russian girl out, not the other way round. Instead of relief, it was guilt that was flooding in.
Avoiding to waste any more time, Jessi eventually put down the backpack she carried to search for something. Despite the surrounding darkness, the shape of the object she took out was gloomily familiar; a small syringe. Another ghost from the distant past crashing the party, if there ever was one.
"What the hell… is that...?", the half-Asian's hoarse voice asked, meeting a nervous answer from the blond girl;
"All I know is that I have to give it to you as soon as possible."
Kaiko hesitated for some long seconds. What good would that do? She knew she was too weak for so much as getting up. While she could blindly put her full faith in her friend, the two-faced inevitably would find a way to either recapture or clip her if she escaped again… and she had already had enough of running and hiding.
"Сестричка… ты знаешь, я не оставлю тебя в его власти." (Sestrichka… ty znayesh', ya ne ostavlyu tebya v yego vlasti., Sister… you know I won't leave you at his mercy.)
She remained silent at first, as her thoughts having been read so easily felt a little too awkward. Did she really deserve to live after everything she'd done? She was tempted to give a negative answer and think that Jessi didn't need a millstone round her neck, yet aside from the fact she couldn't deny how terrified she was by what was looming on the horizon, death wasn't a really satisfying option. She would get some rest, yes, but never redemption.
"Сестричка…"
"Go... go ahead."
Time wasn't on her side. She rather she didn't have to rely on chemicals, but circumstances were forcing her hand. Like always, she had to choose between raising the bet or folding her cards. Between a slim probability of survival, or none at all.
Turning a keychain flashlight on, the blond girl swept the room until spotting a large, well-oiled bolt cutter that leant against a wall. As she went get it, her friend thanked her lucky stars that Onatopp didn't come up with the idea of messing around with it. The monster made short work of the handcuffs' chain... better not to think about what it could have been used for up to there.
It didn't take much longer for the duct tape straps to become history too. Putting the cutter down and the tiny light in her mouth the blond girl got down to business at once, leading her friend to look away. Hopefully she achieved to administer the shot quick and smooth despite the poor conditions, and had thought to bring a bandage.
Even with help, pulling herself out of the goddamned chair was a strain to every single one of the half-Asian's muscles since the constricted blood flow temporarily made her limbs dead weight. She designated the location of her white jacket, limping along then having to struggle to get dressed as if connections between her brain and motor units had been severed. As completely unreasonable as escaping in such a state sounded, she had to convince herself it wasn't. Whatever was going to happen, no way she failed Jessi yet again.
It was while she was stuffing in one of her pockets the passport inconsiderately abandoned there that it struck her how suddenly her fatigue had decreased. The link with the injection was self-evident, which left her wondering what it exactly contained. This was nothing like an opiate, at least she knew that. Although she was far from being in her best shape, feeling so much more alert and focused was somewhat scary.
Meanwhile, the Russian girl was already busy lock picking the backdoor – an unrivaled skill of hers. A Kalashnikov AKS-74U, found heaven knew where, could be seen dangling from her shoulder. Kaiko gave a short sigh and tried to stretch her badly bruised legs while rubbing her sliced, blistered wrists, from which each half-pair of handcuffs still was loosely hanging. Actually, a glimmer of hope had been successfully reignited... no matter how dim and flickering.
"You are... sound... itself...
And you... are... flight. "