Chapter Thirty-Seven
Disclaimer: I do not own the PJO or HoO series by Rick Riodan.
Kyra's POV
After the maid has escorted us back to the room and locked us in, Nico spun around and stared at me.
"Uh, Mike honey, why don't you go get washed up. I think they'll be bringing us something to eat soon." I say.
He shrugs and heads to the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I hear the sink water start to run and then turn back to Nico.
"How dare he accuse me of stealing from him! I just want to escape this damn place and go home, I don't want a fucking souvenir to remind me of this place!" he shouts.
"Shh! Mike's just in the bathroom." I say, putting a hand over his mouth.
He rolls his eyes and removes my hand from his mouth. "Honestly Ky, he's heard worse than that."
"I don't care if he's heard worse, he's only six."
He waves his hands around, motioning for me to be quiet. "We're getting beside the point. We need to get out of here before the three days are up, otherwise, we'll be locked in the department for the rest of our lives."
"Yea, I know. But how? The maids always lock the door after leaving."
"What was it Osiris said? About the maids so desperate for attention?"
I grin and look up at Nico, an idea forming in my head. "I got it."
"Wait, I'm doing what?" Nico asks, his eyes wide.
"Hey, you want to get out? This is the only way we're going to do it. I'm not a child of Athena, so don't expect a better plan." I say, shrugging.
He sighs and shakes his head. "Fine, okay. I'll—" he shudders, "seduce the maid."
"Good. Then you'll sneak the keys while she's talking to you and she'll be so distracted that she'll forget to even lock the door, which she wouldn't be able to do anyway because we'll have the keys."
"And then what?"
"Then we'll sneak out, all three of us, and we'll navigate our way out, maybe picking up some weapons on the way. I've got my bow and arrows, but you don't have anything."
"What about Mike?"
"No, we haven't even begun to train him with weapons yet. We'll just keep him in between us. It'll be fine."
He gives me a doubtful look then sighs, nodding. "Okay. Then where to? We don't know where an exit is."
"We find Silena or Beckendorf, they'll be able to get us out."
"Alright, let's do it."
An hour later, I hear the door's lock begin to click again. Nico had heard it too, because he sat up from the bed.
The door swings open, revealing a maid with a cart packed with food. She walks in, swaying her hips so much that I thought the bottom of her short dress would fly up.
She kicks the door closed behind her as she rolls the cart towards the center of the room.
"What are we having tonight?" Nico asks, getting off the bed and going over to the maid.
"Fresh sushi." she says.
"Oh, sounds—appetizing." he says, turning a bit green.
She begins taking the covers off of the plates, storing them on the bottom rack of the cart. There were several different kinds of colorful arrangements on the plates, half of which I couldn't tell if they were dead or still alive.
The maid steps back, curtseys, and turns around to leave. Nico looks to me, a panicked look on his face. I quickly motion for him to follow her.
He hesitates for a second then goes after her. He lays a hand on her shoulder and she turns around.
"Something wrong?" she asks.
"Oh, no, nothing at all. I was just wondering what your name is." he says.
"Oh, it's Anita." she says, her voice flat.
"Anita." Nico says, the name slowly rolling off of his tongue.
It obviously got her attention. You could see her breath catch and her eyes widen. Something told me that Osiris definitely didn't call on her like that.
"That's a beautiful name." he says, smiling.
"Really? You think so? Master Osiris says it's an ugly name." Anita says, looking down.
He puts a finger under her chin and forces her to look back up at him. "Don't listen to a damn thing he says. Did you know that the meaning of your name in Italian is 'grace?'" he asks.
I could already tell she was melting. I could see it in her eyes. "No, I—I didn't know that." she says.
"Well, it's definitely true in your case." he bends closer to her and lowers his voice, "You're the most graceful thing I've ever seen on this godsforsaken planet."
Her full attention was on him, and that's exactly what we needed. I see him swipe his hand across the latch holding the keys to her belt and stuff them in his back pocket.
"I uh—I need to get back to Master Osiris now." she says, her voice breathy.
"You do that, Anita." he says, smirking at her.
She backs out of the room, fumbling with the door as she was closing it. Nico turns around to face me, a huge grin on his lips.
"Does her name really mean 'grace' in Italian?" I ask, arching an eyebrow.
"Of course it does. You can look it up when we get home if you think I'm lying." he says.
I sigh and shake my head, smiling. I stand up from the overstuffed chair I had been sitting in and walk over to the bathroom door. I knock on it and a few seconds later it creaks open to reveal Mike.
"C'mon, Mike, we're going home." I say, taking his hand.
He smiles at me and practically drags me to the door. I turn to Nico and nod, and he opens the door.
"So where to now?" Nico asks.
We had just made it out of Osiris' main quarters and were making our way down the tediously long hallway.
"Track down Silena or Beckendorf, I guess. Not much else we can do, unless we stumble upon an exit before finding them." I shrug.
"Yea, I suppose you're right. Well let's get going then. There's no doubt they'll figure out we're missing soon." he says, hurrying along the hallway.
We finally reach the end of it and emerge into the blinding whiteness of the main passages. I shiver at the thought of what all is in this building.
"This way, I remember the showers were in this direction." I say, touching my pendant and feeling the familiar curve of my white gold bow in my hand.
It felt fantastic holding it again. I usually didn't go three or four days without having to use it, since monsters, small and large, were constantly on my tail.
Nico takes Mike's hand and they follow me down the passageway to where the showers are.
We soundlessly make our way all the way there, being extra cautious with our pace. Sure, the floor wasn't made of creaky old wood, but footsteps can tap rather loudly on tiles as they can creak on wooden floors.
Right before we turn the corner, I stop short. I motion for Nico to stop as well, though he probably already had upon seeing me come to a halt.
There were voices coming from a few feet away, two men. One's voice was low and gruff, while the others was high and scratchy.
"Where do you think they could've gone? I mean, it's a big place, and there really aren't that many of us to scour everything." the one with the high-pitched voice says.
"They can't 'ave gotten very far. After all, Master Osiris just contacted us a few minutes ago. And 'e said a maid had gone to bring 'em dinner forty-five minutes ago, and 'ey were still 'ere then." the gruff one says.
"Yea, I suppose you're right."
"Come on. If we 'ang around here much longer instead of looking, Master Osiris will 'ave our asses mounted on 'is walls."
I quickly move away from the corner and listen until I can no longer hear their footsteps. I turn around to see Nico with his head in his hand.
"It'll be alright. He said they didn't have very many people here to search for us." I say.
"Yea, I know. It's just—what if one of them does find us?" he asks.
"Well, we just fight our hardest to not be captured again." I shrug, moving forward again.
"Yea, well too bad all that fighting will go to waste." a voice speaks up.
I whip around to see Scar-Face standing there, a stupid grin on his stupid scarred lips. I grab Mike's other hand and spin around, about to run as far away as possible, only to see that there were two other men surrounding us. We couldn't get away.
"Daemon will be having his fun with you today. Master Osiris gave him full permission to do whatever he wants with you." Scar-Face says.
"Lovely." I mutter.
"What was that?" he asks, leaning forward and cupping a hand over his ear.
"I said, what a shame he won't get the chance."
The stupid grin drips off of his lips, turning into a snarl. "We'll just see about that." he says.
Before I can react, he lunges forward, grabbing me by the hair. He yanks it so hard that I thought he'd pull all of my hair out.
He starts dragging me away, while I watched the other two men surround Nico and Mike. It made me so angry, because Nico didn't have a damn thing to defend them with. He was helpless.
Just as we turn a corner and I can't see them anymore, I hear Mike scream and Nico shout out obscenities. I try pulling away from Scar-Face and his grip on my hair, but it was hopeless. Even kicking and wiggling didn't slow him down.
"Won't do ya any good." he chuckles.
"Shut the hell up." I say, trying to focus on anything but my scalp screaming in agony.
"Almost there, then the real fun will start for you."
The lights were turned completely on in the department. They were almost as blinding as the lights in the endless maze of hallways outside.
I almost preferred that they were dimmed again, because now that they were lighting everything up, I realized just how disgusting this place really was.
There were stains all over the walls and floor, of all different colors, not just the rust red of blood. There was mold growing in the corners of the room, and there were cesspools of gods knew what littering the whole place. How we hadn't stepped in any of those, I don't know.
Scar-Face drags me over to a set of chains I hadn't noticed before. They were facing the other chains I had been in when Daemon had tortured me.
I try biting him, to no avail. He simply punched me with his free hand or kicked me.
When we get to the chains, he quickly locks the shackles around my wrists, then my ankles. I could already tell that when, and if, I got them off, my skin would be chaffed and bleeding, most likely accompanied by several sores.
"Mama!" Micheal screams.
My head snaps up and I turn around, with difficulty since the chains didn't give me much leeway to move. One of the men who had surrounded us was dragging Mike in. He had him by the ankles.
Mike was desperately clawing at the stone floor, trying to slow his captor. It didn't do anything, of course, considering how much bigger and stronger the man was, and also since the floor was made of stone, there wasn't anything to grip onto.
The man drags him over next to me, where I see there's yet another set of chains. He locks him up in the same manner as Scar-Face had done to me, wrists then ankles.
I try reaching over to him, to comfort him in some way, but I couldn't. The damn chains were too short. So I just had to talk to him.
"Mikey, it's going to be alright. I prom—" Before I can continue, the door bangs open again.
This time, it was Daemon himself, and he was dragging a barely conscious Nico in. I wanted to cry because of how bad of shape Nico was in. He had cuts all over his face, his shirt was ripped in several places, and there were red welts all over his arms. He was almost unrecognizable.
"You like your sweetie now, Kyra? Pretty, ain't he?" Daemon grins.
"You bastard." I growl, trying and failing, yet again, to move closer to Mike.
"Oh, if you think I'm a bastard now, just wait and see what I have planned for your little ghost king."
"Don't you touch him!" I scream.
Daemon laughs, throwing his head back. He laughed so hard I thought, or more like wished, he'd fall over dead from oxygen deprivation.
"Oh gods, I forgot how funny you are. Now, let's get this show started, shall we?"
He chains Nico up and then goes over to his boxes of mass torture. He opens one of the smaller ones on the bottom of the cart. I try to see what's inside, but can't because he's blocking the way. He takes something out and appears to stroke it tenderly.
He stands up again and makes his way back over to Nico.
"You ready for this, pretty boy?"
Nico groans and looks up, squinting open his eyes slightly. Before I know what's happened, Daemon is whipping him. This whip was more wicked than the one he had used on me. Hard to believe, I know.
Instead of spikes, there were small blades made of Stygian Iron embedded into the leather.
As the sharp edges connected to Nico's skin, I could see the dark energy seeping out of him and into the small blades.
Nico cries out and bends forward, trying to shield his torso from being cut again. Obviously, that didn't work quite well. He was too vulnerable, and I couldn't do a damn thing except watch helplessly from the sidelines.
Daemon whips him a couple of more times, then turns around and gins at me.
"I think this is more satisfying than torturing you. I get to hear you scream, and I get to hurt you in a way worse than psychically." he says.
"You're an ass, you know that?" Nico coughs out.
Daemon spins around and whips him again, gaining another scream from Nico. Satisfied, he turns back around to face me again.
"You just keep on watching, sweetheart."
About thirty minutes go by with Daemon having his fun with Nico. I had whispered to Mike to keep his head down and eyes closed. I didn't want him to watch, it was bad enough that he had to hear it.
Daemon drops the whip on the stone floor and makes his way closer to Nico. He unlocks the shackles around his ankles and spins him around, so his arms were crossed above him and his back was facing us.
Once he's re-shackled his ankles, he unlocks the ones around his wrists and quickly switches the wrists so that his arms were no longer crossed.
"Now that our pre-show has ended, let's get down to the real fun." he says, picking up the whip and going back over to the torture boxes.
He whips his back a few times before placing it back in the correct box. He opens up a different box and picks out a smallish metal tool. It almost looked like a cigarette lighter from a car, but bigger.
"This is going to hurt, a lot." he says, going back over to Nico.
He jabs the tool at his back and Nico screams like I've never heard him scream before. He arches his back, trying to get away from the tool, but fails.
"Stop it!" I scream, straining against the chains.
Daemon laughs and pulls away from Nico, revealing a large, red, burn mark. I had been right, it was a giant cigarette lighter. He jabs again and again, Nico screaming louder and louder every time.
I was grinding my teeth, trying to block out the sound. It was impossible though. My chains were too short to even cover my ears. I glance over at Mike and see him looking down with his eyes closed, just as I had told him to do. There were tears running down his cheeks though.
Never in my life have I been so angry. Who did Daemon think he was, to torture a grown man in front of his wife and six year old son.
"You are an awful fuck, Daemon. You're the scum of Olympus and Earth, and you should have died long ago." I say.
He freezes, stopping mid-jab. He stiffly turns around and looks at me, his glare was poisonous.
"What did you say to me?" he asks.
"I'm pretty damn sure you heard me." I say, defiant.
I knew I was sticking my neck out here, but I was willing to do anything to give Nico a break, even if I only gave him a couple of minutes doing so.
He walks towards me and and crouches down so he was eye-level with me.
"I swear on the Styx, if you say another word, I'll switch you and your husband out, and I'll torture you. I'll go much harder than last time, do things to you that you never would have imagined could be done on someone, and I'll kill you doing it." he growls, his voice low.
I stare at him and he stares right back at me, his orangey yellow eyes like daggers.
I smirk and lean forward. "Word." I say.
His mouth twists into an ugly snarl and he stands up. He draws back his foot, and delivers a hard kick to my stomach. I double over, groaning and coughing.
"Is that the best you can do?" I say, looking up at him.
He sighs in frustration and slaps me across the face. The palm of his hand felt like sandpaper against my face, and it stung. There would definitely be a red hand-print there later.
He draws back his fist and punches me in the jaw. It felt like it was dislocated, but I doubted just one punch from him would do that. It would have to come from Ares himself for that to happen.
He delivers a few more punches, and I start to taste the metallic tang of blood. I hated that taste, and I hated the smell.
"You starting to regret talking?" he asks, crouching down so he was level with me again.
I look down at the disgusting floor and sigh. "That's what I thought." he says, smug.
I snap my head up and quickly spit blood into his face. He reels back, practically falling on his ass, and vigorously wipes at his face.
"Gods, I was actually thinking of going back to torturing him. Now I know you haven't learned your lesson." he says.
I grin at him, feeling blood drip down my chin. "And what lesson would that be?" I ask.
He glares at me. "To know better than to mess with me."
"But it's so easy!" I say.
He storms over to his cart full of boxes and starts rifling through them all. Eventually he pulls out something that looks like guitar strings. He comes back over to me, grinning.
"Get ready for one of the most painful things you've ever felt." he says.
"Most painful? Are you kidding me? You're talking to the woman who's had three kids, and you want to talk to me about most painful?"
He just rolls his eyes and takes one of the wires from the set of them he had. I noticed that on one end of each there was a type of barbed wire spike on it.
Before I know it, he's stabbed the spike into my arm, right on top of my shoulder. I hardly whimper, though it hurt like hell. He starts wrapping the wire down and around my arm. He stops right at my wrist and loosely ties it so it won't come undone.
Then he does the other arm, stabbing the spike into my shoulder and wrapping the wire around my arm.
When he's finished, he loops and and ties the wires through the giant screw eye hooks in the ground, the ones the chains were attached to. I could barely move without the wires cutting into my arms.
"That ought to keep you occupied for a while. Now, let's get back to business." he says, picking out some other kind of weapon.
He walks back over to Nico carrying a bottle full of an acid green liquid. I cringe thinking about what he's going to do with it.
He uncorks it, tossing the cork to the side, and then splashes the liquid onto Nico's raw back. Nico screams and arches his back again.
I hated seeing him in this much agony. Never, in my entire time of being with Nico, have I ever seen him in this much pain, and it killed me.
Daemon quickly goes back over to the whip box again and takes out a simple whip. He goes back over to Nico and starts whipping him again, then splashing the liquid on him.
Nico kept on screaming and struggling against the chains. But it didn't do a thing for him. All it did was wear him out.
After thirty minutes of watching nothing but Daemon torturing Nico, I loose it. I yank as hard as I can against my chains, and then cry out. I look down at my arms and see that the wires Daemon had wrapped around my arms had actually cut into my skin. My arms were pouring blood onto the floor.
"Daemon, you won't get away with this." I say, starting to feel dizzy.
"Oh, sweetheart. I think I will." he says, chuckling.
Before I can hear him say anything else, I pass out, collapsing into the growing puddle of my own blood.
A/N:
Yes, yes. I pulled a Rick and now y'all are gonna hate me because this was the last chapter and I'm not starting part 2 for about another two weeks.
Speaking of part 2, I came up with a title! It'll be called Grim Findings. I like the name a lot, and I think it goes well with what will happen in the story.
And again, I apologize for not updating yesterday. I was very busy. I had to stay at the studio till two instead of one because it was the annual "end of course studio wash down" and then I had to glaze my pots after that and then put up all the glazes and stuff. Then my parents and I went shopping a little later and didn't get home till about seven. We watched a movie and it didn't end till about ten or ten-thirty and by that point, I was too exhausted to do anything.
My mom has given me the job of cleaning and organizing the guest room, because
A) It really needs it.
and
B) My grandmother is coming down in April.
I know, that's still about a month and a half away, but it's better to get on top of it now than one week before she comes up here.
And today my mom told me about this Groupon deal she got and it's like a $19 thing for a year of online guitar lessons, so I'm gonna see if I can borrow one of my brother's acoustic guitars and try it out! I'm really excited, I've always wanted to play guitar, but I haven't had the patience to have someone teach me. So this way, I'd be going at my own pace and learning through these videos.
M/A:
"'A lonely speaker in a conversation
Her words were swimming through his ears again
There's nothing wrong with just a taste of what you've paid for'"
~ The Ballad of Mona Lisa by Panic! At the Disco.