Very little proved to Toki that he even existed; he didn't dream, but air turbulence occasionally knocked him enough for the plane's rumbling engine to permeate his senses. Pretending those instances weren't real made things easier. Spanish conversation didn't concern him, nor the handful of men sharing his space. He remembered some laughter and a hand on his shoulder, along with feeling like an easily-moved puppet, but the rest of the details grew fuzzy. He didn't know how he got from that dark, cramped area to wherever the sedatives began wearing off.
It was hot, prompting him to push the blankets off his upper back. Sunlight streamed in through the window. A comfortable bed did his frame great justice, after sleeping on a concrete floor and then whatever accommodations his flight granted. For how many hours he was probably out, he didn't feel rested. Struggling to remain asleep and therefore avoiding reality that much longer failed. He had to pee, a headache throbbed away between his temples, and he clung to a pillow for dear life as the world spun around him.
In the slow process of returning to himself, Toki noticed bruising all down his left forearm. His face hurt; touching it found an untreated cut across his cheekbone. Every inch of his body slowly came to feel like it'd sustained treatment from a baseball bat. As he inspected himself further, more marks and tenderness came to light. Shifting too quickly and with too little care caused him to flinch for the pain that birthed between his legs. Even his innards felt injured.
He stumbled into a bathroom and attempted to relieve his bladder. He could hardly relax the muscles in his pelvic floor enough to get the job done. Every time resulted in a clench, thereby stopping the flow. By the time he felt empty in that regard, tears of exhaustion stained his cheeks. He couldn't look himself in the mirror, terrified by what he might see. Only back in the bed did he summon the bravery to confront his worst fear. Grimacing, he eased his pants off and felt out the worsening agony.
Mangled, crusted flesh confirmed it. Toki's breath stopped, much like how he thought his heart might. How could this happen? For all the scars on his back or any other injury he'd ever sustained, this capped it all. Too much movement made him dizzy for the wounds that reopened; blood on the ends of his fingers left Toki able to do little more than weep. He couldn't remember anything concrete, although the ghost of a hand on his shoulder made him curl more into himself. They might as well have killed him. Couldn't they have smothered him somehow, or just slit his throat? Toki would rather never wake up than deal with this. Thanks to his upbringing, it became even worse to have lost his final sliver of virginity to such violence. This was once meant to be experienced with the love of his life.
Absolutely everything he possessed was gone. Toki would never see his home again, his friends with it, and his body now belonged to a handful of ruthless thugs. Nothing mattered anymore; when the bedroom door opened, Toki didn't even react. Nor when someone sat on his bed. He couldn't hurt more than he already did.
His mind changed when a hand laid on his shoulder. It took every ounce of strength remaining to make his sluggish tongue work, and to try and struggle away. "N-no. . .no mores. . ."
"No more what?"
The voice wasn't familiar. Toki couldn't reply, merely trembling in apprehension. His emotions running raw enough eventually seized his diaphragm. He hardly made it to the edge of the bed before spewing on the floor.
"What did they do to you?" The man asked. "These aren't normal bumps and bruises from a rough flight."
Toki couldn't speak, but it didn't seem to matter. His visitor left and, when Toki heard an explosion of heated voices downstairs, he grimaced to curl his legs up against his chest.
". . .Then let me put this a way that you're fucked-up head can understand, Raina: your settlement is damaged. Perhaps you should've thought twice about who you put in charge of him, hah?"
"Francisco—"
"Don't 'Francisco' me! I've had it with your bullshit! When you offered me Toki Wartooth, I assumed he'd arrive safe. Not beaten within an inch of his life and fearful for it! No, if you want me to absolve the fifty million, you owe me more than this. Either give me Skwisgaar too, or the men who did this are put to death."
"If you don't want Toki, that's fine. I'll take him back to America."
"Oh no, you're not leaving here again without paying your debt. So your choice: Skwisgaar, or those men's lives."
Brief silence followed. "Just not Raùl. He wasn't involved. He rode up top with me."
With Francisco and Raina's argument resolved, the voices wafting in from the cracked window made themselves known to Toki. Some he recognized, from the brief moments of consciousness on his trip down. A distinctive laugh made every inch of his skin crawl. However, doors opening and approaching footsteps hushed them all. Toki counted seven gunshots; some tried to run through the chaos, but all eventually became still.
The same horrible noise Raùl made upon hearing about Jorge and Santos filled the backyard. "Please—please, not me. . ."
"Get up," someone else unfamiliar told him. "Get inside."
For some semblance of justice for the crimes committed against him, Toki wished to see what came of their punishment. The bedroom door opening again caused him first to jump, then to flinch.
He assumed this man to be Francisco, returning after closing the business deal. Dressed in white and within five years older than Raina, grey streaks highlighted the otherwise black hair he combed away from his face. He bowed his head in respect, maintaining distance. "I sincerely apologize for the pain and trauma that puta has put you through. She's never been much for humanitarianism."
Toki didn't reply. Regrets from a stranger didn't make him feel at all better.
"Would you allow my private physician to look you over? She can offer you some medicine that will alleviate the soreness." When Toki didn't respond, Francisco took a seat under the window. "It's all up to you. No one will touch you here without your express permission."
Yeah fucking right. Never again would Toki place blind trust in someone, especially not a man that just bought him for fifty million dollars and the chance to kill a handful of Raina's henchmen. His treatment on the plane already reduced his worth; he didn't need confirmation.
"Ah! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Francisco Salazar. Welcome to my home, and Monterrey by extent. I trust this isn't your first time to Mexico or this fine city."
Not for the country, but Toki couldn't give a shit right now. All he wanted was to be left alone. Actually, a bullet in his head would better suffice. Through the collective throb of his body, he summoned concern for Skwisgaar. Toki would choose Raina over anything, including a one-way ticket to Mordhaus, so long as he knew his lover was okay.
He struggled to speak. "Where's Skwisgaar?"
"Raina's got him holed up at her home. I know what you're afraid of, but don't worry. She won't be going anywhere for a while. I doubt she'll leave the comfort of my refuge until Mr. Offdensen throws in the towel."
That was little comfort. Once Raina fled town, Toki willed to bet he'd never see Skwisgaar again. He couldn't handle that, nor that they'd passed the political boundaries that halted Charles' intrusive reach.
"I'll come check on you later, hah? You need rest. Keep in mind my offer for medical attention. You won't regret it. Rosa is very gentle."
Though satisfied with his rapists' deaths, that didn't gratify Toki's desire for revenge. Ugly hatred boiled up from his core. No matter how pleasantly Francisco treated him, Toki bore no interest for any caretaker beyond the only one he could ever trust. A narrowing window of opportunity presented itself to somehow retrieve Skwisgaar, kill Raina, and return to Charles, but Toki was nothing if not resourceful and creative. He'd survived misfortune too many times already to give up in face of this newest adversity.
He was determined to bear the pain, but the tranquilizers used to slip him south of the border faded away fast. No position promoted comfort. Just when he poised to cry again out of frustration, Francisco poked his head in and offered opportunity for Toki to cave to care.
"Oh, my dear." The woman, probably in her mid-fifties, handed Toki a small cup full of pills along with a glass of water. "Here's some painkillers, and I'm going to start you on an antibiotic regimen, in case any of them were carrying gonorrhoea, chlamydia, or syphilis."
"Okays."
"Any other health issues I should know about? Allergies?"
"Diabetes. I needs insulin everyday."
"Now, this may be difficult, but would you let me check you over? An attack as savage as this may require stitching."
"Stitches?" Toki's eyes swam again. "Coulds it be that bad?"
"I won't know until I look, sweetie."
Toki could barely undress himself again, let alone ease into jack knife position as she donned a pair of latex gloves. "I'll tell you exactly what I'm going to do, and where I'm going to touch you, beforehand. If you don't want me to, say so and I'll respect your wish."
"Thanks you."
Her delicate handling couldn't stop Toki from cringing and clenching his eyes shut. Perhaps it was all in his head, but certain pressure and grazes summoned memories of the plane ride. He imagined himself as a corpse in the middle of the desert, picked apart by vultures. If clay composed his body, he'd been bent far enough out of shape to lose every vestige of recognizability.
"I think I should put a few in." Rosa told him as her gloves landed in the garbage can. "I'm going to give you a local anaesthetic. Is that all right?"
Did Toki have much of a choice? Used to needles, he didn't flinch when it pierced his butt cheek. Dissociated, the minute manipulation of that part of his body allowed curiosity to bypass his need to forget. "How bads is it?"
"Honestly, not the worst I've seen, but someone already tried to clean you up. There are little traces of blood, semen, or feces in the general area, which I expected to find. You're going to be bedridden for at least a week, and moving's going to be difficult. I would recommend you remain laying down. I'll put you on a high fibre diet and we'll use stool softeners when necessary to ease difficulty. Also, a sitz bath afterward may help relax the area, as well as pre- and post-applied topical creams. . ."
Toki couldn't believe he had this conversation. This was never supposed to happen, not to him, not to anybody. For the soft mattress beneath him, the comfortable temperature as Monterrey sank into evening, and the empty thrum of blood pounding to the tune of his heart, Toki felt no peace. Reemerged unwillingness to consider his own situation turned his thoughts back to Skwisgaar. Where did he sleep tonight? Where was Raina's home, in Monterrey? Did he know what happened? Was he here earlier, to overhear Francisco's conversation with the woman that brought them south of the border?
No amount of brutality waged against Toki could completely quell his hope. Maybe he was a fool for that. Maybe his survival record fed him false expectation. Until the day Toki died, though, he'd make it his mission to retrieve that stubborn, beautiful, son of a bitch and get them back into the United States. If Raina could so heartlessly treat human beings like trophies or mere casualties when damaged this way, whatever attachment she held for Skwisgaar was conditional. One day he too, in all his brattiness, would piss her off. Then what?
Toki couldn't do much in his current condition. If Raina believed staying in this city would save her from the punishment Charles would exact upon her when caught, she thought wrong. Toki would go no easier, should he get his hands on her. Considering various ways of torture birthed a smile across Toki's face as Rosa finished up her job. Skinning someone alive and poking at their organs never appealed so greatly. The mental image of holding Raina's heart in his hand at the very moment it stopped beating elicited a happy sigh.
"There, that should take care of that. I want you to move very carefully, so that they aren't strained. I'm going to give you a sleeping pill before I go. You've got a road of healing ahead of you, and it might help to be out for as much of it as possible."
