Disclaimer:  I return all play-toys to their rightful owners . . .eventually . . .in a form at least slightly reminiscent of how I found them . . .maybe . . .

AN: Thanks to all those reading.  Double thanks to all those reviewing.  If anyone has problems with the direction my story is taking or any suggestions, please inform me.

A Taste of Misery

Part 7

Jack reclined at the back of his cell, his right wrist, swollen now, resting against his chest.  There was no obvious outward change in his behavior, but something about his eyes warned the world that things wouldn't go as smoothly anymore.

Jack Sparrow had stopped caring.

The cell door clanged open, just as it did every other morning.  The lad had already disappeared up the stairs to wherever he went to hide and play lookout while his two companions had their jollies.

Today was going to be different.

One man reached down to pull Jack onto his feet, gripping him by the shirtfront and hauling him upright.  He allowed them to pull him through the cell door and towards the stairs before he moved.

Grinning, he stopped, jerking his still-throbbing head backwards and laughing slightly at the satisfying crunch that told him he had managed to break—or at least badly injure—the other man's nose.  Taking a step towards the other red-coat, he swung as hard as he could with his left hand—and missed completely as a hand grabbed his shoulder and shoved causing him to stumble.

The grin faltered as he stared at Silverfirth, understanding beginning to dawn in his eyes.  He put up as solid a resistance as he could against the other man, but it was rather difficult to argue with a rifle butt when you were one-handed and exhausted.

In the end, he was dragged back into his cell, bloody and barely conscious, every inch of his body screaming in agony, just as he had known it would when he started the battle.  He had never planned on getting away, or getting anything, really, but more pain and perhaps the satisfaction of knowing that he had drawn blood.

He had gotten more, though.

In the instant when Silverfirth shoved him, he had known why they blindfolded him each time.

It wasn't simply to keep him from seeing the blows when they came.

It was to keep him from realizing that the three people who toyed with him were not the three people that he had always believed they were.

The shove was too inept, the hands too large, the palms not calloused enough.

Silverfirth was not his silent tormented, the pro that reveled in causing him agony.

His enemy was a man who feared to let him see his face.

The thought was still floating on his mind, distant and full of meaning, when the rich blackness of unconsciousness rose to meet him, dissolving the pain in the textured hues of nothingness.