Discretion is highly advised for scenes of rape and psychological violence.
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DATE UNKNOWN | LOCATION UNKNOWN
I'm proud of you for gettin' this far.
Derek said this to him once.
Spencer wondered if he might say the same if he saw him now. No swelling adulation could possibly drown out his current suffocation and ache.
And yet.
There was little regret for being in this current state. But he knew. He knew that what led to this punishment was but the mere beginning of something far worse. He just knew it. But while his mind was clear, he waited, and he thought of every permutation to determine what he should have done to make it all have gone differently.
And he waited. And waited.
—
Spencer's skin prickled when the air in the room shifted. On his back with his feet propped against the corner where the two walls met, hands folded into each other atop his belly, he'd been deep in thought. At the change of the pressure, though, he bent his limbs, turned, and sat upright.
He didn't have to think about who this was or what this would become. He already knew it was the man, for his wife had told him earlier that she would return after work. There was no beer in the air—the man hadn't come into the room in a drunken strop in . . . well, he'd only done it just the once. As there was no routine to be had at this hour, he—by deduction—knew that he was to be raped.
It was a numb horror at this point. All he hoped was that all the needed things for him to act would be checked off this day. One already was.
It went just as he predicted, and he didn't resist: he was made to drink almost three whole bottles of beer alongside the two drugs. He waited to determine if he would be taken to the toilet or not.
Instead, the length of chain on his ankle fell away and he was urged with a tap-tap to turn to his front. The chains on his arms weren't shortened. His pants were pulled down to his knees, and his breath stuttered.
Check, check.
Six more times within these near two weeks. Twelve times total. Today would be number thirteen. Spencer knew that he had about fifteen to twenty more minutes of clarity before the beer and the drugs would kick in. It was a small window.
This was the moment and opportunity he'd been waiting for. Once the exact circumstances allowed, he would act. He would go on the offensive again.
In the days following the resumption of the rapes, he'd started slipping into a dissociative fog during the acts and was generally docile during the transgressive acts.
The unresisting manner seemed to have lowered the man's guard: for one, the man had taken to the habit of untethering his foot now. For the other, he had sometimes roused beyond the dissociation at the sensory input of a rhythmic, cold flicker—a tapping against his thigh or buttock—and he had experimented with brushing his fingers against it if ever he had the mobility. What he felt filled him with determination, and he formulated a plan.
However, the plan wouldn't work unless the exact set of circumstances were presented to him—the supposed time of day, and the manner of tethering.
It meant—it meant that he had to abide the rapes to continue, as there was no pattern or routine for when his rapist would choose to violate him. Everything aligned properly on this day, though. And if all went well, then he would no longer be here. There wouldn't be a fourteenth occasion.
Either that, or he was a dead man.
He had the exact mobility he needed.
The brush of clothes against his exposed skin, the pressure against him made plain that the man sat astride his thighs. A calloused hand then clamped upon his neck. Terror didn't grip him but rather an unshakable resolve and a rush.
He was going to do this.
Hissing and shifting as he was indelicately breached, he waited, breathed, swallowed. As soon as the man was flush against him and set in his perfunctory rhythm, Spencer just went for it.
He heaved his body, left elbow colliding against the side of the man's head as he twisted toward his left to the edge of the bed. He and the man atop him rolled and fell to the ground below.
Without waiting—having fallen supine atop the man—his elbow bashed against the head again, and with his right hand he blindly reached for the chain that had been attached to the cuff around his ankle. Finding it, he wrapped his hand around it as a struggle ensued.
It was a scramble and tangle of limbs, but with how they were positioned, he managed to grasp his fingers in the man's hair and simultaneously jab his knee against his head before slamming it down to the ground below and kicking.
Again, he didn't wait. The chain in his hand was wrapped around what he was sure was the man's neck and cinched; he braced his right foot against the body and his back against the bed for better leverage. With his hands, he heaved the chain towards him while he pushed the body away with his foot.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Action. Reaction.
He tugged and he pushed simultaneously. A hand beat against his leg again and again.
Force transference. Tension force.
The sharp edges of the chains were slipping between his fingers, pinching into his palms, slick with his blood, his sweat. His chest rumbled with his growl; he wouldn't release it, wrapped the chain around both hands and yanked toward him while his leg pushed and pushed and pushed.
The man had the advantage of being able to see, yes, but the arm that was beating him with repeated blows to his leg was weakening—
Then his brain, in an effort to preserve itself, shut off all non-essential bodily functions. His arms gave out—
—before it just stopped.
"Oh god."
He did this. He did this.
He rasped in a breath, and he didn't release the chain, didn't give it a single ounce of slack.
Oh god.
He jerked at it, arms shaking, muscles trembling, grunting in his effort, heart thrashing against his chest. With clenched teeth, he screamed and he pulled and he tugged with every bit of energy he had while his leg quaked from the exertion; the blood rushed to his head and tears prickled behind his eyes.
He would kill the man.
He would kill him!
He didn't let go. But for counting the seconds, there was nothing but static in his mind. For one minute his muscles quivered; for another they spasmed; for a third they—along with his hands—numbed. But he was sure that the man was incapacitated by now, and he let the chain go.
He was dead. Surely, he was dead.
"Son of a bitch, son of a bitch," he rasped, gasping, shuddering, gagging. He pulled his pants up before scrambling on his cut hands and on his knees and padding his fingers to touch every surface of the man's clothing.
"Damn you, you son of a bitch," he whispered, chest heaving. He could spit on him, a thing he never would have thought to do to another person. "Damn you."
His hands continued wavering over the body below.
"Where are they? Where are they?" They had to be here. They had to be. With the brush of his hand over bristly, coarse hairs, he gagged again; the man's pants and underwear were still bunched to his thighs, groin still exposed. He found what he was looking for on the hem of the pants, attached to a belt loop.
A ring of keys.
These were what he sometimes felt, cold and flicking against his buttock or against a thigh, and their presence had sparked this.
There were so many. God. They were attached to the loop of his pants with a carabiner, and his fingers shook as they clasped around it and pulled it off. But he needed one. Just one key would free him.
And he found it.
The small, distinct K-300 key among the many others was singled out, and he swallowed down his mounting trepidation as he brought it to one wrist.
He'd thought this through.
Step one—that of incapacitating his captor—was complete. The next step was finding the keys. That was complete.
With shaking, pressing, searching fingers, he found the locking mechanism on his left wrist, turned the key atop it until it slipped in, and he twisted. The tightness loosened enough for him to slip his hand through. He did the same to the right; in moments, it, too, was freed.
Step three was complete, and he didn't waste time. He reached for the bed and walked around its foot until he reached the south wall. There, he placed his hand against the wall and quickly stumbled toward the toilet and sink as he pocketed the keys.
The room was approximately twenty-three by fifteen feet based on his observations. He'd dragged his hand more than once along the west wall—where the head of his bed was—when he was led to the bathtub. There was nothing there but cinderblock. He'd done the same to the south wall—the one he faced whenever he was put to rest —a few times when he was taken to the toilet. When sitting on the toilet, he'd reached a tentative right hand out further under the guise of bracing himself, and found that he could touch the perpendicular wall, so he knew there was no door along the south wall.
North and east it was.
He reached the toilet and fell to his knees, where he lifted behind his left ear, ripped off the tube port, peeled the tape at his nostril, slipped it through any encasing leather, and withdrew the tube from within him, shivering as it was extracted. In the next moment, he then jabbed his index and middle fingers into his mouth, coughing and gagging. Once his stomach clenched, he gripped the seat with one hand and vomited.
After gathering his breath, he dipped his hand in the bowl and blindly fished for anything solid.
He'd thought this through—removing the brace could wait. It could.
Visual stimulus would be difficult for him to get under control for hours. Although there would be no long-term effects of allowing light to touch his eyes, the initial effects would be blinding, making sight difficult though not impossible. It would be disorienting, distracting. Retinal pigmentation regeneration would take time, so he needed to gradually come from the darkness. Even after nearly two months of light deprivation, the first inclination—that of wanting to see—needed to be set aside in light of this understanding.
He didn't have the luxury of time or distraction at this moment. Once he got outside of this room, he would. The woman was hours away from returning. Everything aligned this day, and he wouldn't squander this opportunity. He just needed to take the cuffs off his wrist, get the toxins out of his system, get to the other side of the door to this room, and he would be fine. There, he would remove the brace, and he would acclimatize himself to the light before continuing his escape.
That besides, he didn't want to pass his faulty eyesight on his captor and rapist. If he never saw that visage and form, he would be fine not knowing what he looked like. A monster need not be shaped into a human.
So he took in a steadying breath and calmed himself. This would work as planned. It would. But upon feeling nothing, he groaned and cursed out a Damn it! He brought up his other hand to his mouth, and gagged again before vomiting. Dip, search, and there it was.
One found, and then the other.
He placed the tablet chunks on the floor, hurried to the sink to rinse his hands, and returned to the cinderblock, where he slid his hand forward against it and walked alongside the wall, balancing himself and anticipating what was in front of him.
He reached a cool, protruding object.
It wasn't a door. With both hands, he determined its shape in quick, sweeping movements: top, bottom, sides. With it jutting out from the wall, he surmised—based on its shape and the padlocked handles that formed in his mind's eye—that it was a wardrobe of some sort.
The morbid curiosity to know its contents stayed his hands for mere seconds before he thought not to waste time on this. That academic inclination to know more was natural, but it would be ignored here. He wasn't foolish, and the sense of self-preservation that often eluded him was intact enough for him to ignore this. He walked around it and pressed his hand to the wall again.
Reaching the north wall, he began trailing his fingertips along it. Most doors were nearer a corner. This one was no different.
He found it—step five.
Within another moment, he found the lever handle, and he wasted no time in wrapping his hand around it and twisting down. But the door caught, barely budging.
His head jerked. "What?"
He wrenched at it, turning the lever handle and pulling again and again. His heart clamored in his chest. He'd been calm before, knowing that every step he took was sound. But this—
This was an unplanned aberration.
There must be a—an additional latch somewhere.
His hands began petering out everywhere as he reached up and bent down until he found, near the bottom, an elaborate system of metals that all came together as a surface bolt requiring a key to disengage.
"Shit," he hissed. "Shit, shit." He turned to face out behind him. "You lock yourselves in the room with me?" The man was dead. There would be no answer. But he couldn't help himself.
Of course the victims would have tried to escape. Of course these people would have bettered their methods of subjugation and captivity with each new victim. It was in the damned profile.
"You son of a bitch. Son of a bitch!" With the last angered cry, he slammed a fist on the door.
What calmness he had was gone. He needed to get the brace off. He needed—he had to see. Now. It wouldn't matter how disorienting this might be. He had to see.
His hands padded out beyond the door and came upon what he knew was a circular dimming switch. He twisted it to lower the light, dropped to his knees, pulled out the keys from his pocket, found the K-300 key, and tilted his neck to the side, fingers dancing and skittering as he brought his hand up to put the key into the side of the brace with a delicate push. This one would, at the least, allow him to see. There would be five more to undo after this.
He grunted in frustration as he kept missing the damned keyhole from the shaking of his fingers.
Still. "Close. You're close. Don't panic."
But what if she was there, just on the other side? There had been two of them, and he didn't know—
If she was around—
"Oh god." He kicked his head back against the door at the yawning dread that opened up within him. "Oh god, god."
If she heard—
She'd come and this could end up leading to his death and he couldn't—
Should he stop? He should stop. He should. The overwhelming dread froze every muscle in his body. He couldn't take a lungful of air. His chest would collapse—it would!— and he kicked his head back against the door again and again and—
Hey, hey. Hardhead! Stop that. Don't do that.
Oh Derek. He moaned. He remembered that voice. He knew exactly when this was.
"I can't breathe," he choked out.
You're panicking.
"You're panicking. You're—pan—panicking."
You're panicking. Let's get you calm. In, two, three, four; out, two, three, four. C'mon. Let's sit and do breathing exercises.
He knew this. He remembered this so well. And so he braced his hand on his belly to belay the fluttering and sucked in a deep breath, held it, counted. In, two, three, four. And out. Two, three, four. And he barked out a strained laugh, and another because he remembered this all so well.
After he could regulate his breathing, he reasoned in low whispers he couldn't hear beyond the resonance in his head. "She's not here. She's working. You know this. You know this. These people follow patterns. She's not here."
And so he worked to calm himself from what could have been a terrible choice. Not when he was so close. He turned to the door in the same moment that he brought the key up.
"Oh god."
It shifted in. He took another deep breath to calm himself, to ready himself to see again after the disorientation would pass, to hear, to be free from all of this. It would take time, but he was at the cusp of freedom.
The proximity of sweat, leather, and grease accompanying that inhalation didn't quite register properly in his mind.
In the same moment that he was to give a sharp twist of his wrist to unlock it, an arm was wrapping around his neck and his back was pressing against the only person that it could at this moment. A terrible sense of déjà vu overcame him. He'd been weakened, dehydrated, starved, and disoriented the last time they were in this position.
How?
How?
"No!"
And then he roared aloud again, twisting his head down. Not this time. He was determined for this to end.
He brought up his hands, grabbed the forearm as he simultaneously sidestepped and wrenched down. At the next moment, his left hand was swinging back into the man's groin, the body behind him was bending forward in reaction, and his elbow was coming up to drive and connect with the man's face.
He was let go, but despite moving forward, he knew. This was a losing fight.
His head was wrenched back and he hollered. His hands flew to the one gripping his hair. His heart plummeted into his stomach, and yet there it was, beating in the back of his mouth.
His fingers scratched and he swiveled and contorted himself. They two became another crude choreography of entwining appendages, and he still didn't understand just how .
With breath-stealing force, the man managed to pummel him in the torso, downing him, and he was on his side, curling.
The man pulled away from him, his cuffed ankle was tugged, and his leg was lifted as he was wrenched backward.
Tug of war—need to grip something to counteract his force—
But how in the hell—
Mad—they'll be—
Why isn't he dead?
—livid. Punishment or death or—
He turned and twisted and pulled away before driving his foot into dead air. Finding himself on his knees, he stretched for the door again.
Was it even where he reached anymore? Was it to his left? To his right? North? West? East?
And what was he to do after he reached the door with the damned surface bolt and without the keys he'd taken? Will it to open?
His ankle was grabbed, his body flattened to the ground, and further back he was dragged. The skin—of his abdomen, of his right cheek, of his palms—burned against the gritty surface below, and he tried to make sense of his next steps.
There had never been a Plan B.
There was only Plan A. There was Step Six. This wasn't a game of chess where he was given multiple variables, where he could envision the board and all its pieces, where he could change his course due to an undetermined change. This had been calculated with the limited options that were presented to him.
The dragging stopped. The hand twisted into his hair and the brace again as his head was ground into the floor. His legs kicked out and he bucked left and right to just free himself. Maybe—
Maybe he could try again, try harder, not fail. He had to.
But the man sat astride him and a chain—the same one he'd tried to garrote him with, surely—was stretched across his own neck. He spat, grunted, hissed, screamed; he bowed his back as his fingers clamped underneath the length of chain to push it away as it pressed against his neck.
As he stretched one hand up, the other crossed over to the man's wrist, gripped, and he slammed the same elbow into the crook of the man's arms to weaken, unbalance, and dislodge the locked holds. The face was out of reach, and he suspected the man was pulling his head away to avoid being gouged. He gripped, scratched, punched, squeezed, kicked everywhere he could. His nails dug into the hands pushing down the chains.
As his fingers danced around, they slipped along the man's left hand, which was torn, fleshy, and moist. The harrowing realization whisked his breath away: the man had used the hand to protect his neck from the garroting, and in the process had crushed and gored it.
What the hell had he done—toyed with him? Made him falsely believe he'd been successful?
Had he watched in amusement and delight as his victim drew closer and closer to freedom and waited until the last moment to dash his hopes to the ground?
"Fuck!" he barked, enraged. His jaws hurt with the strength at which his teeth were clenched.
"I hope I broke every fucking bone in your hand, you son of a bitch!" he snarled between his struggles. "Every—every fucking bone! I hope your hand is broken!" He could hear his own muffled voice vibrating as he screamed his invectives.
A powerful backhand struck him. His head snapped to his right as he bellowed from the force of a blow that proved the hand was just fine. His neck cracked, and his darkened vision flashed white and blue in nebulous bursts, leaving him stupefied as his ears rang.
Again he was struck, and then again. His eyes watered, and the copper tang of blood was heavy on his tongue, pooled from his nose.
Both hands then grabbed the sides of his face and beat his head against the ground with a force that must have cracked it. He grunted, and every muscle in his body slackened. His head was thumped against the ground again.
In the fractal seconds that passed, a strange and broken kaleidoscope of sensation pieced the cuff being locked around his wrist. With the touch of that material, his grasp on reality fizzled and solidified in inconsistent, nauseating waves.
There was no ground beneath him, just the ungentle touches that fell upon him. Whatever rage and bravado he had displayed just moments before dissipated. He curled onto his side and tucked his other hand between his legs, trying to protect the little freedom he had.
"Nn-nn. Nuh, nuh, nuh, nn—no, no—"
His cuffed ankle was grabbed, jostled, weighed down, tethered with chain. Filled with a need to prevent the last limb from being fastened like the other two, he guarded it, gurgled and slurred as spittle dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
"I ca—" His lungs couldn't fill to capacity. He gulped in a large, shaking breath of air and his limbs all quaked from the sweltering heat engulfing him. Finally, he was able to bark out a sob before the words came out:
"I can't do this. I can't. Please, let me . . ."
Continuing to hide away his hand, he cried out when he was turned and then slapped again with an open palm. The hand he tried to protect was plucked from his body, and he rolled against it, nearly dislocating his shoulder as he pressed his face to the ground. It was stretched behind him, and with little resistance, the other cuff wrapped around his wrist.
Chest heaving, he tried to draw in a full breath. His hands fell upon his face and his shoulder blades ached with the wracking sobs that shook his whole body against the ground.
"I can't—can't do this anymore. Please, let me go. Let me go."
He would never escape this. He would never be free.
Turning to his side again, he made himself small, tried to disappear under the gaze of his captor. But his hands were shaken about, and he knew that a chain linked them together. They tautened as the man pulled on them; dragging him a short distance across the floor before the pulling stopped and they were shifting.
After being rolled to his back, he had the wherewithal to shift toward the locking chains. They were wrapped and padlocked, attached to the drainage grate embedded into the floor that didn't give with his struggle.
His ankle was forced away, his leg was pulled straight, and the chain attached to the cuff was shortened, giving him no slack at all. Another cuff was attached to his other ankle and he, pinned, was unable to move upon the floor.
A cry of trepidation burst from his lips. "Please—"
In the next moment, both of his palms were belted, and his fingers curled up as he yowled. Ten lashes and five. Gulping several heaving breaths, he tucked his lips between his teeth and straightened his shaking fingers.
The man continued beating his cut hands, and he hollered in agony until they were numbed. At twenty, the lashes stopped.
He had tried and he had failed.
Spencer was sat upon with the man astride his pelvis, and he panted in foreboding, breaths short and thready.
"Why do you do this? Why do you two do this?"
There was a tapping at his eye atop the leather covering it, and he flinched. His breath stilled.
He ripped his head to the side when the man's thumb pressed against his lips and pulled the bottom down. A fingernail clicked against a bloodied tooth. Breaths puffed in and out from the mounting panic.
The man then grasped his sore hand and squeezed his fingers—index and middle—from the fingertips down to the base.
"No, no."
But they let go.
His sweatshirt was pulled up. His limbs shook. "Please, please," he blubbered. "I can't! I can't do this anymore ."
The finger traced above his navel on the t-shirt and made a distinct, single mark. He hitched his breath and whimpered. In the same spot, more marks were drawn, and in his torment, he couldn't distinguish them as anything specific. The finger glided and traced, circled and slithered, went up and down and across.
Again, the leather above his eye was tapped, again his fingers were pinched, and again his lip was pulled down for a thumb to trace across his clenched teeth.
If he bit the thumb, calamity would follow. It wasn't worth it.
The hand returned to his torso and repeated the same series of motions and, concentrating, he could understand the second time.
Choose.
Spencer shook his head. "You can let me go. Why can't you let me go?" He mewled when the finger tap tap tapped the same spot on his torso, impatient.
He knew what immediate, muscle-tensing pain came with a tooth extraction. And the man once told him that if he destroyed or messed with the leather he would break a finger, which would result in additional corporal punishment. He couldn't imagine what his eye would involve.
Above all, it was daft that he was being made to choose what his punishment would be.
"I won't do it again. I swear it. I'll comply." He swallowed, throat dry. "I'll comply. I'll cooperate." He wouldn't do it again, yes, but he was careful not to apologize. He wouldn't apologize for attempting to free himself from this place.
"I swear it. I swear it."
The body lifted away from him after his sweatshirt was shoved back down, and for many minutes his mind danced and flashed with horrid images of what was to come.
"Please!" he called out.
A small gust signaled his return, and his hands were manipulated again.
Oh god. He was to break a finger, wasn't he? Oh god! Spencer held his breath, tensing.
Instead, his left hand was braced to the ground below before a pillow was placed atop it.
He clenched his teeth and stilled, knowing nothing more he would say would deter the man and would only further irritate him if he resisted.
Distracted with failing attempts to quiet his mind, he held his breath at the growing pressure atop his pillowed hand until the weight was crushing it. He hollered, tugging his hand.
"Stop, please. Stop, stop! You'll break my hand."
It must have been the man's heel; the weight ground atop his hand into the ungiving floor, and he gagged from the pangs.
He was left to breathe when the foot lifted away, and not for long.
His legs were loosened from the chains, and he was twisted to his front. His pants and underwear were ripped down under his buttocks, and he was forced onto his knees with his chest pushed against the ground. The man's hand gripped onto the brace on his head and pulled back, and with the pull his arms tautened. He wailed, shoulders quivering at the impending affliction he was soon to suffer.
There would be no drugs, no alcohol to soften the blow.
And, indeed, the man then finished what he had aimed to do in the beginning, cementing himself to his victim before the fingers of his other hand latched onto and twisted into the back of his shirt to better anchor himself.
—
It was the woman who bathed him—after the man beat, slapped, and belted him with such severity that he couldn't move, then strangled him with such force that he thought his neck would snap or his head would pop off—and she made quick work of it. She wasn't supposed to be back for hours to come, yet here she was.
The towel in her hand excoriated his bruised and sensitive skin without a hint of the tenderness she showed in the past. The water ran cool, and he hissed, shivered, and moaned.
After being led to the bed, he was dried and clothed, underwear and pants pulled up without the usual application of any ointment to ease the pains of either the rape or the beatings. She did the same for his t-shirt as well, and then fitted a sweatshirt on him.
He was compliant throughout it all, holding his sore hand to his belly. None of the bones were broken that he could feel, but it smarted, and he would need to limit any unnecessary strain on it for a couple of days.
And then he was pushed down—not to his side as wonted, but on his back. Below, the mattress rippled and bubbled; his eyes pricked at the memory of his previous punishment.
He rasped out a scratchy moan, hummed as each ankle was cuffed and tethered without any slack.
Something slithered beneath him and began to encircle his waist. He whimpered. They were going to use that restraint again. He didn't resist as it was cinched and tethered. There was no point in putting up any resistance, and he was sore: from the tip of his head where his hairs were wrenched to his scuffed knees that had pressed and rubbed against the ground even though the fabric of his pants protected them while he'd been raped.
She then grabbed the cuff of his left wrist and stretched it across to his right hip, and he breathed in a stuttering breath as it was connected to the waist restraint. With a tug, he found that there was no slack.
"Please." It was said in nothing more than a whisper he was sure, but then his voice rushed out. "You can stop this. You can stop this, pl—"
It was clear that the woman was vexed with him, for she pinched his lips with a vicious wrenching before continuing as she was before.
By her doing, his right hand crossed over his left and was attached to the left side of the waist restraint, shoulders pinching forward. In minutes, this would hurt.
The hood, which he had worn those many hours in the beginning of his captivity, slipped over his head, the leather band cinching around his neck. He tried to lift his head but was prevented from bending forward to relieve his shoulders or breathe more easily. It must have been tethered, too.
A shuddering breath left him, and he couldn't help but feel that in his captor's eyes, he certainly deserved this.
She tapped his arm once, and then she left him. The pressure changed, signaling her departure from the room. Soon, the temperature in the room was kicked up.
It was uncomfortably torturous. He felt confined with the hood once again shrouding his face, unable to tug it from his mouth or nose. It was maddening.
He couldn't adjust himself and relieve the ache in his shoulders, too, and he couldn't let his head drop back for too long, lest he aggravate his sore throat after the strangling he'd undergone earlier. He couldn't turn, and he couldn't curl up.
It took mere minutes before the muscles of his shoulders began to ache. He tried to bow his back to quell the pain, but the chains on the sides of the waist restraint held steady.
He'd gotten far. Very far and very close. And Derek's words came to mind.
That was where he found himself now, thinking about him. He would have fought for his freedom, too, to his last breath. And seeing him here, now, he would say his praising You did good, kid and give him a rap on the shoulder or chin, ruffle his hair, sling an arm over his shoulder.
He missed him. He missed all of them, but having heard Derek's encouraging voice when he was so near his freedom made that pang severe and sharp. He missed knowing that his affection and intimacy were from a loving, innocent place. If he got free from here, would that friendship be the same anymore? He had been on the cusp of becoming more comfortable with reciprocity.
Was this something that was forever lost? Could he ever again accept a touch from Derek, accept the physicality of their relationship when it was something he had craved?
These people—the man—might have ruined something so treasured for him.
—
It wasn't long before the complete confinement brought on by such a stressful position made him nauseated and sweaty. His breaths came out in stutters; the muscles below his jaw down to his shoulders pulsed; the air was hot, stuffy, and musty in the hood.
He whimpered and trembled. This was a simple but effective torture that put stress in one location and wouldn't relieve it. The only way he was able to endure it was by purging his mind and falling into a grey fog.
Where he began to itch, he couldn't scratch; where he began to ache, it couldn't be relieved.
It was downright maddening.
He slipped in and out of the fog, nearly found himself vomiting from the swelling pain, and would fall into grand paroxysms of mania—grunting, spitting, growling, rasping, twisting, struggling, bellowing.
He couldn't sleep. He couldn't think beyond the torment. Each time, the disengagement was more difficult to reach than the last, and his delirium grew in intensity.
—
It was almost a full day, he was sure, before they came to release him.
By the time anyone came at all, his upper body was consumed with his agony, hunger, and thirst. Trembling and spasming, he sucked in thready breaths, and he was drenched in sweat. He hadn't been able to divorce himself from it and knew he would have if he hadn't at least been so restricted in his movement.
Isn't that the point of all of this? To let me suffer for what I've done?
It was the woman who came and uncuffed his wrists. Gasping as soon as they were freed, he let out a dry sob as his left hand was shoved with an indelicate jerk.
He had to quell his nausea, and his right hand shook as it trailed to his neck while the waist restraint was also removed. It was slapped away, and the hood was next released and removed. He sucked in a large breath of cool, fresh air, and let out a steadying breath.
Before he could even bring his own hands together and press each digit upon the flesh of his face, before he could register other sensations, he was taken in a staggering pull to the toilet, where he was made to urinate and defecate.
Too achy to clean himself, unable to twist and clench the spray hose, the woman rinsed him instead, and he had to hang onto her clothes so he wouldn't fall over. It was humiliating.
He was towel-dried, his pants pulled up after being made to stand, his hands were washed alongside the woman's, and then he was returned to his bed in the same manner as he'd left it. He leaned to the side as he sat, trying not to agitate his sore posterior, and the woman stayed.
He needed water. He needed to sleep. He needed relief. He didn't know if he could handle much more without some reprieve. Nausea swelled at the back of his throat. If he had—
If he had just a couple of hours to recover, then he might be able to reorient and recalibrate himself, withstand any additional onslaught of torture.
But the woman wasn't leaving him to recuperate, and so he dragged his right hand on his thigh in trepidation, his sore left hand upturned on his other thigh, shaking. She gave him a pat pat, let her hand remain on his shoulder, and then tucked something small and papery into his right hand.
What is this?
If it wasn't a cup of water or tea, he wasn't interested. But on that note, perhaps he didn't yet deserve either of those things, or to be fed, or to be allowed to rest. If he didn't yet earn those things, something about receiving this little thing in his hand wasn't right. They didn't just give him items unprompted. They gave him nothing to idle his mind or hands with.
It was thicker than text weight—cardstock weight he surmised—glossy or velvety in its finish. There was nothing recognizable about it when he tried to detect any bumps or creases on the paper's surface.
The breaths puffed in and out. There was scarcely a chance to relish in the fresh air after his torment, yet it seemed to thin around him with foreboding.
Just what is this?
His hands shook, his shoulders ached, and he brought it up to his nose to give it a sniff. Just paper. It had a faint scent of leather, but that was all he could detect from it.
It wasn't just paper, though. It was—it was important. But what?
A knee pressed against his, but it wasn't the woman's. He'd not noticed until now that the man was here. The paper slipped out of his fingers as the man took it from him. He began to massage his left hand in fretful dread.
The man tapped his hands, and he raised them without hesitation but hissed with the uncomfortable shifting in his clavicles.
The man began to spell in deliberate measures. They were just five letters, but they undid Spencer. The blood coursing through his veins seemed to congeal. In his captivity, he hadn't at any point realized the genuine threat there was against the people he cherished.
"Henry."
Unbidden in his mind's eye was that precious child, his godson's plump face and large, rounded eyes. His fingers tightened around the man's hands, and his breath was whisked away.
His captor was unforgiving in what he next said. "Try to escape again. We will take him. We will bring him here. We will keep him."
"No," he voiced. His hand went to cover his mouth and tears pricked at his eyes. He knew they'd taken some of his possessions from his satchel.
In his personal wallet, which he kept in a pocket of his bag, he had—among a few others—a little picture of himself and Henry with their cheeks pressed together, his godson's mouth wide open in laughter.
It was taken when—months ago—Henry had dressed up in Spencer's likeness and came into the Quantico Precinct. Will had given it to him just a week later, the afternoon after Spencer had watched Henry for the parents when they had gone to dinner and stayed at a local hotel for the night.
'That godwife of yours is somethin' else,' Will had quipped, giving Spencer his signature, sluggish grin. 'Sent us this. We went ahead and got it printed just before we got back.'
True to her fashion, Penelope had photoshopped cutesy letters that wrote Fake boy genius getting fashion tips from Henry, true boy genius. He had laughed warmly at the quip—Penelope's brand of humor—and at the memory of the occasion, and Will winked at him with the simultaneous clap of his upper arm. Turning it over, he read in Will's handwriting Love, Will, JJ + Henry.
Now, that innocent picture was in the possession of two amoral, twisted people. They wouldn't. They couldn't.
No.
No! There was nothing to suggest that either of them had a deviation towards children. He would think, given his theorizing about the man's own childhood, that he may even be averse to it.
"You can't do this," he asserted with shaking hands. "Please, you can't do this."
He felt overcome with a loss that manifested itself before its true fulfillment. He was bad for Henry. Jennifer made an error entrusting the child to him should anything happen to her and Will. He couldn't protect himself. He wasn't strong enough to keep himself from being abducted, from being held in captivity, from being raped. How could he possibly protect a child?
"He's just a child. Please, don't hurt him."
No sooner had the words ended with his hands crushed to his chest did the man grip his hair, making him arch into the hold that forced him down toward the mattress as he tried to alleviate the pain. At the heel of a vicious jerk that shook his frame, he clamped his willowy fingers atop the man's. The hold was released, and the man tucked his hand under his neck before pushing him to sit up again.
The man then tapped his hands before tucking into them to speak. "Pay attention. I do not —hurt—children."
He'd offended him.
Could he do nothing right?
Everything in his satchel—if they had that picture from his wallet, then they also knew where he lived. What else of his did they have? His books, envelopes and stationery for his mother's letters, his keys—
His keys—
He kept a key to Will and JJ's home on his key ring. He was bad for them! He was no good to them. They should never have known him at all!
These two were an intelligent team. They could do whatever he wanted to everyone in Spencer's life and get away with it long before they might get caught. Were he and his wife truly this cruel? They couldn't be.
Tap-tap.
As if his thoughts were transparent, keys were, in fact, placed in his hand.
He stilled.
These were his own. He knew them anywhere. He kept something special, something distinct with his keys, and his thumb padded along it, remembering every bump, letter, and shape. It was a small and simple token that he treasured, one that had been a physical earmark—to him—of something marvelous that was growing and would continue to grow.
He became awash with a cold wave in which he barely felt the keys slipping from his fingers by the man's doing.
It was a message—a simple message that he clearly understood: with access to his possessions, they had access to his life, whether or not they knew if any of these keys might access someone else's home.
Tap-tap.
"The mother. Jenifer. I know of her."
He didn't know how the man had extrapolated her name from just that photograph, but something, something had given her name away somehow.
Or maybe—he didn't know—it was nearly two months since he had gone missing; anything could be possible. Their names were often publicized, especially during press conferences. How often was it that serial killers kept track of investigators who interested them, or kept track of how close investigators were getting to their crimes? How often was it that serial killers began to obsess over those investigators? How many cases had he read about where this very thing happened? It even happened with Aaron and George Foyet, with Jason and Frank Breitkopf, with the team and The Replicator.
It wasn't a stretch to draw a line from her name to the initials JJ. So, Spencer knew. This man was not bluffing. He could be watching any of his team members, but it was obvious that the easiest link to break would be the most innocent of all of them, one whom Spencer was close to based on just that picture alone.
Tap-tap.
"I will hurt the father, and I will hurt the mother, and then I will kill them both. And I will let the boy watch everything before we take him."
The rush of graphic images his mind supplied of what this man could do to Jennifer, to Will, and—even though the man claimed not to hurt children—to make a young child like Henry suffer—it made his stomach turn. He still wasn't sure of what they might have done to their own son.
These people were hunters. They watched their prey, and they attacked and weakened them from all sides. This very well could happen.
Tap-tap.
"And I will use this to kill them."
A cold and heavy weight was placed in his hand—a distinct weight that he knew anywhere—36.6 ounces when empty. Its shape and texture were recognizable—known by every groove and dip, by its metallic frame and its wooden insert.
You know what this is?
His tremulous breaths came out soft and short as the memory of that voice was conjured in his mind.
Oh god. His fingers trailed over it.
It's God's will.
Despite its empty cylinder, his index finger tapped on the trigger in muscle memory after his right palm wrapped around the wooden grip. A soft sound of distress dribbled from his lips.
Choose one to die. I'll let you choose one to live.
Choose one to die and save a life.
Everything broiling within him was far too intense, and he leaned over to his side and vomited, gasping and heaving from the physical pain of his sore, shifting muscles and his pinching bowels as his very own Smith & Wesson revolver fell away from his hands.
Their lives depended on his actions, no doubt as good as holding his own gun in his hand, aiming it at them—front sight—curling his finger down on that spring-releasing mechanism—trigger press—and shooting them himself—follow through.
He couldn't live with himself—for however long he had left to live—if anything ever happened to any of them because of him.
Gasping, he wiped the corner of his mouth with his sleeve before swallowing down the vile flavor of his own sick. Not before long, citrus and lavender wafted from below.
A few short moments later, cuffs and chains were tightening around and weighing down his wrists again, but the one tethering his ankle was released.
The woman gave his hand a tap tap. "You've misbehaved."
He swallowed.
Tap tap. "The correction has to hurt. Understand that this is because you misbehaved."
And there it was. He had to resist letting his hand flick up to the side of his head with an I understand.
He waited for what would happen next, hands wringing. He dreaded it all, but he would comply. He would be better.
She gave him a last tap tap before she was drawing away from him.
The pungency of beer was pushed under his nose before smooth glass tapped the back of his curled hand. He shook. It tapped again.
Oh.
The man wasn't forcing him to drink it this time, like all the other times. He wasn't pressing it to Spencer's lips as he was wont to do. He was making him complicit in his own upcoming violation.
Choose one to die.
In abject desolation, a shaking moan escaped Spencer's mouth. The man clapped a hand over his neck and kept it there. It wasn't the same hand that had torn the hairs from his scalp many hours ago while he surged into him, no.
The thumb tapped and rubbed. The touch was patient and gentle. It was the false lulling of a trapped creature from the shadows to its slaughter.
The beer bottle circled over the skin of the back of his hand.
Your team members; choose one to die.
Shaking, hunching his aching shoulders, Spencer overturned his hand, taking it, gripping it.
It was flicked in his hand, and he brought it up to his lips, breathing out in hesitation—for just a fraction of a moment—before he downed its contents. Under his fingers, the bottle was tipped, guided so that he'd drink every drop. He breathed nasally around the bottle, nose stuffed with mucus. When he was done and as soon as the bottle left his lips, an aborted, quavering mewl drawled out.
The bottle was taken from him, and another was pressed into his hand. He took it, guzzled it down, and it was taken from him. In one hand, not two, but three whole tablets were placed, and in his other hand another bottle.
Tell me who dies.
Three tablets. Different sizes. He rolled them in his palm, and then his hand was flicked. He placed them in his mouth, and he downed the third bottle.
As the man had promised him, he wouldn't win. He would die here, or he would be found. There were no other alternatives. Tears would do nothing to impede the atrocities either of these people enacted upon him, and they were long dried.
The man took the empty bottle.
Or.
Better than accepting, he needed—he wanted—
He held out a shaking hand. Nothing happened.
"Please," Spencer began, unable to control his shaking hands. "Please. I need—"
No. He couldn't demand. They demanded.
"Please—" He was so ashamed. He was—
What would Derek think?
"Is there more?" He didn't want to be just tipsy or buzzed. He wanted to be so far gone, so intoxicated, so sloshed, that he would remember little of this.
Tell me it doesn't make it better.
It would.
But his request wasn't met. Instead, two fingers tucked under the hem of his pants and tugged.
Spencer shuddered, his head kicked back in desperation, and his stomach pinched. He clasped his hand over it.
He needed to accept this, yes, but he couldn't. He couldn't. He—
—can't. I can't. I can't.
"I can't do this. I can't do this," he murmured. "Please. Please."
While the two fingers lingered and didn't move, the man put his other hand back on his neck in that terrible, soft touch, tapping his thumb against it before tapping his leg twice with an open palm to usher his cooperation.
He understood. Leaning forward, Spencer felt the hand that had been laced around his neck drag down his chest as he stood, and his own right hand rubbed at his pants. The two fingers, which hadn't left his pants, tugged again.
Spencer tucked his thumb under the hems and set his mind to do this, to drag the pants and underwear down. This was to happen. He would endure it. He could. His aim before had been escape. His purpose now was to protect. He just had to remember what he'd thought after the first time he was raped: his body was transport.
That's all it was. This was just—it was just rape.
It would be.
But the act of removing his pants on his own while standing in front of this man made this more shameful, like he was a consensual partner preparing for an intimacy. This was anything but consensual.
With trembling hands, in resignation, wincing, he made quick work of removing the both all together and cupped his quivering hands over his groin. The man's left hand lingered where it had been at the hem of the pants, now on the flesh of his naked right hip and grasping loosely, thumb moving side to side.
Spencer's legs shook, and he let go but an aborted grunt when that hand moved to cup a buttock, blinded gaze kicking upward in dread. The man never touched him in this manner.
Why now? Why this change?
But he knew he shouldn't question it. He had predicted this the first time he was raped: this would escalate. After the many mechanical rapes wherein nothing deviant happened to him, he had hoped that they would be the extent of this man's sexual perversions.
He knew—he knew— that this would continue to worsen with time if he kept fighting this. They needed to find him. They had to find him. He might not be able to withstand much more before—
The hand clawed into the mound of flesh like a talon, nails digging in, and he wheezed in a rasp. That was as far as it went, but it unhinged him and he all but collapsed.
His lips cracked, and the voice slipped out. "Please . . ."
At that, the man removed his hand and stood. At their proximity, Spencer couldn't help but step back with his knees touching the bed before he became unbalanced and was sitting. With a hand now on his shoulder, he was steered down onto the bed and turned to his front with his face shoved into his pillow and a hand locked around the back of his neck.
Spencer grasped the sheets when the man tap-tapped his left hip just after the bed dipped. The bunched, coarse jean material grazed the insides of his thighs as the man stood on his knees behind him. The hand on his hip was loose. The fingers tap-tapped again but with a backward motion, urging him to move.
This was—
Choose, and prove you'll do god's will.
Never was he made to do any of this. Never.
He couldn't.
He didn't. He shook his head.
The right fingers tapped again while the left hand loosened from the back of his neck and fell away for a moment. It returned—not upon his neck, but to his back. There was a distinct form of something turned to its side in that hand—something 36.6 ounces heavy, a thing which he knew by every groove and dip and by its metallic frame and its wooden insert—and it tap tap tapped upon his back, swishing over the fabric.
It was a warning, and he understood it well.
He rasped a sob as he wriggled underneath the man, then pushed his sore body up and back until his knees were tucked under his chest and his buttocks were raised into the air.
It was disgusting. It was a presentation of himself—to be possessed, to be owned by his rapist. To permit.
His arms underneath him shook. The gun fell away from his body, and the hand returned upon his neck. Shuffling, the brush of guiding knuckles on the skin between his buttocks, and the pressure and swell of the tip of his penis. Just there. Waiting.
Waiting.
Your team members; choose one to die.
Spencer grunted with gritted teeth. His arms and legs quivered at the pain of the intrusion; his breath pushed out of him long and painful; his stomach jittered at the immediate revulsion; his hands gripped the sheets below him. And then he gagged.
Kill me.
For with another insistent tap-tap against his hip, he understood. He moved. It was he who had slowly pierced himself, pivoted back and forced his body onto the dry phallus, tearing himself anew, until the man's pelvis pressed against him. Only then did the man begin to set his perfunctory pace after giving his victim's thigh a customary clap of approval and praise.
