"What the fuck!?"
I struggled the best I could, but the restraints made it so I couldn't move too far one way or the other. Vlad picked up the end of my chain and hit me across the chest with it. I grounded my fucking teeth together, determined not to make a single fucking noise of pain.
"This will be easier if you don't struggle," Vlad said, so calmly that it made my skin prickle.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" I shouted at Elliot again, as his hands finished undoing my belt. I didn't want either of them fucking touching me there, hell, I didn't want them touching me anywhere. But the fact that Elliot was my goddamn clone made it a lot worse.
Vlad toyed with the microchip-looking thing in his hand again. As I watched, he placed it in something that almost looked like a gun, except it had things on the side that resembled claws. Whatever it was, whatever it's intended purpose, I wanted it to stay far away from me.
"We need access to his thigh," Vlad told Elliot, still inspecting the weapon. "The left one."
Elliot pulled my pants down to my knees. I jerked my legs away from him, trying to keep him the fuck off me, but without hesitation, Elliot jumped on top of me. He straddled my lower legs, holding my left thigh open to the cold air. I tried to dislodge him but it wasn't fucking working. Not only had my weeks of imprisonment stolen my ability to fight back, but Elliot was strong. It was one of the only ghostly traits that he'd managed to inherit.
"Get the fuck off!" I screamed, trying to write away before any real pain could begin.
"Save your voice and pathetic words, Daniel," Vlad advised me. "We're not listening."
He moved closer and I felt the gun-like thing press against my skin. Taking a deep breath,I grit my teeth together, clenched my eyes shut and mentally prepared myself. I would not scream; whatever he was going to dish out, I was going to fucking prove that I could take it. I was not weak and I would not let Vlad think that I had become complacent.
Vlad pulled the trigger.
The pain spread through me like wildfire; it was almost worse than when I was trapped in the portal. I wanted to cry, scream, something, anything that had a chance of relieving the pain that was overwhelming me, but there was nothing that I could do. I couldn't even breathe; the agony was so consuming. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted unconsciousness, but the universe wasn't merciful enough to let me.
Elliot climbed from my legs. I would have breathed a goddamn sigh of relief if I could have breathed; and if he hadn't bumped my injured leg. At the bump, bile flew into my throat, making me feel like I was going to fucking drown it.
"He's bleeding," Elliot observed, detached.
"It's not like you're going to be cleaning it up," Vlad said dismissively. "I'm going to supervise the new restraints. They'll be ready in an hour. Until then make sure he's not very happy."
"Gladly," Elliot replied.
I heard Vlad leave the room and then the movements of Elliot. When I felt him come close to me again, I wrenched my eyes open. My vision seemed distorted with pain but I could still make out the knife in his hand. I tasted bile again. I knew that I wasn't going to die at the moment – what would be the point of Vlad fucking microchipping me if he were going to kill me off in the next second? – but I almost wished I was. Elliot looked positively murderous as he leant over me and then I felt the blade of the knife touch my cheek and scratch against the beard that I'd been forced into growing.
"Facial hair doesn't suit you." Elliot rolled his eyes. "I want you to remember that I did something extremely similar to your sister."
The knife cut into my skin and a gasp managed to escape my lips at the fresh pain.
"Not the facial hair thing, of course," Elliot continued his monologue as the knife continued down my cheek toward my jaw. He wasn't just removing hair, he was removing fucking skin! "But what's coming after."
He switched sides and I could see that his hands were covered in my fucking blood. As he finished up his fucking shaving job, I couldn't help the tears that started leaking uncontrollably from my eyes. It was the worst kind of physical pain, and I wanted an escape.
I don't care if it's death or just unconsciousness, I thought desperately, trying to look anywhere but Elliot's satisfied face, just makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopMAKEITSTOP!
Elliot slammed the thick handle of the knife against my face and I felt blood stream from my nose, down over my lips. I gagged on the taste of my own fucking blood, and then I screamed aloud as he did something to my ribcage – I don't know if he stabbed me or shot me or what the fuck he did – but it was what pushed me over the edge. With one last desperate scream, my body gave up and I blacked out.
(-.-)
As I began to wake back up, the first thing that I was aware of was that someone was still with me, and they were touching me. A horrible stinging sensation was raging through my body, although it was nothing compared to the intense pain that had been with me when I passed out. There was something thick and cloth-like stuck heavily to my cheeks, and some dumbass part of my brain absently compared it to a diaper. It was a lot colder than I remembered it being. A hand pressed something onto my chest and then moved away. I forced myself to wake up a little bit more. The next time something touched me, I was going to break it. The touch returned, this time swiping at something.
I reached up with my hand to grab it, hoping I had enough strength to hurt whichever bastard was touching me.
"Stop!" a female voice cried and I had to pause to process it. "Fenton, it's Sam!"
Sam. I opened my eyes to see her looking down at me. It was Sam. It wasn't Vlad. It wasn't Elliot. It was Sam. Though I kept hold of her wrist, I loosened my grip. I wasn't totally convinced that it was really Sam in front of me, but if it were, I didn't really want to hurt her.
"It's just me, okay?" Sam assured me. "You were hurt pretty badly."
I looked down at my body, at the bandages that I now had on me. I looked to Sam's other hand. She was holding white fabric. She was … taking care of me? I knew then that it had to really be her. No one else would take care of me except for Sam. Even though she hated me, she was still one of the most compassionate people that I knew. I focused on her face and tried to make my brain work even more than it had been. I still felt like I was in a fucking fog. I tried to break free, and that's when the pain really hit.
"Sam?"
"Yes?" She leant even further over me.
"My leg. There's something wrong with it. My leg is fucking killing me." I thought about what Elliot must have done to it, and then the memory of Vlad slapped me.
"Where?" Sam demanded, leaving my upper half to hover around my knees.
"Left. Inner thigh." The microchip thing.
"Can you get your button?"
She was fucking worried about my pants? It wasn't like she'd never fucking undressed me. Trembling with pain, I did as she asked, because, even now, I couldn't bring myself to tell her no. I even undid my zipper, knowing that she would have been just as unwilling. Swiftly, Sam pulled my pants down and I tried not to think of how Elliot had done the same thing and the pain that had followed his actions.
"Fuck," I heard Sam say, and then she fucking left me. I whimpered as she walked away, even though it only took a few seconds for her to come back, crouching next to my head. "Here. Take these, before I even attempt to bandage it."
I saw the pain pills in her hand and I had to shake my hand. Sam had been stabbed; she needed them. Maheen had brought them for her. "Those are for you."
"I think you need them more than I do. Just take them, okay?" Sam ordered.
I looked into her purple eyes and clamped my mouth shut. I hurt. Fuck, how I hurt, but I wouldn't take them from her. I knew her own wound still bothered her and I didn't want to be the reason that she couldn't be completely comfortable.
"Don't be stubborn." She held her hand up to my mouth and I could feel the shape of the pills touching my lower lip. "Come on."
The prospect was far too tempting. Carefully, I opened my mouth and she dropped the pills into my mouth. I swallowed automatically as they hit the back of my throat, but then Sam lifted a water bottle to my lips. I almost choked on the drink, but I swallowed it too. Sam moved back to my leg, and I bit down on my back teeth, knowing that it was going to hurt like a motherfucker when she touched it.
She pressed one of the cold, wet wipes against my leg and a squeak escaped me. It stung. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was when she lifted my leg and bent my knee. The pull on my thigh made me scream and tears filled my eyes again. I couldn't handle this pain. I couldn't. Sam seemed unaffected by my pain as she continued to tend to my leg. Quickly, she put the bandage around my thigh, wrapping it so that it was completely around my leg. She ripped off a piece of tape and secured the bandage.
I breathed a sigh as she lowered my leg back against the concrete floor. I wasn't pain-free, but it was such an improvement that it almost felt like it.
She left my legs and came to sit back by my chest. I reached down to my pants and pulled the back up in an attempt to feel warmer. With my ice powers, I never felt completely warm anyway, but having my pants on made me feel better anyway. Sam sat there and watched me, her face pale and blank. When I finally relaxed against the floor, Sam picked up another wipe from her package and went back to taking care of my chest. She seemed to move mechanically, wiping away blood, putting a bandage over my wound, and then taping the bandage in place.
"Thank you, Sam," I whispered, surprising myself. I'd meant to only thing that. But she deserved to hear it. "For taking care of me."
I saw emotion flash across Sam's face. She looked surprised.
"Well, I couldn't let you suffer."
"You should have."
I closed my eyes before I could see her face. Her hands paused, her fingers brushing my bare skin. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that Sam wasn't touching me because I was me, she was touching me because Sam was as nice as I was mean; as good as I was terrible. While I knew that I would be incoherent with pain if it weren't for her nursing me, I also knew that I deserved the incoherency. I deserved to feel every inch of it, because this was also what Jazz and Tucker had felt, following their attacks. I deserved to feel it because of every wrong that I would never be able to set right.
I heard one last rip of the tape and Sam touched my chest one last time. I heard her breathe a sigh and then something soft touched my right arm.
"Your shirt is right here," Sam said. "Let me know if you need your jacket back."
I stayed against the floor, having no intention to put my shirt back on or take my jacket back. I let the cold pain flood through me, as I thought of how I would, never again, take something from Sam. I would only give her everything that I had left.
Sorry about the big gaps, guys, but my work hours have doubled in the past couple of weeks so it's going to take some time between chapters, but I'm not giving up on this story!
Thanks to my fantastic (and extraordinarily patient) betas: Forever Sky.
~TLL~
