Okay so I know it's been forever since I updated and I am sincerely sorry! I just got very busy and had a lot of personal things to deal with. But I hope to get back on track and keep updating pretty regularly from now on!

There is some torture (will be much worse next chapter) in this chapter so you've been warned.

Chapter 9: The Mad Doctor

The room was small, dark and damp. She couldn't see, but the chills running down her bare arms and the instant echoes of her breathing told her enough. A thick cloth was tied tightly around her head and her hands were tied behind her and secured to the chair she was sat in. Her legs were strapped to the legs of her chair as well, leaving her desperately immobile and helpless. She didn't know how long she sat there, but her legs had gone numb long ago and she lost track. Maybe she had fallen asleep at some point, but she wasn't really sure. Her head throbbed, and when she opened and closed her mouth she felt what must have been dried blood caked onto her cheek.

She could just make out the sound of footsteps as they drew closer and stopped behind her. The creaking of a heavy iron door shattered the silence and made her wince. But now she knew that the door was behind her, and any information was better than no information. She didn't try to hide the fact that she took in a deep breath as her captor walked past her, trying to take in a scent or something that would give her a clue as to where she was; but all she could tell was that this person was very clean and smelled like medicine. She heard weight flop down, there must have been a chair in front of her, and the annoying breathing of someone that either had asthma, or was overweight. The faint wheezes echoed off of the stone walls and repeated in her ear, grating on her nerves.

"What do you think we should do with you, thief?" A man's voice asked her. He sounded like a con artist right from the start.

She refused to answer, not until she got more information.

It sounded like he shifted in his chair, and she could smell smoky breath right in front of her face. "I convinced the Thief Taker to let me have you. He was going to string you up, you know. If I didn't know any better; I'd say he had a personal vendetta on you. It took a lot of convincing that what I had in store would be much worse than death."

She had to concentrate hard to keep her face still, void of any reaction or emotion. At least now she knew how she got here from the prisons beneath the Thief Takers manse.

After the incident that took the lives of her master and his former apprentice, Alia had shut down completely. She holed up in her apartment for two months. She locked her door and wouldn't answer it, and locked her windows as well. Even went as far as to hang blankets over them so that Basso couldn't send anyone via the thief's highway to check on her. She had to imagine that he might have thought she died in the little shit hole she called home. So he was surprised when she showed up again out of nowhere, demanding Garrett's jobs.

At first he refused, but he soon learned that two months recovering didn't dampen her skills or her vigor for the job. In fact, what he didn't know was that in those two months she was holed up, that's all she did was strengthen her body and her skills. Garrett had given her a training lock that reset its tumblers every time it was picked successfully, and she was now one of the fastest lockpicks that the fence had ever seen. Her body was now a strong, efficient machine. Every muscle was sculpted for a purpose. She was faster, nimbler, and could move as silent as a breeze.

She did very well for months. That's all she did was work, racking up the coin and the reputation along with it. Until about two weeks ago, when she was caught by the Thief Taker himself. He was waiting for her in that basement, as if he had known that she was going to be there.

"What are you thinking about?" The man asked.

Her only answer was silence.

"If you're not going to cooperate this is going to be much more difficult than it needs to be." He warned. He stood, and she felt the brush of fabric against her face as he untied her blindfold and let it drop into her lap.

She squinted against the light, surprised that there was any at all. The crisp autumn air breezed above her, only making her cell more cold and wet. A quick look around told her that her new cell was round, with a large hole in the ceiling on top of very tall, stone walls. A heavy steel grate was laid over the top, and the holes looked to be too small for her to fit through. Not that she wasn't going to try once she got out of this damned chair.

Her eyes fell onto the man before her and she was shocked that he looked… well, pretty normal. He was a round man with sandy brown hair that fell loosely over thin wire rimmed glasses. He wore a long white coat over a professional suit. He held a clipboard with notes she couldn't make out. What bothered her was his eyes. They were beady and so dark they looked black. There was no light in his eyes, whether that light was supposed to be emotion, or a soul, or even an indicator of a heartbeat. Her stomach sunk when she realized that the man in front of her was absolutely insane, but in the worst way because he looked okay on the outside.

"You can call me ." He said with a sick smile. "We're going to be spending a lot of time together." His round belly bounced as he chuckled. He seemed to study her face for a minute before adjusting his tie. "You know, it's almost such a shame to waste that pretty face." He cocked his head to the side. "I've always had a thing for dark hair. One of the reasons I was so pleased that the Primal chose Erin." He trailed off dreamily.

Alia narrowed her eyes at the name. "Erin's dead." Her voice sounded colder than her cell, and echoed dangerously.

His face bunched up with a small smile. "No, my dear. She's more alive now than she's ever been."

Her heart raced as a cold sweat broke out over her brow. "And Garrett?" She asked quietly.

He tapped his pen against his lip thoughtfully. "Nope. I don't know that name. Sorry."

"If Erin is alive, then Garrett must be."

"We only recovered the girl."

"Where is she?"

"Oh she's here. But I doubt you'll want to see her." He said knowingly.

She stared, waiting for the punch line.

He chuckled heartily again, a creepy laugh that didn't reach his eyes. "How do you think we knew where to find you?" He leaned forward, elbows on his knees so that she had to turn her head to avoid a collision with his; but this allowed him to whisper directly into her ear. "She gave you up." He threw himself back into his seat as he laughed, the legs of the chair raising off the ground and then slamming back from his weight.

She felt her gut twist with rage. She didn't think a dead girl would be her downfall, but here she was.

"I guess there's no honor amongst thieves." He said with a sneer.

"So you caught another thief?" She scoffed. "You act like you've cured The Gloom. I think you need to step down off that high horse and wallow in the shit with the rest of us."

His face turned serious in a flash. "Oh no, my dear you misunderstand. You are more than just a thief, so much more. See, the Primal chose Erin, but her body and mind aren't strong enough to handle all that raw power by herself." He gripped his clipboard like the fucking psycho nerd he appeared to be. "That's where you come in." He leaned back towards her. "All our other attempts. They… failed. But you, you have promise. That's why we had to have you." His eyes trailed her body lecherously.

Taking the opportunities that were presented to her, she hocked up a big wad of spit and launched it into his face. She smirked as he flailed around, trying to wipe it out of his eye. She was sick and tired of hearing this lunatic spew his bullshit.

That earned her a hard punch to her cheek that whipped her head around so fast her chair toppled over with her in it. Her head bounced off the stone floor and all she could hear was a high pitched ringing in her ears. Her eyes blurred, but she could just make out the door which was heavy looking and solid iron. The doctor leaned out the door and while cursing her existence he motioned for the two men that must have been waiting just outside the door.

She was hauled up roughly while still attached to her seat and drug out of the room. She threw her weight around, trying in vain to break free.

"Let me go you dickless fucks!" Her voice echoed in the shiny halls.

"Shut up, thief whore." One of the grunts tossed over his shoulder.

Even through her pain she managed to roll her eyes. "Oh how original." She spat. "You knuckle dragging swamp bitch. Now that's how you insult someone."

The doctor stormed behind them, his eyes boring into hers. "I might just do something about that mouth of yours while you're on the table.

The table? Oh boy, she sure knew how to get herself into trouble.

She learned that the table was down a few flights of stairs in what she could only guess was a basement. Various tools and instruments were on dingy trays and tables, with a long steel rectangle in the center fitted with leather straps and chains used to hold someone against their will. There was a large vat of some sort of blue sludge that upon looking at it made her hair stand up on the back of her neck. The sign above the door read THERAPY ROOM 3.

They were going to torture her, that much she found obvious.

When they untied her from the chair she instantly lashed out. Since they took all of her tools, her only weapons were the ones she was born with. She raked her nails down one man's face and kicked another in the groin. She was able to slip past them but the doctor, who she now realized was freakishly tall, grabbed her shoulders and bent down and his forehead met hers.

She felt like she had been head-butted by a train. Her vision went splotchy, and her legs crumpled beneath her. When she hit her knees, she felt her head jerk back. Goon number one drug her by her hair back to the table. He didn't seem to appreciate the new claw marks down his face as he kept touching them gingerly.

She was thrown like a sack of potatoes onto the cold steel table. The breath was knocked out of her and she was instantly flipped over onto her chest. Iron shackles were fastened to her wrist and then chained to the floor below her, and the same was done to her legs.

Even with all the pain she didn't start sobbing until she felt the knife start at the nape of her neck and cut all the way down her spine, flaying her shirt open and exposing her back. She struggled with all her might, yanking on the shackles so hard that she felt blood running down her fingers.

They wasted no time in making the first cut, slicing into her flesh with what she could only guess was the same knife they had used to expose her. An animalistic screech erupted from deep in her throat, a sound she didn't even know she could make. They started at her shoulders, carving away at her skin. She felt warm blood run down her sides and pool beneath her ribs, soaking through the tattered remains of her shirt.

Whenever she felt like she was going to faint from the pain they would stick her in the arm with a long needle and shoot something into her veins. Whatever it was made her heart race and her nerves dance from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet, so she could feel every single sensation. She felt the blade cut through the layers of her skin, flaying her flesh open and exposing the tenderness that it was made to protect. Beneath those protective layers laid a pain that was white hot against her eyes. Deep tissue wasn't meant to hit the air like it was, and the pain felt like fire that scorched her body and mind. It wasn't until she tasted the coppery thickness of her own blood that she realized she had bit her lip so hard that it had split.

She fought them with every ounce of her strength, which was failing fast. They had to hold her still to make their cuts, and every now and again she would jerk and pay the price as the blade scraped against her shoulder blade, or a rib, or a vertebrae.

She looked around the room with wild eyes. She watched their sardonic smiles as they cut her. They were enjoying making her bleed, and the doctor remained ever vigilant, taking notes. Her blood stained their coats, and she was sure that she had lost too much and that death would come soon to take her.

But just as soon as it had started it stopped. She heard the ragged breathing of the doctor and his demons, exerted from the effort of carving her like a turkey while also holding her down.

"I think we can take a quick break, gentlemen. Give it some time to circulate in her system." The doctor said.

And they left her there. Cold, losing more blood every second, with her back laid open. Every heave of her body from her sobbing hurt, but trying to deal with that amount of pain without crying seemed to hurt even more. She had never been hurt like this, and her mind didn't know how to process what was happening to her. It tied her stomach in knots and made her want to vomit.

She cried until her lungs were sore and her extremities went limp. Her hands were numb from blood loss and hanging over the edge of the table. When she heard the door open she tried to beg them to stop, but the only noise that came out of her tired lungs was a pathetic croak, and all they did was laugh.

The doctor squatted down, his beady black eyes met with hers. She tried to keep her vision focused on him, but it was so hard to keep them on anything as they wanted to roll back into her head and pass out.

"I won't let you die, Alia." He said tenderly, moving a strand of hair from her face. He looked deep into her panicking eyes and smiled. "Not yet."

I'm going to end here so this chapter isn't so long. Plus I wanted to update so you guys didn't think I abandoned the story. If you have the time, drop me a review and let me know what you think. All criticism is welcome!