This chapter is solely in Chicago's POV, hence the shorter length.
I'll try to get the next chapter up by the end of the week, and chapter 45 next week, although the wait between 44 and 45 may be longer since 45 is an epilogue where we check in on everyone still alive.
TW for death and a very horrible one.
I don't own pitch perfect.
Chicago's head was throbbing, visions of the day he's had flashing in his mind. He had it all planned out perfectly, his exit plan included should things go south. It took a few hours of gathering the Hangers for his protection, last minute vengeance plans, and hustle for his hidden cash reserves, especially after his off-shore accounts got drained. Somehow, he believed it was all Beca's fault.
He wasn't too far off his guess in reality.
He was gonna escape stealthily, off some cargo ship heading to Mexico with a captain who doesn't ask too much questions as long as you pay well, accessed from the docks past midnight.
And he would have all gone according to plan if it weren't for those meddling tenants and Beca Bella, forever thorns on his side.
Chicago's eyes fluttered opened, his vision adjusting to the dimly lit space he was in. From what he could tell off his surroundings and the machinery in the far back, he was in some old, abandoned factory. There was a brightly lit lamp set up not far behind him, the only source of light. He couldn't fully turn to see just how big it was, but his exposed skin could feel a bit of heat coming from the light.
He was sat in a dentist chair, his legs tied up together and around the footrest, his hands tightly bound onto the armrests. His torso and the area around his upper chest were also bound around the seat. He could barely fidget around at all. In front of him was a big LED timer, showing the time in hours, minutes, and seconds. The time was set to five minutes. In front of him was a strange set up of a dentist drill, the drill looked custom-made, being about a ruler's size in length. A bunch of wires were connected on the ground, where they all led, he wasn't sure. But he did notice that one of them led to a foot pedal in front of Beca Bella, dressed in black, blood stained on of her cheeks as she stared calmly at him, fiddling with her lighter.
Chicago chuckled, taking it all in, trying to act nonchalantly in the face of his captivity. "I guess you caught me, so now what? You'll kill me? Will that really solve anything?"
"It'll give me great satisfaction for one," Beca replied as she continued to fiddle with her lighter. Chicago wasn't sure if it was some nervous tick or a bad habit, but it was really getting on his nerves.
"Can't you at least stop that?" he asked but Beca paid him no mind.
"Are you sure I can't make you a deal?" Chicago then said. "You'd be a wanted woman if anyone ever found out what you're doing, isn't a detective already after you?" he asked knowingly. He was the one who sent him after Beca after all.
But Beca remained unfazed. She looked amused, if anything.
"Come on now, Beca. You'd get to keep Chloe too, hell, I'll even gift you Babel. Use it however you will, my death won't change anything, what would it really accomplish?"
Beca chuckled in response. Chicago could tell his words held no sway on her, but he figured he could keep chatting, if only t buy time to make sure he could escape. He wasn't sure what the drill was for, it could be a means to stop him from escaping. Either way, he wasn't going to just sit there and find out what Beca had in store for him. He tried his best to wriggle himself loose, but no dice. He had to keep talking, keep her interested in what he had to say.
"How did you find me anyways? I was careful with my tracks," Chicago then said.
"Theo," was Beca's quick response. Chicago looked at Beca confused. He thought his stupid brother was dead, how could he be of any help? He was barely any help when he was alive.
Beca stopped fiddling with her lighter, pocketing it, before she addressed Chicago with a smirk. "Back when he was first helping me out, he told me how you gifted him a watch, a symbol of reconciliation and such, after he shot you and you stepped into the light to take over Babel. He was suspicious of it because it was so unlike you, not to mention the fact that he didn't believe you to be the sentimental type."
"So, what about it?"
"He took the watch apart first chance he got and so the tracking device you put in it. He looked up info on similar devices so he can place one in your watch," Beca said, pointing at the watch Chicago was wearing then. "He never wore his while he bugged you. He had an app on his phone that he could use to track you with, and he gave me his phone before he died."
Chicago glanced at the watch on his wrist and laughed in disbelief. "You mean to tell me that it was all happenstance and luck?! That my idiot brother got lucky, or that by some divine intervention things just happened the way it did? All I needed to do was wear a different watch and I would have been free?"
Beca tutted and shook her head. "Theo didn't want you to escape your fate. He truly believed that if you had only been punished when you were younger, so many people didn't need to suffer. Perhaps you would have gotten the help you needed to. If you were only held accountable, if your father truly cared about you instead of keeping a pristine image to your name… things would have been different."
"That doesn't make me feel any better, or change the fact that it all came down to luck," Chicago threw back. He wasn't about to face death because his younger brother had been luckier than him in setting a trap.
"You don't get it," Beca then said cooly. "Theo was one step ahead of us in the end, he knew you too well. He didn't bug just that one watch, he placed a tracker in all of them, all your watched. He thought it was dumb, but the truth was, he had a genius idea."
Chicago laughed in disbelief. The one time his brother did something right had to be to his own detriment. The great irony of life.
He should've killed him sooner.
"So, what then? What now? Now you shoot me? Kill me?"
Beca smiled. "A quick death doesn't suit you, that would be a mercy, a gift."
Chicago looked at Beca curiously before his eyes landed warily on the drill, and then back to Beca.
"I spent sometime with the Russian mob, and learned a thing or two from them. A punishment befitting to those who betrayed them, and did them wrong. Those who committed the greatest sins. It's called kop'yo iskuplen'ya. The spear of atonement," Beca then replied, her eyes on the custom-made dental drill.
"Do you really think I'll atone for my sins?" Chicago asked, trying to put on an air of defiance.
"I couldn't care less," Beca replied, looking him in the eyes. "As long as you suffer, I'm happy."
"I'm sure it'll be painful once it you stab me with it, does that give you joy?" Chicago replied. "You're quite the sadist, what makes you different from me?"
"I'm Vaisrayana," Beca then replied. Chicago looked at him in confusion but she went on. "One of the heavenly kings in Buddhism," she edified. "Vaisravana keeps the yakshas and rakshasas in check, and protects Buddha's ways and all humans. For as long as I can fight for the people alongside the yakshas and the rakshasas, clean up trash like you, I might just get compliments from the Buddha once in a while. I'm nothing like you, I'll never harm someone innocent. I only fight monsters, like you."
Chicago scoffed at a loss for words.
"Every five minutes," Beca then went on before he could say anything, nodding towards the drill, "it will drill into your chest by exactly 5 mm. Optimized in a way to make sure you would feel the pain and not pass out. You'll die…" she said, checking her watch for the time, "probably around noon tomorrow, once the drill pierces through your lungs and you die drowning in your own blood. Sad that I won't be here to see it happen."
"Wouldn't that be too long?" he asked, thinking he could find a way to break away and escape.
But what if he couldn't?
No, he couldn't afford to think that.
"You sure you don't want to just shoot me?" he then asked Beca, the part of him that was scared wanted to goad her into giving him a quick death.
But once again his attempts fell on deaf ears. Instead Beca flicked two switches by the far end of the drill and then stepped on the foot pedal next to her.
Chicago grasped the armrests as the drill pushed through the top layer of his skin, a jolt of pain shooting from the wound it begun to make. Beca stepped off the pedal and switched things back.
"You said every five minutes!" Chicago exclaimed, his voice breaking. If he wasn't frightened before, he was now. The pain was unlike any other, and the daunting truth of what he was about to experience sunk in. It was like dying via thousands of papercuts, but worse. It was with a thin and sharp drill that is barely making progress over time, slowly making its way to penetrate the skin, like multiple tiny blades digging in and leaving tiny cuts to draw blood as it breaks through, and then it will start doing the same through his flesh. Just as it stops, and the pain slowly ebbs it will start again. Slowly being tortured with it before he dies in a slow and painful death. And he can't do anything to stop it, just brace for the pain and anticipate when it happens again.
"I couldn't help myself," Beca replied before starting the clock and Chicago instantly felt the dread fill him as the seconds counted down to remind him when it will start again.
"Please," he then said. "Why can't you just shoot me, put a bullet between my eyes!"
"I promised you, didn't I? That I'll make you beg for death," Beca then said and Chicago looked at her in disbelief as he remembered the promise Beca made when she shot his ear. "I'm only here to deliver."
Chicago looked at her horrified, in less than five minutes it will go again, that's all he could think about after experiencing a taste of the pain his death would bring, but Beca seemed unbothered. He tried to plead his case again, desperate to get out of his situation but Beca simply walked towards him to remove the watch on his hand before showing it off to him.
"You liked to take this as a trophy from our victims, right?" Beca then asked. "I suppose I should do just the same," she went on, pocketing the watch. "You can try and scream all you want, keep begging, it's a good new look on you. Unfortunately, no one ever goes here. We're outside the city limits after all. I wonder if they'll find you a few days after or longer, after much effort is spent to searching where you could have gone and hide?"
"Beca, please," Chicago tried again, before eying the timer. His hands already gripping the armrests despite two more minutes remaining.
"Goodbye, Chicago."
Chicago watched as Beca turned to leave. He cried out, on and on, but to no avail. Beca truly left. The timer ran out and reset itself. The drill dug deeper, sending a shockwave of pain through Chicago for the brief moment it progressed through his body.
And on and on it went, a seemingly endless torment for hours on end. The torment and pain of the drill kept him awake all night like Beca promised.
The sun had risen, ravens and crows had gathered from a broken window in the distance, eying him as his body felt weak. Chicago would be on his last gasps of air, as the drill went on and pierced his lungs, blood flooding his airways, and as he gasped for air. He once thought himself untouchable, a godly man of power, one who took joy in bashing the head of those who would defy him, or choking the life out of him. Now, what was he? A man humiliated by a brother he underestimated, and would be feed for carrion birds.
Did he repent?
Did he atone?
Did it matter?
A tear dropped from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks. One of the ravens was the first to land on his leg, quickly followed by the others, pecking at him before he could even draw his last breath.
He wouldn't be found for at least three more days, investigators curious of where he could have been hiding finding whatever remained of his decaying body.
I do think the psychological impact on Chicago's death was worse than the pain of being burn alive, considering he's in constant pain with an awareness it will keep going until he dies, and then the carrion birds actually start eating him before he dies, drowning in his own blood. He suffers this for hours.
A horrible death for a horrible person.
No more TWs for the next chapters, I promise!
UPNEXT: An Escape! Goodbyes?! Promises!