by Robyn Nyx
She stopped at yet more doors, flashed a key card for entry, and flicked the lights on. Madison saw a man in the center of the room, naked from the waist up, and tied to a chair. His hair was matted, his body bruised and cut, and his face was a bloody mess. One eye was swollen shut, and he had a three-inch gash across his cheekbone where it looked like he’d been smashed in the face with a blunt object. Madison’s fears grew, and her hopes of surviving this reduced vastly.
“What kind of mistake did he make?”
Courts laughed. “He’s a greedy contractor. He wasn’t satisfied with Therese’s generous commission for refurbing this facility, and he threatened to talk. Loyalty’s everything to Therese, and she’s not a big fan of blackmail, so this guy doesn’t get the mercy of being rubbed out quick. He’s paying for his gluttony with pain. A lot of pain.”
She sat Madison in the chair opposite him, walked over to the guy, and snatched his head back with a handful of his hair. His mouth fell open, and Madison could see bleeding deep holes where his teeth used to be and only half a tongue. He remained silent, unconscious, thankfully.
“We’ve brought you some company, Dawkes, for your last minutes.”
“Have you…did she…cut out his tongue?” Madison retched a little and caught some bile in her mouth. She swallowed it down and felt her mask of calm begin to slip as her body shook slightly.
“Observant little bitch, aren’t you? Yeah, Nat did that. She doesn’t take kindly to people threatening Therese. She took off all his fingers too, but you can’t see that from where you are. I reckon the next thing to go…well, you probably don’t wanna hear that.”
She released his hair and headed for the door just as it opened and Natasha entered.
“Go clean Blake up. She left a mess.”
“Sure thing, Nat.”
She exited, giving a last, knowing look at Madison. She knows what’s coming my way.
“Therese is going to be a while, and she wants to concentrate on you straight away, so I’m going to amuse myself by taking care of this asshole.” She pulled a knife from inside her jacket. “You’ll have to wait. I’ve been told not to touch you, but you may want to use this time to figure out how bad you want to make this on yourself.”
She pinched the skin around his right shoulder and dug her knife in. An awful gurgling noise came from his mouth, and he thrashed in his chair as best he could in his bondage, pulled back to conscious awareness by the pain. As Natasha began to pull the knife all the way along his arm, Madison looked away.
“What’s the problem? Are you squeamish? I thought you’d have more of a stomach for this kind of thing, given your war background.”
Madison didn’t respond or look over. The sounds of slicing skin and Dawkes’s distressing muted screams were too much to bear, and she parted with the remains of the Soho House beverages. As Madison doubled over in her chair, Natasha’s boots came into view. Blood dripped onto the pristine floor, and Madison followed its trajectory to see Natasha holding a foot-long piece of bloody skin and flesh. Madison’s lunch duly left her body as a cold sweat enveloped her entire being.
Natasha laughed. “Get it all out, girl. That way, you’ll have nothing left when Therese starts on you. It’s always more pleasant to torture someone who has an empty stomach.” She dropped the fleshy strip on the floor in front of Madison’s feet and returned to Dawkes.
*
Madison lost all track of time. The gut-wrenching cacophony of screams and deadened cries echoed around the sterile unit. She was grateful she didn’t have to watch, but the growing pile of bloody chunks of human flesh at her feet was horrific enough. She tried meditating, repeating mantras, zoning out to her happy place, but the squelchy thud of yet another piece of Dawkes would hit the floor and splash blood on her sneakers, dragging her back into the moment. She’d retched so much there was nothing left but mouthfuls of forced air and the burn of bile at the back of her throat.
“Please stop,” she whispered, knowing it was futile, but not knowing what else she could do. She heard Natasha’s footsteps come closer, but kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Natasha grabbed her hair and yanked her head up.
“He’s dead. Has been for a few minutes. Motherfucker’s heart gave up on me before I got to the pièce de résistance. Shame, really. There’s something very cathartic about cutting a man’s cock off while he can’t help but watch. Feels like I’m empowering my sisters and avenging man’s historic oppression of woman…or it could just be that I’m a vicious cunt who enjoys inflicting unbearable pain.” She grinned widely. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.”
Madison tried to pull her head away, but Natasha’s grip was tight at the roots and her struggles just made it hurt more. “Why can’t you tell me what you want from me? I’ll answer your questions. There’s no need for…for that.” Madison half nodded at the skinned, dead body a few feet away. The contrast of the olive skin on his face against the scarlet red of his entire upper body made it look unreal, like the Bodies exhibition in Vegas. She held tight to that thought. If it wasn’t real, she might make it through this.
“You’ll get your chance to answer Therese’s questions. What’s your hurry? You want to get back to your red-hot movie star lover? Can’t say I blame you. I’d love to get my hands on her. I bet she looks even more beautiful when she’s in agony.”
Madison snarled. “Don’t you—”
Natasha snapped Madison’s head back and got in close enough that Madison could feel her breath on her face. “Touch her? Fuck her? Hurt her? It always makes me laugh when a captive thinks they have some power. What do you think you’re going to do to stop me from doing whatever the fuck I want to that sexy piece of ass? You’re helpless. Tied up. Powerless. If Therese and I take a trip to her mansion in the hills, if we tie her up and fuck her, use all of her holes, if we strip her down and beat her until she bleeds, what can you do about it?” Natasha released her hair, went back to Dawkes’s motionless corpse, and yanked his head up by his bloody, matted hair. “This guy thought he had power too. And he was in a better position than you are right now. Look what happened to him.”
“I’ll tell you whatever you need to know, just—”
“Don’t hurt Elodie? Please, bitch, be quiet. Save your breath and your pleadings for Therese. She’ll gladly listen to you beg.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Ash, you’re not sure who you can trust, so we can’t have the LAPD involved in this at all. You have to trust us. This is what I do…used to do, and it’s what Ice still does. I’ll have Madison call you as soon as she’s safe.”
Elodie stepped into the elevator, and Ice and Ash followed.
“Let me come with you. You don’t know how many of her gang you’ll be facing.”
Ice raised her eyebrows, as if considering his request, but Elodie shook her head. She’d never gone into battle without knowing her colleagues inside out, and that had served her well. It had been over ten years since her last conflict, and she needed to trust whoever she was doing this with, with her life. And Madison’s. It was too important, and she wouldn’t risk it. Ash was in his fifties, and she had no idea of his pedigree.
Elodie placed her hands on his shoulders firmly. “Stay here. If we don’t get in touch within four hours, call it in.” Four hours. Madison was tough—for a journalist, not for a criminal. How long would she be able to hold out? What would they do to her, just for fun, let alone to get information? The thought of Madison being harmed by those animals was unbearable. She had to get there as soon as possible.
Ash nodded as the elevator doors opened, and without speaking, Elodie and Ice began to jog back to the car. Madison had left in such a fury. She’d never given Elodie the chance to tell her how much she already meant to her. I have to make Madison understand how much—how much I love her?
*
Driving the way she was, it didn’t take long before they hit the 710 Freeway South. As she zigzagged from lane to lane, she thought o
nly of Madison. Every moment that passed, Elodie fought away vivid images of her being tortured, and that made it hard to concentrate on the traffic around her.
Ice placed her hand on the crook of her right arm.
“Let’s get to your boat safely. We’re no good to her as road kill.”
Elodie nodded and adjusted her driving slightly, but it still didn’t take long before they pulled up in the private harbor. She popped the trunk and Ice retrieved her black duffel bag while Elodie boarded her boat and prepared to leave the dock.
Ice joined her and carefully put her duffel bag on the main deck chair.
“Doesn’t look like much. What’ve you got in there?” Elodie asked as they pulled away at the requisite unbearably slow speed.
“Unfortunately, when I’m on vacation, I don’t tend to travel with a full arsenal. I’ve got another SIG in there, some C4, a hunting knife, and a few magazines of ammo. I’m thinking a stealth attack and use whatever weapons we find if we end up in a firefight.”
“If our approach is good, we should be able to avoid that. A nice silent extraction, and let your team do the rest.” Elodie didn’t want to contemplate being too late, but she couldn’t barricade her mind from morbid thoughts. “If they’ve hurt her, though…I’ll take them all apart with my hands.”
Ice patted her on the back. “It’s not going to come to that. We were the best extraction team the Marines had ever seen. We’ve got this.”
Elodie clamped her jaw shut to prevent voicing any more negative thoughts and simply nodded.
*
“Cut the engine, Dee. We need to stay far enough away not to attract their attention.”
Ice’s instruction interrupted Elodie’s musings. She was trying to focus on anything other than the all-too-real movie playing in her head.
Madison tied to a chair, being brutally beaten by Natasha.
Therese laughing with each strike.
The two of them hurting Madison even though she’d told them everything.
No matter how hard she tried to shut it out, it kept playing. She could practically hear Madison’s screams. Would they keep her alive to see if she was telling the truth? Did they have time on their side after all? All they could do was get there as fast as they could, and pray. She’d never felt so fucking useless.
She cut the engine, came down to the main deck, and changed into a wetsuit.
“When’s our backup coming?” Elodie had immense faith in Ice, and she knew her own abilities, rusty as she was, but they had no idea how many people they were up against. For all they knew, Therese might have an army of mercenaries.
“They’re on their way. We probably won’t see them, since they’ll come in whatever way is quietest. We’ll get her back, and the cavalry can clean up the mess.”
Ice hitched her air tank on her back. She handed Elodie her own, and she secured the straps tight to her body. She stuffed their jeans, tanks, and shoes into a watertight gear bag, having filled another with the contents of Ice’s travel bag. It wouldn’t be anywhere near enough if they ended up in a gun battle. While she steered the boat toward the island, she’d watched Ice check, prepare, and load both guns. Then she watched her recheck everything before she packed it. It’d been a long time since Elodie had readied herself to kill someone. To her knowledge, she had eight kills during her tour, and it wasn’t something she’d gotten a taste for. She acknowledged its necessity, of course, but taking someone else’s life was never something she had done lightly.
Her thoughts went again to Madison, and it steeled her to know this time, she was the reason. Madison was a special woman. She’d only known her for a short time, and already she couldn’t entertain the thought of letting her get away. Madison was the woman people spent their lives searching for, whether they knew they were searching or not. And Elodie had enjoyed plenty of women, worldwide, to compare her to. Madison was in a class all by herself. And she has absolutely no idea. Which made her even more adorable. And even more of a loss for anyone who let her get away. The age-old declaration of “I’d die for you” was for women like Madison, and Elodie was prepared to prove that point.
Ice climbed down the ladder into the ocean. One at a time, Elodie clicked the carabiner onto the gear bag and water scooters, and lowered them down to Ice before she joined her. Madison might still be pissed off that Elodie had Ice follow her, but she was hoping that’d be canceled out by the fact that the two of them were coming to save her life.
Chapter Thirty
“Enjoy the company.” Natasha laughed maniacally as she left the room and the door swung shut behind her.
Madison realized she was breathing quick and shallow, risking an asthma attack. She hadn’t had one for years and rarely carried an inhaler, but these were extenuating circumstances, and she was on the verge of absolute panic. She’d seen dead bodies before: men, women, babies. She’d seen gunshot and knife wounds, compound fractures and severed heads. She’d walked between a sea of distorted corpses in a Somalian battlefield. But she’d never actually seen or heard the pain, the moment, of death. She’d never witnessed the inhumanity and the ease with which one person could take the life of another, let alone with such carefree abandon. And with such relish.
For a moment, she wondered what Natasha had been through to make her this dismissive of and detached from the value of human life. She couldn’t subscribe to the biological side of that particular nature / nurture debate. She had a belief in the basic kindness of human beings, but she’d witnessed the aftermath of too many atrocities in the world for it to be unshakeable.
She fought back her panic and tried to rein in her breathing. Slow, deep breaths. Think. But the stench of her vomit and his fresh blood was an unpleasant cocktail. She stood and moved to the tiny open window in the far corner of the room in an effort to garner some fresh air. Thank God they didn’t tie me to that chair.
That’s when she saw another exit, one meant to be nearly invisible against the back wall. Key card security, as were the rest, but she could see from the slit of light where the doors met their frame that it led directly outside. So now all I need is a key card.
Dawkes. A contractor refurbing the facility. He’d need a key card. She looked across the room to where he sat. On the operating table beside him was a tool belt and his shirt. Surely I can’t be that lucky. Madison ventured over and tried hard to keep her eyes from straying to his skinned body. With her back to the table, she managed to feel her way through the shirt and searched the pockets. Nothing. She could see his tool belt had been stripped of anything useful or sharp, unless she could strangle her captors with a tape measure, which wasn’t exactly likely. And she still had her hands tied behind her back, which meant strangling anyone wasn’t an option yet.
She stole a quick glance at Dawkes. Could they have missed something in his work pants? She balked. There were patches of khaki left, but they were mostly painted in his blood. Two side, two hip, and probably two on his rear. Six pockets. Six chances. Like Russian roulette. She looked for latex gloves and saw a dispenser above the pre-op washing sinks. She almost laughed at herself, worrying about communicable diseases when her own mortality was at stake in a much more instantaneous manner.
All she had to do was get her hands in front of her. Even if she couldn’t get the ropes off, her hands would still be more useful than where they were now. She sat on the floor, a good few feet away from the body and its pile of discarded flesh and pooled blood. Much of it had drained down the grate he’d been strategically placed over, but she still didn’t want to take a bath in it. She lay back, lifted her legs in the air, and started to work her hands over her butt. She felt the rope bite into her skin as she pulled it taut, trying to get a few extra centimeters of length. Now she wished she’d taken a few extra yoga classes. If she could work her hands over her ass, looping her legs through was the easy bit. She’d been pretty good at this part in the Hostile Environment classes, and even when they’d tied her wrists good and tight, sh
e’d gotten loose. Granted, it had been at the expense of a few layers of skin, some blood, and bruises that lasted for three weeks, which led Geva to ask if she’d been trying out “some kinky shit.”
The knots slipped a little and gave her slightly more slack to pull her wrists farther apart. She was close. A little more wriggling. Her hands suddenly pulled over her ass, and her head hit the floor with the force of the release. She shook it off and her legs followed over the rope. She lay back with the exertion and tried to catch her breath.
She got back up and put the gloves on. Bright purple and too big for her tiny hands. Suck it up, Mads. Side pocket one. It squelched, and she forced back a retch. Nothing. Side pocket two. Slightly drier and something right at the bottom of the deep pocket. Jackpot. A Swiss army knife. She couldn’t help but think it must’ve been Blake who was responsible for that. At least she wouldn’t have to pay for that mistake too. Madison flicked it open and sliced her way awkwardly through the rope between her wrists. She closed the knife, tucked it in her jean pocket, and went back to her gruesome search. Two hip pockets and nothing but a few crumpled dollars and a washed tissue. He was tied to the chair and sitting on his back pockets, her last hope. I have to handle him. She withdrew the knife and started to work through his bindings. As she held the rope tight, blood squeezed from it and dropped on her sneakers. She took a deep breath to stop herself from being sick and wished she hadn’t. The blood and fresh feces stench invaded her nostrils with nauseating effect, and she dry heaved violently. If only the human body could keep its sphincter tight in death.
She finally freed him of the rope, but Madison still had to physically move him to get to his rear pockets. She gripped the back of the chair with both hands and yanked it hard from beneath him. He splattered to the floor, still on his back, still denying her access to the uninspected pockets. As he lay on the floor, muscle and sinew fully exposed, she thought once again of the macabre museum exhibit that she’d seen in Vegas. Maybe that’s what “inspired” Natasha to do this.