by Nicole Fox
“All in good time,” he whispered, flicking the side of my breast. I prayed that he would not notice the knife stashed there. Thunder and I had hidden it in the side of my bra, where I thought the lecherous scoundrels wouldn’t be interested. Blade, however, appeared not to notice, and took his hand away, satisfied.
“Now,” he chuckled. “Let’s go see Dominic.”
“Dominic!” I cried, forgetting my role as uselessly fearful. “He’s alive?”
Blade tittered. “Barely,” he said. “If La Gancho doesn’t kill him outright, he’ll bleed to death soon as it is. Trust me, I’ve seen the wounds.”
“Bleed to death?” I gasped inwardly. Outwardly, I began to sob, and sagged against Blade. “Oh, he’s killed him! He’s killed him!” I wailed. “You’ll kill him for me, right? Please! I’ll do anything!”
Blade smiled and stroked my hair, but did not respond. I stole a moment to glance back at Thunder, who was limping along behind us. Our eyes were asking the same identical question: “If Dominic is still alive, and is being held captive, why did The Hook lie to us? What purpose could he have?”
The questions disturbed me. I realized that perhaps I wasn’t the only one playing mind games here.
But–Dominic! I’d deal with all the lecherous men in the world if I could at least see Dominic!
Another thought occurred to me then, on the way to where they were holding him. I had the knife. Thunder and I were both untied. Despite our injuries, we could fight Blade now, and win. I glanced back at Thunder, the question in my eyes.
He shook his head, and he mouthed to me, “Wait until we find Dominic.”
I nodded, the returned my attention to leaning against Blade as we walked. It was disgusting, but I wanted him to be touching me. I wanted him to long for it, more than ever.
At last, we came to a heavy iron door. Unlike the lock to ours, which was thick and complex, this lock seemed simple. Oddly, this made me shudder. Whoever went into this room, the Crooked Jaws were not afraid of getting out.
Standing by the door, armed with a gun and a truncheon, was a Crooked Jaw. He leered at me as we approached, winking and grinning wickedly. Rage at the sight of his greed and his unworthiness consumed me–rage I would have been channeling at Blade, had my plan permitted it–and I spat right in his face.
His stupid grin remained plastered there, covered in spittle, for three solid seconds before being replaced by a grimace of rage. He raised his truncheon, about to strike, but was stopped by Blade’s chuckle and a shaking of the head.
“You’re right, sir,” the grunt growled. “She’s La Gancho’s.” And he lowered his weapon, stepping aside.
Ha! I thought. Perfect! Blade’s hands shook as he fumbled with a key for the lock, and he did not reply. After several clumsy attempts, he at last got the door open, and we entered.
What I saw made me cry out in horror.
“Dominic! No!”
There he was, stark naked, save for the coating of blood that covered him. He was suspended by his wrists by two hooks hung from the ceiling, feet apart, like some terrible mockery of a crucifix. Terrible wounds coated his front, back, and hips, splits like a tomato squeezed to popping in a fist, surrounded by bruises like moldy plums.
The Hook stood before him, grinning his foul grin, a whip in his hand and its end was stained red. He looked at me, and winked.
And yet this–all this–was not even the worst part. The worst of it was that Dominic, after so much terror and fear, was refusing to look at me.
It was not as if he was unconscious, or too weak to raise his head. No, his chin was lifted, his neck strong. But he was looking deliberately away, at the far wall, refusing to see or acknowledge me.
“Dominic! Oh, Dominic!” I cried. “What’s the matter?”
It was a stupid question, I know. What was the matter? Everything! Everything! And yet, I could not help but feel that something was deeply, terribly wrong. I tried to leap forward, but Blade’s hand fastened on my arms, and held me fast.
Thunder, bent and broken by his injuries, stepped forward. “Dominic,” he gasped. “What have they done to you? Those fucking bastards!”
He, too, approached Dominic, and neither Blade nor the Hook tried to stop him. He rushed to his friend, hugging him around his bleeding, mutilated waist and lifting him up and off the hooks.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Thunder whispered over and over. He placed Dominic down on his feet.
I expected Dominic to sag, on the support of his friend. I expected him to collapse even, or to grunt in pain but he managed to stay on his feet. What he did, however, was the last thing I expected:
He began to attack Thunder.
“I saw you!” Dominic growled, his voice weak and cracked and hoarse as a rusting spigot. “Damn you, Thunder! I saw you and Erica!”
As he cursed, he slammed Thunder with clenched fists, on the back, the head, the sides, leaving bloody smears wherever he struck. “I saw you! I saw you!”
I stood, gaping in horror. Blade was chuckling to himself, and the Hook, meanwhile, stepped forward.
“That’s right, Dominic, that’s right!” He crooned. “She fucked him! I saw it! You saw it! How long after I told her you were captured until she spread her legs for another, huh? Until she spreads her legs for me!”
And, at his words, everything clicked. I remembered the thump at the door, with Thunder’s arms around me.
“Dominic, no!” I cried. “It’s a trick! Thunder was comforting me! We thought you were dead! We thought you were dead!”
Dominic did not cease his pounding, which Thunder took, without fighting back. Instead, I shook myself free and rushed over to the pair of them.
“Dominic, Dominic!” I sobbed. “Don’t you see? He tricked you! He lied to me so that you’d see Thunder and I hugging! Please, it was for you! It was all for you!”
“Why?” He demanded, enraged, demented. “Why? Why? Why?”
“Because I love you!”
He froze. Thunder fell away, pushing himself out of reach. Instead, Dominic lowered his fists, and sagged against me.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’d thought…”
“I know,” I murmured back. “It’s okay. But listen to me. I promise–promise–never to leave you. I’ll never cheat on you. I’ll be with you forever, okay?”
He gazed at me, tears drying in his eyes. “You…love me?” He gasped. He sounded like a child. So hurt. So unsure.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.” And I kissed him. He tasted like blood and desperation and despair, but he also tasted like courage and warmth and rebellion. I loved him. I loved him.
“Aw, isn’t that lovely,” a cold, slithering voice interrupted, snaking between us and pushing us apart like icy fingers. “Promises of fidelity, so soon to be broken.” It was the Hook.
He approached, seizing me by the shoulders and yanking me away from Dominic. Then, he snapped his fingers, and two Crooked Jaws appeared, hoisting Dominic back up and onto the hooks. He resisted, but I could tell by the blood flowing down his body and into the drain that he was at the end of his strength. Within a minute, Dominic was back on his terrible perch.
When they finished, they immediately went over and grabbed Thunder, hurling him against the wall and pinning them there. They apparently did not want anyone interfering with what came next.
The Hook approached me, and, with a single hit, knocked me to the ground. I could have screamed. I could have tried to run. But the door was locked, and I was surrounded by five men–the two guys holding Thunder, the man outside, and Blade and the Hook.
I had no hope to escape.
Then, the thought lit through my mind like a firework. The knife!
I back into a corner, with the Hook approaching, and dug my hand into my bra, searching for it. Thunder and I had been so afraid that it would be found that it was hidden very well. At last, I located it, and whipped it out with a flourish.
The Hook eyed the tiny th
ing and chuckled.
“Stay back!” I cried, pointing its measly blade right at his throat. “Don’t touch me!”
The Hook shrugged, and stepped back. “Okay,” he said, with an amiability which surprised and disturbed me. That is, until he drew his own knife, and held it against Dominic’s throat.
“Drop it,” he growled, “or I slice him right open.”
I stared at the scene in horror. The Hook, his erection obvious beneath his leather jeans, grinning because he knew he had me cornered. Blade, standing near me, wheezing and awaiting his turn. Thunder, silent, bowled over by two men much stronger than he. And Dominic. He looked up at me, shaking his head frantically.
“No!” He roared. “Erica! Don’t do it! I don’t care if they kill me! Don’t let him touch you–argh!”
He drew back as The Hook pressed the blade against his throat, puncturing the skin and drawing a dribble of blood. If he moved or spoke again, it would slice into his windpipe.
“Okay!” I cried. “Okay, don’t hurt him!”
I dropped the folding knife and kicked it away, holding my hands up in surrender. The Hook grinned, and lowered his blade from Dominic’s throat.
“Very good,” he snarled. “I knew you’d cooperate. Now, my darling, come here.”
He approached, and put his hands on me. I did not resist, for resisting meant that he would kill Dominic. Ignoring the pain and the humiliation of him grabbing me, knocking me to the floor, I gazed instead at the man I loved, tormented and covered in blood but meeting my eyes bravely just the same.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you, too,” he murmured back.
And then the Hook’s assault began.
Chapter Thirty
Dominic
I wanted to scream. To fight. To claw. To punch and punish. I tried twisting again, breaking the bounds and the hooks holding me, but to no avail. They had tied me differently this time–and besides, after La Gancho’s most recent torture, I had no strength left to draw upon.
I wanted to look away. To close my eyes and pretend I wasn’t there. Return, perhaps, the vision of that lovely cottage, and its gentle breeze. But that would have made me a coward.
If Erica had to endure whatever was about to happen to her, then, I, too, would endure it.
I met Erica’s eyes, and I watched.
La Gancho started by undressing her. He did it slowly, like he knew he was putting on a performance. Her shirt first, he lifted up over her head, then her pants, pooling them around her ankles. She stood there in her bra and panties, shivering as the cold yellow light leeched all the heat from her flesh. So beautiful, and so in focus was she to my eyes that I could see the goosebumps rising on her arms.
Marco, in his sinister, perverse way, seemed to match my thoughts. “Lovely,” he said. “Just lovely.”
He ran his fingers down the length of her arm. I could see her trying to silence her shudder. Down her arm, across her waist, dipping in the warm cup of her belly button, and then slipping, like the slimy worm he was, beneath the lining of her panties –
“No!” I roared, thrashing and kicking. “No! No! Stop! Stop! I’ll do anything!”
Marco rolled his eyes and faced me, his cock bulging out from the leather of his pants. “Someone silence him!” He ordered, and Blade stepped forward to punch me in the gut. He was a weak, pathetic man, so there was not much behind it, but it was still enough to knock the wind out of me for a moment before I could resume my hollering.
So Marco drew his knife again. This time, he pressed it against Erica’s throat. He bent her over, his bad hand fastened onto her scalp, forcing her head down, his bad hand clutching the blade to her neck, but all the more deadly for its clumsiness. And his erection, thrusting with terrible pressure against the silken film of her panties.
Erica froze, chest heaving like a cornered animal, and I silenced immediately.
“I’ll kill her, Dominic,” he whispered. “I swear I will. I cut her throat and pump her full of cum even as she bleeds out. Now, silence!”
I swallowed my screams of horror. He kept the blade where it was, but released her head so that he could unbuckle his pants. His dick emerged, ugly and mottled and pink as the nose of a balding rat. At the sight of it, so close to my dear Erica, I felt my gorge rising. I knew this was the end. Even if La Gancho didn’t kill me, this was the end of me. There was no coming back from this.
He spoke. “I’m gonna fuck her,” he growled. “I’m gonna fuck her so good, and then, once I’m finished with her, and pumped her full of my sweet hot cum, I’m gonna kill her, my dick still half-hard in her cunt. And then, with the very same knife I used to kill her, I’m going to kill you–argh!”
A knife! Not the jackknife, or Marco’s blade, but a new one! Twisted and horrible–from the torture table! It flashed, wicked in the light, then buried itself in La Gancho’s shoulder. He screamed, a comic “o” of surprise on his face as he whirled around to see the perpetrator.
Not me. I was tied up. Not Thunder. He was restrained by the two Crooked Jaws, who were gaping with such bovine looks of stupidity and astonishment that it could not possibly have been either of them.
Which left–his ugly face distorted by hate and bloodlust–Blade.
“You promised me you’d let me have her when you were finished,” he raged, tears on his pink, paunchy cheeks so that he looked like a toddler in the heat of a tantrum. “You said I could have her–but now you’re going to kill her!”
“You idiot!” La Gancho shrieked, stumbling as he lost blood. He fumbled for his gun, aiming it at Blade, all while his stupid, ugly dick softened, retreating back into his pants.
It was then that I noticed something very strange: Erica, rising to her feet, and, quite oddly, smiling.
Blade and La Gancho glared at each other.
“You can’t kill me,” Blade said. “I know where all the money is. Only I can keep the Crooked Jaws afloat!”
“You bastard! You thieving, traitorous, bastard!” La Gancho shot back. He seemed enraged beyond sense–beyond words. “I’ll kill all of you!”
His gun was flailing. Blade had stabbed him in his good shoulder, so now he was rapidly losing control of his good arm. He could not switch the gun to the other hand. He had no choice.
He would fire. He was about to any moment. And from the tightness of the room, and his wild raging, he could shoot any one of us.
I locked my eyes on Erica. If this was to be the end, I wanted the last thing I saw to be her. She gazed back and nodded sadly.
Boom!
The whole foundation of the building seemed to shake. La Gancho whirled, now pointing the gun at the door. Meanwhile, Blade blanched, and sunk back against the wall in terror.
Two Crooked Jaws burst in. “The Broken Spires!” They cried. “They’re here! They’re waging war upon the compound!”
“Haha!” I roared, but the sound of it was lost amid the sound of more gunshots, and what very well may have been explosives, coming from above.
Thunder chose this moment to heave himself out of his stupor. He slung both Crooked Jaws off him, slamming them into the wall, and rushed towards me. Blade shrieked in fear, thinking he was coming towards him, and then darted towards the door. With three quick fumbles with the latch, he was out.
“No, you don’t, you bastard!” La Gancho cried. He whirled back on the pair or Crooked Jaws. “You! Get Blade! And you! Hold the prisoners!”
By this point, Thunder, with Erica’s help, had managed to hoist me off the hooks and place me gently on the ground. The floor seemed to sway under me, but I managed at least to keep my footing. Thunder grinned and grabbed one of the knives from the torture table. Erica, too, bent down to retrieve her folding knife, lying forgotten on the floor. The pair held both blades up, pointing directly at the Crooked Jaw.
Boom!
Another explosion shook the room! The remaining Crooked Jaw looked from our blades, pointed right at his heart, to the debris
being shaken from the ceiling, to the wild, demented face of La Gancho, and decided to book it.
Yelping like the dog he was, tail between his legs, he bounded towards the door.
“No!” La Gancho screamed. He drew his gun and fired at the three of us. The shot went wild, the three of us diving aside in time to avoid any injury–that is, from the gunshot. To Thunder and I, hitting that cold cement floor was agony.
Erica was the first on her feet. Though I admired her quickness, this was a mistake, for La Gancho darted forward, seized her by the arm, and dragged her, screaming, from the room.