The Dark Side of Family (The Dark Side, Book 1)

Torture

[Quick Author's Note: Hey, guys! I'm so, so sorry that it's been so long since I've posted an update to The Dark Side of Family. Tons of school stuff going on, then writer's block, then March Break. Chapter 36 is a little over 3,000 words, and I really hope you enjoy it. Thanks for sticking with this story for so long, I truly appreciate it. For those of you who have been reading from the beginning, I appreciate your patience so much. For those of you who have joined along the way, you couldn't have made me any happier, and I hope that I do not disappoint you.]

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Manacles around his wrist, he hung limply from the wall. He was strung up like a prize, and yet he’d been left to die. His head lulled to the side and his chin rested on his chest, his eyes closed as he attempted to block out the pain.

His wrists were broken, bruised, and raw from holding his unconscious body up for how many hours, he did not know. He’d been in this dark, dank basement for what seemed like days. Maybe it had been days. He’d been given no water and no food. He didn’t have the slightest inkling as to how he had wound up here, and he had no idea where here was.

He thought back for what seemed like the millionth time, trying to recall the details of his attack and capture. Trying to remember something. Anything, really. And for what seemed like the millionth time, he hit a mental wall so hard his body felt aftershocks.

His mind attempted to drift to happier places, but it had nowhere to drift too. He was trapped in this room, trapped with this pain. Trapped with the fear and the smell of decay. The smell of his decay.

He opened his eyes, raising his head from his chest and getting his feet beneath him. By then it had become clear to him that he wasn’t going to pass out again, therefore there was no reason to tolerate the pain of supporting all his weight on his broken wrists.

He sighed, wondering how – and if – he was going to get himself out of this mess. He’d tried to snap the manacles by throwing his weight against them, but they were heavily reinforced. All he had managed to do was break his wrists in a second place, doubling the pain he had already been in. Needless to say, it had been a horribly failed attempt at escaping.

He heard metal scraping against metal and was sure it was the bolt that he’d assumed was on the outside of the door, locking him in. The heavy steel door opened, and after spending so long in the dark, he was blinded by the relatively dim light that spilled in from the room on the other side.

He squinted as he saw a figure standing there. It was a dark shape, outlined by light, and as he filtered the light through his narrowed eyes the form began to materialize as something more than a dark blur.

It turned into a woman.

He eyed her wearily, his reaction unmistakably visceral. His stomach heaved but was empty.

Before his thoughts could wander, the woman stalked into the room, like a cat eyeing its prey.  She came towards him with what he realized was a small bag in her hands, and for a moment he felt hope. It looked like a doctor’s bag, and as she set it on the table, a brief flash of a face he couldn’t recall but felt he’d seen before flickered across his vision like a freedom march.

He watched, cautiously optimistic, as the strange woman opened the bag. She pulled out a sheet of surgical plastic and laid it on the table beside her bag. Then she proceeded to pull out numerous items that can be attributed to doctors – tongue depressors, a stethoscope, syringes, needles, little bottles of drugs, a blood pressure cuff, a scalpel…

These things all looked thoroughly normal to him. They were all things that he had seen in doctors’ offices and hospitals, and they didn’t worry him. He started to worry, however, when the strange woman started pulling out less friendly, normal looking things. Wire cutters, a utility knife, a hammer, a roll of barbed wire, a set of pliers, a cat o’ nine tails, and a set of knives…most of which seemed very sharp, but a couple of which looked incredibly dull.