Enforce Me

Chapter 34: Stale

Jaidan

Had it been hours? Days? Weeks...months?

There was no time here. There was nothing here. My fingers brushed the cold wet stone of walls, my knees grazing jagged rocks as I sat in a puddle of water that had leaked from a small crack that provided a pin prick of light in the otherwise dark, stone cell.

It couldn't have been more than two weeks here, my lips were still scabbed, my eye still was swollen and my body still sore and bruised from being dragged here, yet I hadn't seen anyone since I passed out somewhere along the way.

My stomach churned reminding me that I had not been fed since I had been thrown in this dark torturous place without knowing the way in or out. My only source of water was the hopefully clean water falling above me.

I was in a box and I didn't know how I was going to get out. I wasn't afraid to admit that I was terrified of my situation.

Was I going to be left here until I died or were the rogues going to come back? Had they taken the pup? How were my friends? Was Tatum fine or was he still at the same place looking for me? Was he alive?

I screeched in pain when my knee moved and landed right on top of a sharp rock effectively burying it into my skin where I convinced myself that the tears falling down my face were from the pain of my knee and nothing else but I couldn't tell what had come first, the tears or the rock?

My head banged against the wall as I threw it back in frustrated helplessness, my hand going to remove the small rock effectively releasing a slow trickle of blood from the angry red skin.

Breathe in

Breathe out

I rubbed at my face for a moment before there was a cracking noise to my right, like a thump of rocks against the floor being thrown away making me quickly scoot the few feet towards the farthest wall from the noise.

''...... still alive?''

''Should be.''

Unfamiliar voices started breaking through my small prison as rocks were moved, light bleeding through the widening gaps between the now open spaces where hands reached in aimlessly.

A frightened growl rumbled in my throat and I bundled myself as far as I could move in the few feet the room provided to the darkest corner where the light couldn't touch.

Chuckles were sounding off behind the wall. First one person, then two then a whole lot more as I continued to shake in fear of what was waiting beyond the reaching hands.

One hand snatched at my arm and ripped me forward until I was firmly smashed up against the remaining few rocks until more hands grasped me in painful grips ripping and pulling me between rocks until I had fresh scrapes along my arms, thighs, and face. None of that bothered me however as I was dropped roughly onto the wet snow and surrounded by the menacing glares of rogues.

There would have to be at least twenty men and women all staring at my small body as I tried to cover myself from the biting cold of the weather and stared. My pants were ripped and tattered and my shirt was basically useless with a slit running from the bottom to the middle of my chest, splayed open for anyone to see the cuts and bruises.

I'd prayed in my box that these cuts and rips happened along the way and not by someone's hands while I was passed out. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if it was the latter.

The laughter stopped as a man drew near, his feet were covered with old boots and his tan skin was wrapped up with warm looking clothes surely made of animal pelts. His aura was terrifying. He left the same aura a warrior or enforcer would choke a room with, it was suffocating like the air had been compressed and pushed downwards from the heavens onto yourself forcing you to lower your body in submission.