Darker Places (Ninjago)

7. Jay

Getting kidnapped sucks. Take it from me, it's not fun. Seriously. Don't try this at home, kids.

Sitting in a dark and cold room, the only thing I could think about was Cole. I hadn't heard from him in days. All I could do was hope he wasn't dead.

Everyday I'd been here had been horrible. The good news was, they couldn't use my powers as their source unless I was willing to do it. The bad news, they really wanted to use my powers as their source.

So, to convince me to hand myself over, they were absolute jerks. They hadn't given me anything to eat since I'd gotten here, but they kept bringing in freshly baked bread and glasses of water, putting it just where I couldn't reach. My hand was chained to the wall, and my movements were very limited. I could smell the bread. It smelled amazing. And I was starving. Made me want to call somebody a few names that Master Wu wouldn't be proud of.

But that wasn't all they did.

They had many, many different ways to torture someone. Let's just say, I've had more fun on a mission before. For your sake, I won't go into any details. But the torture wasn't the worst part. The worst part was, there was this one guy that liked to stop by my wonderful little cell every now and then and tell me that the other Ninja are dead.

I didn't believe him, and I wouldn't, but it still sucks sitting around chained to a wall while some ugly looking baboon descriptively describes how he killed your best friends. Your family.

Listening to him talk about that was like pressing a molten metal pole into my chest. Because even if I didn't believe him, it still hurt to think about anything mediocrely close to what he described happening to them. It was all quite horrible, really. So much so that just thinking about it all made me laugh. That laugh didn't last very long. It turned into a bone-wracking, dry cough. My throat burned. I tried once again to reach for the three cups of water, but they were mere centimeters out of grasp. They had been farther before, but then I had accidentally dislocated my wrist, which had added like an inch to the length of my arm.

And it hurt like heck. Between that and the freezing cold metal shackle around it, I was ready to just cut my entire arm off.

I could use my powers and get out of here. But I couldn't. One tiny little bit of electricity coming through my fingertips would alert an entire system of machines that all all hooked up to this big glass tank.

If I used my powers, even if it was just a little, they would be able to draw it all out of me. I slid down the rough brick wall, not even caring anymore that it scraped the skin on my back. I winced as the walls scraped against a cut I had gotten between my shoulder blades during one of those lovely 'playtime' sessions. With a sigh, a closed my eyes.

"Cole?" I whispered, hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone would answer this time. They hadn't taken the earpiece from me. They didn't even know I had it. Idiots. They doubted me so much that they hadn't even bothered to put any cameras in my cage, no guards at the door. Literally nothing but that wretched power-stealing machine. "Anyone?"

No response. At this point, I wasn't sure if I was even expecting an answer anymore.

Panic surged through me all of a sudden, along with unwanted thoughts. What if Mr. Ugly-face hadn't been lying about killing all of them? What if they really were dead? What if they were trapped somewhere? Captured?

What if they had given up?

No, ninja never quit. I reminded myself. Ninja never quit. Ninja never quit. They won't. And neither will I.

I heard the door of metal bars creaking open. I lifted my eyelids to see who had come in.

Wow, lucky me!