Russian Roulette: Flashbacks [male x male]

Ch. 66: Choose!

Then

Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Clang. Creak. Slam.

Phoenix logged the end of another guard cycle in his mind and started counting seconds. That was all he had been doing between sleeping and eating. Rationally, he knew his counting could be off slightly. Counting seconds took a lot of energy to not go too fast or too slow, but he was not interested in being 100% accurate. He was interested in the patterns his counting gave him.

Guard patrols, distances of the patrols, guard shifts, number of people there at any time, bathroom breaks, and feeding times.

His head pounded, and his body ached, not that he felt the pain as such, he just felt stiff in the joints from being only able to lie or sit for so long, but he did not care. He spent all his energy on listening and logging information in his mind.

There were gaps in his information because they had drugged him a few times. The first time when they were ambushed before he got transported to wherever he was now. How long he had been out, Phoenix could not say. After that, it had been three times of waking confused and with a banging headache. Each time after having been forced to eat some sticky stew and drink a bottle of water. If it was the food or the water they had spiked, he was not entirely sure of. He figured it was the stew, because they had given him bottles of water with his other meals, and nothing had happened.

Phoenix leaned back against the bare concrete wall, drawing some coolness of it into his body. He was not one to bruise easily, but he knew he had to sport a few under his wrinkled and dirty clothes. Not that they had mistreated him. If he disregarded how they had kidnapped him and kept him chained in a room against his will, they had only hailed fists of fury on him one time when he had lost his temper with them.

In the end, that rebellion had been futile.

He sighed when the heat emanating from his body subsided through the contact with the wall. The coolness also helped against the somewhat humid room. It was the height of summer outside, and he knew the building had to be baking. The concrete was a blessing.

Though he did not want to, his eyes drifted to the partially wiped and dried-up spot on the floor, left behind by a gross combination of blood and brain matter from Danil.

It had happened the first night there, wherever there was.

His captors had presented Phoenix with his meal, what had looked like dog food, though smelled a tad better. Naturally, Phoenix had refused to eat, and they had left him to ponder this for a while. When he had not touched his food half an hour later, they had dragged in Artyom, Danil, and Timur, who apparently had refused too, even though it was the first food they all had been offered. On their knees, with their hands tied in front of them, and at gunpoint, they had been forced to eat, Danil included, but he had been too slow for the captors' taste, and they had shot him right there in the room. Phoenix would never forget how the gunshot had echoed off the concrete walls. The sound had bounced around with deafening effect, followed by the thud of Danil hitting the floor.

It was such a senseless death, and the empty look in Danil's eyes still flashed in Phoenix's mind. Phoenix had spent enough time with Danil to know he was on a special diet because of his food allergies, and in the situation, he had tried to eat, though it had been tough for him. Of course, the captors had not known this, but he had eaten, and they still shot him.

That had been the point when Phoenix had lost it and launched an attack on the nearest gun-holding thug. He had gotten a few good punches in, considering he had his leg and right arm shackled to the wall with only a little leeway from the chains attached. Artyom and Timur had joined the fight with the same sense of justice, but being tied and on their knees, they had not been a match for the men they had been up against. All of them had received a fierce pounding, and after that, Phoenix had rethought his approach. There had been no way around it. To keep Artyom and Timur alive, and give the gang time to figure out they were missing, Phoenix had kept his rage bottled up. He had no leverage in the situation and had to think ahead.