Philo [MXM] [BOOK 2] ✓

CHAPTER 31: LOST

When Dew finally gains consciousness, his head hurts.

It takes him a moment to realize why. To remember how he'd escaped Rowan to go on a simple walk, then ran into his kidnappers and eventually got knocked out. The back of his head is in a lot of pain, but it's the memory of the fact that he's been stolen off the street that causes the burst of adrenaline, and for his eyes to finally open.

The room he's in is dimly lit, and he realizes quickly that all of his limbs are restrained—arms tied behind his back and legs strapped somewhere. He knows he's sitting, and he looks down to find that he's in a metal chair, his ankles tied to the legs.

"Sleep well?"

Dew glances up at the voice, and finds the same man that he'd seen before—the one with the glowing white eyes. He has a weird cross earring and a scar on his eyebrow. He's looking down at Dew emotionlessly, but Dew is close enough to empathize with him, and he feels...

A pure, unbridled, urge to cause pain and suffering. Uh oh.

"Not really," Dew replies honestly. "My head hurts, thanks for that."

Dew's able to keep his composure and act aloof, but on the inside he's terrified.

He starts to look around the room, and finds that it's quite nice. When he imagined being kidnapped, he figured he'd wind up in some run down warehouse or something. Nope, this place has a little fireplace in the wall and a desk with a woman sitting at it, on a laptop. It's also got about three more people, all lounging on different pieces of furniture. It's comfortable, if only Dew wasn't so clearly in danger.

Dew looks back up at the first guy, who is now messing with a knife. A large fucking knife. Dew genuinely has no idea how he's going to get out of this situation.

"Dewey Price, correct?" The white-eyed man in front of Dew, who just radiates evil, asks.

Dew blinks up at him. "If I say no will you let me go?"

The guy does this... weird half smile, but the only thing it succeeds in doing is striking even more fear inside the empath. He can tell—feel—that there is no good inside this man, and it is downright petrifying.

"I'm gonna spoil something for you, Dewey: when you leave this place, you'll be in a body bag, barely alive, and you're going right to the Origin's doorstep."

Those words trigger even more alarm, and when he speaks them, something clicks. This isn't about Dew at all—no, this whole thing is to get a reaction from Rowan. They're going to torture Dew, that much is obvious, but it's purely to hurt Rowan, because he's the Origin. They want Rowan to see his mutilated body, apparently. These people are one of the groups the Captain warned him about. Dew thinks that it would've worked better if they took Rowan's soulmate instead, but oh well.

Anyway, it's pretty clear what Dew's best course of action is here. He can't fight back, so he has to not give them any sort of reaction. No matter what. It's the only thing he can think of, since otherwise he's helpless. The least he can do is not give them the sick thrill they want.

"How alive—like, on a scale of 1 to 10?" Yup, Dew needs to remain unfazed, it's the only way to make himself feel better.

The guy raises an eyebrow at him, possibly at how casual he's being. "1."

"Okay, but that would make me dead–"

"Then 2" he responds, voice low and threatening. "I'll dismember you first. Starting with your eyes—actually, I think I'll just take them for myself. I've never seen a pair that color before."

At this, the guy steps forward, and he places the blade two inches under Dew's left eye. It is incredibly sharp, and he hardly has to put any pressure as he slices Dew's skin, before the empath feels blood running down his face. Still, Dew is able to hold onto his composure, though he does wince just a bit, and his eye tears up slightly in reaction. The cut covers about three inches horizontal below his eye, and he can feel the blood dripping out. So this shirt is ruined.