Authors: K.A. Merikan
“Didn’t you hear me, Misha?”
asked Zero in that soft-spoken voice that was like a callback to a much more
vulnerable time. Misha cried, squeezing his hands over the soft fabric of his
sweats. He wanted to do what was required of him, be the brave man Grim needed
him to be, but terror made his fingers stiff and uncompliant as hot tears
streamed down his cheeks.
“Is that necessary?” asked Grim,
and before Misha could even comprehend what his words meant, Zero’s fingers
were unfolding the fabric that hid away his stumps. He screamed, but no sound
came out, and so he just watched wet spots dot his pants as his stumps
gradually emerged into the cool air.
“Shut up. You’re making my boy
breathless with that complaining,” hissed Zero.
Zero was touching him, and Misha
was helpless to stop him from doing so. He couldn’t even move as those invading
fingers slowly stripped away all the dignity he had regained throughout the
last few weeks.
“I missed you,” whispered Zero,
and his voice sounded oddly intimate, almost like a confession, “You suffered
so beautifully for me.”
Misha choked on a sob and
wouldn’t look up, but it didn’t seem it was required from him.
The movie started.
In the cool glow of the car’s
headlights, Tomas was hanging head down like a pig ready for slaughter. Misha
was there too, facing away from the camera, unyielding to the man’s protests.
It was almost as if the disabled man in the wheelchair were a stranger Misha
couldn’t recognize, and the disguise Grim had forced on him back then only
fueled this lack of connection between the Misha from a few days ago and the
cringing, scared maggot that he was reduced to now.
When Grim faced the camera for
the first time, Zero’s fingernails dug into Misha’s stump, making him tense
from the sudden pain. “I can see you think you’re the new Lady Godiva. But I
can’t say you didn’t honor our agreement either,” he said without much emotion
to his voice.
“I couldn’t be Logan as I did
that,” answered Grim from much too far away for Misha’s liking.
Back then, Misha managed to watch
the torture without much emotion. He’d believed Tomas’s death was justified.
The man was a pervert who escaped the law, and sacrificing his life to save an
innocent was the least he could do. But now, watching all the blood and
listening to the cries was like a barbaric spectacle Misha didn’t want to have
any part in. With a hot, intruding hand roughly fondling Misha’s stump as he
struggled against tears, he realized he saw too much Zero in Grim’s actions in
the video. He too was covered in blood, and even if he didn’t get hard from
inflicting the torture, watching Grim’s usually loving hands taking a life with
little to no remorse was a sickening experience. By the time the film ended,
Misha was a shivering mess.
The silence that followed was
like a void that sucked in all emotions that remained in the sane part of
Misha’s brain. Zero let go of his stump and clapped. He stood up and removed
the flash drive from the slot before closing the computer. The screenshot
disappeared from the wall, and Zero leaned against the windowsill, looking over
Misha’s head, as if Misha had outlived his usefulness to him already.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t
you?”
“What do you think?” asked Grim,
and this time, Zero didn’t make any demands and only nodded in acknowledgment.
Both the goons walked over to the door they all earlier entered through, but
the men still pointed their rifles at Grim, as if he were a bloodthirsty lion
that needed to be put down if necessary. Misha’s heart skipped a beat. Was this
the end?
He shuddered when Zero looked at
him again, but then, the man who haunted Misha in his darkest nightmares
casually left his side and walked across the ballroom to join his men at the
door.
“I’m impressed. It’s not often
that someone outsmarts me. Other than at the card table. I’m a terrible
gambler,” Zero said with a sharp laugh. T4 opened the door for him while the
other goon stood there motionless, ready to pierce them all with bullets at his
master’s command.
Misha took a deep breath,
completely lost. They were getting out of this alive? It only then occurred to
him that no matter what he was telling himself, he only came here because of
guilt. His body never trusted Zero’s promises. It never believed they would see
the light of the next day. He relaxed into the chair, boneless after the
endless minutes of crippling anxiety that had gnawed at him since the phone
call.
Grim stood where Misha had last
seen him, hands in his pockets, face focused but not too tense. Had he somehow
known all along that Zero would keep his word?
Dennis’s muffled cry tore Misha’s
attention away from the door, and he looked at the young man shivering on the
wiggly chair, his wide-eyed gaze tearing through Zero like sharp spikes. Misha
opened his mouth to comfort him, but breath froze in his lungs when a ray of
light caught a glimmering line that stretched in the air, ripping the chair
from under Dennis’s feet just as the door closed behind Zero with a loud bang
that was followed by a rattle of metal.
Misha’s body shot roots into the
floor as Dennis first fell and then rapidly stirred in the air, swinging on the
thick rope like a wild rabbit desperate to get away from the leg-hold trap. His
shoulders went up, and all the tendons and veins in his neck pressed against
the skin as he frantically wiggled his legs over the floor. In his wide eyes,
Misha saw the certainty of impending doom that was so visceral that he couldn’t
bring himself to move.
Grim screamed and rushed over,
grabbing Dennis around the thighs and lifted him up, easing the hold the noose
had on Dennis’s neck. “Misha, come here!” he shouted.
It was as if the glass bubble
that grew ever thicker around Misha was smashed by this one sentence. He
wheeled over and pushed his lap underneath Dennis’s feet, bumping one of the
wheels against Grim’s leg.
Misha tightened the wheel brakes
and looked up with heat spreading in his face again. “Put him on the seat and
go. I’ll help Dennis untie his hands. If you don’t get him now, you never
will.”
Misha listened to his own ragged
breathing as he looked up into Grim’s eyes, which flashed with understanding.
That must have been his actual goal behind following Zero’s instructions, and
now that Zero took the incriminating footage, Grim had no time to lose.
“Please, go. I’ll take care of it.”
Grim exhaled and pushed Dennis at
Misha, who grabbed the tense ankles and placed them on both sides of his
thighs. Dennis’s hands were pale under the tight knot of rope around his
wrists, but it wasn’t something Misha couldn’t handle.
As soon as Dennis was stable,
Grim ducked and reached underneath the seat of Misha’s wheelchair. Misha
twitched when something moved beneath his ass, but when Grim’s hands emerged
with two serrated blades, he gaped at him, unable to comprehend what just
happened.
“They had been there the whole
time?”
Grim winked at Misha and touched
the blades against each other as his eyes lit up. “I’m gonna bring you his
head,” he whispered before darting toward the other doorway at one end of the
ballroom, which was still open.
Misha took a deep breath, holding
on to Dennis’s trembling calves as he followed Grim with his gaze until he
disappeared from sight. His heart thumped with excitement and fear, but with
the battered, naked body in his hands, there were different priorities. He
could reach Dennis’s hands without changing his position, and he dug his thumbs
into the rope, intent on freeing him as quickly as possible. As soon as Dennis
managed to pull out one hand, he grabbed the noose, yanked it off his neck,
then stumbled forward, and rolled onto the floor, shuddering as his stiffened
fingers pulled at the makeshift gag. He whimpered when the tape tore off his
skin, and he curled up, frantically massaging his wrists.
Misha’s stomach turned, and he
unlocked his wheels, moving over. “I’m so sorry. We’re gonna take you to a safe
place. You’ll see a doctor.”
Dennis’s eyes turned toward him,
haunted by things Misha could imagine all too well.
“I know,” Misha whispered and
shuddered when his voice echoed across the empty room. “He did it to me, too.”
Dennis looked away, curling up in
an attempt to hide his nakedness. Misha quickly pulled off his hoodie and
offered it in his outstretched hand. Dennis hesitated, but then abruptly tore
the garment out of Misha’s grasp and pulled it on. Misha didn’t even hesitate
and offered him the sweatpants as well, as he wore boxer shorts underneath
anyway. Dennis pulled them on, turning his face away from Misha.
“It’s all your fault ... you ...
groomed me for him,” he uttered in a raspy voice, and he might have as well
thrown a stone into Misha’s face.
Misha swallowed hard, overcome
with guilt so thick he could choke on it. “I-I’m so sorry. I was forced to do
this. I had no choice ...”
“Everyone has a choice,” hissed
Dennis, refusing to look at Misha.
Misha rubbed his face and took a shuddery
breath as memories rolled in front of his eyes like a snuff film. “He took me
almost five years ago. I only escaped a few weeks back.”
Dennis stirred and slowly looked
over his shoulder, his eyes wide. “Five years?” It was barely more than a gasp.
Misha didn’t want to lose control
again, but without Grim to hold him together, he was crumbling apart like a
sand castle during the tide. He sobbed, and more tears streamed down his
cheeks. “H-he took my legs. I was so scared ... I’m sorry ... I have nothing
that I can offer you but this ... you have no idea how much I wanted to tell
you to run, but each of our conversations was monitored. I couldn’t ... I
really ...”
Dennis shook his head, visibly
deflated. “Fuck ... I need air ... This is ... too much ...”
Misha wheeled over, desperate to
offer any help he could. It would at least take his mind off Grim and the fact
that he was still in danger. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah,” muttered Dennis and
dragged himself to his feet. They were bare, one traced with red, but Misha had
no shoes to offer Dennis.
“They locked those doors behind
them,” Misha said, wheeling to the same exit Grim had used as he left.
Dennis took the flashlight and
went first, rocking to the sides, as if he couldn’t stand the pain of a normal
gait. Misha winced but followed him without a word, spooked out by a shape that
threw a tangled shadow on the wall. It was some kind of old-fashioned medical
bed, still covered by sheets. There was a lot of trash lying in the room they
entered next, from contemporary candy wrappers to old shoes, but with the
prevalence of the white metal furniture, Misha was beginning to understand this
was some kind of abandoned hospital.
He didn’t share his suspicions
with Dennis, too spooked already. At least the fear of seeing shadows of
patients who died here several decades ago took his mind off Grim. His man was
possibly still somewhere in the building, up against two armed men and the most
twisted of monsters. No matter how much Misha believed in him, fear was growing
inside his body, fueled by the echo of Dennis’s feet and the ghostly rubble all
around. He exhaled as they walked through another door and entered one of the
grand corridors that led straight to the main entrance. He licked his lips and
wheeled toward the hall that he could already see at a distance.
The shadows of metal bars
streaked the floor as he followed Dennis, who supported his weight by the wall,
walking with even more strain. He seemed to be in a lot of pain, and judging by
the numerous bruises on his torso, it was possible his ribs were broken, and
Misha wanted to have him see a doctor as soon as possible.
He was queasy at the thought of
just entering the hall. Something inside his head was telling him that there
was a sniper waiting for them, ready to blow their brains all over the wall,
but Dennis didn’t share his sentiment and all but ran toward the door. He
pushed the handle down and pulled, but the huge door stayed closed.
He stared at it, then pushed, and
then pulled again, eventually yanking it back and forth, and yet it wouldn’t
budge. Dennis’s wide, frightened eyes looked back at Misha. “You sure those are
the ones? They’re locked ...”
Misha’s brain was overheating,
but as he looked around, at the empty reception area, at the familiar twin
corridors, and the small door to the ballroom, all he could do was nod. “Yes,
that’s the one.”
Dennis looked as if he wanted to
say something but dropped to the floor and cowered when several gunshots
resonated somewhere in the building. Misha melted into the chair, his throat
gone dry within a split second. In that moment, he regretted ever telling Grim
that he absolutely needed to have Zero killed.
“F-fuck,” uttered Dennis,
shuddering uncontrollably as he cuddled up against the door.
“Upstairs,” whispered Misha, the
spooky shadows completely forgotten. There was nothing real about them. The
possibility of Grim getting hurt, on the other hand, was painfully real.
“We need to find a way out ...
all those windows are blocked,” whimpered Dennis and looked around, his breath
coming in short gasps. “You go left, and I go right.”