Alena’s Revenge by K.A Knight

Chapter Nine

Idris

Iwake up suddenly, a loud, jarring bang wrenching me from the warm blackness cocooning me. My head spins, my eyes aren’t working, and my ears are ringing. My body is exhausted and sluggish, but I remember the needle, the warehouse, the drugging. Breathing through the sickness, I count backwards until my heart slows and my stomach stops rolling, then I force my eyes open to scan my location.

Whoever it was, they were prepared. They wanted me for a reason… but what?

The bang comes again, closer, like the sound of a metal door shutting, and then I hear keys in a lock and laughter as footsteps retreat, the voices fading also. “You heard the boss, she won her peace for the night fair and square. Go sink your dick into one of the other pieces of merchandise.”

My eyes finally adjust to the dark, and I survey the small, damp cell I’m in. I tug on my hands, but they won’t budge, so I lift my aching head to see they are chained to the ceiling. My arms are stretched out above me, but even so, my feet, also chained, touch the floor from my height. The clinking sound of my restraints as I move is loud. Snarling, I yank on them, testing their strength, but they don’t dislodge.

My shirt is gone, and my abs and chest are covered in dirt, post drug sweat, and even some blood—not mine though. I don’t feel any wounds unless they are small. My jeans are still in place and hanging low on my hips. My boots are gone, socks too, and I know they have taken all my weapons.

Who are they?

Only time will tell, so for now, I need to focus on learning everything about my location and who took me, and preparing my body for their return. They kidnapped the wrong man.

You don’t fuck with Boogeyman.

I hear a muffled voice slowly getting louder and tilt my head to listen. It’s coming from the left… A different cell? Probably. More enemies, or is this something else?

It goes quiet for a while, and I hang there, lifting my legs to keep the blood pumping and my heart racing to force the drugs out faster. That’s when I hear the voice again. This time it’s… singing?

It’s loud and off-key, and there is laughter between notes.

Captivity and torture can break the mind like that. I wonder how long they have been down here. It continues though, and I snarl, getting annoyed. The high-pitched notes pierce through the bricks and hammer into my oversensitive, drugged skull.

“Shut the fuck up,” I yell, and it stops instantly. There is a moment of peace before I get a response.

“Who the fuck is that? They locked you down here with me? You must be a monster. So who are you?” She laughs, her voice husky and velvety.

I stay silent, but she becomes insistent. “Who are you?” she sings, and I hear the rattle of her chains. Who did she piss off to get locked up down here?

“No one,” I snarl.

“You must have a name. If you want me to shut up, you better tell me.” She giggles.

Sighing, I grit my teeth. “If I tell you, you’ll shut the fuck up?”

“Yup.” She pops the ‘p,’ dragging it out.

For fuck’s sake, but if it buys her silence… “Boogeyman,” I tell her.

“Boogeyman, huh? Well, welcome to hell.” She laughs and then goes quiet like she promised.

“This isn’t hell, I’ve been to hell. This is nothing but an inconvenience, and I’ll be free soon. Probably not you. You’re better keeping your mouth shut,” I growl, unsure why I’m warning her other than the wrecked, angry quality I heard in her voice. She’s pissed, but she’s not broken, begging, or crying. She’s fucking furious.

“That won’t stop them from raping and torturing me though, will it, Boogeyman? No, that will just make it easy for them, and they’ll get bored and kill me. Even if every moment of my existence hurts, it’s better than being dead.”

I frown, wondering why. She has nothing left to fight for. She’ll die down here, I’ve seen it so many times, and if not, she’ll be broken her whole life. I don’t know if it’s from boredom while I wait for the people who took me or simply interest in this livid creature next to me, but I find myself asking, “Why?”

She says something that surprises me.

“For revenge.”

* * *

Alena

“Revenge?”he echoes in disbelief, his deep, gravelly voice reminding me of Samuel L. Jackson.

It’s soothing in a way, and I wonder what he looks like. Does he match it? Who is he? If he’s locked down here like I am, he’s clearly done something wrong—maybe he’s one of the guards? Or just someone who pissed off the traffickers? I don’t know, and he doesn’t seem like the sharing type. His words are clipped, and his voice is slow and rough, like he’s not used to speaking, but he’s a distraction from the moral crisis brewing inside me. From the flashes of that poor innocent girl I killed. From my own pain. From the fracturing of my soul.

So I keep talking, enjoying the first real conversation I’ve had with someone who isn’t torturing me in a long fucking time. I find myself reaching out and hanging onto his every word, not wanting it to stop.

“Yes, you know the word, Boogeyman? To get back at these bastards, to make them feel every inch of what they did to me, to rip them to pieces and fucking shower in their blood. To take everything they have and burn it to the fucking ground. That’s why I’m still alive. They can take everything but that fire from me. I will get my revenge, Boogeyman, you wait and see.”

He goes quiet then. I allow him the silence, since he probably doesn’t know what to say. Fuck him, I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone. I close my eyes, shivering from the cold. The trip upstairs was a quick reprieve from the icy wetness of my cell, but the light was too bright. They are right—I’m like an animal, more suited to the cold, wet, dark cell than normal life.

I’m a creature.

The monster they created.

This place may be my prison, but it will be their casket.

* * *

Time passes strangely down here.It feels like days, but it must only be an hour or so before I hear the footsteps. I’ve gotten good at knowing each and every sound, and those are boots headed this way. I clench my hands, my muscles tensing as I prepare for pain… which never comes.

The boots stop, and two moments later, a cell door opens. Not mine, no, my new friend, Boogeyman. I hear them enter his cell as I relax, tilting my head to try and hear better.

“Hello, Boogeyman,” comes a dark voice. “I have been waiting a long time for this. It seems you are a hard ghost to track down.”

“Yeah? I don’t know who the fuck you are,” my neighbour snaps. So this man has been hunted? Why? He clearly doesn’t work for them.

“No? Maybe you’ll recognise my family name, Nikolić.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then a bark of laughter. “You’re that cunt’s… brother, I’m guessing?” Boogeyman replies.

“Yes, brother. After you destroyed my family’s business—”

“Of trafficking young, foreign girls,” Boogeyman interrupts. There’s a crash and a grunt of pain, and then the other man starts talking.

“I was all that was left. I went to America and started fresh, all while hunting you. It’s taken me ten years to build contacts and regain my position, but I vowed I would never stop, no matter what it took. Even if I had to work under the directive of some fucking American scum to get to you.”

“Cute backstory, can we get on with the torture now?” Boogeyman deadpans, making me laugh loudly.

“Shut that fucking dog up,” comes a snarl, and there’s a bang on the wall. I giggle harder, but under my breath. It seems his ten-year plan isn’t going like he wanted.

I can hear the anger in his voice.

His hate.

So Boogeyman killed some traffickers, nice. It makes me wonder who the fuck he is in the first place to be mixed up with them. Either way, he’s as fucked as I am. He pissed off the wrong people. This Nikolić may not be the head guy… Shit, I don’t even know who the head guy is. I’ve only met the bald-headed fuck who runs this establishment, but he said an American? I listen harder, knowing I need to store anything they say and use it against them.

“Oh, it won’t be that easy,” the man snaps, and I hear another crash. “I’ve waited ten years, assassin, and you are going to suffer for a long fucking time down here, сероњо. I’m going to break every inch of your body over and over and then your will, until the big bad Boogeyman is nothing more than a fucking myth,” he snarls, his Serbian accent growing more pronounced the angrier he gets.

“Pussy,” Boogeyman growls. “Just like your brother.”

Oh shit.

I hear the man bark something in Serbian, and then two seconds later, I hear the sound of fists hitting skin, of torture, yet Boogeyman doesn’t make one sound. Not even a grunt. He just takes it, and it only infuriates them more.

I don’t know how long I stand there listening to them torment him, but even I start to get angry. I don’t know this man, but he clearly has balls of fucking steel and is doing the one thing I wish I could.

Pissing them off.

There’s a loud yell, and a moment later, I jolt in my chains as something smashes into the wall repeatedly. I turn my head and watch as one of the bricks cracks, and pieces of it fall away, revealing a hole into the other cell. A body slides down that hole.

“Fuck, get him out of here. Leave his ass bleeding,” comes a holler. “We’ll be back, Boogeyman.” There is a rush of footsteps, and then the sound of the cell door opening and closing.

Raising my eyebrows, I shake my head to move my hair out of my face and peer into the darkened cell next door. I get a glimpse of a giant, sweaty, bloody muscular body and chains.

“You really pissed him off.” I laugh. I see the edge of his chin and mouth as he turns and notices the hole. “Welcome to the club.”