Chapter 50th

"What does he have?"

What did he have? Time to think! I fidgeted, agitated. He squeezed my jaw tighter, pulled me closer to him, preventing further tricks – physical ones, at least. But my brain wouldn't work… I couldn't think fast enough, not thus restrained, not when so near... Fear clouded my mind!

"Alright, nice try…" he resumed, impatiently pulling me before him.

"NO!!! HE HAS A RADIO!!" I shouted the first thing that came to mind.

Chris stared from his height, holding me almost perfectly still in his hands… then he chuckled impatiently again.

"Is that the best you can do?!"

"NO! I mean it!! He has one… I saw it! OUCH!" I protested as he gathered me up.

"Unfortunately for you, I know for a fact that's impossible" was his calm reply "I searched him myself. Points for the effort though…" he disaffectedly pulled me under his arm.

"NO!! WAIT! I… I don't know how you missed it… or… or where he keeps it." I pulled back, my arm escaping his grip, my stretched shirt lingering between his tight fingers, his eyes aggressively aiming at me, ready to pounce "WAIT, WAIT, I KNOW!" I lifted both of my hands, desperately trying to pacify him, just enough to get a word in "It's small… it's… it's very small!"

Chris looked away and sighed, shaking his head lightly from side to side as if finally losing every bit of patient he had left. Swiftly, then, he climbed down a step and grabbed me by the hair on the back of my head. I shuddered, terrified and confused, but ultimately powerless when he pulled my hair back as to have me face upwards to him – to his grave face, his aggressive eyes – to stare fear in the face and wonder what he would do.

"Well?" he demanded after a long pause – the chilliest one I had ever experienced. "I'm listening…!"

I looked into his piercing, sharp, hardened eyes… I looked from one to the other, and to the thick shadows surrounding his face, and I found myself speechless.

"I'm listening…" he urged, tugging my hair a little tighter, rendering me completely still as he eyed me down, challenging me to continue.

He didn't have to say it – what he'd do to me if I tried to trick him… if he caught me trying, at least: his expression said it all. As for me, I had no idea where I was going with this, but it couldn't end well… there was no radio, there was no plan other than the impulse of putting a couple more minutes between me and what awaited me in that empty, padded, plastic-wrapped room upstairs – my last stay. Still, cowardice or courage – I honestly couldn't decide which – compelled me to speak on, to live down that obvious lie and see where it would take me… My legs shook as I did it, as if death was not already on the table one way or another. I swallowed hard:

"He… he's just waiting… It's a small radio, too small…" I blinked. This was coming out awful "Too small for you to see. So he's waiting… for you to take me upstairs, to close the door. When…" the idea – the very unpronounced word, and the meaning behind the ones I carefully chose… it made me frown, disturbed "When you're too busy, when… when you can't hear him. Then… that's when he'll radio them. For help."

"Will he now?"

"Y-yes." I felt compelled to answer.

"When I'm busy?" I'm sure he repeated it out of sick amusement.

"E-exactly."

"He'll take out this tiny imperceptible radio and call for help? And he conveyed this plan to you?"

"Yes… Yes, exactly…" I was quick to fill the gaps, as if more time made it less logical "That's it. Trust me!"

"Trust you!" he laughed at my veritably funny choice of words. "Of course…"

He wasn't buying it… I could tell. But still he listened on. Why? I didn't know. I could only try to make it sound more convincing, to turn the tables and remedy whatever he was planning to do to me of extra nasty if I didn't succeed:

"It's… it's not really a radio, I think. It's too small. He… he said he'd use some sort of code. Morse code. It's…it's not a radio, it's a transmitter. The size of a coin!"

My heart thumped, proud – I had said something really smart!

"And why would you share this much, huh? Why would you ruin his plan by telling me – ruin your own shots, really? You can't possibly like me that much…" he teased.

I writhed in his hands as he pulled my head further back, bending my neck. Pain, it seems, only made me panic harder, and words came out almost before I thought of them:

"I-I don't!!" I grimaced "It's because… because he's done it already… probably… And they're coming! They might be! I…" what more convincing than the truth? "I… I just want to buy time until they do. To keep you away from me… I just need a little more, and it will be over!"

Ah, the mere thought… the fantasy of that being true was enough to make me show him a bold, wicked smile, one that stung him – he tossed my head back, I breathed in. It seemed like a small victory: when he grabbed my arm and pushed me back down the few steps he had managed to drag me through, and I saw that dark room where I was to die grow farther away… but the feeling was as fleeting as any fantasy:

"Well then, if that's the case, I guess that's it: we're out of time! Nothing to do but run and try to get myself a head start, yes?"

"Y-yes!" I hesitantly, but desperately replied – desperate to believe.

"I appreciate the tip – devotion at its finest, that's for sure. But first, let's go back down there and find that transmitter!" He announced almost contently, eager to incorporate this transgression into some new form of torture, I was sure. I paused and watched him as soon as I realized something was off – his eyes turned colder, decided, untroubled, looking back at me with a challenge. He pushed me ahead of him before I could investigate his intent much further.

What would he do? What had I done but buy myself a handful of minutes – minutes of utter terror, I must add! –, after which Chris would absolutely tear me down? He marched slowly downstairs, taking me with him… Slowly, because there was no rush… because there was no transmitter, no cops, only a harsh lesson to be administered!

----

Once back in the basement, Chris tossed me to the floor, and I fell helplessly out of balance. As I recovered, I heard him speak:

"Well now… Sorry to disturb your peace." He paced around "…But the girl here says you have something that might interest me…"

I turned, despair surging. Chris stood before the cop, the latter looking up, confused and scared.

Chris cast me a brief, yet very vengeful look, one that seemed to share an inside joke – something only I could understand. Joe's trembling eyes sought me immediately, and I saw him sweat. My tongue grew quickly bitter.

"What? You won't surrender it voluntarily?" he interrogated blindly "Well, I guess I'll just have to find it… She did say it was very small!"

Then, worse even than the fear of what consequences awaited me was the torture of the cop's pair of brown eyes turning my way, scared, looking for understanding or reassurance. How did I not think that through?! What was it I experienced then, under that pain-filled scrutiny? Was it shame? Regret? Terror? Terror was the word! Sheer, utter terror!

"Wait…" I started, desperate to take that moment back – too late. Chris wouldn't care. He punched the cop across the face, and he fell back down. The sound of his teeth clattering, of something wet – blood or saliva – squishing under that blow… it disturbed me to the bone!

"Right… I forget: I'm not very good at searching…" Chris breathed "I'd much rather you told me. Well? Where is it?"

I pressed my palms to my eyes, most cowardly! I couldn't keep from listening. The cop's wet, breathless protest, his clueless questions… 'where is what?' he said, 'where is what?' he desperately repeated, unknowing… then lost his voice, groaned and choked with the muffled sound of Chris kicking him the stomach, repeatedly. Pleas, cries, the sound of pain, of bone clashing against bone, were all I heard for long, long seconds…

Chris's questions stopped: they weren't the point. He never searched the cop, that wasn't the point either: the point was me… torturing me. An easily achieved feat. And he couldn't help himself. He couldn't fight a smile when my name was cried out in that wet, pain-filled voice. The cop stretched out his hand calling for me, as if begging me to plead for him… to take back whatever it was I had said! I opened my eyes, then covered them again, cowardly, and wept.