Dim light. Voices. Flame crackling. Heat on her face. Odd echo in whatever room she was in. Dru’s eyes were not yet open, but she could feel herself in some sort of chair. She opened her eyes, lifting her head. Three men. Why did two of them seem somewhat familiar? Where was she? Her head ached. Her side throbbed. She barely made out what they said…but the one she did not recognize was kneeling before her chair. Why was he messing with her wrists? Chains. Her mind cleared immediately, and she jerked her arm away. Too late. The last clamp was in place. “Be less painful…you move…” Evidently her mind was still not fully cleared, but she could piece things together. She remembered how she came to be here. She would not simply settle down.
She understood enough of what the man, who claimed to be named Mahnik, told her. He sent the other two from the room, but not before the man who chained her eyed her for entirely too long and made comments which made her wish to bash her chained wrists into his face. Not so easy. They were attached to the chair.
Mahnik attempted to force her to drink something, after she had annoyed them long enough. She bit his hand instead, which he had apparently foreseen. Perhaps she oughtn’t have headbutted him and attacked him in any way possible, before then. He poured some of the vile liquid over his hand and it came in contact with her lip. The moment it touched her lip, a feeling spread from her mouth to the rest of her body. Insects! Crawling beneath her skin! She wanted to scream, to wiggle…but Mahnik wanted that too. He watched her force herself to still. To remain silent. He enjoyed it. Why? Why did she matter? No one would choose to put up with her for no reason.
Stitches. Or…Kakeraen, as he called him. Such stories they said. She could not believe a word of it. “That is not the man I…know. If they speak truth…then that man is now dead.” At least they gave news of him being alive. But they said Dru’s disappearance would drive him to insanity. He would not stop searching for her until she was found. She refused to believe it. She was his friend. But she was not that special. It burned and soothed her heart to say that to herself. “He will not search for me. He is living happily…forgetting me. I will die here and h-…all of Bree will be safer.” She thought such things constantly…when she was not coming up with obnoxious jokes to keep her wits about.
Mahnik drove a hook through her cheek slowly, after the insect feeling had mostly died away. “I will not trouble our minds by speaking of how fishy this is,” she said, keeping her mouth as still as possible. Every turn, every moment, she did her best to make them regret taking her captive. She attempted to slide her wrists through the clamps…before Mahnik stabbed a scalpel through each wrist, just in front of the clamps. She angered him. He stabbed another scalpel into her left hand. He ripped the hook from her cheek. He slapped her across the face…twice just over where the hook had torn a chunk of her flesh away. “Do you wish to have children?” He held the scalpel in front of her naked torso tauntingly. Somehow, she knew she would not be sexually tortured. This was a small measure of comfort in such pain. “Best lie…make him believe you,” she thought to herself. “Oh, well if you do not, I suppose we can make it so you cannot.” She thought fast. “A…woman never would wish to lose…the capability.” She spoke fast too. “Say please.” She hated begging. But her dreams…the smallest hope. “Please. Please do not stab me there?” She forced herself not to lose her voice. She pleaded, hoping her eyes did not betray how important it was to her…but enough that he would not do it. He didn’t, and instead smiled and sat in a chair at the other end of the tiny room. “See? I knew we could get along,” he said, as if she were his friend. She was quiet. Not broken. Nowhere close. But she would not bring more trouble upon herself for the moment.
It was short-lived. She angered him. He slapped her again. Once again, she passed out. Went blank. Then, sometime later, she did awaken, to a woman. She seemed friendly, which nearly was helpful. She tended Dru’s injuries quickly, which Dru was thankful for. “Why? It would be easier for the world, and you, once you die.” She forced her mind to shut up, as she spoke to the woman, named Vee. The longer she spoke, the more she realized she hated this woman. As much, if not more, than she hated Mahnik. She needed to escape. And she needed to kill the both of them. The thought caught her by surprise, but she held it. The only way to save him. Vee hated her too. Good. She would never wish to be liked by such a disgusting, filthy creature. The things she said about Kakeraen. Her plans. Dru would never allow this.
Her wounds were tended, but her entire body still hurt. She knew she would be further abused, so she did not focus on the pain. But the pain in her heart far outshone anything else. It was a physical pain…once which made it hard to breathe at every moment. She hoped Kakeraen would never remember. He would make a new life, instead. One in which she did not exist, except as a distant memory of a friend.
