ivedugahole

[ivedugahole]

31 Days

Summary: the mission went sideways and you’ve been kidnapped

Warnings: torture, violence, blood, mention of SA, death, trauma, PTSD(?), use of guns and knives, angst

No matter how much training I received I never fully am prepared for something as dangerous as this. Long story short, mission went sideways, we were surrounded within five minutes and were forced to retreat. Except I didn’t make it onto the helo and I’m now instead cuffed with a bag over my head and two pairs of hands on both my arms, forcing me to keep walking.

We stop walking and I hear scraping behind me. The hands on my arms force me to sit down and they un-cuff me and tie my hands and feet to the chair. I remind myself to stay calm, to focus on my breathing so that I don’t spiral out and start panicking. The bag is lifted off my face and the feeling to breathe is a whole lot easier. I squint my eyes as the bag is lifted and try to make sense of where I am, focusing on the exits and any tools I can use to try and escape. I turn my head around behind me and see a table full of weapons, saws, knives, pliers and needles. This is gonna be fun.

A rough hand grabs both sides of my cheeks and turns my head around, forcing me to look at him. I scowl at him when we make eye contact and he returns a sickening grin.

“You are 141?” He asks in a heavy accent.

I say nothing. These fuckers are gonna have to work for this information.

The man pulls away from my cheek to swipe his palm across my face. I let out a breath before he knots my hair in his fist forcing me to look at him again.

“Answer,” he pulls a knife from his pocket, holding the cold metal against my left cheek. “Are you 141?”

I let out a little chuckle before spitting at his face. He stumbles back a little letting go of my hair to wipe the spit off his face. He looks at me with a burning rage.

I shrugged in the chair, “I’m not telling you shit. You can do whatever you want, I’m not breaking bitch.”

He walks up to me and places his head next to my ear. “We will see about that.” He pulls himself back, looking at the knife in his hands. “Keep her still,” he says to the other men in the room without looking up from his knife.

One of the men behind me places one hand on top of my head and the other on the back of neck, applying an ungodly amount of pressure to keep me still. I struggle against his grip earning me a tighter grip around the back of my throat, his fingers stabbing at the tendons and muscles on my throat.

The man in front of me walks to me again, holding the knife in front of my face. He studies me and I look back confused.

“Where should I cut you?” He places the metal on my lips. “Here?” he moves the knife to my cheek again, “Or here?”

My heart pounds against my chest, as if it were trying to escape from my body. I make myself look tough, I’m not gonna let them see me anxious.

“I think here,” he says quietly. With one quick swipe, he glides the knife from the bottom of my jaw, across my cheek and nose up to my hairline, narrowly missing my eye.

I let out a strained groan, shutting my eyes at the absence of the metal and the replacement feeling of blood running down my face, mixed with the stinging feeling of my skin being cut open. The blood drips down to my mouth and I can smell and taste metal. The blood escapes my face and falls on my lap, drenching my legs. I open my eyes and the man is wiping his knife along the bottom of his shirt. I’m seething in this chair and I look to him and burn holes into his head, the urge to rip away from this chair and wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until he’s no longer kicking and squirming. To plunge that knife into every man’s eye socket and take their eyes as trophies before slitting their throats.

I take a deep breath in, “You’re gonna catch hell, I hope you know that.” I say between gritted teeth.

He places the knife down on the table and looks over his shoulder and nods at me. “Maybe I will. But you’ll be dead by then.” He stands in front of me and curls his hand into a fist, landing a punch on my stomach. I rip away from the grasp of the man behind me, curling into a ball trying to catch a breath, tears welling in my eyes and lungs lighting on fire. He grips my chin and tugs my face towards him, “You will break, mark my words. You will tell us every piece of information you have on us and about your little team. Those will be the last words you speak before I take your life from you.”

I rip away from his grasp, spitting out blood that has fallen into my mouth and smile, “Give it your best shot then.”

…

My wrists tied above my head, my legs barely touching the floor. My face throbbing from the abuse it suffered. My left eye had become so swollen I could barely see out of it. The cut along my face had stopped bleeding, but the burning feeling didn’t. It was probably infected by now. These guys weren’t running the cleanest of operations. My abdomen was now littered with bruises so much that all I saw were splashes of blue, purple and green. I couldn’t see my actual skin under them. The headache I was suffering circled around my entire skull, new blood seeping from my forehead. My head hung low, I can barely keep my eyes open.

They had taken my shirt off, leaving me in nothing but my bra, exposing my back. The cold air making me shiver and my teeth to chatter. I can’t remember how long I’ve been here exactly. Maybe three or four days? Every day I prayed that the 141 would burst through the doors of this place and lay waste to everyone inside of it. No one has come as of yet. I still refuse to break.

I lifted myself a little, gaining some posture to look at the man in front of me. He stood with his hands behind his back, nodding to the man next to him. He walked behind me, placing his hand on my shoulder.

“Tell us about the 141.”

I did nothing but glare in return.

The man shrugged and nodded again to the man behind me. His grip on my shoulder tightened and I suddenly feel a cold stinging sensation along my back. I hiss, struggling away from him but he held me still, pulling my hair back. I yelp a little and I feel liquid run down my back. The man let go of my hair and I growl in pain and rage.

“Tell me about your captain,” the man in front of me continued.

I could feel the man behind me press his blade on the middle of my back once again. I let out a shaky breath, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

The man behind swiped at me once again, this time he made sure the cut was slightly deeper. I shut my eyes tight and suppress a scream and bite my bottom lip. I could hear both of them laughing between my pain. My whole body burned with injuries and absolute madness.

“Tell me about Laswell.”

“Get fucked,” I growl between gritted teeth.

…

The cycle repeated itself for every member involved in task force 141.

“Tell me about… Soap.”

Swipe.

“Tell me about the Ghost.”

Swipe.

My back was now cluttered with cuts, all different lengths and depths. They left the room, leaving me hanging by the wrists. My body was exhausted, my breathing had become ragged and shallow. My back was burning, my exposed flesh and blood mixing in with the cold air of the room almost made it impossible to bear. I’m not breaking. They’re not gonna break me. I lift my head to the sound of the door opening again. Only one man walked in with a bucket full of water.

“Now,” he says placing the bucket down next to his feet, “let’s see how long you can hold your breath, soldier.”

…

Over the course of the month I had been beaten, starved, suffocated, water boarded, cut, stabbed, denied of sleep and sexually assaulted.

I lay in my cell, hands cuffed to the wall. Blood now soaked my uniform and different colours spread across my entire body. Colours of red, blue, purple and green covered me enough for me to forget what my actual skin colour looked like. Everyday I prayed to hear a familiar voice, I prayed for them to find me, but my hope faded each day they didn’t arrive. At least if I die here, I would die without giving them any satisfaction of knowing the information they so desperately wanted. Each night I would have dreams about them. Some of them were faceless because I couldn’t remember what they looked like. Every time I woke up, I did so believing the dreams were real. Believing that I was being taken out of here, that I was gonna be safe again.

The door opened and a man holding a tray walked in. The tray contained nothing but stale bread and water. I’m desperate now. Like a wild animal in a cage, I’m willing to do whatever it took to get out. I carefully analysed the man, looking for anything that I could use to escape. My eyes focused on his pocket. A little knife hung out of his pocket, as if he didn’t put it back in properly.

He laid the tray in front of me and I swing my head towards his. As he stumbles, the knife dropped to the floor and I quickly scraped it up with my foot before the guard could realise. The act cost me a punch across my cheek. He stood up and spat on me before leaving the room. I mentally flipped him off and brought the knife to my hands, working a way to pick the lock on my cuffs.

Working on the cuffs caused physical pain because I twisted around to find a good spot to work around the lock. Concentrating desperately I continue to pick the lock. I hear a few clicks and feel my way through it, carefully listening at the lock and the men outside, in case one were to walk in unexpected, as they often did. I hear a loud click and a release of pressure around my wrists and I pull them away, smiling at myself and rubbing the raw pink flesh. I laugh a little before realising what I have to do next. I actually have to escape.

I skull the water and scoff down the bread to give my body any source of energy I can. I am obviously not at my best physically.

“Pure adrenaline,” I whisper to myself.

I mentally brace myself, knowing that my chances are slim. Readying myself to die in my attempt to escape. I’ll have to work quick, not allowing the men any chances to think. The next man that walks in this room is getting a knife in his throat.

I stand weakly, bracing myself against the wall for support. I had lost of weight, my legs almost only skin and bone. I walk quietly so that I’m next to the door, knife in hand and ready to pounce. The pain that I constantly felt slowly started to fade away as adrenaline started to make its way around my system.

My eyes darted to the door handle when I heard a click. I tightened the grip of the knife and crouched down so I was partially covered by the shadows in the corner. The guard came back to collect my tray. He turned his back to lock the door again and when he turned to face where I was supposed to be and not seeing me there, he froze for a second. I used that second to my advantage, leaping behind him, kicking the back of his knee so he fell down and stabbed the knife into the side of his neck. I wrapped my hand around his mouth to prevent him from making any noise. He eventually stopped clawing at me and went limp. I lightly set him down on the ground, taking a second to spit on him and then grabbing any gear that would be useful to my escape. I took the keys, the jagged hunting knife and his hand gun. I took off his bullet proof vest and wrapped it around myself, wincing when I tightened the straps around me. The cuts on my back and the bruises on my abdomen screaming bloody murder at me.

I unlocked the door and took a deep breath in before I turned the handle and left the cell. I had no time to enjoy my partial freedom as there was another guard at the door. I wrapped my hand around his mouth again and ran the hunting knife around his throat. Hearing him choking on his own blood through my hand was music to my ears. I found a symphony in it. Hearing the pain that escaped his mouth when all they heard was the pain that escaped my mouth. As he went limp I placed him on the ground and leave his body, looking for a way out.

I walk through the hallway and made my way into a room that held three men. Before they started shooting I flipped over a table to provide me some cover. I didn’t waste any time and peaked around the table, pulling the trigger on the guard to my right. When he fell to the ground the other guards starting shouting and cursing. Then I hear the sound of bullets come my way and I duck back into the table. Among the sounds of bullets spraying, I hear the heavy footsteps of the other guard come around my left. I turn my body around to face the left side of the room and bring out the knife. The second I see his boot peak around the corner, I slice his leg and then pull at his ankle, making him land square on his back. I quickly pull him as close to me as I can as the other guard continues to shoot at me. I drive the knife into the guards chest and pick him up and use him as a meat shield. I struggle a little with the weight but I manage to get close enough to push the meat shield in the direction of the other guard, causing him to lose his balance. I jump towards him, pushing him on the ground and straddling him. I let out a laugh before I plunge the knife in between his eyes.

I get off of him quickly and pick up the automatic weapons that were laying next to the corpses. I look down at the guard I straddled as he hasn’t fully died. I smile devilishly at him.

“And I did that with only one bullet,” I brag.

I make my way down more halls, killing every guard that came my way and then I hear an explosion come from the other side of the building. I take my knife out of a guards chest and place a bullet into another guard coming my way before making my way to the sound of the explosion.

I park around the corner and see room filled with men. They are also investigating the explosion. I use that to my advantage and spray bullets into the room, watching their bodies fall to the ground. They returned the fire, one of the bullets nicking the side of my calf. I wince and place my back on the wall again, groaning in pain. I wait for the guards to peak around the corner before I start firing again. One of the guards landed a punch on my face, making me lose my balance. Another locked my arms around my back. I growled and screamed before throwing my head back impacting on his face. I hear a crack and I used the hand gun to shoot the guard in front of me and turn around to see the other cupping his nose. He looked up at me before I shot him through the neck. I catch my breath quickly and drop the automatic weapon and grab another one from a dead guard.

I make my way out of the room and I hear the sound of gunfire in the room to my right. I walk out of the room and walk towards the sounds of gunfire and I stop in my tracks when I hear the familiar voices of my task force. I start running towards the voices, my heart racing so fast I’m sure it’ll just stop working.

They’re just around the corner.

They’re here.

They came for me.

Before I make it into the room, I’m tackled to the floor. I let out a grunt on impact and grip my left side that slammed on the floor. Before I could react, I’m thrown onto my back with my wrists pinned on either side of my head. I look up and I burn.

It’s him.

He grabs a knife and lifts it above his head, giving me a bloody smile. He plunges it at my face, but I turn my head and the knife lands of the concrete next to me. I lift my head and bite down hard on one of his arms pinning mine down. He yelps in pain before letting go. I wrap my leg around his and place my hand on his chest, pushing him off me. I quickly push away his knife and kick him in the stomach. He curls up and I take the opportunity to straddle him. As he’s still catching his breath, I ball my hands into fists and lay everything I have on him. Punch after punch, until my knuckles turned bloody and raw, until his lips turned red from the cuts, until his cheeks turned red and raw and his eyes started to close. All the while I’m yelling and cursing at him for everything he put me through.

“I told you! You were gonna catch hell!”

I go to land another punch as I catch my breath and then I feel a soft hand grab my arm, preventing me from punching him. I turn around and twist the hand off my arm and leap onto the body. I grab the knife off the floor, his hands rising to signal for me to stop. His lips are moving and he’s yelling something at me, but I can’t hear him. All I see is red. Before I cause any damage to the body underneath me, I’m pulled off, two hands grabbing both of my arms. I struggle as hard as I can against it.

“…Me!”

What?

“Spider, stop! It’s me!”

Who?

I look down and see the other man get off the floor. He looks familiar.

“Who…?” I ask in a quiet raspy voice.

“It’s Ghost,” the man holding me replied. “That’s Soap.” He said and I looked at the man in front of me.

What?

Soap held the knife I almost killed him with in his hand chuckling a little. “You almost got me.” He cracked.

“You have to relax,” Ghost said behind me. “You’re safe now Spider.”

I manage to break free of his grip and I stand in front of them. They look at me with wide eyes. Eyes filled with worry, sorrow and shock.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ Spider,” Ghost quietly says to me, looking at my face before trailing down to the rest of my body, “what did they do to you?”

“We’re getting you home lass,” Soap says to me with soft eyes.

The adrenaline had worn off and I felt light headed. I stumble backwards and feel gravity take over.

“Shit,” I manage to whisper out before my world went dark.

…

The task force would visit Spider in the hospital. Waiting for her to wake up. Every time they looked at her, at what they did to her, they felt nothing but rage and vengeance. Her face was red and bruised, stitches running along her face from a cut she received.

Ghost saw the worst of it. He was sitting in the room, thinking of all the ways he could kill the men that did this to her. He was knocked out of his thoughts when two nurses walked in the room.

“What’s going on?” He asked.

“We have to clean her cuts. They’ve been there for a while.”

Ghost only thought that the cuts were along her face, he didn’t expect the nurses to flip her on the side, exposing her back.

“Wait, why have you turned her?” He asked standing up.

The nurses looked at one another, “To clean her cuts.”

Ghost walked around to the side her back was exposed and stopped dead in his tracks when he faced her back. It was covered in red cuts. Some deeper than others, stitches on those that were deeper. His hands balled into fists until his knuckles turned white.

He clenched his jaw, “I’ll leave you to it then.”

He walked out of her room burning with rage for her.

…

All I remember are flashes of memories. Ghost and Soap yelling at me to wake up. Them calling for a medic and evac. Me being carried into a helo and transported into a hospital.

That’s all I remember before I wake up, jolting up in my bed gasping for air. I frantically look at the room I’m in and the door bursts open. I turn towards it in a panic, expecting someone to drag me out of the room and torture me more. I hold my hands in front of my face. When nothing happened, I slowly lowered them to see a man with a moustache and hat facing me.

“Hey y/n,” the man says to me.

“Price?” I whisper.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

I bring my palm to my forehead and let out a sign of relief. “I’m out. I’m out right?” I turn to look at him.

He almost choked on his words, “Yeah, you’re out. You’re safe now.”

“What about-?”

“He’s in custody. He’s with us. Apparently you almost killed him,” Price said chuckling.

“Yeah, almost.”

“Well it’s good you didn’t. We wouldn’t be able to question him then.”

“How long?”

“How long what?”

“Have I been out?”

Price signed looking at his lap. He looked back to me before speaking, “About a week.”

“Fuck,” I groan lying back in the bed. I instantly wince in pain and shoot straight back up. “Oh yeah. Forgot about those.”

“I’ll get the nurses to fetch you more meds. Please try and rest up Spider. Know that the whole of the 141 are behind you, always.” He tells me before standing up to gather some nurses.

Before he leaves the room I speak up, “Hey Price?”

He turns to me, “Yeah?”

“How’s my face?”

He pauses and thinks, “Looks hardcore, badass.”

…

After being bed ridden in the hospital for a while I wanted to stretch my legs. With the permission of the doctors and nurses I was able to go outside along the hospital balcony. I was lucky since no one else was on it.

Leaning over the railing I inhaled and exhaled heavily. The nights and the recovery were the hardest part. Every part of my body still aches and I’m sure the cuts are leaving scars on my body. Just more reminders of what happened to me.

The nights were terrifying. I relived the experiences again. I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat or just straight up screaming. The nurses would have to come in and calm me down when some nights were worse than others. Even now, the nightmares and night terrors haven’t gotten any better. I’m still waking up in cold sweats, or with tears in my eyes, or with nurses surrounding me after a night terror. It’s more annoying than anything. I want to so badly to forget it, to forget everything. But that’s not how the brain works and I know I won’t ever be the same.

I put my face into my hands and sighed deeply into them. I look up again and see different people walking around the yard of the hospital. People that are recovering, that are trying to get better. Or people that know they don’t have long left. I could never be a nurse or doctor.

I jolt when I hear the door to the balcony open. I whip my head around and see a tall figure with a skull mask and black balaclava. My muscles ease and I breathe out with relief. After everything, I realised I jump at the slightest of sounds.

He came to stand next to me, his arms resting on the railing.

“Hi,” I quietly say.

Ghost nods in return, “How have you been?”

I look at him before turning away to face the yard, “Like shit.”

He hums in response. “You still in a lot of pain? Physically I mean.”

I shrug, “Not really. Just the occasional sting here and there.”

It was silent for a while. I could tell Ghost had stuff on his mind he wanted to say, just didn’t know the right way to say them.

“Thanks,” I say.

He turns to me, “What?”

I look him in the eyes, “Thanks for coming for me Ghost. Thank you so much for coming for me.”

“We should’ve gotten you sooner. We were looking all over the fuckin’ Earth for you. They had hidden you so well, for thirty-one days! It was stress everyday we didn’t find you. Knowing that you were being hurt and I-“ he paused and cleared his throat, “and we couldn’t do anything to help.”

My breath hitches in my throat at what he said. It became silent again as I went over everything he said to me. I placed a hand on his and looked to him again.

“What matters is you came. You found me and I’m safe now.”

His eyes soften, “When we found you I was so relieved. Then you passed out and I didn’t know if you were gonna make it.”

“I pulled through.”

“Just.”

I pulled my hand away from his, leaning on the railing again. Just. I just made it. My lips started to tremble but I swallowed the urge down.

Ghost lets out a groan, “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m here now, we can just focus on that, please,” I softly say, trying not to let it out. “I wanna kill him,” I croak.

Ghost chuckled, “Well, we’re on the same page for that. We needed to question the piece of shit though.”

I sniff quietly hoping Ghost didn’t notice, “Yeah I know. Stupid fuckin’ rules.”

Ghost placed a hand on my shoulder and gently turned me around so that I’m fully facing him. I lower my head down.

He can’t see me like this.

No one can see me like this.

He gently placed a finger under my chin and lifted my head so that I made eye contact with him. I try my best to keep the tears in my eyes from spilling out.

“You’re aloud to cry Spider,” he tells me in the softest voice.

“I don’t want to cry Ghost.”

“The longer you hold it in, the worse it’ll be for you. If you’re gonna cry, cry now.”

“I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

He hand rests softly against my cheek, just centimetres away from the gash on my face. “Your secret will be safe with me Spider.”

I finally cave into the pressure and let my tears run down my face. I bury my hands to my face again and Ghost wraps his arms around me, pulling me into his chest. Eventually I wrap my arms around him. He runs his hand through my hair to comfort me and I grip onto him tighter.

I know I’ll never be the same. I know scars will be left on my body and that I will have to deal with the memories and carry them with me until the day I die. But for now, on this balcony with only me and Ghost, life couldn’t feel better.