Participants:
| Scene Title | Maybe She Doesn't Like Bagels |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Humanis First and the Evo Detective |
| Date | Aug 24, 2009 |
A warehouse somewhere
Oh the shark babe has such teeth dear, and it shows them pearly whites~
Blood trickles down Elisabeth's chin, sliding over the crest of her jawline avross her neck, making a small pool on the black contraption fastened there.The black device is strapped tightly around her neck, the prongs of it jabbing her in the throat. A modified high power shock collar.
Just a jack a knife Just a jack knife has macheath dear and he keeps it way out of sight
It's black. Completely black. The tight blindfold is secured around Elisabeth's head, tied around the single slender pole that runs from the floor to the ceiling. Her wrists have sharp barbs digging into them, specially designed bracelets attached to chains that keep them up, so that should she try to move her arms, the pain would increase that much more. The same devices are strapped to her ankles.
When that shark bites with his teeth, dear scarlet billows begin to spread fancy gloves though has macheath dear so theres never, never a trace of red
The speakers pump loudly in the dank leaky old warehouse room. The sound is almost deafening and has been pumping this way since Elisabeth was kidnapped. 60+ hours with Bobby Darin's version of Mack The Knife. At full volume.
On the sidewalk, one sunday morning lies a body, oozin life someones sneakin' round the corner babe, could that someone be Mack the Knife
Traces of Liz's last meal are smeared across her cheeks, mixing in with the blood and snot that drips across her. Not her finest moment of fashion, to say the least. The room is cold, the hard ground is cold, in fact it seems like fans or air conditioning might be running in the room.
The drugs circulate through her system, nulling her ability to truly focus. But her last meal was nearly forty-eight hours ago, the pangs of hunder ache dully away at her stomach. Interrogations have been nothing if not brief. One question ansked and when no answer was given, Elisabeth was left for hours at end only to be met up again by beatings, shocking, or even playtime with some rats.
From a tugboat, on the river going slow. A cement bag is dropping down, you know that cement is for the weight dear you can make a large bet, mackies back in town
The music shuts off. The door slams. The shuffle of boots can be heard, before metal scrapes against the ground. "I got a lot of food." The accent sounds foreign, Russian, or some type of slavic. "What is your favorite?" The scraping of steel chairlegs skreees against the ground as one man sets himself up in front of the woman chained to the pole.
Oh by the way, she's naked.
"I made sure to get a lot of different food."
It is assuredly not her finest hour. She knows that there are … parts of her… broken inside. She can't see what's going on, but she's pretty sure the last time she lost control of her bladder, there was blood. She could smell copper. What little 'sleep' she's had has been mostly drug-induced, in and out repeatedly in a haze of either being awake and beaten or out cold and unresponsive. Elisabeth's captors seem to like neither option. Her head is down as she slumps slightly to the side on the frigid floor. She almost looks unconscious still, except that every muscle in her body tenses when the door opens, her attention immediately riveted on every sound her captors make while her blood pressure spikes into the stratosphere. She doesn't answer the food question.
There is another man already present to hear the rustle of someone's footsteps approaching, the grind of metal; Khalid is doing what he does well. Lurking, in this case in the darkness of a corner by the far wall, a ragged issue of Soccer America dangling from one of the hands folded across his chest. Acting as guard for the prisoner, for lack of much better to do — and someone has to do it.
The magazine is exchanged, tossed bodily aside for a slim black implement lying upended nearby; the police truncheon he had employed on Elisabeth's skull the very first time they'd met. Splashes of blood both crusty and wet splotch the length of polished wood. He takes one, two, three strides forward into the visibility of dim light before halting right where he is, a politely bored look on his face. The truncheon's looped strap is allowed to arc back and forth, baaack and forth, from knobbly outspread fingers.
"…You'll spoil her, Doug," the Syrian reproves without any measure of actual reproof in his voice, dark-eyed gaze traveling downwards and across towards Elisabeth's still, prone form. As he steps closer to the woman yet, one mud-spattered, heavy boot is raised several inches to give a vicious little -kick- that doesn't end when iron-shod toes collide with the cop's abdomen. Rather, he leans all his booted weight inwards into the feeling of softness of unbroken skin, internal organs, before releasing, foot finally slipping back down onto the ground. Squish.
"Why won't she talk to me…" It's said dully.
"Why won't she talk to me?" This time there is more agitation.
"Why won't she talk to me?!" At this point it's screamed.
Douglas' hands fly to his head, slapping against his temples as if to cage some monster trying to bust out of there. His perch on the chair is abandoned, standing up violently, making the steel chair topple backwards. His little feet go upwards, jumping up and down several times. Like a child throwing a tantrum. His back turns from Elisabeth, finding the steel chair he had just knocked over.
The chair is picked up by two legs and thrown roughly into the speakers. Crashing and thudding and bzzting, is made as the speakers topple over. While Khalid stands over Elisabeth and kicks her, Douglas makes his furious pace around her, watching her.
He breathes loudly and angrily, before grabbing the pole with one hand. Khalid is given a gruff shove in the shoulder backwards. It's his turn. Swinging around the pole, Douglas uses his momentum to come into a stop in Elisabeth's lap. His landing isn't gentle, to say the least. His forehead slaps against hers as he practically breahtes into her mouth.
"Why won't you talk to me?" He hisses.
The woman on the floor forces her body to go limp when she hears the boots… she's already learned the futility of bracing for impact at all. The agony that sears her nerve endings with the introduction of footwear to already bruised organs. A low whimper of agony escapes Elisabeth's lips, and she visibly flinches, attempting to curl back… away from the rage, away from the voice and the crash of the chair. Her attempt to curl into a fetal ball is thwarted when Doug lands on her and it takes all that she has to stabilize her voice and whisper softly, "Because you wouldn't believe any answer I gave you anyway." Her throat is raw from the screaming, her terror nearly a living breathing entity of its own. But her exhaustion is leeching away her ability to be further frightened. Her tone is not defiant by now, merely dull as she states that fact aloud.
Somewhere near he spitting, hissing, agitated lion of a Douglas, Khalid is still filling the role of a still-bored and more conservative contrast, giving the cap of the truncheon a light and experimental smack against the side of his shin. He allows himself to be given a shove aside with a reflexive "-Watch- it, white boy," but it seems like he's used to entertaining his redneck teammate's crazed urges or at least not working up too much of a temper about them, because his eyes slide back onto Elisabeth with almost no delay.
"Just try us," he informs her tranquilly, ambling around in a close path where Douglas is literally sitting atop Liz, the start of what will be a casual circle. "You haven't given us much in the way of answers to start with. Barely anything, in fact. So, talk — we're reasonable." Reasonable. Really. The fingers of his other hand rest atop a worn sheath in his belt; curling lovingly onto the fat, rounded handle of the knife within. Then they withdraw with a flex, and it's only Khalid's level gaze left.
"Oh no, no, no, no, no." Douglas says emphatically, placing his hand against Elisabeth's cheek gently. "I believe you." His lips come forward so close to brushing against hers. His hand drifts up through her hair gently as he leans back on her lap. His free hand goes up and grabs onto the pole. He leans against it while still keeping his wait on Elisabeth's lap.
Her answer to his question seems to have momentarily sated his rage, as he seems to be calm and maybe even amiable now. "Just talk to me. What kind of food do you like? I have chinese, pizza, and a bagel.." Fff what is that. Two fingers are pointed at the third item on the tray. A bagelwich. "A…" His features contort as he tries to find the right word for the damn thing…
If she tells him what kind of food she likes…. it's not going to matter. He's going to do something truly awful with it. Her brain is already in survival mode — how can they make rice hurt? It's at least one of the things that won't burn if she pukes it back up again…. but she supposes they could try to choke her with it. "Bagels… are nice," she finally whispers. Her body is starting to shut down on her. Food means energy, but … in truth, at this point, she doesn't want energy. She wants them to hurry up and kill her. A visit from a telepathic Teo? Or a hallucination? Either way…. she doubts that they will find her before these assholes get what they want. She's too close to breaking.
"Bagelwich — geez, quit fucking around, Doug. If you know what's good for you, slut? You'll start talking." Not so patient after all, maybe. Doug is awkwardly and inconveniently in the way by being right on Liz's lap, but Khalid squats down next to the blonde from the side, creases in his forehead from lifted brows. He sets the truncheon down beneath him with a dull -thud- and rolls his boot over it, drawing the rotund-handled knife from its sheath instead.
The pinpoint tip of the cleaver-sized blade stretches out to tickle Elisabeth's chin, drawing a spot of blood with an accidental and none-too-careful poke. "Names. Locations, where you're hiding 'em. Hurry up."
Douglas lets out a long drawn out breath. "If you answer my friend. I'll let you have the bagel-" That can't be a real thing. "Bagelwich." He groans out, placing his cheek against hers. "If you don't answer him, I'm going to chop off your foot with an axe." It's said sweetly as if he was telling her he was going to go do laundry as a favor for her. It does not have the ominous undertones of loosing an appendage at all.
She has no doubt that things are going to go south fast. Because he's sitting on her, Doug can feel the fine tremors that go through her body, can almost see her gather her last bit of strength… answer them? Or defy them one more time? She'd thought she was beyond the ability for the spike of terror to lance through her, for the tears to start again. "I only… only know one place. That's it, I swear to God." 'Everyone has a breaking point.' Who said that to her so long ago? She still… thinks it might have been Alex. Although she promised the hallucination-that-was-Teo that she would not tell them…. Elisabeth is sorely tempted in this moment. They've been at her for hours. Days, maybe. She hurts. She knows she's bleeding internally… she knows they're going to kill her. "Forty…. forty-six Beach Street," she whimpers in defeat. She promised Teo…. but Doug's words …. he's not kidding. He has not YET lied to her about something he'll do to her. "Ther… There's a safehouse at 46 Beach Street," she says as her body starts to shake harder with sobs and shame at giving them that much. Who will die in her place? How many are in that house? She thought she was ready to die for this…. but she's not.
Khalid exchanges a small look with Doug, but the gleaming edge of the knife does not move away; in fact, it comes closer, lowering down to the back of her hand. Slits a very thin horizontal line across, blade bumping crosswise over bone and slitting veins. Even though she had already given up an answer. Yes. "Are you sure that's all?" is the murmur next to Elisabeth's ear as the blood begins to drip from the cut, pooling out. "Make sure your memory's working, now. If we find out later you've given us a false address…"
Sidling back, Douglas pops to his feet and makes his way to the door. Slapping his hand against the door he yells out. "46 Beach Street! Possible freak safehouse! Check it!" His russian accent is still thick as he cries out the order to whoever may be out there. Then he turns back to Elisabeth. Waltzing back to her, he bends to pick up the bagelwich. Going to his knees at her side, he unfastens one of her wrists, placing the food into her hand. "Very gooood, baby. You may eat now." He smiles brightly. "If that was a lie, I'm still going to cut your foot off with an axe. And then make you eat it. Are you sure that's the truth?"
The blonde goes very very still, not pulling away from Khalid… she's learned to her detriment that pulling away from the knife just means a deeper cut. If she holds as still as she can… in spite of the keening sound she makes when he does it… he's only bleeding her. When Doug takes the restraint off her wrist and hands her the sandwich, she can't do anything WITH it, she's choking on sobs. But she turns her face to Doug and hisses softly, "Well…. you know, you could always check Dantooine too."
After an extra moment of having the knife hover just above Liz's knuckles, Khalid slides the blade away again and reholsters it without looking away. He gives her an extremely rough clap on one cheek, a grin spreading crookedly onto his own mouth. "We could. But I think we'll start with what you've given us. Good job."
46 Beach Street. Check it.
Word travels fast in this warehouse. Within minutes, bootfalls outside the door track across cold cement at a military clip, regular and even. Six boots, three pairs, two substantially heavier than the one in the lead, and a fist that whuds hard and hollow against the door's exterior is the only warning they get before it starts to roll back on its hinges.
Danko is the first in, leather jacket and pinstriped collar rustling coal black against dull light. He's followed by a crew cut Marine approximately the size of Douglas and Khalid molded together. Also by the scent of coffee warm in his left hand and a muffled splash when someone's boot toe catches cold at a puddle of old blood.
It's a hell've a scene. Officer Elisabeth Harrison strung up naked, dressed only in whatever fluids have dribbled out've her system since she's been here. Blood, snot, leftovers. There's a twitch at Emile's brow when he looks over Douglas and Khalid, then: "Location's in. Karl's doing a drive by to check it out. Think she's sitting on anything else?"
At the sound of additional people making an entrance, Khalid swivels his neck in expectance of Danko and co., which is soon confirmed by the sound of the older, balder man's question. When he untroubledly turns back around he -flicks- at Elisabeth's blindfolded brow with thumb and forefinger. Whock. "Hmph. Don't think so. We've been at her for— I don't even know. Days." Granted, she's having a bit of a sobbing breakdown as they talk. "And she won't eat her bagelwich." How rude.
In point of fact, the bagelwich is largely forgotten, her hand lying in her lap — after being taped to the pole for so long, she has no strength in it to be able to eat. Her face turns toward the newcomer, color — heh, it might even be attractive in the right circumstances — flushes up her chest to her face. More people… and she's naked, and vulnerable, clearly covered in blood, snot, urine, whatever the hell ELSE might be there… but what embarrasses her is the tears that soak the blindfold. The weakness it shows.
Older, balder, shorter. Danko draws in a lax breath and lets his brows adopt an easier, considering cant at Khalid's report, tension locked in at his first glimpse of the room easing out of the slant of his shoulders the way only decades of conditioning can numb that kind of thing out've the back of a human mind.
"Maybe she doesn't like bagels."
Past a slow sip of coffee, the hoarse of his voice is devoid of anything more substantial than its own chilly drone. There's no emotion there. Nothing personable to latch onto in the way of lifted spirits or hope. The mechanical ck-click of a hammer being drawn back behind the brush of a gun muzzle against the lapel of Danko's coat is approximately as reassuring.
There's a bleak second of silence through the blindfold while he adjusts his grip against the gun and draws a bead on Elisabeth's skull, black semiautomatic in his right hand offset by the banal slosh of a coffee mug steaming white in his left.
The trigger pull's report rebounds claustrophobic through warehouse — echoes harsh in the ear, rings cold at iron and steel.
Bits of bone and brain spatter fine across the far wall.
Danko reholsters the gun.
"Toss her in the harbor. …And get this cleaned up."
The sound of a hammer being cocked is as familiar to Elisabeth as breathing. There is a split second of absolute shock. She's been drifting toward acceptance of this moment all day…. and yet, some small part of her still hoped. There are so many things in this life that she wants. If this were a movie, the cavalry would burst in the door and save her. Or she'd be able to access her power and turn the whole fucking lot of them into mist of blood and bone like at Pinehearst. In that instant, she flashes on all of it. Her body won't respond to mental commands, she's still tied to a pole. And she uses her last moments to think, I'm sorry, Richard… I broke my promise. Our Father who art in heav…