Participants:
| Scene Title | The Final Game, Part IV |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Azrael begins playing with Cassidy. |
| Date | September 7, 2009 |
A Cabin In The Woods
Thanks to the taser shot and the sedatives Azrael stole from the ambulance, he managed to keep Cassidy more or less unconscious throughout the entire fifteen hour trip, with only few pit stops. One of the benefits of being able to possess people is that once you find the body you're in getting tired, you just find a car and take them and their body. The real trick is making sure they're actually going that way. This is one point in time when he is unwilling to leave behind a trail of bodies. He wants to take his time.
It is only at the last stop that Azrael picks Cassidy up in his own car and body — well, the body he hijacked a long while ago when he found it was time to finally give up Meg Manning's body.
When Cassidy wakes up, an Italian opera can be heard in the background. She's bound but fully clothed. The presence of electricity can be deceiving, as the place she finds herself in seems quite a bit like an old hunting cabin. The wood is very aged and worn, as is most of the furniture. There's a dank, coppery smell in the air, along with the smell of many chemicals —p reservatives, mostly. A curtain covers something against a wall within her line of sight.
The leather straps bind Cassidy to something cold and metal, and there's a shower nozzle attached to a pole at its side. If she manages to move herself or cranes her head, she'll be able to see tracks like she has seen dozens of times before. She's on an examination table. Like one found in a morgue.
There is a soft groan as Cassidy slowly swims to the surface of consciousness, her mind is almost unwilling to do so. Part of her wants to sink back into the inky depths, but something just won't let her. Something nags at the back of her mind, it only takes seconds to realize it's the silence. She starts to say something, but her throat is too dry and she's reduced to coughing. Of course, with her body bound as it is she can't move much.
That makes her mind become very aware, even though her body and eyes seem almost too heavy to open. Coren! She mentally screams into the silence and loneliness. It takes almost all her willpower to open her eyes and keep them open. Her vision is blurry a first, but then slowly clears revealing her surroundings. Oh god…
And it's only moments after Cassidy's cough that a hauntingly familiar face looms over her, sickly grey tendrils of hair hanging down, bearing a bendy straw that comes out of a large plastic cup. He takes a drink from it, clearly to indicate that it's not poisoned, and since the straw is clear, it's obvious he does ingest some of the clear fluid. As it turns out, it looks to be just plain water. He offers the bendy straw, "You'll need to stay hydrated, although I must say there are other ways I can do that. Eventually, I will be able to remove the restraints and you won't run away from me, but until that time, sadly you'll have to stay bound or sedated. And before you go screaming, you're in the middle of a wooded area. There is no civilization for at least twenty miles, and I can find you very, very quickly, so I wouldn't go wasting time running." Well, that just about dashes all hope.
Cassidy ignores the straw and the man completely in favor of tugging at her bonds. There is a look of determination as she pulls tugs and twists at them. She does so to the point of frustration, which she voices with a sound that comes out as almost a growl, edging on a scream of frustration as she gives it a few more tugs. Her chest heaves with the exertion as she finally turns her head to look at him. She can't help but ask what all soon to be victims ask, "What are you going to do to me?" The words are bit off and laced with her anger and frustration.
"You might want to take a drink. Bit of alcohol in here, it might help to … take the edge off." Azrael leans in, licking his lips, "You sure you want to know? No…. Don't think I want to tell you everything, but just know this is going to change you. If you're lucky, I might just kill you in the end." But he's really not that nice. He brushes a hand against her face and offers the straw again. "I admit, I didn't expect to have to hook you up to an IV quite this soon, but if you refuse to drink, well, there's always that way to keep you hydrated."
Her head jerks violently one way and then the other as Cassidy tries to avoid both. She would try and spit in his face, if her mouth wasn't so damn dry. So she's reduced to glaring at him, "I don't want it you…you freak." She can't help but tug at the restraints at her wrists again, the clattering of the leather cuffs on mettle loud to her ears.
"You're just making this harder on yourself, you know," Azrael says as he walks slowly to the workbench behind the table, out of Cassidy's line of sight unless she really tips her head back. A few shrink-wrapped medical implements are retrieved and taken to the table, where they're opened. A pair of shears cuts through Cassidy's sleeve. Her jacket is somewhere a hundred miles away. Once her sleeve has been removed, he swabs the inside of her elbow. "You might want to stay still for this. I'd hate to break an IV needle in your arm."
Back bowing a bit all her limbs straining at the restraints, Cassidy does tilt her head back to keep Azrael in line of sight. Her blue eyes can't hide her fear as she watches him pull out medical tools, but when he looks at her she still manages to glare. She even puts up a fight as she starts cutting up her sleeve, yanking and pulling on the wrist…. However, when the needle comes out, Cassidy goes completely still watching him warily. "If making it harder for myself is making it harder for you… I don't mind."
"Oh, it's not harder for me. I have plenty of ways to make you more … pliable," Azrael remarks as he expertly sets up the IV line, complete with saline drip. "Well, that will keep you hydrated, at least. Might not do too much for your mouth, though. Sure you don't want a sip?" It's a completely rhetorical question, as he puts the large cup away, clearly aware she won't drink it.
"Those amateurs with Humanis First got it all wrong, see. If you're going to make a person bleed, you keep them well-hydrated and fed, and if necessary, give them regular transfusions. Just so happen to have about eight units of O negative blood and some anti-rejection drugs stored up." He lowers his face over Cassidy's, his hair hanging long enough to nearly touch her face, "You're in for a very, very long haul."
Cassidy turns her head away when he starts setting up the IV and even gives a soft hiss of pain as the needle slides into her arm, but she doesn't move. "No I don't want the water." She murmurs as she turns her head back finally. When he starts to lean over her, the red head can't help but press her head back against the hard table as if trying to become a part of it. A heavy brick of fear drops into her stomach at his words and suddenly she very much wishes for Coren's comforting presence. She has to turn her face away and close her eyes before he can see the tears that suddenly threaten, prickling at the corners of her eyes.
Azrael grabs Cassidy's chin and forces her to look his way. "Oh, what's the matter, you gonna cry? Believe me when I say, you'll be doing a lot of that here. If you're good, I'll let you have some medicine. Take the edge off, make the pain go away. But if you're defiant … I won't be so nice.
"Coren's not here to hold your hand, but maybe she can," he says as he moves over to the small curtain against the wall. He pulls it off, revealing the body of Jessy Delany, naked, and with a series of fresh (and not so fresh) cuts all over her body. The pattern should be very familiar to Cassidy, as if it had not been for Abigail, she'd still have the scars to match.
"No, I guess she can't."
"Fuck you.." She says softly when he taunts her about the gathering tears, blue eyes don't hide the hatred she's feeling for him. Cassidy's brows knit slightly as he moves towards the curtain. A part of her knows when he says 'her' what will be under that curtain, but when the body is revealed her stomach still sinks with despair. All she can think is, Poor girl, but at the same time she knows soon she'll be envious of the girl.
At first her eyes almost don't recognize the pattern of those ugly gaping wounds, but when her eyes travel that one large, long cut…. she knows.. She can almost feel the blows from the kicks in her gut…. Or maybe it's just the terror of the knowing.
It takes everything in her not to throw up.
"You're looking a little pale in the lips," Azrael observes, coming closer. He actually unbinds Cassidy's chest, though her wrists are still very tightly bound. She could actually sit up if she tried. "Would do no good to have you choking to death on your own vomit." He heads back to his little work table behind Cassidy's head. From there, he takes up a scalpel and walks back to the Delaney girl. "What's really interesting is how long you can keep a body from expiring." When he touches the scalpel blade to the bottom of Jessy's foot, the whole girl's body twitches. However strung up the girl is, it would appear she's still alive. "Maybe she could hold your hand after all."
"Oh god…" Cassidy gasps as the body twitches, her chest freed she comes off the table a bit as if wanting to go to the girl. "You sick twisted son of a bitch…." She practically screams at him, her rage flooding back…. ah gotta love red headed tempers. "She's just a young girl." She's helpless… unable to assist the poor girl. It is a horrible feeling for any cop. "Damn you, Azrael."
"Not anymore," Azrael says. "She stopped being a young girl after our first session when she begged me for more." He comes up close to Cassidy and brushes a hand across her face, pushing hair away from her eyes. "You will too. You see, fear is a powerful doorway to so many things. It can change a person." Jessy's body gives one more twitch before it finally seems to hang at peace, if the state of her body could ever be said to be at peace. He slides back behind her and deposits the scalpel in a small container of sterilizer. A mobile tray is brought closer to the table, a large number of implements upon its surface, not limited to surgical tools but also bits of broken glass, large nails, a hunting knife, and first aid supplies. And the shears. "We're going to have to lose the rest of your clothes, they'll only get in the way." He bears himself down upon Cassidy, forcing her back into the supine position. "Shall we get started?"
"Don't touch me…" Cassidy hisses without thinking when he brushes her face. She jerks away from his touch using what little freedom of movement she can. "Change me? You're not going to kill me like you did the others? Dump me somewhere with one of your little chess pieces?" She jerks hard at one wrist ignoring the burning pain in wrist. Though when the little tray comes into her view, the flash of light off of a shard of glass pulls her attention. She can only gape, eyes wide, at what lies there.
"No…" When he moves to push her back down on the table she thrashes. "No… Let go, you freak!" She cries out, but she can only give a scream of frustration as he gets her strapped back down on the table.
"No," Azrael says quietly after he's strapped Cassidy's chest back down. "No, Coren wouldn't respond well to that." He takes the shears and begins to make a very prolonged work out of removing Cassidy's shirt. "No, I'm going to break you Cassidy. And you're far out of Coren's reach. That little link of yours is useless here. I've made sure of that. Those two trips you made let me calculate the maximum extent of your ability to tell where you are. Thirty miles. Fairly useful if you were in the city still… or even the state."
She can only watch with an expression of disgust as the fabric parts under the shears with a barely hear tearing sound as the threads part. When he reaches her chest, she has to turn her head away her cheeks flush from learned modesty. Of course, she's forced to look at the marred and bloody body of Jessy. A part of her reaches out to that faint knowing that Coren is alive, her eyes close as she reminds herself that it means he's still out there to find her. Just a small spark of hope in the face of the impending torture.
