The Neighbourhood

This story contains violence, language, death, angst, abuse, and sex.
Reviews are welcome as is constructive criticism.

WARNING: this chapter contains violence and other things of that nature.

Chapter 9

Her eyes fluttered open. Once again she didn’t recognize her surroundings, but this time there was no battered mattress and duct taped window.

She was in a large, white room lying on a cot, her wrists tied together with rope. The walls were cracked and bleeding stains. On the wall opposite to her were torture devices from the Middle Ages: Judas’ Cradle, the Wheel, the Breast Ripper, the Pear, the Spider, the Iron Maiden, the Rack, and some instruments that had been invented in this very room, never seeing the light of day. *

The blood stains on the wall formed strange abstract patterns that were more disturbing than the tools that had produced them.

Beatrice lay back against the cot, her head throbbing painfully from the blow she had received earlier.

She remembered Delaney had shot Crowley, but then he had told her it was only a tranquilizer he had shot him with. Beatrice prayed he was telling the truth. She didn’t know what she would do if the only friend she had ever had was dead. Gone forever. She couldn’t imagine Crowley dead. Tears came to her eyes at the thought and she allowed herself to cry. She had no idea where she was, had no idea what they planned to do with her, but judging from the torture devices she could make some grisly guesses.

But why? What could they possibly want from her? Or what if they didn’t want anything from her…had just kidnapped her to do unimaginable things to her to suit their perverse needs?

She shuddered as she thought of them strapping her to the Rack and stretching her until her limbs were pulled from their sockets. God please help me. Please don’t let them do that to me. I don’t deserve this.

She would die before she let them do that to her. And she sure as hell wasn’t ready to die yet.

Beatrice took a deep breath and strengthened her resolve. She had gone through a lot and she was planning to go through a lot more.

She would not die in this room, no matter what happened.

~~~~~~~~~

She was sitting up on the cot, staring at the blood stains on the wall and thinking of possible ways she could escape.

Then the door opened and Delaney came in. She had already tried opening it but it was locked from the outside.

Delaney had gotten rid of his jacket and was wearing a T-shirt with a skull on it. How fitting, she thought.

He was holding a glass of water and he held it to her mouth.

“Go ahead, drink,” he insisted. Beatrice licked her lips and decided there was nothing wrong with drinking some water. It was nice and cool and she drank it all. Delaney chuckled, setting the glass down and sitting down beside her on the cot, the bed creaking under his weight.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” he asked, motioning to the torture apparatuses.

Beatrice didn’t respond. He got to his feet and delicately picked up the Pear, a device that was inserted orally, vaginally, or anally and could be expanded to destroy the tissue of the chosen area. He examined it as if it were a precious diamond. Beatrice kept her face expressionless but on the inside she was trembling with fear.

“Aren’t you scared, love?” He asked, twisting the screw of the Pear. It opened up wide into four different wings and Beatrice imagined it inside her, tearing her apart. She was silent.

He leaned forward, his face inches from hers. She could smell his breath, a mixture of beer, tobacco, and his own personal stink. Her instinct was to gag and pull back but she wouldn’t give him that pleasure.

He grabbed her hair and pushed her forward, crushing his mouth against hers, his tongue trying to get inside. She opened her mouth and let him in, then bit down hard on his tongue.

He let out a muffled scream and pulled away from her, spitting blood. He was breathing hard, his hand to his mouth, glaring at her. She spat in his face, getting off the bed, and kneed him in the balls. He groaned in agony, falling to his knees. Beatrice grabbed the Pear from him with her open hands, and brought it down hard on his head. The force of the blow knocked him over, the wings leaving bloody trails on his face.

He was letting out pitiful sounds of pain, holding his balls.

“God damn… you bitch!”

Beatrice grabbed the Spider and used it to cut the rope around her wrists. Once it was off she dragged Delaney to the Rack and picked up the Spider again. She held open the prongs and lightly squeezed his testicles, all the while forcing the Pear into his mouth. He made a slight struggle until she brought the prongs of the Spider together, squeezing painfully tight. He screamed, his brown eyes going wide, tears streaming down his scratched cheeks. He was making muffled words around the Pear and Beatrice brought it out of his mouth. There was blood on it from his bitten tongue.

“Please… Jesus, please stop!” He begged.

Beatrice slowly opened up the prongs until Delaney gasped in relief.

She was surprised at how easy it had been to reverse their roles. Delaney was a skinny man and didn’t have much strength, but if he did Beatrice would be the one begging. For that she was grateful. She hadn’t enjoyed bringing the man to pain but she knew if she hadn’t done anything he’d be doing the same thing to her. Or worse.

“Is Crowley dead?” She demanded, watching his face closely. His face had grown red and she could see the vein throbbing on his forehead.

“No…I told you before, it was only a tranquilizer I shot him with,” he said.

He suddenly brought his fist up and punched her in the face. Beatrice squeezed the prongs together even as she was knocked backward from the blow.

“Fucking cunt!” he hissed, grabbing her hand and yanking it away from the Spider.

He produced a gun from under his shirt and cocked it, pointing it at her leg. Beatrice quickly moved her legs and knocked the gun out of his hand. She got to her feet and barely missed a punch aimed for her head. She tried to knee him in the balls again but he was expecting that and grabbed her leg and pulled her off her feet.

She fell down hard on her back and let out a curse at the pain of the impact. The gun was a few inches from her hands.

Their eyes met. “You better not, you little fucker!”

She lunged for it at the same time he lunged for her. Her hand closed around it and she brought her arm up, pointing the gun at him. He froze, and his face was one of surprise.

“Move one inch and I’ll blow your fucking head off,” she said coldly. He nodded slowly and Beatrice saw the disbelief in his eyes. But he did not move.

She got up without using her arms and her abs burned with the effort. She was sweating from the exertion of their struggle. Her head felt as if the Pear had been driven into it and it didn’t help the headache she had from earlier.

She wiped her brow with one hand and held the gun in the other. Her arm was shaking a little bit and Delaney noticed, thinking it was from her hesitation to shoot him when it was really from exhaustion, and moved towards her.

She didn’t think she would shoot him, in fact, she didn’t even remember pulling the trigger.

But she had. She had shot him in the chest and the recoil caught her off balance. Delaney’s expression would forever be imprinted on her mind; it was one of surprise, but there was also admiration there.

“I told you not to move,” she whispered. She was trembling from the knowledge of what she had just done.

“Seems I underestimated you. Tell the Crow I approve,” he wheezed, his hand clutching his chest, then collapsed.

Murder count: two. My God.

She didn’t have much time to dwell on Delaney’s death because the door opened and Melaina and the beefy man with dreadlocks burst in.

“Jesus Christ! She shot him! The little bitch shot him!” Melaina screamed, kneeling down beside Delaney’s body.

She was wearing something much more casual; pants and a black halter top. The beefy man looked from the dead man to Beatrice as if he didn’t believe the girl in front of him had killed his crony. Neither did Beatrice.

He reached under his jacket but before he could reveal whatever weapon he was hiding Beatrice aimed the gun at him.

“Don’t! Don’t move a fucking muscle or I swear I’ll shoot you too!” Beatrice warned, her voice trembling. The beefy man didn’t make Delaney’s mistake and he put his hands up.

Melaina was in shock, a state she shared with Beatrice, and she stared at her as if she had grown three heads.

“Where did you get that gun?” She hissed, and if looks could kill…

“It was Delaney’s,” she replied, backing away from the two of them towards the torture devices.

The beefy man let out a surprisingly high pitched laugh. “She shot the poor bastard with his own gun!”

Melaina didn’t appear as amused by this fact as her big friend. In fact, she grew more angry.

“You stupid girl! Do you know what you’ve done? Joussen, go get Sarah.”

Joussen made no sign of leaving and Beatrice glanced between the two.

“Sarah? Crowley’s sister?” She said, flabbergasted.

“Yes, Sarah! She’s the one who told us to kidnap you!” Melaina said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. She stood up and wiped her hands on her pants.

“But why? Why would she do that?”

Melaina rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Am I going to have to answer your questions all day?” She huffed.

Beatrice was getting tired of her attitude. She walked towards them and stood face to face with the brunette beauty who was a foot taller than her.

“You will if you want to keep your pretty little face,” she said with an authority she didn’t actually feel. In fact it was an empty threat but she got her point across.

Melaina raised her perfectly sculpted eyebrows.

“You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered threateningly.

“Don’t forget your little friend,” she pointed to Delaney, the bullet hole on his chest making a puddle of blood on the floor.

Melaina narrowed her eyes at Beatrice, her mouth set in a hard line.

“Sarah wants to use your soul so she can get more drugs. She told us we could do whatever we wanted with you,” she said, glancing at the Rack, “as long as we brought you to her alive.”

Beatrice took a moment to digest this. She was starting to really loathe Crowley’s sister.

“How will she use my… soul?”

“She’ll give you to His Majesty, the Eater of Souls. He’ll take yours as a replacement for hers.”

Beatrice thought maybe the brunette was messing with her, but the look on her face was completely serious.

“So he can really eat souls? How is that possible?”

Melaina started to grow impatient. “I don’t know! He’s a demon, he can do things humans can only imagine. If you let him take a part of your soul he’ll reward you with anything you want; fame, money, women, drugs… whatever,” she explained.

“Does that answer all your questions?”

Beatrice glanced at Joussen, her cheeks flushed. “Well…no…”

“Did you and Crowley used to be a couple?”

She could have laughed at the priceless expression on Melaina’s face if she wasn't so embarrassed.

“As if it matters!… but no, we weren’t. We just fucked,” she said bluntly.

Beatrice felt extremely satisfied with that knowledge. Of course, she was still jealous. She had a lot more questions that were of a sexual nature but she wouldn’t dare ask the woman in front of her any.

She put those thoughts away for another time and said, “Where’s Sarah?”

It was time to have a little chat.

~~~~~~~~


AN--
* ((For a detailed list of historic torture devices and how they work go here: http://www.occasionalhell.com/infdevice/))

Thanks for reading.