Chapter 2b

[soncnica]

CHAPTER 2b

He didn't hear them, not really, he just knew something was wrong; something was making the hair at the back of his neck stand up. Everything was too silent, everything felt too still. He felt too calm, too good.

Gripping the handle of the knife, he opened one eye. If it were humans, they wouldn't be able to see him, not in this darkness, but if it were Icies, he was dead either way.

He tried to be very still which wasn't all that hard, because he was feeling lethargic, could actually smell the calmness the intruders were emanating.

It was the Icies … it was them which gave Jensen only two options. Die or go down swinging.

As death didn't appeal to him, he would always choose to go down swinging. And that was why he was up on his feet before one of them was a foot into the room.

His knife felt light in his hand, sharp and he knew how to play with it. He had taught himself well, had a lot of practice and had a lot of scars to show just how long of a journey it had been to learn handling a knife in any kinda fight.

Raising it high and pointing it directly at a man who was standing before him, he smirked and hefted the knife, gripping it tighter. The fucker would go down.

The Icy had eyes so bright blue they glowed in the darkness. All he could really see were the eyes, two points of blue in the pitch black.

They didn't even blink, just stared directly at him. Creepy, but he'd seen worse. There was no fuckin' way he would show the Icy anything other than just how much he wanted it dead.

"You creepy little bastards …" he breathed out and made two steps to his left, knife still held high and pointed directly at the man.

Icy didn't say anything, but even if it would, who cared. Whatever, it'd be dead soon anyway, because Jensen would send that knife flying between the man's eyes before Icy could even open his goddamned mouth.

Jensen sneered at the man, knowing that the Icy could see him and brought his arm just a little bit back, to get some more momentum to throw the knife when a hand closed around his bicep.

Hard. Unforgiving. Fingers digging into his skin, grinding bones together.

Jensen didn't panic. His heart didn't miss a few beats. He didn't swallow his tongue.

He wasn't scared.

And when a raspy voice calmly breathed into his ear: "Ohhh, no you don't human. We've been looking for you for a very long time," Jensen gritted his teeth in anger, his eyes still on the two spots of bright blue in front of him and stepped on the Icy's foot, turned around and plunged the knife into the man. He didn't know where he hit it, couldn't see it, not in this darkness, but he did smirk when a groan of pain hit his ears. Icies could be hurt. They could die. Or so he had been told. No one had actually … seen one of them die. Or had killed one themselves, not even Jensen. The three Icies he had stabbed, he ran away when they'd still been writhing on the ground. But … everything dies. One way or another, everything dies.

He was just about to pull the knife out of the Icy when an arm wrapped around his neck. Damn rookie mistake, turning his back on an enemy. Fuck his life.

He tried to twist and turn, hit the Icy in its guts with his elbow … but …

… choke hold. Fuck. Fuck them for playing dirty, damn fuckers. He should've known better. Really, he should.

It wasn't dark when Jensen blinked his eyes open. Once, twice, three times until he could actually hold them open completely without feeling like the light was pushing knives into his brain.

It wasn't cold wherever he was, but he still shivered, looking down at himself and seeing that he was only wearing his sweat pants and his sneakers. Someone had taken off his shirt, stripped him of his knife and left him tied up to a chair in the middle of … a …

… he blinked again and shook his head, trying to shake away the cobwebs his brain was wrapped in. He felt sluggish, like his brain was being dragged through oil.

He opened his eyes again and looked around. The room was … dirty, was the first thing that came to his mind. The walls were clearly metal or iron, because there was brown rust everywhere. The walls were painted in rust, not really something one saw every day. There was some green there too, maybe mold or moss, or maybe just a different array of rust. He wasn't an expert, really.

"What the…" he whispered and the breathed words echoed all around him, bouncing off the metallic walls, pushing at his eardrums.

Shaking his head and groaning a long, deep groan, he twisted his hands in the tight, coarse rope his wrists were bound with. All that did was make his shoulder ache, the unnatural angle his arms were twisted behind his back making the old injury flare up again. Damn shoulder dislocation, damn it to hell. It had been hard enough to pop it back in all those months ago, but to have it start acting up right now … damn it.

There was no way of escaping. There was absolutely no way he would get out of this … place.

Looking around again, he saw that the room curved to the right up ahead, disappearing into the darkness there.

"Shit …" he cursed and tested his legs that were bound to the chair around their ankles. Tested his arms again, just in case, but no, they were still securely fastened by the wrists.

He was in a round room with walls full of rust, and the chair he was sitting on was sturdy and unbreakable.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

He was fucked.

There were stories being told about how the Icies stole people, hunted them down and killed them or send them up to the Arctic to become their personal slaves or used for food … but all that was just rumors, as he had never actually seen the Icies do anything to anyone. He hadn't ever met a person who'd had any encounter with the Icies at all. Everything that he heard, that anyone ever heard, were stories that traveled across many mouths and ears. Stories mothers told their children at night, to make them afraid. To make them survivalist.

Alineja and his uncle never spoke of the Icies and whenever he asked about them, they just shared a look and then changed the subject into 'you hungry, sweetie?' or 'you wanna go hunt, squirt?'. It had been frustrating, not being given any answers and always living off of rumors, but after a while he'd just stopped asking.

So … Jensen guessed that this would be the moment where he'd learn what the Icies did to all the humans they caught. This would be it. And there would be no one to see this, to hear of this. He would be made into another rumor, another story to be told at camp fires and deep down in the sewers among all those rats. He would be whispered about … but there would be no one mourning him. No one would miss him.

A piercing creak of a metal door opening somewhere around where the room bent into a corner made him wince and snap his head up high and to his right to see what his death would look like.

He wished he had his knife, he wished he had his quiver full of sharp arrows and his trusty bow that had never failed him.

There was a feeling of being naked without his weapons - feeling like a newborn baby, defenseless and at anyone's mercy - that always washed over him whenever he was too far away from them.

The sound of footsteps was like thunder, the metallic floor making each step sound booming and raw and he flinched when he heard the door close.

Two or more. Two or more Icies were here and so … this was his death then.

Jensen wasn't okay with it, because he really, really had no desire to die. None. He had seen and caused too much death in his life and he didn't want that. He knew he was a hypocrite when it came to that, but fuck it. Fuck all those humans who had a death wish, fuck them. Even this fucked up world … it was still beautiful, even if the fight to survive sometimes blurred that beauty.

"Jensen, Jensen, Jensen …"

The voice was deep and soft, belonging to a thin and tall man with a round head full of brown hair. His eyes were big and blue, shining brighter and brighter with each step the man made towards him.

He tried really hard to mask the surprise he was feeling; they knew his name. His goddamn name. How?

"Well, you know my name, good for you. Has me in a bit of a disadvantage, here, huh?"

He was sweating, droplets of it running down his face, neck, between his pecs and all the way down his spine into his ass crack. It tickled and he wanted to scratch the itch, but his hands were tied … fuck. He squirmed on the chair, rubbed his ass and back on the hard wood and sighed. That worked great. Now if he could just get out of the rope.

"You can call me Noleih. Or Noah. As you wish."

"What if I call you asshole?"

The man smirked, the mole on his upper lip almost touching his nostril: "My name isn't important, Jensen, but yours … yours is worth so much, you can't even begin to imagine."

Jensen swallowed down every emotion that sentence wanted to invoke in him, because he would not give this fucker the satisfaction of seeing him scared or panicked or shocked.

He would give them nothing but a fight until the very end, until he was lying on the ground bleeding and broken with his guts spilling out. He would fight until the very bitter end.

Noah unbuttoned his black suit jacket and loosened his blue tie, something so human that it made Jensen feel sick. They weren't human. They were monsters, they were destroyers, they were assholes who fucked this planet over and were responsible for so much death and destruction. When Noah leaned closer to him, so close Jensen could actually smell mint on the man's breath and had to cross his eyes a little to still see Noah's face, his fingers twitched for his knife. He growled a little when they grabbed nothing but thin air and heavy rope and then … spat in the man's face.

It was childish and petty, but damn if watching the glob of thick spit run down the man's nose, lips and that red pimple on the man's chin didn't make him feel a whole of a lot better.

He laughed out loud as he watched Noah pull a handkerchief out of his suit's pocket and wipe the saliva away.

"Oh Jensen … you're as childish as Jared."

The name meant nothing to him and he didn't really understand why he was being compared to someone he didn't even know, but if this Jared guy was anything like him ... then he liked the guy already.

"Yeah well, you fuck with me, I fuck with you."

He didn't even see the man's hand move towards his face, but he sure as hell felt the sting of the impact. It hurt and he could taste blood in his mouth.

"Ahhh, fuck. I hope you didn't break me a tooth, you Icy bitch!" He ran his tongue across his teeth and didn't find any holes, so the guy probably just split his lip. The first cut hadn't even healed yet and now he had another one. Awesome.

"Well now, Jensen … you play nice and this is the first and the last hit you'll get. Okay?"

"Fuck you!"

He spat out a chunk of blood mixed with spit and barely missed the guy's face, but he didn't miss his pristine white shirt.

"Jensen, what did I just say about playing nice?"

Jensen wanted to stick his knife slowly, oh so slowly into this man's heart, like nobody's business.

"I don't play nice, asshole."

Noah sighed: "All right then let's get right to the point, shall we?"

"There's a point to all of this?"

He really wished slavery or death wasn't the point of all of this.

"Yes, there's a point to all of this. And the point is that you're going to tell me where Jared is, and I'll kill you fast and without pain."

Licking his teeth of the blood: "And now, why would I wanna do that?" he grinned when he saw Noah's eyes harden.

"Well, if you won't, then Ashil there will make you tell me."

Jensen looked to his left and saw another man stand there, one he hadn't even noticed before. He knew two or more of them had come into the room, but damn they moved silently.

"Make me? Seriously? 'm not scared of you. 'm not scared of dying. And 'm not scared of pain."

He was lying. He was lying through his teeth and Alineja would've hit him with a spoon if he'd ever had lied to her like this, but … he was raised to be strong, to be brave.

"You're lying, Jensen. I can see it. I can smell your fear. And that's okay. That will help us get answers from you. It's okay."

He knew a lot of stories about the Icies, but that they were crazy, demented, delusional fuckers … he did not know that. Well … not for sure. But a guy truly does learn new shit every day.

"You'll never get anything out of me, especially not about some guy that I know nothing about and that I've never even heard of."

"We'll see. Ashil … he has a bone to pick with you, I mean you did stab him. Kinda awkward really, but … c'est la vie."

Stab him? He'd stabbed him, he did and the guy survived. Icies … they can't … die? So… one of the rumors confirmed then.

Jensen swallowed and tried so hard not to let this revelation be seen on his face.

"Ashil, please."

He watched as Noah stepped back and leaned on the rust covered wall just in front of him and started wiping his shirt of the spit of blood.

Jensen grinned; bloody teeth and a split lip.

It was the last thing he did before his body exploded with pain Jensen had never ever felt before. It was bright, it was cold and it was hot, it was burning him with the intensity of freezing cold water and scorching hot asphalt. It was winters and summers mixed together, spilling all over his skin.

He heard someone screaming, but it was too raw, too animalistic to be him. It wasn't him making all those noises. It wasn't him. It couldn't have been him. His voice wasn't so deep or so high pitched, it never was.

It wasn't him screaming. Couldn't be.

The question was always the same.

Where is Jared?

The answer was always the same too.

Fuck you, fuck you, fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!

Among him screaming, among the sound echoing in the space for seconds after he stopped, all Jensen felt was pain. Pain everywhere until at one point it all just stopped. Until at one point his brain stopped registering pain and just rolled with the punches. He blocked it all out and started to float among the sound of his screams and the endless questions of where's Jared, Jared, Jared …

"I … I don't … douhhhh … no Jared."

His head was hanging down, bloody drool running from his wide open mouth down into his lap.

He was a mess.

"Jensen, we can do this forever. Just tell us where Jared is and we'll stop, do you understand?"

"Nggh, f-fff-fuck y-ou."

"Jensen, just tell us."

"I d-don't k-k-know 'im."

The pain always came back; sudden at first until it slowed into something sharp and forceful, thin like needles. It was intense in how it stabbed into him, shooting hot and cold throughout his whole body.

Ashil, or whothefuckever, was good, Jensen had to give him that. The guy was good at all this … this torturing stuff.

"What?" Noah grabbed Jensen by his hair and pulled his head up, making him look directly into the man's face.

"I … d-d-don't … k-dnow … Ja-yred." he slurred out, trying to swallow down but his spit tasted of blood and it was making him wanna puke. He had actually puked three times, if his memory served him right, and he still wore the putrid smelling evidence in his lap, the apple he had eaten a few hours ago heating up his groin real nicely.

"You don't know Jared? Jensen, please, 'm not stupid."

"I don't…" he panted out, trying to push away how his skin felt so raw, sensitive to every small movement around him. Every shift in the air felt like needles were piercing into him through every pore.

"Fine, that's fine. Why don't you sleep on it and we'll see each other in a few hours? Yes?"

"G-gho f-f-ffuck yourselffff."

"Jensen, you're so like Jared it's uncanny."

Jensen rolled his eyes at the smile Noah got when he'd said those words. What a creep.

When Noah finally released his hair, he let gravity take his head wherever it wanted. Which was down, chin hitting his chest and more pink drool spilling down onto his lap.

The door closed with a loud creak and he shut his eyes, still drooling. And then he pissed himself, because apparently drool and puke just wasn't enough of a humiliation.

He wanted to sleep, wanted to dream of something better, of a place this planet used to be. Wanted to dream of the stars. Wanted to feel the weight of his knife against his thigh and the weight of his bow on his back.

He ached; hot blood mixed with spit and sweat was running down his chest and abs, his nipples were hiding under a crust of dried blood, his legs were drenched and it all looked so … maybe he still was dreaming. Maybe he was still in that house and all of this was just a dream.

He turned his head away from his groin and spat out to the ground.

"Fuck…"

There was so much blood.

He leaned back into the chair and breathed.

He had no clue who this Jared guy was, and why these Icies thought that he of all the humans knew where the bastard was. They really were delusional sons of bitches.

It hurt, his whole body hurt but Jensen couldn't quite recall what the guy did to him to make him feel this way, to make him bleed so badly. All he could remember was the guy's hands coming at him and then the pain just exploded all over his body, searing his skin, breaking his bones, making his mouth water and blood start to run out of him like a damn river. He wasn't sure just how much more blood he could spare before he would go into shock and die of blood loss. But if they really needed answers from him, about this Jared guy, and if he was the only one to know, then ... they probably wouldn't let him die just like that, right?

Jensen didn't know if that thought soothed him or not.

He hung his head and closed his eyes, not wanting to see the mess in his lap; he was feeling the wetness seep through his sweat pants and his dick and balls were literally swimming in his puke, blood and piss and it was disgusting.

He'd just had a bath, for crying out loud. A nice, relaxing bath with nice, cool water that had washed away three days' worth of sweat and grime and made all of his muscles loosen up and now this. And he had just gotten himself off too, which was probably the reason he hadn't heard the trap being triggered; because he was asleep, because he was too loosened up.

Fucking assholes for making him bleed and sweat all over his nicely washed skin and ruining his post orgasmic sleep.

If he had his bow and knife, everyone in this place would have already been dead a long time ago. But no one ever said about the Icies playing or fighting fair so ... why should this be any different.

He just wished everyone would leave him alone. He meant no harm to anyone, he never messed with anyone's business, he never stepped on anyone's toes, and yet, humans always tried to kill him and the Icies, well, they knew his name and they thought he knew this Jared dude.

He never wished for this life and all he wanted was to be left alone, to hunt for his food, to sleep in a half-decent place and live until his natural death, was that too much to ask for? Apparently yes.

"Uuugh..."

He spat out some more blood and tried to think of the stars that always burst into existence if he pushed his hands into his eye sockets. He couldn't do that now, tied hands and all, but he tried to think of them, tried to imagine them be there and whisk him out of here, to safety. To another world. One where his mom was still alive and he knew his dad's name. One where Alineja and his uncle were still with him, teaching him about nature and hunting and math and grammar and history. One where he wasn't bleeding to death from wounds he couldn't even see.

Invisible wounds to kill an invisible man.

How appropriate.

He tried to swallow, but making his throat work was painful; he had screamed himself into a sore throat.

He'd roll his eyes, if they weren't hurting too.

Jensen wished many a thing, but to feel cool hands holding both his cheeks and smushing his lips into a tight 'o' wasn't one of them.

Snapping his eyes open, he hissed when the light made them tear up. He tried blinking the spots away and when he did, he wished he hadn't.

"Jensen! Jensen, wake up. Wake up. Easy, just take it easy."

Even if the words were whispered and soft, they still felt as if they were being stabbed right into his head.

"Ugggh…"

"Easy, easy, you're all right, can you walk?"

He wasn't sure what kind of a trick this was, what kinda fucked up game the Icies were playing here, but he could feel his hands be free, he could feel the man pull him up on his own two - working, if a bit weak - legs.

"Hey, hey look at me. Can you walk?"

"Wha? Yeah..."

He made a step forward only to fall onto something solid and warm.

"N...nuh..."

"Okay, never mind, come on, come on, we need to get away from here before Noleih comes back."

They were already rounding the bend and he could see a few more feet in front of him, a door, as covered with rust as the rest of the place was.

The man was dragging him forward, one arm around Jensen's waist the other around his shoulders, while he stumbled as a barely born colt right alongside the man.

"What'sss wha'?"

"Shhh, shh don't talk okay? Just stay quiet, okay?"

He never could do quiet, Alineja and he had a few fights over that, because he was always quick mouthed and loud, borderlining on obnoxious, but he understood the need for silence when one wanted to break out of a torture chamber. He snickered, torture chamber. He snickered again and uh-uh, blood loss, shock, brain shutting down. He felt like he was high on something the "medicine" men and women cooked up deep in the forests. Those people knew shit, they knew really good shit. He wasn't one of the humans who did drugs to escape this life, he ... he didn't take drugs to see the stars, because he needed to be alert and protect his back as well as his front and he couldn't do that, not while flying way up high on some good stuff the medicines cooked up in their pots and pans.

That would be like signing his own death warrant.

But if it worked for some, who was he to judge? Everyone needed an escape, it was just that Jensen's was more of a ... fighting kind.

"Jensen you with me?"

He couldn't answer that, because no. Nooohhoohoo, he wasn't. He was falling, sinking into the warm side of the man and he didn't care what would happen to him next. Where he was being taken. He didn't care if he would wake up ever again or not.

He had promised his uncle that he would live ... survive and live as best as he could, but right here and now, it felt good to just lean onto the solidness of the person holding him up and close to his side and just let go.

They were probably leaving a trail of his blood behind, but he didn't care. Nor did he care when he saw the dead eyes of Ashil staring back at him, the man lying crumbled on his side near a wall.

Dead.

Fuck.

That was the last straw and he let go of the desire to be strong and to see where and when his doom would come.

The pull of the darkness was stronger and Jensen gave in.

No warrior ever wanted to go out in the middle of the battle, his uncle once told him, but sometimes what made a warrior good was the knowledge of when the battle was lost.

So Jensen lost it.

CHAPTER 2a _II_ CHAPTER 3a