The Thorns Under Pedals

Chapter 7:

Drake

My mind started to wake out of my subconscious however with that I could feel my body burning in pain. First my head throbbed like something was bashing against it. The next thing I felt was a soreness that went along with the ache in my gums where my teeth had been forced out. The holes hurt the most whenever I breathed or was going to speak. The rest of my body’s pains and aches came after that. I winced as I felt my dislocated wounded shoulder. I’m sure if I saw myself in the mirror that I would look horrible and disfigured. Would I even recognize myself? I doubt it with all the pain I felt. Rebecca would probably scream when she got a glance at me. If I ever saw her again. The thought sent a sharp knife pain to my heart.

I still had no idea where the lunatic was holding her. No Elizabeth had not shared anything but I saw hints. She had her somewhere in the same building but where I had no idea. I hoped that Rebecca was not sharing the same torture as I. My stomach became nauseated, imagining what the sick girl could be doing to her. From the torture Elizabeth put me through I was not sure if Rebecca could be going through similar treatment or not. There was a look in her eyes that hinted that she just wanted information out of me. Which had me holding onto most of what I knew that she wanted believing that with more time I could get us out of here. There had to be a way and the more I paid attention to the girl I would find it.

That belief was harshly shattered when I heard Elizabeth’s voice draw me to open my eyes. I heard her words but they were not processing. My eyes were searching the room I was in. This room was somewhat similar from the other by how dusty it was. There were barred windows and a few tables around the room. A chill crawled along my body as the chain around my ankle came into my view. I gripped the chain and tugged it, testing how strong the cold metal was. Hope crashed into a million shards as I saw the key far away as if taunting me. I knew by the placement that it was placed just out of my reach. The machete that laid close to me however confused me. The chains would not break from the dulled edge.

Before I could pick up the machete and test my theory while Elizabeth went on I heard a blood curdling scream. Without much thought then it being Rebecca that was the source I fought the dizziness in my vision and went to run to the door. Forgetting about the chain I landed hard on my face. The sound of the bone breaking made me groan. My body was already hurting all over so the added pain was dull in comparison.

Lifting my head I saw something coming in from under the door. Fog? My nose that was now broken twitched slightly as the smell of wood burning came through. Panic filled me but I had to calm myself to think rationally. Rebecca’s screams became heavy sobs. The sound twisted in my heart. I wanted to comfort her but I had to get out of here first. Scanning the room I realized just what Elizabeth had done. She would be sitting back now to let us hurt ourselves just to try to help the other. Anger made me yell at the top of my lungs.

“b***h! When I get out of here you will be begging for me to end you.” The volume of my voice and the banging of my fist to the ground shook the room. I was furious as I took the machete after ripping off fabric from my blood stained shirt. To hell with Elizabeth, I thought, She may get what she wants now but it’s a small price to save Rebecca from her cold bloody murderous hands.

Even though I was determined to free myself from the chains by cutting off my ankle I was shaking when placing the piece of fabric in my burning mouth. The fabric against my wounded gums had tears brought forth. I muffled the grunt of pain to let out my bottled up frustration as well as ease a bit of the pain the motion caused. Once I was settled to a comfortable spot and after a few deep breaths from my now blood dripping nose I gripped the machete tightly above the section I would be cutting.

I knew from my years of being a bodyguard that once I cut here that I would lose quick access to move around. My body would explode with pain and make me extremely weak. Not having my full strength will be a disadvantage to escape but the quicker I got this over then the better chances we both could get out of this stupid “game”. As soon as we got away then I could get this checked out to prevent infection.

Rebecca’s screams started again setting me into action. The blade cut deep for being too dull to cut the chain but just enough sharpness to inflict bodily harm. Though I knew the pain would be unbearable, the cloth I had put in my mouth did not muffle the roar of my own scream as the tears slid from my eyes. I had to force myself to cut the whole way even when I felt blood gush all over my hand and around the bottom of my leg. I could not see if I cut evenly since tears blurred my vision if I opened them.

If I could see, the sight may even turn my strong stomach. The movies that show self amputation made me gag with the amount of blood that flowed everywhere. I was living that now and the images that those scenes brought flashed in my mind's eye sickenly. There was no drain on this floor which would have taken the amount of blood out of my sight when I would look. I remembered the actor's skin turning pale with every scene after the body part was cut off. I imagine mine was pale similar to theirs. All I felt was the pain ripping me apart along with a burning sensation.

The act of cutting off a limb of yourself was not a short and easy process. Maybe with a sharper object but having to go through your bones had the action of sawing difficult. Minutes passed for I don’t know how long. All I felt was that an eternity must have come by the time I heard the chains jingle down to the ground. A light thud sounded with it as the blade hit the floor no longer connecting to skin. If I had thought cutting was the worst part of the process I was mistaken. Having the air breeze against the open wound was the most excruciating pain I have felt in my life. The breeze was constantly present no matter when I wrapped a piece of simi clean clothing to try and slow the bleeding.

In my blurred vision I could still see the amount of red around me. I was in a small puddle of it and the wound was already starting to stain the cloth with more of it. I did not rest long however. My mind was turning hazy as if the life of me was beginning to fade. Survival instinct pushed me to crawl towards the door. The ground I made was snail pace with every wince I made at the contact my wound made with the ground. I had to pull myself up enough to open the door which made me almost collapse there.

The only thing that pushed me to hold on was Rebecca. Smoke was heavily flowing in the hall fogging the place up. I tried to quicken my pace in the direction I had heard her scream. The smoke was too thick and caught in my dry throat resulting in coughing fits that slowed me down more. The thought of what Rebecca was going through ate at me. I was continuously afraid that Rebecca was dying and I could not help her.

Rebecca

My mind was drowsy as my consciousness fought to wake. I felt so many sensations before I woke up to open my eyes. My brain was fighting me to pull me back down deep in my unconscious to keep me from the nightmare I had been in for a while at the hands of Xavier’s sister. Honestly it was difficult to accept all that had happened in the days or whatever. I was not surprised that my mind thought it was best to just comatose myself. Elizabeth was truly insane at the loss of her family. Rebecca could not believe that revenge was the only motive that led to these killings and her mind seemed to hold on to the memories of the little sister who followed Xavier around.

My body burned from the warm air that settled on my skin waking me up. At first I just felt like someone had banged my head but then the knife wounds just started to sting. It took a while for me to realize that my body was in liquid not on the bed tied up. My eyebrows frowned at this. If I was not in bed then where could I be? With this wandering thought and a bit of curiosity I took a deep breath thinking of opening my eyes to see. However, that did not happen because I ended up in a coughing fit as smoke filled my lungs. The coughing made my body shake forcing my hazy mind to fully awaken to hear Elizabeth speaking.

I could hear her voice but the words blew over my head as I was settling down from coughing. My eyes burned with tears but when I opened them to see my surroundings the smoke just burned them more. My hoarse throat constricted in pain that I would have felt if the terror filling my body was not my focus.

I had opened my eyes to see a fire lit on a wooden table and the ground glossy with what I assumed to be gasoline. I screamed bloody murderingly high. If glass was in the room I would have broken it into tiny shards. Seeing the fire had me moving from my spot only to have me trip over the tub to land on the glossy floor. That’s when I heard Elizabeth’s voice end to say, “I would start now if I were you both.”

I did not need to be asked twice. As quickly as my body could, it scrambled up to the door. Of course the door was locked. I felt my lungs give another scream in frustration as well as panic. The fire was growing to the point of engulfing the desk and soon licked up the gasoline on the floor. Irrationally my hands pounded on the door as tears slid from my eyes. My fear was a reality now.

Pleads came out in whispers hoping that Elizabeth would hear me. I sounded like a mouse but I had to try. I wanted to live. I didn’t want the fire to burn me alive. Which was a deep possibility since I had noticed the liquid I had hoped was water was actually gasoline. Nothing came to help me and the fire just grew to take parts of the wall and almost the floor with it.

My eyes darted to the box in the middle of the room between myself and the fire. I began to pant as the heat was increasing. I made my way to the box to find that it was also locked tight. The fire was even hotter in this spot, making me glancing over my shoulder more times than I can remember for fear that it was creeping up to me. I had to focus. I knew this was a part of some horror series trick Elizabeth knew. There was no note to tell me what I needed to do. I would have to figure out what to do for survival.

Chewing on my bottom lip I tried to think of something that would help me. Back and forth my eyes looked over the room to find something. There were no clues on the walls or the tub. Minutes ticked by and the fire took up half the room. That is when I found the code under the box itself. I huffed curses out mad that I had not thought to look there first. Now was not the time however. So I unlocked it and opened the box to find another surprise beside the sheet of paper.

Once again I screamed but I also dropped the box to the ground. What looked to be a baby snake that had scales midnight black. This was a horrible Idea as the snake became pissed from being tossed at all. A hissing sound was combined with the fire's crackling. The fire gave me a clearer view of the snake. My stomach clenched with nausea realizing that the snake that was moving towards me was a King Cobra species of snake. I had to move quickly to get the note that thankfully dropped next to my foot.

The snake that was all too unhappy with me was quick in his or her striking speed. I felt the bit of its teeth lung into my hand as I was lifting it with the note. Burning of a new kind sizzled my body. I pulled the snake off and threw it into the fire. Dizziness spun the room as blackness settled on the edges of my vision. I had to force my muscles to move in stumbles for the door. The heat of the flame was not far away as I had to try over and over with the lock. The numbers looked too much alike in my state.

Finally when the lock clicked I fumbled, throwing the door open. The movement didn’t set well with my body. I found myself falling down to the ground of the hall rather loudly. My lungs were aching with each breath. I knew it was from the snake bite more than the smoke that was resting in my system. A system that was having a panic attack. With a shaking body and heavy breathing I did not notice Drake who was calling for me. I did not notice anything around me for several moments.

Moments that let Drake crawl the rest of the way to me and look me over. I wondered what he saw. Getting a good look at him I could see how pale he was and every movement was making him wince. Eyes that had been full of confidence and beauty were clouded with worry over the underlying anger. I could see the pain in him even though he was pushing it deep down in hiding for me. Then I found a cloth wrapped around a stump of his leg where a foot should be. Horror filled my dizzy eyes.

We did not exchange any words because there was none that one of us could say without knowing the answer. Each of us was not fine and both of us were in serious pain over our injuries. Nor did we have the luxury to chat as the fire was gaining ground. With a silent command Drake took my hand as we both crawled to the stairs. The pace was slower than walking but it allowed me to gain control over my muscles. When I had enough control we both arranged ourselves letting Drake use me as support to walk.

This was how we made our way down stairs. His arm that was not dislocated wrapped over my shoulders and my less cut up arm held onto his other side. We almost rolled down the stairs shifting our weights as we descended. I breathed a sigh of relief when we were on the level under the fire. I was hoping that there would be no more waiting for us. Yet we both knew that was false hope.

I could feel Drake tense in my arms. A clear sign that he thought the same and was alert to what Elizabeth’s next move would be. Though the hall was dark with only the moon's light there was no trap we could see staring at us. The quiet was eerie. This was as real a horror flick as it could get and if we made it out alive I was never going to watch a horror movie ever again. Though I was not confident that I would be living alive.

We almost reached the stairs for the second floor when my foot got stuck in two wood panels. Both Drake and I fell forward on the unexpected trip. What waited for us was needles piercing every part of our body that landed on the ground. Blood dripped from the syringe needles poking us. Our wounds that were open to the needles made darkness pass through our visions. I moved slightly unconsciously trying to get up only to feel a handful of needles digging in deeper. Drake was the one to scream in pain as he had pushed himself away but there were needles that dug past the end of the needle's hilt. The substance in the syringes causes red agitate rashes over his face and arms.

I felt rashes much like an allergic reaction appear on my neck and arms that had needles lunged in from moving earlier. My lips began to swell. There was only one thing that I knew that Drake and I were both allergic to and that was soy. Elizabeth had put Soy in the needles and not just a small amount. By placing so many needles, probably predicting that we would move to get out of the pile scattered around one part of the hall we unknowingly took in more than either of us could handle without severe allergic reactions.

Drake pulled me carefully out of the pile and we both moved to take needles out of the other. I had a bad allergy to soy since I was a child but I knew that Drake’s was worse. I remembered a story he told me once when they had found out about his allergy. He had been about ten having dinner with his family when he tried soy sauce with dumplings. First a rash took over his skin with itching not far behind. Drake had been forced to the hospital but his symptoms increased to difficulty breathing. His parents told him afterwards that he had been as pale as the doctor's white coat that he had vomited blood on.

From my experience I would only get rashes and a tightening in my throat. With the combination of this and the snake's bite however I was the one throwing up as the room spun first. Our strength was leaving us quickly. I could barely even lift my hand to hold Drake’s hand. This would be it for us. I felt it in my soul. Drake would not have it though. I could see it in his eyes. Every part of him was still trying to fight the inevitable.

He forced us to continue on. Our pace was even slower than it must look laughable to Elizabeth wherever she was. My mind that was drifting away the farther we went wondered if Elizabeth was hearing the angry crude words that Drake threw at her as we shuffled down the second stairs.

Ringing filled my ears. The sound reminded me of an alarm. Though I could not tell if it was from all the noise of an angry Drake yelling to an invisible girl or the effects of all the stuff poisoning me. I would have laughed sadly at what was happening to us if I could make a sound. How pitiful.

At the second floor the trap was not hiddened. She had made the trap on the stairs with our end goal in sight. I was no longer surprised or horrified. Elizabeth was determined to kill us. Each trap killed us slowly so far but this one would do a quicker job at it. My eyes took in the wire blocking our path to the last staircase. There was no opening to avoid it. Both of them would have to crawl their way through. Drake bellowed in anger and I felt tears roll down my cheeks. The reality of the situation was sinking in. I knew before that there was a possibility I would be murdered but now I knew for a fact neither of us were living alive. All my hope was gone leaving me terrified to face death. I was not ready to die. So I used the last card I had. This was not how I wished to spill it but it was now or never. I just hoped Elizabeth was somewhere listening.

“Please Elizabeth.” My voice was soft and shocked with emotion.”Please let us go alive. I don’t wish to die without holding the baby I’m carrying in my arms even once. If you won’t spare us, please spare an innocent unborn child.”