Page 11 of Chaos Unleashed

I scoff, “Oh, and if I tell you whatever it is that you think I know, you’re going to just leave me alone and not torture me?” I roll my eyes, “Please, I’m not falling for that shit.”

He smirks, happy that he managed to get a response from me, “Oh, I’m going to torture you either way, but if you tell me what I want to know, then your torment will be slightly shorter, and the time before one of us visits again will be slightly longer.”

There’s only one thing that stands out to me regarding that threat, and it prompts me to ask, “Visit?”

Dagon’s eyes flash with dark joy, “Oh, we’re not risking allowing you out of this cell. Besides, you know we don’t need to be in there with you to inflict the pain that will get us the answers that we need.”

I raise my eyebrow, not allowing the pit of dread that’s opened up in my stomach to show outwardly. How the fuck am I supposed to escape if they’ve found the way I escaped last time and rendered it useless, I don’t have Grey with me to help this time, and now, they won’t let me leave this damn cell. It makes it nearly impossible to fucking escape, and I’m being generous when I say nearly because it is damn impossible to escape under these circumstances.

He tilts his head to the side, “No response? Ah well, no matter, it means that we can get back to the fun stuff.”

He doesn’t even bother to ask a question as the first wave of his magic charges me, slices open up all over my body, and blood instantly soaks my clothing. I don’t know why, but he never slices my clothes when he does this, instead choosing to allow his magic to pass through that barrier and simply cut my skin to ribbons.

None of me is spared, not my legs, torso, or even my face, as blood drips down into my eye. It’s absolute agony, but I allow the part of me that thrives in the dark and in pain to come forward, the part that likes watching the blood drip through my fingers as the life drains out of the eyes of one of my targets that deserved their fate.

My dark.

When it’s evident that I’m not going to give in to his sick wants and scream or beg for mercy, he sighs and pulls his magic back.

“I suppose I should ask you a question,” Dagon sighs like I’m inconveniencing him. “Where is he?”

I steel my spine, my voice coming out steady and unaffected as blood starts to pool around my feet from the multiple wounds, “Who?”

“Hades!” he growls; he obviously thinks that I’m playing him, but I have to admit that answer threw me through a fucking loop.

My lip lifts in confusion as my eyebrows furrow, “How the fuck should I know where he is? Besides, isn’t it a bit careless of you to lose your god?”

“He is not my god; he’s weak and unable to make the decisions that will better the Underworld and allow all of the Underworlders' free reign in the other realms.”

“Whoa, hold up. I’m not even from here, and I know that it would be bad to let the born Underworlders into the other realms. Not just for the natives of those realms but for the Underworlders themselves, too, ” I point out, unable to stop myself from being dragged into the psycho-babble. It occurs to me that they must not be able to follow through with their plan because they need something from Hades himself, but how they plan to make a God do their bidding when they are merely demigods, some of them mixed with other supes, is a question that I’m not sure I want to know the answer too, but I sure as hell hope that they aren’t capable of it. He just stares at me, a calculating look in his eyes and a smug smile twisting his lips. It clicks, “You’re banking on that, aren’t you? There’s more to your plan, but you need the Underworlders to have free reign first.”

Anger flashes through his eyes, instantly telling me that I’m on the right track, but unfortunately, anything else that I may have been thinking about flees my mind as another round of pain attacks me from all angles. This time, he’s added a poison to his strikes, and liquid fire burns through my veins. Just when I think I can’t take another second of it and the sweet relief of unconsciousness may take me, he stops, pulling his magic back.

It's by sheer fucking stubbornness that I stay standing, the pool of blood around my feet growing larger by the second.

“Where is Hades?” Dagon growls.

I steel myself against the pain and reply through gritted teeth, “How the fuck would I know?”

“Wrong!” he replies gleefully as yet another round of pain attacks me.

The only reason I haven’t slipped in the ever-expanding pool of blood at my feet is because I haven’t moved them, so the blood hasn’t been able to get under the soles of my boots. I refuse to move them until I don’t have a choice. He carries on torturing me, switching it up every now and then and even healing a few of the worst slices or clearing my body of the various poisons that he uses before he starts all over again.

I can feel my magic, far off in the reaches of my soul and behind so many barriers that I can’t actually get to it and use it to fight back. The magic in this cell only allowing my healing ability to come through and even then not allowing it through enough to heal me completely, but just enough to keep me alive.

It's fucking angry though, angrier than I have felt it before, and its growing, pushing against the binds of the spells that hold me in a way that it didn’t before, and I wonder if my ability to pick apart spells has grown enough to combat the ones that are binding my magic and this cell.

The pain must be getting to me because this cell has layer upon layer of spells put on it by creatures a thousand times stronger than I could ever hope to be, and there is simply not even a slither of a possibility that my magic could break free, or even start to pick it apart when it’s locked down by it. Even if I wasn’t trapped in the spells and I was trying to free someone else from them, I wouldn’t be capable of doing it; my ability simply isn’t that strong.

If it were, then I could’ve picked apart the spell that holds Grey hostage and stops him from telling us everything that he wants to. It didn’t even occur to me to try simply because I know I’m not capable of that.

Finally, Dagon’s latest round of torture ends, and this time, my knees crash to the floor in the pool of blood, my legs unable to help keep me up anymore.

He tuts, and through the one good eye I have left as blood is flowing in rivulets over the other one, I see him tilt his head and look at me curiously. “We’ve been at this for hours and your resolve hasn’t cracked even for a second, it makes me wonder if you in fact did escape with him or if he just saw an opportunity and took it.”

I don’t move, mostly because even the tiniest of movements make my body scream in pain, but also because I don’t want him to see my reaction to his words. Surely, he means someone else; he doesn’t mean Grey because that would mean Grey is Hades. My thoughts are interrupted when he claps loudly, and I barely have time to suppress a flinch.

“No matter, I’m getting hungry. We’ll pick this up later on; I’m sure one of the others will be along to see if they can get some information out of you; after all, it's not just Hades that we want to know about. Isn’t it exciting? You’re just full of mysteries, and I, for one, can’t wait to take them apart piece by piece.” By the time Dagon’s finished talking, his voice has turned dark and threatening, and it's clear he plans to find out whatever he wants to know by literally taking me apart, piece by piece.

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