He comes back, his raincoat is drenched, but luckily for us the papers are dry. He hands over the papers and she signs them without even reading them first. She never moves from her chair.
“Sarah, we really need to get going, it’s not safe here. At all.” I beg.
“No, I don’t… I don’t want to leave… I don’t want to leave her here, Bruno. Not like this.” She gets a lump in her throat.
“It’s all taken care of, I’ve already made arrangements. You don’t have to worry about the body— I mean, your mother. We have the best professionals in this house. She’s in good hands now, Sarah.” She looks at me with some sort of relief in her eyes and then tries to stand up using me as a support while we walk towards the car.
“Where are we going?”
“Home, Sarah, we’re going home.”
When we get home, I stop for a second to contemplate her being in my turf again and to wish we had met under different circumstances. I hand her over the bag I had stuffed with her clothes. She takes it and waits for instructions on where to put it down.
“Right this way,” I say and lead her towards my bedroom. Once there I say, “This is my room, and now it’s yours.” She puts the bag on the bed while looking around. “If you need to move some stuff around, just do it. I hope you find the bed comfortable enough. If not, let me know. I’m sure we can work something out.” She sits on the mattress and tests it by jumping a little. I gave her my room instead of the guest’s room for one simple reason: she’s not a guest here, but a permanent resident.
“Thanks, it’s perfect.” This is good, talking about normal stuff. She needs all the normal she can get.
“Good. If you need anything, and I mean anything at all, I’m right here, just a few feet away. Just call out for me. Okay?” She nods. She’s tearing up, each moment that goes by makes me feel more and more uncomfortable. “Oh, I almost forgot. This is the key to this room. I assumed you’d like to have it.” She takes it without a word. We both know she’s not going to sleep tonight. “Okay, I’d better go… Oh! One more thing. The bathroom is behind that door, should you need a bath.” She’s still not saying a word, and it’s driving me nuts. I think she really wants me out of here. I walk out without saying anything else, not that I have a choice. I really don’t know what else to say. She walks behind me and when she grabs the doorknob to close the door, I turn around and our eyes meet… That takes me back…
“A man of your reputation doesn’t need me to say this, but I have to. I’m sure you understand. Stick to the contract and we’ll get along just fine. After that, she’s all yours to do as you please. She’s in cell ‘M,’ cellblock two,” says Abdel, one of the leaders in this jihadist terrorist organization for whom the public enemy number one in the US. Abdel is your typical middle-eastern man with a big black and silver beard. He looks at me with respect through his brown eyes, brown as the desert he probably calls home. Dressed in the usual dirty shirt that once was white, same story with the pants and his kufiyya. This last is not dirty, in fact, it’s impeccable and neat. To add more contrast to the situation, I’m wearing a tailored suit paired with the proper shirt and pants to complete the set. I have an image and a cover to maintain. Plus, I didn’t feel like dressing like a terrorist today. He calls me ‘the Professor,’ so does everyone else who knows a thing or two about me, starting with the idea that I will do pretty much anything if the price is right. They are not wrong there. “She’s your average American white girl. I think she will be of your liking,” he says as he pats my shoulder.
They got in touch with me only because of my renown as an excellent torturer. That I am, and also not cheap. But I suspect money is not an issue here. After all, he has a gold AK-47 hanging on the wall. It always has been easy for me to torture people, an enemy. The only difference is that this time I will be doing it to an innocent civilian. But I have to do this no matter what and take this organization down. For my sake, for Dante. This is what will finally sate my thirst for blood.
I’m walking down a dark hallway with cells on both sides: A, B, C, D… all the way to M. This is where I stop, but the letters go even further.
Focus, Bruno! Just focus on this cell for the time being.
Once I open the heavy iron door, it rattles loudly and echoes within the cell. I step inside and only see a woman sitting on the floor with her knees against her chest at the end of a concrete pillar that will serve as a bed. She’s completely naked and shivering because of the cold, or maybe she’s just scared shitless. She looks up in my direction. Her big light-blue eyes like the fucking Caribbean are fixed on me begging for mercy. Her jet-black hair surrounds her like a blanket, covering her back and chest. She has a unique beauty. Her dark hair contrasts with her white skin. Her body is petite but fit. My muscles jerk out of nowhere. I think I forgot to breathe for a second. Overwhelmed by her vulnerability, beauty, and confusion, I have to fight an urge to protect her, an urge I feel propagating through my bloodstream like a rampant virus.
“Please don’t hurt me, please. I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me,” she begs and starts to cry hysterically. Her face is dirty with dry blood. I still have to fight the impulse to help her.
I’m sorry, darlin’, I can’t do anything right now, these are the rules of the game.
I have to keep my shit together, stop thinking about her and start working, I walk up to her, grab her hair and drag her through the dark hallway towards the torture chamber. This is going to be the first time I do this and of course, I have an audience waiting for me. They crave to see my art. She’s screaming from the top of her lungs. I’m trying to block her, but it’s harder than I had anticipated.
We finally get to the chamber, small in size, no more than 45 square feet. The walls have mirrors from floor to ceiling. I’m guessing some of them are one-way mirrors for them to spy. There’s an old dentist chair in the middle of the room, still covered in someone else’s blood. Convenient, for those cases where the victim’s legs give in first. Right next to it there’s a camera mounted on a tripod. There’s a butcher hook hanging from the top left corner of the ceiling. On the wall to the left, there’s a fine collection of whips of all sizes and colors. Finally, to the right, a bed, for raping purposes. I hope I won’t have to use it.
No, I won’t use it.
I make her sit on the chair. She fights and screams in my ear begging for mercy, but it doesn’t matter. I tie her up, tight, really tight. I turn on the camera and adjust the lens to show only her entire body, making sure that my face isn’t in the shot. I hit the ‘REC’ button and start to work.
I start slowly, jolting her with electricity. This is the softest thing I find. I want her to get used to the pain before I have no choice but to increase it.
Her body contracts the minute I push up the lever, muffling her screams due to loss of muscle control. I count back from five when I reach zero I actuate the lever again. Her body relaxes. If it weren’t for the bindings, she would have fallen to the ground. She can barely move her head; she’s trying to look at me, but her eyelids aren’t working.
“Pleee…aase… sss…to…p” She’s struggling. “Tell me what you want from me, just say it.”
I turn my back on her. I need a minute to gather my thoughts and then another minute to completely ignore her. “Do NOT talk to her, Bruno,” I tell myself. Keep your distance, detach from your humanity, that’s always the way to go.
I look down at my leather gloves, black, like my soul right now. I always have them on, first because I don’t want to leave any traces of myself around here— gloves mean no fingerprints. I don’t trust these fuckers, nor the government for that matter, and gloves also mean that I can handle sharp and slippery stuff without having to worry. I clench my fingers and the scrunching noise from the leather relaxes me, it empowers me to keep going.
I pull the handle again… and again… and again… until she passes out. That’s why I have a bucket full of ice-cold water— to wake her up.
“PLEASE!” She’s still screaming, even though it’s pointless— screaming will not ease things up. On the contrary, it forces me to be more brutal. They’re watching after all, and I can’t afford to raise suspicions on my allegiance or professionalism. I have no choice but to turn around and look straight into her eyes…
“Shut up! The only thing I want to hear from you is pain.” A simple one-liner, direct, effective. The minute a victim hears that sentence, they immediately know it’s over. She finally goes silent and the only thing making a sound is my watch echoing around the chamber.
She should have noticed by now that I have no other interests here. I’m clearly not one of them, I’m just here for the ride, the joy, the excitement torturing someone gives you. She knows I’m sure of it. What she doesn’t know is that the camera is not only recording this but also live streaming for everybody to see what they’re capable of, to send a message that they are not to be trifled with. Whether she likes it or not, she’s famous now…
