.

The darkness didn’t lift, even when I woke up again. I could feel that I was lying on my back on a mattress. Could feel the shackles on my wrists, securing them over my head to a pipe. I… could feel cold damp air on my exposed flesh. I tried to bring myself home, but I could not focus enough to do it.

I heard a door open, letting a bit of light spill down over some stairs. The door was closed and the light from outside was replaced with a lesser light from a small portable lamp that he carried. Carmine placed the lamp on a nearby table, returning the dim lighting from earlier to the room. It had already felt like the room was spinning before, but the light made it worse.   

“Hello Miss Wolf,” he said, standing over me “good to see you’re awake. Are you enjoying the home brew? I couldn’t have you disappearing on me, after all.”

“You-”

“Yes, I brought you here. You should be thanking me; I could have left you to be shot again. You’re lucky that the bullet just passed through without hitting any of the good stuff. If I had shot you, you wouldn’t be so lucky- but of course that would be too good for you ”

I struggled to think straight

“You look confused, love. Are you wondering why you’re here?”

“No…”

Smirking, he knelt by my side: “‘No?’ Not begging already are we?”

“No. I know why I’m here”

“Do you?” His smirk becoming a grin “Then say it Miss Wolf. Why are you here?”

“Because, dear,” I said with a smile of my own “You failed and could not handle the price of that failure-“

He grabbed my leg. I gritted my teeth as he pressed his fingers into the wounds

“You are here because you couldn’t handle what I do. I don’t appreciate being kept on a short leash by a whore like you.” 

At this, I started to laugh

“While you were under my command, you were to follow my rules. You did not. Instead, you created more work and risk by forcing us to have to locate the others again- three of which have still not been found. On top of that, you raped one of them and I know you would have done it to another had I not been there. You were more concerned with following your dick than with doing your job. You are an incompetent fool with delusions of being the next David Banks”

He still smiled, though I could see the anger rising

“Heh… I was good enough to catch you, love.  Now I’m about to do what you asked when we first met. I will show you what I’m capable of. I’m going to break you Miss Wolf. One way or another, dead or alive you will be broken-”

“Break me? Ha! You didn’t even have the skill to keep things under control back at that house. If that idiot hadn’t been panicking, you might well have been the one to get shot!”

“I WILL break you!” He snarled- his composure lost

Then his hands were on me- all over me

Then he…

….

I was disgusted. I was sickened by the fact that he was so close and he was getting off on this. Felt hate that was comparable to what I felt for those who hurt me.

He spoke to me as he did it; telling me that no one was coming to save me, that Fell and Hart were safely trapped at the cabin and couldn’t help me.

I gritted my teeth again to keep from screaming. The room was spinning  

He lay on top of me for a while after he was finished. Finally, he looked at me and smiled. The calm had returned to his expression

“I’m sorry, Knit. I didn’t intend to be that forward right away but you made me do it. You brought it on yourself. You brought all of this on yourself.”

He started lazily playing with my hair

“Maybe you’ll be a bit more reasonable now”

I was silent out of pain, rage and disgust. I felt like I would vomit.

“I like your hair” He wrapped a curl around his finger “He liked it too, didn’t he? - Your “Sunshine” I mean”

I tried my best not to show a reaction to the mention of him

“Oh! That reminds me, I made something for you.”

He moved off of me and started rummaging around in a corner of the room. 

He returned, bringing the object into the light. It looked like a crude homemade version of that bladed lust toy from Seven. Back when I was in the process of making Fell what she is now, Sunshine told me that he had made one of those which Fell’s sister had then used to kill her friend. 

“I’ve been reading all about you and those close to you. This includes the little conversation log between you and him. You really should be more careful about these things, you silly bitch.”

I struggled to remain calm, though I felt a surge of anger. I could tell that he was mimicking Sunshine’s way of speaking. Maybe it’s strange… but it felt, to me, like an insult to him; a desecration of sorts. Maybe that was the intent. He gently placed the point of it at my throat, then lightly drew it down over my body until it was between my legs –letting me feel the blade but not cutting me. He said he figured if he couldn’t break my mind, if I didn’t learn to fear him, he would use that thing to end me. Said it would be appropriate to use a reminder of Sunshine to kill me, since he would probably do the same if he was there.  He mocked me for my “pathetic crush”, telling me that I had no right to call him incompetent because I disobeyed orders to try to help the object of my feelings, only to get both him and myself hurt.   

I gave a bitter laugh and spoke again.

“Trying to justify yourself by bringing me down to your level, hmm? For all my faults, I know I have done my job to the best of my abilities. When I was given a target to kill or scare, I did so efficiently.  Heh… You want me to fear you?  Sunshine is capable of worse than you could possibly fathom. He is a man that is worthy of fear and I loved him for it. You, on the other hand, are worthy of pity, at best.”

“Then you’ll enjoy having a reminder of such a great man buried inside you”

He left me to consider that while he picked up his phone that had been resting on the table and messed around with it for a while

Eventually, he set it back down and picked up a knife; my knife.