Fractured (Unreel series Book 1)

by Sanna Wolf-Watz

  “Cheekiness is not healthy. Now, we know everything about the operation, save for when it’s going to blow. You’re going to tell me that.”

  Thomas said nothing. His stomach hurt, his face stung and he had no idea what any of this was about. His silence didn’t sit well with the man asking questions and Thomas got another slap.

  “I don’t know!” he yelled and tried to get his hands free.

  “Wrong answer.”

  Thomas waited for the next blow, but it didn’t come. Instead he heard the door behind him open and slam shut. He braced for another blow, but nothing happened. Was he alone in the room now or were they waiting for him to relax before hitting him again?

  Uncertainty kept Thomas still and crouched in the chair. Soon his body was aching from being stuck in the same position for too long. He was getting thirsty as well.

  “Is anybody here?” he asked, but no one answered and he couldn’t hear anything but his own breathing. Were they going to leave him like this, tied to a chair?

  “Hello!” he bellowed.

  Sofia woke up again a while later and this time she couldn’t pretend that it was all a dream. She groaned into her thin pillow as she recalled the cloth in front of her mouth and the arms restraining her. It slowly dawned upon her that she’d been abducted.

  The idea was ridiculous, of course. Who would want to abduct her? There was nothing about her that was worth kidnapping her for. Her family wasn’t rich, she didn’t know any government secrets and could not imagine that anyone would exchange such secrets, or anything valuable for that matter, in exchange for her safe return.

  She turned cold. Was she going to be… trafficked? Sofia’s stomach turned while her hands fisted. She had seen “Taken” and she was not going die in a brothel, thank you very much. And how messed up was it that actually felt like a possibility?

  Yet here she was, alone in a cell, the taste of the drug she’d inhaled still lingering in her mouth. To make matters worse, she desperately needed to use the bathroom. Slowly starting to panic, she looked around at the tiny cell. At least she didn’t have to go far to get to the toilet.

  After having used the… amenities she tried to wash her hands in the small sink, but when she turned on the water there was no water, just a burst of clay that spluttered from the pipe. Some of it hit her in the face and Sofia started to cry.

  It was like turning on an emotional tap and she couldn’t stop. She cried until she her face was swollen and she didn’t have any tears left. Drained of all energy she dried the mud of her face and went back to her uncomfortable bed. The cold steal beneath her made her shiver.

  She shifted and pulled the thin blanket over her shoulders, but froze in her movements when she suddenly heard a lock click. With her heart beating as though she’d run a race, or as she imagined it would because she had never actually run a race, she turned around to see the big metal door swing open.

  Sofia had never experienced nightmares where men wearing what looked like black wet suits pointed large guns at her. Her subconscious had always been too pre-occupied with vampires and monsters to appreciate the threat posed by armed scuba divers. This had obviously been a mistake.

  Sofia stared in petrified fascination, her mouth open, as one of them shouted at her to lie, face down, on the floor. That didn’t seem like a good idea so she continued to lie on her bed, waiting for a more sensible request.

  The scuba diver yelled louder, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying anymore. Were they members of the mafia? Or was this some an underground secret government thing? Or a sex cult? That last one would at least go someway to explain the abundance of rubber.

  One of the men gesticulated with his machine gun. That struck her as a particularly unintelligent thing to do. The second man called out to the first guy who was now, to Sofia’s mind, doing a good impersonation of an armed weather mill. Then he walked over to her.

  Her passivity lasted right up to the point where the black clad man reached out a rubbery, gloved hand and touched her. Something within her broke with a snap and she flew up from the bed with a speed she had never imagined herself capable of.

  She was moving so fast she had jumped the man by her bed and rolled across the floor, between the legs of the other man who was guarding the door, before she was even aware of what she was doing.

  As soon as she was through the door she ran. She didn’t much care what direction she was headed in as long as she got away from here.

  Had she been fully conscious she would have been amazed by the acrobatics she had just pulled off. Then again, had she been completely conscious the only thing she’d have pulled back there was a muscle.

  Somewhere in the periphery of her mind she could hear the two men chasing her as she turned one corner after another. Her pursuers made a lot of noise and she was grateful for it because it pushed her to run even faster. Soon she was going at a speed she hadn’t known she was capable of. She wondered how long she would be able to keep it up.

  As she turned yet another corner, she cursed. With her usual luck she had come up against a dead end. In front of her the corridor opened up into a room with a nice seating group atop a thick, red carpet.

  Lovely place for it, she mused as she looked at the sofa and chairs. They were all placed around a small table with a stainless-steel vase holding one dark red, plastic dahlia.

  Desperately, she looked around for a place to hide. She could hear her pursuers approaching, somehow able to track her despite all the random turns she’d taken.

  She fought back the wave of panic that was threatening to engulf her. She couldn't think when she panicked and she needed to be at full mental capacity if she was going to get out of this.

  With her hand pressed to her side she forced herself to focus on getting out instead of all the horrible ways she could die if they caught up to her. She’d seen this scenario in movies a hundred times. She knew how it went. The heroine ran like crazy, came up against a dead end, panicked and then discovered that the dead end wasn’t all that dead after all. What would Jessica Jones do? Well, she’d obviously disarm one of them and use that guy’s gun to shoot the other. Or just send both of them through a wall.

  The image of the two –very muscular, she suddenly recalled– men in black played before her inner eye as she imagined doing that. She shook her head. She was no Jessica Jones. Maybe she could hit them with the vase? Well, that would certainly piss them off, but wouldn’t do any lasting damage. Instead they would be able to get hold of her and…

  Sofia pushed her fingernails in to the palms of her hands to shift her focus to the here and now. What would Lisbeth Salander do? Lisbeth would go for the vase all right. She should be able to get in one or two proper hits before they over powered her. Knock a few teeth out. It would at least make her feel better.

  Quickly she took a step forward to reach the vase. Her feet caught in the carpet.

  “Ouch!” she hissed as she tumbled into the table, almost turning it over. “Stupid table.”

  She righted it, then looked from the table to the ceiling and back again. What if…

  A few moments later the two men in black reached the end of the corridor and found it empty.

  17

  Asking Questions

  “I’m not lying!” Thomas said angrily and braced for the inevitable punch to the stomach.

  “Wrong answer.”

  “I’ve told you! I don’t know anything!”

  Another hit. “You can’t lie to me. Seriously, you should know this by now,” the voice drawled.

  Thomas ground his teeth, but said nothing. He was being interrogated again and was already missing his previous hours of silent contemplation. On the other hand, he had finally been given some water, and he supposed that was worth taking a few punches for.

  He stared into the light bulb. He was beginning to regard it as his only friend here.

  “Look, Danny, we’re trying to be ever so nice here, but you’re making it difficult
for us.”

  Thomas didn’t see how he could be making anything difficult. He was cuffed to a chair and hadn’t been able to get any sleep or food or even use the freaking toilet for what felt like hours.

  “When will it blow?” the voice asked again. It had been asking that for the last hour. Thomas was sick of it and spoke before he’d thought it through.

  “The first of April,” he muttered.

  For a moment there was complete silence.

  “Why, Danny?” asked the voice, suddenly eager.

  “Because that’s April fools’ day and if I was going to blow you up then that’d be your day to go.”

  The silence was longer this time. Thomas expected to be punched again, but to his great surprise nothing happened. Then a strange, hoarse noise sounded from across the table.

  The man, Thomas realized was laughing. He sounded out of practice. Well, no wonder. Being in this line of work Thomas guessed that he hadn't had a lot of opportunities to practice. Besides, what sort of a person chose interrogating people like this for a career? There would have to be something wrong with you to begin with.

  “Oh, Danny, you have a sense of humor! A real joker,” the man said after he’d stopped laughing.

  Then a large hand grabbed hold of Thomas’ face and he felt the cold blade of what could only be a knife being pressed against his cheek.

  “Do you know what happens to a joker when you cut his throat?”

  “No,” Thomas whispered, fighting to get the words out.

  “He dies. And do you know what he does before he dies?”

  A gush of garlic and old tobacco filled Thomas’ nostrils as the man leaned closer and he gagged.

  “Nno,” Thomas whispered again, his eyes inexplicably wet.

  “He sings,” the voice said with another laugh.

  Thomas tried desperately to back away, but it was no use. The metal tip of the knife nipped at the skin at his throat. He was going to die here, tied to a chair in a dark room with nothing but a psychopath and a light bulb for company.

  Panicking, he threw himself backwards and managed to upend the chair. The man laughed harder as he pulled the chair back up.

  “No point in doing that, I assure you. You are not going anywhere.”

  “Don’t do this,” Thomas pleaded.

  “Oh, don’t be like that Danny. We’re going to have such fun, you and I!”

  Thomas tried to upturn the chair again, but the man was holding it in place, chuckling as he watched Thomas struggle.

  “I’m going to…” the voice started to say, but was interrupted when someone opened the door.

  Thomas tried to twist around to see who it was, but the man must have let go of him because all he managed to do was to overturn the chair again. He ended up on the floor, breathless and blinking in the sudden darkness.

  “What the hell? I’m trying to work in here!”

  The person at the door whispered something. Whatever it was was too quiet for Thomas to hear.

  “Are you sure?” the interrogator asked.

  More whispering followed, but soon they must have reached an agreement because the door shut again.

  “Well, well. Danny boy,” the man said as he bent over to raise the chair up again. “It looks like your stay here with us will be shorter than I’d hoped. We captured your partner too, see. Your colleague’s awake now and while it might take some time getting your little friend to the interrogation room, we’ll be able to get the whole story.”

  “What partner? I don’t have a partner,” Thomas bit out. The man ignored him.

  “Tried to run off, your friend did,” the voice told Thomas before laughing maliciously. “You couldn’t get into or out of this place if you were in a tank, that’s how fortified we are. Anyway, we’re going to get all the information we need from your friend and since you’re not talking we don’t have any more use for you.”

  Thomas heart beat faster. This might be his one chance. If he could convince them to ask the real Danny’s partner to identify him they would realize that they’d made a mistake and he would be able to get out of here!

  “Sir, I’m sure that the man you’ve apprehended can confirm that I’m not who you think I am. If you’d be kind enough to bring him here to identify me I’m sure…”

  Thomas stopped mid-sentence when the man laughed again.

  “The man we’ve apprehended?” he abruptly stopped laughing and Thomas felt the tip of the knife against his neck again. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  Thomas bit back an honest reply and forced himself to be still while the knife grazed his skin.

  “No, I will not let you pass final any orders to your partner. I was going to let this take time, make you hurt, but apparently management wants me to deal with you quickly.”

  “No!”

  “Aw, Dan, I knew you liked me. I suppose we could take the time to have some fun before I end you.”

  Thomas screamed as the knife sank into his clothes.

  Sofia was being quiet. It did not come naturally to her, so she had to concentrate to pull it off. Slowly she made her way forward, crawling across the inner ceiling. Thank goodness it had been the kind of ceiling with loose, rectangular pieces that she could move aside and escape up on.

  She still wasn’t sure how she’d been able to pull herself up from the table, using only her arm strength. Must have been due to the adrenaline rush.

  She put her hand down and listened for any sounds of pursuit. She was holding the vase with its one flower with her other hand, her grip so tight she was afraid she might break it.

  She still didn’t know why it had been so important for her not to leave it by the sofa and chairs. It was not a beautiful or expensive vase. It was a stainless steal version of a popular design from Ikea. That must have been it. She was homesick.

  She also couldn’t quite let go of the idea that she might be able to brandish the vase like a club. She had always liked the idea of brandishing something in a crisis.

  As she continued forward, she tried to move silently and gracefully, but didn’t succeed. She wasn’t the most graceful person, as her martial arts trainers had often pointed out when she was younger and did jiujutsu. It did not help matters that she was wearing her new, too tight jeans. As soon as she got out of here she was throwing them away. If she could get out of here.

  She froze as the ceiling groaned under her weight. What if she never managed to escape this place? Her heartbeat picked up and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

  Sofia had experienced exactly two anxiety attacks before this and none of them had been this bad. She concentrated on breathing and tried to do so slowly.

  She knew she wasn’t suffocating. It just felt like she was. It had felt exactly like this twice before so she knew, logically, that it would pass. It didn’t matter if she was having difficulties believing that right now.

  She tried to imagine herself safe and concentrated on the warm, stuffy air passing into and out of her lungs again and again.

  She didn’t know how long she remained like that, but when the panic finally subsided she was curled up into a foetus position. She took another long and shuddering breath and dried her eyes.

  Her whole body felt drained and she shook as she fought her way back up to her hands and knees. She rubbed her still stinging eyes and started moving forward again.

  She was proceeding slowly, but surely. At least her penchant for action movies meant she knew what not to do. She was, for instance, not going to move fast or make any kind of noise that her pursuers to follow or, worse, shoot at. She was also not going to lift one of the panels to have a look and be spotted. Instead she was going to stay up here and move until she reached the end of the building.

  Once she’d located a wall she was going to find a door or a window and make it out of there without being killed or captured. She was going to succeed with that because she had a long life ahead of her. One day she was going to be a senior citizen. She was looking forward
to that. She knew she’d enjoy being old, retired and drinking wine at eleven in the morning.

  A strange sound cut through the clammy air. She stopped, one knee in the air, to listen intently. Where was it coming from? It stopped as suddenly as it had begun. She slowly put her knee down and waited until it came again. It sounded like a muted, distorted scream.

  Slowly, she leaned forward and pressed her head against the floor, or ceiling depending on your perspective. There were voices coming from underneath her, but they were too muffled for her to be able to make out any words.

  She thought they sounded agitated, but she couldn’t determine if they were agitated in “Bugger, she’s gone. Ah, well, tea anyone?”-way or in a more “Find her now or I will torture you until you wish you had never been born”- kind of way. She had only one way to find out.

  Praying that she wasn’t making a colossal mistake, she placed the vase next to her and shifted one of the large rectangular pieces that in front of her.

  She didn’t dare move it more than an inch and she was still terrified that someone would notice the glitch, but she needed to find out what was going on. She put her head to the crack and listened.

  “… loose her you idiots! You’re grown men and she’s a little girl! What did she do? Giggle at you?” an angry male voice wanted to know.

  Well, that was sexist, Sofia thought irritably, but she couldn’t stop a small tremble. He wasn’t shouting, but that tightly controlled, hissing voice made him sound more threatening than if he’d been yelling.

  “She jumped us, sir,” replied another, embarrassed voice.

  “She jumped you? And the guns? Do you think they are for decoration?”

  The first voice was incredulous. And British, Sofia realized with a frown. She didn’t see herself as prejudiced, but she had to admit that British was not the first nationality that had popped into her mind when she thought of who her kidnappers might be. Which just went to show how dumb it was to do any kind of racial profiling in the first place.