Page 33 of Corrado

“You’re a stubborn fuck, you know that?”

Corrado didn’t reply to the voice in the darkness because that was the thing … he barely saw a flicker of them in the blackened room before they struck out at him again with those goddamn bamboo rods. Flexible, and painful, the rods didn’t do serious damage to his body. Typically no blood, and nothing that was going to force them to pull him out of these fucking rooms, but they still hurt. They bruised, and they broke.

It didn’t matter.

He’d learned early on during these rotational beatings when he was in the dark room—a far better place than the tank, as far as he was concerned—that they were looking for something from him. And maybe it was his stubbornness or his damn pride, but he refused to give it to them.

Today, they wanted him to stay on the floor.

Just stay down, they kept saying.

Corrado got back up. Every single time they put him to his knees, or on his back, he forced his body back up to his feet. If they wanted him down there on the ground like a dog, then they were going to have to make sure he couldn’t get back up.

Simple as that.

It was stupid.

Part of him knew that.

The beating—their lesson—would end as soon as he continued to follow their directions. As soon as he lost himself in the darkness of the room where he wasn’t sure where the blackness ended and he began, it would end because they broke him.

Corrado didn’t want to be broken.

Not like that.

“Stay down,” the order came again.

This voice was new—it didn’t belong to Cree, or some of the others he’d become accustomed to joining him in the tank or the dark room. Then again, they barely spoke at all so he couldn’t honestly say it was a new person. They very well might have been involved in this phase of his training for the entire time, but tonight was the first time they chose to spoke.

He preferred it when they didn’t speak.

It pissed him off more.

Corrado dragged in a painful breath, one that hurt right down to the marrow in his bones—old blood made his tongue have a rusty flavor that seemed thick; the smell of piss lingered in the room, but he wasn’t even sure if that was from him, or not; the stench of vomit clung to the walls, wherever the fuck they were.

This place was hell.

Dignity?

What was that?

Probably in that bucket in the corner where he was expected to use the bathroom, for fuck’s sake. He still had his fucking pride. The pride was what was going to kill him here. Of that, he was most sure. If he could just give it up, right along with his dignity and everything else they had ripped away from him in these goddamn rooms, then this would end.

Corrado knew it.

He’d figured out the trick.

Pride was a bitch, though. The one thing he wouldn’t give up to anyone for anything. Ever. He didn’t know if that was the Guzzi in him—although, he wouldn’t blame his twin a bit if Chris had already given up and given in to this process—or if it was simply the way his brain was wired.

It was pride that made him drag in one more quick breath, settle into the pain of what was going to come next when he made the move, and then he focused all his efforts into making his muscles do what he needed and wanted them to do. Which was stand—entirely straight again, not bent at the knees to give him support and rest from the ache radiating throughout his entire body.

No, straight.

All the way up again.

In the darkness, one’s eyes might eventually become accustomed to it. Not so much so that they would be able to see everything like they could in the daytime, but just enough that where it only seemed like black space before, now there were shadows.

Corrado watched one of the shadows move. It came fast, the strike hard. Right against his chest was where it landed, the second coming right after to crack him against his knees. That one probably hurt the worst.