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“T–Tarl!” she gasps, her face paling, and I fucking hate myself more for my next words, but I need her to survive whatever they throw at her, and if pushing her into her own mind is the way to do that, then I will.
“Remember what it felt like when he forced himself inside you, when they all forced their disgusting dicks inside your pussy, making it hurt and you bleed.” I want to vomit, my stomach clenching with the bile falling from my lips, but I can see her shutting down, the blank numbness falling over her features once more, and a small amount of tension releases from my shoulders. I know the place she goes to in her mind has saved her before, so I’m just praying that it does so again.
She barely flinches as the masked men come into the cabin, holding guns to our heads as they release us from our seats, only to cuff our hands behind our backs and drag us out of the plane.
The heat of my home country hits me like a slap in the face, my body having grown unused to it over the years. Sweat instantly prickles along my spine, although that could also be because we’re in an abandoned, private airfield, having just been smuggled into the country. The bright sunlight makes me squint, the cabin was low-lit, and it was dark when I was captured, having orchestrated a split from the guys at our job. Another thing that I’d planned after my little chat the other day at the stables with one of Afshin’s men.
Even the thought of that man’s name, the murderer of my family, is enough to make my teeth ache with the need for revenge. His time will come, and as I watch one man hustle Lark into the back of a van, I add his face to my list too. They will all fucking pay, I’ll make sure of it.
I vowed that anyone who ever hurt her would bleed, and I will uphold that promise as I’m upholding the one I made while holding my mother’s dead body all those years ago.
I just wonder if I need to add my name to that list too.
Lark
“:( (sad face)” by Bahari
I’m aware of being taken from the plane, the heat and brightness of Iran slamming into me like a sledgehammer as we disembark. I’m aware of being pushed into the back of a van, of Tarl’s body landing next to mine, and of him using his body to try to lessen the blows as we’re left to fall about, feeling every bump in the road.
Both our hands are tied, so staying upright and unscathed is an impossibility, but each hit feels like it’s softened somehow, my mind drowning in my dark, sordid past as the memories that I’ve tried so hard to lock away crowd around me, like monsters eager to drag my soul to Hell. Or maybe it’s already there.
The drive passes quickly, or maybe it doesn’t, my mind seems to have finally broken and everything is like I’m underwater, the sounds not quite as loud as I think they should be and the surrounding colors dulled. Although that’s not difficult given I’m in a van with the only light filtering through several cracks in the metal. I watch the motes of dust with a fascination and longing to be just dust in the air, swirling and completely without worry.
“It’ll be okay,Azizam,” Tarl whispers in my ear, his warm body curled around mine, cushioning yet another fall that would have sent me sprawling and with more bruising. “I’ll get us out, and I’m sure the others will find us too.”
His words drift around us, like the dust, and I wonder if maybe this time I can become dust and just end it all. My lungs expand as I inhale, the smell of spices and something that I can’t place filling my nose, and I briefly wonder if this is what Iran smells like. I want to cry that I’m finally away from the Soldiers and that I’ve finally escaped the country, only to be heading to God knows what kind of torture and pain.
I may have been trapped on my back for the past decade, but I’ve seen the reports of the kinds of people Tarl is messed up in. I’ve heard the horrible details of the kinds of things they do to Westerners. I know that neither of us is making it out of here, it’s just a matter of how much pain we survive before our inevitable end.
Fleetingly, the others' faces rush past, like leaves in the wind, but my mind is incapable of grasping onto anything other than the beautiful dust motes in front of me, and I’m glad I can’t focus. Otherwise, I might be screaming, and I’m sure I’ll be doing that soon enough anyway.
Suddenly the van stops, and a brief flash of panic makes my muscles stiffen, but even that is smothered under the cloud that is slowly taking over my being. The doors fling open and I wince as the bright light assaults my eyes once more. At least a warm breeze blows into the back, allowing me some fresh air.
Two masked men roughly grab my arms, and I hear Tarl snarl behind me, but the loud beat of my heart drowns out the sound as I’m thrown back into a memory of two Soldiers holding me down as a third buries himself between my thighs. I blink and I’m back in the heat of Iran, being led into what looks like some kind of farm building, although I see little before I’m plunged into semi-darkness again and led into what looks like an old barn.
The musky smell of animals hits my nose as the sweat drips down my back and under my arms with the oppressive heat in here. The return of my senses tells me that the numbness is fading, and I desperately try to pull it back like I’m hiding under a duvet, waiting for the monsters to go away.
I hiss when I’m thrown onto a chair, the shock of landing on my tailbone making me cry out. The sound of Tarl barking in another language comes from opposite me as he, too, is forced into a chair, his arms behind his back.
“You fucking touch her…” he growls, and I jerk when my hands are roughly tied to the back of the chair, the pull on my shoulders even more excruciating than it was when they were just behind my back. A masked man bends down to tie my legs to the chair, the cable ties cutting into my bare ankles. I realize then that I’m only in my panties and one of Knox’s large T-shirts, sans bra, while the sound of my heartbeat in my ears grows louder, black spots dancing across my vision as I hyperventilate. “Breathe,Azizam.”
Tarl’s voice filters into my panicked brain, and I blink once more to find that we’re alone, and once again I’ve lost time and don’t know what’s happened.
“T–Tarl?” I ask, my breathing slowing enough to allow me to speak. He looks pained as he stares at me.
“I’m here,Eshgham,” he says, his voice soft. “You’d do better to go back to being numb.” I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished.
“I won’t come back if I do,” I admit, my voice hoarse as I try to push past the lump in my throat. “I’ve spent too much time numb already, Tarl. Don’t make me spend the last part of my life there.” His jaw works as I voice my fears.
“I told you—” he starts, cutting off when the door to the barn swings open and an imposing, older man strides in, two guards either side of him. They wait by the door, guns held in their arms as they stare straight ahead. My heart thrashes wildly in my chest, my eyes feeling impossibly wide as I take them in.
The newcomer is wearing what looks like a suit and white shirt, but also not quite like the Western suits I’m used to seeing. The jacket is open, without buttons, the pants loose and flowing, with a wide, woven belt wrapped around his waist. A black and white patterned cloth is wrapped around his head, his skin is a tawny brown like Tarl’s, and he has a neat, full beard and deep brown irises. There’s a deadness in his eyes that more than rivals the look in Aeron’s and Jude’s combined when I first met them, but the way he smiles, his nostrils flaring as he practically inhales my terror lets me know that this is a monster of a different sort.
“Tarl, so pleased that you could join us,” he purrs, although his eyes are fixed on me as he speaks. I want to shy away, to cringe back but the chair and being restrained prevents me from both, because this man exudes pure evil. “And you bought a friend, how nice.” He comes to a stop before me, crouching down, and I can hear Tarl growling, but I can’t take my eyes off the handsome man before me. And he is good-looking, but there’s something just so wrong about him, like a demon shadow lurking beneath the surface, ready to devour me whole. “What’s your name, little girl?” I want to vomit, his smooth, accented voice sliding over me like an oil slick, ready to suffocate me completely, unlike Tarl’s melodious cadence, even though the accent is the same. He chuckles, and I actually have to swallow bile, the sound bringing back memories of all the men who’ve laughed as they broke me rushing to the surface. “Never mind, I already know everything there is to know about you, Lark Jackson. About the fact that your father is the recently deceased Rufus Jackson, leader of the Dead Soldiers, shot by his own son no less.” My heart thuds painfully.How does he know Rook killed our sperm donor?“About the fact that he used to give you to his men to fuck and use as they saw fit.” I whimper, Tarl cursing loudly behind this man, but he’s caught me in his snake-like eyes and I’m unable to look away. “Oh, don’t worry, my pretty, western bird,” he coos while reaching out, and I flinch so hard that the chair scoots back a little. His grin just widens. “None of us will touch you like that, you’re too impure for the likes of us.” He strokes my cheek and a tear slides down to meet his fingers. He pulls back, rubbing his finger with his thumb before placing it in his mouth and sucking my tear off. His eyelids flutter like he relishes the taste of my terror, fucked up bastard. “You’re just here to help convince Tarl to talk.”
“What the fuck do you want, Afshin?” Tarl snarls, and the man—Afshin—whirls around and backhands Tarl across the face so hard that his chair moves, almost toppling over.
“You will speak when I say you will!” Afshin shouts at Tarl, straightening up, and walking over to a long table that I had somehow missed. My pulse races as I get a glimpse at the tools on the tabletop, my breaths becoming rasping when Afshin picks up an ornate-looking blade. “Now, you will tell us who the other co-conspirators are who planned a coup with your parents all those years ago. I know that you’ve been in contact with them.”
