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“Again.”
A shock of pain bursts through him, chains and limbs clattering against the floor.
One of them is barking something at him. The same questions he’s been demanding since he threw Joey in here, probably, but Joey isn’t listening anymore. Only hears his own choking, gargling breaths where his mouth presses against the floor.
His back burns, it sears, even the frigid air in this room not soothing it. Doesn’t know where he is: basement? Bunker? All he can tell is the floor is hard, and cold, a thin layer of dust grinding against his sweating brow.
“Again.”
The hit cracks over his back, smarting in an explosion of pain, forcing a broken cry from his throat.
The shouts are ringing through his skull: what he saw, what he knows, where the others are. He can’t answer. Doesn’t know. Shawn is too careful, never lets any of them get the full picture.
Fuck. Shawn. They got him too.
He doesn’t know if that was a gunshot he heard, and if it was two minutes or two hours ago. Can’t be; Shawn knows everything. They need him. But he’s not weak like Joey, will go to the grave with everything he’s collected. Fuck, they’ve shot him, Shawn’s dead and he’s alone.
It’s been too long. He doesn’t know what he’s said, what he told them, if it was true. He stopped begging a few strokes ago. His throat is raw and his breaths spasm through him.
Another smack and stars scatter across his vision. He grits his teeth painfully hard, writhing against the bitter ground, the slices in his back keening with the strain. Jagged streaks of pain across his skin war with the jolting of his tense muscles.
Pain shoots through him again, submerging him in a wave of sudden and ruthless silence, just one, high tone singing clear in his ears.
His skin is made of sparks. He can feel everything, each touch firing like lightning through him.
The voice is cloudy, muffled. It doesn’t make sense. He can only hear the snap as the sharp spike hits hit skin, that one word echoing through it all.
Again. Again.
Dark patches loom and loop across his vision. There’s a bruising fist at his neck, his muscles screaming as he’s dragged from the floor. The metal cuffs pull his arms behind him. His ruined top digs in, carving a ridge at the base of his neck where he slumps down into it, ravaged muscles unable to hold him up on his tender knees.
The hand at his neck, the knee in his chest, the blood on his tongue.
It oozes over his lips, his teeth. He’s on the ground again. Warm, biting blood seeps across his back, too. The stone is hard beneath his cheek as his head lolls forwards.
Again – it echoes through him. He can’t tell if the blow comes. He just clings to the floor.
Again, again…
There’s a booming noise. He thinks it’s loud, dimly, like thunder in the distance. Maybe they hit him, maybe it’s his bones breaking. He clings to the floor.
Gunshots, he thinks. Again. Like Shawn. Again. Maybe they’ll finally kill him, too.
He lets the chains clank in his ears. His eyes flutter, but it’s just as dark when he opens them, splotchy and shadowy and there are boots in front of him. Are they the ones he can still feel in his ribs?
He lets them lift one of his arms. Lets it fall to the ground in front of him when they drop it. Cling. Floor.
There are fingers on his chin, gripping him. He lets them. He’s boneless, drowning in pain, devoid of energy to resist.
“Don’ know…” he slurs, can hardly tell he’s speaking. Just knows he can’t do it again. “Not again… not…”
“Joey! Fuck, Joey, look at me, yeah? Can you hear me?”
Limp and panting on the floor, Joey’s eyes droop, grey shadows pulsing behind them. When’s it gonna stop? Soon, he hopes, soon.
“What did they fucking do to you? Come on, Joey, don’t you dare close your fucking eyes, shit–”
There’s nothing left. There’s someone talking; he hears it but the words wash right through him. He’s see-through, cut open. Nothing stays. Spent, everything fades behind a heavy curtain, everything except the barbs of pain cutting into him.
Hands on him, arms under him, lifting him. It hurts but he can’t get his body to resist. The voice is foggy in his ears.
His eyes slide closed. He hopes Shawn is okay.