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  SpoilerTorture

  [colpse]twenty-two

  [1 september 2024]=-=[saturday]=-=(0652)

  The authorities’ preliminary investigation has ended, and they’ve released the crime scene to Kelly’s contractors. However, a second investigation is unnecessary. There was no body found in the wreckage. Now, it’s possible that the heat from the fire was so intense that every trace of her body went up, to the point of being vaporized by the heat. The batteries that powered the truck typically burn at upwards of 500°C, and in extraordinary circumstances can exceed 1,500°C. Even bones would turn to ash at those sorts of temperatures.

  But according to the forensic investigation, it’s extremely unlikely that thermal runaway occurred to that degree. So, the other possibility is that there was nobody in the truck as it went up.

  That word has gotten back to Danni in Colorado. She’s in the security office, looking for any kind of information that could lead to Morgan’s whereabouts. She’s tried Morgan’s GPS tracker, but there’s no signal. It’s possible that it was broken if she was removed from the truck, though. They’ve chosen easily broken models of trackers in the past so Morgan could break them herself if she’s in danger as a signal to send help.

  “I’m getting nowhere on this…” Danni says as she yawns.

  There’s a knock on the door to the office. Who could that be? Kelly wouldn’t knock.

  Danni walks over to the door and opens it.

  “Madame, I have breakfast,” Amélie says as she holds up a tray with a serious spread of breakfast items on it, as well as a rge thermos of coffee.

  “...You don’t know how happy I am to see this,” Danni says softly. “Put it over there by the keyboard.”

  “Oui, Madame,” Amélie says as she brings the tray over to the desk that the keyboard sits upon. She looks at the screens. “What is this?”

  “Oh… Morgan is missing on a job, and I’m trying to find where she could have went, but I’m stuck,” Danni says.

  Amélie looks at the screens and sits down in Danni’s seat. She starts to type.

  “What are you doing? Get up from…” Danni starts to say.

  Amélie brings up several traffic cameras in the area. These aren’t the publicly avaible lower-res feeds, these are the high-def feeds avaible to the police. “What kind of vehicles are we looking for, Madame?” she asks.

  “...Holy shit,” Danni says. “You know computers?”

  “I used to…” Amélie says. “I… I don’t consciously remember it well, but… it is like riding a bicycle, that is how it goes, yes?”

  “I guess… right, the car. We’re looking for a bck Chevrolet Caprice, early 90s model, bck, with New Brunswick ptes,” Danni says.

  “And Madame Morgan disappeared how long ago?” Amélie asks as she starts examining the feeds.

  “Thirteen hours ago,” Danni says. “I can…”

  “Madame, please eat. Let me try,” Amélie says. She does some math in her head and starts looking at specific cameras.

  Danni eats a crepe and makes a silent note to herself to look into Amélie’s past ter. The maid is more than she appears to be.

  As it happens, Amélie found a camera with the vehicle in question, driving north on 91 leaving Hartford. “This narrows it down much,” she says softly as she narrows the search.

  Hansen walks into the security office, and looks surprised as she sees Amélie working at the computer. “...What kind of alternate universe have I walked into?”

  “Yeah, who knew our resident brainwashed maid could pull off something like this?” Danni says.

  Amélie pulls up a map, screenshots it, then draws a circle on it with a graphics program. “Look in this area. That’s based on where the car disappeared from cameras.”

  “Uhm… thanks?” Danni says.

  “You are welcome,” Amélie says as she takes the tray from underneath the pte and thermos and leaves the room, leaving Danni and Hansen to process what the fuck just happened.

  The two look at each other, completely confused.

  “She just hacked a state government camera feed as easily as a novice would open Solitaire,” Hansen says.

  “...Can you do something with this?” Danni asks.

  “Uh… yeah,” Hansen says, dumbfounded. “Yeah. I’ll check.” She starts compiling a list of pces in the area with cameras that can be accessed over the internet with the right credentials.

  “We seriously need to look into Amélie’s past when this is over,” Danni says.

  --={@~~~@}=--

  (1043)

  Morgan awakens in the back of a van, tied up. “...What the…”

  “I honestly thought the drugs would keep you asleep longer,” a distorted voice says from the front of the van. “It’s not like you’re going anywhere, Anthony. Just enjoy the scenery. You’ll never see anything like it again when we get where we’re going.”

  “...Why do people keep calling me that?” Morgan asks.

  “That’s right,” the voice says. “You prefer ‘Morgan.’”

  “Because that’s my name, you sick fuck,” Morgan replies. She doesn’t have her gun, and even if she did, her hands are tied.

  “I’ve heard about your tactics. They’re not going to work on me. You assume I care what happens to me. I honestly don’t. Not anymore,” the voice says. “I’ve suffered for far too long – and don’t cim that you have. Nothing you’ve experienced even compares to my misbegotten life.”

  “So why don’t you just kill yourself and leave the rest of us out of it?” Morgan asks.

  The driver ughs. “Oh, I didn’t realize how much of an asshole you could be,” she says in that distorted voice. “The answer is because you and the others like you have forgotten what it’s like to suffer. You got away.”

  “You seem awfully autonomous for a chained-up sex sve,” Morgan says. She sees a reassurance marker for the highway in the windshield for a couple of seconds. Interstate 91? Where the fuck is that?

  “My Master died,” the woman says. “No one came to rescue me. I couldn’t escape. The only reason I appear to be free is because he had a fucking aneurysm, but… I still can’t escape. Even in death, he owns me. But you’ve gotten away. You and those girls you helped. You don’t get off that easily.” This woman has clearly broken due to years, possibly decades of repeated trauma.

  “Nothing you’re saying makes any sense. If he’s dead, why not just… leave and start yourself anew?” Morgan asks. It’s a long shot, trying to get through to this woman, but she has to try something.

  The woman pulls the van over and puts it in park. She unbuckles herself from her seat belt and gets up, walking to the back where Morgan is. “I can’t start over,” she says. She pulls her hood back over her head and holds her bangs back. “I can literally never get away from what he did!”

  Right in the middle of the woman’s forehead is a brand. Just like one would brand livestock. The initials “FJZ” are burned into her head. Most likely her Master’s initials.

  No wonder she feels she can never break free. He literally does own her, even in death.

  “I didn’t realize…” Morgan says as the woman sps her hard enough to draw blood and pulls a paper bag over her head.

  “Save it,” the woman says. She steps back to the front of the van, puts the hood back up, then buckles back in and starts to drive again. “Fucking save it. I don’t want your sympathy or your pity. I just want you to suffer. Suffer as I have. That’s all.” As adamant as she was about not letting Morgan get to her, that’s exactly what just happened. It was just in a way she never expected.

  --={@~~~@}=--

  (1417)

  There have been so many twists and turns taken since the bag was put on her head that Morgan has no way of knowing where she is at this point. She does feel that the van has stopped, and she’s yanked violently out of the back of it. She nds on something hard and unforgiving, yet also mostly smooth. Likely either asphalt or concrete. Either way, it fucked her head up when she hit it. She feels woozy. She is soon grabbed underneath her arms and lifted up, then poked in the back with something very sharp.

  “Move,” the voice says.

  “Where, dumbass? I can’t fucking see,” Morgan says. She soon feels herself fall and her face hits the pavement. She’s picked up again after a moment. Then she feels burning in the small of her back. It’s not terribly hot, it feels like getting poked with a cigarette lighter that had just been used. It’s still enough to make her take notice.

  “Forward,” the woman says. “Next time, I’ll use something hotter than a lighter.”

  This person is completely insane, Morgan surmises as she tries to move as ordered. Her legs have little freedom of movement. She’s in leg irons. Her hands are still tied behind her back as well. I hope to God they can track me. I don’t see how I’m getting out of this alive.

  “Left,” the woman orders after what seems to be about thirty steps. The air is a little stuffier in here. She must be indoors now.

  Morgan silently seethes underneath the bag as she complies. What else is she going to do? Her movements are severely hampered. She has no idea when or if help will come, and no idea where she is. Even if she could get free, where would she go? She could be nearly anywhere in New Engnd, or possibly even Canada by now, by her estimation.

  “Right,” the woman orders. “Watch your step. Or don’t and break your neck. Either one is fine at this point…”

  Morgan can sense it as she turns and takes a few steps. A stairwell. She’s being forced to go downstairs, into a basement. She can also sense something else in the woman’s voice. She’s not only insane, she’s tired. A human being can only suffer so much before they start tuning it all out. It’s one of the reasons torture loses its effectiveness after a while.

  Eventually she exits the stairwell and the floor levels out. “Left again.”

  Morgan sighs loudly, in annoyance, as she goes in the direction indicated.

  “Stop. Turn around. Then take three steps back.”

  “Are we about done with this shit yet?” Morgan asks as she takes the steps back, before getting punched in the temple, then forcibly straightened up by the woman as she feels something around her waist and hears a click.

  She then feels a knife near her wrists, cutting the rope. She tries to resist as her arms are maneuvered into cuffs, but this other person is stronger and has better leverage. Plus, she can’t see where she’s throwing punches.

  The irons around her legs are then released and her legs are restrained much in the same way.

  “There. We’ll get to py really soon,” the woman says as she pulls the bag off of Morgan’s head.

  What Morgan sees is a dark basement around her. It looks almost medieval in its décor, or ck thereof. It honestly looks as if the pce hasn’t been updated except to add electricity since the 1700s.

  She then hears slight whimpering and looks around for it. It’s hard to see because it’s so dark, but she can see a person also chained to the wall to her right. “What the…” Morgan asks.

  “Oh, that?” the woman with the brand on her head asks. “That’s just Roberta. She had a good life, all because she managed to get away from those sick bastards Levin and Javier due to a complete fluke event.”

  “Are you okay?” Morgan asks, half-expecting the woman to strike her again, or punish her in some way, but none comes.

  “No… I want to go home, I want to be with my husband, my children…” Roberta says, sobbing.

  Their captor shines a light on Roberta. She’s been sshed all to hell, but mostly superficially. There are at least 100 shallow cuts on her arms, legs, chest, and torso. Her dress is all but shredded, barely covering her most private areas, but not by much. She looks to be heavier-set, in her mid-40s.

  “Her suffering is so beautiful, I almost don’t want it to end…” the captor says as she shuts off the light. “See, she was supposed to suffer and die as one of Roderick’s ‘girls,’ but fate intervened and instead, this bitch got adopted into drug cartel royalty, got her full surgery so no one would ever know what she originally was, then married the love of her life, a businessman. She even adopted three children and moved here to America along with her husband. It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it, Morgan?”

  “Sounds like something you could do if you just got some fucking mental health help,” Morgan spits.

  The woman walks over and sps Morgan across the face. “Very funny. You think you can psychoanalyze me? After all I’ve endured? After all I still fucking endure?” She ughs a little bit. “Do you think anyone would ever love me like this?”

  The light soon turns on again and their captor is standing naked in front of them. Her body is covered in scars from sshes, burns, and mismanaged wound recovery from her neck down. She’s been branded on her breast and hip, along with the one on her forehead. Demeaning messages are tattooed onto her body in pces where she can and will see them, which is why she wears full-body coverings.

  But the worst part is the state of her genitals – she has none. All she has is one tiny hole to piss from. Her male genitals were completely removed, but she was completely nullified down there instead of having female genitalia crafted in its pce.

  “Do you really think I can function in society like this?” she asks, getting more frantic. “You have absolutely zero clue what it’s like to be me, to live in this body.”

  “Dios mio,” Roberta says as she sees the state of her captor’s body.

  “No. No God could help me, even if he existed,” she says. “I’m trapped in a hell I can never escape. I can’t even fucking get release. I never could, and yet the bastard would use me anyway… it was all by design…”

  “What the hell happened to you?” Morgan asks.

  The woman ughs. “Master was far more sadistic than Levin was. After he got me, he had me put through surgery. Said that I had to be fixed so I couldn’t be naughty anymore, so he cut off my dick… and he didn’t give me anything to repce it. But he had the surgeon fuck up the surgery. My nerves down there are in a perpetual state of stimution. Constant arousal, with no way to relieve it. I humped my bed fruitlessly for the first year afterward, begging, screaming for it to stop! He’d use my ass, but it never got me off. Then he started to brand and tattoo me, scar me with knives and cigars. He wouldn’t bathe me, so I’d get infections, and then he’d interfere with the recovery, so, oops, more scars.”

  The woman casually slices at Morgan’s arm as she continues to rant. It’s a superficial cut; it hurts like hell, and it does draw some blood, but she’s in no danger of dying from the wound by itself. “I’d still be suffering for a long time to come, except… lo and behold, he’s fucking me in the ass because all I’m good for at this point is giving him pleasure, and then all of a sudden he just drops dead.” She ughs again. “He was only 29, and he died from a fucking aneurysm. He had no family, no heirs, so… I didn’t report the death, and I decided to use his money up. It’s surprisingly hard to eke out an existence when you have no legal identity, you know!”

  “So how did you find out about us?” Morgan asks, fully expecting another cut to come, or perhaps a burn.

  “Do you think your boss is the only one with a copy of Roderick’s client list, or the transformations that Levin did?” she asks as she sshes at Morgan’s left breast. “I’m in the same chats Master was,” she expins. “One of your guys sold copies of the lists to another sick fuck on there, and I bought copies off of him.”

  Riley, again? Morgan asks herself. No, that can’t be him. We knew about him by the time we got Levin’s list. Fuck’s sake, we have another leaker…

  Just as the woman is about to continue her rant, a crashing sound is heard upstairs. “What? How?” She shuts off the light and presumably re-clothes herself before heading upstairs to see what is going on.

  “We’re down here! HELP!” Morgan shouts as the door is opened.

  There are a couple of gunshots heard from upstairs, then a couple of moments of deafening silence as Morgan is left to wonder what happened.

  Soon, a couple of people in military-like uniforms come down the stairs, holding fshlights and assault rifles. A bald man straps his rifle to his back and taps his earpiece. “This is Kirby, the VIP is safe, repeat, the VIP is safe!”

  Morgan recognizes the uniforms straight away even as Roberta starts to panic. “?No, Roberta! ?éstos son mis amigos!” Morgan cries out to the other woman.

  It works, as Roberta starts to slow her breathing and try to calm down.

  “Free her first,” Morgan orders. “Get her medical help. She is bilingual but prefers Spanish, so hopefully someone in your group can transte.”

  “Right,” Kirby says as he taps the earpiece again. “Cortez, bring down the bolt cutters,” he says. “We have two wounded, including the VIP.”

  “I’m not that bad off,” Morgan says. “What happened to the nutjob?”

  “We subdued her, though it took a shot to each leg to put her down. She’ll live,” the other military contractor, a woman with a fire engine red buzzcut says. “Unless you say otherwise.”

  “No,” Morgan says. “She’s sick in the head. The person that bought her intentionally did his utmost to damage her beyond belief. Killing her won’t solve anything.” A small part of Morgan believes death may actually be too merciful, considering what this woman has done.

  “Got it,” Kirby says, tapping the earpiece one more time. “VIP’s orders, keep the kidnapper alive.”

  “How did you find us, anyway?” Morgan asks.

  “The van that woman stole after ditching the Caprice had a GPS tracker on it. Miss Kelly talked to the company that owns it and they let us track the signal here,” the redhead says as a third contractor comes down the steps with the bolt cutters. “Good timing, Cortez,” she says.

  Cortez nods and walks over to Roberta. “Zon, come help me,” the Latina woman says to the redhead. “Mantén calma. Te vamos a sacar de aquí,” she says to Roberta.

  “Sí,” Roberta replies, trying to breathe normally.

  “I’ll see if I can find a key for the waist restraint,” Kirby says as he heads upstairs.

  Eventually Cortez and Zon manage to free Roberta and take her upstairs. It’s going to take her a long time to heal from this, and even longer for the emotional wounds to heal.

  Morgan waits, her body starting to tire from being forced to remain upright. They need to know… they need to know there’s another leak… Eventually, her adrenaline rush gives out and she faints before she is freed.

  --={@~~~@}=--

  [4 september 2024]=-=[tuesday]=-=(1256)

  Morgan awakens back in Colorado, in the infirmary. “Ugh… fuck… how long was I out?” she asks.

  “Three days,” Danni says. “You were almost septic when you got here. That’s what you get for doing bdepy without sanitizing the bde between people…”

  “Not the time, Mistress…” Morgan says as she tries to get up. “Where’s Roberta?”

  “In a hospital in Vermont, in the care of her husband,” Danni says as she puts a hand on Morgan’s shoulder, softly but decisively signaling to her to remain in bed for the time being.

  Morgan shakes her head in reply to the silent demand. “What about our kidnapper?”

  “She’s in Levin’s records,” Danni confirms. “We don’t know the name the person who bought her gave her, assuming he even bothered to give her one. Her birth name is…”

  “I don’t need to know that,” Morgan says. “I don’t want to know that. She knew my dead name. She knew about us. Someone here’s leaking info onto the dark web chat these bastards are using to trade these kids. The woman had gotten both Roderick’s client list and Levin’s list of victims from someone who apparently got them from someone here.”

  “...God fucking damn it…” Danni says. “They couldn’t have gotten the second one from Delih, she had already been neutralized as a threat to us before we got Levin’s list. I need to have a talk with Hansen and Miss Kelly…”

  Morgan tries to get up. “I’ll—”

  Danni gives her a look that could fsh-freeze a fme. “Little girl. You are going to stay here and let the antibiotics work. We almost lost you because of our own mistakes. We’re sure as fuck not losing you to an infection.”

  “God damn it, fine…” Morgan says, carefully crossing her arms so she doesn’t dislodge the IV.

  Danni gres at Morgan. “What was that?”

  Morgan rolls her eyes. “Yes, Mistress…”

  Danni nods. “Better. Now stay put.” She turns and leaves the infirmary.

  As she walks down the hallway toward the security office, another contractor walks up to her. “Ma’am, the background check you requested on the girl,” she says.

  Danni looks it over. Seems Amélie’s former male identity has a history of computer crime. “Good work. I can use this after we put out the current fire.”

  She makes her way to the office several minutes ter, reading Amélie’s file as she walks. “Hansen, we have an issue…” she says.

  “Oh?” Hansen asks as she’s working on trying to piece together the life of the kidnapper after she was sold by Levin all those years ago.

  “Yeah. We have another leaker,” Danni says. “Someone from here sold the Javier and Levin lists on a dark web chat poputed by a lot of the people we’re going after. Our operation is leaking like a sieve.”

  “Great,” Hansen says, sighing. “That’s going to put a lot of these people in danger.”

  “Yeah. The person who tried making us think Morgan was dead while she kidnapped and was torturing her had these lists,” Danni says with a sigh. “Apparently she faked her former owner’s credentials in the chat and got hold of it so she could make the ones that escaped suffer before killing them.”

  “...That’s fucked up, Danni,” Hansen says.

  “Yeah. You know the drill. Start checking everyone’s web traffic, again,” Danni says. “I want whoever did this to pay. What we did to Delih will be nothing compared to what this bastard will suffer for this.”