What The Cat Dragged In Ch. 20

He looked at her sharply. "The one who pays me. Surely you've heard that word before."

"Who-"

"Each day, we will speak. If you answer my questions truthfully, you'll be rewarded. If you lie to me, or if you refuse to answer," he turned to look at her. "Well, you've had a small taste of what my assistant is capable of. Do you understand?"

Kelly clenched her teeth. "I don't know anything."

"We know that isn't true." Another smile. "Now, allow me to show you that I am a man of my word when I say you'll be rewarded. Tell me the name of the feral mutant you were traveling with and I'll dim the light in your cell tonight."

Kelly's eyes narrowed as she looked at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but again he interrupted before she could.

"I can understand that you might feel as though you're betraying him, but I can assure you that you're not. You saw him die in a rather graphic way from what I've been told. There's no longer anyone to betray."

Kelly closed her eyes and forced herself to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. When she opened her one good eye, the corner of Müller's mouth was twitching again.

"What mutant?" Her eyes were locked on his.

"You do tend to make things difficult for yourself, don't you Miss Demmer?" He retreated to the wall and a hard fist crashed into the other side of her face.

Müller asked the question two more times. Each time she gave the same answer and each time the beating she got for her defiance got worse. When she was hauled back to her cell, she was drifting in and out of consciousness. That didn't stop them from shocking her again to take the cuffs and shackles off. There were moments in the middle of the last beating that the pain seemed unbearable. The idea of giving in was even more repellant.

For awhile, she stayed curled up on the floor. Eventually, she managed to get up and wash the blood off her bruised face. She leaned heavily on the wall to get back to the narrow bench.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Creed sat straight up and looked around, the crushing pain kept his senses on full alert. He'd expected a cell or a lab, instead he found himself inside the same shabby cabin where he'd spent his last night with the frail. A pile of bloody bedding was in the corner. He was clutching one of the frail's blouses. Conlon lingered in a corner of the room, his eyes wide.

He growled, his claws extended. "The fuck'er you starin' at?" He got up.

Conlon pointed to his temple. "Your head is still...not healed."

"Think I don't know that?" He found the cooler and rifled through it. A couple of beers and what looked like a stock of takeout boxes from the bar up the road. It had been shitty when it was hot. Cold it was worse but his healing factor need the fuel. He started eating cold burger and fries. "Where's the frail?"

Conlon shifted and looked away.

A low, dangerous growl. "Conlon-"

"She was gone before I could recover enough to use my mutation."

He roared. "GONE?" He grabbed the smaller man by the throat and lifted him off his feet. "Gone meaning what, exactly?"

"Taken." The word had a strangled sound.

The word hit him harder than the bullet had. He tightened his grip on Conlon's throat, his claws digging in, drawing blood. "You better give me a goddamn good reason to keep you alive." He eased the pressure just enough to let Conlon draw a breath.

"Think I know who has her."

Creed dropped the smaller man. "You know where?"

"If I'm right, yes." Conlon coughed and rubbed at his bruised throat.

"Then what the fuck are we still doing here?"

"It took some time to get the information I needed without being too obvious about it." The smaller mutant got up slowly. "Besides, half your head was gone. I figured if I was going to go riding around with someone who looked like he belonged in Zombieland, I ought to have a good idea of where the hell I was headed."

Conlon started to cough. Creed ignored him and looked at himself in the mirror. Wet, red flesh was just beginning to encroach on newly grown white bone. "It's just ugly and it hurts like a motherfucker. Get your shit together. "

*~*~*~*~*~*

Creed had an amorphous memory of the incident. He remembered the frail screaming his name and the impact on the side of his head. After that, fucking space aliens could have abducted her for all he knew. It was more than he usually remembered after being shot in the head. It still wasn't enough.

"Well?" He had just about finished off the last of the takeout. Even without looking he knew that flesh had nearly covered bone again. For the moment, he let Conlon drive.

It didn't take long to fill in the blanks on the incident itself. The whole thing lasted less than two minutes.

"CoH?" Creed asked.

"No. This was too organized. I thought FoH at first, then I recognized the sniper as one of Cavallo's 'exclusive' guys."

Creed looked over at him. "You were the only other person who knew where we were going."

"Not the only person who saw you once you got there."

"The old man?"

Conlon nodded. "I recovered enough to fry the sniper before he could take off the other side of your head. Kelly and the others were gone already. Took me a little longer to recover enough to start trying to figure out how they found her in the first place. I figured if someone had seen you on the road they'd have followed you and you'd have noticed that. The only one who might have seen you and her was the old man at the motel."

Creed growled. "You're trying to tell me he was hooked up with Cavallo?" The idea was ridiculous.

"No. Once I was moving again he and I had a little...discussion. I found out that he's CoH. He saw Kelly sitting in the truck. He'd missed the whole death announcement, so he called Stan's hotline. I'm guessing Stan doesn't really believe she's dead either and he contacted Cavallo. I can't be sure, but I don't know how else that part would have gone."

Nervousness put a sharp tang in the air around the other mutant, but Creed couldn't detect any deception. "You kill him?"

Conlon shrugged. "What would you have done with him?"

Creed nodded. "Find out anything afterward?"

"Nah. Lots of CoH 'literature', but other than that, no phone, no TV, no family photographs. We were the first guests in at least six months. Only letter I could find was from a lawyer letting him know that he inherited the place from a brother. If he's got other family, they don't keep in touch."

Creed nodded. It pissed him off that he hadn't been the one to make the old man pay. Conlon could manage a simple kill and probably a good bit of fear, but he was certain the old bastard got off easy. "How long was I out?"

Conlon glanced at him. "Three days."

"Three-" Creed felt sick to his stomach. "She's fucking dead." His voice was flat.

"Not if I'm right and Cavallo has her." He turned off the main highway.

"He's got a generous streak?" The angry growl came through. He glanced at the road and decided it didn't really matter where they were going if there was a corpse at the other end. She didn't feel dead though. That was fucking stupid. He knew it. Didn't change the feeling. He looked over at Conlon. "Well? Does he?"

Conlon gripped the wheel tighter. "I wouldn't exactly call it generosity."

"Playing twenty fucking questions is only going to piss me off more than I already am."

"Cavallo..." He took a deep breath. Creed could almost hear him trying to figure out which version of the truth he wanted to tell. "He figures just killing someone who might know too much is missing an opportunity. 'Underestimating the extent of the person's knowledge' is how his soldiers always put it. He'll keep her alive until....until he doesn't think she can tell him anything else."

"Until he's broken her." Creed supplied. "Where would he take her?"

"Home territory, New York State. He built himself a private prison bunker a few years back. Six pre-fab cells an interrogation room and basic support facilities, all wired with video and audio."

"He doesn't give a shit about what she knows. He just likes to watch." He growled and dug his claws into the door, his anger barely controlled.

Conlon shifted uncomfortably. "Either way, it's not in his interest to kill her right away. She's a fighter-"

"She's a frail." A frail who isn't even twenty and who weighs about a hundred pounds soaking wet, he thought. "We need to get to an airport."

"That's where we're going. Be there in twenty minutes. The plane should be waiting. Figured under the circumstances you wouldn't want to go commercial."

"Fucking right." Creed stared straight ahead. He rubbed the silk blouse between his fingers. "Where'd I get her blouse?" He'd only put it down long enough to get dressed.

He caught the sidelong glance Conlon gave him. "You were...agitated."

"Yeah, well, regenerating half a brain will do that to a guy."

"You were..." Conlon kept his eyes away from Creed's. "I thought the scent of her..." His hands tightened around the wheel. "I figured you'd heal faster if you were calm."

Creed didn't want to know what he'd said or done. He didn't put the blouse down either. He held onto it as if it were his anchor in a sea of rage. Some of it was directed at Stan and Cavallo, most of it was directed at himself. He'd fucked up and now she was paying for it. He wondered how long he'd be able to stand the ache he felt in his chest, and how much worse it would get if he didn't get to her in time.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Kelly's second meeting with Müller lasted longer. The chair had been moved into the corner of the room along with a small table. The chain of the handcuffs was attached to a hook dangling from the ceiling. The shackle chain was secured to the floor, forcing Kelly to stand on her tiptoes. The position itself was painful.

"I realize you're uncomfortable there," Müller said. "But, it does provide my assistant with more options." An oily smile. "Not that I think we'll need them today."

Müller spent a good portion of the time reading to her from a thick file. The people Victor had killed, the ones he'd tortured, the women he'd raped and mutilated and either left for dead or killed outright. Each act was described with a detached brutality and delivered with the force of a punch to the gut.

The pain in her arms and shoulders gave her something else to focus on. Kelly no longer had any illusions about what Victor had been. He'd dispelled most of those himself, whether directly or indirectly. The fact that he was gone had no bearing on the fact that in her heart she was Victor's and would remain so for as long as she lived.

"Miss Demmer?" He asked. Kelly realized that he'd been silent for awhile.

"He's dead, right?" Her voice was flat.

He nodded. "You can tell me his name without fear of retribution."

The corner of Kelly's mouth twitched into a little smile. "Whose name?"

An electric bolt of pain shot through her. Before she'd fully recovered from it, a second one followed.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Creed crouched in the snow, Conlon at his side. The smaller mutant was shivering, but he didn't feel the cold. His attention was focused on what appeared to be a small shack at the edge of a clearing. A single guard had worn an icy trench in the snow as he paced, gun slung haphazardly over his shoulder.

"He it?" Creed didn't take his eyes off the single man.

"Out here. Inside there should be eight more, plus one interrogator."

Creed figured sixteen plus two, just to be on the safe side. "For one frail?"

"You'd want to commute here?" Conlon looked over at him; Creed's eyes were fixed on the doorway and the bored man in front of it.

"What's beyond the door?"

"Elevator. Last I knew it took a key to operate, but the guard has one. If he's upped his security-"

Creed growled. "We get in anyway."

"We might be able to get in, but as soon as those doors open they've got us. There are cameras in the elevator. One of them will be watching the monitors."

"You can't cook 'em through the walls?"

"Not very efficiently." Conlon shifted nervously.

"I don't give a shit about efficient, I just need a few seconds." Creed glanced at the other mutant. He was still useful for the moment. When he stopped being useful, Creed wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do with him. "How'd you end up working for Cavallo anyway? I heard he don't hire mutants."

Conlon shrugged. "He doesn't usually. He doesn't like people to know his daughter is associated with him though, so I guess he figured going against his usual rules would contribute to that. Once I was in, I got to know one of the guys who helped design and build the place."

Creed glanced at him, his eyes narrow. "How'd you manage that?"

"Giada was fucking him."

Creed knew he was telling the truth. He checked his watch. He needed to be in there. The frail might be a scrappy little thing, but she was still so fucking fragile. Something told him to wait. He crouched there for nearly an hour more. The lengthening shadows of evening gave way to true darkness and finally there was an unfamiliar movement at the small building. The guard's replacement emerged.

Creed moved silently and swiftly around the clearing until he reached the closest point of concealment. Conlon followed more slowly. Creed nodded to him and saw Conlon concentrate. A moment later he could smell a faint whiff of burning flesh and one of the two men grabbed his chest in silent panic. Creed took the other one. He sliced cleanly through his throat. Crimson blood sprayed across the snow. Conlon could have done it all, but this was personal. Creed needed to get his claws bloody. He dropped the twitching corpse like the garbage it was and looked at it with disgust.

"Find the goddamn keys. They'll be expecting someone to go back down now." He started to search through pockets.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Kelly drifted in and out of consciousness on the floor of her cell. She vaguely remembered losing consciousness when she was still suspended, but at some point she woke up with the cool steel against her cheek. The cold was almost comforting. She was sure she had never endured so much pain. Stan had liked to hit her, but he had been as lazy about that as he was about almost everything else. Dawes had put more gusto into his beatings, but his age was against him in both strength and stamina.

Müller's 'assistant' was neither aged nor lazy. She knew her ribs were broken on the left side, probably the right too. Her stomach was blackened with bruises, and the pain of every breath extended down the front of her body. Kelly hadn't looked for them, but she knew there were small round burns on her sides and arms from the stun gun they liked to use on her. The cuffs had cut into her wrists sending trickles of blood down over her arms.

She turned her head so that the other side of her swollen face rested against the cold floor. The small movement made her head spin. For a moment, the pain and pressure there increased. Either it subsided, or she became accustomed to the shift in agony. Kelly kept telling herself that either they would give her time to recover, or Müller wouldn't be able to get any information out of her. That fact alone almost made Kelly smile.

She began to try and make her way toward the cot, but her muscles were too sore and weak to cooperate. Just the effort brought tears to her eyes. Kelly stayed where she was and worked on retreating through the pain into her warmest memories of Victor. The times just before they fell asleep when she could hear his heart beat, when his claws teased through her hair and then down over her neck. That always made her shiver and then relax. As long as she could hide from the pain in that pleasant construction, she thought she might be able to tolerate the process of dying.

Before she could sink fully into those warm memories, the door slammed open again. Kelly moaned and braced herself for the painful blast of electricity. She cried out when they pulled roughly on her shoulders, dragging her down that hallway again. The terror of it was almost too much to bear. She struggled weakly and one of them slammed the side of her head into the cinderblock wall. Kelly could feel the flow of blood start again.

They dropped her in the middle of the room, her hands secured to the floor. This time all three of them stayed.

"I see you're more awake now, Miss Demmer. Shall we continue?" Müller smiled his cold little smile.

"Sure. You can kill me before I give you anything. What would your employer think of that?" She started to cough. Agony ratcheted up in her broken ribs. A mixture of blood and saliva spattered the floor in front of her.

Müller gave a little shrug. "My employer wants many things; information is only one of them. Besides, I've been doing this a long time. Letting yourself be beaten to death isn't as simple as it might sound. The human survival instinct is a difficult thing to overcome, even if you want to." He sat down again. "I must say though, the level of your defiance has surprised me. I'm willing to sweeten the pot a bit. If you truthfully answer the question I ask, I'll see that your wounds are treated and that you receive pain medication. I'll also suspend these sessions for the next three days."

She lifted her eyes. "Whatever will you do with yourself?"

"I started reading David Copperfield just before I got this assignment, I might return to that." Müller gave that maddening little smile again. He turned the pages of the file. "Now, we were discussing your mutant's sexual proclivities. Maybe you're not shocked because he's raped you as well."

Kelly kept her head down. Her eyes darted from Müller's polished dress shoes to the three pairs of scuffed black boots. The mood in the room shifted to something even more terrifying than the threat of bruises and broken bones.

"Perhaps not." Müller said. "Perhaps that's why you're not shocked; you don't fully understand the horror of it."

Kelly was certain the terror that gripped her would stop her heart completely. She raised terrified eyes to Müller.

There was a sadistic glimmer in his eye. "Ah, a reaction at last. Perhaps we should take advantage of it to expand Miss Demmer's education." He motioned to her three escorts. "Gentlemen, if you please."

Rough hands started tearing at her clothing. Kelly started to scream and fight with every ounce of strength she had left.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Creed could smell her blood in the elevator. She'd been here and she'd been hurt. The raging animal in him came to the surface. He didn't even try to hold it back.

When the doors opened, there was no welcoming party waiting for them. To the right was a locked metal door, they went to the left. Creed and Conlon moved silently into a spartan galley where three men were playing poker. Before any of them could fumble for a weapon or raise an alarm, Creed snapped one's neck and tore another's throat out. Conlon cooked the other. When he was satisfied there were no others in the small barracks, he went back to the metal door and tried one of the keys from the ring he'd taken off the guard.

The scent of her blood was thick in the dim, gray passage. He walked by similar steel doors. All were closed except for one on the right. That one stood half open. His nose told him that the blood smeared over the steel floor of the cell was hers.

Screams cut through the quiet air. He ran to the door at the end of the passage. When none of the keys worked, he hit it with his shoulder until he broke it out of the frame.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Kelly fought as best she could, but nothing stopped the grasping hands or taunting grins. Her clothing was ripped away piece by piece. Finally they turned her over onto her stomach. One held her shoulders; one started forcing her legs apart. That's when the pounding on the door started. For a moment, everything stopped.