Dark Days (Written Pictures #2) Read Free

of the final, successful thump and Raven could hear the wood splintering through the earphones. Her incarceration was starting to fragment under the assault of hardened steel driven by obedient brute force.
     
    It was quick, almost frenzied, as the two men tore at the crate to satisfy their Master, vying with each other to show the depth of their devoted service. Care might have slowed them but the two men were possessed by a patriotism as hard as their muscles, having cut their teeth in the Spetsnatz. They also knew an American was held inside, enemy of both training and indoctrination, and so they ripped at the planks in a melee of sinew and metal.
     
    The first splinter pierced the latex stretched across Raven’s bicep to lodge partway in her arm but the second stab ripped a scream from her as the end of the crowbar slashed across her thigh.
     
    The large man froze instinctively before snatching his head to Alexei.
     
    Alexei sat impassively, seeing the first flash of red on travel-tarnished black latex stretched across a shapely thigh. Perhaps it would hint toward her fate, give her something to reflect on and Alexei knew how such things would play on a fatigued mind. He had wanted to be the first to draw the American’s scream, but he nodded to the men to allow the destruction of the crate around Raven to continue. He would let that damage to his property pass.
     
    The wood soon disintegrated, dumping the woman onto her bowed back, driving the air from her with a grunt and causing one of the earphones to loosen. If that didn’t succeed in emptying her lungs fully, the kick that followed did the rest, shifting her into the position they desired. Another kick had her shift a little more.
     
    There was no discussion, no word of warning, no humane interaction at all. She was an object to be positioned and she moved as their kicks decided. All Raven knew was that her body was no longer hers to control as it bucked in a blind and useless attempt to deflect each strike while shuffling to where she thought right.
     
    She had given beatings to others during her ascent to power and at its pinnacle and had been sure in her skills in pushing a human body. She had been merely playing at it though in comparison. She was in the hands of professionals, the full danger of whom she could only guess at.
     
    Alexei snapped his fingers to stop them but a single belated kick connected with Raven’s waist. The anger in the familiar-sounding foreign language was loud enough for Raven to hear through the dislodged earphone, and the agony from the kick told her that she had been hasty in her earlier judgement - her true danger had not yet arrived.
     
    The raging voice approached until it seemed to be all around her. Just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, punctuated by the weighty thud of fist on flesh. Raven felt a jolt as a body stumbled into her prone form, followed by the sound of a sickening thud as one of the men stumbled to the floor with a grunt.
     
    All was silent momentarily yet Raven was certain it would only be the lull before another storm. She sensed eyes roaming over her body which, beyond the horizon of her control, shook uncontrollably from the aftermath of her transit and welcome. The noise of another kick surprised her only because it was not matched with an explosion of pain - the question in her mind answered when she heard a second man scrambling away from Alexei’s rage.
     
    Still mostly blinded by the opaque Perspex faceplate of her mask, Raven turned her head, the only movement not married to discomfort. She soon felt fingers gouging into her jaw, prizing under the tight rubber seal before ripping it free, taking with it some of her precious hair. Blinking in the dazzle of long-denied normal light and peering through the matted strands of hair that plastered her face, Raven first made out a shape, then colours.
     
    Feet, legs, waist, all were taken in as she slowly raised her head to explore her