I Will Make You Hurt [Closed]

[fearisinthemind]

Who| Penny, Katurian and Calico
What| Calico gets what's coming.
Where| Peacekeepers Headquarters
When| Week 3.
Warnings/Notes| Torture.

They bring Calico in from a truck in the back. There's no need for the citizens to see her. Killing one Victor sends a message; punishing two just makes it look like they've lost control. She's brought in a little after rush hour, when most of the citizens are working somewhere or other.

The Human Resources department is purposefully innocuous. When Calico is wheeled in, strapped to a gurney with a gag in her mouth and straps around her wrists, ankles, neck and hips, it isn't through a dungeon but through an office with shale grey carpet and regularly-recharged fire alarms. Little cubicles, interns working on computers and compiling reports - it would look at home in a Dilbert comic. A bit of tuneless, gooey jazz music drips in.

The interns, all of whom have signed multiple waivers for their silence, glance up when they hear the squeaky wheels of the gurney and the squeegee sound of flesh dragging cloth over metal as Cal thrashes, but when they see it's Penny and Katurian they quickly turn their attention back to their computers and copy machines. There may be things worth dying for, but like worshipers before a god, they know not to tempt the fate of those they fear.

There are rooms on the fourteenth floor, offices with nice views and tinted windows and hardwood, laminate floors (much easier to clean up the mess that way). The little elevator makes a ding, ding, ding as they go up, numbers on the top lighting up. Humming to herself, Penny strokes Calico's hair.

Comments

[fearisinthemind]

Something snaps in Penny's eyes, cracking like rotten wood on a bridge. The glee is gone for a second, replaced by something sharp and ugly and full of brittle tendrils. "'Bitch'."

She takes the syringe, and she wraps her hand around it until her knuckles go pale and her fingertips flush with blood.

"Not even just 'bitch'. 'Fucking bitch'." Penny's voice is high and thin, like a little girl's, jiggling in the high air between innocent and hurt. "Is that what people think I am, Katurian? A fucking bitch?"

She pulls the syringe forward and up, like a knife poised above the altar, and slams it into Calico's thigh. A manic grin drips down her face. "I'll fucking bitch you."

[pillowmania]

Penny's voice should be enough to scare him, the way it shrieks and buzzes like a bow crawling crookedly up a violin string, but instead he hears the discordant music and he thinks how beautiful. How wonderful. When Penny's face contorts in anger, he sees a painting filled with shifting brush strokes.

When Calico spits at him, the saliva is thick like an artist's ink.

He wipes the moisture from his chin. This is all right. This is part of the script, the way Things Should Be. Some of the people they torture are reluctant heroes, stone-faced and silent, but others kick and scream and spit. Everyone knows their role.

"She's fiery," he murmurs to Penny. "Fiery like her hair. You know what good people do to fires."

[riptheseams]

Calico screams when Penny pushes the needle into her thigh, and her leg shakes uncontrollably - more through Cal's own fear than anything else. Her leg feels like it's on gire, like the hear is travelling up her body - but Cal can't tell if it's her own imagination or a real sensation, so scared is she of being trapped with the pair.

"You bloody bitch! You fucking - let me go! Please! Please let me go!"
Cal's howls of anger mix with her fear - was that it? The injection to kill her? How will they say she died? Morphling overdose? Will they set her body somewhere for someone to find? Who will tell her parents.

Her thoughts buzz as she begins to cry properly, as her leg stops trembling, as she lies docily in her bonds. She stares at the ceiling as she sobs, ignoring Katurian and Penny, picturing instead, her mother and father. Who's gonna tell them that she's dead?

[fearisinthemind]

Penny's face lights up, as if from her mouth in that maniac smile, like a jack-o'-lantern. "Nothing that would set off the sprinklers, Katurian. If I had my way she'd never see rain again."

Penny leans over Calico's face, reaching again to stroke that neck with a pulse beating away as if it's trying to scurry on out from under the skin. She watches as it slows, as the sedative (and the hallucinogen) take effect. She watches the tears fall.

With a grin, she lets a dollop of saliva dangle from her lower lip, lets it hang, sucks it partially back up, and then lets it fall onto Calico's forehead. "I own you. We own her, don't we, Katurian?"