I was in the middle of working my wrists in the cuffs when the barn door opened and the man from before entered. He closed the door behind him and secured it with a padlock. I watched him apprehensively as he grabbed a stool from somewhere in the room and pulled it over so he could sit next to me. When he looked at me, I braced myself, expecting him to hurt me for trying to escape. However, the seconds dragged on and nothing happened. Finally, I opened my eyes and shifted them to look at him. He was staring at me passively, a curious gleam in his eye. 

"What's your name?" he finally asked.

I hesitated. "Why do you want to know...?" I countered.

His composure cracked, and I feared I had made a mistake; however, instead of hurting me like he had before, he simply crossed his arms. "I suppose your name isn't important," he said. The man sighed heavily. "Where's Rowen?"

At first, his question caught me off-guard as I wondered how he knew about Rowen, and how he knew I knew about Rowen. However, the memory of my last conversation with Rick got the ball rolling and everything soon fell into place as I realized my situation. This was the mercenary Rick had told me about. This was the man hunting Rowen. 

I swallowed back my fear. No matter what Rowen and I had said to each other in the past, I wasn't about to give him away to this man. "I don't know what you're talking about," I told him.

The stranger leaned towards me, resting his arms on the table. "You can tell me and make this easy or you can lie and I can force out of you," he said simply. "It's not a hard question."

Though my hands rattled with tremors of fear, I clenched them fists in their restraints, refusing to break as I repeated my answer from before. "I don't know what you're talking about."

There was a lapse in sound as he gave me one more chance. I didn't give in. "Fine." He stood up swiftly and walked over to the window. "I guess we'll do this the hard way," he said, throwing the shades up.

Light from outside flooded into the dim barn and I winced, blinking at the brightness. Then my eyes landed on the walls of the room. The barn had been too dark to see before, but now everything was bathed in sunlight. Weapons and blades of all shapes and sizes hung from pegs, gleaming cleanly. The more I stared, the more I saw, the more my stomach churned with regret and horror.

I was so preoccupied with the sight that I didn't notice the man watching me. He then surveyed the blades and selected a serrated blade, sliding it off its peg. "I'll ask you again," he repeated, turned to me. "Where is Rowen hiding?"

He walked up to me slowly, balancing the knife in his practiced hand with ease. All I could do was stare at the weapon as he sat down on the stool once more. He seemed to notice my hesitant fear and he held the knife where I could see it, taunting me with it. He set the knife next to my arm on the table, close enough for me to cut myself against its perfected edge if I tried to move too quickly. A silence passed. Then he brushed my bangs out of my face. "You have such pretty eyes. They look a lot like my son's," he told me. He walked out of my line of sight. When he came back, he had a jar in his hands. "I like to keep the prettiest ones refrigerated so they don't spoil."

My eyes widened and I felt the urge to throw up. "Oh, my God..." I breathed, wriggling away as much as I could.

He set the jar containing a set of perfectly carved out blue eyes on a shelf above my head where I had a full view of them; they seemed to stare at me through the glass. "Why are you doing this...?" I whispered, trying not to look.

The man didn't answer my question. "I won't ask again," he said, leaning over me. His voice was cold. Lifting the blade from the table, he drew the blunt side across my forehead. I stuttered in terror and he raised his eyebrows. "Hm? Do you have something to say?" he asked.

I swallowed and shook my head. "I... I don't know-"

In an instant of rage, the man stabbed the knife several inches into the wooden wall of the barn. "Enough! You will tell me where he is!" he shouted, hovering over me.

I tensed my shoulders when he yelled, looking away from him. "I really don't know. He didn't tell me," I said.

He jerked the blade free of the wood and stormed back to the wall with the weapons, grabbing a club from its place. "You asked for this," he growled, turning back to me.

My breath quickened to the state of hyperventilation and I tried to move away, pulling at my cuffs with all my strength. "Please! I'm telling the truth! I don't know!" I pleaded.

"Tell me where he is!" He slammed the club into my side.

Coughing raggedly, I dropped my head back on the table. "P-please...!" I whimpered.

"Where is he going?!" the man shouted, grabbing my chin in a bruising hold, forcing me to face him.

I still shook my head. "I don't know!"

He used the club against my side several more times. My screams echoed throughout the empty barn with every broken rib, and I was choking on my outcries by the time he finally stopped. He stood over my trembling body, nostrils flared with rage.

"You have no idea the pain I can cause. Is that what you want?" he hissed. I shook my head, holding back more sobs of pain. "Then tell me where he's going!" he demanded.

His yelling only made me more flustered. "Please, just let me go! I don't know! Please!" I said as saliva slipped from the corner of my mouth.

He threw the club across the room and it hit something on the other side resulting in a deafening crash. The man stormed out of the barn, throwing the door closed behind him in a fury. I heard another door somewhere far off slam shut and then there was silence. With a shuddered breath, tears slipped from my eyes. Though I was finally alone, my pain did not end. My vision blurred as I tried to not pass out, gasping for air in my tight chest. A stabbing discomfort coursed through me when I tried to move, and I wondered how many of my ribs were broken. Part of me wouldn't have been surprised if the answer was every single one of them.

*******

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