Brock's eyes fluttered open to a haze of shadows and lights in blurry shapes. And the sound of thuds sprinkled with suffocated moans. Was it Russell? How long had they been beating him? How long had he been out? The blood from his noise wasn't completely dry on his lips and chin, and he could still open both eyes. The ropes around his wrists and ankles cut and stung, but didn't hurt yet, and blood still reached his fingers.

"I said down, nigger! On your four!"

Another thud, another moan. He had to do something. And make it work better than his first attempt to cover Russell, when they were brought to the barracks. Not the same place they were now. This looked like a small room, maybe a shed like the one they'd found in the woods on Sunday morning. At the barracks, his impulse to stand between Russell and their captors put them inside of a circle of fists and kicks. It ended up with both of them curling up on the floor, just trying to keep breathing through that brutal violence spiced up with curses and mocks. Until everything went black for Brock.

They were somewhere else now, and he was tied to a creaky, tight armchair. They'd placed him face to a boarded wall. He heard moves behind him, three people tops. And he could feel a fire burning somewhere at his right.

"Crawl, nigger! Like the filthy maggot you are!"

"Let'im be!" he said. Or tried to say. Only a gurgling growl came out of his mouth. He coughed and spat blood on the dirt floor. Where were they? Was that psychopath Balken there too?

A strong hand grabbed his hair from behind and pulled his head roughly up and back. "Well, well, Sleeping Beauty didn't need a kiss after all," a man said near Brock's ear, tobacco and liquor in his breath.

"Crawl!" Brock heard a hiss and a lash. The bastards were flogging Russell, who let out a hoarse cry as he tried to move. "Now lick my boots, nigger!"

Brock tried louder. "Let'im be!" He turned his head to have at least a glimpse of what was behind him. "You okay, sir?"

The man grabbing his hair moved to face him with a half-mocking, half-questioning smirk. Late thirties, military background twisted wrong. All about him screamed violence: this man enjoyed killing. Brock thought his face rang a bell.

"Sir?" the man repeated. "You work for the nigger?" He clearly thought it outrageous.

Brock struggled to keep his eyes focused on the man. The rest of his body was getting the memo about being awake and he regretted it, because now he could feel every punch and kick he'd taken earlier, especially to his chest and right side.

"We all do, you idiot," he grunted.

Brock's chin touched his shoulder at the brutal backhand across his face. He wished the man's knuckles hurt at least half as much as his cheekbones did.

"Lick it!"

Brock set his aching jaw at Russell's muffled cry when he was flogged again.

"What d'ya mean, we all do?" the man asked.

Southern. Texas, Louisiana? "He's FBI's Supervisor for New England, you jerk," he replied, his voice but a low growl. "You screwed up big time taking him. Trust me, you don't want him dead."

"Hey, Vic! This old trash says the nigger's some FBI big shot."

Vic? Victor? Trying to recall where he'd heard that name helped Brock to keep distracted from the growing pain threatening to overwhelm him. All his torso felt as if he'd been used as a punching bag after he'd passed out. Breathing got more painful by the minute. Victor... He recalled that morning at his office, with Tanya and Russell, when the girl told them about Balken's officers.

"What? This piece of shit!? Well, that just figures! With that douche in office, all the scum feels entitled to boss us around!"

Brock's face twitched at the thuds. That Victor guy was a true believer and had just kicked Russell twice, just to underline his heated words. The man grabbing Brock's hair seemed like a kindergarten boy throwing a tantrum, compared with the hate and violence burning the other guy inside. Troubled upbringing. Probably performance issues. A complete psychopath, happy to follow Balken's lead to vent out his inferiority complex.

"Let'im be!"

This time, Brock's voice was a raspy bark. It earned him another backhand. Good, now both sides of his face would match the bloody mess his nose felt like.

"Watch your mouth, slut!"

That was one funny choice of a name to call him. At least now he had as much of their attention as he'd ever get. "He's your way out of this alive!" he insisted.

"Really. Now we need the nigger scum."

No backhands this time. Instead, the man called Victor came to stand before him, a worn leather belt hanging from his hand. Brock felt a chill at the blood staining the belt—Russell's blood.

"Speak!"

Victor Gold! One of the captains. This man was close to Balken. He'd had a hell of a time picking up fights in Baltimore, and he had pictures of himself gutting a deer out alive. Another addict to violence. But this man's favorite fix was close-range brutality. Blunt objects, knifes, his own hands. He liked to feel the cracking bones, hear the cries of pain, have warm blood in his hands. Brock needed to be careful and keep from giving him any excuse. Else, he and Russell were as good as dead, because this man had enough rank to kill them both without consulting his general.

"You took hostage an FBI supervisor," Brock said, slow to be clear, despite how much it hurt to utter every word. "Alive, you can use it to negotiate your way out. Dead, you all will join him in hell before sunrise."

"Our way outta here!? D'you think you can fool us?" The man leaned to Brock and pressed his broken nasal septum.

Brock heard himself scream, as a burning blade of piercing pain thrusted up from his nose into his skull. It hurt so much his cheeks felt covered in pins and needles.

"Alive...," he managed to mumble.

"Speak louder!"

"Alive..."

The man leaned in and with a swift move, he hit Brock's ears with the base of his palms at the same time. A painful high-pitched buzz added to the blinding pain, and Brock had the puzzling sensation of falling to the left.

Sweet Captain Victor barked at him. "Louder!"

Brock was so dizzy it made him sick. He fought back a retch to answer. "Said alive, not free."

Both men laughed heartily at him, his voices feeding Brock's confusion.

"D'ya wanna Mirandize us too?"

"Useless nigger lover!"

Brock didn't know which of them punched him in the face. Like it made any difference. His loss of balance, caused by his hurting ears, made his sore belly twitch. The chair he was tied to seemed to give away. He felt the warm trace dripping down his neck. His eardrum injured by the blasts from the Wood case. Fighting the pain, the disorientation, the retches, he heard them speak but didn't even try to understand what they said. He didn't care much either when they untied his ankles and lifted his feet. Or at least it felt like they did. As if they'd made him stretch his legs and put his feet on a stool or a chair. He struggled to open his eyes, but even so he couldn't tell for sure.

He did feel how one of them grabbed his ankles to hold them still on the stool. And then the puzzling cold in his soles. Through blurry eyes, he saw they'd removed his shoes and socks.

"Now I'm gonna teach you to shove your threats up your slut ass."

The grip on his ankles tightened and he saw sweet Captain Victor stretch his bloody belt. Brock knew what came next, but there was nothing he could do. Playing tough was out of the question. Even if he were in any shape to even try, that would only trigger more brutal violence against him in response.

Well, at least he'd achieved his goal. He'd managed to become the new fun in town, and the two bastards didn't even seem to remember Russell anymore. That was the whole point of it, right? Great, shouldn't he be proud of himself.

However, it turned out there were some things he still could do. He found out he could still feel a whole new level of pain every time the leather belt lashed across his bare soles. And he could growl, and wriggle, and choke in moans and screams as they flogged him, laughing out loud at him.