The Submissive Assassin (BxB)

Chapter 76 - We rescued you, remember?

"Please, don't do this. I don't know where it is, I seriously don't know." Another blow across the face made his mouth fill with blood, to which he spat it out before it choked him. He was exhausted, feeling as if his body wasn't his anymore, but the only reason he had this much energy to plead was because of the large axe that was raised above his torturer's head, aimed directly at the bicep of his left arm. They had straightened his arm to the side, pining it down with chains to a small table, and he knew exactly what was coming next.

Eric had his hands crossed behind his back, walking slowly behind him with a smug smile across his face. "I can tell them to stop but you'll need to tell me where his base is."

"I have no idea!" he cried, the tears rolling along his cheeks as he desperately pleaded for mercy. "Please, you have to believe me! He never told me where it was—"

"Cut it," Eric ordered.

"No, no...please no!" The seconds before the axe landed on his arm were the longest he had ever felt in his life. It was almost as if each millimetre it went down was another hour, until it reached his flesh and sliced his arm into two without any hindrance. When the blood began to pour and he could no longer feel his fingers, his screeching blood cry was heard across the entire basement. "Ah! My arm! AAAHH!"

"Nathan! You're fine, look at me!" When he resisted his grasp, Dante reached for his wrists and pinned them down against the bed, forcing his focus to be on his eyes. "Look at me, you're fine, I have you. We rescued you, remember? You're okay now."

It took a moment for his mind to regain its calm, but Dante noticed his breathing begin to ease as the fright in his eyes slowly dissipated. Eventually, when Nate was calm enough, he released his wrists and returned to the uncomfortable seat he had sat in for the past week, hours at a time. He refused to leave Nate's side, not letting anyone take him out and barely even leaving for food. The only time he did leave for longer than an hour was when his father summoned him to scowl him.

Nate's eyes returned blank as he began glancing over the bandages along his body, and the stub left as his arm. He observed the lines on his right palm, the way his wrist had gotten terribly skinny that he looked sickly and how the colour of his skin had grown a bizarre vomit yellow.

Those nightmares had been haunting him for days now; it felt as if he was still stuck in that basement where he was tortured endlessly, to which he even begged to be killed. He didn't remember how he was rescued, nor how he arrived to the base, but those weren't memories he wanted to find.

Dante wasn't surprised when Nate stayed quiet, staring at his lap and falling deep into his thoughts. This was what he had done ever since he woke up. The first day was horrendous as he continuously attempted to fight with the nurses they hired, even hit Dante multiple times. Then, he asked to be shot in the head numerous times to which Dante felt his heart clench whenever he said no and watched the disappointment cross Nate's eyes. After that, he spent days sobbing from morning to night, repeating the same wordings over and over again.

"My eye..."

"My arm..."

"My eye..."

"My arm..."

"My eye..."

And even though Dante had been there to console, he was only there in presence because he had no idea what to even say, as he was the one to have caused all of it. Even worse, none of them amongst the Hercules brothers had come remotely close to the brutality Nate had faced; how could they ever even understand how it felt to be tortured to that extent?

It was after the fourth day that he stopped crying, but instead went mute. He didn't say a word, barely ate, didn't look anyone in the eye and didn't even make any motion to let people know he had heard them. He was practically dead in a living body, not a single trace of emotion or even soul in his eyes. Dante tried to make conversation, even brought a random novel he found to read to Nate. But Nate never really made a sign that he was hearing him, or cared to.