Daydreams And Nightshade (DaN #1)

Chapter 48: Disturbing thoughts

The voices around Noah were being drowned out by his own pulse as it sped up. He didn't dare to struggle though as the soldiers unchained him and dragged him to face Cassius and Winton, but he certainly wished to.

Nothing good could come out of it.

"Would you, uh... Like to tell me what's going on?" He tried to keep his facade up as he was pushed down on his knees. Those men had the upper hand and could easily off them, but torture-wise the weren't great. Hitting Noah's emotional weak spot was just a stroke of luck, so perhaps they had no idea what they were doing at the moment.

"Figured we were letting you off too easy just sitting there staring out into nothing," Marteau replied as he grabbed Noah's hair and forced him to look up, leaning in to whisper to him at the same time. "You think I didn't notice how much talking about that whore business tore you up? See, now... You get to tell your good old friends here all about it. Face to face."

Noah hadn't even considered it. Perhaps it was true that he'd gotten off easy when he didn't have to face anyone. Especially Cassius or Winton.

"I don't... I mean, I've already told you what—"

Calvez kicked him in the side and Noah's face scrunched up.

"You told us what happened. But not how it happened. I'm sure these two would love all the disgusting details." He gestured to the other two.

Noah averted his gaze. Regrettably, he had to acknowledge they might be getting better at the emotional kind of torture.

"I... I have to assume they know what that kind of profession entails." Noah shook his head, trying to smile at the other two as if he thought the soldiers were being ridiculous, but Marteau yanked his hair, causing the smile to drop.

"What kind of people? What kind of weird shit did they have you do? Or even better, what did they do to you?"

Calvez crouched down next to him, his rank breath sending warm puffs against Noah's cheek. "How about you give us three real disturbing examples and I won't crush this one's knee cap?"

He pointed at Winton, whose eye twitched but he refused to say anything. Noah turned his head away.

"There's not much to tell, it was just sex."

Marteau pulled his hair to make him look back and face them again.

"Well, it's a win for me either way," Calvez said as he walked over to the tent and picked up a mace.

Why does he have a fucking mace!?

"One kneecap or both?" Calvez looked over at Marteau.

"Start with one."

"Wait." Noah closed his eyes. He couldn't let them do it. He had to talk, but how many of the stories could he tell without them using it against him? "I... Uh, well... One man wanted to—"

"Man? I thought you were paid by women?" Calvez kicked him again, gentler than before at least while Marteau pulled his hair to face forward again.

"Men and women," Noah dutifully replied, trying to not look the other two in the eyes. "This man wanted to refer to me as his son every time. Or, there were actually several of those, regarding several kinds of family members too. Some were older women, some were older men. Not the worst I had to endure but it sure was fucked up looking back... I was just too dazed to care."

"That is what you call disturbing?" Calvez folded his arms. "You're gonna have to do better than that."

Noah frowned. What did they want then? Pretending to sleep with family seemed disturbing enough to him, so what did someone like Calvez deem bad enough? Something that he'd preferably not tell Cassius and Winton of course, especially not when facing them like this.