Craving My Enemy

13 - Hostage

Lorenzo Vincelli

The pain shot up my arm like fire. I cringed as it exploded in my head with a blinding whiteness. It made me dizzy. It made me reel. The pain was like needles that had been dipped in alcohol had been jammed through my skin, like my arm had been replaced with ice and electricity wired straight into my spine.

He pulled me to my feet, almost tearing the collar of my shirt. He heard the slight rasp of material ripping. I taste my blood in my mouth. He smashed his fist into my left check sending me tumbling to the ground. I groan in pain, loudly.

I absorb the trauma, swallowing the pain, then kicked my way slowly back to my feet. He swings another punch and I step back, balancing my weight on my left foot, and threw my right fist out in a curved punch at his temple. Turning ninety degrees to the side, he brought his right forearm up to counter the blow, formed a fist with his left, and threw it at my outstretched jaw. He reaches to his holester and pulled out his gun. I was in trouble.

I quickly grab his wrist with my left hand and hold his gun hand against his chest, the gun caught under the jacket and I hit him twice more with my right, square in the nose. He sagged and I shoved him away.

Another man lunged towards me and I hit him with my left hand in the V under his ribs where the sternum ends. It paralyzed his diaphragm and he gasped and doubled over and then pitched forward onto the concrete floor.

His partner was on his hands and knees how, scrambling toward him. I caught him and dragged him onto his feet and turned my hip as he tried to knee me in the groin. I banged his nose with my forehead and pushed him away and hit him left cross straight right and he fell over on the floor.

A huge man walks through the metal door and charges towards me. He threw up his forearms like an offensive lineman blocking a defensive back, but I slipped to the side, pushed the man's elbow down and away, caught his head, and rolled him into the floor. Third of a second once contact was made, and I was on his feet, watching the muscular man rush toward me in slow motion as the three other men, even more slowly, jumped to their feet. The muscular man reached under his shirt even as he pushed past the tables. I did not try to stop the gun; he rolled his hand under my wrist, drove the man's arm over and back, and pulled me backward and down. I had the gun before the man slammed into the floor, and hit him on the forehead with it two hard times.

Suddenly I feel something hard hit the back of my head and I black out again.

I wake up back in my cell. The place I was being held was a small cell, with concrete floors, walls and ceilings. The cell had a small glass window on the ceiling that was covered in either ice or snow. Wherever I was being held was a cold and snowy place. I might be somewhere in Europe like London, Scotland, Norway or in Moscow or in Canada or in Greenland but I have no idea where.

My head hurt too much. My body hurt too much. It seemed that everything hurt too much. Slowly, my sense started to send reports back to his brain. There were bruises and cuts and scrapes and maybe some breaks. I kept my eyes closed, not because I didn't want to see where I was, but because I thought it would hurt too much to open them.

I take a deep breath. It hurt my rib cage. I exhaled, inhaled again, inched my arms under me and pushed myself up on my hands and knees. My head swam. I felt my stomach tighten and I threw up, which hurt the ribs some more. I stayed that way for a bit, on my hands and knees with my head hanging, like a winded horse. My eyes focused a little better. I could see the dirty, wet footprints. I crawled over, got hold of the small concrete seat and slowly got myself upright. Everything blurred for a minute, then came back into focus gain. I inhaled some more and felt a little steadier.