The Gears In My Mind Are Turning Like Dancers - Chapter 5 {Cobra Starship, The Academy Is...}
“Hello?” William looked out from under the hood of an SUV to see three men entering the shop. “Are you in charge here?” one of them asked, approaching William.
“I guess right now, yeah.” William shrugged as he wiped the grease off of his hands. “William Beckett, how may I be of service to you?” He held his hand out and the man took it. He shook William’s hand for a fraction of a second before using the firm grip that he had on William to twist the young mechanic’s arm around his back painfully, pressing him up against the wall and hand cuffing his wrists behind his back.
As the man did so, the other two went about locking the shop doors, closing the blinds and shutting off the lights. The man forced William into a chair and secured him there by tying a length of rope around his waist. Before William was fully able to comprehend what was going on, there was a knife to his throat and a hand over his mouth.
“Make noise, go ahead, but I promise it will NOT end well for you.” The man holding the knife spoke quietly and quickly with a thick accent that William couldn’t have placed even if he weren’t scared out of his mind. He nodded slightly, trying his best to keep from getting hurt. “Now,” the man removed his hand. “Where is the map?”
“Wh-what map?” William stammered, his eyes cast downwards so as to avoid looking at the knife to his throat…or the man holding it.
“Do not insult me by playing the fool!” The man pulled the knife away just long enough for his fist to connect painfully with William’s jaw. William let out a pained whimper at the sudden aching in his jaw as he tried to compose himself. “I will ask you again,” the man hissed. “Where is the map?”
“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about.” William let the words stumble out, refusing to make eye contact with his attacker. “You - you must have the wrong guy.” The stutter that years of speech therapy had finally managed to suppress came out in his scared speaking.
“I do NOT make mistakes.” The man moved behind William and grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head backwards painfully and putting the blade of the knife against William’s exposed throat.
“I-if I knew what you were t-talking about, I would t-tell you!” William shivered, terrified by the cold, sharp metal that was pressed against his skin.
The man yelled something in a foreign language; Russian, or something similar. William didn’t know what he was saying, but the other two men immediately began to search the shop. “No,” the man spat. “Tell me what I want to know and I might, might spare your life.” He pressed the knife a little harder against William’s neck.
“I-I honestly d-don’t know!” William whimpered as he felt a slight trickle of blood on his skin. “P-please…”
“You are very - how you say it…pretty.” The man released William’s hair, moving back around to face him. “It would be such a shame.” He trailed the knife down William’s jaw, drawing a very small amount of blood. “Such a shame to ruin this beauty.” The man smirked as he pulled the knife away, twisting it in his fingers. “This cut will heal - the next one, you will not be so lucky.”
“I s-swear, I don’t know wh-what you want!” William gulped. “I’m a law student, I just moved here to go to school, I work at the shop to pay my way through! I-I don’t know about any maps…”
“Right.” The man sneered, nearly laughing at William’s defense. “I suppose your loyalty means more to you than your life.” He placed the knife to William’s arm, drawing another small line of blood down his upper arm. “Each time that you lie to me or refuse to answer, I make this cut a little deeper. After a short while, the knife will slice through your brachial artery and you will bleed to death.”
“Boss.” One of the other men came up to his boss, handing him a few papers. The man who had been speaking to William eyed them, frowning.
“Hmm.” The man smirked, handing the papers back to the man who had brought them. “So,” he turned to William. “You are being paid off of the books, eh?”
“Wh-what?” William frowned. This was news to him.
“You are really not a part of this, are you?” The man furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at William.
“A p-part of what?” William stammered.
“Ok, William.” The man skipped right over William’s question. “We can do this a couple of ways - the first: you think as hard as you can and see if you can remember anyone talking about a map. You tell us what you know, or what you can remember, and if the information is to our satisfaction, we leave you with a severe headache and no real memory of this little chat. Option two: you insist that you know nothing, which may very well be the case, and we kill you.” The man spoke of killing William with a calmness that made the situation even more frightening.
“I-I can try to remember, b-but I don’t th-think that I’ve ever heard anything about a m-map.” William looked down, his heart pounding with fear. He didn’t understand what was going on, why this was happening to him, or what these men wanted.
“We can try to help you to remember.” The man took the knife and trailed it across the part of William’s chest that his tank top left exposed. The knife grazed along his skin, just below his collar bone and, if anything, distracted William from recalling a memory.
“P-please.” William let out a whimper of pain. “I c-can’t think when you d-do that.” His voice was barely a whisper, face wet with tears of pain and fear.
“When I do what?” the man tilted his head to the side, feigning innocence before placing the tip of the knife into William’s left shoulder. The cut was deeper than the others, and William let out a strangled cry of pain. “SHUT UP!” the man ordered. “Now tell us what you know right now.”
“I think that if he knew anything, boss, he would have told us,” one of the other men said. “You have to remember - he has not been trained to withstand our…methods.”
“This is your last chance, pretty boy.” The man in charge ran his fingers across William’s cheek, caressing the soft, flawless skin. The touch made William cringe and turn away, trying to get the man’s hand off of him. “You either know something, William, or you do not. Tell us now; your time is running out.”
“I.” William looked down, biting his lip. “I’m sorry, I-I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” His voice was quiet, and as he was directing his words at the floor, the man could not hear him.
“What was that?” The man asked, grabbing William’s chin, forcing him to look upwards. “Speak up, boy.”
“I don’t have the information that you want,” William admitted quietly. “I-I’m sorry.”
“Sorry is NOT good enough!” the man yanked William’s head backwards and the knife was, again, at his throat. William’s heart rate was increasing drastically, breath ragged, waiting in terror for the blade to end his life.
“Boss.” One of the other men came up to the man in charge. “He may know nothing, but the people that he works for - we know that they do.”
“What are you saying?” The man in charge frowned.
“I suggest that we spare him for now; use him as - how you say? Lynch pin?”
“Hmm.” The man in charge smirked, and the next think that William felt was something heavy knocking him unconscious.