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Where Tina had been dragged off to was a mystery. Where she had woken up was just as much of a mystery by the enemy, who had taken the pleasure in watching her sit tied up in a chair unconscious for god knows how long. Her gear had been taken from her, leaving her in her cargo trousers and a black tee shirt.

The first thing she noticed when she awoke was that her head hurt and she was freezing. Her unsteady breath fanned in front of her face in a cloud of mist, a chill sweeping across her bare arms and skin.

The room was dim and empty, a single light above illuminating her in the centre. Four armed men stood at the edges, Illyin being the only one to actually show his face.

Her limbs were tightly tied with duct tape in a ridiculously thick layer that made it hard to breathe, her midsection secured to the back of the chair, keeping her back ramrod straight.

Leonid Ilyin spoke to her in Russian while the faint ringing in her ears subsided and she had taken in absolutely none of it, too concerned with how the fuck she was going to get out of this without getting herself killed. The room smelt damp and had no windows, only a single door that she suspected was equally guarded; she had to assume she was underground judging by the temperature, somewhere deep in the mountain perhaps. Which would only make escaping alive more difficult.

The fear hadn't really caught up to her yet until her jaw was snatched up by Ilyin who forced her to look at him. Whatever words he spat at her fell upon deaf ears as she tuned him out, intent on staying silent in the hopes he would grow bored or her. Wishful thinking, she knew. She was beaten inside that small, cold room for hours.

It all blended into one endless loop of suffering where she bit her tongue so hard it had left a metallic taste in her mouth, forcing herself to stay quiet. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Her bruised, beaten body had been left alone after an amount of time that was lost on her. Hours turned torturous. Everytime that heavy metal door opened and Ilyin entered, her entire body would tense and she mentally braced herself, the muscles in her jaw tensing to the point she believed they would snap.

It became his mission to make her scream, delighting in hearing any sharp gasp or choked whimper that she attempted to keep contained. They wanted to see her in pain, and would do all they could to cause it.

Terrible, unspeakable things that left her clothes torn and tears in her stinging eyes and skin burning. Despite it all, she kept that cry bottled up at the base of her throat; she would choke on it sooner than give him the satisfaction. But it was difficult to say that she wasn't afraid because she was. She should have expected it, given his past, but the reality was something she was trying to ignore for the sake of staying calm.

After a particularly brutal encounter with some of Ilyin's men she was left a trembling wreck alone in the freezing, damp room. The second that door slammed shut, she let out a breathe she hadn't realised she had been holding, slumping forwards over her lap, her muscles releasing the tension out of pure exhaustion. Teardrops rolled tracks down her cheeks, under her jaw, down the torn neckline of her top that hung off of her bruised shoulders - the only warmth to caress her skin in so long, or the only warmth that wasn't rough hands that left it feeling scorched and raw. The lump in her throat was like a razor blade and her shoulders shook as she fought back the urge to scream and sob.

Sick, sick, sick, Tina felt sick. It was a miracle she hadn't thrown up what little was sitting in her stomach yet. The pain was beginning to make her head spin, and soon she didn't know how much of herself she could control; she didn't want to give Ilyin the satisfaction of hearing her scream but at what point did she lose her resolve?

Days. It must have been days.

Countless hours spent in the pitch black, unable to even see her own lap or her arms tied down. When she was left alone for extended periods of time, anxiety gnawed at her, wondering if she would be forgotten entirely and left to rot alone.

Her mind was playing tricks on her in the dark and the shivering was making her worn out muscles burn horrifically despite not actually warming her up.

The next time she was visited, her nose was left broken and the taste of metal stuck with her for hours on her tongue.

The second that door closed again, something inside of her had snapped. In a bleary feat of strength she didn't remember having, she had used the blood dripping from her broken nose to soften the sticky tac on the underside of the tape around one of her wrists. It stained her skin crimson and eventually she managed to get a wrist free, able to free the rest of her limbs.

But the second she was able to stand,  clutching her bruised ribs in pain, she spotted a little red light blinking in the corner above the only exit and realised her mistake.

It was tiny, barley noticable, and she began to wonder if it was another hallucination brought on by the dark. But the dread it brought her was very real.

She hadn't remembered it being there before. Had it always been there?

The blinking light on the side of the camera in the dark corner stared back at her as though mocking her. And seconds later, the door slammed open and she was quickly overpowered. They dragged the chair out of the room and she began to regret her measly attempt at escape.

As she tried to struggle, something sharp like wire wrapped around her neck from behind and she was dragged ruthlessly against a pole and dragged across the floor, her fingers grappling with the barbed wire around the delicate skin of her neck frantically. Her wrists soon followed and she was left sitting with her back to it, wrists secured behind the pole with layers of barbed wire that dug in at the slightest of movements; in her panic she had caused wounds to open, trickles of blood runing down her neck and warming her trembling hands.

Tina was left there for sixteen hours.

Simon 'Ghost' Riley - The Spiders WebWhere stories live. Discover now