Cause a Riot

Chapter 22

Cuzo awoke from unconsciousness that he didn't know he had fallen into. He remembered feeling intense pain in his body in the police car but he didn't remember fainting. He probably had, though, considering that he'd just awoken.

Cuzo blinked to adjust his focus, an oddly dull orange lighting filtering the room around him. The room itself looked old and made of rock. The corners were shrouded in shadow and there was a door at the end of the room. Cuzo's eyes widened when he saw a pair of shackles hanging on a wall across him, a body of a skeletal man hanging from it. His eyes whipped to the third wall, where skulls and bones littered the floor.

Where the hell is this place?

Cuzo frowned, now realizing he was in shackles himself. He was on his knees while his hands hung above him on both sides of his head. He didn't like the feeling of it. He breathed softly, feeling pain aching in his back and neck, where the old bullet had shot when he was taking out the Azmodai gang. He shook his hands to feel how loose the shackles were – not much. They weren't long either, which meant he would have to stay in the painful position with his hands above his head the whole time.

Not the typical cell, Cuzo thought. It doesn't look like the prison, but where else would shackles be?

Cuzo glared at the floor, a growing fear in his heart. Not only had he failed to find Ryan and gain any information on his father, he had gotten himself caught early. He hadn't said goodbye to Ersa and Malroy properly which he was intending to do when he planned to get caught.

Cuzo shook the shackles again. If he could somehow manage to get out, he could probably try again. He stopped when he heard the door in front of him opening. He sat, alert. He narrowed his eyes at the man who walked in. "Rustage?"

Chief Rustage walked in, the seven police officers from earlier walking in behind him. One of them closed the door behind them as Cuzo gritted his teeth. He felt like punching that idiot.

"You had a nice nap," the chief chuckled, walking over to Cuzo. He crouched in front of him. "Do you know where you are right now?"

"A prison cell," Cuzo said. "If you being here doesn't make it any more obvious."

The Chief smirked. "Yes, but it's more than a prison cell. It's a torture chamber." Cuzo's pupils shook. A what?! "An underground torture chamber from the 1800s built underneath the modern prison buildings. Personally, I think the methods they had for treating prisoners then were way better than now. Criminals don't fear the police enough nowadays." The chief observed Cuzo's expression, perhaps a little daunted that he gave a too-subtle reaction. "Not going to say anything?"

"Torturing criminals is illegal," Cuzo said. "Nice try but I'm not afraid."

"Oh, you should be." The chief chuckled. "Because I and the boys behind me don't care about what's illegal."

Cuzo frowned, the growing sense that something was wrong rising in his heart. "What do you mean?" he asked, maintaining a calm composure. "You're cops, are you not? You're the one maintaining law and order."

"I'm a cop, yes," the Chief replied. "But the boys behind me aren't."

What? Cuzo glanced over the Chief's shoulder as one of the "cops" took off his goggles and cap. He gave Cuzo a nasty smirk. Cuzo's eyes widened the slightest bit.

"Y-you're... I killed you!"

"So you thought," the man sneered. "Your biggest mistake was thinking you could take out my gang. A hundred men and women - did you really think you could take out all of us?"

Cuzo gritted his teeth, eyebrows furrowing. He wasn't liking where this was going. The other cops revealed their faces. A few were from the first man's gang. The rest were from other groups Cuzo had gone after. All survivors - Viel Hunter, Silvan Cross, Dominick Gregory. The others he didn't know their names personally. Cuzo was so sure he had shot all of them until they had stopped moving. Perhaps he did, but they hadn't died, just faked it so he could leave. What a ridiculous mistake. "So - So what are you doing with those murderers?" Cuzo asked, a little panicked. "Don't you know they've killed people? Why are they here and not in their own prisons?"