Reviving Izabel

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Sarai

I slowly stir awake to the sound of something humming low and deep, high above me, accompanied by a fast and constant whooshing sound. My vision is blurred, allowing in only a limited amount of dull gray light which at first bends and distorts as it hits my eyes. The air feels incredibly humid, the back of my shirt and the area between my breasts and underneath my armpits, soaked to the point that when the strange breeze hits me, it chills me to the bone. My hands are tied behind my back, just like I tied Izel’s hands behind hers when she came for me after I’d escaped in Victor’s car. I think of her briefly, the way she looked at me that day, how her sweaty dark hair was streaked across her face. I imagine I must look like her now, except that my hair is still pulled into a ponytail.

My ankles, I realize quickly, are also bound.

I force my eyes open the rest of the way and try hard to focus my vision. I’m sitting in a chair in the center of an enormous dark and dusty room of what appears to be an old warehouse.

I laugh inwardly at myself as I now see Andre Costa’s face in my mind, as it was inside that warehouse back in New Orleans.

What comes around goes around, I suppose. Retribution for every death I caused or have been a part of is coming sooner than I had hoped.

The strange air and the whooshing sound above me I see is coming from a large industrial fan jutting out from the wall near the high ceiling. The walls are made of concrete, the ceiling of metal beams that stretch from one end to the other, held up by tall concrete pillars. The place smells intensely of paint thinner and glue and other lung-damaging chemicals.

My throat is painfully dry. My first instinct is to ask for water, but just like with removing the rope around my wrists and ankles, I know that nothing I ask for will be given to me.

I look down when I feel the tops of my feet burning and I see the skin on my toes has broken, indicating that at some point I must’ve been dragged.

Loud footsteps, like hard, flat soles, echo through the enormous space as Stephens makes his way toward me.

I laugh under my breath at the ridiculousness of the situation.

“What, might I ask, is so funny?” Stephens says in his deep voice, tinged with amusement of his own.

I smile brazenly up at him as he stands over me with his hands folded behind his back.

“I thought you and that sick fuck you work for wanted me dead?” I laugh. “This is a little overkill, don’t you think?” I smirk up at him.

Stephens smiles chillingly and I immediately compare it to the look I saw on Fredrik’s face after he strapped Andre Costa to that dentist chair. Instead of answering, he looks to his right as another man walks over with a chair. The legs hitting the concrete briefly as the chair is placed on the floor echoes through the small space separating us. Stephens sits down, casually straightening his fine black suit, tugging gently at the lapel and then brushing away invisible dust from his leg.

“Seriously?” I say, shaking my head. “Let me guess, Hamburg still wants to get his peep-show. Didn’t get it with me and Victor in his room at the mansion. Didn’t get it with his guard in his office at the restaurant—I’m glad that piece of shit is dead by the way. Was he a friend of yours?” I smirk more evidently.

Stephens’ eyes smile. He crosses one leg over the other and places his hands gently on his lap. It’s incredibly unnerving at how relaxed and unaffected by my words he appears. But I don’t let him know that it bothers me in any case.

“Trust me, Izabel, Sarai, whatever you’re called, if it were up to me, I’d have killed you in that house instead of bringing you here.”

“Of course,” I taunt, “you’re just the lackey, sitting at Hamburg’s feet waiting for his next blowjob.”

The ceiling appears in my vision in an instant as my hair is pulled from behind, my neck forced back so far it cuts off my airflow. Another man is standing behind me, looking down into my widened eyes. I try to swallow, but I can’t. I start to choke and gasp instead.

“Release her,” I hear Stephens say.

My head is forced forward as the man lets go; the weight of my body causes the chair to shake and wobble briefly and then it steadies itself. I’m relieved I can breathe again. I raise my head and glare at Stephens sitting just two feet in front of me. I begin to gaze about the room, looking for a way out, searching for a plan that I know will likely never materialize. Even if I could get out of this room, I don’t know how I’d pull off getting myself out of these bonds. The one around my wrists is so tight that it feels like the blood circulation is being cut from my hands. The ones around my ankles are almost as tight, but I feel like I can move them just a little more, my ankles grinding against the wood of the chair legs. But I’m not going anywhere. Except maybe to Hell very soon.

I’m not afraid of Stephens. I’m not afraid of what he’ll do to me. I’m not afraid of being tortured. I’m just afraid of how long it will last.

“Why don’t you just get this over with?” I lash out at him, hatred and vengeance evident in my voice. “I don’t care what you do to me, or what Hamburg does to me, so just do it.”

“Oh, but you’re not here because of Hamburg.” Stephens flashes a chilling smile. “And no, I don’t want to get it over with.” He leans forward in the chair, pushing his square-shaped jaw farther into my view. I can smell his aftershave. “I hope that you don’t talk for at least a few days because I very much look forward to spending this time with you.”

I swallow down my fear of knowing what his words mean, that he’s going to torture me and for a very long time. I try to play it off, hoping he doesn’t detect the slightest bit of worry in my face.

“What could I possibly know that you’d need to get me to talk at all?” I laugh smugly. “And what kind of aftershave is that? It smells like you’ve been dumpster diving between a crack-head’s thighs.”

Stephens’ eyes dart behind me, narrowing thinly in a way that tells me he just stopped the man from pulling my neck back again, or maybe from hitting me across the face. He ignores my insult.

Stephens pulls away and rests his back against the chair again. And he says nothing. I hate that. I’d rather him talk a cheesy monologue of circles around me than to say nothing at all. And I think he knows how much it bothers me. That smug expression in his eyes tells me so.

“OK, so then if I’m not here because of Hamburg, then why am I here?”

Another pair of footsteps moves through the room behind me. I try to look back, but can only stretch my neck around so far.

Finally, the figure steps around and into my view.

“You’re here because of me,” Niklas says, dropping a cigarette butt onto the floor and snuffing it out with his black leather boot.

I gasp quietly. My entire body freezes solidly against the chair. I hear my mind searching for my breath, desperately trying to regain its control over my body again, but for the longest moment I’m nothing but an unmoving shell.

“Niklas…,” I finally say, but it’s all that I can get out.

Rage churns inside of me, my need to kill Stephens suddenly overshadowed by my need to tell Niklas everything I’ve been wanting to say to him.

Unlike Stephens, Niklas doesn’t smile or grin or feel the need to taunt me with threats. I sense something else within him, something much darker than Stephens, something more threatening than words could convey. Looking up at his tall height and tousled light brown hair, his fierce blue eyes framed by a perfectly round, yet sculpted face, I see someone more attuned to vengeance than I could ever be.

And finally, I’m terrified.

Niklas steps forward to stand directly in front of me, completely undaunted by the short distance. Stephens had kept away from me a couple feet at least, as if worried I might manage to spit on him, or break free and grab him. But not Niklas. I feel like he’s daring me to move. He wants me to make a move.

I swallow hard and raise my chin arrogantly at him and try to remain strong in the face of my fate.

“You know what I want,” Niklas says evenly, the German accent just as I remember it, still evident in his voice. “Or, do we need to discuss it in detail?” He cocks his head to one side.

He looks so much like Victor. I wonder how on the inside he can be so very different.

“You’re gonna have to explain it,” I say. “Is it Victor?” I glance briefly at Stephens. “This piece of shit was just at his house. You already know where to find Victor. And not that it surprises me much, but what are you doing with them?”

I catch Stephens look over at Niklas, but Niklas doesn’t take his eyes off me. He crouches down in front of me, between my opened legs, and looks upon me with a face so calm and dark that it sends a shiver up the back of my neck. I can smell the leather from his slim black jacket and a faint layer of cigarette smoke lingering on his dark gray shirt underneath.

“I’ve been looking for Victor for months,” Niklas begins and I listen closely, keeping my eyes trained on his. “I’m sure he’s told you that he left Order, betrayed Vonnegut and betrayed me—”

My eyes grow wider and my mouth falls open with a quick breath. “Betrayed you?” I cut in with disbelief. “You can’t be serious. You betrayed Victor! You were the one—”

I choke and gasp as his strong hand shoots out and fastens firmly around my throat. I thrash about within the chair, unable to bring my hands up and try to pry his away. My eyes roll into the back of my head as his grip tightens.

He releases me.

I wheeze and pant trying to catch my breath, the corners of my eyes wet with tears of exhaustion and pain. I’m terrified of him, but not enough to cry or beg for my life. I’ll die before I beg for anything.

“My brother betrayed me long before he left the Order,” he says with a little more emotion in his voice than before—resentment. “He betrayed me when he went against everything we stood for to help you. He betrayed me when he lied to me about helping you. He lied, Sarai, because he knew it was wrong.” He pushes up on his toes and is mere inches from my face. “He almost killed me because of you. And he would have if you hadn’t have stopped him. He betrayed me!”

My hands begin to tremble against the arms of the chair. My heart is in my stomach, swirling around inside, lost and frightened. I can’t deny that what Niklas said is the truth.

I can’t deny it…

He pulls away a few inches to where I can no longer smell his toothpaste, but he’s still too close. A mile would be too close.

“Niklas,” I say in a slightly desperate voice, just enough to try to make him listen to me. “Victor was going to kill you only because it was wrong to kill me. Don’t you understand, he would’ve done that for anyone. Not just me.”

A small grin appears on one corner of his mouth and I’m both intrigued and worried by it. He rises to his feet and turns his back to me as he approaches Stephens. And then he turns around again.

“You don’t know my brother as well as you think,” he says. “No, he would not have done that for anyone else. Seems my brother is human after all, with all the falling for you and whatnot.”

I shake my head and my gaze strays from his.

“Why am I here, Niklas? Just get to the reason you brought me here. I’m not going to grace you with my conversation.”

Stephens stands up from his chair, looking like a giant next to Niklas. He is a very tall man, with broad shoulders and a large square-shaped head. “I hate to say it,” he says, “but I agree with the bitch. Let’s get on with this.” He looks down at me coldly. “You’re alive because he needs you first, but when he’s done with you I’ll be putting a bullet in that pretty little head of yours, per my contract with Arthur Hamburg.”

I look to Niklas. “You need me for what?” There is poison in my voice.

“You’re going to tell me everything you know about my brother and his new…organization. I want to know the names of his associates, where any of his safe-houses are located and who runs them.” I notice his jaw grind behind his cheeks. “And I want to know how deeply Fredrik Gustavsson is involved in Victor’s affairs.”

I shake my head. “Well, first of all, who the hell is Fredrik Gustavsson? Secondly, I don’t know anything about Victor’s organization, whatever that’s supposed to mean. He told me he left the Order, yes. And he told me that you betrayed him by staying in the Order and taking the assignment from Vonnegut to kill him. But he hasn’t told me anything else. He said it’s better that I don’t know.”

Niklas’ eyes warm with a faint smile. Without moving his head, he glances at the man behind me and suddenly I feel like I’m falling as the chair is pulled backward, the front legs rising off the floor. Instinctively, I heave my body forward as far as I can to keep my head from hitting the concrete behind me. I’m dragged across the room in the chair, to where, I don’t think I want to know.

Everything stops. The front legs of the chair come back down hard against the floor and then three more men, in addition to the one who dragged me, are holding my arms and legs. They begin to untie me, but just as quickly as the ropes come undone, I’m in their firm grasps, both hands and both legs, and no matter how hard I struggle to get away, I can’t move. “LET GO OF ME!” I thrash and twist my body, trying to kick my legs out at them, to pull my arms from their hands. “NIKLAS! LET ME GO!”

He doesn’t respond. He stands there in the grayish-blue hue of the dusty building next to Stephens, as my arms are forced above my head and bound again at the wrists by leather straps hanging from a lower ceiling. The same is done to my ankles. I hear a squealing noise and the sound of the contraption binding me, popping into place before my hands are stretched higher above me and my bare feet are lifted from the floor.

“GODDAMMIT! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU! LET ME GO!” I grind my teeth together so harshly that a shot of pain sears through my lower-jaw.

Niklas is standing in front of me again. I never even saw him move, I was too busy trying to get at the man closest to my left.

“Why are you working with them?” I shout into his face. “Make me understand that! I thought you were working for Vonnegut!”

Niklas folds his hands together on his backside.

“If you really want to know,” he says, “Sure. I’ll tell you.”

He paces back and forth in front of me once before stopping in the same spot. But I can’t help but notice Stephens standing in the background, the glint of a silver blade flashes within his hand. He remains in position, gripping a knife down near his pelvic bone, a look in his face that is eager to get at me.

“When I found out about what you did in Los Angeles,” Niklas says, “I knew that if you were still alive, Hamburg would want to make sure that it wouldn’t be for long. You had gotten away. There was no sign of you at the restaurant, or among the bodies that were found at the hotel.” A flash of Eric and Dahlia’s faces moves painfully through my mind “You had gotten away and I knew it had to be because Victor helped you. Suddenly, Hamburg and Stephens and myself had something in common. I wanted to find my brother. They wanted to find you. I knew you would be together, so therein lies the common ground.”

My wrists are already hurting being held up by the straps, the weight of my body putting so much pressure on them. I feel my face straining as he talks.

“Why couldn’t you find Victor yourself?” I lash out, trying to hide my discomfort. “Or why couldn’t they find me themselves?”

“They had information on you that I did not have,” Niklas says. “They had been keeping tabs on you for months, since the night you and Victor left the mansion.”

I laugh out loud, throwing my head back. “Bullshit. If that was true why didn’t they just kill me a long time ago?”

Stephens steps up closer from behind Niklas.

“Because Victor Faust threatened Arthur Hamburg that night,” Stephens says. “He wasn’t going to do anything to bring Victor Faust down on him again. I kept tabs on you just in case. I knew where you lived—easy to find and follow one leaving a Los Angeles hospital after being shot—I knew where you worked. Who you associated with. The places you frequented. I checked into Dina Gregory’s background and learned everything there was to know about her family. She wasn’t hard to track down later, either.”

The corner of my nose and mouth harden into a snarl.

“That still doesn’t explain why you teamed up to find us,” I say icily, thinking more about what he was saying regarding Dina. And the truth is that I don’t care much about why they are working together. I’m just trying to buy myself some time by keeping any conversation going for as long as I can.

Stephens and Niklas trade places and now Stephens is the one looming closely near me. He slides the blade between his fingers into my view, making certain that I see it and am intimidated by it.

He looks at me in a narrow, sidelong glance. “Surely you remember what Victor Faust did to Arthur Hamburg’s wife. Surely you didn’t think that he was going to just forget about it.” He leans in close to my face, the smell of his breath, like old cheap wine and cigars, makes me lightheaded with disgust. “My employer has wanted Faust dead since the night he killed his wife. We knew where you were at all times, but we had no idea where Faust was and had no reason to believe that you did, either. And we certainly didn’t know that he gave a shit about you. I suppose he didn’t really, or he would never have left you alone like that.” A taunting grin sneaks up on his face.

Just as he starts to pull away, I throw my head forward at him, hoping to get at him with my teeth, but he’s out of reach too soon. I coil my fingers around the leather straps above me and lift my body up for a moment to relieve some of the pressure on my wrists. I fall back down harshly, shaking the contraption.

Niklas smiles.

I spit at him, but it doesn’t come close to hitting him.

“They can’t find Victor without me,” Niklas says. “And I can’t find him without you.” He gets in my face again and though I know I could spit on him this time and not miss, I don’t. That look in his dark blue eyes scares me into submission. “So we made an arrangement. They help me find you and I kill my brother for them.”

“FUCK YOU!” I rear my head back and butt him in the forehead with mine. Pain shoots through my temples and down into my jaw and my vision blurs for a moment.

Niklas steps away from me, clearly stunned by the contact, but he doesn’t retaliate. He turns to Stephens and Stephens does the honors. I start thrashing again as he comes at me with the knife.

“Willem,” Niklas calls out in a strangely casual tone from behind.

Stephens doesn’t turn around to look at him, but he stops.

“I need her alive,” Niklas says. “Remember that. Remember our agreement. I find out what I need to know and then you can do whatever you want with her.”

I shake my head and laugh low under my breath at them both.

“I’m not telling you anything,” I snap. “You can’t fucking break me. You think you can. But you are so wrong. You have no idea.” My voice is surprisingly calm.

“Well, we’ll have to see about that,” Niklas says.

He turns on his heels and walks away, the sound of his shoes tapping against the concrete echoes throughout the warehouse until it fades as he disappears on the other side of a metal door.

Stephens’ smile has gotten bigger now that Niklas is gone.

And I just became more afraid of him.