"Pete! Get up!" yelled Pete's aunt from downstairs, the smell of fresh bacon floating up the stairs alongside her voice.

Sunlight seeped in through the half-open curtains, sending rays of white onto the bed frame that spilled onto the tousled blanket laying in a bundle at the foot of the bed. It was a small bed; a twin, big enough for Pete, but shrinking more and more as he grew. As a college student, his feet hung off the end.

And it was empty.

Across town, where the sun was just starting to meet the horizon, Pete had a pen between his fingers. He had no knowledge of where the sun was or of his aunt's unheard calls.

Footsteps woke him. He pried open his eyes to see the screen of the computer in front of him, and gasped at the sight of the face staring back at him. Even in monochrome, his face looked pale, save for the dark circles claiming his under eyes. His cropped hair was sticking up and spiking out in all directions one one side, and a large bruise proved to be the cause of the pain originating from his cheek.

The library smelled of liquor and sweat, but a quick look around didn't reveal the culprit. He was the only person there. Cringing at the smell, he twisted his neck and smelled himself, gagging at the scent that he was met with.

"Are you wondering what happened last night?" Leaning against a wall and staring at Pete, Sophie was stuffing her wallet into her back pocket. She held two cans in her other hand. "It was amazing, just so you know."

"Wha-what?" Pete stuttered out, his brain still fuzzy. Sophie started to walk over to him.

"It'll come back to you soon. But, um, you should know... you were great." She winked. "We all thought so." She set one of the cans down in front of Pete and snapped open the second. She took a swing and hummed in delight.

"All?"

Confusion overtook him until the memories of the night before started to flood back to the front of his mind.

Drinking and drugs and bodies and—

"Oh my god." Pete shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I- I've never... what?"

Sophie started to leave then, dropping a slip of paper with a number scribbled on in smudged ink atop the keyboard. "He especially liked you."

And then she was off, and Pete was alone in the empty library with his thoughts.

~~~

The water was freezing when it slapped Pete's face with such ferocity that he swore it could have left a mark. He shook his head, sending droplets of icy water off his hair and onto a Drac's already soaked shirt. Once he could open his eyes without the sting of chlorine invading his eyes, he smirked at the sight of the drenched shirt. When they had waterboarded him, he filled his mouth with water and spit it back out onto them. A small victory, but a victory all the same.

Well, at least it seemed a victory — until a fist met his face and something cracked.

He only hoped that Kobra was okay. That was the only thing keeping him going by that point.

He was tired. Finally, after what felt like hours of pushing through the torture with his chin held high, he relented; he let his chin fall.

He was on the floor, his head aching where it had hit the hard tile. The lights from the roof stung his eyes and all he could hear was a sharp ringing.

He rocked on his back, trying to ease the pain radiating through his entire body, but to no avail. Eventually, once the ringing began to fade, the sounds of yelling and fighting replaced it.

It was someone calling his name that woke him completely. He tipped his head back with much effort to see an upside down Kobra getting his gun knocked out of his hand. His face was red and purple and scared. Then Dracs surrounded him and he let out one last strangled scream that was cut off midway, and Pete closed his eyes.

Pete jerked back to consciousness, forcing his tired eyes open. Breathing hard, he tried to shake away the memory. A drop of water slid down his forehead and past his eye, sending a shiver down his spine.

That was when he realized that he was upright. The chair he was strapped to before was pushed away to a corner, with a puddle of bloodied water pooled on the seat. His current situation wasn't much better than before, though he was thankful the cramp in his thigh had gone away. His hands were once again bound; only now they were above his head, rather than tied behind his back, and his wrists hurt more now that they were holding up his entire body weight. The tips of his toes barely scraped the ground.

"Nightmare?"

Pete jumped at the voice. Chains rattled above him as he tried to turn around.

"You don't have a chip or a profile. Not a single mention of your existence anywhere in this world."

Suddenly, Pete was yanked around to face a frazzled Korse staring him down.

"Did it work?" he asked with wide eyes, searching Pete's confused ones for an answer. "Did it work?"

When Pete provided no answer, Korse pushed him away and began to pace in front of him.

"There's no record of you existing here. It must have worked, right?" Korse froze and glanced sideward at Pete, before grabbing the chair and pushing it across the room. It stopped in front of Pete, and Korse dropped onto it. "How long have you been with them? Those Killjoys. Almost two months, right?" As he had been doing the whole time, Pete said nothing. Korse nodded slowly, a smirk growing on his face.

He stood. He slapped Pete across the face, though the sting barely registered in comparison to all the pain he'd felt that day already. He asked again: "two months, right?" Something in his face must have given Korse the answer he wanted, and Pete diverted all his energy into steeling his face again.

"Look. We live in an age where sex and whores are gods, kid. You can't fight it. You can't fight us." He had a terrifying spark in his eye. "Join us. They don't care about you. You're not one of them, and you never will be. But here, in Battery City, you can have anything you want. We'll help you." When Pete gave no response, Korse continued. "If you help us. Nothing big, just a little information. Give us what we need on those filthy miscreants, and we can defeat them. You'll be famous!"

Pete closed his eyes.

He imagined the room to he dark and dirty, like an underground cellar the mafia would use to torture people (then he wondered if there was a mafia in this world). The pristine white walls, though speckled with blood and water, mocked him, feeding him the lie that all was okay. The bright lights hurt his eyes and gave him a headache. For a moment, he wondered if all of it was done on purpose. Maybe the paint was laced with poisonous fumes to make him doozy and weak. Well, it was definitely working.

He imagined a room just like this one. Maybe it was right next to his. He imagined Kobra strung up or strapped down, with Dracs cutting into him and hitting him and hurting him. He imagined a morgue, Kobra body lying lifeless on a slab of metal. Kobra dead. Dead dead dead—

"No."

"What?"

Pete opened his eyes, seeing a fuming Korse staring him dead in the eye. "No. Get someone else to do your dirty work."

There was a moment of confusion and surprise in his eyes, but it quickly turned to something like anger. "I'll kill you."

"I'd rather die and betray you, than live and betray them."

Now it was Korse who had no answer.

Pete couldn't suppress the sigh of relief when Korse turned and made his way to the door; but his comfort didn't last.

Korse spoke. And for the first time, Pete cared.

"I can take you back."

~~~

The sewers smelled like dead rats.

That was all Kobra remembered of his escape. They had taken him. They handcuffed him. They threatened Pete, and he killed them all.

The diner was colder than he remembered, but he didn't ask for a blanket or jacket. Interrupting Jet was dangerous on a normal day, let alone when he was angry. Why was he angry? Oh right, Kobra left. Dangerous, bla bla bla, stupid, bla bla bla, consequences, bla bla bla...

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're alive, but what about everyone else?! You—"

Kobra didn't blink. He'd lost track of how long this had been going on, and he had long ago stopped focusing on Jet's never-ending yells, but when he tried to close his eyes, all he saw was images of Pete. Pete getting tortured, Pete screaming, Pete bleeding, Pete dead. Dead dead dead—

"You were the one who insisted on keeping him here! And then you go and do this?! 'Protect him, help him, kill him'. Good job, Mikey! I sure hope you're proud of yourself! Oh, and you really avenged him, didn't you? I'm sure he'd be so proud, if only he could be here! Your brother was dying, Mikey! How could you leave?! We can't do this ourselves! Do you have a death wish for everyone around you? Some kind of obsession with losing people to them? It's a little excessive, Mikey, it really is—"

"I know."

Jet froze, mid arm-flourish. Ghoul stopped shaking his leg.

Kobra looked around at them gaping back at him and sucked in a breath of cold air through his front teeth. "I know it's my fault. Gee's dying, Pete's probably dead by now, your little girl... I know."

Quieter now, Jet said, "that's not what I—"

"Yes it is."

There was a moment of silence before Ghoul decided to speak up.  "Let's go get you cleaned up, Kobra," he said, hopping off the counter. He led Kobra to the showers and left him to take care of himself. A few hours later, Ghoul brought him a plate of diner, but he left it by the door completely untouched.

He didn't see anyone else for the rest of the day.

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1,760 words
February 14, 2020
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I'm sorry lmao
It's been a long while oops
Hope you enjoyed hehe