13 – The Devil’s Den

Anxiously Billy waits after the scraping sounds stopped. It is awfully quiet. His heart is racing and he is giddy from fear. What now? He comforts himself that the book must be so important that they will have to keep him alive. They cannot torture him until he gets in such a state that he can’t return it. They don’t know where it is. Something yowls through the air and connects with his back and Billy’s yelling reverberates through the empty warehouse as the shock and intense pain overwhelm him. A terrible burning pain bites into his back and his muscles contract involuntarily and painfully. The ropes cut into his wrists and he realizes that his calves aren’t supporting him anymore and that he hangs on the rope. He tries again to balance himself on the front cushions of his feet while he gasps for air and he feels his shoulder muscles and those around his ribs are stretched to their limit. It’s like a cat o' nine tails, a multi-tailed whip, with hard knobs that tortured him all over