Every eleven minutes the sprayers kicked on. There would be a small hissing sound to alert Iggy it was coming, followed by the incessant icy mist sprayed over her body.
The last thing Iggy remembered with any certainty was Ling throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her from Gold’s office. The final image she held was the smug look of self-satisfaction on the old man’s face as Ling drove her head into the doorway, darkness settling in. When she awoke an unknown amount of time later, she found herself in her current position, completely drenched.
The room was tiny, measuring barely five feet square. Her arms were secured by chains extended from either side that ended in heavy shackles around her wrists. The walls and ceiling were lined with a labyrinth of irrigation pipes resembling something found in a greenhouse or the produce department of a supermarket.
Perfectly synchronized, every eleven minutes they unleashed a blast of water that soaked Iggy’s entire body. No matter where she stood or how she tried to cover herself, she could not hide from the frigid mist. Dressed only in the white bikini top and shorts she wore on the boat, goose bumps covered her exposed skin and her nipples stood hard beneath her top.
Between blasts, Iggy attempted push-ups or jumping jacks to warm her freezing body, but each time the pounding dizziness in her head minimized results. For long periods of time she would sit and clench various muscles, trying her best to keep blood flowing to her extremities.
When she no longer had the strength to do even that, she simply sat on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest and shivering violently. Though far beyond exhaustion, the quivering that wracked her entire body kept rest from occurring.
Almost catatonic and on the verge of passing out, the heavy sound of a lock turning rang out and jarred some flicker of consciousness into her. Making no attempt to rise, she shifted as much as her bindings would allow to face the man she knew would be there.
A flood of bright light swept into the room, silhouetting her visitor and his black fedora in the doorway.
“I trust you are enjoying your stay here with us,” Ling asked in a voice that oozed sarcasm.
Iggy did not try to hide the disgust on her face as she looked at him under heavy eyelids, her hair hanging wet and lank over her face, trembling but saying nothing.
“Mr. Gold and I have both told you, this can all be over. All you have to do is cooperate.”
“C-cooperate? That’s w-what you call it?” Iggy asked, her voice barely a rasp.
A thin smile grew across Ling’s face. “Yes, cooperate. That’s what I call it.” He took a few steps forward into the room and knelt down so he could look Iggy in the eye.
A second silhouette appeared behind him in the doorway, a shadow falling over the room, though Iggy never took her gaze from Ling.
“So, are you ready to cooperate?”
Again, Iggy said nothing, instead just glaring back at him.
“Who are you working with?”
Iggy exhaled a couple of times and said, “As I told your boss, I am here on vacation with my boyfriend.”
“This boyfriend of yours, would he be the Latino gentleman that looks an awful lot like you? Or maybe the large white guy I met on the dock the other night?”
“I don’t know any large white guy,” Iggy whispered. “My boyfriend is Cuban. You saw him. You tried to drown us for no reason.”
Ling sighed and extended his hand, using it to grasp hers. His grip felt warm compared to the cold water, the sensation seeming to burn her skin. “Are you aware of who I am?”
“I have no idea who you are or why you’re doing this to me,” Iggy whispered, her hair swinging as she shook her head.
“I am a man that does not like to be lied to, and I am a man that does things in a very particular way.”
“I’m not lying to you,” Iggy whispered, shoving the words out in one quick burst.
For a moment Ling simply stared at her, a look bordering on pity crossing his features. Just as fast he grabbed hold of her pinkie, snapping the first knuckle perpendicular to the rest of her hand.
The bone broke with the sound of a twig snapping, a pained wheeze escaping from Iggy as her entire body recoiled, twisting back as far as the chains would allow. Hot tears burned her eyes and snot ran from her nostrils as she tried to pull away, agony coursing through her.
“Stop lying to me and this will all be over,” Ling said, leaning over her, addressing her as if a schoolmaster speaking to a naughty child.
Iggy cradled her hand against her body, not daring to look down at her shattered digit. “Why? So you can kill me?”
Looking up, she saw a bit of a smile tug at the corner of Ling’s mouth. “I’m going to kill you regardless. The only question now is how much pain you endure before you get there.”
Glassy-eyed, Iggy looked at him, her top lip peeled up into a sneer, but no sounds escaped.
“Since you claim to have been out fishing yesterday,” Ling said, “I’ll put this in a way that you can understand. Right now you are bait, nothing more to me than bloody chum that I chop into little pieces and toss into the water.
“Once the fish I’m really after shows up, I can dump you overboard and go after him.”
Something in the description, in the words that were chosen, clicked in the back of Iggy’s mind. For the first time she allowed just a hint of defiance to show in her face, unable to hide behind a mask of subservience.
“Him?” Iggy asked, letting Ling know she had picked up on his gaffe.
Ling stared at her a moment before smirking and standing to his full height. He turned to the man in the doorway and said, “She’s not ready to talk yet. Let’s leave her down here for a while longer. Maybe a few more showers will help jog her memory.”
Ling looked down at Iggy again and walked from the chamber. “We’ll talk again soon.”
Iggy waited as his steps fell away, buffeted by the sound of the door closing. “You mentioned something about a large white guy, right?”
She could hear the door stop moving at the sound of the inquiry, the footsteps falling silent.
“Yes?” Ling asked, not bothering to walk back into the room.
“Are you talking about the same one that kicked your ass two days ago?”
There was no forewarning, no sign that the blow was coming. One moment she was staring at the opposite wall, nothing but wet concrete block, a look of triumph on her face. The next she felt the heel of Ling’s shoe connect with the base of her skull, the lights blacking out, her chin rolling forward to rest on her chest.
Inch by inch her unconscious body melted to the side, the chains rattling against the floor as she fell into a twisted heap and lay motionless.
“Jesus,” the associate whispered. “Should we just leave her like that?”
Without looking back, Ling walked away, wet footprints in his wake. “Don’t worry, the water will be back in a few minutes to clean her up.”
Chapter Forty-Three