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Disclaimer: See chapter 1 -( 8/31/03 )
Stumbling Toward Nirvana
By Phenyx Chapter 2
-
Miss Parker flinched as pain pressed against her forehead. Consciousness wafted just outside her reach. She was aware of the repeated stinging against her brow and a thudding agony pounding at her temples. She moaned at the stiffness in her joints and tried to move.
"Be still, Parker," a low soft voice whispered. "Allow me to clean this cut."
The voice was familiar, smooth and nearly musical in timber. As Parker blinked into wakefulness, she realized that the language being spoken to her was not English.
"Ouch," Parker groaned. "Stop it."
"There is blood on your face, Parker," the voice purred in Japanese. "It is rather unbecoming. Now be still."
"Tommy?" Parker gasped as she looked up at her old friend and ex-lover. "What happened?" she asked in his native tongue.
"You struck your head during the struggle," his eyes danced with amusement. "But I understand that you gave as good as you got."
Tommy Tanaka was crouched on the floor in front of Miss Parker. He held a damp handkerchief in one hand. The reddish brown tinges visible on the cloth attested to the truth of Tommy's statements.
Parker tried to move, to reach up and inspect the damage caused by her wound, but she discovered that she was tied, securely fastened to a wooden chair with several lengths of rope.
"Tommy?" Parker asked warily. ""What is this all about?"
Tanaka stood, straightening regally before her. He gestured over her shoulder and Parker was forced to crane her neck to see. Her chair was back to back with another and both were lashed together. Situated in the other chair, unconscious and bound, was Lyle. His head was slumped awkwardly to one side though he was beginning to stir.
Parker glanced back at Tommy with a questioning look in her eyes.
"Your brother is a reckless fool," Tanaka said as though that alone would answer her queries.
Parker snorted, then winced at the pain it caused. "Not exactly a newsflash, my friend." Parker looked up at the handsome dark-haired man with as much longing as she could muster. "Untie me, Tommy. This position is highly uncomfortable."
Bowing slightly in the old custom, Tommy said, "I regret that I can not. I have no say in this matter. I will not be able to help you, Parker." He paused. "I am sorry."
"You can do anything you wish," Parker replied in clipped Japanese. "You are Tomeshki Tanaka, son of Samishu Tanaka, and heir to a powerful Yakuza family. There is nothing in this world beyond your capabilities."
Tommy smiled sadly. "I am afraid that the world has changed since last we met, Parker," he said.
Parker frowned in disapproval. "You once told me that you feared nothing."
"I have lost face with my family," Tommy explained softly. "In failing to free my father, I have failed in my first and greatest test of leadership. As a result, I do not rule in my father's place. Instead it is my uncle who now controls your fate, my lovely one."
"You must at least tell me what I have done to incur your uncle's wrath," Parker said fearlessly.
Tommy caressed Parker's cheek with the fingertips of one hand. "Nothing, Parker. You have done nothing but be beautiful and intelligent." Leaning toward her slowly, Tommy kissed Parker gently on the lips. Gazing into her eyes he sighed heavily. "Such a waste," he whispered.
Straightening quickly, Tommy turned on his heel and strode across the room toward a steel door.
"Tommy," Parker called. "Don't leave me here!" But it was too late, the door clanged shut with finality as Tanaka left.
Parker sighed with frustration, looking around the room for the first time. They were in a large warehouse-like building. Huge glass tanks were placed in rows throughout the open area. Each tank was roughly twelve feet deep and twenty feet long. Peering into one of these containers, Parker could see dark liquid masses writhing within. Upon closer inspection Parker could see hundreds of pairs of blank black eyes mingled in the dark liquid.
A moment more, and Parker realized they were fish. Thousands of small fish about the size of her hand swam around in the large tanks. They were in a fish hatchery. The climate was controlled, set slightly warmer than was comfortable, for the benefit of these creatures. High windows circling the room were misted with humidity but Parker could see the light of a new dawn filtering through them.
Behind her, Parker could feel Lyle moving about. He moaned groggily.
"Lyle!" Parker hissed. "Wake up!"
"What?" he groaned. "What is going on?"
"You tell me," Parker snarled.
Lyle shook his head to clear it and struggled for a moment against his bonds.
"What have you done to piss off the Yakuza this time?" Parker snapped.
"What do you mean?" Lyle asked craning his neck to try and see her.
Parker prodded her brother hard in the ribs with her elbow. "Tommy Tanaka was just in here being cryptically unrevealing about our situation," she explained. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," Lyle protested. "Trust me, Parker. Once you lose an appendage to these people, you tend to stay out of their way whenever possible."
Twisting at the ropes with her wrists, Parker frowned in thought. She quickly remembered the phone call from Jarod just before she and Lyle had been grabbed. Parker felt the color drain from her face as a horrible thought occurred to her.
"Oh shit," she hissed.
"What?" Lyle asked. "What?!"
Turning her head to the side so that Lyle could still hear her, Parker asked in a low, wary voice, "Who was she Lyle?"
Lyle swallowed and tried hard to remain passive. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Cut the crap you psycho," she snapped. Parker purposely allowed anger to bubble within her. Seething fury worked well to squelch the fear that niggled at the edges of her mind. "Your rejuvenating little romp in the woods. I suppose it's too much to hope she may still be alive?"
Lyle grinned evilly and Parker could hear the smile in his voice. "I never leave loose ends, Parker. You know that." He paused. "You know everything about me, don't you?" He added with a distinct tone of admiration.
Parker could not suppress the shudder of revulsion that raced through her at the sensuous timber of her brother's voice.
Lyle laughed. "How exhilarating! Such a turn on."
Cringing, Parker mentally searched for that pocket of hatred in her gut once more. She was frightened. Very frightened. She wasn't quite sure what scared her most, the wrath of the Yakuza or the sexual attentions of the thing she was now tied to. Her instincts for self-preservation kicked into high gear.
"Put it back in your pants, baby brother," Parker snarled viciously. "If I am not mistaken, your most recent extra curricular activity had some kind of connection to the most powerful crime syndicate in Tokyo. You idiot!"
"Oops," Lyle replied with a shrug.
Parker hissed in frustration. "If we get out of here, Lyle, I swear to God I'm going to wring your neck."
"It will be fun to see you try," Lyle purred.
At that moment, the steel door opened with a bang and half a dozen Japanese men in suits entered. Tommy was among them, walking at the side of an older man. This man had slightly graying hair and an impeccable suit. His dark almond shaped eyes were cold and hard.
The man stopped in front of Lyle, his accompanying thugs taking positions nearby. The man held a photograph in front of Lyle's face, a photograph of a beautiful young girl in a slim blue Japanese style dress.
"Where is she?" the man demanded in highly accented English.
Lyle blinked innocently. "Pretty girl," he said. "But I've never seen her before."
In a lightning fast motion, the man punched Lyle hard in the stomach. Parker felt the impact through her own body.
Lyle was gasping for air as the man screamed in his face, "WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?"
"I don't," Lyle panted. "Know what, you mean."
"Do not insult my intelligence, Mr. Lyle," the man said. Turning to his men, he barked at them in Japanese, "Prepare the woman."
Parker shot a worried glance at Tommy who sorrowfully bowed his head to stare at the floor. Two of the other men quickly removed Miss Parker from the chair and dragged her to the center of the room. Roughly tearing her suit jacket from her shoulders, Parker's wrists were bound tightly in front of her with more rope. A long length of hemp was attached to her wrists and tossed over some pipes running high above them.
The older man, obviously Tommy's uncle and leader of the clan, spoke to Lyle in English in a voice that shook with fury. "She is my only child. I will not dishonor her by begging."
As the man spoke, one of the thugs pulled hard on the length of rope, yanking Parker's arms over her head until her feet just barely left the floor. Dangling helplessly, Parker struggled and twisted against the ropes, succeeding only in cutting the flesh on her wrists.
"I know your work, Mr. Lyle." The man went on coldly. "I know my child is dead. You will tell me where she is. You will tell me how she suffered."
Lyle looked up at him blandly.
"Until you do," Tommy's uncle continued. "You will watch helplessly as your own blood suffers. Your twin, your flesh, shall agonize in torment until you reveal what I wish to know. Only then, will you and she be permitted to die."
Parker swallowed. How could these criminals possibly understand the hopelessness of what they proposed to do? The Yakuza were dangerous men, yes. But they were still human. They assumed that Lyle could be swayed by an emotional connection to his twin sister. They did not know that this monster would enjoy her pain as much as, or more than, he had enjoyed that of his last victim.
Glancing across the space that separated them, Parker and Lyle locked gazes. She could see the smirk in his eyes. Yes, he would enjoy this immensely. Wrapping one hand around the rope that held her in the air, Parker set her jaw firmly. She vowed that she would not cry out, no matter what they did to her. She would not give Lyle the satisfaction.
Out of the corner of her eye, Parker saw movement as one of the Yakuza thugs approached her. As she twisted to face him, Parker gasped as a bucket full of icy cold water was tossed at her. Sputtering, she tried to shake the wet tendrils of hair from her eyes. She blinked in wonder at the two fish that were now twitching on the floor, unfortunate victims of Parker's dousing.
Another shadow moved and Parker heard a crackling of sound. Twisting again, she saw what these men intended to do to her.
"Damn," she hissed between clenched teeth. "What is it with you lunatics and your jumper cables?" She growled arrogantly.
Parker glanced quickly toward Tommy and saw pride flash across his face. In his eyes, she was facing her end with courage and dignity. Tommy's admiration for her didn't mean much, but Parker felt an insane kind of gratitude towards him all the same.
The thug with the jumper cables moved closer and Parker steeled herself for the contact. She bit down on her lip to prevent her cries. She began thinking over and over to herself, "I will not scream. I will not scream. I will not scream."
Parker had thought herself prepared for what was to come. But the fire that suddenly raced through her upon contact was more intense than she expected. Blinding white-hot pain flashed again and again. Her body swayed in the air, snapping and jumping like the dying fish on the floor below her.
Each crackle and zap of electricity seemed to last forever as Parker was hit over and over again with the metal clips. Some detached part of her mind whispered to her, "Jarod has done this. Jarod survived. You can too."
The cables struck again, the pain flashed again. Parker felt blood on her chin where she had bitten through her lip. "I'm sorry, Jarod." She whimpered incoherently.
Time lost all meaning. There was nothing but the pain and the murmur of voices in her mind that went on and on. "I will not scream. I will not scream. Jarod screamed. Jarod survived, I will survive. I will not scream. Jarod survived. Jarod survived, Jarod - "
Parker finally passed out with a whimper.
But she did not scream.
-
Stumbling Toward Nirvana
By Phenyx Chapter 2
-
Miss Parker flinched as pain pressed against her forehead. Consciousness wafted just outside her reach. She was aware of the repeated stinging against her brow and a thudding agony pounding at her temples. She moaned at the stiffness in her joints and tried to move.
"Be still, Parker," a low soft voice whispered. "Allow me to clean this cut."
The voice was familiar, smooth and nearly musical in timber. As Parker blinked into wakefulness, she realized that the language being spoken to her was not English.
"Ouch," Parker groaned. "Stop it."
"There is blood on your face, Parker," the voice purred in Japanese. "It is rather unbecoming. Now be still."
"Tommy?" Parker gasped as she looked up at her old friend and ex-lover. "What happened?" she asked in his native tongue.
"You struck your head during the struggle," his eyes danced with amusement. "But I understand that you gave as good as you got."
Tommy Tanaka was crouched on the floor in front of Miss Parker. He held a damp handkerchief in one hand. The reddish brown tinges visible on the cloth attested to the truth of Tommy's statements.
Parker tried to move, to reach up and inspect the damage caused by her wound, but she discovered that she was tied, securely fastened to a wooden chair with several lengths of rope.
"Tommy?" Parker asked warily. ""What is this all about?"
Tanaka stood, straightening regally before her. He gestured over her shoulder and Parker was forced to crane her neck to see. Her chair was back to back with another and both were lashed together. Situated in the other chair, unconscious and bound, was Lyle. His head was slumped awkwardly to one side though he was beginning to stir.
Parker glanced back at Tommy with a questioning look in her eyes.
"Your brother is a reckless fool," Tanaka said as though that alone would answer her queries.
Parker snorted, then winced at the pain it caused. "Not exactly a newsflash, my friend." Parker looked up at the handsome dark-haired man with as much longing as she could muster. "Untie me, Tommy. This position is highly uncomfortable."
Bowing slightly in the old custom, Tommy said, "I regret that I can not. I have no say in this matter. I will not be able to help you, Parker." He paused. "I am sorry."
"You can do anything you wish," Parker replied in clipped Japanese. "You are Tomeshki Tanaka, son of Samishu Tanaka, and heir to a powerful Yakuza family. There is nothing in this world beyond your capabilities."
Tommy smiled sadly. "I am afraid that the world has changed since last we met, Parker," he said.
Parker frowned in disapproval. "You once told me that you feared nothing."
"I have lost face with my family," Tommy explained softly. "In failing to free my father, I have failed in my first and greatest test of leadership. As a result, I do not rule in my father's place. Instead it is my uncle who now controls your fate, my lovely one."
"You must at least tell me what I have done to incur your uncle's wrath," Parker said fearlessly.
Tommy caressed Parker's cheek with the fingertips of one hand. "Nothing, Parker. You have done nothing but be beautiful and intelligent." Leaning toward her slowly, Tommy kissed Parker gently on the lips. Gazing into her eyes he sighed heavily. "Such a waste," he whispered.
Straightening quickly, Tommy turned on his heel and strode across the room toward a steel door.
"Tommy," Parker called. "Don't leave me here!" But it was too late, the door clanged shut with finality as Tanaka left.
Parker sighed with frustration, looking around the room for the first time. They were in a large warehouse-like building. Huge glass tanks were placed in rows throughout the open area. Each tank was roughly twelve feet deep and twenty feet long. Peering into one of these containers, Parker could see dark liquid masses writhing within. Upon closer inspection Parker could see hundreds of pairs of blank black eyes mingled in the dark liquid.
A moment more, and Parker realized they were fish. Thousands of small fish about the size of her hand swam around in the large tanks. They were in a fish hatchery. The climate was controlled, set slightly warmer than was comfortable, for the benefit of these creatures. High windows circling the room were misted with humidity but Parker could see the light of a new dawn filtering through them.
Behind her, Parker could feel Lyle moving about. He moaned groggily.
"Lyle!" Parker hissed. "Wake up!"
"What?" he groaned. "What is going on?"
"You tell me," Parker snarled.
Lyle shook his head to clear it and struggled for a moment against his bonds.
"What have you done to piss off the Yakuza this time?" Parker snapped.
"What do you mean?" Lyle asked craning his neck to try and see her.
Parker prodded her brother hard in the ribs with her elbow. "Tommy Tanaka was just in here being cryptically unrevealing about our situation," she explained. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," Lyle protested. "Trust me, Parker. Once you lose an appendage to these people, you tend to stay out of their way whenever possible."
Twisting at the ropes with her wrists, Parker frowned in thought. She quickly remembered the phone call from Jarod just before she and Lyle had been grabbed. Parker felt the color drain from her face as a horrible thought occurred to her.
"Oh shit," she hissed.
"What?" Lyle asked. "What?!"
Turning her head to the side so that Lyle could still hear her, Parker asked in a low, wary voice, "Who was she Lyle?"
Lyle swallowed and tried hard to remain passive. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Cut the crap you psycho," she snapped. Parker purposely allowed anger to bubble within her. Seething fury worked well to squelch the fear that niggled at the edges of her mind. "Your rejuvenating little romp in the woods. I suppose it's too much to hope she may still be alive?"
Lyle grinned evilly and Parker could hear the smile in his voice. "I never leave loose ends, Parker. You know that." He paused. "You know everything about me, don't you?" He added with a distinct tone of admiration.
Parker could not suppress the shudder of revulsion that raced through her at the sensuous timber of her brother's voice.
Lyle laughed. "How exhilarating! Such a turn on."
Cringing, Parker mentally searched for that pocket of hatred in her gut once more. She was frightened. Very frightened. She wasn't quite sure what scared her most, the wrath of the Yakuza or the sexual attentions of the thing she was now tied to. Her instincts for self-preservation kicked into high gear.
"Put it back in your pants, baby brother," Parker snarled viciously. "If I am not mistaken, your most recent extra curricular activity had some kind of connection to the most powerful crime syndicate in Tokyo. You idiot!"
"Oops," Lyle replied with a shrug.
Parker hissed in frustration. "If we get out of here, Lyle, I swear to God I'm going to wring your neck."
"It will be fun to see you try," Lyle purred.
At that moment, the steel door opened with a bang and half a dozen Japanese men in suits entered. Tommy was among them, walking at the side of an older man. This man had slightly graying hair and an impeccable suit. His dark almond shaped eyes were cold and hard.
The man stopped in front of Lyle, his accompanying thugs taking positions nearby. The man held a photograph in front of Lyle's face, a photograph of a beautiful young girl in a slim blue Japanese style dress.
"Where is she?" the man demanded in highly accented English.
Lyle blinked innocently. "Pretty girl," he said. "But I've never seen her before."
In a lightning fast motion, the man punched Lyle hard in the stomach. Parker felt the impact through her own body.
Lyle was gasping for air as the man screamed in his face, "WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?"
"I don't," Lyle panted. "Know what, you mean."
"Do not insult my intelligence, Mr. Lyle," the man said. Turning to his men, he barked at them in Japanese, "Prepare the woman."
Parker shot a worried glance at Tommy who sorrowfully bowed his head to stare at the floor. Two of the other men quickly removed Miss Parker from the chair and dragged her to the center of the room. Roughly tearing her suit jacket from her shoulders, Parker's wrists were bound tightly in front of her with more rope. A long length of hemp was attached to her wrists and tossed over some pipes running high above them.
The older man, obviously Tommy's uncle and leader of the clan, spoke to Lyle in English in a voice that shook with fury. "She is my only child. I will not dishonor her by begging."
As the man spoke, one of the thugs pulled hard on the length of rope, yanking Parker's arms over her head until her feet just barely left the floor. Dangling helplessly, Parker struggled and twisted against the ropes, succeeding only in cutting the flesh on her wrists.
"I know your work, Mr. Lyle." The man went on coldly. "I know my child is dead. You will tell me where she is. You will tell me how she suffered."
Lyle looked up at him blandly.
"Until you do," Tommy's uncle continued. "You will watch helplessly as your own blood suffers. Your twin, your flesh, shall agonize in torment until you reveal what I wish to know. Only then, will you and she be permitted to die."
Parker swallowed. How could these criminals possibly understand the hopelessness of what they proposed to do? The Yakuza were dangerous men, yes. But they were still human. They assumed that Lyle could be swayed by an emotional connection to his twin sister. They did not know that this monster would enjoy her pain as much as, or more than, he had enjoyed that of his last victim.
Glancing across the space that separated them, Parker and Lyle locked gazes. She could see the smirk in his eyes. Yes, he would enjoy this immensely. Wrapping one hand around the rope that held her in the air, Parker set her jaw firmly. She vowed that she would not cry out, no matter what they did to her. She would not give Lyle the satisfaction.
Out of the corner of her eye, Parker saw movement as one of the Yakuza thugs approached her. As she twisted to face him, Parker gasped as a bucket full of icy cold water was tossed at her. Sputtering, she tried to shake the wet tendrils of hair from her eyes. She blinked in wonder at the two fish that were now twitching on the floor, unfortunate victims of Parker's dousing.
Another shadow moved and Parker heard a crackling of sound. Twisting again, she saw what these men intended to do to her.
"Damn," she hissed between clenched teeth. "What is it with you lunatics and your jumper cables?" She growled arrogantly.
Parker glanced quickly toward Tommy and saw pride flash across his face. In his eyes, she was facing her end with courage and dignity. Tommy's admiration for her didn't mean much, but Parker felt an insane kind of gratitude towards him all the same.
The thug with the jumper cables moved closer and Parker steeled herself for the contact. She bit down on her lip to prevent her cries. She began thinking over and over to herself, "I will not scream. I will not scream. I will not scream."
Parker had thought herself prepared for what was to come. But the fire that suddenly raced through her upon contact was more intense than she expected. Blinding white-hot pain flashed again and again. Her body swayed in the air, snapping and jumping like the dying fish on the floor below her.
Each crackle and zap of electricity seemed to last forever as Parker was hit over and over again with the metal clips. Some detached part of her mind whispered to her, "Jarod has done this. Jarod survived. You can too."
The cables struck again, the pain flashed again. Parker felt blood on her chin where she had bitten through her lip. "I'm sorry, Jarod." She whimpered incoherently.
Time lost all meaning. There was nothing but the pain and the murmur of voices in her mind that went on and on. "I will not scream. I will not scream. Jarod screamed. Jarod survived, I will survive. I will not scream. Jarod survived. Jarod survived, Jarod - "
Parker finally passed out with a whimper.
But she did not scream.
-
