Trigger Warning: This chapter contains a heavy torture scene that some readers may find distressing. Read at your own discretion.
Present Day...
In a dimly lit cell deep in the dungeon, Crane's screams tore through the air as a gamma gripped one of his fingernails with a pair of pliers and ripped it clean away.
Crane was bound to an iron chair, silver chains wound tightly around his entire body, biting into his skin. His left eye was swollen shut, an angry purple-black, and blood dripped steadily from a dozen splits across his face, running down his chin and pattering onto the cold stone floor.
The gamma stepped back.
And Crane, panting, broken, bleeding, began to laugh.
"You can never break me, boy," he wheezed, lifting his ruined face toward Derek. "You haven't the stomach for it. And you want to know the truth? You want to know how it felt?"
