Cleansing

Chapter Seven

****
It took Doug a few seconds to ascertain where he was when he opened his eyes the next morning. He had stayed the night at Booker’s, passing out on the couch two hours after he had arrived at the other cop’s doorstep. There was a small amount of sunlight peeking through the blinds, providing good illumination for the room without even having to turn on a lamp. He detected the sound of shuffling footsteps coming toward him from the hallway, and he sat up just as Dennis came into view.

“Morning,” Dennis mumbled as he scratched the back of his head and yawned.
“Definitely not a good one,” Penhall replied faintly.
Booker closed the gap between them to sit down next to his guest and asked quietly, “Do you want to talk?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Did you get to see him last night?”
The image of Hanson’s abused and ashamed face filtered into Penhall’s mind, making him bow his head slightly in disgrace. “Yeah, I saw him.”
“What’d he say?”
“Nothing. He couldn’t talk. Duct tape over his mouth. But he tried to tell me something, and I have no idea what it was. Spelled it out on my back along with the word ‘clock.’ Wherever he is, there’s a school, train tracks, and a clock tower nearby.”
“How do you know that?”
“Heard it from Danny Benton. Booker, I did a horrible thing. I did something unforgivable.”
“What’s that?”
“I should’ve just let them shoot me, should’ve let them kill me, but instead I agreed to it and chose to be a fucking coward.”
“What did you do?”
“I raped him,” Doug whispered shamefully. He missed the stunned look Booker gave him as his eyes filled with tears.

He accepted the fact that he was an emotional wreck, causing him to be not at all embarrassed as he wept for what felt like the hundredth time in a week. Booker rested his hand against Doug’s back and began to rub it soothingly, not knowing what to say and knew that that was for the best.

****
Tom could not move. His limbs refused to function, but this was not a problem in his mind. As he laid on the shabby couch several feet away from the bed, he resigned to not make any sort of effort to exert himself; it would be a wonderful thing if he could simply stay the way he was for the remainder of his life, which he knew would be coming to an end incredibly soon. Or so he hoped.

It was not just the physical exhaustion he felt that kept him paralyzed. He had settled into a state of deep depression as he kept re-living the horrors of his captivity, the most recent being the night before where he had been ravished by Doug. It had pushed him over the edge, making him lose the last bit of mental stability he had possessed. The event wounded him far worse than any other episodes of maltreatment previous. It was his fault. All of it was his fault. The look of sheer revulsion Doug had had after using him confirmed Tom’s beliefs of just how appalling he had become. He should have never touched his partner, never should have hugged him, and never should have let Doug sully that flawless, muscular body he had with his own mutilated one. He had hurt Doug, and that was something he could not forgive himself for or forget.

The jarring sound of the door opening from atop the stairs resulted in Tom crying softly. He could not take anymore, could not endure it any longer. His body had gone to waste, and his mind was far from rational. The feeling of dwelling in a constant nightmare had finally manifested itself in his mind as being reality.

Fearfully, he watched as the five teens trudged toward him, his eyes flickering to the two objects two of them carried before focusing on the masked faces once again.

“Please don’t,” he begged powerlessly. “Please, please. Go away. Don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything. Please, no more.”

No one acknowledged his desperate pleas. One of the five swiftly drew him up in strong arms to carry him to the bed. There, he was made to stand on his disfigured feet and bent over the side of the mattress. His right hand gripped the sheets when his boxers began sliding down his legs to his swollen ankles. Whatever was being spoken by the five surrounding him registered as nothing but incomprehensible noise to him. All he could hear was his overly loud, thudding heartbeat and his wretched weeping.

A latex gloved finger was the first to be inserted into him. He expelled a shaky moan as it inched farther and farther inside of him. The tip curled and rotated a little just as another digit breached him. His head tilted upward as his back arched, and he let out a hiss as the fingers moved in a scissoring motion. They varied between this movement and a jabbing one, causing him to whimper with each deep prod.

The abuse lasted for a couple of minutes before the fingers were removed, and Tom exhaled a relieved breath, believing it was entirely over with. He quickly realized how foolish he was for the thought the moment something larger forged its way into his body. It made him yell in pain and claw at the mattress. On every thrust upward, he cried out and attempted to get away. Once the neck of the glass bottle had sheathed itself within him, Andrew began a steady pace of withdrawing it and forcing it completely back inside of Hanson.

“Enjoying it, are you, Tommy?” Danny cooed from behind him.
Hanson shook his head and buried his face against the sheets. “Stop. Please. Why are you doing this? Just kill me! Please! Be done with it!”
“That’d be too easy. And too generous considering what you did.”

Hanson trembled and wept incessantly as he was sodomized with the lubricated bottle neck. Sweat shined on his naked skin, dripping over his eyes, though he could not find the energy to wipe the beads of perspiration away. He screamed when it was suddenly shoved powerfully inside him like it had not been before. The impact of it made him quake so much that his feet could no longer support him, and he fell to his knees. The new position, however, did not end the violation.

More violently than before, the glass drove in and out of him, blinding him with agony and making him wail constantly from every thrust. For ten minutes, Andrew kept at the brutal propulsions until it was apparent that Tom would pass out any minute. When the item, which was tainted with blood, was finally removed from him for good, Tom collapsed to the ground on his side, spasmodically twitching and whimpering.

“I say we wait and use the other on him tomorrow,” Danny suggested apathetically. “I just want to fuck him now and add insult to the injury.”

Tom was placed face-down on the bed for the teen to take him from behind. His hips were hoisted up, and he shrieked piteously when Danny penetrated him roughly and without warning.

**
Doug eased himself to lie on the couch, fatigue encasing him from his races to the kitchen sink to vomit. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the tragic cries of his partner sounding from the computer’s speakers. It had finally all gotten to be too much. The instant Andrew had pushed the bottle inside of Tom’s body was the first trip Doug had to make to the sink. He had returned in time to witness the last half of the molestation, only to return to the kitchen minutes later when Danny had started his assault, and it was this act of abuse that he was listening to now.

The constant despair and mortification etched in Tom’s eyes, which had seemed to become permanent, crushed Doug like the hammer that had done just that to Tom’s hand. He would never see those brown eyes light up again with humor, kindness, love, life. To him, it was one of the worst things that could possibly ever happen. The special times when he had heard Tom truly laugh would never come again. And that smile – that charming, cheerful smile of his – was nowhere and would never return, Doug knew, and it made his eyes wet with tears from envisioning Tom beaming with happiness and grinning. The person he observed on the website was no longer his best friend. There was no trace of the genuine Tom Hanson; the person was nothing but a badly broken man, suffering needlessly at the hands of five ruthless avengers.

“We’re not gonna find him,” he had confided to Booker earlier. “I know we won’t. At least, not before he dies. Part of me hopes we don’t even find him after he’s murdered. I don’t know if I can take it, looking at him in a lifeless heap covered with scars and bruises. I’d be tempted to jump into the grave on top of his casket if we find and bury him.” He laughed weakly at this before continuing. “You know, I really thought we were gonna come through for him. I thought we’d save him before it got really bad. Now I see how fucking stupid I was. We’ll be lucky to find him at all.”

It took him a number of minutes before realizing he was surrounded by silence. He glanced over at the monitor, discovering Tom still sprawled out on his stomach on the bed, yet unconscious. The unresponsive state the younger officer was currently in did not stop the five masked men from passing up the opportunity to hurt him more, even though they typically left once Hanson was out cold. They desecrated his sweat-coated skin with a number of burning cigarettes in various places, including the back of his neck, along his spine, and on his round backside. Doug swallowed down the impending knot in his throat and shifted onto his side, putting his back to the computer.

Though his mind drifted as he went to sleep, Tom did not completely stray from his thoughts. Nowadays, his partner had a knack for entering his dreams, both good and bad – the majority being the latter. It was difficult to take, but he found that he could not complain. It was important to remember Tom Hanson in all the ways he could.

****
“How about no snow? I’m not a big fan of the stuff,” Ioki answered and set down the paperwork he had been looking at. “It gets too cold already without it.”
Booker nodded from where he sat beside Judy and across from the other cop at the table in the middle of the chapel. “It just gets in the way.”
“But it’s beautiful to look at!” Judy tried to reason with a smile. “And it always makes kids happy.”

Doug glanced at the three as he made to walk by them without a word, though Judy’s voice stopped him before he could.

“How about you, Doug?” she asked kindly.
“What?” he muttered with a shrug.
“Christmas is in three weeks – what do you want for it this year?”
He had no idea why he suddenly felt so emotional. And he knew his response would most likely ruin the cheerful mood. “It’s not really….You guys don’t wanna hear,” he attempted to add jokingly.
“Come on. What do you want?”
He lowered his gaze to stare at the floor, cleared his throat, and said dejectedly, “My partner.”

Just as he had expected, the joyful atmosphere was gone. It was as if they were all taking a moment of silence in honor of Tom, like he had already died.

“It’s stupid,” he stated after a minute. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I think having Tom back is at the top of everyone’s lists,” Booker interjected gently and looked at Doug understandingly.
Doug sniffed and gave a small chuckle. “Yeah. Definitely would be one of the best Christmases I’d ever have.”

He was about to walk away when Fuller came and joined the group, holding something in his hand.

“Someone’s taunting us again,” he said and tossed the envelope onto the table. As Ioki removed the contents, he continued, “The note says they were taken recently and that Tom isn’t the only person we know in the photos.”
Doug’s heart sped up with incredible apprehension. Could they tell it was him? That he was the one on top of Hanson in the pictures?
“It’s too dark to see who it is,” Harry commented as he glanced at them, handing them off to Booker one by one. “All I can make out is Hanson. Do you think they’re just playing with us and saying it’s someone we know?”
“I bet it’s just one of them,” Booker offered, gazing at Doug as he said it. His eyes were silently searching for what he knew had to be true. The nervousness and guilt Penhall conveyed was all he needed. “I wouldn’t bother wasting time with their stupid games like this. They’re just trying to point our attention to something other than keeping up the search for Hanson to make it so we don’t get to him in time.”

Doug felt quite relieved from Booker withholding the information that it was in fact someone they knew in the photos: him. But the chagrin he had for what he had done to Tom was multiplied due to seeing the pictures.

The unpleasant feeling of nausea made him quickly leave the group and hurry to the bathroom upstairs to be sick once again because of Tom Hanson.

****
As promised, the five returned to discover Tom stretched out in the bathtub, head tilted back against the tiled wall and asleep. The opportunity presented to them was too perfect to pass up. Silently, the knob was turned entirely to the right, releasing the flow of water through the shower head to rain on the sleeping cop. Tom was immediately jolted awake from the freezing liquid, gasping in shock and scrambling to get up and climb over the edge of the tub. Eric and Travis pushed him back and kept preventing him from escaping. The familiar sensation of his lungs tightening, cutting off air and making it tough to breathe encased him, along with a sudden bout of incredible alarm. No matter how rough the hands shoving him back to stay in the tub were, he persistently kept trying to break through their blockade. The attempts tired him quickly, yet he valiantly continued the endeavor.

“L-L-L-Let me g-g-go!” he shouted as firmly as he could. “Let-” His breath hitched in his throat a couple of times before he was able to finish his statement. “-Me go! P-P-Please!”
As if not hearing Tom whatsoever, Danny commented casually, “I have an idea. Why not just do it here instead of dragging him out to the bed? It’ll be much more fun for Tommy boy.”

His fight to get away from the water was put to an end as Travis and Eric grappled with him until he was lying on his stomach and held in place. The right side of his face was pressed against the bottom of the tub due to a strong hand keeping his head from moving much. Another grip was wound securely about his left wrist, and a few slight twists of it made him shriek in pain and cease his struggling. It was unbelievably hard to breathe now from the combination of the freezing water and the powerful grasp on his wrist.

The soaked pair of boxers clinging to his drenched skin were pulled off of him before he was forced to raise his hips so that they could penetrate him more easily.

It happened without warning, and the scream that came from him was nothing but a strangled, short cry. He shut his eyes, and the tears that fell from them went unseen as they made their way down his already wet face. Another wounded sound ripped itself from his throat from a second push of the object into him. It was larger than the bottle from yesterday, causing him an increased amount of agony. It was turned from side to side, stretching him more, before it was inched any farther inside of him.

Withdraw it a little, thrust it forward with more force – the process was repeated numerous times until the five were satisfied with the long amount that had penetrated him. The handle of the baseball bat within him exceeded the length of the bottle by far, and they pumped it in and out of him quicker and a bit more violently. He gasped for breath only to lose it by groaning miserably.

All at once, he threw up, halting the propulsions for a brief moment. He could feel the sickening liquid sliding against his skin as it was washed away toward the drain, and the repulsion of laying in his vomit made his stomach heave yet again. It slid down along him as he coughed and panted. The episode made him feel a smidge warmer, to which, he was thankful for the nausea. The slight increase in body temperature did not last long, though, for the cold water soon took over completely once more.

As well as the tormenting movement of the bat.

He was too exhausted to do anything anymore: too exhausted to make any sort of noise that was not quiet, too worn out to move even the slightest, and too tired and breathless to sob. With a soft moan every now and then, he surrendered whatever defiance he had had, along with any shred of integrity he had maintained.

I deserve this. I deserve all of it. This is all I’m good for, he thought emptily. I’m just glad Doug will never know about this; I’ll be dead before he can even ask what happened. He wouldn’t want me. I wouldn’t want me. I deserve this. It’s for the best. It’s my fault.

The shower was turned off first, and the removal of the bat from inside him was second. The harsh grip on his head was gone, as was the one around his wrist after giving it one last yank and twist. Even if he wanted to, he could not move. His limbs were too heavy; his body hurt too much; his energy had been squeezed out of him. He remained a motionless heap, lying in the tub, until Derick turned him over and pulled him up to a sitting position.

“Lovely shower, wasn’t it?” Danny cooed. “We certainly enjoyed.”
Tom was shivering tremendously and could barely form any coherent words. What he finally was able to voice was an extremely quiet, “D-D-Danny, I’m sorry.” Not seeing the flash of intense rage that crossed the teen’s features, he went on, this time a little louder. “I’m s-s-s-sorry. S-S-S-So s-sorry for k-k-killing your b-b-br-brother. I’m s-sorry, D-Danny.”

The violent beating that ensued because of his mess up was by far the worst of any in the past that he had had to survive.

Doug did not stay to watch it. Instead, he was grinning wickedly and practically running out of his apartment.

He at last had a name – the one that he had believed it was all along.