FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Part 23 - Captive

(Nathan)

Any length of time could have passed before Nathan saw light again, the zipper high above him finally reopening to disperse the enveloping blackness he'd been trapped within.

The persistent, unforgiving shaking, coupled with the bag's old, musty stench had caused him to throw up once, around about the time he heard the chugging engine of the car he and his captors had rode in go silent. Even with the gift of fresh air circulating his dark prison, Nathan's churning stomach still felt as if it hadn't quite finished distributing its contents.

'Where the hell am I,' he wondered to himself, eyes adjusting to the light. Above him, he witnessed rusted metal pipes and support beams, old pulley systems with huge, worn steel buckets attached rolling on by. 'A factory?'

Nathan and his captors turned into a gloomy corridor a few moments later, pacing a few steps along it before appearing to enter an even grimier room a short time after.

Without warning, the bag shifted violently and threw Nathan firmly against its side. A second of weightlessness followed, right before a harsh, jolting impact sent a shot of pain through his entire body.

The husky rolled over, his winded lungs gasping for breath. He heard a cruel chorus of laughter and the sneering, taunting Velikan words of his captors in the distance. Clearly, both he and the bag had been tossed resentfully to the ground at this mysterious new location. While the impact caused him discomfort, Nathan thanked the gods his fall hadn't come from a sufficient height to do even more damage.

Just as he'd begun to hope the torment had stopped, that he'd be left alone in a heap of fur and fabric to take pity upon himself, a series of thumping footsteps began to approach the husky's position. Thumps grew to crashes, which in turn quickly grew to tremors of the ground.

'Shit, shit.' Nathan scrambled around on hands and knees, doing all he could to get as far away from the crumpled slit of light ahead of him. One final jolt of the ground rattled the husky back down to his stomach, swiftly followed by the same golden-furred paw that had snatched him from the workshop thrusting its way into the bag.

Nathan yelped, scurrying about with even more urgency in a desperate attempt to stay clear of the giant fingers patting and prodding at the jet black material all around. He succeeded in doing so for a good few seconds, but the searching Velikan's hand would soon find his small frame, grasping it tightly from behind.

Nathan barely had time to gasp as he hurtled backwards out into the open air. Another bout of sickness followed as his captor sprung back up to their full standing height, a sickness that only worsened when they finally spoke up.

"Hello again, little bitch husky." The feline grumble sounded only too familiar. Nathan glanced up over his shoulder, finding Yuri's cruel, self-satisfied grin shining back at him. "Where is your fucking wolf now?"

The tiger's wrist twisted, jerking Nathan around and allowing him a better view of the old filing cabinets, ruined office furniture and dirty, shattered windows that littered the dim, grubby room. The scent of age permeated everything it touched here; a place that it appeared hadn't been utilised for its intended use for several years. It didn't take long, or much effort, for Yuri to steal the husky's attention back from his surroundings.

"You are not so loud now. Not so cocky." The Velikan bumped Nathan around like a ragdoll, squeezing his fisted paw all the while. The little husky's head wrenched awkwardly from the force, smacking down hard enough into the side of the tiger's curled index finger to momentarily daze him. A tandem of laughter started from the doorway, Yuri's friends standing there, gawking on with folded arms and matching smirks as they enjoyed the show.

"No, I believe this the real you." Yuri said. "No more than squeaking pest." He turned to face the others, rumbling something in Velikan that earned a snide grin from the fox and a snort from the bear. "Oh, I am sorry. I forget Polcians are too arrogant to learn and to speak our language." The tiger gave Nathan another squeeze, winding him all over again. "I have told Marat and Bogdan that I shall share you." He violently kicked aside a broken chair and strolled over to the doorway, offering his paw out to the sneering arctic fox.

Nathan yelped again, a sharp pain racing up his arm from his wrist as Yuri dropped him into Marat's waiting palm. The momentary release of pressure did allow him to breath freely, but only until the fox's fingers wrapped tightly around him, leaving his head and legs exposed at either end.

"I remember your words from the store. You called us 'pathetic'." The white vulpine's muzzle lowered towards Nathan's, his sharp teeth menacing behind his wicked grin. "Tell me, Polcian. Who is pathetic now?"

Heart-racing dread and constricting Velikan fingers combined to push the tempo of Nathan's breathing into something easily mistakable for excited panting. He couldn't think straight, mind jumping between fearing what his abductors had planned for him, and desperately thinking about just how he could possibly escape them.

"Do you hear me, Polcian!?" Marat's words rocked his captee, but not as much as what followed. He jolted the paw holding the little husky over towards his other, lining up his free index finger and thumb in a flicking motion.

"No--" Nathan's words died the moment the fox's finger snapped into the underside of his muzzle. His head recoiled sharply, pain searing across his face as his body went limp.

Nathan stirred in time to find himself staring up at the cracked, mouldy ceiling from within Bogdan's palm. The bear's other paw pressed down upon his torso, sandwiching him firmly and leaving him unable to move.

"So tiny... so easy to hurt." For a moment, he wondered about the meaning behind those gruff, bassy words. They sounded almost caring in his groggy state, perhaps close even to something Alexei might have said. Not for long, though. "For this reason, you should be careful with your mouth!"

"I didn't--" Nathan cried out in agony as Bogdan's paws began to clasp like a vice. He tried helplessly to wiggle free, to push the giant's palm from atop him, anything to ease the pressure. All the while, his ribs felt fit to collapse, such was the difficulty to breath. "Please stop," he wheezed, whimpering loudly at the fast creeping fear that he'd not make it out of here alive.

"This is enough play... for now." For the first time ever, Yuri's voice came as music to Nathan's ears. The strain upon his body gradually eased and the brown bear's big paw moved off from atop him. "Give him to me."

Bogdan snapped his paw, sending the little husky hurtling through the air. Nathan twisted and contorted, time appearing to slow as he arced towards those huge, golden-furred paws. He must have flown fifty, sixty feet before thudding down into the tiger's grasp, his jarred wrists taking another beating as he tried to cushion himself from the fall.

"I will show you to your room," Yuri chuckled. "I hope you enjoy."

Nathan pushed himself up off of his stomach, getting on his knees so that he could see over the tips of the Velikan's fingers. On a tired, worn table sat a mesh of dirty wiring attached to a metal base. 'They're putting me in a fucking cage!'

To the right of the construction, he couldn't help but notice a familiar, clawed red fist adorning a large, scattered pile of flyers; the same red fist he'd seen graffitied on the wall of the supermarket he'd visited with Alexei. Though Velikan lettering remained mostly unreadable, the bold font and heavy use of exclamation marks suggested the message these leaflets carried to be highly emotive.

'It is nonsense. Stupid statement made by anti-government group.' He recalled his wolf's explanation of the logo, and the meaning behind the graffiti. 'Not everyone can be made happy.'

"Watch this first step." Yuri's paws stopped above a small opening in the top of the makeshift cage. He began to angle them menacingly slowly, much to the vocal amusement of his friends.

Nathan kicked out, fighting ever harder against gravity until the tiger's paws tipped into the construction and beyond the point of no return. He slipped off, falling almost ten feet down to the solid metal surface below. His legs buckled upon impact, sending him tumbling across the small caged 'room' and down into a heap.

"That looked to hurt." The wicked smirk upon Yuri's muzzle high above the strands of imprisoning wiring gave away just how much enjoyment he found in this. "Did I not say to watch this step?"

"Why are you doing this?" Nathan sat up, adjusting the newly-frayed knees of his jeans. A small smattering of blood had stained the right one, a stinging graze leaking out onto the fabric. "What did I do to you?"

"I have told you this."

"All this because of what I said? Shouting back at your drunken bullshit? I..." He bit his tongue, just in time to stop himself from going off on a rant. Of all the places to be to have one, to say this wasn't the best would be an understatement.

Yuri's expression darkened, his piercing yellow eyes narrowing. "Do you not remember the things you said?" He cuffed the cage with the back of his paw, jerking it a short distance across the table and knocking Nathan down onto his side. "You mock us for things you Polcians cause."

"_We_cause?"

"You think this enjoyable? Not having job, not being able to find job?" Yuri gestured to the office around them just as Marat and Bogdan approached the cage. "Do you know the number of places like this here in Kremensk? In our country?"

The husky sat back up, ears flattening as the three Velikans loomed high above him. He really didn't know how to respond, or even the meaning those words carried. 'Just sit here, don't say a word... you might get out of this.'

"Do you know!?" The cage rattled again from the impact of Yuri's angry paw. "I can tell you... this place is just one of many."

"I... don't understand."

Marat's thin vulpine muzzle lowered towards the cage, his eyes narrow and his lips curled. "I can help you to understand. This ironworks was the biggest in Kremensk. Employed many people from our district, this city, for generations. It is six years ago now... This place closed because of you, because of the Polcians that come here. Many people from our district have lost their jobs... many people cannot get work, because of you."

The explanation only served to confuse Nathan even further, though he daren't admit it. "I... right."

"Right?" The fox's sneering voice carried an unmistakable rage. "This is all you can say!?"

"It is your technology." Bogdan's deep voice boomed.

"I thought..." For some strange reason, Nathan's mind flicked back to Shaun, the squirrel's insistence that Velikans only craved Polcian technology appearing to be more accurate than he ever gave him credit for. "I thought you wanted our technology?"

"Oh, yes!" Yuri's fingers curled around the bars at the top of the cage, bending them slightly as he squeezed. "Our government, they cannot get enough of your fucking technology. They have it so you come to live here, bring your machines. The government, the rich, this makes them happy, and this is the most important thing in the whole world!"

The sarcastic accent to the tiger's angry response prompted Nathan to bend his knees to his chest and wrap his arms around his legs.

"But the workers? They can lose their jobs. The machines, they replace most of them and save money for the rich owners, Polcian and Velikan, while they move the factories to places that suit them better. They do not care about us."

Nathan's eyes darted back to the heap of flyers beside his prison, the gang's rhetoric sounding more and more like that of the anti-Polcian, anti-government group they promoted. Only at this point did it become glaringly apparent to the husky just why they'd targeted him.

The trio went quiet, their towering frames forming a terrifying wall in front of the caged Polcian sitting perfectly still before them.

"You're doing this... because you're mad at your government? Because you think they brought us here to steal your job--"

"You think we do this to threaten our government!?" Marat high-pitched voice cut through Nathan's questioning. "You have very high opinion of yourself, Polcian."

Yuri folded his arms, smirk turning into a grin. "The protests against the new factories and Polcian businesses, the marches in the cities to shout against your invasion. This is how we threaten our government. The longer they refuse to listen to our group, the more they will happen... the more aggressive our leaders will insist we become."

"We do this here, because you throw the problems you and our government cause in our face." Marat stated, a cruel smile upon his vulpine muzzle. "We do this to you for enjoyment."

"I don't think..." Nathan took a moment, fully aware of the need to choose his words; a concept that he'd admit himself he often overlooked. "I honestly don't think it's our government's intention to put you all out of work."

"You think this? Really?" Yuri answered disdainfully. "It is like the war in some ways, only now, you try to make us poor, make us starve instead of poisoning with weapons."

Nathan's ears splayed. He couldn't help but look away, giving his best attempt at appeasement. "I'm sorry that you're having a bad time... but I truly think--"

"Apologise to these two! It is they who worked at this place. I did not even have chance to begin working here before people started to lose jobs, before it closed for good. Since school, I cannot get work in any place. Not even in your Polcian markets and shops."

The anger in Yuri's reply rattled the paw that he'd grasped the cage with, shaking Nathan onto his back again. He sat back up, focus switching between Bogdan and Marat while wincing at the connection his head had made with the metal flooring.

"My father," the tiger spat those words. "He is another that lost his job here."

"Well... tell him from me that I'm--"

"Fuck your apology, and fuck my father!" The giant paw clamped the wiring of the cage noisily, causing Nathan to jump in shock. "You have no idea what Polcians have done to my family." Yuri gestured around the aged, abandoned office again. "What_this_ did to my father. What it turned him into."

Nathan began to shake within his prison cell. If he hadn't feared that Yuri's retribution would be physical before, he certainly did now. "I-I... I'm sorry--"

"Did I not say? Fuck your apology!" The tiger punched the cage, smashing it violently against the wall and sending the little husky hurtling back into a corner. "You were not making one last week, when you chose to mock us! Stupid Velikans, they cannot do work as good as our machines... this is what you and your people think!"

Nathan let out a pained squeak, holding the shoulder that had borne the brunt of his impact against the cage. He covered his ears and squeezed his eyes closed, puzzled as to why Yuri's voice had grown so much louder. The sight of his Normaliser's discarded earpieces greeted him once he reopened his eyes, apparently shaken free during his fall. "N-No, I don't think that at all--"

"Do not talk!" Yuri grabbed the top panel of wiring, his rage pressing it down and causing the metal to flex and creak loudly. Both that and the Velikan's booming cries prompted Nathan to swiftly grab and refit his loose earphones, fearful of permanent damage to his hearing. "Do not fucking talk to me." Yuri shoved the construction one last time, winning yet more laughter and approval from his gang before turning to pace back over to the doorway.

"For a tiny bitch Polcian, your mouth is too big." The usually muted Bogdan's voice rumbled through the room as they went, drawing a snort from the snide fox.

"Yes. Hard to resist shutting it for good."

Nathan watched his captors until they made it to the other side of the office, Marat taking a seat upon an old desk. Yuri and Bogdan meanwhile stood facing both him and the door, their backs turned towards the husky. By now, Nathan's paws had begun to shake terribly, his eyes watering uncontrollably.

It didn't take long for his mind to focus in on his parents. The guilt he felt for reacting so coldly to their concerns, both recent and in the more distant past, increasing tenfold now that he'd found himself in such a dire situation. Nathan fought back his tears, the prospect of never getting out of here, never seeing his friends and loved ones again growing to become all too real.

'Don't panic, Nate,' he tried to tell himself, slowly reaching down to his side. 'You ain't done yet! You're gonna get out of this!' With a deep breath, the husky stayed his paw long enough to grab his phone from out of his pocket. By some measure of good fortune, it appeared to have survived the rough treatment he'd suffered unscathed.

Nathan worked at his phone's display through the pain of his battered wrists, never taking his eyes off the gang for more than a second. 'Even if I take off my voice-booster, I can't make a phone call... A text message'll have to do.'

A few seconds of navigating saw him pull up Alexei's entry from his contacts, while a few more seconds on top of that allowed him to compose a brief message for his wolf. 'That gang have me. Not hurt yet. Taken to an ironworks in South Kremensk??? Help!'

He jabbed at the send button urgently, his focus concentrated like a laser upon the spinning wheel that indicated the device's working towards his command. Second after second crawled by and still the wheel span away. Nathan's paws began to shake all over again, right up until the message he'd dreaded appeared. 'Message cannot be sent. Attempt 1/3.'

With a stifled groan, he glanced at the signal bar. 'No bars... damn it!'

"Hey! What are you doing?"

Nathan gasped, looking up at the huge tiger quickly stomping towards him. "I--"

"What is this?" In a flash, Yuri's paw descended through the hatch, slapping down forcefully upon the husky's frame. "You think you can make phone call!?"

"No!" he squeaked, the force upon his now prone body leaving him completely trapped. "I couldn't--"

"Give it to me!"

The husky didn't think twice. He forced his paw open and allow his device to fall freely to the cage's metal base. After a few more agonising moments, Yuri removed his paw and plucked the phone up between two finger pads. "G-go ahead," Nathan said defeatedly, "there's no signal anyway."

"Hah. Your wonderful technology, it is not so useful now." The tiger cackled, discarding the device across the metallic construction with a series of heavy clangs. "What would you do anyway? Call your wolf? The police?" That last suggestion drew another bout of Marat's unmistakable, snickering laughter from across the room. "As if they would come for you in a short time."

Nathan frowned, unable to resist asking, "Why wouldn't they?"

Yuri's narrow-eyed scowl returned. "The effect Polcians have had here, the difficulty for the people of this district, it goes deeper than you would think. The police, they have families. I do not think I have met one person who did not have a father, mother, sister or brother that did not lose their job. The closing of the dockland, the old Velikan industries... it affects all."

"I... don't understand--"

"What do you not understand!? Stupid Polcian!"

"How... this would make the police... not respond."

Yuri sighed angrily, leaning close enough to press his nose to the side of the cage ahead of the husky. "It is because many police of this district hate you also. They hate you for ruining the lives of people they know and care for."

"H-how is that allowed?... How can they get away with it?"

The tiger shrugged with a mocking smile. "Welcome to South Kremensk. If you wish for police that care for you, go to city centre. Better, go to the north or the east. The people there have the money to care."

The sheer disbelief that Nathan felt must have been plastered all across his face, because Yuri didn't finish there. "Yes... I am thinking your understanding is better now. You mock us for having to suffer this, so you are now here in our cage. You _deserve_this."

"W-what..." The husky gathered his nerves and took a breath, readying himself to ask a question he wasn't sure he wanted answering. "What are you going to do with me?"

Another dismissive shrug from Yuri followed. "We had not thought this far ahead."

"You hadn't--!?"

"Perhaps we will hold you here, a day or two... or more. Get your wolf worried."

"Yuri," Marat called out, prompting the tiger to look back to him. "-Zaloshnik.-"

"-Da-... this is good idea." Yuri's cocky smirk became an ominous, beaming grin.

Nathan couldn't suppress a worried groan, dipping his head lower while his ears practically pinned themselves to his skull. "What did he say?"

"We are going to keep you here for a day or two. During this time... you shall tell us how to contact the Polcian-loving wolf. We will let him know that you can be returned to him without injury... for right price."

The husky went cold, eyes widening as he processed that fully. "You... can't."

"You are wrong; we can, and you will find this out."

"You think he'll let you get away with this!? Besides, surely even the police around here'll do something about kidnapping?"

"To do this to another Velikan, this would be kidnap." Yuri grasped the bars of the cage, thoughtfully tapping his exposed claws against them. "To do this to a Polcian... of this, I am not so sure. Still, do not let your tiny head worry. We shall let him know that to call the police would be very bad idea."

Nathan shook his head, still trying to come to terms with the seriousness of the situation. "You_really_ think he'll listen?"

"You think we make empty threats?" Yuri pressed his muzzle to the metal prison once again. "I am thinking that he likes his shop as it is? If he wishes for it to remain in this way, he will tell no one."

That proved enough convincing for Nathan. He gulped hard, one final question on his mind. "And... if he doesn't pay?"

"He will pay, because if he does not..." Yuri growled a terrifyingly low chuckle, gripping the cage tight enough for one of the bars to contort completely out of shape. "I will break you."