Her only possible escape route

Luka left Ashley alone in the dingy room once again.

She drew herself into a ball and shivered in the darkness. Her head was a lot clearer with him gone, and she growled angrily as shame-filled tears started to fall down her face. She was going to have an awful lot of trouble ever looking him in the eye again. Did he really think of her as a slut and a whore, or had he only said it to get a reaction? Even though she'd had little choice but to let him screw her if she wanted to survive, she couldn't help but feel used.

His opinion of her mattered to Ashley, she realised suddenly. And so it should. He had said he was the one who would decide what to do with her once his boss was done. Her tears intensified as a cold feeling of dread fell over her. He was rapidly becoming her only possible escape route. What if he lost interest? She sobbed in confusion. She had no way of knowing what he wanted or what he was thinking, so there was little point in dwelling on it. She was thirsty and aching and oh, so hungry...

On closer inspection of the room Ashley noticed that Luka had left a glass of water on the floor for her, and she reached out an aching arm until she managed to lift it towards herself. She wondered for a moment whether the water would be drugged or poisoned, but she dismissed the idea. Luka enjoyed inflicting pain far too much to cheat himself out of his grand finale. Trying not to gulp, she finished the rest of the water and laid back down on the bed of her prison. Curling into a ball, she shivered against the cold until sleep claimed her once again

He'd said he could protect her.

The thought tumbled round and round in Ashley's head as she dangled from the ceiling of that damned room yet again. She repeated this to herself like a mantra as Luka stood in front of her, that familiar brutal expression on his face. And a knife in his hand. She still hadn't managed to acquire any clothes, so the knife couldn't be intended for use as an aid to undressing this time. She'd already received her customary beating for the day and she felt like she was going to faint; were they going to make her suffer even more? Oh god. She was going to have to think of a way to make them believe that she had given them what they wanted. Preferably before they killed her.

Luka was playing with fire, and he knew it. He had never before met a woman who was as stubborn as this girl. She had more training and was a lot tougher than he had originally suspected, and he was glad of it. He respected her tenacity, regardless of the fact that she was making his life rather difficult. Plus, she was so beautiful -- bruised and bleeding and most of the time scared out of her mind. He'd beaten her, raped her and humiliated her, and for some reason, she still wanted him. His commanding officer had warned him that if he wasn't successful in getting the girl to talk today, he was going to throw her to the grunts. Luka  wasn't prepared to let that happen; he wanted her for himself no matter what the cost.

He admired her courage, but in the end it would come to nothing, and they both knew it. She'd give them what they wanted, it was just a matter of time. His knife, usually a favourite instrument of torture, felt cold and alien in his hand. He didn't want to do this. He had no problem with hurting her -- he'd already made her scream until she was coughing up blood -- but that had been with his own hands. It was intimate and personal and he'd never done any permanent damage. This was going to be a different thing entirely. And she would never be the same afterwards. It wasn't right. He was the one who carried the scars.

Ashley had fallen into a faint, but the sharp pain of a knife pressing into her throat woke her with a start. She flinched back from the pain to find Luka standing in front of her again, the knife still in his hand. "Am I going to have to make you bleed, or can we stop now?" he asked softly. Ashley moaned softly in fear, but she said nothing. He sighed, and moved closer so that the girl was leaning on him, her head on his shoulder. He rested the point of the knife on the back of her thigh and paused for a moment.

"Tell me to stop," Luka whispered gently, but she didn't reply. With his face out of sight of both the girl and his commanding officer, he closed his eyes and frowned in apprehension. Her teeth bit down on his shoulder as he increased the pressure on the knife until he broke the skin, and he slid his free hand into the hair at the nape of her neck and stroked gently.

She released her bite in order to moan softly in pain, the moan quickly rising into a scream as the blade cut deeper.

Luka grimaced as he noticed the blood running down the girl's thigh to drip off her foot and collect into a red puddle on the floor. He slid his mouth to her ear, whispering so that only the girl could hear. "Let me end this. Please."

Ashley gasped at the emotion in Luka's voice. He didn't want to do this. There were some lines that he still didn't want to cross. Maybe, she dared to allow herself to think. Maybe he does still want me? Maybe he does have feelings towards me. If that was the case, perhaps she would still have a chance of escape if she gave them the information they wanted.

The sharp pain of the knife helped to focus Ashley's thoughts temporarily, and she was able to decide on the details of the information that she would give to Luka's superior.

However, she had to make it look convincing, and Ashley would never accept being made to look cowardly. So she gritted her teeth and remained stubborn for as long as she could possibly stand.

She wasn't sure how long she managed to hold out, but it didn't matter. In the end, she told them what they wanted to know. She was going to have a scar, but at least the searing pain had stopped.

Luka turned to his superior officer to find him standing up to leave, and giving him a nod of satisfaction.

"We're done with this one," he said to the sniper, and then walked towards them. "Get rid of her," he said, as if he were talking about yesterday's old news paper.

"And go home, get some rest." He patted Luka on the shoulder like an old friend as he said "you've earned it."

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