Chapter 578: Queen's Adversity (4)

Katherine lost track of time. She no longer knew how long she had been held captive as she had passed out a few times since they started torturing her.

Every muscle in her body ached, but she would only grit her teeth whenever she was in pain—even when they started shocking her with jolts of electricity.

It was because she didn't want to give Parker the satisfaction of seeing her in pain. So as much as she could, she would keep it together. No matter how painful it would get, she would endure it.

*Smack*

The belt's leather landed on the back of her thigh for the third time, and she tightened her abdomen in an attempt to hold down the sting on her legs.

Katherine could barely stand—if not because her wrists were tied in a chain above her head, she would have probably collapsed already. She spat, and viscous red-stained saliva splattered on the floor. The metallic taste in her mouth tasted awful. Her cheek and lips hurt like hell—she only hoped she didn't lose a tooth.

"We know how this is gonna end, so why don't you just give up?" said one of the men behind her.

A smirk flashed on her face before she muttered under her breath, "Bite me."

A few moments later, she heard the sound of a phone buzzing not far away from her. She didn't look up, but she could sense that someone was watching her like a pervert—maybe Parker.

"Hello," Parker answered. "Ah… If it isn't Christopher… That took you long enough."

Katherine's heart raced upon realizing who was calling Parker at the moment. She couldn't see his face as she hung her head low due to exhaustion, but he resurfaced from the dark until he stood a few feet away from her.

"Am I speaking to Mr. Park?" she heard him say, causing all her muscles to go rigid. 'It's Damien! Damien is on the phone!' she screamed in her head, wanting to hear him so badly.

Parker continued to move towards her as he continued to speak. Simultaneously, she struggled to flutter her eyes open to see what's going on, but her head felt so heavy.

"Katherine…"

The moment she heard Damien's voice through the speaker, she raised her head and saw Parker raising his phone in front of him as if he was taking a video of her. She could only guess that he was showing the other end of the line her current state.

Katherine tried to open her mouth to speak, but even her jaw and cheek hurt so much that she could barely do it. She must look so awful right now—it hurt to know that Damien saw her in this state. He must be so worried about her.

Then Chris's voice came through the speaker so loudly, "Parker, you win. You can take me instead. I will surrender—just release Katherine!"

Parker clicked his tongue before responding, "You know I don't trade, Christopher. I'll take my time with your dear Katherine, don't worry. And then I'll get to you."

"Don't—I won't tell him where you are," Katherine managed to say with a breathy voice. Then he looked at Parker in the eye. "No matter what you do to me, I will never..."

"Oh, I know," Parker answered nonchalantly with a smile on his face. "I'm not doing this for all that, Queen… This…" He pointed at her state. "This is your punishment."

Right after he spoke, he pressed the red button on his screen, ending the phone call between him and Damien and Chris. His response was ruthless. He knew all along that she wouldn't ever give up Chris's location. But he still tortured her not because he expected her to give up—instead, he tortured her because he believed that she deserved it as her punishment for her betrayal against Shadow—the dark organization that he believed was what this country needed.

What a diabolical man. And she couldn't say she was surprised.

…

Safe House

Seeing the window on the screen turn dark after witnessing Katherine in her pitiful state, Damien felt like his entire world had shattered. That was the most devastating condition he had seen of her that his heart felt like it was being squeezed—he thought he was getting a heart attack.

He was still in shock that he hadn't moved a muscle even when the phone call got disconnected.

"Too fast. I couldn't track it," said Styles in a bleak tone. As soon as the call went through earlier, he began to search its location, but it bounced from one place to another before it settled in one state. However, Parker ended the call just before he got the chance to pinpoint the exact coordinates of where they were.

"This is all I got." Styles then pulled up a couple of windows on his monitors, showing that the last pinged location was in Florida. But the state was too big for them to know where Parker brought her to. All they knew at the moment was that he shouldn't be in Castle as he hadn't been there for the past couple of days according to the logs and the way the operations were running in the command center without him.

Apart from that information, he was also able to record the short video of Katherine, which was now playing for them to see and dissect.

Trying to pull himself together, Damien stared at the footage and though it was hard, he ignored the pain in his chest upon seeing her suffer. "Where is that?" he asked.

"It's too dark. I have no idea," Styles answered truthfully.

"It could be anywhere," Chris added as he watched the footage over and over again, trying to get some clues from it.

"Noah's awake again," Felix announced behind them. He just got off the phone from one of their men in the hospital. "He said he remembered something else, but he's not sure if it's of any help."

"Call him," Damien ordered.

Once the call was connected, Damien didn't waste any more time and asked Noah what he remembered.

With great difficulty, Noah told them, "I'm not sure… but I think… I heard… one of them say, 'We'll meet at the perry'. He had an accent… didn't sound American."

"Perry?" Damien, Chris, Amelia, and Styles questioned in unison. All of them were confused at what that meant.

"Sorry, Boss… my ear was ringing. I should have listened carefully," Noah said apologetically.

Though he was frustrated, Damien understood what Noah was going through. "Thank you," he told the other.

"Where is that?" Styles wondered as he tried to check out "Perry" anywhere in Florida on his computer. "Hmmm… Well, there's a city called Perry—South East from Tallahassee. Do you think this is it?"

While Styles, Christopher, and Amelia were discussing, the wheels in Damien's head turned. It took him a full minute to digest what Noah said. The way the latter stated the sentence meant that 'Perry' was a place—it sounded less likely to be the name of a city like what Styles found. Not to mention, the man had an accent… so it mustn't have sounded so simply like that. Then he began to mumble, "Perry… Pe-ri… Pre…" He darted his gaze at the map on Styles's monitor and questioned, "What about 'prairie'?"

Heads turned in his direction, and then they exchanged looks when he said it with a French accent.

"Boss, that's it..." Noah's weak voice sounded through the speakers of the phone. "That's how he said it."

"Could it be…" Chris muttered, his eyes darting here and there. "The old Castle…"

"The old Castle?" Damien probed.

"Oh…" Styles and Amelia gasped, realizing what Chris had also discovered. Then Styles quickly located the old castle's location on the map, garnering everyone's attention to the screen.

Nodding, Chris clarified, "The old Castle is in a prairie… Parker hadn't gone there since it got destroyed. But I'm almost certain that Katherine is there."