Act I

He woke to the tangy, metallic taste of blood. He figured it was probably his own. He felt the grimy surface of the smoothed concrete below his cheek. He tried to move his arms and lift his head. He was sore all over. It was a soreness straight to the bones. At least his bones weren’t broken, and that was the only silver lining he found as he pushed his body up and onto his knees. His arms were so bruised and battered that he thought they would give up and let him fall back on his face.

He knew that he wasn’t alone. He didn’t need to look up. He felt that they were still standing around. It was the feeling one gets when someone leans over a shoulder too close. Even if there isn’t touching, there is still that feeling of them there.

He sat back on his heels and fished a loose tooth out of his cheek with a dirty hand. It tasted like the waiting room of a quick oil change shop. He spit the taste, and blood, out.

He knelt, surrounded, in a multi-story car park. He had lost count of which level, but he was sure that if they wanted to throw him off from here, he would find out that it was further to the ground than he’d want it to be.

In the distance was the squeal of car tires, like shoes on a hardcourt. It wasn’t long before headlights found them, and threw long shadows. They fell across him like iron bars.

He coughed, and winced, and squinted as he looked into the headlights. It was something rather big. A utility van, he reckoned. To throw me in the back of. Or my corpse, at any rate.

The flood of the headlights blocked the world behind them. The sounds of the doors opening and the feet shuffling were obvious. There was the sound of heavy boots on all of them; save one lone pair of heels that clacked sharply through the background vocals of the dull boot thuds.

To him, it was no surprise to hear heels. He was the only male present. The women standing around him in fatigues and boots had been responsible for putting him there. The busted lip, the throbbing head, the sore ribs, every scratch and bruise - they had inflicted. Instead of killing him, though, they left him alive. For the woman in the heels.

“That’s him. Bring him.”

It was all she said. To her, he was nothing. In the few times they met, she never felt it necessary to address him directly. He was just another cog to turn in her machinations, and as she would often admonish, “do not grow attached to a tool; there is always the chance parts will have to be replaced.”

He saw her silhouette turn and heard her heels clack again. He started to wonder just when she had started building all of this. “Lilith,” he croaked.

She stopped.

He didn’t expect an answer, but in that moment he was curiously surprised when she did, at least, stop. Everyone around waited cautiously.

“Yes?” She was impatient.

“Why?” It was all he could manage when just breathing was painful.

There was a smirk in her reply, “Isn’t that always the question?”

Her heels started to clack, and on cue the boots started to thud. He was jerked off the ground, a hand under each arm. He was being dragged to the van.

He dropped the tooth.