Chapter Text
It begins right away.
It's like they're eager to get to it, like they've been waiting on the edge of their seats the entire car ride, like kids on their way to Disneyland. One of them gets out to pull the gates open, then the whole caravan drives into the compound. Jesse wonders if it's on purpose, how the fence around the place makes it look like the concentration camps he saw in his social studies textbook in seventh grade.
He doesn't have the will to fight when they drag him out of the car. He's still naïve enough to think death will come quick, that this will be over soon. That makes the walk itself relatively painless, at least. If he'd struggled, he's sure they'd be yanking him by his legs across the driveway, his face in the rocks and the dirt, the way they had in the desert. This way, they're only shoving him and sending the occasional kick at his calves to make him stumble.
Because he still has the luxury of thinking about something other than the immediate present, his mind is on Jane. On Mr. White's parting words. What's happening to him at this moment hardly seems to matter in the face of that revelation: he'd given everything up in service to the man who'd murdered the love of his life. And that man had never cared for him. Not now, not ever. It had all been one great, big, cruel manipulation. And now that he's outlived his usefulness, it's time for his execution.
But execution is not what these Neo-Nazi assholes have in mind.
They take him to a tool shed. A tool shed that, Jesse quickly realizes, has been converted into a kind of torture chamber. He isn't the first person who's been brought here. Someone else's blood has stained the floor. It's old; they never bothered to clean it up. There's a hook hanging from the ceiling, the kind they use in slaughterhouses for hanging pigs and cows on. That's where they hang Jesse, his wrists bound with chains.
At least seven of them circle around, hungry jackals eyeing their captured prey. But it's Todd who steps forward, slipping brass knuckles onto his hand. "Hey, Jesse," he says cordially, like they've just run into each other at the supermarket. "We've got a few questions. You think you could help us out?"