Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
VIOLENCE WARNING: The two stories in the Savage Gang saga, and especially the second story, involve a gang practicing extreme violence toward everyone — women, the elderly, the protagonist, etc. The stories contain mature sexual content and violence as well. I am placing this warning on all chapters, including those without such violence, so you can choose whether to continue.
CHAPTER 16
Five hours had passed since Maximus Savage’s departure from Pennsylvania aboard his private plane. He now marched along a balcony high above a cavernous room. The balcony hugged one wall, across from an identical platform on the opposite side of the area. This balcony was the highest of three balconies, with the stone floor forty feet below.
Savage passed cell doors to his left and the railing to his right. Men in tattered prison garb looked through the cell doors, saying nothing. He looked beyond the railing and across the open space, noticing the shadowy figures of more prisoners looking out from identical cells, beyond the railing of the other balcony. Flickering light panels, mounted in the ceiling at the center of the space, provided murky illumination.
Augustus Bell, the warden of this place, strode at Savage’s side, with three prison guards trailing him. Bell held his head high, stomping his feet as he walked. Savage knew the reason for the the man's loud footfalls. Bell wanted to make sure every prisoner looked out from his cell and saw him with Savage. The prisoners would receive the implied message — to cross Augustus Bell was to cross Maximus Savage.
“Has it gotten better or worse for you since we talked, Auggie?” Savage asked.
“It’s stayed about the same over the last few days, but it won’t hold. Ironically, it’s your buddy, Chief Rando, who is keeping things sane down here. Ever since he healed up from the beating you gave him, he’s turned into a bit of an enforcer. He’s kept the Cobras at bay.”
Savage snorted. Chief Joseph Rando had been the police chief in Roanoke, Virginia, until he had made the mistake of resisting the Savage Gang in his city. After trying less violent means, Savage had beaten him senseless and brought him here. This secret prison would be his final punishment.
“He’s healed up?” Savage asked with a frown.
“Yes, remarkably fast, given the state he was in.”
“I’ll have to do something about that.”
“Please, don’t,” the warden said. “He’s been the main thing keeping the Cobras in line down in the Dungeon. That gang is nothing like the Savage Gang, but bad enough. Without him, they might ignore my authority.”
“Let me get this straight,” Savage said, coming to a stop and turning toward Bell. “Your so-called authority depends on another prisoner? How is that even a thing? Don’t you keep these scumbags locked up?”
“Yes and no. For some of them, if they can’t get out of their cells, it is like a cauldron boiling with a lid on, with nowhere for the steam to escape. So… I look the other way. With just some of them. They have ways out of their cells. I’m guessing they copied keys from guards. The Dungeon is an old place, with old-fashioned locks, instead of the newer technology.”
“Unbelievable,” Savage muttered. “I’d force them to do what I want.”
“This mostly works. We seem to have an unwritten understanding that they won’t abuse it by running free all the time. In return, I look the other way.”
“It doesn’t sound like it mostly works. It sounds like you look the other way while they cause havoc.”
“Trust me, it would be even worse if I changed the locks or implemented stricter measures. I don’t have the budget to do that, anyway. And if I tried it, our unwritten agreement would be out the window. Then, if they found a way out of their cells, it would be pandemonium down here. Way worse than it is now.”
“Auggie, it shouldn’t have to be like this. Take me to the two nearest Cobras.”
“There are actually two right here,” Bell said, nodding to a cell door just ahead of them.
Bell took a few more steps, stopping in front of the cell door. Two men sat inside the cell, visible through the bars of the door. They reclined on cots attached to opposite walls. The men were large and muscular, but not as large as Savage. Their gazes shot to each other and to Savage, and back to one another again, as they twitched with nervous energy.
“Open it,” Savage growled.
Bell fumbled with a ring of keys on his belt, flipping through several keys and muttering to himself. Savage crossed his arms, frowning as he waited.
Bell found the correct key and stuck it into the lock of the door. He turned the key. A loud clank sounded and Bell stepped back. Savage took a bar of the door in his meaty right hand and heaved, slinging the door to the right. The door slid, creaking as it opened, and Savage strode into the cell. His presence cast a pall over the small quarters, making the men seem much smaller than they were. They rose to seated positions on their cots, but remained hunched over. They did not meet his eyes.
“Do you fuckers know why I’m here?” Savage asked with a growl, standing in the middle of the cell.
He looked to his left and right at each prisoner as he spoke. Neither man answered.
“You guys don’t know how good you have it down here. I know some of you guys can roam free, as long as you don’t cause too much trouble. Well, you and your gang mates are causing too much trouble. Too much trouble for Mr. Bell. Disrespecting him. And I can’t have that.”
Still neither men spoke. They both stared at the floor.
“So here’s what you’re going to do,” Savage continued. “You’re gonna tell your Cobra gang mates that if they don’t get their shit together, this is what I’m going to do to them.”
In a blur, Savage lunged to his left, seizing the leftmost man by his arm, and flinging him across the cell before the man realized he was under attack. The man slammed into his cellmate. They tumbled across the cot and into the wall, before collapsing back onto the thin mattress in a tangle of limbs.
As the two men tried to rise, Savage was already on them, taking an arm of each man and pulling each limb over the metal edge of the cot. The men’s screams drowned out the snapping of bones, and a moment later they toppled from the cot, rolling on the floor in agony.
“Mr. Bell is a nice guy,” Savage said, looking down at the men. “So he’ll make sure you get those arms looked at. When you’re back, though, make sure you give my message to the other Cobra sissies.”
Savage turned, striding from the cell. Bell waited, biting his lip, before turning to a guard behind him.
“Get someone to take these guys to the infirmary,” the warden said, and the man turned and hurried away.
“Now that I’ve handled that,” Savage said. “Take me to Rando.”
Bell nodded and marched forward, coming to a metal staircase. The stairs spiraled down toward the lower balconies and to the ground floor. Bell descended, with Savage and two guards following, their feet clattering on the metal steps. When they reached the ground floor, Bell led them into a dark opening on the far wall.
Savage ducked his head and walked behind Bell across the uneven floor and through a narrow corridor, passing more cells and making two turns before stopping at one of the last cell doors on the right. Bell fumbled at his belt again, before coming up with a key and unlocking the door in front of him. Savage grabbed a bar and slid the door open.
Joseph Rando, former police chief of Roanoke, Virginia, sat on a decaying cot, wearing the same tattered prison attire as the other prisoners. Color was long since gone from the outfit, which might have been a jumpsuit at one point. Tears and rips made it appear even worse.
Next to anyone but the members of the Savage Gang, Joseph Rando might have struck an imposing presence. His muscular six-foot frame stretched the garb to its limits, and his bald head added to his intimidating looks. His eye sockets were set deep in a bony, angular face, offset by a square jaw. The eyes themselves exuded a gentleness that was out of place in the drab surroundings.
Rando squinted and looked up at the visitors.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he swung his legs off the cot and sat at the edge.
“Hello, Chief Rando,” Savage said with a smirk. “I hope you’re enjoying the accommodations.”
“Screw you, Savage,” the man on the cot said, looking away.
Savage stepped forward, looming over the man. He bent down, grabbed the man’s arm, and gave it a violent wrench.
“Ahhhhh!” Rando screamed, rolling away from the gang leader and reaching for his shoulder.
“That’s three arms I’ve fucked up today,” Savage said. “But let’s not make this a regular occurrence, because it sounds like you have some value to Mr. Bell. It sounds like your recuperation was much too quick, though. This will get you on the pace I intended when I first brought you here. Be glad I went easy on you.”
Rando stared up at Savage, his eyes wracked with pain. After a moment, Savage gave him a thin smile. This place was enough to suck the life out of anyone. Chief Rando would get there, too.
Savage turned and stalked from the cell, with Augustus Bell following him. Rando didn't try to trail them before the warden slid the door closed and locked it.
“Don’t send anybody for Rando just yet,” Savage said, looking at Bell. “I want him to suffer for a bit.”
Bell nodded, before he and Savage made their way back through the dark corridor and into the open area. The balconies rose around them again.
“Thanks for coming, Max,” Bell said in a low voice, his eyes looking left and right at the cells surrounding them. “The Cobras should get the point. For a while, at least.”
“Any time, Auggie. You know that.”
“How is it going in Harrisburg?” Bell asked. “Why did you pick that city?”
“I picked that city because we had a setback there when Sapphire Angel took down Lynch and his crew. We need to set things right, and show those people that she can’t slow us down. I’m going to find Rocco Lynch and either kill him or bring him here. That should solve your problems for good. If they see me bringing my once-trusted lieutenant here, they’ll never give you a hard time again.”
Bell said nothing, walking and rubbing his chin. Savage recognized the look.
“You have another idea, Auggie. Speak.”
“Lynch would be great, don’t get me wrong,” Bell said. “But I know you’re going to tangle with Sapphire Angel again. So I have a bigger request. If I want to put an end to my problems here for good, I can’t rely on somebody like Rando to keep the Cobras in line. I need a prize to make everyone down here respect me. If you come out on top, I want you to bring me Sapphire Angel, for all of them to see.”
Savage paused, studying his friend, before nodding.
“You got it, Auggie. When I come out on top, Sapphire Angel is yours. But for now, show me the way out of here. I want to get back to Harrisburg before morning, to take of a job that will get Sapphire Angel’s attention.”
As Joseph Rando, former police chief of Roanoke, Virgina, writhed on the cold floor of his cell, holding his shoulder, the cell door unlocked, and quiet footsteps entered, pattering toward him. He glanced up and saw an old woman, dressed in not much more than rags, crouch next to him. Her eyes stared straight ahead, with unfocused pupils, as if she didn’t see him. Her white hair sat tied up on top of her head, and her green eyes were sunken in a thin face covered with tight, wrinkled skin. She carried a burlap satchel over her shoulder.
She knelt next to Rando, slid the satchel off her shoulder, and rummaged around its interior. Rando held up his hand.
“Thank you, but I can’t risk it,” he rasped, clenching his face in pain. “I don’t know how you do it, but if it works again, and I get better too soon, he’s going to show up and do this again.”
The woman gave a thin, warm smile and shook her head.
“No, he won’t,” she said, in a crackling voice that was worn with age. “Maximus Savage possesses a belief about how long you should be in agony. He wants to make sure reality aligns with that belief. But by the time of his next visit to this prison, that time will have passed.”
Rando gritted his teeth, and after several moments, gave a nod. The woman pulled a tube out of her satchel and held it to Rando’s lips, tilting it. She still didn’t focus her gaze, but found his mouth with ease. A white liquid flowed from the tube and past his lips.
When the tube was empty, the woman returned it to its satchel and pulled out two leaves. Both leaves were larger than Rando’s head and looked like they could have come from a palm tree. As she wrapped one around his shoulder, she spoke in a quiet, somber tone, still looking at nothing in particular.
“You still have a role to play in all this, Joseph. Before this is over, you will have a large say in whether Maximus Savage walks as a free man. We need you healed, so you can find a way out of here to help in the fight against Savage.”
Rando looked up at the woman as some of the pain evaporating from his face. She took the second leaf and began wrapping it atop the first one.
“You haven’t been wrong yet, Bianca,” Rando said to her. “But nobody has ever gotten out of here. How will I?”
“That is not true,” she said. “At least one other has escaped from here. How you will do it is unclear, though. Dark days are ahead. How it ends up on the other side, I can’t see. But you will play a part. Which is why we need to make sure you are ready when the time comes for you to leave.”
Rando nodded. “Thank you for this, then. Now get back to your cell before they notice your absence.”
“They never notice me,” Bianca said with a smile, but she rose and moved toward the open cell door.
She slipped outside, pulled the door closed behind her, and held her hands to the lock. Perhaps she held a key in her hands, or perhaps not, but the click of the lock sounded, before the old woman disappeared into the dark hall beyond the cell door.
Other links:
Sapphire Angel, Superheroine (Book 1)
Power Play (Book 2)
Deconstruction (Book 3)
Savage Dawn (Book 4)
Savage Vengeance (Book 5 - this story)
That was such an interesting illustration of pragmatism vs. brute strength, with showcasing both Bell and Savage's preferred "enforcement" methods regarding the prisoners. I get that Bell is getting on up there in terms of age and that his health isn't exactly the best (yep, I still remember his pre-novel bio from all those chapters back!), but I'd wager that if he was in Savage's place, he'd be a much calmer, more collected, more pragmatic criminal mastermind than the mostly-musclehead that is Savage. I'd say that Bell is arguably closer to real-life corrupt individuals than Savage is; Bell is slightly (keyword slightly) more veiled and subtle in conveying his authority and superiority over the prisoners---albeit indirectly using Savage as a tool to do so in this scene---while Savage outright asks to be let into cells filled with prisoners who have done who knows what. Then again, he can handle himself just fine, so who am I to oppose?
I found it interesting that Bell wants Sapphire Angel once Savage and the Gang have apprehended her (if at all; Savage's wording kind of made me worried about that, though), but it does seem to be the same "use her as an example for another group of people"-type deal. Kind of like how Majid Azari and the silver-eyed man want to bring Sapphire Angel to her knees as a message to, say, America, or something to that effect. The thing is, she can only be in one place at one time, so I don't know how that's going to work. Maybe she'll get apprehended, but then free herself and even start a massive prison riot in the process. Wouldn't that be something? Bet Savage would be mad if Bell kicks the bucket, though.....would be quite the motivator.
Speaking of a "motivator", that old lady coming in to help Joseph Rando was something I certainly didn't see coming. I can't fathom the things she's done to be captured and held as an inmate at Bell's prison (Rando tells her to "go back to her cell"), but if I've learned anything from Raya & The Last Dragon, it's that old women are capable of wit more often than one might realize (e.g., the Talon chief's substitute). I at first thought she was his mother or some other relative, but those thoughts eventually waned the more words I read.
Let's see how everyone here (besides maybe Rando) fails!