“Not sure I’m ready to let you go just yet. It’s too much fun watching you suffer.” - *slams* make Tenzin suffer *slams*
It had to of been at least three days since the Equalists snatched him off the street. The gag in his mouth was soaked through from front to back, and feeling in his hands and feet was fleeting at best from the way they were tied behind and out of the way.
No one told him what they wanted—if the Equalists even wanted anything. It seemed like all his captor wanted was to hurt him, satisfied by hearing his screams.
Light shone down from the basement door and footsteps creaked on the wooden steps.
Tenzin was too tired to move at this point. To tired to shy away from the kick to the stomach he knew was coming.
The pain of the blow made him gag and curl in on himself.
"Do you have any idea how much money the Beifong Estate was willing to pay for you?"
The masked Equalist grabbed him by the front of the shirt to pull him to his feet. Tenzin breathed heavy, struggling upright. He didn't respond to the taunt, simply looked on in disgust at the silhouette that had come to torture him since he'd been deposited in this damp and cold basement.
"I can't believe our time here is almost over."
A fist to the face sent his head careening back, but the hold on his shirt kept him standing.
"Not sure I'm ready to let you go just yet."
The Equalist grabbed Tenzin's throat and squeezed. Tenzin tried to wrench away and found himself slammed onto the cold floor. The silhouette encroached, placing a glove on their hand. Tenzin knew what was coming, he blinked through the tears in his eyes.
"It's too much fun watching you suffer."
A gloved hand thumped on his chest and electricity spread like fire through his body. This time he couldn't stop the screaming. It hurt. It hurt more than anything. He thought he could hear his captor laughing as he writhed against his restraints.
“If you promise not to scream, I’ll remove the gag.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Pema fought against the ropes and looked past her shoulder to see one of the new airbenders looming over her. She screamed into the gag when he got close.
"Misses Pema. I'm not going to hurt you."
His voice was calm, devoid of emotion. Pema felt helpless as he picked her up with too much ease and sat her down on the lone chair in the room.
Whoever this man was, he had attacked her in her own home, forced the breath from her lungs long enough to make her dizzy, and tied her hands and feet together before she could claw his eyes out. Since the invasion of the Equalists, nothing so criminal had happened on the island.
Of course the moment Tenzin left to go train the new airbenders, some creep wandered through their open ports and snatched her out of the hallway while she was delivering clean linens to the closets.
Now, the way he was looking at her made her almost as nauseous as did the feeling of his hands placed on her hips to keep her seated. She tried to kick him and he simply shifted closer on his knees to pin her legs between himself and the chair. She screamed at him to let her go, but the words were unintelligible, and the sound was muffled through the gag.
"I'd appreciate it if you calmed down. I have some very important questions to ask you."
Pema's breaths came fast and anxious through her nose. She looked around for a way out, but sitting in the middle of one of them men's dorms with her captor so close didn't leave her with any options.
The man regarded her with his dark green eyes. There she saw the first glimpse of emotion in the intense gaze. She thought she could see concern with a little hint of satisfaction, but his face remained a mask of stoicism.
“If you promise not to scream, I’ll remove the gag.”
Pema almost shook her head no from fear of what he could do with his airbending. Tenzin had never even so much as implied that his element could be used for such nefarious purposes. The thought of being suffocated was terrifying, but not being gagged was better than being gagged, so she hesitantly nodded. The man leaned forward to reach around her head to untie the knot in the fabric.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Pema asked as soon as the cloth stuffing her mouth was removed.
"My name is Yorru. I wanted to talk to you."
Pema struggled against the ropes again. The sensation of the man's hands sliding down from her hips to her knees made her skin crawl. "You have a funny way of starting a conversation."
Yorru stared at her, his expression still blank despite the inquisitive tilt of his head. "Your name means 'Lotus,' right?"
"It does." Pema looked around the room again hoping an escape would present itself to her.
Things didn't look good. The door and window were closed. The room they were in was at the end of the hall that hardly got any foot traffic. Yorru had criss-cross scars showing through his mostly shaved head that even dipped down clean through his left eyebrow. If he had brain damage and was in the middle of some kind of mental break, she wouldn't be able to help him if he didn't untie her.
"How fitting that a Lotus would mother the air nation." His fingers curled around the backs of her calves while his thumbs massaged the sides of them. "You took an extinction event—the muck and murk and mud—and blossomed for your cause, remaining unsullied in the process."
Pema went deathly still. This man touching her, comparing her having airbender children to being unsullied… She wanted to be sick.
She wasn't sure if disgust or fear showered through more prominently on her face, but it must have been potent, because Yorru removed his hands and put them down at his sides.
"You said—" Pema needed to swallow past the sudden dryness in her throat—"you said you wanted to ask me questions. Untie me and I'll answer any questions you have."
"I'm sorry, I can't do that." Yorru pouted. Pema thought he looked ridiculous. "Will you answer my questions anyway?"
Everything in Pema's body screamed for her to say no, but it wasn't like she had much of a choice. Say yes and keep the conversation going, or say no and then only the spirits knew what would happen. "Yes."
"Where is Korra?"
Pema's brow furrowed. She knew how important it was to keep Korra safe, even at the expense of her own well-being… At least the children weren't involved.
"I don't know."
"Your husband is at the Northern Temple with some of the new airbenders?"
This was common knowledge, so Pema nodded.
"And the avatar didn't go with them." It wasn't so much of a question as it was a statement.
"No."
"Where did she go?"
The last wire from Tenzin said she was on the way to Zaofu.
"I don't know. I wasn't given that information. I'm just an acolyte."
Yorru's hand raised to pull on the material of the red sash crossing Pema's chest. The action made her flinch. He pulled her forward until their faces were mere inches apart. His eyes narrowed in impatience. "You're not just an acolyte. You're the Abbess of the Island Temple."
Pema's heart pounded in her chest. "It's not like I'm White Lotus. I'm not told everything."
"I find that hard to believe." Yorru's face set into a scowl. His hand dropped her sash and slowly rested atop her thigh. Pema leaned back and resisted to urge to scream. "Your husband tells you nothing?"
Pema could feel the panic clawing at her now. This man was not a garden-variety weirdo. Only the truly unhinged or desperate would think that she, of all people, could provide the avatar's location. And the way he acted like his hands were at home on her body…
She wrapped her right fingers around her left thumb, trying to find the joint and correct angle to dislocate the digit from her hand. If it had worked 15 years ago with Beifong's handcuffs, maybe it would work now against these ropes.
"My husband doesn't burden me with things I don't need to know. I'd appreciate it if you kept your hands off me."
Yorru sat back, studying her for a long moment. Pema waited, steeling her resolve, dreading the pain that was going to come from dislocating her thumb.
"One last question." His fingertips pulled at the material of her dress as his hand slipped down her leg and finally fell away. "There is a poem inscribed in a golden locket somewhere in your husband's possessions. Where is it?"
Pema blinked, caught off guard by the question. "What?"
"A poem by Guru Laghima. Where does Master Tenzin keep his artifacts?"
"I—" Pema let out a confused breath—"All over the island." Yorru kept staring like he was waiting for an elaboration. "Some things are on display, some things he keeps in his office, others are kept in sealed boxes to prevent them from aging."
"Thank you." Yorru stood up with the materials for the gag in his hands.
Pema twisted her face away when he came at her. "No! Stop! Stooo—mmmph!"
She growled and screamed and even tried to purposefully fall off the chair, but Yorru's hold was strong and she was quickly back in the same predicament as before; bound and gagged with the stranger looming over her. He grabbed more rope from his supply on the floor and bound her lap and wrists to the chair underneath her.
"I do hope that someone finds you quickly." He bowed with a palm pressed against his fist in universal respect. "And I do hope to see you again some day."
Yorru left the room and slid the door closed. Pema was still struggling to get free when a ruckus broke out on the island. Sounds of waterbending and firebending traveled through the air clear as day, along with Kya's loud shout for help. Pema yanked her thumb out of its socket as a last resort, but the ropes were still too tight to escape from. She kept trying nonetheless, rubbing her wrists and ankles raw in the process, screaming until her throat ran dry.
It wasn't until the following morning that Pema was found by the search party, exhausted, forlorn, and injured.
And it wasn't until she talked to Kya that she learned that the man with the lingering hands and expressionless face had actually been Zaheer of the Red Lotus.
Katherine pursed her lips and tied the knots a bit tighter. “Look, I’m sorry, but it’ll just be easier if you don’t move,” she said and gave the young woman an apologetic look as she closed the hover car door.
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ she thought and slipped into the drivers seat.
“I really am sorry about all this,” the young woman said, glancing over her shoulder at her new “captive”. “It’s just... they have the professor and they won’t let him go unless I bring them something with the same energy signature as this.”
She paused and held up a small rounded cylinder.
“And since your energy’s pretty much same as this energy, I’m guessing you’re what they’re looking for.”
Katherine sighed and ran a hand through her hair. ‘Wonderful, I’ve become both a kidnapper and an accessory to crime. How could this get any worse?’
