TA - Abdomen Beating

They came for him in the middle of the night, the better to keep him off-balance. He’d been trained for such techniques, but too long ago to matter, and he’d awoken groggy, head pounding, nauseated by the casual beating handed out to him by one of Ashammi’s lackeys. No marks to the face, of course—they wanted their victims looking clean and fresh before they sawed off their heads. But the big bearded kid had worked his torso over pretty well, and ground the bones of his arm against one another to boot. Yusuf, he’d heard one of the others call him. He wouldn’t forget that anytime soon. Every time Yusuf had balled up his fist and driven it into his midsection, Brett had pictured cracking the lug across the head with a two-by-four.

They’d taken his uniform from him, forced him to dress in an orange jumpsuit, the uniform of their victims. When he’d gone to the bucket that served as a toilet, he’d noticed his urine had turned red. “Like Ali,” he’d thought to himself, “after the Thrilla.” But Ali had survived that.

This, Brett knew, he would not survive.

- True Allegiance, Part 2: Brett