Free Revenence (Novella): Dead Red by M.E. Betts

she wasn't sure what she could do to escape her confinement, she understood that panic or negative thoughts would only hold her back from any available possibilities.  As she breathed, in and out, she heard human movement outside the building, soon followed by two male voices.  The murmured vocals stopped, and the front door swung open.  Daphne heard two sets of heavy boots pacing in the next room.  Looking over her shoulder, from the corner of her eye, she saw the silhouette of the two men, illuminated from behind by a glaring overhead fluorescent light they switched on from outside the doorway in which they stood.
         "Red sent for you," the larger of the men said.  She recognized the voice as that of the bald giant from earlier.  The light glinted off the top of his smooth head as he continued, his face a featureless mask of shadowy obscurity from Daphne's point of view.  "We're going on a little trip."
         "But I just got back," Daphne muttered.
         "What?" the other man present asked.  Daphne hadn't seen him before.  He had stringy, greasy hair dangling down to his earlobes, and although his face was darkened with shadows, Daphne could see a small amount of light reflecting off of his eyeglasses.  The left lens seemed to have been broken, with a faint spiderweb of cracks lit up in the dim light.
         "Never mind," Daphne said.  Her voice sounded to her as if it were coming from a tin can transmitting down to her from space.  She wiggled her fingers behind her.  "You're gonna have to let me loose."
         "I don't know about all that," the larger man said, taking a keyring from his pocket.  "We'll get you up off that table, but letting you loose?  We'd need to have some kinda death wish to wanna do a thing like that."
         "Yeah," the smaller, oilier one concurred.  "Keep in mind, we all know what you've done."
         The one bearing the keys approached Daphne, fumbling through the ring.  She saw the other one follow, palming the pocket of his denim shorts.  She couldn't make out a weapon, but whatever the man was handling must have been small.  She tried to play it off as though she didn't notice this detail while her heart sped up and the adrenaline began to course through her veins, behaving oddly with the light, residual effects of the drugs still in her system.  She was intrigued, genuinely eager, to find out what a fight would be like in such a state.
         The larger one with the key stopped a few paces away while the other one stepped beside Daphne, taking his hand from his pocket and touching a small object to her freshly burnt back.
         "You do anything to make this a pain in the ass for us," he told her, "and I'll tase the ever-loving shit out of you."
         The bald one advanced to the table, freeing Daphne's left hand first.  He brought the newly freed hand up to the open slot of the right cuff, then freed and recuffed her right hand.  She felt the taser press against a burn, the one in the center over her spine as her feet were relinquished, one at a time, from their bonds.
         Placing the keyring back into his pocket, Red's sadistic lackey ordered Daphne to stand up, and she complied.  With the taser prodding her to move, Daphne and the two men exited the room, and a few moments later, the building.
         As they stepped outside into the dark, overcast pre-dawn morning, she felt a wave of clean, chilled spring air wash over her mostly naked body.  The sensation awakened and recharged her, setting her body up for action as she and her captors started down a wooded path.
         The smaller of the two, whom Daphne now saw to be only a few inches taller than she herself, took a radio from his pocket and held it in his left hand while his right was held steady, having produced a double-barreled tactical shotgun from his back holster and pointed its twin barrels at her.  Pressing the talk button, he spoke into the